The Sun.
London, England, 1827-05-11 00:00:00

SANTAREM.

Santarem; which is a walled town, was
founded by the Moore, and was 'occasionally the
head-quarters both of the French and English
during the last war. It stands on :the " chain-
paign head of a steep wilderness," which over-
hangs the Tagus, and with its battlements and
towers form a fine object at a distance ; but
grievous was the disappointment as you ap-
proached the town. The entrance to the lower
town is by a miserable archway, which leads to
a square, where scarcely a human being was to
be seen. -One half of the houses were shut
up or crumbling into ruins, and the other
half hardly exhibited any symptoms of life.—
Here and there was a dark filthy shop with
an. old bareheaded woman, or a man with a
beard four days old, sitting listlessly at the
door, and in the interior was a bag of wine,
with a few. pieces of cold fried fish for sale.
Not One. house in fifty had a pane of glass in the
windows,
.there were no lamp posts, no foot-
paths. In •fact, no convenience of any descrip-
tion. After hunting about .for an hour and a
half, we at last found a testing place for the
night. A small room over a stable, with a bare
bed at each of the three corners, .and the door
at the other, was to serve the.purpose of dining-
room and bed-room. The waiter who wore a
red sash, as most of the carriers, muleteers, and
workmen here do, and had buckles in his shoes
and at his knees, was the most sleepy, imper-
turbable
dog I ever met with. " I should like
some oranges," said one. " There are none in
the house," was the answer. " Well, you have
lemons—make some lemonade." A shrug and
grimace intimated that this was out of the ques-
tion. However, after some urging and half an
hour's absence, he- returned with one lemon—
the, only one he could find in the place, though
at only a few yards' distance the trees were loaded
with them, and the room in which we were
sitting was perfumed with the fragrance of -their
blossoms. As he was a grave, staid, contem-
plative-looking man, and likely to have paid some
attention to what was going on in the country,
I. wished to know from him what he thought of
the Constitution. The only reply was, that he
did not even know what it was. The supper
was tolerable, and the bed, to our great asto-
nishment, quite clean. We were lulled to sleep-
by the tinkling of the mule-bells, the snoring of
the muleteers, and-the varied and incessant song
of the nightingale. There was no glass in the
windows to deaden her mellow strains, or shut
out the scented breeze ; and the window-shutters
were so full of chinks and holes, that it was a
matter of indifference whether they were closed
or not. Next morning we proceeded to the
top of the hill where the old town stands,
and were astonished to find such a scene of
desolation. Narrow, winding, steep streets,
with a few miserable-looking inhabitants—some
moving listlessly along, and. others looking at
them and us from the windows, were almost the
only objects that attracted notice. The site of
the caste is now a dreary 'scene of desolation,
and though there are still a great number of
houSes; they are nearly as destitute of inhabitants
as Pompeii or Herculaneum. The intervening
spaces and streets were covered with rank grass
and weeds, on which a stray mule or half-starved
ass was feeding: The convent and church are
the only bUildingS in repair. We entered the
church, where a priest, attended by a little boy,
was performing mass to empty walls. Swift's
definition of a parson preaching without an au-
dience, and addressing his clerk " Dearly beloved
Roger," occurred to every one. The walls of this
town were destroyed by the French on their retreat
from Portugal. When fully inhabited it might con-
tain 14,000 inhabitants, but I do not believe there
is at present half that number. Our troops passed it
on their march up the country, and were well
received by the inhabitants. Two triumphal
arches of wood were erected on the occasion, and
still remain. It has a college, but the number
of students is very small. There was a fair at
the time we passed, which continues for three
days. It commenced on Sunday, and every
good Protestant would have, been astonished and
scandalised to see such a mumber of priests at-
tending it on that day—examining the different
articles exposed for sale, and conversing on
worldly affairs with the shopmen and the people
who attended it. Most of the merchandise was of
the very worst description. Some coarse hard-
ware- and cottongoods were the only English
inanufactures I observed.

The Earl of Sefton entertained a distinguished
Party to dinner on Wednesday at his house in
Arlington-street, among whom were the Earl
and Countess of Jersey, Count Flahault, and
Lady Keith, Colonel Russell, Mr. Greville, Mr.
Grey, &c.