The record-union., 1892-01-09

ming, everything seems thousand years
behind even the drowsy progress Of the
Europe of to-day.
Here and there throughout the streets
beyles OF giggling senhoritas, never alone
and always conveyed by some bright
eyed old duenna, pass from shop to shop,
ever seeming to avoid but ever, in reality,
compelling most ludicrouS antics on the
part of all males from Is to so. Roaring
and tearing down from the nights, as if
pursued, come one of the cocheiros Of the
town with his ramshackle barouche, to
which are often harnessed three donkeys
abreast He has been nowhere. He is
going nowhere. He lashes and screams
and vents maledictions upon his beasts.
Suddenly the outlandish outfit comes
to halt. In an instant the violent
eochelro is asleep on his box, and the
donkeys' heads droop dolefully between
their knees.
NOW and then a strange horse and rider
will be seen. The horse is piebald. The
rider is a gentleman farmer-a 'morga-
do" he is called in Portugal. He sits
upon his beast in a semi military and
semi-cowboy style, holds his bride reins
hlgh IN air, wears q spur and muStachOiS
of wonderous dimensions, and ambles
through the changeful scene like hesi-
tant, humbled QuiXote. Everywhere are
little donkeyS carrying fat people, bur
dened with furze, brushwood, charcoal,
dried corn leaves and stalks, rushes and
straw. completely hiding them, packed
with twice their own weight in merchan-
disc going to or coming from the quay,
or driven double with great timbers
across their backs. "Ande! Ander' their
drivers shout as they prod them with
blunt, iron-pointed pixies as long and as
heavy as our own pitchfork handles.
| These and oXcarts, each with a box like a
half section of huge wicker basket, and
rt-h MIL Ito
rims, which creak and shrek like a Red
River train on its way to Minneapolis
and st. Paul IL the sixties, are ceaSelessly
vending their way along the thorough
fares to and from the country, the only
means OF freightage, while each donkey
and cart is accompanied by more able
bodied, ever-yelling muleteers and cart
men than necessary to convey every
ounce of produce and merchandise thus
disposed upon their own backs.
Water is brought into Lisbon in one of
the worlds greatest aqueducts, the aque-
duct of Agoastiores, from the mountain
village OF BellaS, ten miles distant. 1t
extends across the near valley Of Alcan-
tara upon a series of thirty arches, one
hundred and seven feet from pier TO pier,
the point of the highest arch rising two
hundred and siXty-four feet above the
valley bed. The water is poured from
this aqueduct into an immense covered
reservoir, and is from this conveyed to
the many chafariz or public fountains of
the city. From these fountains, since the
time OF Joao v, nearly all private houses,
public buildings and shops have been
supplied by water-carriers, men and
women. Most of these, particularly the
men, are thus solely employed. Many
of the women are simply house and shop
servants Of the peasant class, and proba-
bly, the most interesting studies for
I,f - j
among these lowly folk beside the foun-
tains.
At everyone of these moSS-covered Jet
ties groups of barefooted men and women
are constantly gathering. What muscu-
lar, sWarthy fellows are the men, and
what graceful attitudes and poSings they
unconsciously assume as they loiter a bit
for chatter and gossip before they shout
der the huge wooden casks and trot gaily
away with their mighty loads. What
splendid types of Portuguese are these"
you Will eXclaim. But they are not Port
uguese. They are Gallegans, from the
ancient sovereignty Of Galicia, compris-
ing the present four northwesternmost
provinces of Spain named Lugo. Coruna.
Orense and Ponteveda, with population
of 2,000,000 souls One-fourth of the en-
tire number are continuously servants in
Spain and Portugal-perhaps 100000 in
Portugal alone-and more than 5000 are
water-carriers here in Lisbon. know
them well in their northern homes or
choZas and in their southern work and
ways; and they are lovable for their
matchless docility and fidelity, one and
all.
When the Gallegan youth has arrived
at the age of Is he goes TO his drudgery at
sea, In the army, or as the city mental
He suffers every conceivable indignity
without resentment. "Gallegan dog'' is
the mildest universal epithet applied to
him. Kick him and he will not even
criuge. No power can tempt him to
resent insult or break law, or to deprive
him OF his earnings. He will not squan-
der a dozen refs in whole year. He will
starve to save. He will do anything but
rob or murder, while at service, to in
crease his hoard and though his home
sickness for his mountain dulcinea, perro
and galta are often so despairing that
he dies of heartache and longing, he never
will return TO his beloved Galicia until he
has earned enough to possess his own
choza and patch of ground. This is his
only earthly ambition, and he seldom
fails of its realization, Thousands of
others gain this accomplishment as Sc
gadors or reapers. When the southern
fields are ripe whole armies of Gallepan
reapers set out from their mountain
homes armed with the short hoZ or sickle.
their wooden shoes slung over their
shoulders, something as the west of Ire
land men annually set forth for the Eng
lish harvest fields, and, carrying also
their gaitas with them, pipe their Wav to
the south, where they reap the grain for
the indolent farmers of CASTLE and Por-
tugal. Returning on foot as they went,
they wake wild and barbaric echoes
through the Sierra de la Culebre, Sierra
de Banaderio and the fair Montanos de
Leon, The Gallegan women meantime
have cared for their own little harvests,
and from autumn until spring time. save
for the occasional droning of the bag
pipe, the crack of the retaco or blunder-
buss, and the wolfish barking of the
mountain dog, sodden silence and liteless
sleep seem to have knit all Galicia into a
forbidding and gloomy web of leaden and
obdurate repoSe.
But see these maiden water-carriers of
Lisbon, prettieSt of all women in the an
Gent city, with great dancing eyes, pout-
ing bps ever parting from dazzling white
teeth, their tongues ceaseleSsly running
in musical staccato, and their supple
forms ever IN 1rrepressible movement
from the boundless life within them.
Their Short skirts disclose limbs which
outrival the Venus of Cos in delicate SYM
metry. Their smart bodices vainly hide
busts OF marvellous roundness and ampli-
tude, with full arching neck barred above.
and browning 1t such dainty and dim
pied chin as even Tuscany cannot match,
while the line from tip of little finger ND
their brown, round arms to beyond the
dimpled elbow, is a marvellous study in
natures only perfect mobile bronze. But
they have dallied and chatted long
enough. With whisk little pad of
rushes, or cloth, is slapped on their dain-
ty, shapely heads; in a twinkling the
great cask, half as tall and quite as big as
they, is resting on the pad, and, with
song or roguish laugh, they are away.
tripping homeward.as daintily and airiiy
as IN measures of the contradanza or
waltz. EDGAR l.. WAKEMAN.