102 A SPRING TOUR IX rORTUGAL. 



arrested ; and carrying' on the metaphor, we may hail Dom 

 Fernando as the disenchanting spirit who shall awaken 

 those long dormant beauties, and continue the work. 



Here all things in tlioir place remain 



As all were order'J ages since ; 

 Come Caro and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 



And bring the fated fairy Prince.* 



I had ample time, during our stay at Batalha, to wander, 

 gun in hand, through the vastpine forestswhich stretchaway, 

 over hill and dale, for many a league. Now a Portuguese 

 forest answers in many respects to an African desert : it 

 contains the very essence of solitude ; silence reigns there 

 supreme, and the ground is usually sandy. In parts there 

 is an undergrowth of fern, heath, shrubs, and a profusion 

 of flowers ; but for wide districts, the pine trees are the 

 sole vegetation which the hungry soil can yield. Few birds 

 are to be found, except on the outskirts ; the insect world 

 seems banished from its recesses ; an occasional lizard 

 might be seen darting across a patch of sunshine, where a 

 gap overhead admitted some straggling rays of light : but, 

 beyond these, not a living creature disturbed the universal 

 stillness ; even the wind was hushed, and not a breath 

 of air whispered in the tree tops. At intervals I came 

 out upon a patch of cultivation, of considerable extent, 

 where the timber had been cleared for the purpose, and 

 where a greater depth of soil promised compensation for 

 the labour : but even here no outlying cottages were to be 

 found ; the wide forest shut in on every side these little 

 oases in the desert, and I was reminded of the back- 

 woods of America, where the pioneers of civilization open 

 out the nucleus of future farms by diminutive clearings 

 of the mighty forest, to be subsequently enlarged and ex- 

 tended till the whole district is reclaimed. 



* Tennyson's Day Dream, vol. ii. p. 156. 



