"Sentry-box!" said Mrs. Shortridge, with a puzzled air, "were the Romans a gigantic people?"
"There were giants in those days," said Lady Mabel, gravely, gazing on the castellum. But a crowd of idlers and beggars began to collect around the cavalcade, and turning, they rode off, and were soon enjoying the shelter, if not the more substantial hospitality, of the Estalagem de San Antonio.
[CHAPTER X.]
Tell me, recluse Monastic, can it be
A disadvantage to thy beams to shine?
A thousand tapers may gain light from thee:
Is thy light less or worse for lighting mine?
If, wanting light, I stumble, shall
Thy darkness not be guilty of my fall?
Make not thyself a prisoner, thou art free:
Why dost thou turn thy palace to a jail?
Thou art an eagle; and befits it thee
To live immured like a cloister'd snail?
Let toys seek corners: things of cost
Gain worth by view; hid jewels are but lost.
Francis Quarles.
In the afternoon, the commissary going out in search of the objects of his journey, grain and bullocks for the troops, L'Isle strolled out with the ladies to survey the curiosities of Evora, and Moodie followed closely Lady Mabel's steps.
"If I am to play the part of cicerone," said L'Isle, "I will begin by reminding you that the history of many races and eras is indissolubly connected with the Peninsula, and especially the southern part of it. Here we find the land of Tarshish of Scripture, so well known to the Phoenicians, who, in an adjacent province of Spain, built another Sidon, and founded Cadiz before Hector and Achilles fought at Troy.
"Yet they found the Celto-Iberian here before them—who after that built Evora, according to Portuguese historians, some eight or ten centuries before Christ. The Greeks, too, stretched their commerce and their colonies to this land. The Carthaginians made themselves masters of this country. The Romans turned them out, to give place in time to the Vandals; who were driven over into Africa by the Goths—whose dominion was, at the end of two centuries, overthrown by the Arabs; who, after a war of seven centuries, were expelled in turn by the descendants of their Gothic rivals. The land still shows many traces of these revolutions. In the neighborhood of this city the rude altar of the Druid still commemorates the early Celt. The majesty of the Roman temple here forms a singular contrast with the delicacy of the Arabian monuments, and the Gothic architecture with the simplicity of the modern edifices."
"A truly Ciceronian introduction to your duties as cicerone," said Lady Mabel. "But I have yet to see much that you describe so eloquently. To my eye the most striking feature of Evora at this day is its ecclesiastical aspect. It is full of churches, chapels, and monkish barracks, and seems to be held by a strong garrison of these soldiers of the Pope."
"Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men," said old Moodie, in loud soliloquy behind.