THE WOODS AND GARDENS OF PORTUGAL 



883 



every ox-yoke is carved with a quaint 

 and elaborate design, the home-work of 

 the peasants themselves on long winter 

 nights. The designs belong to a very 

 early period and are distinctly Gothic in 

 character. 



the: portugue:se: language: 



In Portugal we are in a country where 

 three distinct races have, in turn, taken 

 the place of the autochthonous inhabit- 

 ants, perhaps mingling their blood with, 

 perhaps after extermination or expulsion 

 of, the race on the soil. Three separate 

 civilizations have, in historic times, lived, 

 prospered, and left their abiding marks 

 in the habits and customs of the people ; 

 probably also in the blood of the actual 

 dwellers on the land, and very patently 

 in the Portuguese language and its litera- 

 ture. 



The Portuguese themselves like to 



boast that their language is nearer to 

 Latin than any other derived from the 

 mother tongue of the Romans. In proof 

 of this they have composed poems and 

 prose passages which are fair Portuguese 

 and fair dog-Latin. That, however, goes 

 for little. Every foreign student of 

 Portuguese knows that it is easy to read, 

 it is harder to learn, harder to pronounce, 

 and harder to understand when spoken 

 than any other of the Latin languages. 

 The reason is that Portuguese has bor- 

 rowed very much from the Arabic word, 

 phrase, and idiom. It has perhaps also 

 got from the Moors some sort of Ori- 

 ental uncouthness, and certainly some 

 use of strange diphthongs which the un- 

 practiced tongue finds it hard to pro- 

 nounce. Yet it is a rich and flexible 

 language, standing by itself, as a literary 

 vehicle, just as French and German stand 

 by themselves. 



THE WOODS AND GARDENS OF PORTUGAL* 



By Martin Hume 



WHEN I opened my shutters as 

 the dawn was breaking the 

 next morning, and stepped out 

 upon the wide battlements of the castle, 

 the scene before me was so wonderful as 

 to force from me an involuntary prayer 

 of praise and thankfulness to God that 

 so much of beauty should be vouchsafed 

 to my senses. Below and' around me for 

 miles on all sides stretched the woods — 

 woods such as I have seen nowhere else 

 in Europe. Great palms and towering 

 cedars of Lebanon grow side by side 

 with oaks of giant bulk ; oranges and fig 

 trees, cork and acacia, maple, birch, and 

 willow stand beneath the straight euca- 

 lyptus, "tall as the mast of some great 

 admiral araucarias spread their spiny 

 branches with a luxuriance never seen at 

 home, and mosses, ivy, and ferns clothe 

 thickly every inch of ground, every bank, 

 and even the time-worn stones, that all 



around testify to the existence of dwell- 

 ing here long before the white palace 

 raised its tall tower over the darkening 

 wood of Busaco. 



Beyond the trees the shadow of twi- 

 light still lingered in the valleys and the 

 horizon was veiled in mist, but already 

 the sun was touching the mountain-tops 

 all around. One range after another 

 caught the golden light, and as far as 

 the vision reached mountain succeeded 

 mountain like mighty waves suddenly 

 stayed in their onward sweep and turned 

 into rosy rock. Here and there amidst 

 the greenery, far below upon the plains, 

 a white cottage, or the clustered red 

 roofs of a village, lit up the picture with 

 a note of emphasis, and the sweet, cool 

 air of the mountains, fresh with the scent 

 of pine, eucalyptus, and wild flowers in- 

 numerable, came to the jaded town- 

 dweller like a foretaste of some exquisite 



From ^'Through Portugal," by Martin Hume. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1908. 



