2G A SPRING TOUR IN PORTUGAL. 



now IIS iinpretcDding and unadorned a structure as may 

 be met with in any capital in Europe; it is, however, of 

 considerable size, and specially venerated as containin«i^ 

 tlie bonos of the Spanish martyr, 8. Vincente, who was 

 broiled in the Diocletian persecution, and buried at tlie 

 wild and stormy promontory at tiie extreme south-western 

 corner of Europe, to which he has bequeathed bis name; 

 and whose translation to Lisbon, as well as previous in- 

 terment, was duly watched over (so the loji^end nms) by 

 two ravens which followed the relics of the saint ; and if 

 anyone should be so sceptical as to doubt this history, 

 let him repair at once to the venerable S^ at Lisbon, and 

 there he may see the living ravens, or their d(.'sccndants, 

 still tended in the cloisters as he might have seen the 

 bears at J5erne or the eagles at Geneva ; and if that is not 

 enough, let him examine the city arms, and there again 

 he will find the faithful birds immortalised, and presiding 

 over the fortunes of the town. 



I am not about to describe the churches of Lisbon, 

 though I entered the greater part of them, because they 

 are very fully and admirably detailed in the Handbook, 

 and I have nothing to add to that report; but I may a?; 

 well observe here that the churches of Portugal generally 

 are wholly different from those of Spain. Sombre and 

 gloomy tiiey are in some measure, as would be obviously 

 desirable in so scuthern a clime ; but they have none of 

 that intense darkness, that almost total absence of light, 

 which one experiences in so many of the Spanish churches, 

 which results from the diminutive size of the windows, their 

 position im?Tiediately beneath the roof, and the dark 

 colours of the stained glass with which they are filled; a 

 dim liglit which prevailed to so great an extent on a dull 

 day in autumn at the Cathedral of Seville, that when I 

 attended a service at mid-day, at which there was a 

 crowded congregation sitting closely packed on the floor 



