The sanctuary is naturally a great resort amongst the people of Braga in the hot summers on the plain, and I cannot conceive a more agreeable place to pass a few days for rest at any time of the year; but the special religious element draws many devotees who conscientiously go through the pilgrimage to the shrines, and on the 3rd of May and Whit Sunday especially many hundreds of pilgrims flock to the sanctuary for devotion as well as for pleasure. The astonishing feature of the place is, of course, the devotional approach to the church up the side of the mountain, and it is difficult in a few words to give an idea of the eccentricity of the structure. It may be admitted at once that the taste displayed is atrociously bad, for it belongs to that eighteenth century which has loaded Portugal with rococo monstrosities; but the very vastness of Bom Jesus, and its exquisite position, save it from triviality; and looked at as a whole, either from above or below, the effect is grandiose in the extreme.
ON THE TERRACE, BOM JESUS.
Some sort of sanctuary had existed here from the fifteenth century, but it was not until the middle of the seventeenth that a miraculous figure of Christ drew to the hermitage large numbers of pilgrims, and gradually in the later eighteenth century the present structures grew under the care of successive archbishops of Braga. Standing upon the spacious open terrace before the church on the summit I looked down soon after sunrise upon the scene spread before me. If the view hitherward from the Guadalupe was fine this was more striking still. Wreaths of grey mist still floated in the valley far below, and the vast plain with Braga in its centre embosomed amongst trees, and surrounded as far as the eye reached with red-roofed hamlets, still lay in grey shadow. But ridge over ridge, crag beyond crag, in the background rose the mountains all tipped with shining gold with chasms of tender heliotrope; and then, before the mind had well realised the beauty of the contrast, the whole plain woke and smiled with sunshine.
The platform or terrace upon which I stood with my back to the church was flanked with granite obelisks and statues, and fronted by a wide stone parapet with a beautiful stone fountain above it. By two broad flights of steps at the sides a lower landing, or platform, was reached with an arched fountain set in the face of the wall, then by steps down to a similar platform, whence a pair of flights led to yet another, and so on, the parapets and balustrades in each case being surmounted by obelisks and statues, the fountains on the wall-faces being, like the figures, an extraordinary mixture of sacred and mythological art. Each alternate pair of platforms, after the first six, extending right across the structure and paved with the favourite black and white stone mosaic, was flanked by two shrines or little open chapels, each with a beautiful life-sized coloured group of figures representing scenes in the passion of our Lord. Half-way down there was an entrance from one of the platforms into a lovely old-world terraced garden, overflowing with flowers, palms, and sweet-scented verdure, and overhung by the dark yews and pines that bordered the graded descent from top to bottom. At length after descending many flights of steps and passing many terraced platforms with fountains, figures, and obelisks, a large mosaic-paved semicircular space was reached, ending in a stone parapet. Turning and looking upwards from here an extraordinary effect was presented. The alternate zigzags of the stairs and the faces of the walls, indeed all the architectural features, were outlined, like the great church towering far overhead, with brown grey granite, and faced with perfectly white plaster. Stage upon stage the great staircase rose, its parapets at the side and the centre line being marked by statues rising alternately one over the other at each successive stage of the ascent. Dark greenery, palms, yews, acacias, orange trees, and trailing flowers overhung the ascent on each side, and it was not difficult to understand the devotional fervour of pilgrims, who with tears and contrition toil up this vast viâ dolorosa by the hundred on the special anniversary, worshipping at the affecting shrines on the landings, and ending in an agony of remorse at the foot of the miraculous Christ which is the main attraction of the Sanctuary. Nor is the scene looking down over the parapet at the bottom of the main flight less striking. Sheer over the precipice you see the billowy masses of dark thick woods far below. On one side of the wide mosaic landing is a stair leading to another chapel, and so down by a succession of zigzag flights, bordered by thick greenery, to the porch, set in its grove of yews, and leading to the outer world. But mere words are weak to describe the charm and beauty of the Bom Jesus. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in Europe, and as sanctuary, health resort, and architectural curiosity it deserves to be better known than it is.
ON THE HOLY STAIR, BOM JESUS.
III
CITANIA AND GUIMARÃES
I drove out of Braga in the early morning. Passing over the ancient bridge spanning the little stream, at which lines of women knelt and washed their household linen, we left the city behind us and faced the mountain range beyond which lay my goal. Far above reared the grey crest of Mount Picoto, with a gilt cross dominating its highest point; and as the road wound upwards and ever upward in zigzags, at each turn of the path Braga, white and shining, set in its bed of verdure, receded far below. All around were glorious sun-kissed peaks scattered to the summit with huge granite boulders, as if the youthful Titans had there indulged in the sport of stone-throwing. Then over a hill pass, we dipped into a valley with the Falperra range clear before us, and beautiful St. Marta, with its crown of woods and its gleaming hermitage in the foreground, almost, as it seemed, over our heads. Maize fields spread across the valley and on the hill slopes all around us; and on the wayside, and dividing the fields, rows of oaks, chestnuts, planes, and, above all, white poplars, ran, every tree covered to the top by a trailing vine, loaded with purple grapes. The effect produced is most extraordinary, and the practice of thus utilising timber trees is peculiar to this part of the country.
For many miles, as we drove over valley and hill, tall poplars by the thousand, their light green leaves blending with the bronze, served as vine poles; and every white cottage had its shady trellis pergola before its open doorway, the great luscious bunches of fruit hanging temptingly over the heads of the women busy spinning, surrounded by quiet, brown, barefooted children.