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CHAPTER IX. 



COIMBRA. 



Our mules had enjoyed a good rest at Batalha, and were 

 ready for a day's journey to Ponnbal, where we were to 

 join the Lisbon and Oporto railroad on our way to Coimbra. 

 Accordingly, we made a very early start one fine morning ; 

 and, with many a backward glance at the magnificent abbey, 

 as we wound up the hill, and imtil we were shut in by the 

 forest, we began as singularly wild a drive, and through as 

 deserted and uncultivated a country as one may often see. 

 Sand and forest, sand and heath, were the prevailing ele- 

 ments of the landscape, though the valleys we crossed and 

 those we looked down upon from {he hills we traversed 

 were in many places verdant enough with corn, and highly 

 productive in olive and fruit trees. Our first stage was to 

 Leiria, a quaint old-fashioned town, to which we descended 

 by a long hill, and which nestles beneath a fine old ruined 

 Moorish castle, perched on a rock above, in as commanding 

 a position, and of as picturesque form as the well-known 

 castles overhanging the Rhine, the Moselle, or the Danube. 

 Here the mules were to rest for a couple of hours, so that 

 we had ample time to exhaust the lions of Leiria. Indeed, 

 when we had wandered through its narrow streets, visited 

 the Se velha or old cathedral, ^vhich deserves no special 

 notice, but which we found furnished with the very best of 

 adornment, to wit, a large sprinkling of worshippers en- 

 gaged in private prayer ; w^hen we had sauntered by the 



