Portugal of the Portuguese

by Aubrey F. G. Bell

Leiria is little more than a village, a delightful village set in trees and flowers, orchards and vineyards, with the sound of the rushing river Lis ever present. On a sheer hill above it stands crumbling in flowers the ruins of King Diniz’ Castle.

Luso and Bussaco.

The village of Luso, too, beneath Bussaco, is embedded in flowers and creepers, and Bussaco itself, of course, consists of nothing but the remnants of a convent and a single modern hôtel, all the rest being a vast enclosure of trees, creepers, brushwood, shrubs and ferns and flowers probably unequalled in Europe.

Villages.

And countless villages throughout Portugal are literally set in and scented with flowers. A writer of the seventeenth century describes one of them thus: “Each house has its garden with various trees, oranges, and lemons, which fill the whole town with the sweetest scent and with their gay flowers.”[35] For fuel all kinds of scented brushwood are burnt—cistus, rosemary, myrtle—the thin blue smoke of which is a sweet incense.

Cascaes and the Estoris.

Even on the rocky coast, at Cascaes near Lisbon, many flowers are to be found. Where there is any moisture periwinkles star the ground, and in the strip immediately along the coast burnt by the winter spray, flower dwarf irises in crowds. They know that the sea-winds blow chiefly in winter, and cunningly wait till they have little to fear from the spray, springing into flower at the end of April or beginning of May. It is, however, the land wind (the nortadas that begin slightly in spring and prevail in July and August) which blackens and bruises creepers and flowers. This wind has something of the subtle winds of Spain, whence it comes, and is disliked by some persons, but by those who shun intense heat it is welcomed in the summer months. It brings cloudless skies without great heat. It transforms all things to a clearer outline and darkens the sea to a deep sapphire, flecked with white horses. Under the cliffs the water in such weather—which may continue for ten days or a fortnight—is calm and transparent, and the sunshine ripples and plays in wrinkles of amber on the deep-sunken rocks, transmuted for the time into great slabs of beryl, jasper and emerald. In summer a whole population lives for weeks together fishing in these waters. Almost everything that will float is put into requisition, and the queerest craft make their appearance, long crescent-shaped boats that seem scarcely to touch the water, old boats with a single square black or tawny sail, boats with sails cherry-red, white, and brown.

Wealth of Flowers.

At Estoril, which almost joins Cascaes, live many of the foreigners settled in Lisbon, and here the houses, mostly well sheltered by a pine-covered hill, have gardens brimming with flowers, winter and summer. Still more sheltered is Cintra, on the other side of the Serra, where the work of the gardener consists rather in cutting away than in encouraging growth. The road from Cintra to Collares is hemmed by wonderful gardens and orchards, although there is still plenty of ground waiting to be enclosed and turned into a little Monserrate. Some of these orchards are half neglected, and one may wander gradually from woodland into weedy garden paths where orange trees, crowded with glowing fruit, grow apparently at random. (And the oranges of Cintra vie with those of Setubal, at the mouth of the Sado.) It is from Collares in great part that Lisbon fills its markets daily with an abundance of fruits and flowers. “He who goes to the Church of the Misericordia will find daily from fifteen to twenty girls selling flowers, loose or in wreaths and bunches.”[36] The author, Frey Nicolas d’Oliveyra, adds that on the 4th of August, 1620, for one fête in four Lisbon churches three thousand wreaths and two thousand bunches of flowers were used. If less flowers now adorn Lisbon’s churches their number has not diminished, and exportation of flowers and fruits on a vast scale only awaits quicker means of transport and intelligent markets in foreign countries. For the flowers fill the great uncultivated tracts of the country with scent and colour, and wherever some minor Beckford has enclosed a plot of ground he is rewarded by a true garden of Eden.