One of the prettiest sights in the whole town is to be seen early in the morning down on the quays along the river, when the graceful, gaily-painted fishing-boats come in, and land their cargoes of shimmering fish. The quays are very wide, and some of them slope right down to the water’s edge. Here the fish are landed and piled up in heaps, and a crowd of waiting women set to work to fill their large flat baskets and take them off for sale in the market near at hand, or to hawk them round the town. Some balance the baskets on their heads, others have them attached to either end of a long pole, which rests on the shoulder. These women are most picturesque. They have gaudy handkerchiefs tied round their heads, beneath small black “pork-pie” felt hats; the sleeves of their cotton blouses are turned up above the elbows, and their bare feet show below very full, short, brightly coloured petticoats. [Illustration: LISBON FISHWIVES.] These Lisbon fish-wives correspond to our Cockneys in their fund of ready wit and good-humoured repartee. It is sometimes quite amusing to listen to the banter which passes between the busy workers on the quays and the fishermen, who shout their remarks from the much-encumbered decks of the boats. There are other men and women busily employed, salting and packing some of the fish into boxes and baskets for transportation inland, and others are already at work overhauling the nets. The method of selling milk strikes one as very odd indeed. Instead of a milk-cart and cans, the cows and goats go round to the houses, and in the early morning are to be seen, even in the most busy streets of the town, being driven slowly along and milked as required at people’s doors. The electric trams which now run throughout the town and far into the country contrast strangely with old-fashioned customs of this kind, for Lisbon is daily growing more up-to-date, though there is still a slowness about many proceedings which makes one sometimes wonder what would happen if a rush of business, such as goes on in our own large towns, were to come that way. Southey, in one of his letters from Portugal, tells an amusing story of an English sailor who happened to see a fire in Lisbon. Assistance came late, and the house burnt slowly. “Confound it all!” cried he; “there is no spirit in this country. Why, we should have had a dozen houses burnt down in London by this time!” CHAPTER V PORTUGUESE CHILDREN