An hour’s hard pull brought us close to the long island. A wild, uninhabited place it looked as we approached it, all blown sand in dunes and hillocks overgrown with coarse rank tussock and esparto. Even before we reached the sandy shore, fragments of walls and broken tiles in abundance could be seen through the pellucid water, half-buried in the soft, sandy bottom; and when I landed upon the beach of pure sand some twenty feet or more wide, a glance sufficed to show that this was the site of a place where many people had dwelt in the long ago. A long sand dune, some fifteen feet high, runs parallel with the sea, and in the face of this dune strong walls, doorways, and ruins of all sorts are embedded. The sand in many places has been removed sufficiently to uncover entire rooms and passages, and the whole beach below is literally covered with broken tiles, apparently Roman, which presumably formed the roofs of the ruined dwellings. The walls are usually formed of undressed stones, with some rubble cement almost as hard, the courses, and sometimes corners, being composed of coarse red bricks or tiles eighteen inches long by twelve broad and two thick.
Mounting the top of the dune I saw beneath me the houses that at various times had been excavated, and partially cleared of sand by the successive adventurers, who, for the sake of profit or curiosity, have undertaken the work. It has been done unsystematically and unscientifically; but in the three-quarters of a century or so that have elapsed since renewed interest has been displayed in the place, an immense number of Roman coins, some of the latest period of the domination, have been found; and numerous relics of Roman, and, as I believe, of a much earlier civilisation have also been discovered, many of the objects being now in the Belem museum. Mr. Oswald Crawford wrote an amusing account of a visit he paid to the place about thirty years ago, and advanced some attractive theories with regard to it; but apparently the excavations that have taken place since his time must have been considerable, as some of the most significant features noticed by me were presumably not uncovered when he was there, as he does not mention them.
The place has been called Troia by the Portuguese from time immemorial; but it agrees in position with, and probably is, the important Roman town of Cetobriga. The name of Cetobriga can hardly be of pure Latin origin, nor is the situation of the place, at the end of a barren, low-lying sandbank, such as Romans usually chose for a settlement. It is known, however, that a people called Bastuli, some of whom Strabo says lived upon a narrow strip of land by the sea in this part of Portugal were of Phœnician origin, and inhabited this coast[[8]]; and this at once provides a clue to the original founders of the city. The Phœnicians and their successors in the Peninsula, the Carthaginians, were a Semitic people whose trading depôts were carried to the extreme of the then known world. At first, and for many centuries, purely traders and men of peace, they made no attempt to dominate, but established their factories, with defensive stockades and walls around them in places, which, though unadapted for aggression, were capable of easy defence. It is difficult to imagine an easily accessible place, well situated for maritime traffic, better calculated than Troia upon its sandy island opposite a fertile plain for the purposes of such a people as this; and the opinion of antiquarians since the re-discovery of Troia has been in favour of its Phœnician origin.
The later Roman period, it is true, has provided most of the remains unearthed. I saw and measured myself, amongst many other houses, two of undoubted Roman construction, one apparently a temple, to judge by the now empty niches which are constructed round three sides of the inner wall, and the doorway of well-dressed stone in the fourth side. Another house near it, of which the chief apartment was twenty-two feet in diameter, possessed a dressed stone piscina or font in the wall, and what appeared to be a bath of five feet in diameter and nearly six feet deep of rubble and tiles. These houses and practically all the others stood some fifteen feet below the present top of the dune, but in no case has the excavation been completed, sand silting up almost to the door lintels in most cases. On the beach itself near the point, I noticed what appeared to be the base of a hollow tower ten feet in diameter, which may well have been a pharos; and in many places not much above sea-level are square cemented tanks, which some authorities assert were used for fish salting, although its suggestion is not a very convincing one considering the position of the tanks.
The largest house that has been excavated is of undressed rubble for the walls, the angles and doors and window frames being squared with tiles, and the principal doorway topped by a flat arch of brick, the pitch of the roof being evidently angular. On the other side of a sandy peninsula facing the south, and farthest from Setubal, a very large villa has been partially uncovered, presenting the same construction as the rest, but with the base of a round tower at one corner; whilst on the point of the beach there is a house containing four uncovered very large square concreted tanks, sunk in the ground some twenty-five feet deep, apparently reservoirs—perhaps vivaria for edible fish. There is no indication—at least to a layman in the matter like myself—that these buildings are earlier than the Roman occupation, though, of course, some of them may have been, whilst a large building standing high at the very end of the point, which the energetic boatman who constituted himself my companion insisted was “the chapel,” is evidently much later than Roman times, and may probably have been a Christian church.
Mr. Crawford advances a theory to account for the foundation of a populous settlement upon a mere sandbank. He is of opinion that when the town was originated the sand did not exist there, but has been blown or cast up since. Although the dune facing the beach has doubtless accumulated greatly since the city was finally abandoned, I cannot believe, after looking well at the buildings, that the level has changed more than perhaps a dozen or fifteen feet since the town was inhabited; and there must, I think, have been hills of sand here from Roman times at least. Still it is possible that a thorough excavation would establish that the remains of the Phœnician town on solid earth underlie the Roman buildings now existing amidst the sand. The most interesting object that I saw at Troia is not mentioned by Mr. Crawford, though as it stands at the highest point of the sand dune (though perhaps with a base of solid earth beneath the sand) it is curious if it was not uncovered when he visited the place. In any case, there it is now, the most convincing proof possible that the city was Phœnician, notwithstanding the extensive Roman remains of a later time. Upon a square base or plinth there rises a smooth conical column, some ten feet high, four feet in diameter at base and tapering conically to a diameter of less than two at its apex. There is no mistaking the shape of this column or its significance by any one who has studied the beliefs of the ancient peoples and the symbols of their worship. The column is apparently composed of red tiles smoothly covered with fine white cement; and standing, as it does, in the most conspicuous position over the settlement, it seems to prove that the Nature-worshippers, Phœnicians, Carthaginians, or those who inherited their traditions, must have been the constructors of this column supporting nothing. It may be advanced that this sign of ancient paganism would not have been allowed to remain by the Romans for four hundred years after the Christian era; but it is possible that even then the ritual symbolism of the column had been lost sight of or forgotten, and that it remained as a landmark.
I was glad to embark in my sardine boat again, for the glare and heat of the sun beating down upon the shadeless sand was almost intolerable, and the treacherous black sandflies, so harmless looking and so venomous, in the three hours I had been at Troia had rendered my face unrecognisable by my nearest friends, and turned my hands to agonised dumplings. So, with a slight puff of breeze now and again to help us, we slowly crossed the blue bay to Setubal where much needed refreshment awaited me.
I was bound for the ancient city of Evora, and I could have gone by train to Pinhal Novo junction, where the train to the south was to receive me. But the plain over which Palmella lords it had captivated me, and I decided to traverse by road the ten miles to the junction. As I drove out of Setubal, with its clean white houses, and gaily decked women in a long kneeling row washing their linen in the river, the glamour of the south was over all. Cactus hedges lined the way, the glistening green of the orange trees with the abundant fruit already showing, the bronzed vines and the grey olive orchards chequered the light red earth; the rolling slopes were thickly wooded to the summits, and nestling amidst the verdure on many hill-tops were glistening white houses, abandoned cloisters, or shrines of pilgrimage. The aspect was Andalusian, as were the traits of the people, and North Portugal seemed very far away. Before us always towered the huge castle of Palmella, with its tremendous stretches of battlements and square towers, seen first from one side and then from another, as we gradually wound round and round the base of the eminence upon which it stands. The way is always upward, and on all sides spread below us, growing more extensive as we round each successive rising turn of the hill, is the fertile plain and the sea beyond. Wheat, maize, olives, and oranges grow here luxuriantly, the lower folds of the sandy hillsides are covered with vines, and the rich brown velvet trunks of the stripped cork-trees are all along the way.
My coachman is one of the talkative type of south Portuguese, almost oriental in the voluble vehemence of his manner, and his eagerness to impart information. Ah! yes Troia, Setubal, and Palmella were all very well in their way: but Evora! That indeed is a place. What a pity his Excellency was not going to see Evora. His Excellency replied that Evora was his present destination, and the patriotic Eborense, for, of course, the voluble coachman came from Evora, broke out into unrestrained panegyric of his native city. Lisbon was nothing, Oporto was nothing, to Evora; why, Evora was a great city and a capital when they were villages: Evora made Portugal what it is—and much more to the same effect the wild-eyed coachman rattled off with much gesticulation, whilst the patient horses, left to themselves, slowly toiled up the winding road to the town of Palmella, now to the right now to the left, and anon straight overhead, apparently inaccessible.
At length we entered the town, a poor squalid looking place upon the steep slope; and whilst the tired horses rested I climbed the top of the hill to the castle. The tremendous outer defences covered with yellow lichen, and the round bastions of the inner circumvallation, are evidently of Moorish origin, whilst the great square battlemented towers inside appear to be mediæval. The whole of the top of the hill is occupied by the fortress; the outer walls following the contour, with corner bastions on the spurs of the summit. The views obtained from the battlements of the salient bastions are tremendous. The central keep, standing high above the rest, is veiled with mist, though where I stand upon the battlements is clear and bright. Over the vast plain spread below me bathed in sunlight dark patches of cloud wander, and, on the south side beyond it, is Setubal and the sea; whilst on the other, towards the north, far away stretches the broad estuary of the Tagus, and the distant mountains loom upon the west. Ancient as the castle is, it shows signs of more recent habitation than is usual, indeed a row of humble dependencies within the walls are still occupied by poor people. The roofs of the principal buildings are everywhere destroyed; and upon the very ancient walls of one portion there rises the ruin of a sixteenth-century palace; whilst by the side of the great mediæval keep is the shell of a beautiful chapel of Romanesque Gothic. The inner gateway of the fortress bears upon it a tablet with the arms of Portugal and the date of 1689; and I was informed by one of the residents in the row of dwellings that the place had only been entirely dismantled in living memory. All is silent and abandoned now; and the great Moorish stronghold which Affonso Henriques captured from the Moors in 1147, the royal fortress of the Commandery of the Order of Santiago, and the seat of the powerful Dukes of Palmella, as the place successively has been, has now become what for all future time it will remain, a worthy compeer with the rest of the proud old Portuguese hill-top fortresses, whose sturdy walls dismantled though they be, refuse to crumble into dust. Long may they rear their noble towers intact from man’s destroying hand, and tell their silent lesson of heroic times to a generation that sorely needs it.