174 
MU. 0. CORDEU’y PORTUGUESE NOTES. 
of tlie towns as Monta de ]\Ioura, Fonta de Moura, and a )iost of 
others, the peculiar flat roofs of liouses, the manners of the 
peasants, especially removing the shoes on entering church, the 
pitcher still carried to the old Moorish fountain, the short baggy 
trousers, and bare legs of the men, the turbaued head-dress, and the 
laces of the women, would all remind him that he had left his mark, 
and that not easily eradicated. Nay further, if the old Eoman 
mentioned by Tacitus were to come back, he would find the 
remains of his villa near Eraga, the vines still festooned to the 
trees, the winepress, the olive yards and olive press, but little 
altered ; the self-same pattern for the yokes of the oxen, with the 
same huge horns nearly six feet across, the goad after his own 
pattern, and above all the ox cart with its cumbrous, entire, 
and ungreased wheels, all much about the same as two thousand 
years ago. 
Portugal as a country has changed but little, indeed less 
than any other in Europe, and from its nature will ever present a 
most fertile field for the naturalist. A large amount of its surface 
can never be cultivated, and a great deal more of it can only be 
partially tilled. We find vast ranges of moorland teeming with 
Heaths, Droseras, Gna^^haliums, and Cistus, in varied and most 
beautiful colours of white, pink, and shades of yellow — rich 
plains with marsh ground full of bog j^lants. Also high rock 
districts abundant with Alpine and Sub-alpine flora; and beyond 
these, high mountains, the tops of which are snow clad during 
most of the summer, under whose slopes are found some of the 
rarest Narcissus not yet found in English cultivation. 
When the Wolf desired a meal off the Lamb, the excuse was : 
“You have fouled the stream and sj^oiled the waters.” When the 
Government in Portugal wanted the income of the monasteries 
and convents, the cry was raised that the monks interfered with 
political affairs, and so the revenues were all sequestrated, and 
most unfortunately the buildings and gardens, having no caretakers, 
are left to ruin and decay. In some of the larger towns they have 
been turned into hospitals ; but in the country places desolation 
reigns supreme, where in times gone by, to say the least, a human- 
izing influence was exerted, and a centre was provided for the poor 
when sick or sorrowful ; for these monks, with all the dark things 
