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.