I passed the day succeeding my arrival principally in examining the town and its environs, and, as I strolled about, entering into conversation with various people that I met; several of these were of the middle class, shopkeepers and professional men; they were all Constitutionalists, or pretended to be so, but had very little to say except a few commonplace remarks on the way of living of the friars, their hypocrisy and laziness. I endeavoured to obtain some information respecting the state of instruction in the place, and from their answers was led to believe that it must be at the lowest ebb, for it seemed that there was neither book-shop nor school. When I spoke of religion, they exhibited the utmost apathy for the subject, and making their bows left me as soon as possible. Having a letter of introduction to a person who kept a shop in the market-place, I went thither and delivered it to him as he stood behind his counter. In the course of conversation, I found that he had been much persecuted whilst the old system was in its vigour, and that he entertained a hearty aversion for it. I told him that the ignorance of the people in religious matters had served to nurse that system, and that the surest way to prevent its return was to enlighten their minds: I added that I had brought a small stock of Bibles and Testaments to Evora, which I wished to leave for sale in the hands of some respectable merchant, and that if he were anxious to help to lay the axe to the root of superstition and tyranny, he could not do so more effectually than by undertaking the charge of these books. He declared his willingness to do so, and I went away determined to entrust to him half of my stock. I returned to the hostelry, and sat down on a log of wood on the hearth within the immense chimney in the common apartment; two surly looking men were on their knees on the stones; before them was a large heap of pieces of old iron, brass, and copper; they were assorting it, and stowing it away in various bags. They were Spanish contrabandistas of the lowest class, and earned a miserable livelihood by smuggling such rubbish from Portugal into Spain. Not a word proceeded from their lips, and when I addressed them in their native language, they returned no other answer than a kind of growl. They looked as dirty and rusty as the iron in which they trafficked; their four miserable donkeys were in the stable in the rear.