LISBON. 45 



were afterwards assured by a fellow-traveller was far more 

 than we ought to have paid. Then, again, though only 

 early in April, green peas were as plentiful as with us at 

 the latter end of June, and the mountains of those vege- 

 tables almost rivalled the orange heaps in size; whilst the 

 good women who presided over these delicacies spent all 

 their spare time in shelling the peas, at which pastime 

 they had from practice become wondrously expert. Straw- 

 berries, too, were just at the height of their season, and 

 that not the small, tasteless fruit one so often meets in 

 the foreign market, but of great size, and of a flavour 

 such as only a continued brilliancy of sunshine can im- 

 part. More strange to the English eye, but not nearly so 

 inviting to the English palate, were the yams, which I 

 have also seen at Malaga and other southern ports of 

 Spain. And here we first became acquainted with the 

 banana, a long, thick, curly, pod-like fruit, which is 

 peeled from the top downwards, and is fleshy, but not 

 juicy : it has a very peculiar flavour, which is extolled by 

 some; but as it is said to require an apprenticeship in 

 order to appreciate its excellence, quite as much as 

 caviare or the olive, I suppose I did not persevere long 

 enough over the task, for to me it seemed a sickly, 

 woolly, insipid fruit. 



I have not of course enumerated one-quarter of the 

 natural produce of the country, which was daily brought 

 into the market, whether fish, flesh, or fowl, fruit or 

 vegetable. I have merely touched upon a few items 

 which seemed most striking to foreign eyes. And now, 

 in connection with the fauna and flora of Portugal, I 

 would say a word of the charming gardens and quintas 

 within which the villas in the suburbs of Lisbon are en- 

 shrined. With such a climate and in such a latitude, 

 luxuriance of vegetation would naturally be expected, but 

 we were certainly not prepared for the magnificent tropical 



