[[Enlarge]]

It is a legacy from the early days when the country was held by the Moors. The Southern Portuguese more especially have retained many Moorish customs, and the peasants have a very distinctly Moorish type of face, with the inscrutable expression which may so often be seen among Eastern peoples.

There are many Arab wells or shadufs in the country. A beam is placed horizontally between two pillars, and on this is balanced a long pole, to one end of which a weight (very often a large stone) is attached, and to the other, by means of a rope, a bucket. A pull on the rope lets the bucket down into the well; when full the rope is let go, and the weight at the other end raises the water.

With a few exceptions, in some of the larger towns, nearly all the shops are Eastern-looking. They have no smart plate-glass windows in which to show off their pretty merchandise; often they have hardly any window at all, but just a big doorway, through which you look into a dark passage, where the various goods for sale hang on the walls and from the ceiling.

The Portuguese have many other Eastern ways: for instance, if they wish to send you farther from them, they make a sign with the hand which we should take to be beckoning you nearer, and if they want you to approach, they would seem to be motioning you away—both of which signs are entirely Eastern.

They have also retained from the Moors a love of coloured tiles for decorating their houses, and even their churches, both inside and out. There are many factories at Lisbon and Oporto where these tiles are made, but they never now attain the beauty of the old Moorish ones, which are still to be seen here and there throughout the country. It is a lost art.

But we have left our plough far behind, and are coming to a few cottages and a small wayside inn. A bush hangs over the door to show that wine is sold, the time-honoured sign which was used long ago in England, and from which the saying comes, “Good wine needs no bush.”

Outside, tied to rings fastened in the wall, stand two or three donkeys, a pony, and a mule, all very tired and dejected-looking, while lolling in the doorway, or sitting on a bench inside, are their masters, drinking the good red wine of the country, of which they can buy a large bottle for the modest sum of forty ries, or about twopence.

They are fond of a glass of wine, but you will see little or no drunkenness, except occasionally on a Sunday. Close to the inn is the old stone watering-place, the fonte, as it is called, whence, out of the mouth of a quaintly-carved stone head, a fresh stream of water, cool and clear from the mountains, is ever flowing. All over the country, wherever there are a few houses together, and at the street corners in the towns, may be seen these stone watering-places and fountains, where the brightly-dressed peasant-women fill their large earthenware jars, carrying them away balanced on their heads, where the lads and maidens wrangle good-humouredly over whose turn it is next, where the children play and dabble in the water, and the gossips meet to talk over the latest scandal.

There is a small boy running about on sturdy, bare brown legs, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his ragged and patched little breeches, which are kept up by the usual sash, worn by men and boys alike, and wound round and round the waist. His shirt is open at the neck, and on his head he wears the cap of the country, a long worsted bag, drawn well over the ears, and hanging almost to the shoulder.