I Am Not One Of
Those Who Look For Perfection Amongst The Rural Population Of Any
Country; Perfection Is Not
To be found amongst the children of the
fall, wherever their abodes may happen to be; but, until the heart
Discredits the existence of a God, there is still hope for the soul
of the possessor, however stained with crime he may be, for even
Simon the magician was converted; but when the heart is once
steeled with infidelity, infidelity confirmed by carnal wisdom, an
exuberance of the grace of God is required to melt it, which is
seldom manifested; for we read in the blessed book that the
Pharisee and the wizard became receptacles of grace, but where is
there mention made of the conversion of the sneering Sadducee, and
is the modern infidel aught but a Sadducee of later date?
It was dark night before we reached Evora, and having taken leave
of my friends, who kindly requested me to consider their house my
home, I and my servant went to the Largo de San Francisco, in which
the muleteer informed me was the best hostelry of the town. We
rode into the kitchen, at the extreme end of which was the stable,
as is customary in Portugal. The house was kept by an aged gypsy-
like female and her daughter, a fine blooming girl about eighteen
years of age. The house was large; in the upper storey was a very
long room, like a granary, which extended nearly the whole length
of the house; the farther part was partitioned off and formed a
chamber tolerably comfortable but very cold, and the floor was of
tiles, as was also that of the large room in which the muleteers
were accustomed to sleep on the furniture of the mules. After
supper I went to bed, and having offered up my devotions to Him who
had protected me through a dangerous journey, I slept soundly till
the morning.
CHAPTER III
Shopkeeper at Evora - Spanish Contrabandistas - Lion and Unicorn - The
Fountain - Trust in the Almighty - Distribution of Tracts - Library at
Evora - Manuscript - The Bible as a Guide - The Infamous Mary - The Man
of Palmella - The Charm - The Monkish System - Sunday - Volney - An
Auto-Da-Fe - Men from Spain - Reading of a Tract - New Arrival - The
Herb Rosemary.
Evora is a small city, walled, but not regularly fortified, and
could not sustain a siege of a day. It has five gates; before that
to the south-west is the principal promenade of its inhabitants:
the fair on St. John's day is likewise held there; the houses are
in general very ancient, and many of them unoccupied. It contains
about five thousand inhabitants, though twice that number would be
by no means disproportionate to its size. The two principal
edifices are the See, or cathedral, and the convent of San
Francisco, in the square before the latter of which was situated
the posada where I had taken up my abode. A large barrack for
cavalry stands on the right-hand side, on entering the south-west
gate. To the south-east, at the distance of six leagues, is to be
seen a blue chain of hills, the highest of which is called Serra
Dorso; it is picturesquely beautiful, and contains within its
recesses wolves and wild boars in numbers. About a league and a
half on the other side of this hill is Estremos.
I passed the day succeeding my arrival principally in examining the
town and its environs, and, as I strolled about, entering into
conversation with various people that I met; several of these were
of the middle class, shopkeepers and professional men; they were
all Constitutionalists, or pretended to be so, but had very little
to say except a few commonplace remarks on the way of living of the
friars, their hypocrisy and laziness. I endeavoured to obtain some
information respecting the state of instruction in the place, and
from their answers was led to believe that it must be at the lowest
ebb, for it seemed that there was neither book-shop nor school.
When I spoke of religion, they exhibited the utmost apathy for the
subject, and making their bows left me as soon as possible.
Having a letter of introduction to a person who kept a shop in the
market-place, I went thither and delivered it to him as he stood
behind his counter. In the course of conversation, I found that he
had been much persecuted whilst the old system was in its vigour,
and that he entertained a hearty aversion for it. I told him that
the ignorance of the people in religious matters had served to
nurse that system, and that the surest way to prevent its return
was to enlighten their minds: I added that I had brought a small
stock of Bibles and Testaments to Evora, which I wished to leave
for sale in the hands of some respectable merchant, and that it he
were anxious to help to lay the axe to the root of superstition and
tyranny, he could not do so more effectually than by undertaking
the charge of these books. He declared his willingness to do so,
and I went away determined to entrust to him half of my stock. I
returned to the hostelry, and sat down on a log of wood on the
hearth within the immense chimney in the common apartment; two
surly looking men were on their knees on the stones; before them
was a large heap of pieces of old iron, brass, and copper; they
were assorting it, and stowing it away in various bags. They were
Spanish contrabandistas of the lowest class, and earned a miserable
livelihood by smuggling such rubbish from Portugal into Spain. Not
a word proceeded from their lips, and when I addressed them in
their native language, they returned no other answer than a kind of
growl. They looked as dirty and rusty as the iron in which they
trafficked; their four miserable donkeys were in the stable in the
rear.
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