10 



Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



p. 132. — From Amarante over a barren country to the solitary 

 wayside inn at Casaes." 



p. 133. — " There was a fair or market going on somewhere on the 

 road, and I overtook several parties of sturdy farmers on horseback. 

 Many of them carried long ox-goads in their hands ; and as the day 

 was raining, they wore the curious waterproof cloak made of rushes, 

 which is peculiar to the province of the Minho, a waterproof which 

 has many advantages over the very best Mackintosh coat, being, in the 

 first place, much lighter ; in the second place, it does not make the 

 wearer hot, or give him a headache, nor smell of tar; in the thii'd 

 place, a good coat costs less than a shilling. Its appearance is, how- 

 ever, rather against it, and the wearer looks exactly as if he was 

 thatched with straw from head to foot. These palJiogas are extremely 

 used by all conditions of persons, and enabl e labouring men to do field-work 

 on the rainiest days when the water descends in tropical torrents, and 

 when without some such protection no out-of-door labour could be 

 done. Like many other customs and institutions in this province, 

 where the Roman colonists have left such numerous traces of their 

 presence, the palhoga may, perhaps, be an inheritance from the Roman 

 times, and may be representative of the Toga viminalis of the Romans, 

 * the Toga made of Twigs.' It is difficult to look at these homely- 

 looking men, with their singular thatch upon them, bestriding their 

 miserable ponies, and to believe that both men and ponies are lineal 

 descendants of the cavaliers and war-horses who rode down the 

 Saracens at Ourique, and the Spaniards on the field of Aljubarrota. 

 Yet neither men nor ponies can be much changed since those days. 

 The ponies have probably degenerated and dwindled to some extent, 

 but I see no reason why the men should have done so at all." 



The following citation is from a French author, " Andalousie et 

 Portugal" (Paris: Calmaan Levy, 1885) : — 



p. 410. — ''Coimbre; Les femmes de village, leurs paniers plats 

 suspendus aux epaules, bien campees, grandes, pied leste, la vraie race 

 Portugaise (celle que n'altererent jamais d'impures melanges avec le 

 sang negre) arrivent au marche. Elles ont la taille souple, des 

 visages riants ; un court jupon badine sur la jambe nue, le manteau 

 bleu voltige sur leurs pas, tandis que le ' Camponio,' un gaillard 

 solide, marche a cote de son magnifique attelage de boeufs noirs. Comme 

 le ciel menace, qu'en cette zone, on les brumes del Ocean rencontrent 

 la chaleur des tropiques, une averse est une trombe, les Camponios " 

 s'enfouissent sous la ' Capa ' de joncs desseches, espece de meule 



