Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-01-23

who may chance among them. / have
found the same custom and belief prevail
ing in only one other place in Europe.
That Is the west Of Ireland among the
poor but great-hearted folk of lone and
rugged Connemara
But of deeper interest than all else are
the lowly folk of this fair land. / have
not seen in town or city an instance of
what we know as want and suffering. The
lowly in Portugal possess nothing; acquire
nothing; have burning ambitions for
nothin. A bit of corn-meal or rye bread
washed down with water Is q repast Add
to the bread bit of hsh, Q handful of OIL
ives or few swallows of wine, and IL is
feast.
The stinging scourge of necessity for
providence with which the rigors of win
ter lash our poor is incomprehensible here.
At their backs are mountains and valleys
green to the sun and sky the whole year
through, and never failing in their rich
yield of fruit and grains At th.ir feet
are broad rivers or the almost encircling
eea with luscious food free for the taking.
None ever become rich. None ever arrive
at our own idea of q modest competency.
Now scarcely know how TO think how
riches can be desirable. The wonder with
them Ii that any one should worry OF
strive; that any human being should ever
be in q hurry. AS with the Cubans in
their languor- breeding CLINE whose "Ms-
nanalh (To-morrowO Is the key to their
torpor and vsssslsge, "PsciencisI" or "Ps-
tiencei" tells the story here. Something
Is wrong with that one who will hasten;
and crime surely Turks beneath leanness
and vigor.
The mountains and valleys of Portugal
give home TO 9 folk possessing al the win
some sunniness of the lowly of towns
without tithe of their apathy and slug-
gsrdness. You may read all the pastoral
poems ever written and gain no more col
orful picture of pastoral lives in endless
content and peae.fulness than your eyes
may behold in an hours ride or walk any
where in the interior of Portugal. Rest
is in the sun and sky, the earth and air,
ture.
do not mean that no labor is per-
formed. But all labor done has in IL the
seeming of mere dAllisnce with toll. The
senses are not surfeited with odor, luxuri-
ance and the almost Intoxicating profigs-
cy of nature as in the tropics. Every SC
tive eIertion of every human does not be-
tray, as there, q supsrlative indolence
painfully effortful in the bare process of
existence. But q restfulness pervades
these soft and kindly LANDSCAPES which re-
business instead of consciousness; peace
rather than passion and pain. In and
through il all there is, like the FIRST thrill
of wine, an uplifting and exultation
blending the physical and mental sense
perfectly and gloriously. do not say
these Portuguese peasantry know this as
you and / are conscious of it. But to the
beholder's eyes these humble, hsppy-heart-
ed people SO touch and color the scene
upon which he looks that their presence is
an inseparable element in its essential har-
mony. --.-
The peasant tenant farmers of Portugal.
the land caseiros of the country, retain
their holding under life leases, and pay
rentals to the morgsdos, the owners of the
estates, or the gentlemen farmersn as
they are here called, sin kind" 1t is q
sort of title system always amicsbly sd
justed between owner and peasant 4
grade below these caseiros is 8 class cor
responding to the English, Scotch and
Irish cottiers. These choupanas live in
the cabins of the morgados and caseiros at
the will of the latter.
Aside from these are the sheep and cat
tie herders and the gostherds that are
found in more picturesque mountain To-
cslities; the fax -bleachers along the edge
of some bawling mountain stream or
against the sheltering rocks by the sea
shore; the interior muleteers, who, for the
most trivial wages or portions of grain,
| convey products and merchandise to and
| from the towns of the coast; the wood
| choppers of the mountains; and the car
boneiros who are found in the highest
mountain forests lazily employed in burn
| ing the charcoal used in cooking by the ar
istocracy of the cities.
With these divisions of the Portuguese
| pesssntry may be counted the rush gath
| erers of the mountain tarns; the osier-cut-
ters who supply the basket makers of the
| towns; the furze gstherers who dot the
dreariest mountain heights; the fern and
rush cutters who supply the churches and
homes with fragrant branches for strew-
| ing on holy and feast days; and the wood
| cleaners who gather dead limbs at will in
forests of the estates and among the
mountain wilds both fer the use of the
peasantry and the humt er classes Of the
| towns.
Among all these peopla there is not q
| single implement or utensil invented with
in the past thousand years; an ordinary
i American farmland would accomplish
l under our methods in one day more than
a score of any of these; and the wizard
brush of the painter of BsrbaIon never
fastened upon canvas more stsrtlingly an
| cient ways, wares, postures and ploddings
among the clods of Brittany than remain
universal and changeless among the bright
eyed but changeless folk of these entran-
cling mountain wales.
There is a careless half Joyous abandon
upon the surface of all peasant toll which
adds greatly to its picturesqueness. Join
with this. qusintnsss in dress, primitive
ness of implements, that grace which un-
| varyingly accompanies innocent ignorance,
and the universal loveliness of scenery,
and your pastoral pictures are most idyl-
| lie and complete. Ground is titled with
oxen, tandem, in rush traces drawing q
plough of the sort first known to man
the tree-crook or sharpened root. Now
and then you will find one rudely pointed
with iron. One short furro~ is scratched
amid tremendous shoutiBgs. Then the
half dozen who have clung to the handles,
rode upon the beam, or goaded the oxen,
rest by the fiower-lsden hedge or division
wall to enjoy siesta or the delights of coun-
tryside gossip with passing goatheIds or
mulet-ers. Where the hillside is too steep
for this gentle process loug-hADdled hoes
with cumbrous blades do lazy duty; for
the spade is rejected as q continuance of
the evil one.
All American cereals grow here in luxu-
rance for mere pricking of the soil.
The small grains are gathered, q handful
| AT time, cut Dy the olden sickle, and
cleaners follow as in the Bible days. Corn
is cut, or pulled, the leaves preserved for
fodder, the stalks munched by goats or
donkeys, or used for fires, the ears strung
together and hung upon pyramidal lattice
work for. curing, and, finally, after husk-
ing-when the genuine old fashioned
American "husking bee," here of weeks
duration, the peasant securing every hun
dredth ear for his labor, and 8 kiss from
his inamorita for every red ear found. is
everywhere progressing-the kernels are
removed from the cobs by the ohoupsnas
and children who receive the cob, for
burning, in payment. A score of merry
stragglers are required to house the pro-
duct of one acre of ground, and every one
of these work, or make pretenss of work,
in that care-free, need nothing way that
marks all toll and effort here Wheat,
barley and rye are threshed precisely as
they were q thousand years ago.
At every roadside and beside the Crane
~ of every villeggiaturs, round, high
piles of pumiced stone, beaten and rain
soaked until hard as granite, may be seen.
These, called eirss, are the Portuguese
threshing- floors. The grain is piled upon
them and cows and oxen, blind folded, are
driven in opposite directions, until the
treading has released the kernels. There
is no other method of threshing grain in
this country; and the tanning mill is un-
known. The straw is lifted of the eiras
with wooden forks and preserved for the
food of donkeys and goats. Then q flag is
/ ka;s tal 30 NJ - a.