The prevalence of granite is noticeable everywhere. The fields are divided from the path by granite walls, gate-posts, trellis standards, and even telegraph poles are slender granite monoliths, and the cottages themselves are granite built, solid and weather-proof. Many people meet us on their way to Braga: men in velvet jackets, wide, brown, homespun trousers, often with inserted patterns of other coloured cloth, and broad brimmed hats; the women, gay with bright kerchiefs over head and shoulders, but all barefooted, and many carrying poised upon their heads the slender red water jars, the fashion of which has known no change since the time when the legions of Augustus ruled the Celts and Suevians with iron hand from Bracara Augusta. Ox-carts slowly toil along, the bowed necks of the bullocks bearing above them the elaborately carved _canga_, here seen at its best. And still the road lies mainly upward through the keen pure air, the mountain slopes below and around us green with pine forests, and above us the eternal grey granite boulders. The land is bathed in a flood of sunlight, with here and there upon the widespread slopes and valleys the dark shadow of a passing cloud. Even up here amidst the masses of granite the fruit-laden vine persists, covering and embracing with its reaching tendrils poplars, oaks, and olives on the sheltered slopes, whilst the proud pines alone, towering on the exposed surfaces, defy the creeper’s insidious caress. At length the high pass of the Falperra range is crossed, and before us spreads a vast fertile plain, with villages and homesteads scattered across its bosom. Soon the grey boulders disappear from around us, and the air grows softer, though granite still supplies the place of wood by the roadside. The fields of maize are usually not above an acre in extent, and are bordered everywhere by vine-clad poplars. It is clear to see that the little farms are for the most part cultivated by the owners and by hand labour, for no yard of tillable soil is left to waste. It is market day at Taipas, and flocks of picturesque husbandmen and their womenkind are wending their way into the village from distant hillside hamlets and lonely granite granges. It is a gaily clad and prosperous-looking crowd that chaffer and bargain for their herds of thin porkers, their vegetables, fruit, red clay pottery, and flaring textiles; all spread out to the best advantage beneath the trees of the market-place and by the shady wayside. The women almost invariably carry upon their heads in long spacious baskets the merchandise they buy or sell, be it live-stock, produce, yarn for weaving, or household stuff; and as invariably is the burden covered with a snowy cloth, and the woman herself is clean, well-fed, and upstanding.