It is impossible, of course, to pass on to others the full measure of
enjoyment felt by an appreciative traveller in a happy trip through an
unhackneyed pleasure-ground; but it has occurred to me that some record
of my impressions on the way may lead other Englishmen to seek for
themselves a repetition of the pleasure and benefit which I experienced
in the course of a short holiday trip through Portugal from north to
south. I am not pretending to write a guidebook: those that exist are
doubtless sufficient for all purposes, although I have intentionally
refrained from consulting any of them, in order that my impressions
might not be biassed, even unconsciously, by the opinions of others; nor
do I claim to speak of Portugal with the fulness of knowledge exhibited
by Mr. Oswald Crawford in his books on the country where he resided so
long. My object is rather to treat the subject from the point of view of
the intelligent visitor in search of sunshine, health, or relaxation; to
suggest from my own experience routes of travel and points of attraction
likely to appeal to such a reader as I have in my mind, and to warn him
frankly of the inevitable small inconveniences which he must be prepared
to tolerate cheerfully if he would enjoy to the full a holiday spent in
a country not as yet overrun by tourists who insist upon carrying
England with them wherever they go. If he will consent to “play the
game,” and not expect the impossible in such a country, I can promise my
traveller a voyage full of colour, interest, and novelty in this “garden
by the side of the sea,” where pines and palms grow side by side, and
the stern north and softer south blend their gifts in lavish luxuriance
beneath the happy conjunction of almost perpetual sunshine and moist
Atlantic breezes.
MARTIN HUME.
THROUGH PORTUGAL
I
OPORTO