The city is the finest I have seen in Europe, barring Paris only. The public buildings are works of art and you see splendid architecture everywhere. The street cars are the most modern I have seen since leaving home, but why shouldn’t they be? I was sitting in a car the other night and happened to look around at the advertisements when I alighted on the builder’s name, “John Stephenson, Elizabeth, N.J.” It made me homesick to see the familiar name. I didn’t hesitate to tell some of the Portuguese sitting alongside me that Elizabeth was my home town, and they seemed very much interested. I was taken through one fine building yesterday by a very distinguished-looking gentleman, elderly and good-natured, who showed a lot of interest in me and who introduced me to the Lord Mayor of the place and to some of the Cabinet members. He himself is a member of the Cabinet and one of the best-known men in Portugal, I later learned. I walked through some of the streets with him and his gold-headed cane, and almost everybody bowed to him or looked at him with awe. He understood English very well and told me a whole lot of the history of the country. As a plain American gob I got all I deserved, and then some. This is a great old town. I suppose you have heard of the revolution that is going on here. We came just in time to see the skirmishes that are featured daily. A funny thing occurred last night. We were loafing along one of the main avenues when we came to a big bulletin in front of a newspaper office. About a thousand people were gathered in front of it and reading a notice. To catch your eye there was printed a huge hand holding a dagger dripping with blood, and beneath it the announcement of another episode of the revolution which was scheduled to take place on the following Saturday afternoon. Some class to this burg. They are not satisfied with trouble as it comes along, but even advertise it in advance. We are all going uptown to see a bull-fight on Sunday. They have them two afternoons a week, but we have picked Sunday as we want to take in part two of the revolution as duly announced for to-morrow. In spite of the political rough-house the city is really wonderful and we are very lucky to be laid up here, even if we do miss out on a few weeks of the war. The only thing that gets me is how the deuce to talk this Portuguese lingo. We were all learning French very rapidly and can get along O.K. in that language, but the stuff these people patter is simply terrible to make out. Here we have to turn to and learn a third language, and by the time we return to God’s country we ought to be linguists of note.