_September 27th_--I am very sorry that I shall be unable to take part in your sittings after Michaelmas Term. I have arranged to give up November to that dreadful arbitration of the London, Chatham, and Dover, which, in a weak moment, Salisbury and I undertook; and, after that, I go to Mentone, where I have taken a house for the winter.... I should regret very much to dissever myself from the sittings of the Judicial Committee, which I have always found agreeable, both from the interesting character of the business, and from the pleasant composition of the tribunal; and I hope in next year to be able to afford more service than I have in this; but for the next sitting I must not be reckoned on. I hope you will enjoy your run to Portugal. This contemplated tour was, no doubt, mainly for the pleasure and interest of visiting a country still unknown to him, but with a slight pretext of business, as chairman of the Lusitanian Mining Company. A few days before his departure he received the following from Lord Clarendon:-- _The Grove, October 3rd_--You will not find Murray at Lisbon, as he is on leave; but a letter shall be written, and to Doria, the _charge d'affaires_, to render you any service in his power. Do you want one to the consul at Oporto? I am glad you approved what I said at Watford. I never dreamt of the speech making a sensation, but it has; and as there was nothing remarkable in it, it is a proof that people were looking for an assurance from somebody that a policy of spoliation was not meditated. I can't say I got much good from Wiesbaden, where mental torpor, and not a dozen red boxes per day, is required. * * * * * And so, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and armed with these letters of introduction and 'a Foreign Office bag, more,' wrote Mrs. Reeve, 'to give us importance, I suspect, than to convey despatches,' Reeve started as soon as his work was cleared off and the October number of the 'Review' was fairly out of his hands. CHAPTER XVII THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR For some reason best known to himself, Portugal is not a favourite hunting-ground of the tourist; and the country--though almost at our door, though bound to us by alliance in war and friendship in peace for more than two hundred years, though possessing beautiful scenery and the grandest of historical associations--remains comparatively unknown. So far as he was concerned, Reeve had long wished to dispel this darkness, and the fact of his being Chairman of the Lusitanian Mining Company gave him the desired opportunity. His Journal of the tour is here, as on former occasions, elaborated by extracts (in square brackets) from Mrs. Reeve's. _October 9th_--Started for Portugal on board the 'Douro' from Southampton. Fine passage. Landed at Lisbon on October 13th. Hotel Braganca. Kindly received by Pinto Basto. Excursion to Cintra on the 14th.