164 A SPRING TOUR IN PORTUGAL. 



while it was still dark, a considerable congregation assem- 

 bled for the first mass, which was celebrated at half-past 

 4, for the accommodation of those whose business re- 

 quired their attendance before daybreak, but whose praise- 

 worthy sense of duty urged them to a yet earlier religious 

 exercise. 



We had secured the two seats on the box, and all the 



passengers had been ushered into their respective places 



some ten minutes before 5, precisely as we had been 



marshalled at Oporto, and then the mules were brought 



out, and we made a most imposing start with a clatter, a 



dash, and a noise, worthy of the occasion, and should 



certainly have created quite a sensation amidst the 



lookers-on at Vianna, if it was not for the slight drawback 



that it was dark, and moreover that there were no idle 



gazers at that early hour in the morning ; and so our 



three mules galloped in reckless haste through the town, 



but pulled up into a walk as we approached the long bridge 



which we had to cross, and thenceforward our pace was 



destined to be of the most crawling, lugubrious description 



imaginable. We had a day's journey of just forty-five miles 



to accomplish, and we were fifteen hours en route, and as we 



made but very few and very short halts by the way, our pace 



was positively but three miles in the hour. Now, we were 



not particularly impatient, because the day was extremely 



fine and hot, and the scenery remarkably pretty, but it 



was somewhat trying to British endurance, as we wandered 



on mile after mile, on level ground, up hill and down a 



gentle declivity at a foot's pace, the six inside passengers 



fast asleep, notwithstanding the jolting of our carriage ; our 



three outside fellow-passengers fast asleep, and in imminent 



danger of rolling off the top, where they were unprotected 



by a rail ; our driver fast asleep, with his head sunk down 



on his chest, and the reins coiled round his arm ; the three 



mules fast asleep, as they crawled on mechanically, with 



