and the rain now descends in torrents. Fortunately we are to halt here, and I cannot amuse myself better than by giving you a description of Santarem.

In magnitude and importance, this city ranks immediately after Oporto. Its origin is very remote. In ancient history it bears the name of SCALABIS. It now contains thirteen churches, fourteen convents, several hospitals, and an academy, founded in the year 1747, in which there are professors of history and belles lettres. Here are the ruins of a citadel, and remains of Moorish walls. Santarem makes a very considerable figure in the early history of the Portuguese monarchy.

In the year 1146 it became a conquest to the Moors, who retained it until they were expelled by King Alphonso, who obtained here a glorious victory. The whole force of the Moors, commanded by their King, Joseph, was entirely routed, their king being killed by a fall from his horse, just as the battle began. They immediately fled from the field, most of them returning into Africa.

Nor long his falchion in the scabbard slept,
His warlike arm increasing laurels reapt,
From Leyria's walls the baffled Ismar flies
And strong Arroncha falls his conquered prize.
That honor'd town through whose Elysian groves
Thy smooth and limpid wave, O Tagus, roves,

The illustrious SANTAREM confest his power,
And vanquish'd Mafra yields her proudest tower.
MICKLE'S LUSIAD, Book III.

This place now contains about eight thousand inhabitants. The streets are extremely narrow, and dirty to a degree. A great many of the churches, and a still greater: number of houses, are completely in ruins; and the whole place bears the marks of pristine grandeur, united to slow: but sure decay. The situation is noble indeed: the sum-: mit of a lofty hill, overlooking the Tagus down to its very mouth, and commanding a view of the metropolis.

I walked with my host this morning to a spot, from whence Santarem appears to great advantage. The point of sight is a Benedictine convent, on an eminence a little to the eastward of the town, from which it is separated by a deep ravine, enclosing the road leading to Abrantes. On the right are the towers and aspiring domes of Santarem. The Tagus, at present a shallow stream, winds beneath, amid huge banks of golden sands; on his further bank stretches a most fertile country, well clothed with wood, amid which you can just distinguish the ruined walls of Almeira.

On looking up the river to the left, the eye ranges over a prospect equally grand and magnificent. On this side,

the view is only bounded by the distant mountains of Abrantes and Villa Velha, the Alpine forms of which are amazingly grand, and mingle with the clouds. I have seen nothing to compare with this view, except that of the Forth from the ramparts of Stirling castle, which we have often contemplated together with so much rapture.

When the rain abates, I shall look about in the town, and send you an account of what I may observe. Mean

time adieu.

་

LETTER XXI.

A FESTIVAL DAY. PROCESSIONS OF MONKS.-MODE OF BEGGING PRACTISED BY THE MONASTIC ORDERS-ITS EFFECTS.

Santarem, 31st October, 1808.

THIS morning the rain ceased, and I walked over the town, but I have found nothing worthy of notice. Here and there indeed are some exquisite specimens of Gothic sculpture around the doors of a few churches; but no mass of building that claims particular attention.

At every step, we here meet misery and superstition. This is another of the few festival days in this country, and the streets have been covered all the morning with processions of monks and priests. It was truly ludicrous to see these sturdy fellows, all tricked out in tattered surplices, bawling, like Stentors, their hymns to the Virgin; at the same time that they were carefully picking their steps close to the walls of the houses, and when by accident they happened to make a false step a little towards

the middle of the street, souse they went at once up to the knees in mud.

Beggary in this country is carried to a most extraordinary height; but there are two distinct classes of mendicants in Portugal: the mendicants of indigence, misery, and starvation, and those of superstition, arrogance, and hypocrisy. They carry on an eternal competition with each other; and so unequal are the weapons with which they fight, and so different their mode of waging war on the public purse, that you daily find, in all the large towns of the kingdom, the beggars of indigence expiring in the very streets where their opponents are among the best fed and best lodged inhabitants.

The former, though perishing with hunger and cold, seldom prefers a request. He casts his watery eye on the first benevolent countenance he beholds, and in silence awaits the result of that appeal. If he receives charity, he is grateful; if not, he raises his eyes to Heaven, and steals away to the dark corner which shelters him from the wind.

But a very different mode is adopted by the latter: Collected in a body of five or six persons, they arm themselves with a crucifix, or a wooden image, or a picture,,