A RAMBLE ALONG THE COAST 99 



indeed, its leaves at once suggest those of arum 

 lilies, only the roots are edible. These are another 

 most important article of food. Other crops are 

 haricot beans, the ripe seeds of our French beans, 

 whose young pods are nearly always in season ; but 

 with the Portuguese it is the ripe seeds (feijoens) 

 which are most valued for making their sopas, or 

 vegetable soups. Lupines, lentils, and the chick- 

 pea (the grao de bico of the Portuguese), broad- 

 beans, and peas, come into market in the winter 

 months, but are of very poor quality and singularly 

 tasteless, even when gathered young, which it is very 

 difficult to persuade the peasant cultivator to do. 

 That they need not be poor in quality and flavour, 

 if more pains were taken in their cultivation, is 

 proved by the fact that in private gardens where 

 fresh seed is imported from England or America 

 excellent peas can be grown. Another most im- 

 portant article of food is derived from several 

 varieties of the pumpkin tribe, and in summer over 

 every trellis, and even on the straw roofs of the 

 peasants' huts, the gourd-bearing plants are trained, 

 and their aboboras, as they are called, are care- 

 fully tended. Mr. Lowe writes : " For at least six 

 months in the year (August to January) the 

 aboboras constitute almost one-third of the daily 



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