Through Portugal

by Martin A. S. Hume

MARTIN HUME.

THROUGH PORTUGAL

I
OPORTO

I stood in the centre of a daring bridge, spanning with one bold arch of nigh six hundred feet a winding rocky gorge. Far, far below me ran a chocolate-coloured river crowded with quaint craft, some with high-raised sheltered poops and crescent-peaked prows, some low and long astern with bows like gondolas and bright red lateen sails, upon which the fierce sun blazed sanguinely. On the right side thickly, and on the left more sparsely, climbing up the stony sides of the gorge, were piled hundreds of houses, pink, pale-blue, buff, and white, all with glowing red-tiled roofs, and each set amidst a riot of verdure which trailed and waved upon every nook and angle uncovered by buildings. Trellised vines clustered and flowers flaunted in tiny back-yards and square-enclosed courts by the score, all on different levels, but all open to the down-gazing eyes of the spectator on the bridge high above them. Here and there a tall palm waved its plumes as in unquiet slumber, but everywhere else was the impression of ardent, throbbing, exuberant life, such as all organic creation feels under the spur of stinging sunshine and the salt twang of the sea-breeze. The river gorge winds and turns so tortuously that the view forward and backward is not extensive, but as far as the eye reaches on each side of the umber stream the hills of houses and far-spread terraced vineyards beyond rise precipitously, with just a quayside at foot on the banks of the stream, thronged now with folk who swarm, gather, and separate like gaudy ants, and apparently no bigger, as seen from the coign of vantage on the bridge. To my left, as I stand looking towards the west, there crowns the summit of the ridge close by a vast white monastery against a green background; a monastery now, alas! like all others in this Catholic land, profanated and turned to purposes of war instead of peace, but, withal, there still rears its modest rood aloft upon the crest one poor little round chapel where the sainted image of Pilar of the Ridge stolidly receives the devotion of the faithful. To the right, the height is crowned by a vast square episcopal palace, and near it, over all, is the glittering golden cross that shines upon the city from the summit of the square cathedral towers. This is Oporto, The Port par excellence, which gives its name to Portugal, seen from the double-decked iron bridge of Dom Luis over the Douro.

For days I had been striving in vain to get into touch with the psychic principle of this strange city. I had mixed with the motley multitudes that lounge and labour upon the quays, I had lingered in the gilded churches where worshippers were ominously few, and stood for hours observant in chaffering marketplaces and amidst the crowds of sauntering citizens in the inevitable Praça de Dom Pedro; but till the revelatory moment came to me in one enlightening flash upon the Bridge of Dom Luis, I had always been alone in a foreign throng whose composite inner soul I could not read. But now all was changed. Thenceforward I saw Oporto whole and not in disintegrated fragments as before; for I had learnt the secret of putting the pieces of the puzzle together and the heart of the city was bared to me, a stranger.

Every large, enduring community comes to attain a distinct character of its own, which the outlander can only know by long association or sympathetic insight, sometimes not at all. I had looked for a people exuberant and gay in outward seeming with an underlying spirit of bitter mockery, such as I had known in so many other Iberian cities; but somehow these Oporto people were quite different. Grave and quiet, with introspective eyes, even the children seemed to take their play soberly. Look at the slim slip of a boy who gravely walks at the head of this team of enormous fawn-coloured oxen, toilsomely dragging their ponderous load up a hill so steep as almost to need a ladder to ascend. The urchin cannot be more than ten or eleven, and in any other country would alternately skip and idle, or at least allow his attention to wander with every fresh object that struck his fancy. Here he stalks along for hours at a time, without lingering or straying, always calm and patient, whilst his soiled and hardened bare feet plod on, heedless both of the white mire and sharp stones of the way. Over his shoulder he carries a long lithe wand, double as tall as himself, with which he directs the course of the great wide-horned bullocks. A mere turn of the wand is sufficient to indicate the way, and with low bowed heads beneath the heavy yoke the dull beasts plod slowly onward as long-suffering as their guide. The whole equipage might belong to the times when the world itself was young, so idyllic is it in form. The wain is narrow and high-set upon two wheels, like an ancient chariot, with boards or high rods to form its sides; the wheels are built up ponderously of solid wood, the two thick spokes that connect the heavy tire with the hub filling up most of the circle, and the axle, a heavy log of wood, itself turns with the wheels. In this part of Portugal there stands erect upon the neck of the team an adornment which is usually the pride of the owner’s heart, and the one superfluous article of luxury he possesses. It is a thick board of hardwood, about eighteen inches high and some five feet broad, intricately and beautifully carved in fretted open-work arabesques. The patterns are traditional, handed down from time immemorial, and usually consist of involved geometrical and curvilinear designs; sometimes, but not often, with a cross introduced in the centre, and with a row of little bristle brushes as an extra adornment along the top. A glance at this elaborate piece of ox furniture will show that its decoration is of Moorish origin, and the canga itself may be the survival of the high ox yoke still seen in some oriental countries. To complete the quaint picture of the universal ox team, for this part of Portugal is not a country of horses or mules, the dress of the small teamster must be described. The boy’s breeches usually do not reach below the knee, the rest of the legs and feet being bare; a jacket of brown homespun is slung upon one shoulder, except at night or during the cold winter days of December and January, when it is worn, and the shirt, open at the neck and breast, leaves much of the upper part of the body exposed. The headgear is peculiar. It is nearly always a knitted stocking bag cap, something like an old-fashioned nightcap, with a tassel at the end of the bag which hangs down the back or upon the shoulder of the wearer, its colour being sometimes green and red, but more frequently black.

The boy, like his similarly garbed elders, takes life very seriously, but neither he nor they seem sad or depressed. There is here none of the squalid misery or whining mendicancy that are so distressing to strangers in Spain and Southern Italy, for the Portuguese of the north is a sturdy, self-respecting peasant, who works hard and lives frugally upon his three testoons (1s. 3d.) per day; and so long as he can earn his dried stockfish, his beans, bread, and grapes, with a little red wine to drink, he scorns to beg for the indulgence of his idleness.

These are the people, and their social betters of the same race, whom a sudden flash of sympathy brought closer to me, as in the pellucid golden sunlight all Oporto was spread before and beneath me, palpitating with life. The absence of vociferation and vehemence in the people did not mean sulkiness or stupidity, but was the result of the intense earnestness with which their daily life was faced; their unregarding aloofness towards strangers was not rudeness, but the highest courtesy which bade them avoid obtrusive curiosity; and soon I learnt to know that their cold exterior barely concealed a disinterested desire to extend in fullest measure aid and sympathy to those who needed them. In all my wanderings I have never met, except perhaps in Norway, a peasantry so full of willingness to show courtesy to strangers without thought of gain to themselves as these people of north Portugal, almost pure Celts as they are, with the Celtic innate kindliness of heart and ready sympathy, though, of course, with the Celtic shortcomings of jealousy, inconstancy, and distrust.

I know few more characteristic thoroughfares than the road by the river-side at Oporto, called the Ribeira, which is the centre of maritime activity of the port. The path runs beneath what was the ancient river-wall, now pierced or burrowed out to form caverns of shops, where wine and food, cordage and clothing are sold to sailor men. Many of the open doors have vine trellises before them, in the shade of which quaintly garbed groups forgather, and a constant tide of men and women flows along the path, eddying into and out of the cavernous recesses in the ancient wall. Colour, flaring and fierce in the sun, flaunts everywhere; for the multi-tinted rags of the south festoon and flutter from every door and window and deck the persons of all the womankind. Swinging along, with peculiar and ungainly gait, go the women with prodigious burdens upon their heads. Everything, from babies to bales of merchandise, is borne upon the female head in Portugal; and these women of the north wear a peculiar headgear adapted to this custom. It is a round, soft, pork-pie hat of black cloth or velveteen, fitting well upon the top of the head, the upper rim being adorned with a sort of standing silk fringe. Such a hat, especially when surmounted by a knot, suffers no damage from a burden placed upon it; but the constant carrying of tremendous weights upon the head of females, even of little girls, quite spoils the figures of the women, thrusting the hips and pelvis forward inordinately, and rendering the movements in walking most ungraceful. The women and girls almost invariably go barefooted, whilst the men, except the fishermen, usually are shod; and the females of a family share to the full the work and hardships which are the common lot.