The Republican journal., 1899-11-16

lhe yet picturesque life of the present.
Queer vessels of all descriptions crowd
Oporto bay, mostly Portuguese craft, laden
with oil, wine, garlic and onions, going to
their countrymen in Brazil, Africa, Cuba
and other distant regions. The Portuguese
are born navigators, and hundreds of yes
sells, built in Douro ship yards, are sent by
Oporto owners to all parts of the world.
A good many English ships are here, after
cargoes Of wine and cattle. As everybody
knows, the Oporto wine trade is mostly in
English hands. Their warehouses line
the southern bank of the river half mile
or more, and one firm alone is said to ex-
port six million liters per annum of the
famous old ''port.' Britain also gets her
best beef from Portugal, which is one of
the few countries that is never visited by
the cattle plague. l learn with astonish-
ment that the finest grass fed beef in the
world comes-not from Texas, as we of
the United States have been taught, nor
from the pampas of Argentine or the
meadows Of Uruguay, where the great
Liebego Extract factories are doing an
enormous business-but from the valley of
the Douro, in Entire Mimic province, a
few miles above Oporto.
Queerer yet to foreign eyes, are the
Portuguese river craft swarmng the bay
hundreds Of clumsy boats with single
masts, square built bulls and bellying
sides, with their fantastic crews and happy
families of women, children, dogs, pigs
and chickens living aboard, bits of ribbon
and tinsel f1uttering in the breeze and the
music of mandolin and guitar, mingled
with incessant gibbering of language
that sounds like Castilian spoken with
mush in the mouth. For these river-peo-
pie, whose like does not exist anywhere
else, there is neither winter nor summer,
nor any event to mar the flight of time
but the rising Of the sun and the going
down thereof, one day being just like an
other from their cradles to the Campo
Santo. They labor leisurely few hours
out of the twenty four and pass the rest
in dreamful siesta, enlivened by evening
cock-tight. While the men wear but one
thickness of linen between their brown
skins and the weather, and often scorn
even that pretense of propriety- though
never neglecting the golden ear rings
the women are wonderfully bedizened
with gypsy-like tinery in truly Oriental
mosaic of reds and blues and greens and
yellows.
Oporto is a vast surprise to the stranger.
He has read of it as the former capital of
Portugal, its second city in size, with i'm :
portant manufacturing and commercial
interests; but is by no means prepared for
so great and rich city, with busy popu-
lation of 100, 900! And Lisbon, the pres
ent capital, 175 miles south, is even larger,
richer and more important. In short, one S
opiniongof Portugal undergoes a marked
change after a brief acquaintance. The
pun, Oiti X anu COiLtit may DS Ill
her days of the sere and yellow, but it is
a wonderfully dignitied and stately decline
Viewed from the harbor, Oporto is every
bit as picturesque as any Oriental city, its
many-storied houses, spires, towers and
terraced gardens climbing up steep hills
on both sides of the river. At this point
the Douro flows through a deep gorge,
spanned from cliff to cliff by several hand
some bridges. The latter look unneces-
sarily high, suspended 200 feet above the
tranquil stream. But the Douro is not
always so well behaved as present appear
ances indicate. After heavy rains, or
melting SHOWS in the mountains, it rises
enormously, often flooding the lower
streets. The quays that line the entire
length of the city, nearly three miles, are
faced with a nigh wall, for the fastening
of ships cables; but when the river over
leaps its bounds, booms are placed along
the quay, for the safety OF vessels, which
no cable could hold
FANNIE BRIGHAM WARD.