arabesques. The patterns are traditional, handed down from time immemorial, and usually consist of involved geometrical and curvilinear designs; sometimes, but not often, with a cross introduced in the centre, and with a row of little bristle brushes as an extra adornment along the top. A glance at this elaborate piece of ox furniture will show that its decoration is of Moorish origin, and the _canga_ itself may be the survival of the high ox yoke still seen in some oriental countries. To complete the quaint picture of the universal ox team, for this part of Portugal is not a country of horses or mules, the dress of the small teamster must be described. The boy’s breeches usually do not reach below the knee, the rest of the legs and feet being bare; a jacket of brown homespun is slung upon one shoulder, except at night or during the cold winter days of December and January, when it is worn, and the shirt, open at the neck and breast, leaves much of the upper part of the body exposed. The headgear is peculiar. It is nearly always a knitted stocking bag cap, something like an old-fashioned nightcap, with a tassel at the end of the bag which hangs down the back or upon the shoulder of the wearer, its colour being sometimes green and red, but more frequently black. The boy, like his similarly garbed elders, takes life very seriously, but neither he nor they seem sad or depressed. There is here none of the squalid misery or whining mendicancy that are so distressing to strangers in Spain and Southern Italy, for the Portuguese of the north is a sturdy, self-respecting peasant, who works hard and lives frugally upon his three testoons (1_s._ 3_d._) per day; and so long as he can earn his dried stockfish, his beans, bread, and grapes, with a little red wine to drink, he scorns to beg for the indulgence of his idleness. These are the people, and their social betters of the same race, whom a sudden flash of sympathy brought closer to me, as in the pellucid golden sunlight all Oporto was spread before and beneath me, palpitating with life. The absence of vociferation and vehemence in the people did not mean sulkiness or stupidity, but was the result of the intense earnestness with which their daily life was faced; their unregarding aloofness towards strangers was not rudeness, but the highest courtesy which bade them avoid obtrusive curiosity; and soon I learnt to know that their cold exterior barely concealed a disinterested desire to extend in fullest measure aid and sympathy to those who needed them. In all my wanderings I have never met, except perhaps in Norway, a peasantry so full of willingness to show courtesy to strangers without thought of gain to themselves as these people of north Portugal, almost pure Celts as they are, with the Celtic innate kindliness of heart and ready sympathy, though, of course, with the Celtic shortcomings of jealousy, inconstancy, and distrust.