Everywhere the flowers trail over the walls of villas, and the high palms within rock softly in the heliotrope scented breeze. Very beautiful it is; but the gardens belong to other people, and are jealously closed by stone walls and iron gates. From above them, at hundreds of points all over Cintra, you may command views of gardens of tropical luxuriance; but without permission of the wealthy owners you may not enter them. Cintra’s beauty is not free like the sacred wood of Bussaco, where you may wander at your will through purely sylvan scenery that not even Cintra can surpass. The grandeur of the towering Moorish stronghold on its crest of grey boulders is more imposing than anything Bussaco can show, and the interior of some of the highly cultivated private gardens of Cintra are as fine as any in Europe; but, so far as the enjoyment of the mere traveller is concerned, I am inclined to agree with the opinion of those who hold that Cintra’s fame is quite equal to its merits. Beckford had very much to do with it. His friends the Marialvas were amongst the first of the Portuguese aristocracy, and owed the large palace of Seteaes, where Byron and some guide-books erroneously say that the humiliating convention of Cintra was signed by the victorious English generals. Beckford’s visits to them and to the court at Cintra inspired him with an enthusiastic admiration for the place, and his letters are full of references to its beauty. To the immensely wealthy and eccentric young Englishman desires and their accomplishment ever went hand in hand, and Beckford purchased a picturesque valley and slopes of the mountain some two miles from the town round the shoulder of the hill towards the west. Here he built an eccentric house, partly in the Moorish style, and here he displayed the virtuoso tastes and exotic luxury which afterwards made Fonthill famous.[4]