Fish plays an important part in the domestic economy of dwellers within a reasonable distance of the sea, and forms a considerable item in the food-stuffs of the working classes.  It is fairly cheap, and is cooked so as to get the full value of it.  More important than the fresh fish is the salted cod (bacalhao).  This, which Napier described as “the ordinary food of the Portuguese,” is the backbone of the worker’s menu.  It is not fragrant, nor is it inviting in aspect in its raw state, but it is said to be highly nutritive, and it can certainly be cooked in ways which make it appetising.  The midday meal, which the wife brings to her husband at his work, and shares with him as they sit in the shade, is often composed of a caldo (soup) made of bacalhao, or of all sorts of oddments, thickened with beans and flavoured with garlic, accompanied by a bit of rye-bread or of broa, the bread made from maize.  These soups and breads, accompanied by salads, onions, tomatoes, and other vegetables, washed down with draughts of a light red table-wine of little alcoholic strength, form the not unwholesome average diet of the worker with his hands.  If he wants to get drunk, he can do so, with some difficulty, by imbibing sufficient wine, but the easiest method is to drink the fearful crude spirit aguardente.  If he survives, he gets horribly, brutally drunk, and possibly does some mischief before he recovers.  But it is only fair to say that he but rarely gets drunk, and that when he is thirsty he quenches his thirst with water, with a harmless decoction of herbs or lemonade, or with the almost innocuous wine.  This sobriety is not the result of any temperance legislation or restrictions.  No license is required for opening a shop for the sale of liquor.  Only revenue dues and octroi duties have to be paid, and, of course, there is a liability to police supervision, which provides the police with a means of increasing their very inadequate pay by bribes or blackmail.

The amusements of the workman in the town are few enough, and mostly of a domestic character.  He sits on his doorstep, or on a bench in the nearest gardens.  He smokes the eternal cigarette, gossips with his neighbours, plays with his children, and pets the cat.  His only real playtimes are the festas, when for some hours he indulges in revelry—­if, indeed, it be worthy of such a title.  He reads the newspaper but little,—­if he can read at all,—­which is, perhaps, a good thing for him, and he is generally a Republican.  This Republicanism is mostly academic, but the “red” type is not wanting, and a fiery spirit might be roused at any time, with consequences that cannot be foreseen.  Of course, the younger men tinkle the guitar, and make love more or less openly to the girls.  When age overtakes a man or misfortune overpowers him, there is no poor law to take him in charge, but there are extensive and well-organised charities in every centre which are eager and willing to assist those who are temporarily afflicted, and to afford sustenance—­a bare sustenance, perhaps—­to those who are permanently disabled.