Through the poverty-stricken looking village of Aljubarrota, where some questionable relics of the battle are exhibited for a consideration (though no one offers me wine, as they did to Beckford’s princely cavalcade), a few miles more brings me to a point, whence looking down on the right side of the ridge the town of Alcobaça is seen below, surrounded by miles of vineyards, touched now with bronze and crimson, for the vintage is nearly over, and a big hummock of a building over all, that I know is the famous Cistercian monastery, the sepulchre of so many princes of the ancient royal house of Portugal that I have travelled thus far to see. The church and monastery stand fronting a very extensive triangular praça, crossed by long avenues of acacias, and the first sight of the edifice is distinctly disappointing. An ordinary façade in the seventeenth-century, Spanish “Jesuit” style of the time of Philip IV., with white walls and yellow stone outlines, and flanked on both sides by monastery buildings of great extent in the same taste, or want of it, did not quite fulfil the hopes which Beckford’s description of the splendours of Alcobaça had aroused. It is true that the west door of the church somewhat redeemed it, for it was evidently the remains of the original front in pure unadorned Gothic. The whole edifice is raised above the surface of the praça upon a platform some ten feet high, and upon this parade the monks in old time were mustered to receive distinguished visitors. Beckford thus describes the reception of his own party— [Illustration: ON THE PRAÇA AT ALCOBAÇA.] “The first sight of this regal monastery is very imposing, and the picturesque well-wooded and well-watered village out of the quiet bosom of which it seems to rise relieves the mind from the sense of oppression the huge domineering bulk of the conventual buildings inspire. We had no sooner hove in sight, and we loomed large, than a most tremendous ring of bells of extraordinary power announced our speedy arrival. A broad hint from the Secretary of State recommending these magnificent monks to receive the Grand Prior and his companions with peculiar graciousness, the whole community, including fathers, friars and subordinates, at least four hundred strong, were drawn up in grand spiritual array on the vast platform before the monastery to bid us welcome. At their head the Abbot himself, in his costume of High Almoner of Portugal, advanced to give us a cordial embrace.” All is quiet enough now, for the monks are gone these seventy years, and the huge dilapidated edifice behind, forming a vast square, is partly occupied as a barrack, and the rest falling into ramshackle ruin. Nor is anything stirring in the prim little town, which has grown up around the wealthy foundation, and now lives placidly upon the produce of its vineyards.