FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 277 
one runs to see the fight commence, and by 
the time one has crossed the room it has all 
subsided and everybody is walking off in good 
humor. Meanwhile the grave little donkeys 
are constantly pattering by, sometimes in pairs 
or in fours with a cask slung between. And 
mingled with these, in the middle of the street, 
there is an endless stream of picturesque fig- 
ures, everybody bearing something on the head, 
— girls, with high water-jars, each with a green 
bough thrust in, to keep the water sweet; 
boys, with baskets of fruit and vegetables ; 
men, with boxes, bales, bags, or trunks for the 
custom-house, or an enormous fagot of small 
sticks for firewood, or a long pole hung with 
wooden jars of milk, or with live chickens, head: 
downward, or perhaps a basket of red and blue 
and golden fishes, fresh from the ocean and 
glistening in the sun. The strength of these 
Portuguese necks seems wonderful, as does 
also their power of balancing. Ona rainy day 
I have seen a tall man walk gravely along the 
middle of the street through the whole length 
of the town, bearing a large empty cask bal- 
anced upon his head, over both of which he 
held an umbrella. 
Perhaps it is a procession day, and all the 
saints of some church are taken out for an air- 
ing. They are-figures composed-of wood: and- 
