The travelers occasionally fell in with peasants singly, or in parties on the road; and L'Isle, prompted by the ladies, let few of them pass without exchanging some words, which were easily drawn out; for English uniforms, and ladies so evidently foreigners, excited much curiosity, especially in the women. Struck with the air of comfort common among these people, and the marks of fertility and cultivation in the country around them, Lady Mabel hoped that Moodie had at last met with something to please him; so she asked the opinion of that high authority on the rural prospect and the farming around them. But he at once condemned it as unskillful, wasteful, and slovenly; in short, just what was to be looked for in this benighted land. "What a pity it is, Moodie, you cannot speak Portuguese," said Lady Mabel; "you might seize many a chance of giving these benighted people a valuable hint, particularly how to ferment their wine, and press their olives." "I am sure," replied Moodie, "I could make as sour wine and rancid oil as the best of them, and they make no other." "You are a fault-seeking traveler," said Lady Mabel; "and so will find nothing to please you, while I enjoy all around me, and see nothing to find fault with, except the abominable custom of the women riding astride on their _burras_, which I am glad to see is not universal." "Nay, my lady, the country pleases me well enough. The pasturage is poor and parched, yet the oxen are fine in spite of their monstrous horns; and I see corn land that might yield good oats or barley in Scotland. The land is well enough; it is the people I find fault with." "Moodie's verdict on Portugal," said L'Isle, "can be summed up in four little words: '_Bona terra, mala gens_.'" "What pleasure," continued Moodie, not heeding the interruption, "can a Christian man find in traveling in a land where the people grovel in ignorance and a besotted superstition, which manifests that God has given them over to a reprobate heart. I cannot speak their language; I can only look on their wanderings in the dark, and think of the wrath to come." "And so here is a missionary lost!" Mrs. Shortridge exclaimed. "But, according to Moodie's favorite dogma," said L'Isle, "were he gifted with the purest and most eloquent Portuguese, or had he the gift of St. Francis Xavier, who, when thrown among any strange people, was soon found exhorting them in their own tongue, he could be to this people only a prophet of evil. You say that they are given over to a state of reprobation. Do you, like a great English philosopher, believe in election and reprobation by nature?" "Not exactly; nor do I know any thing of your English philosopher; but since I have been among these people, I have seen much to lead my thoughts that way. And we have example for it. Had not God his chosen people of old? And the seven nations of Canaan, were they not swept off as utterly reprobate from the face of the earth?"