The country is left during the greater part of the year to the exclusive occupancy of the peasantry, the town atmosphere being more congenial in the long run to the social gentry of Portugal. The wealthy class in Lisbon have their villas at Cintra, in which paradise of Nature and art, with its wonderful ensemble of precipices and palaces, forest and garden scenes, they can enjoy mountains without forsaking society. Many Oporto families own country-houses in the Minho, and rusticate there very pleasantly for a month or two in early fall. The gentlemen have large shooting-parties, conducted on widely-different principles from those so unswervingly adhered to by Trollope's indefatigable sporting character, Mr. Reginald Dobbs. In a Portuguese shooting the number of men and dogs is often totally disproportionate to that of the game, and a single partridge may find itself the centre of an alarming volley from a dozen or more guns. The enjoyment is not measured, however, by the success. There is a great deal of talking and laughing, and no discontent with the day's sport is exhibited even if there be little to show for the skill and patience expended. There is further occupation in superintending vintage and harvest, while the orange-groves and luxuriant gardens offer plenty of resources for exercise or idleness. Plant-life in Portugal is singularly varied even for so warm a country. To the native orange, olive and other trees of Southern Europe have been added many exotics. The large magnolia of our Southern States, the Japanese camellia and the Australian gum tree have made themselves at home there, and grow as if their roots were in their native soil. Geraniums and heliotrope, which we confine easily in flower-pots, assume a different aspect in the public gardens of Lisbon, where the former is seen in flaming trees and hedges twenty or thirty feet high, and the latter distributes its fragrance while covering the high walls with its spreading arms.