Cintra is a town of forty-five hundred inhabitants. It is built on the southern end of the Estrella Mountains, at an elevation of from eighteen hundred to three thousand feet. It is only a few miles from the seashore, and the Atlantic may be seen from its hills. The party of the doctor first went to the royal palace. It was the Alhambra of the Moorish monarchs, and has been a favorite residence of the Christian kings. Dom Sebastian held his last court here when he left for Africa. The students wandered through its numerous apartments, laughed at its magpie saloon, and thought of the kings who had dwelt within its walls. They were more pleased with the gardens, though it was winter; for there was a great deal in them that was curious and interesting.
The Pena Convent was the next attraction. All convents have been suppressed in Portugal, as in Spain; but the Gothic building has been repaired, and it looks more like a castle than a religious house. Its garden and grounds must be magnificent in the proper season. The view from the highest point presents an almost boundless panorama of country, river, and ocean. The Moorish castle that commands the town was examined; and the next thing was the Cork Convent. It is an edifice built in and on the rock, and contains twenty cells, each of which is lined with cork to keep out the dampness of the rock on which it is founded. These cells are dungeons five feet square, with doors so low that even the shortest of the students had to stoop to enter them.
A country-house in Portugal is a quinta; and that of Dom John de Castro, the great navigator and the viceroy of the Indies, is called Penha Verda, and is still in the hands of his descendants. The gardens are very pretty; and the first orange-trees set out in Europe were on this estate. In the garden is the chapel built by him on his return from the Indies, in 1542, and the rock with six trees on it, which was the only reward he desired for the conquest of the Island of Diu, in Hindostan. He died in the arms of St. Francis Xavier, in 1548, protesting that he had spent every thing he had in supplying the wants of his comrades in arms. He declared that he had not a change of linen, or money enough to buy him a chicken for his dinner. Most of the enormous wealth of the Indies had passed through his hands; and he had not stolen a vintem of it. What an example for modern office-holders! When he was dead, only one vintem—about two cents—was found in his coffers. His descendants were prohibited from deriving any profit from the cultivation of this property.
The rest of the time was given to wandering about among the estates of the wealthy men, including some of the foreign ministers, who have quintas in Cintra.
After a lunch, the excursionists proceeded to Mafra, about ten miles from Cintra. This place contains an enormous pile of buildings on the plan of the Escurial, and rather larger, if any thing. It was erected by John V. to carry out his vow to change the poorest monastery into the most magnificent one when Heaven would give him a son. It contains eight hundred and sixty-six apartments; but the only one of interest to the students was the audience-chamber, preserved as it was when the palace was inhabited by Dom John.
It was late in the evening when the Princes returned to Lisbon; and they were rather glad to learn that the ship was to sail for Barcelona after breakfast the next morning.
“I am rather sorry that we do not go to Oporto,” said the doctor, when the captain informed him of the order. “It is an old city set on a hillside; but it would not interest the students any more than Lisbon has.”
“By the way, doctor, we have not seen any port wine,” added Sheridan.
“It is not a great sight to look at the casks that contain port wine. In Porto, not Oporto in Portugal, it is not the black, logwood decoction which passes under the name of port in the United States, though it is darker than ordinary wines. It gets its color and flavor from the peculiarity of the grapes that grow in the vicinity of Porto.”