J 831. J Rccolleclions of Scenes and Cities. 245 



took a direct line from the coast. We had not proceeded more than a 

 mile, when in a hollow on our left, we perceived a house, and at al- 

 most the same moment, two men, each armed with a long gun, issued 

 from it, and strode hurriedly away in an opposite direction. We turned 

 in a direct line, and at a quick pace towards the house, and soon reached 

 it. The door had been left open, and there seemed to be perfect quiet 

 within. There was scarcely any furniture : two matrasses on the floor, 

 three stools, and a small table, composed it all. Upon the table stood a 

 wooden bowl, with the debris of some rabbits ; some skins of animals 

 were hung up, and a few pistol-bullets lay on the floor. Concluding 

 that no discovery was to be made here, we were about to leave the place, 

 when one of our number, lifting up one of the matrasses, disclosed the 

 jacket of the seaman. We had now no doubt that he had been mur- 

 dered, and leaving the house, we searched diligently in the surrounding 

 hollow. It was my fortune first to make the appalling discovery. His 

 grave was among the flowery heath ; there he lay, almost covered by it, 

 and naked. A bullet had entered his breast ; it had been enough, for 

 no other mark of violence was seen. Pursuit was useless, and would 

 only have endangered more lives. We carried the unfortunate seaman 

 to the creek, collected our companions, and buried him beneath the 

 rocks. I cut a branch from a wild olive, and having fashioned a cross, 

 planted it on the grave. This will command respect even from the 

 bandits who killed him ; they wiU uncover their heads as they pass by, 

 and speak low. 



DON MIGUEL, AND THE STATE OF PORTUGAL. 



There is no people who display more ingenuitj^ in heaping oblo- 

 quy on the character of their rulers than the Portuguese. The scan- 

 dalous anecdotes of the court, which pass current in the saloons of 

 Lisbon, would fill volumes. Some of these fabrications have been re- 

 echoed in certain quarters in England, either with the view of grati- 

 fying the popular credulity, or with the more culpable object of fur- 

 thering some nefarious scheme concocted in that Pandemonium of the 

 British empire, the Stock Exchange. 



We hope it is needless fur us to say that we are no advocates of des- 

 potism. We do not stand forward on this occasion as the apologists of 

 the present ruler of Portugal, much as he may require one ; but we 

 cannot close our eyes to the conviction, that both in this country and in 

 his own, even he has been made, tlnough an organized system of mis- 

 re])resentation, the victim of unmerited odium. 



While the u'ork of delusion is so systematically, and we may say so 

 successfully carried on, it is remarkable how singularly ignorant we are 

 in this country of the real state of public feeling in Portugal, and the 

 character of lier people. There, the long and intimate union of 

 a despotic and corrupt court, with a sanguinary and ambitious priest- 

 hood, has studiously rej)ressed every glimmering of knowledge, con- 

 tracted within the narrowest limits the public mind, and effectually 

 struck at the root of every virtue, civil as well as military. This is no 

 distorted picture of Portuguese life. The venality and corruption of 

 the higher orders keep j)ace with tlie ignorance and bigoted super- 

 stition of the nudtitude. And yet it was upon sucl) a soil tjiat, in the 

 year 1JJ21, the experiment of planting free institutions was made — an 



