In the quaint little Gothic cloister around the burial-place of the monks, called the “Cloister of Dom Henrique,” a strange sight is to be seen in the upper ambulatory. Baltasar de Faria was the instrument of Philip II. in forcing the Spanish form of Inquisition ruthlessly upon Portugal, and in cruelty surpassed his master. So bitterly hated was he that the saying ran that earth itself would reject and refuse to assimilate the body of such a monster. In the lid of a stone coffin in the cloister a pane of glass is set, and he who will may gaze and see how Baltasar de Faria looks now. He was a splendid courtier in his time, and doubtless a gallant-looking one too, for it was a sumptuous age; but the poor gentleman’s looks have now little to recommend them, as he lies contorted and mummified but perfect in his narrow home, to be gazed and wondered at by those who list—a scoff for the ribald, a text for the moralist.
More there was, much more, to describe in this wonderful monastery, but I have said more than enough to prove that the visitor to Portugal who misses Thomar has failed to see a relic, which, in its way, has hardly an equal in Europe. The drives around Thomar are exquisitely beautiful, the view from the hill across the river embracing the monastery and the great white sanctuary of the Misericordia, with its long scala sacra, upon the twin hill, being one never to be forgotten. Just outside the town, hard by an ancient pillar marking the junction place of the armies which won for a second time the independence of Portugal from Spain (at Aljubarrota, 1385), there stands the beautiful old church of Santa Maria, a perfect Gothic fane; and close to its west end a strong tower built as a place of refuge for its constructors against the constant attacks of the Moors. Much I should like to linger upon Thomar: upon the quaint garb of the peasants, the picturesque bits of the old Manueline church of St. João in the praça, upon the lovely private gardens by the side of the stream, upon the noble aqueduct, and upon the sweet tranquillity of the acacia-shaded walks; but I dare not delay further, for the carriage is at the door of the humble though hospitable, Hotel União, to carry me on this brilliant morning the twenty-five miles to Leiria, where I must pass the night. As we drove clear of the town the loveliness of its situation came home to one with more intensity than ever. The peaceful stream winding through the plain, its course marked by a continuous line of poplars, the pine-clad hills all around—miles away but in this clear air seeming within touching distance of the hand—the cluster of white and pink houses with red roofs, and, almost sheer above them, the two hills, one crowned by its never-to-be-forgotten monastery-castle with its long battlemented walls, its high keep, and, most striking of all, its gaunt bell tower, with its guard of tall cypresses; whilst climbing up the gentler green slope of the other hill is the snow-white scala sacra of twenty-five flights of steps leading to the gleaming sanctuary of the Misericordia. Above all a sky of deep luminous blue, and pervading all the soft warm air, sweet with the scent of thyme, basil, cistus, and pines.
CHURCH OF ST. JOÃO IN THE PRAÇA, THOMAR.
Thus, for two hours or more, I drove over a good road, winding round the foot of rising hills, and following the sinuosity of fertile valleys, above me grey boulders, around me pines, olives, and sweeps of flowering heather on the red earth. At length, afar off, there loomed a bolder hill than the rest, rising abruptly and crowned by another great fortress, as it seemed at an unscalable height, with a cluster of ancient houses nestled just beneath it. Patience and a scarped road on the hillside, however, enabled us to reach without apparent difficulty half up the hill to the modern village of Ourem, where a rest for the horses and a meal for myself had been agreed upon. The place was dead, basking in the hot sunshine, all the village, as it seemed, baked to the uniform yellowish-white colour of the soil of the hill upon which it stood. The gaunt yellow castle above[[1]] softened only by the verdure of a crown of pines, and just below its walls the ancient town and a great monastery of long ago.
THE BRIDGE AT THOMAR.
The hostelry was humble enough, but a chatty, shrewd-looking, old lady provided an excellent luncheon for me in an upper room, and became charmingly friendly when I praised her wine, of which she was very proud, and with reason, grown, as she told me, in the vineyard at the back of the house, and as good a wine of its sort as I care to drink. She was equally pleased with the approval of her quince marmalade, and pressed no end of home-made confections upon her passing guest, whilst she kept repeating that “os senhores ingleses que veem sempre alabão muito o nosso vinho;” for the approval of Englishmen in this country is always taken as fixing the final seal of excellence upon anything.
Outside in the main street of the town complete quiet reigned in the fierce sunshine of midday. Against the indigo sky the immense castle on its peak showed clear, as nothing is ever seen in our mist-laden atmosphere. A man passes, bearing a great boat-shaped basket piled with big black grapes, the bloom upon them still undisturbed; four cronies in black nightcaps and with long staves in their hands gossip in the parallelogram of black shadow thrown athwart the road by the church tower; and, by-and-by, three lithe damsels with bright yellow head-kerchiefs flowing as they walk, swing by joyously; then comes, painfully hobbling beneath a heavy burden of yellow gourds, a barefooted old woman, and anon a man riding à la gineta, a pacing nag with brass-embossed harness, and great box stirrups. Then silence again for another half-hour, and this is life at Ourem.
Still through a land of pine and heather with beautiful little valleys full of vines, figs, and olives, we drove for two hours more, and, just as the black shadows began to lengthen, we drove into the town of Leiria, the Calippo of the Romans, and for long the stronghold whence the Moors harried the advancing Christians to the north. It is a lovely place on the banks of the Liz, set in the midst of pine-clad hills, and the centre of a great agricultural district. Here, again, the two abrupt eminences that loom over the town are crowned respectively by the enormous mediæval stronghold and the religious house that for ever seems to keep it company—the sword and the cross, twin instruments of soldier and priest, to keep the people in subjection, both alike happily now superseded, in Portugal at least, by more enlightened means.