332 WILD SPAIN. 



will afford excellent sport till towards 4 p.m., when they 

 return to the lower grounds. There is a cooler breeze 

 on these heights, and a superb panorama of the wildest 

 region of Lusitania, bounded by the Serras do Gerez and 

 Marao and the highlands of Traz-os-Montes. There hand- 

 some Swallowtails {Papilio macJueon) curvette around on 

 powerful wing, and among the shaggy heather, rocks, 

 and rough straggling woods, one may chance upon a 

 slumbering wolf, the hete noir in the winter of the 

 Douro goatherd ; though nothing ever fell in the writer's 

 way more formidable than a black fox, for the destruction 

 of which was awarded the premium fixed by law — 300 reis, 

 fifteen pence ! It is a land of insects, from the singular 

 mantis and merry grasshoppers of many hues, to the 

 scorpion, and centipedes of enormous size. As evening 

 falls the air rings — the earth seems to vibrate— with the 

 rattle of mole-crickets and cicadas, and the gentle tinkle 

 of the tree-frog : glowworms sparkle on each dark slope, 

 and by the feeble light of fire-flies we have to pick a 

 devious way along miles of broken rock and hanging 

 thicket, by what in Portugal passes for a bridle-path. 



Twenty years ago the Alto Douro could only l)e reached 

 on horseback, crossing the Serra do Marao by the Pass of 

 Quintella. A pleasant ride it was, nevertheless, in Sep- 

 tember, by Cazaes, traversing the valley of the Tamega to 

 Amarante, famed for its peaches and " vinho verde " (green 

 wine, so rough as to bring tears to one's eyes) ; thence up 

 the slopes of the Marao, and through the granite defiles of 

 Quintella, which look down upon Pezo da Piegoa and the 

 valley of the Corgo. It was here — in the Balxo dmjo 

 — that the port wines of three generations ago were 

 vintaged ; now all the most valued growths come from 

 further east, beyond the Corgo (Cima Corgo). 



The return journey in those days (now there is a rail- 

 way) was by boat, down the Douro, seventy miles, which 

 was accomplished in one long day. Hour after hour we 

 glide down the rapid current, through green vineyards, 

 all resonant with the long-drawn songs of the vintagers. 

 Now the cliffs close in, and we pass through a gorge, whose 



