The male fish-sellers of Lisbon are for a wonder even more picturesque than the women; for here on the Tagus the seafarers of the south are first noticeable, quite distinct in racial characteristics as they are from those of the north. These Lisbon fishermen go barefooted, which the poorest men of the north never do, they wear breeches only to the knee, girt by a crimson sash, and the hanging tasselled bag-cap falls and waves over their shoulder as they loup along with a peculiar springing gait under a long flexible pole balanced transversely across the shoulders, at each end of which a flat, shallow basket of fish is suspended. The vegetable market adjoining that devoted to fish is a brilliant sight in this favoured land. Heaps of scarlet pimentos and tomatoes are flanked by enormous yellow gourds, and mountains of purple grapes incredibly cheap, pomegranates, and big luscious pears jostle piles of humbler vegetables of the kitchen, and some of the groups of bright-coloured produce seem to reproduce the old pictures of the mythical cornucopia overflowing with all the best fruits of the earth. It is a long and tiring walk from here to Belem, but two lines of electric trams go thither, one along the river-bank and the other by the parallel route past Alcantara, and either will serve our turn. Belem is now but a suburb of Lisbon, continuous lines of houses covering the two miles of the route. There still remains, however, something of distinction in this royal village, full of memories as it is of Portugal’s great day of power and wealth. For here it was that at length the dream came true, and those long vigils of the Fortunate King on the savage peak of Cintra were rewarded by the coming of Vasco da Gama to the squat, sturdy old tower of Belem, that had been in his yearning thoughts through so many trials and dangers. King Manuel greeted his great subject, who had brought to his native land the potentiality of wealth illimitable, here in the village of Belem, at the mouth of the Tagus; and as the explorer stepped ashore, the king, overjoyed at his coming, swore to build upon that very spot a Jeronomite monastery splendid enough to be worthy even of that great occasion. And he kept his word; for two years afterwards, in 1500, the first course was laid of a building which surpasses all others in its particular style, and in some respects is one of the most remarkable ecclesiastical structures in the world.