beautiful and picturesque, like most other parts of Portugal:
there are few hills and mountains, the greater part consists of
heaths broken by knolls, and gloomy dingles, and forests of stunted
pine; these places are infested with banditti. The principal city
is Evora, one of the most ancient in Portugal, and formerly the
seat of a branch of the Inquisition, yet more cruel and baneful
than the terrible one of Lisbon. Evora lies about sixty miles from
Lisbon, and to Evora I determined on going with twenty Testaments
and two Bibles. How I fared there will presently be seen.



CHAPTER II



Boatmen of the Tagus--Dangers of the Stream--Aldea Gallega--The
Hostelry--Robbers--Sabocha--Adventure of a Muleteer--Estalagem de
Ladroes--Don Geronimo--Vendas Novas--Royal Residence--Swine of the
Alemtejo--Monto Moro--Swayne Vonved--Singular Goatherd--Children of
the Fields--Infidels and Sadducees.

On the afternoon of the sixth of December I set out for Evora,
accompanied by my servant. I had been informed that the tide would
serve for the regular passage-boats, or felouks, as they are
called, at about four o'clock, but on reaching the side of the
Tagus opposite to Aldea Gallega, between which place and Lisbon the
boats ply, I found that the tide would not permit them to start
before eight o'clock. Had I waited for them I should have probably
landed at Aldea Gallega about midnight, and I felt little