The road then passes through dark pine-forests, carpeted with heather, and down to the little hamlet of Batalha. In its midst rises the vast old abbey, a perfect dream-abbey of grandeur and beauty, with its glorious west front and its fretted pinnacles and spires. The church inside is severe in character, but the light which streams through the richly coloured windows, stains the grand, simple columns with many hues, and the wealth of carving in the chapels and cloisters is a revelation of grace and lightness in the airy delicacy of its exquisite tracery. If Alcobaça, with its great kitchen and hospitable traditions, carries one’s thoughts back to the time when monks made merry there on the best of good cheer, Batalha, on the other hand, conjures up a vision of pious brethren living in sanctity and poverty, the dim aisles of their beautiful church echoing to the sound of holy chant and psalm. It was Philippa of Lancaster, Portugal’s English Queen, who first thought of building this beautiful monastery as a perpetual memorial of the victory of Aljubarrota. She and her husband, John the Great, are buried in the Founders Chapel, their stone figures lying hand in hand, beneath a canopy bearing the joint arms of England and Portugal. The Convent of Mafra, built by John V. as a thank-offering for the birth of a son, is another great monument of the past. It is some twenty or thirty miles to the north of Lisbon, and is less remarkable for its beauty than for its immense size. Even after gazing at its long façade, and wandering for hours through its endless courts and halls, you find it difficult to realize how huge it is. It is said to contain 2,500 doors and 5,200 windows; it took thirteen years to build--from 1717 to 1730--and at one time as many as 45,000 workmen were employed on it. Statues and busts adorn the building inside and out. Towers and pavilions rise above the roof, which is crowned by a dome, and the floors, walls and columns are of the most costly materials--rare marbles, porphyry, jasper, and other stones collected from all parts of the kingdom. It comprises a church, a monastery, a palace, and barracks, and cost over £4,000,000. This sum was raised by extra taxation, and put the final touch to the ruin and poverty of the country. Mafra is no great distance from one portion of the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras, the double range of hills which runs from the town of Alhandra on the Tagus in a north-westerly direction to the sea, and which was fortified and held by Wellington to protect Lisbon from the French. It was during the gradual retreat of the English and Portuguese army on this strong position that the Battle of Bussaco was fought. Bussaco is a name for English people to be proud of, for it was there that on September 27, 1810, Wellington defeated the French under Massena, “the spoilt child of victory,” as Napoleon called him.