“The population of Portugal is about four millions. It has few large towns, only two having over fifty thousand inhabitants. Lisbon has two hundred and seventy-five thousand, and Oporto about ninety thousand. Coimbra,—which has the only university in the country,—Elvas, Evora, Braga, and Setubal, are important towns. The kingdom has six provinces; and we are now in Estremadura, as we were yesterday morning, though it is not the same one.
“The government is a constitutional monarchy, not very different from that of Spain. The present king is Luis II. The army consists of about eighteen thousand men; and the navy, of twenty-two steamers and twenty-five sailing vessels. The colonial possessions of Portugal have a population equal to the kingdom itself.
“The money of Portugal will bother you.”
At this statement Sheridan and Murray looked at each other, and laughed.
“You seem to be pleased, Captain Sheridan,” said the professor. “Perhaps you have had some experience with Portuguese money.”
“Yes, sir: I went into a store to buy some photographs; and, when I asked the price of them, the man told me it was one thousand six hundred and forty reis. I concluded that I should be busted if I bought that dozen pictures.”
“It takes about a million of those reis to make a dollar,” added Murray.
“But, when I came to figure up the price, I found it was only a dollar and sixty-four cents,” continued Sheridan.
“A naval officer who dined a party of his friends in this very city, when he found the bill was twenty-seven thousand five hundred reis, exclaimed that he was utterly ruined, for he should never be able to pay such a bill; but it was only twenty-seven dollars and a half. You count the reis at the rate of ten to a cent of our money,—a thousand to a dollar. About all the copper and silver money has a number on the coin that indicates its value in reis. For large sums, the count is given in milreis, which means a thousand reis. The gold most in use is the English sovereign, which passes for forty-five hundred reis. We will now give some attention to the history of the country.