80 A SPRIXG TOUR IN PORTUGAL. 



and tiresome were those endless mountains, up which we 

 crawled so deliberately, and down which we descended 

 scarcely more rapidly ; and we were heartily glad when at 

 9.30 A.M. we entered Caldas, and drove up to the clean 

 but unpretending estalagem of Jose Paulo, of deserved 

 renown in the Handbook, where we halted for breakfast. 



Caldas de Rainha, or ' The Queen's Hot Baths,' contains 

 (as its name Calidas implies) one of the many highly 

 esteemed hot mineral springs and baths for which Portugal 

 is remarkable ; and in which indeed that country abounds, 

 in comparison with its extent, more than any other portion 

 of Europe, though beyond the limits of the kingdom they 

 are wholly unknown. Hither come the rheumatic, the 

 gouty, the dyspeptic, and if one may credit half the 

 assurances we heard regarding the efficacy of these 

 waters, then without doubt it is strange that their value 

 should be so overlooked by the medical world beyond the 

 Peninsula ; and at all events, it would be worth while for 

 some whose limbs are stiffened by exposure in our catch- 

 cold climate to make farther enquiry at least, if not a 

 trial of these baths ; which I have repeatedly heard pro- 

 nounced infallible (!) in rheumatic affections ; where one 

 single bath is declared to give relief, and where five or six 

 baths are said to be a certain cure in ordinary cases, but 

 a course of six weeks no less positive in the most in- 

 veterate attacks. There is an admirable hospital built 

 here for the use of the poorer patients ; but indeed I may 

 say that generally throughout Portugal the care bestowed 

 upon the needy and the sufferers of all kinds struck me 

 as being exceedingly great, aud the charitable provisions 

 against distress as most highly praiseworthy. 



Our driver left his carriage and mules at Caldas, and 

 we proceeded in another equipage of the same generic 

 character as the last, a long and very hilly stage to 

 Alcoba^a. The country hereabouts was extremely pretty, 



