A Year in Portugal, 1889-90

Preface

. The following journal was written during a rapid journey to Portugal and a year's residence in Lisbon and Cintra. It also covers a month spent in a trip to Rome and Gibraltar and Seville. I have not en deavored to discuss elaborately the objects I have seen, but to give a view of the life of an American Minister abroad, and to let light in upon the condition of Portugal, to which Court I was accredited. The advantages one enjoys who travels in Europe with a commission as a representative of the United States, or any other power, are great ; and I have been en couraged to believe that I have familiarly witnessed many a scene which I should not have enjoyed had I been present as a private citizen. The knowledge of Portugal, moreover, is not extensive, and I have been strongly inclined to sketch a country which has a most delightful climate and most charming scenery, is full of romantic traditions, and has been the theatre of some of the most remarkable events in history.

From the days of Dom Henriques to the days of Dom Carlos, Portugal has contributed a large share of the con tentious history of Europe ; and now, after fifty years of peace, it enjoys an opportunity to become a most important kingdom. If this journal conveys, even in a small degree, the pleasure I enjoyed in the beauti ful scenery of Portugal and in viewing the memorials of its greatness, I shall be content. George B. Coring. V CONTF.NTS.

307 INDEX

Chapter I. London To Lisbon

June 17th.— I left New York for Eisbon, as U. S. Minister to Portugal, on the 8th of June, and arrived this morning in Eondon, after the usual passage of eight days to Southampton in the Elbe, and three hours' rail to the metropolis. The sea is the same from one end to the other ; but the land varies with every mile, and indicates the character of the people who inhabit it. From Southampton to London we passed through a most charming country, fresh with June vegetation, cultivated to the highest degree — a market garden from one city to the other. If this were England, no one could ask for a more joyous land. The endeavor to make the island a garden has not been pursued with enthusiasm, and the fine cultivation and thrifty people and comfortable dwellings of this southern section is the exception and not the rule.

It was a charming morning in early summer when we made our journey through England, and were borne into the whirl of Eondon to witness the refreshing bustle and intensity of the town after the idle life of the sea. To debark from our compartment, to shake hands with our friends who had accompanied us across the Atlantic, to reach the hotel and find apartments, was the work of a minute. Eondon was very full of strangers, the Ascot and the coming exhi bition at Windsor having crowded it to overflowing. While I rested after my journey, my family went to Westminster Abbey, bound to be introduced to Eondon without delay, and determined to begin with the glory of the town. They returned to our apartments radiant with the spirit of the Abbey, eloquent over its beauty, and conversant with the names of poets and scholars, statesmen, heroes, and kings buried there.

There was a service which charmed the Episcopal side of my family, and, altogether, their visit was most successful, while I was left to remember that Canon Kingsley commenced his journey in America with a charming lecture in Salem on Westminster Abbey, that we gave him a banquet at the Essex Institute, and that Dean Stanle}- introduced himself to an Ameri can audience with his admirable speech at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary ofthe landing of John Endicott at Naumkeag. I shall probably spend a few days here, not with the hope of getting even a bird's-eye view of London or a glimpse into its society or a taste of its quality. There is too much for a lifetime. And, moreover, I rather long to get away and betake myself to my quiet sphere of duty in Lisbon, where I can take in the situation en tirely, and where there is but one attraction, I am told, — the lazy luxury of climate and scenery and repose, and what Whittier called so charmingly, ' ' Old endeavor and achievement, romance and song."

Amidst all the smoke and filth of the city, I was Struck with the neatness of the people. Every man who pretended to wear a shirt wore a clean one. Clean boots, clothes, cravats were conspicuous every where. The servants, with their white collars and neck-cloths and black coats — the regalia of valetdom in England, — the clean table-cloths in the eating-houses, the clean floors and walls, and the clean well-arranged shops, bade defiance to the smoky air and the dingy, cloudy, dripping sky. The well-defined orders of soci ety are impressed upon you every hour. The carriage with its coronet, the hackney-coach, and the street cab all have their place. As a buyer, the seller always treats you with respect ; as an eater at the table of a hotel or restaurant, no jest of yours is recognized, no attention is expected, no acknowledgment is offered by the spruce waiters who stand around you.

The spending of money in London teaches you much about English society. It is worth nothing and it is worth everything. To those who have it, its temptations are powerless ; to those who have it not, the smallest representation of the circulating medium is perfectly satisfactory. With the traders and business men it has very small capacity to express value. You cannot buy anything of high quality at a reasonable rate. You can devour half a sovereign in a twinkling. Gold weighed against bread, necessities, luxury, and pleasure sinks into insignificance. But when it is applied to the other phase of society, its character changes at once. For the relief of a beggar, a penny is omnipotent. You can avail yourself of the popular modes of conveyance for next to nothing. Any article stamped with poverty, or applied to its uses, seems to have no pecuniary value affixed to it.

In the common restaurant, beef and beer, enough for a wood-sawyer, cost about fourpence — the same beer and beef, under the Royal Arms, is invaluable. This is all significant. It would disgust a peer to wear a jerkin costing a couple of shillings, while he pays five pounds for a jacket no better. London presents the most extraordinary contrasts. From the bustle of business you can step at once into the most delightful seclusion. Its parks, which you come upon unexpectedly, afford rural retreats to the ear stunned, and the foot wearied, and the eye dazzled with the noise and stony hardness and constantly changing crowd of the streets. The fine roads of these parks afford admirable opportunity for exercise to the English gentlemen and their horses. On the green feed flocks of sheep to give an air of domestic comfort to the scene.

The tired citizen breathes their invigorating air, and the luxurious traveller re poses upon the richness of the scenery. The retreats of students and professional men are quiet and ap propriately secluded in this busy, noisy city, whose incessant hum, resounding through these places of re pose, adds effect to their subduing silence. Lincoln's Inn Fields, where are the museums of John Hunter and Sir John Sloane and the Inns of the court, give a sequestered spot where the talent of English physicians and barristers may be cultivated without disturbance and their scholastic tastes may be cherished. I felt as if a new life was breathed into me when I rambled beyond the noise and filth of Newgate into the refinement of this quarter of the city. I have spent a few hours in the House of Commons — a dull and most uninteresting session, where I saw Bradlaugh, who came into the gallery to meet me, and who inquired after his old friends in America.

Last evening I had a long and most interesting conversation with Mr. Gladstone after a dinner given him by Mr. Carnegie. I asked him how long it would be be fore a confederation would be formed in the United Kingdom. In his endeavors to answer this question, which I have found it very difficult for any Englishman to answer, he entered upon a discussion of American affairs and the character of our Constitution. He ex pressed his usual admiration of our institutions and of the policy on which our government is founded. The idea that our civil organization was founded on an accumulation of facts and popular necessities, and grew out of them, had impressed itself on his mind, and he seemed inclined to believe that, while the theorists and doctrinaires were opposed to our federal organization, the most practical man of his time, the best farmer, the bravest warrior, the most successful land-surveyor, secured the adoption of the charter of our rights and privileges, and that it was Washington alone who gave us our Constitution.

He said he had watched with great interest Mr. Bryce' s excursion to America to give a sketch of our institutions ; and when I ventured to refer to De Tocqueville as having written, half a century ago, the best analysis of our gov ernment and laws, he remarked that De Tocqueville was a genius as great as Burke in his use of language and in his power of investigation. Mr. Gladstone is a most agreeable talker and takes care not to monopo lize the conversation. He resembles the best type of our New England character in form and feature and cast of mind. In my youth I knew an old Unitarian minister who had been ostracized and driven from his parish in Coventry, Connecticut, on account of the liberality of his opinions iu the early days of the con test between the believers in the Unity and the believers in the Trinity — a sturdy old Puritan, who was a patron of letters, was poor, but helped the bright boys of his neighborhood to get an education, had a broad face and broad shoulders, talked moderately, and was named Abiel Abbot, one of a long line of educators, scholars, and philanthropists.

And this worthy and representative New Englander, Mr. Gladstone strongly resembled. The type is a good one for a free and non conforming people, but a poor one for a conformist. The party at dinner was most distinguished — Sir Edwin Arnold, John Morley, who introduced us to the gallery of the House, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, Mr. William Black, Mrs. Morley and Miss Pullman, Mr. and Mrs. Lawton, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lincoln, Gen. Lloyd Bryce, Mrs. John A. Logan, Mrs. Commodore Garri son, and Consul-General and Mrs. New. Mr. Carnegie sent his keen impulse through the assembly, and his sweet wife performed her part with great grace and dignity. June 20th. — This morning Mr. B. F. Stevens took me to the House of the Rolls, in which are kept the records of the kingdom and which contains documents of rare value.

Few persons are admitted, and it was only at the request of Mr. Stevens that I secured a permit. I had a most charming genealogical talk with my guide, and saw Domesday Book, upon which all eyes are not allowed to rest. I saw the oath taken by Queen Vic toria on her coronation, a clear, beautifully written sheet, with questions and answers definitely arranged, among which was an oath to support the Church of England, and Ireland now disestablished. Victoria's signature is rough and manly, not the handwriting of a fashionable young lady, but the sturdy and unpretentious work of a farmer. The Rolls itself is most interesting, standing as it does near the old church and but a few feet from all that remains of Dryden's house, now nearly demolished. An invitation to attend Lady Salisbury's reception at the Foreign Office and that of Mr. Morgan to occupy his box at the opera gave us good opportunities to catch a rapid view of society as we flew through the city.

The reception was most beautiful. The great staircase, the wealth of flowers, the abundance of dia monds, the multitude of dowagers, made a most distin guished display. Lord Salisbury is a sturdy son of England, and Lady Salisbury has a most gracious and gentle manner. I dined with the Historical Society, a body of learned gentlemen, and at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain, where we met at dinner a most thoroughly American party, and where I was charmed with the grace of Mrs. Chamberlain, who represents so well the renowned beauty of old Salem. The exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society, its semi-centennial, took place at Windsor while I was in London, and I witnessed with great satisfaction the universal interest felt in its success by all classes of peo ple and the high value set upon it as an encouragement to agriculture.

They are not obliged to defend cattle shows in England. The season here has been good thus far. A good hay crop and large crops of potatoes, grain, and roots rejoice the heart of the farmers. The crop of wheat was estimated at thirty bushels to the acre. The farming industry of England is always interesting. From her flocks and herds the United States breeders have drawn their most valuable blood for every purpose to which animals are devoted, and the English farmer has received for his sales of cattle and horses, sheep and swine, a larger remuneration than for any other branch of his business. I learn that the sales of pure-bred stock during the past year, both of cattle and horses, have been most satisfactory. Early in the year the sales of Shire-horses were large, the most important of which was the sale of Mr. Gilley, at which the Duke of Westminster paid five hundred guineas for Stanton Hero, and the Prince of Wales three hundred guineas for the Pride of Fleet.

At the Shire horse sale nearly ,£10,000 was received at public auction, and during the show the private sales amounted to about £4,000. For Hackneys, Suffolks, Cleveland Bays, and Clydesdales the trade has been good. Cattle also sold well. At forty-three sales of Short-horns 2,323 head were sold for a total of ,£76,570 145. 6d., or an average of 19... 3^., each, being a large advance over the prices of 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888. In Scotland the sales of pure-bred cattle resulted in an average of ,£22 155. per head being obtained for Short-horns, and of 1 8s. for those ofthe Polled Angus breed. Besides these a good business has been done in the other leading breeds, the Herefords more especially. The great est feature of the year, however, has been the growing popularity of the Irish cattle, the Kerrys and the Dex ter-Kerrys, many of which have been brought into England.

Herds of these small cattle have been established at Windsor and Sandringham, and so great has been the demand for them that the Royal Dublin Society have determined to establish a herd-book of the breed. Sales of sheep have also been very satisfactory, and prices for all breeds have been better than for many years. In the Windsor show no less than .£150 were given for three Lincoln sheep, the first-, second-, and third-prize winners in the shearling ram class, having been purchased to go to Victoria at that price. The demand both from home and foreign buyers was largely increased over former years, the breeders of some varieties, such as the Hampshire Downs, being encouraged to make a great increase in their flocks, and to establish a flock register. I think the Shropshires still hold the foremost rank among all the sheep of England.

The establishment of a Board of Agriculture and the appointment of a secretary who is a member of the Ministry, have given a new impulse to agriculture in England. The command of the Queen to Mr. Jacob Wilson, the honorary director of the societ3r's shows, to dine at Windsor Castle, and to receive at her hands the honor of knighthood, her success in taking prizes at the Birmingham and Smithfields fat-stock shows, be sides several of the breed championships, and a large number of other prizes, have encouraged the English farmer to pursue with more than usual zeal an occupa tion which has not of late years been distinguished for its success. The presence of the Queen and the Royal Family at the Windsor Exhibition was impressive, and gave great eclat to the occasion. She drove through the grounds with the Prince of Wales in most gorgeous style, followed by a great body of outriders and the members of the Royal Family, in stately array.

The Queen looked cheerful, substantial, and proud of her surroundings. The Prince of Wales is growing old. The whole scene represented well the solid power of England. I have received an invitation to the dedication of the national monument at Plymouth— not Plymouth in Eng land, but that more sacred Plymouth, where the genius of the English nation found a home, and made that nation immortal. I have felt it to be appropriate for me to send the following reply from the land ofthe fathers and from those " sweet homes " they loved so well, — Written on board the Elba. " To the Committee: — I have received your courte ous invitation to attend the celebration ofthe monument erected to the memory of those who landed at Plymouth two hundred and sixty-nine years ago, and brought with them the principles of state and society upon which the American republic is founded.

"Were I on the soil which they made sacred and immortal, and to which I am bound \>y every tie of blood and patriotism, I should accept the invitation with gratitude and eagerness. -But I am making my way to the land which they left to find a home for their free thought and their untrammelled conscience, and am traversing the path which they bravely pursued to high accomplishment and high service ; and I can only express my thanks to you for remembering me on this occasion, and my reverence and admiration for the work which they performed. I am bound for their native shores ; and if an}*- one doubts their defiant faith and courage, let him visit their imperial home ; if he doubts their resolution, let him sail their stormy seas ; if he doubts their wisdom and foresight, let him survey the empire which they founded, and the nationality which they inspired.

" The story of the Pilgrims has been so often told that it has become as familiar as human speech. But are we not in danger of forgetting what our history and our nation would be without them ? They brought to our shores as a family tradition the story of reform in England, wrought out by their own ancestors, the policy of a representative government, the religious congregation as the corner-stone of a Christian church, a well-defined faith superior to theory and speculation, a magistrate without a crown, a bishop without a mitre. The foundation of their state was a church, which was built upon a pure heart as the rock of salvation, and re quired no forms and ceremonies to point the way to the throne of God. To be a citizen of this colony, whose monument you have now completed, was to be a Chris tian in word and deed, and from the hour when the compact was signed on board the Mayflower until this day, the spirit which has animated the American people through all ranks and orders, through all de nominations and forms of faith, has been guided by Christian rules and devoted to a Christian purpose.

There may be contending creeds and parties, but the object is the same, and the individual is never lost in the multitude, nor is personal independence ever sur rendered to the decree of an organization. American individualism which displays itself everywhere, which absorbs all nationalities and never emigrates, has its roots in Pilgrim soil, and spreads its branches, laden with the fruit of the tree of knowledge, wherever the purest American institutions are found. " Believe not that the Pilgrim, whether Separatist or Puritan, planted this tree in doubt or gloom. If he had no music or song, he had enjoyed none in his old home. If he had no drama, the dramatist and the poet had no commanding place in his native land of ambition and conquest. If he had no art in the wilder ness, he had not known statues and paintings in his universities and cloisters.

He came forth from a severe and intense people, the most intense and severe of them all. And yet, in the absence of what in our day we call æsthetics, I am unwilling to believe the life of those heroic people was a life of darkness and gloom. Song and story and art indeed illumine human life, but there is an exultation and a triumphant joy in heroic endeavor which outshine all external light, and are not beclouded by trial or misfortune. A hard faith and a severe rule of conduct may not create a gloomy life, and we know that they gave the Pilgrim a jubi lant strength and a shining victory, for which no song or comedy or device of man could have inspired him. He had his hard sorrows, but his cloud had its bow and its silver lining. ' ' Our land is full of monumental structures now. A loyal people has erected them everywhere to its loyal dead.

The prosperous sons of self-sacrificing and de voted fathers build libraries and churches to their mem ory on the spots once made sacred by the family hearth stones. We immortalize those who taught and prayed for universal freedom, and those who fought for it, and now you complete a monument to mark the spot where the character of a great people was established on the foundation of religion, education, and self-sacrifice." In a few days we leave England, with all its associa tions and memories and greatness and feebleness, and go on one stage more towards our destination. To go from Boston to London is like going from one Ameri can city to another. The tastes, the manners, the lan guage, the traditions, are the same ; and it is into the literature of England that the American looks for those works of thought which have made him what he is, and into the records of England for those names which are dear to him at home.

England contemplates America now with respect, wonders at her growth, is astonished, as Mr. Gladstone said, at her personal for tunes, is amazed at her public finance. The two nations may be rivals, but they should be friends. fune 2z/.th. — We have been two days in Paris. The journey from London was rapid and comfortable, and the Channel instead of being tempestuous was lively and inspiriting. Our rooms at Meurice's were ready for us, and we entered upon Parisian life promptly. An early call on Mr. Whitelaw Reid, the American Minister, made an opening, and after very courteous advice and invitations from him, we began to roam. Paris covers a large surface, and the drives are long, and we were delightfully occupied until it was time to go to the Chamber of Deputies, where we listened to a most furious debate on a letter which a son of a senator had written in praise of Boulanger, and which had been intercepted.

The storm was great and very amusing. A French orator is always demonstrative ; a mad French orator is fascinating. On Saturday evening we went to a reception which followed a dinner given by the American Minister to Mrs. Levi P. Morton. The house of the Minister is really a palace in size and decoration. Miss Eames, who started out from Maine and has captivated the musical world, sang charmingly, accompanied by a most admirable tenor, whose name I have forgotten if I ever heard it. We met many of our Washington acquaintances, Count Lewenhaupt and the Countess, Aristarchi Bey, Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman, Mr. Otis of New York, Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Jay. M. Spuller, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, entertained me with a long speech about his experiences in America at the time of the Yorktown celebration, and expressed himself as delighted with our country.

Yesterday we breakfasted with friends at St. Germain. A ride of forty minutes by rail brought us to the his toric spot with its old palaces and its interesting neighborhood. We breakfasted in a pretty arbor, and afterwards we drove through that beautiful wood for which St. Germain is so famous; and the terrace from which the view of the valley of the Seine and on to Paris is as fine as nature and art can shape it, and as historic as man has been able to make it. Last evening we dined with Mrs. Sherwood, who chaperones the beautiful daughter of Mr. C. P. Huntington, and has a kind word for all Americans. The company, consisting of ten persons, was most agreeable. I listened long to the conversation of an elderly gentle man who was full of information on Suez and Panama canals, agriculture in France, French politics, French incomes, and French manners.

He is a devoted friend of Boulanger, and evidently feels that he will triumph in the end ; and he informed me that the Minister of the Interior had said the scenes of '93 should be enacted again rather than have Boulanger to rule over France. He expects victory for Boulanger from a combination of Orleanists, Bonapartists, and dissatisfied Republicans, mixed in what proportion he did not inform me. To attend the Exposition was a matter of necessity, and we took an early hour for the excursion. Familiar as I am with such scenes, I was deeply impressed with the extent and beauty of this. It was not as broad and free and open and, as it were, natural as the Centen nial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, but in wealth of construction I am compelled to think it surpasses it. There are no charming hills and valleys, no great trees, no widespread landscape, but the old Eastern nationalities have poured forth their art and industry in surprising abundance ; England is strong, massive, solid, and enduring in her great exhibition of ceramics, manufactures, and machinery of every description ; France abounds ; everything that can conduce to the luxury of life she has gathered here.

There is one Sevres vase worth coming to Europe to see. There are groups of statuary, graceful, gross, inspiring, and the reverse ; boudoirs furnished like the garden of Eden ; gigantic figures of heroes, lions, and griffins ; brocades which would have set our colonial damsels wild ; and decorations more beautiful than even the ceilings of the American Capitol are in the eye of an admiring citizen. And then the laces of Brussels, the beautiful work of thousands of weary fingers ; the gorgeous glass of Aus tria and Hungary ; the intelligent machinery of Eng land and the United States ; the mounted savagery of the forests of Russia ; the swarthy beauty of Arabia and Persia ; the quaint productions of the Swiss ; the agricultural machinery, and well-ordered stables, and dairy arrangements, and model farm-steadings, in min iature, from France and Germany ; and gilded and carved furniture of Italy ; and textiles of Spain ; and wines and primitive implements of Portugal ; and the mineral and forest wealth of South America ; — all this and more in most fascinating collection and arrangement filled me with wonder and admiration.

I was really introduced to human ingenuity and skill, and was more than ever impressed with man's devotion to beauty and luxury. All philosophy and theology and social speculation and poetry and politics were driven out of my head by the material splendor before me. Our trip along the Champ de Mars to the Eiffel Tower, for scenery and a lunch, was by no means the least inter esting experience. It is useless to try to describe this tower. The work is as grand as a mountain. They call it a thousand feet high ; but it seems to be five thousand. A tall poplar-tree has not more grace, Mount Washington not a firmer base. It is the Wash ington Monument, and the Susquehanna Bridge, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Suspension Bridge at Niagara, and the dome of St. Peter's all crowded into one. We went in an elevator, a huge car lifted by water machinery, to the top of the first platform, higher far than Bunker Hill Monument, and had a most re freshing luncheon, a bottle of chablis, a bit of roast beef, a salad, and bread and butter — with a view of Paris before us never seen until this tower was built.

All the great historic buildings, the hill of Montmartre, the great Arc de Triomphe, the gilded dome of the In valides, the towers of Notre Dame, stood around, and the gardens and groves and dwellings of Paris filled the scene. The view is most impressive, suggestive, and in teresting. There is so much life in Paris, — such a bright sky, such invigorating air, such marks of the saint, such footsteps ofthe devil, such perfection of beauty and the beast, one wonders, admires, and is bewildered. For myself I have been very busy — not in visiting old scenes and old buildings, — but I have seen many interesting people, and have greatly enjoyed strolling over this gay, bright, irrepressible city. My commission goes far towards my enjoyment. Official position is much esteemed here. We dine to-night with Mr. and Mrs. Reid, and to-morrow we go to a garden-party given by President Carnot at the Elysees.