I am glad you approved what I said at Watford. I never dreamt of the speech making a sensation, but it has; and as there was nothing remarkable in it, it is a proof that people were looking for an assurance from somebody that a policy of spoliation was not meditated.
I can't say I got much good from Wiesbaden, where mental torpor, and not a dozen red boxes per day, is required.
* * * * *
And so, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and armed with these letters of introduction and 'a Foreign Office bag, more,' wrote Mrs. Reeve, 'to give us importance, I suspect, than to convey despatches,' Reeve started as soon as his work was cleared off and the October number of the 'Review' was fairly out of his hands.
CHAPTER XVII
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
For some reason best known to himself, Portugal is not a favourite hunting-ground of the tourist; and the country—though almost at our door, though bound to us by alliance in war and friendship in peace for more than two hundred years, though possessing beautiful scenery and the grandest of historical associations—remains comparatively unknown. So far as he was concerned, Reeve had long wished to dispel this darkness, and the fact of his being Chairman of the Lusitanian Mining Company gave him the desired opportunity. His Journal of the tour is here, as on former occasions, elaborated by extracts (in square brackets) from Mrs. Reeve's.
October 9th—Started for Portugal on board the 'Douro' from Southampton. Fine passage. Landed at Lisbon on October 13th. Hôtel Bragança. Kindly received by Pinto Basto. Excursion to Cintra on the 14th.
15th.—Dined with Pinto Basto and met Fonseca. 16th, to Caldas. 17th, to Alcobaça; then drove on to Batalha, and slept at Leiria. These great monasteries, now deserted, with their architecture and their tombs, are of the highest interest.
18th.—From Leiria to Pombal, and thence by rail to Coimbra [armed with letters of introduction from Count Lavradio, including one to the 'Rector Magnificus,' described as 'homme aimable et fort instruit, surtout dans les sciences physiques.']