“. . . . . You have probably heard enough of the
infection at Cadiz to be anxious for information. Our accounts agree in nothing
but in the extent of the calamity: one day we are assured it is the black
vomit, another day the yellow fever, and now it is ripened into the plague.
This only is certain, that for the last ten or twelve days of our accounts,
from 240 to 260 persons have died daily in Cadiz. Whether it has extended
beyond that city is also uncertain; some reports say that it has spread to the
| 116 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
“So much have I to tell you, that it actually puzzles
me where to begin. My Cintra memorandums must be made; and more than once have
I delayed the task of describing this place from a feeling of its difficulty.
There is no scenery in England which can help me to give you an idea of this.
The town is small, like all country towns of Portugal, containing the Plaza or
square, and a number of narrow crooked streets that wind down the hill: the
palace is old—remarkably irregular—a large, rambling, shapeless
pile, not unlike the prints I have seen in old romances of a castle,—a
place whose infinite corners overlook the sea; two white towers, like glass
houses exactly, form a prominent feature in the distance, and with a square
tower mark it for an old and public edifice. From the Valley the town appears
to stand very high, and the ways up are long, and winding, and weary; but the
town itself is far below the summit of the mountain. You have seen the Rock of Lisbon from the sea,—that rock is the Sierra or mountain of Cintra: above, it is broken into a
number of pyramidal summits of rock piled upon rook; two of them are wooded
completely, the rest bare. Upon one stands the Penha convent,—a place
where, if the Chapel of Loretto had stood,
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 117 |
“The cork is perhaps the most beautiful of trees: its
leaves are small, and have the dusky colour of evergreens, but its boughs
branch out in the fantastic twistings of the oak, and its bark is of all others
the most picturesque;—you have seen deal curl under the carpenter’s
plane—it grows in such curls,—the wrinkles are of course deep, one
might fancy the cavities the cells of hermit fairies. There is one tree in
particular here which a painter might well come from England to see, large and
old; its trunk and branches are covered with fern—the yellow sunburnt
fern—forming so sunny a contrast to the dark foliage!—a wild vine
winds up and hangs in festoons from the boughs, its leaves of a bright green,
like youth,—and now the purple clusters are ripe. These vines form a
delightful feature in the scenery; the vineyard is cheerful to the eyes, but it
is the wild
| 118 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
“The English are numerous here, enough to render it a
tolerable market, for sellers will not be wanting where purchasers are to be
found; yet, last year, the magistrate of the place was idiot enough to order
that no Englishman should be served, till all the Portuguese were
satisfied,—one of those laws which carries its antidote in its own
absurdity. Among this people the English are in high favour; they are liberal,
or if you will, extravagant, and submit to imposition; now a Portuguese fights
hard for a farthing,—servants love to be in an English family. If a
Portuguese mistress goes out she locks up her maids for fear of the men; the
relations of the servants often insist that this shall be done. Oftentimes the
men and women of a family do not know each other.
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 119 |
“We ride asses about the country: you would laugh to
see a party thus mounted; and yet soon learn to like the easy pace and sure
step of the John burros. At the south-western extremity of the rock is a
singular building which we have twice visited,—a chapel to the Virgin (who is
omnipresent in Portugal), on one of the stony summits, far from any house: it
is the strangest mixture you can imagine of art and nature; you scarcely, on
approaching, know what is rock and what is building, and from the shape and
position of the chapel itself, it looks like the ark left by the waters upon
Mount Ararat. Long flights of steps lead up, and among the rocks
| 120 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
“Our Lady of the Incarnation will about fill the sheet.
Every church has a fraternity attached to its patron saint; for the anniversary
festival they beg money, what is deficient the chief of the brotherhood
supplies; for there are four days preceding the holiday; thus people parade the
country with the church banner, taking a longer or a shorter circuit according
to the celebrity of the saint, attacking the sun with sky-rockets, and merry
making all the way. Those of whom I now speak travelled for five days. I saw
them return;—they had among them four angels on
horseback, who, as they took leave of the Virgin at her church-door,
each alternately addressed her, and reminded her of all they had been doing to
her honour and glory, and requested her to continue the same devout spirit in
her Portuguese, which must
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 121 |
