As I gazed, entranced at this wonderful scene, surrounded by yet sturdy relics of the war of civilisations eight centuries old; musing upon the immutability of nature’s face in comparison with even the most enduring works of man, I noticed a wire fixed on the face of the Moorish battlement, and thence to a boulder, and so from point to point, I know not whither—to the palace or the adjoining peak, perhaps. A telegraph wire! A familiar object enough, but, as it seemed to me, strangely out of harmony with the stern battlements from which for centuries the sons of the prophet held back the advance of Western civilisation.
The point upon which the Moorish stronghold stands is connected with the higher site of the palace by a saddle-back dipping considerably and then rising very precipitously. The vegetation on all sides is marvellously luxuriant, and inside the well-kept gardens of the royal domain flowers and plants, temperate and sub-tropical, make the place a horticultural paradise. Through graceful Moorish archways, bright with Alambresque decorations and azulejos, under rocky tunnels and over mediæval drawbridges, all redolent of the gimcrack taste of the forties, the upward way leads at length to the little inner patio of the castle, and here, at last, some of the Manueline monastery still remains. It is little enough, a window here and a door there, and is almost swamped by modern Alambresque and German baronial additions, but the ancient chapel in the patio is a gem. The beautiful groined ceiling especially attracts attention, but the pride of the place is the exquisite altar of translucent alabaster or jasper and black marble in the purest style of the classical Renaissance, dated 1532, a thank-offering of King John III. for the birth of an heir. The many groups of figures in alabaster are extremely beautiful, and as the whole structure turns upon a pivot the perfection of the work can be seen in various lights. A concession to the Portuguese Manueline taste of the time is made by the pendent festoons on each side of the altar, which are formed of two lengths of knotted and twisted cable in alabaster, a tour de force of execution, though rigid purists may perhaps question their artistic appropriateness.
The chapel is marred by the hard, bright German stained glass inserted in the principal window by King Ferdinand; but the modern Portuguese is very far from being critical in matters of art, and though hundreds of people yearly toil up the mountain to venerate the holy image of the Virgin of the Penha in this chapel, and the lovely ivory figure of St. John in the sacristy, no one apparently thinks of removing the flashing offence of the stained glass window in favour of some subdued medium more appropriate to this beautiful little church. A climb to the highest tower of the palace is said to be rewarded by a magnificent view. I was content to take it on trust, for I had already climbed high enough, and could hardly hope to behold a more striking prospect than those I had enjoyed from the castle battlements, and from the inner patio of the palace itself, which is perhaps the most striking of them all.
As I retrace my steps down the long zigzags to Cintra again, and ever and anon look up at the heights from which I have come, they seem quite inaccessible. Equally, or more so, does the somewhat lower, but even more precipitous eminence called the Cruz Alta, from which the prospect is of surpassing extent over land and sea.
“Eis campinas que ao ceo seu canto elevam,
Aqui o espaço, alem a immensidade,”
“Behold the plains their psalms raise to the sea,
Here spread below in space, beyond immensity,”
as the Portuguese poem on the base of the cross proclaims.
Everywhere the flowers trail over the walls of villas, and the high palms within rock softly in the heliotrope scented breeze. Very beautiful it is; but the gardens belong to other people, and are jealously closed by stone walls and iron gates. From above them, at hundreds of points all over Cintra, you may command views of gardens of tropical luxuriance; but without permission of the wealthy owners you may not enter them. Cintra’s beauty is not free like the sacred wood of Bussaco, where you may wander at your will through purely sylvan scenery that not even Cintra can surpass. The grandeur of the towering Moorish stronghold on its crest of grey boulders is more imposing than anything Bussaco can show, and the interior of some of the highly cultivated private gardens of Cintra are as fine as any in Europe; but, so far as the enjoyment of the mere traveller is concerned, I am inclined to agree with the opinion of those who hold that Cintra’s fame is quite equal to its merits. Beckford had very much to do with it. His friends the Marialvas were amongst the first of the Portuguese aristocracy, and owed the large palace of Seteaes, where Byron and some guide-books erroneously say that the humiliating convention of Cintra was signed by the victorious English generals. Beckford’s visits to them and to the court at Cintra inspired him with an enthusiastic admiration for the place, and his letters are full of references to its beauty. To the immensely wealthy and eccentric young Englishman desires and their accomplishment ever went hand in hand, and Beckford purchased a picturesque valley and slopes of the mountain some two miles from the town round the shoulder of the hill towards the west. Here he built an eccentric house, partly in the Moorish style, and here he displayed the virtuoso tastes and exotic luxury which afterwards made Fonthill famous.[[4]]