Oporto is the seat of the wine-trade, and its huge warehouses are filled with stores of port ripening to a good old age, when the garnet will be exchanged for a dark umber tint. A handsome, thriving city is Oporto, mounting in terraces up the slope of a steep hill. A fine quay runs the length of the town along the Douro, and here the active life of Oporto is mainly concentrated. Any stranger watching this stir of movement and color will be struck by the prominent position which women fill in the busy crowd. The men do not absorb all branches of labor. Besides the water-carriers, market-women and fruit-vendors there may be seen straight, stalwart lasses acting as portresses to convey loads to and from the boats which are fastened to the river-wall. Many of the servants and other laborers through Portugal come from Galicia, the inhabitants of that Spanish province enjoying a reputation for honesty and faithful service combined with stupidity. [Illustration: QUAY AT OPORTO--THE QUEEN'S STAIRS.] A sad contrast to the fertility of the Minho is presented by the country opposite Lisbon and the adjoining province of Alemtejo. This Portuguese _campagna_ was in Roman days a fertile plain covered with golden wheat-fields. Now it is a barren, melancholy waste, producing only ruins. It is in and about this region that the most important Roman remains in the country are to be found. The soil in the neighborhood of Evora is rich in coins and other relics, and Evora has, besides its great aqueduct, the massive pillars of a temple to Diana, which, sad to say, was once put to ignoble use as a slaughter-house. The ruins of Troia have escaped desecration, if they have not obtained the care and study which they merit. Lying on a low tongue of land which projects into the bay of Setubal, the city of Troia is buried, not in Pompeian lava, but in deep mounds of sand, accumulated there by the winds and waves. A tremendous storm in 1814 washed away a part of this sand and revealed something of its treasure, but it was not till 1850 that the hint was followed up by antiquaries and a regular digging made. A large Roman house was uncovered, together with a vast debris of marble columns, mosaic pavements, baths, urns, and other appurtenances of Roman existence. The excavations have been far from thorough; the peninsular Troy still awaits its Schliemann. The name Troia was probably bestowed by Portuguese antiquaries of the Renaissance period, who mention it thus in their writings. According to Roman records, the city flourished about 300 A.D. as Cetobriga. [Illustration: Sketch Map of SETUBAL and RUINS OF TROIA.]