ARRABIDA.

THE view across the river from Lisbon is bounded in the distance by a range of high bold hills or mountains, which extend along the sea coast from Cape Espichel to St. Ubes and Palmella ; of these the loftiest is the mountain of Arrabida, celebrated for its convent and its cave, and an excursion to this was the last of my expeditions. B. was unable to accompany me.

Persons travelling above twenty miles from Lisbon are obliged to procure a special passport for the occasion; a vexatious system of restraint common to all the continent, and our perfect freedom from which in England I really think constitutes practically a more valuable immunity than that which we enjoy under the habeas corpus act itself. I had the precaution to take one for Arrabida, but found it was not necessary by the route I went, as there were no considerable towns in the way.

-Cross the water to Cassillas, where I hire a

PINE WOODS.

couple of donkeys and a man. horses to be procured here.

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There are no

The country is at first pretty; broken sandstone hills covered with vineyards and corn fields and olive grounds, with views on the left to the creeks that run up the south shore of the Tagus. But this does not last long. After following the St. Ubes road for about an hour we strike off by a slight wheel-track to the right; and pursue our way for nearly the whole remainder of the day with the unimportant exception of a patch of vines here and there, over one uniform region of heath and pine-forest, or commonly of both together, the heath being generally scattered with a greater or less quantity of that tree.

The pine-woods (Espinhaes) are very extensive. We were nearly two hours passing through that of Mr. I. F. de Caldas, which is succeeded by the Palmella Espinhul, yet larger, but not so thickly planted; there was little fine timber.

All this was dull enough; and my donkey, though a very good one, could not carry me very fast through it, so I was obliged to resort to my old amusement of marking the flowers and shrubs *. I made my guide tell me the Portu

The mountain path they chose,

The forest and the lonely heath wide spread,

gueze names of them; to which he added a detail of their medical virtues and uses; for they nearly all had some such; and we met strings of asses laden with the blossoms on their way to the Lisbon apothecaries. I suppose every one may gather them for this purpose, as every one may sport over the heaths, for there seems to be no game laws in Portugal; the royal coitados or chases are alone excepted from this general franchise. My guide assures me that there are plenty of partridges or woodcocks, snipes also. The sporting season is from about October to February.

This guide of mine was a very intelligent fellow; he had lived five years in the service of no less a person than the late General Picton, whom he followed throughout the whole Peninsular campaigns and up to the walls of Toulouse. He spoke much

Where cistus shrubs, sole seen, exhaled at noon
Their fine balsamic odour all around,

Strewed with their blossoms frail as beautiful

The thirsty soil at eve, and when the sun
Relumed the gladdened earth, opening anew

Their stores exuberant, prodigal as frail,
Whitened again the wilderness.

RODERICK. B. 11.

We We were too late for this spectacle; whole tracks were seen covered by the cistus-ladaniferus, or gum-cistus, but the season of flowering had already past.

and warmly of his gallant master, and seemed to appreciate better than could have been expected from a person in his situation, the superior pitch of his mind and character. It was remarkable that though mixing so long with the English army the man scarcely knew a word of our language. He spoke his own with great clearness and distinctness; indeed coming from Madeira one is struck with the superior intelligibility of the Lisbon pronunciation. The islanders talk a very corrupt dialect; thus they almost invariably omit to sound the final vowel.

Peru-a large deserted half ruined palace, standing alone on the heath. It was built by a Count D'Obidos, about four generations back, of whose wealth, splendour, and eccentricities my man told me some strange anecdotes. The building is of great extent; parts of it are inhabited by farming labourers. I dined under its walls on bread and oranges.

Beyond this we cross a low cultivated ridge, along which is situated a series of towns and villages, Palmella, Azeitaô, &c. On the other side we find the heath again, extending to the foot of the mountains, which now rise directly before us. At a short distance on the right is the palace of the Marquess of Palmella, a large range of white

U

building, forming three sides of a square, with a court for bull-fights in the middle.

We ascend the mountain by a road winding round the west end of it. Pass the Carmelite Convent; from hence begins a series of crosses, disposed at equal distances, and it is an ordinary penance, my man tells me, of the monks of the Arrabida Convent, to walk barefoot by night over these flinty roads to the Carmo, repeating a certain number of prayers at each station. On gaining the ridge of the hill we find the sea close under us.

Descend the other side, through a thicket of arbutus, laurestinus, ilex, and cork. Some little circular domes and chapels crown the heights between us and the shore-a more romantic and characteristic mark are the rude crosses which are placed on the topmost crags. Soon after the pretty pavilion of the Bom Jesus appears below, smiling, as it were, from among the dark woods, which clothe the steep of the rocks and mountains that inclose you on all sides, except towards the sea, which is spread out at the foot of them at this moment as blue and unruffled as the sky it reflected. These are all the features of the picture and, few as they are, they compose one of the most striking I have ever witnessed.

The convent itself is not far beneath, but as yet