168 A SPRING TOUR IN PORTUGAL. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



JOURNEY HOME BY LAND. 



If anyone will take the trouble to glance at a map of 

 south-western Europe, it will at once be manifest that the 

 direct route from Oporto to the nearest point of France, 

 which is Bayonne, must undoubtedly be to the east; and 

 this opinion will be very much strengthened when it is 

 ascertained that from the town of Zamora, which lies 

 very near the Portuguese frontier, and is in the direct 

 line towards France from Oporto, the traveller joins the 

 railway, which carries him without a break towards Bay- 

 onne. It was not then without a secret feeling of incre- 

 dulity as well as expressions of unqualified surprise, that 

 we received the assurance, from all whom we interrogated 

 at Oporto, that to push over the mountains to Zamora was 

 not only a most laborious and difficult journey, exposing 

 the hardy adventurer to privations of every kind in a most 

 unfrequented track, and over a most villainous bridle path ; 

 but that it would actually consume more time, and prove 

 more expensive, as well as entail ten times the fjitigue, 

 than to take the train via Madrid. Now, that latter course 

 required that we should return due south at least 150 

 miles towards Lisbon, then turn at right angles, and pursue 

 an easterly course through Badajoz and Ciudad Keale for 

 350 miles, then turn again at right angles due north 

 through Madrid to Valladolid 220 miles more ; thus tra- 



