Seating herself between the tantalizing panniers, she was gone in an instant, and I had the good luck to arrive at the wicket of a rude, dry well, winding up several bushy slopes in a wild, irregular manner. If the outside of this inclosure was rough and unpromising, the interior presented a most cheerful scene of rural opulence: droves of cows and goats milking; ovens, out of which huge savory cakes of bread had just been taken; ranges of bee-hives and long pillared sheds, entirely tapestried with purple and yellow muscadine grapes half candied, which were hung up to dry. A very good-natured, classical-looking magister pecorum, followed by two well-disciplined, though savage-eyed dogs, whom the least glance of their master prevented from barking, gave me a hearty welcome, and with genuine hospitality not only allowed me the free range of his domain, but set whatever it produced in the greatest perfection before me. A contest took place between two or three curly-haired, chubby-faced children, who should be first to bring me walnuts fresh from the shell, bowls of milk, and cream cheeses, made after the best of fashions, that of the province of Alemtejo.
William Beckford.
FROM “THE LUSIAD.”
With graceful pride three hills of softest green
Rear their fair bosoms o’er the sylvan scene;
Their sides embroider’d boast the rich array
Of flowery shrubs in all the pride of May;
The purple lotus and the snowy thorn,