These caps are always either black, or bright green with a scarlet stripe round the opening, and, as we are soon to realize, serve many useful purposes, as well as that of covering the head.
The little urchin, seeing we are strangers, comes up to have a good look at us, and out of idle curiosity we ask his name. He gives us a string of them, which sounds fitting for a young prince—Henriques Quintino Rodrigues de Monserrate, the latter being probably the name of the village he lives in. Finding us less interesting than he had hoped, our small friend proceeds to remove his cap and to play with something at the bottom of it, which he exhibits with great pride to another child who has come out of one of the cottages. He eventually pulls it out, and we see that it is a very large black beetle! His hand goes in again and draws out another, and yet another, and his three treasures are put down to crawl about on the steps leading up to the watering-place. At last, tired even of this engrossing amusement, he grabs hold of them again, and drops them one by one into the recesses of the cap, which he then proceeds to replace upon his head. When remonstrated with, he quite fails to catch our point, and assures us that there could be no safer place for carrying black beetles.
We have lingered enough, and must be going on our way. The whole valley seems transfigured, and all things loom fairylike through a golden haze as we look towards the setting sun. We wander on through an orchard of orange and lemon trees, with their wealth of golden fruit and tender white blossom, the fallen fruit lying beneath the trees, as do the apples in an orchard at home when shaken by the winds of autumn. We meet an old priest, in wide-brimmed hat and long soutane, who smiles benignly on us. He passes on, and the sound of a church bell, calling to prayer, floats softly up the valley.
[ CHAPTER IX
] CINTRA
If there is one spot in Portugal more famed than another for its beauty, it is Cintra. The little town lies about seventeen miles from Lisbon, perched on the side of the Cintra Mountains. Many of the well-to-do people of the capital have villas there, where they go for change and bracing air when the heat of summer makes town life unendurable. The best time to be at Cintra is, however, in April and May, when the piercing winter winds are gone, and before the sleepy little place—half town and half village—is awakened out of its usual quiet by the invasion of the smart society folk from Lisbon. It is then that Nature puts on her fresh spring dress, and every nook and corner is bright with wild-flowers.
There are many things which lend charm to the place: the beauty and historic interest of the old half-Moorish palace in the village itself, the wonderful Pena Palace, perched high on its rocky pinnacle on the mountain-top; the ruined Moorish fort and castle, whose solidly-built battlements and low towers crown another summit a thousand feet above the town; the many quintas or country houses hidden away among the trees; the lovely gardens, full of flowers, palms, and semi-tropical plants; the cool splash of water falling over rocks, and the deep still tanks, covered with water-lilies, and reflecting the surrounding beauty in their quiet depths.
Above all, there are the countless beautiful walks in every direction. You may go by the road which zigzags down the steep hillside to the valley below; wander eastward for miles towards Lisbon, over rough and bleak moorland, or westward towards Collares, through the cork-woods, where gnarled and twisted branches and grey-green foliage meet over shady footpaths, and huge boulders rise out of a carpet of ferns and flowers.
Of the many delightful walks and scrambles, the most charming of all is a climb to the top of the hill—not by the dusty, winding highway, but by a rough and steep footpath. It starts between overhanging trees and high walls, old and lichen-covered. Maidenhair and other ferns grow in every chink of the stones; primroses, periwinkles, and violets stud the grass below.