6 Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa. 



but most of tlie passengers thouglit this descrip- 

 tion extravagant, many of them ver}^ practically 

 disagreed with it. Fifty-eight hours after leaving 

 London we anchored in the Tagns, opposite 

 Lisbon, at the early hour of four a.m. Having to 

 wait until five in the afternoon for the London 

 mail, we took advantage of the ojDportunity to 

 visit an ancient and historic city. The jDrincipal 

 attraction to the eye was its cleanliness ; broad, 

 well-paved, clean-swept streets, spacious squares, 

 adorned with interesting monuments, an environ- 

 ment of forest and green hills, offer an aspect 

 calculated at first to please the stranger. But a 

 something or other, difiicult to describe, warns one 

 instinctively that Lisbon is a city the fame and 

 traditions of which lie exclusively in the past, in 

 all probability never to be revived. The inhal3i- 

 tants wear a sleepy, almost a dead-alive kind of 

 look. I did not observe a single Portuguese in 

 the streets who appeared to be in the smallest 

 hurry. Xo cheerfulness animates their counten- 

 ances, as is the case with the population of the 

 southern Italian towns. With the exception of a 

 few public buildings, the edifices and dwelling- 

 houses are of a poor and unpretentious character. 

 There is a total alDsence of attractive and well-filled 

 shops. Coming away, one feels that one is glad to 

 have seen Lisbon, for the reason tliat it ^^'ill be 

 unnecessary ever to go there again. ^V drive 

 throuo-li the streets terminated with a visit to the 

 Zoological Gardens, interesting for the quantity of 

 wild and of garden flowers, presenting tlie most 



