108 A SmiXG TOUR IX PORTUGAL. 



thousand students; and the most fastidious could desire 

 no better entertainment than that provided by mine host 

 Lopez, while the charges were so infinitesimally small. 

 Let me commend this little statement to the notice of 

 hotel-keepers in Oxford and Cambridge, and let them 

 compare their demands with the figures I have given 

 above, and mark the contrast, and learn a lesson they 

 sorely need from the moderation of their brother landlord 

 at the University of Coimbra. 



We set to work systematically to explore the city and 

 university. 



Here castle walls in warlike grandeur lour, 

 Here cities swell, and lofty temples tower ; 

 In wealth and grandeur each with other vies. 

 When, old and loved, the parent-monarch dies.* 



There are two principal streets, containing the best shops, 

 which run parallel to one another and the river ; but the 

 most frequented and fashionable lounge appeared to be on 

 a terrace overhanging the Mondego ; and here there was 

 always a busy scene, from the arrival and departure of 

 the picturesque, white-sailed fishing-boats, wdiich set their 

 two sails like large wings, one on either side, and floated 

 away up the stream, or furled them when they came to 

 anchor, like great birds alighting on the shore. Here, 

 too, there was a continuous line of women fetching water 

 from the river, which they bore away in huge jars on 

 their heads, precisely after the manner of the women of 

 Egypt. 



But that which was of paramount interest to us at 

 Coimbra, and naturally attracted our attention from the 

 first, was the University and its scholars. We had en- 

 countered our first specimens of these latter at the rail- 

 way station ; we now saw them thronging the streets and 



* Camocns' Licsiad, book iii. King Diuiz is the monarch alluded to, 

 who founded the University of Coimbra. 



