The Exchange is built upon the site of a disestablished Franciscan monastery, and cowering under the shadow of its modern magnificence there still stands the convent Church of St. Francis. The seventeenth century has left little of the original fifteenth-century church standing, and the interior is a mass of extravagantly rococo carved and gilt wood and other monstrosities; but in an ancient south transept chapel there is an altar-piece of interest in the style of Mantegna, though the sacristan ascribes it to some impossible artist of another school and century. Nothing, indeed, can equal the ignorance of, and apparent indifference to, antique and artistic objects in Portugal by the persons in charge of them. Even in national museums and historic buildings belonging to the Government, the guardians appear to have been chosen without the slightest regard to their fitness for understanding or describing the objects in their care, and the demeanour of the Portuguese people generally towards such objects is such as to force the conviction that, however proud they may be that their country has produced gems of art admired by strangers, they themselves have but a vague appreciation of their beauties or their merit. The precipitous street leading up from the Praça de Dom Pedro to the conspicuous Church of the Clerigos is gay with a line of the drapers’ shops, with the gaudy wares aflaunt, which appeal specially to the country folk who flock in with their produce to the picturesque market of the Anjo behind the church. Red and yellow, blue and green, strive for mastery from street kerb to parapet, for the stock is as much outside the shops as in; and under the blazing sun, with the eternally deep azure sky overhead, the feast of colour in the clear air is so lavish as to dazzle eyes accustomed to the low tones and soft outlines of England. But relief is near. Through the chaffering market, with its piles of luscious fruit and all the bounteous gifts of earth and sea spread temptingly before brightly clad country wenches with flashing black eyes, the wayfarer may pass but need not tarry; nor is it worth his while to penetrate into the over-florid eighteenth-century churches of the Clerigos and the Carmo, which lie in his way—for just beyond them is a beautiful sub-tropical garden where shady groves of palms invite to repose, and towering planes temper the glare with a soft haze of sea-green. Seated in a quiet nook, with leisure now to watch the passers-by closely, one is struck by the prosperous busy look of the working people. There is no undue noise, and a stranger is allowed to go his way without unwelcome attention; above all, marvellous to relate, beggars are rare, whilst the persistent, offensive, mendicancy, amounting often to sheer blackmail, which is a perfect plague in Spain, is here quite unknown. [Illustration: A SHOP IN OLD OPORTO.]