THE RIVER LIMA AXI) VI ANNA. 16.5 



noses drooped very near to the ground : and it was the 

 more provoking, because it seemed to us, who were not 

 accustomed to such a rough siesta, and who were wide 

 awake all the time, as if those especial portions of the road 

 which offered the best opportunities for expedition were 

 selected for the most prolonged periods of the deepest 

 slumber. Perhaps it will be thought that we should have 

 done more wisely to follow the general example, and sleep 

 away those weary hours of the journey too; but not only 

 should we have found such an attempt difficult to accom- 

 plish, but it must be remembered that we were on our 

 route through the length of beautiful Minho, whose char- 

 ming scenery we had expressly come to admire. More- 

 over, our road was not generally conducive to slumber, 

 by reason of the many and deep holes with which it was 

 plentifully beset. Indeed, the contrast between the lavish 

 expense with which the road had evidently of late years 

 been made, and the lamentable state into which, for want 

 of ordinary repair, it had been already allowed to fiill, 

 was a never-ceasing marvel to us, throughout that jour- 

 ney. Not, however, that this was peculiar to the high- 

 way between Vianna and Oporto ; we had made the same 

 remark on every road we had traversed in Portugal ; but 

 this was a more conspicuous example, inasmuch as it had 

 been so recently constructed, and withal, with a finish and 

 at a cost which seemed quite unnecessary. Thus, though 

 the country which it traversed was extremely hilly, no 

 labour had been spared in cutting through the tops of 

 the hills, raising the road on embankments or causeways 

 through the bed of the valleys, in many spots protecting 

 it with a granite wall, edging it with well-worked granite 

 posts at short intervals, and providing it with a granite 

 drain, sometimes on both sides. But now, after a very 

 few years' wear, and with what we should designate an in- 

 considerable amount of traffic, the whole surface is out of 



