Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-09

women from the hills, smart city servants
with their endless castanet-like clinking
of wooden shoes upon the pavements;
grim men from the fields, leaning upon
their huge ox-goads which in Portugal
always become the travelling stats; noisy
youths hawking fighting crickets in
cages scarcely two inches square; all man
ner OF men, many of whom have fallen
out of the ranks of the aristocracy,
and boys selling halves. quarters and
elghths OF lottery tickets, for ever in Lisbon
1t is true saving that '"To-morrow the
wheel goes round;" important and wasp
wasted military attaches dancing here and
there in blue, bluff and green; grave and
comfortable padres, impervious to forgiv-
able chatting and badinage; half naked
urchins with wonderfully bright faces; beg
gars with piteous though sunny looks, as
CHEEKY over rebuff as reward; and hun
dred other folk and factors so touched with
the semi-barbaric and oriental, that one
awakens from the weird fancies njured by
sight and scene, in a sort of half dismay
that in this spot, where our own wondrous
civilization had its very beginning, every
thing seems thousand years behind even
the drowsy progress of the Europe to-day.
Antics of the Cocheiros.
Here and there throughout the streets
bevics of giggling senhoritas, never alone
and always conveyed by some bright-eyed
old drfenna, pass from shop to shop, ever
seeming to avoid. but ever in reality COM
pelling most ludicrous antics on the part of
oil males from IS to 80. Roaring and tear
ing down the heights as if pursued, comes
one of the cocheiros of the town with his
ramshackle barouche, to which are often
harnessed three donkeys abreast. He has
hnnr, Ii
lashes and screams and vents maledictions
upon his beasts Suddenly the outlandish
outfit comes to halt. In an instant the
violent cocheiro is asleep on his box, and
the donkeys' head droop dolefully between
their knees.
Now and then strange horse and rider
will be seen. The horse is piebald. The
rider is gentleman farmer; "morgado" he
is called in Portugal. He sits upon his
beast in semi-military and semi-cowboy
style, holds his bride reins high in air,
wears spur and mustachios of wonderous
dimensions, and ambles through the change
full scene like hesitant, humble Quixote.
Everywhere are little donkeys CARRYING fat
people; burdened with furze, brushwood,
charcoal, dried corn leaves and stalks,
rushes and straw, completely hiding them;
packed with twice their own weight in
quay; or driven double with great timbers
across their backs "Ande -Ande %
their drivers shout, as they prod them with
blunt, irod-pointed pixies as long and as
heavy as our own pitchfork handles.
The Only Means of Freightage.
These and ox-carts, each with box like
half section of huge wicker basket, and
solid wooden wheels with iron-spiked rims,
trh oh ehr;a Dal
train on its way to Minneapolis and st.
Paul in the sixties, are ceaselessly vending
their way along the thoroughfares to and
from the country, the only means of freight
age; while each donkey and cart is accom-
panied by more able-bodied, ever-yelling
muleteers and cartmen than necessary to
convey every ounce of produce and mer-
chandise thus disposed upon their own
backs.
Water is brought into Lisbon in one of
the worlds greatest aqueducts, the aaue-
duct of Agoastiores, from the mountain vii
lage of Bellas, ten miles distant. 1t extends
across the near valley of Alcantara upon a
series of 30 arches, 107 feet from pier to
pier the point of the highest arch rising 264
feet above the valley bed. The water is
poured from this aqueduct into an immense
covered reservoir, and is from this conveyed
the city. From these fountains since the
time of Joao ", nearly all private houses,
public buildings and shops have been sup
piled 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 probably the most inter-
esting studies for tourist, writer or artist
are to be found among these low1y folk be-
side the fountains.
EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.