The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-01-10

Especial Correspondence of the Journa
and Courier)
this celebrated commercial port o
southern Portugal Is only about TWEEN
ty miles below Lisbon, it is nearly {
days journey from point to point
First, full hour by ferry steamer
across the broad estuary of the Tagus
from Lisbon on its northern shore tt
Barreiro on thoe southern. No stretch
of Imagination can conceive of this wa
ter-passage as pleasant one, notWith
standing it's novel scenes-the slowly.
receding city of palaces rambling ovel
hills in the rear, a strange African
landscape ahead, and dark mountains
in the background on every side. This
dirty little boat, infested with 1leas
flies and other yermin, rolls and rocks
like a steamer in the English channel
or a sailing vessel rounding Cape Horn
In it aristocrats and peasants, mules
horses and cattle, ..all seasick together
are crowded in closest juxtaposition.
An icy wind sweeps the shady side of
the deck, chilling you to the marrow,
while on the other and more popular
side blistering sun maketh your coun-
tenance to shine. The climax of dis
comfort is capped by a seemingly end
less wait in front of Barreiro, still roll
ing and tossing as in a storm a sea,
amid black and foul beach water, from
which the paddles churn up exhalation
more pestilential than those that dis
tinguished Havana harbor before
American occupation.
Barreiro is the terminus of the rail-
way that runs eastward to Evora,
thence south to Beja-those two cities
so famous in Roman and Moorish days;
and a branch, hardly longer than it's
me-"Portuguese Royal railway of
Lisbon Barreiro Sebutal''--connects the
last-named port The road runs, or
rather creeps. through fiat and tree
less desert regular Sahara of shift
ing sands; and as your Portuguese fell
low passengers insist on opening all the
windows, the little square cars, uncom-
Portable enough at best, become filled
with dust and smoke not to mention
on nauseous odors Of fish and garlic
from your neighbors luncheons and the
incessant high-pitched staccato of the
idiom which affiicts, your weary nerves
like the fling of saws.
You might travel over half the world
without findind so utterly forbidding
stretch of country-such deary sand
dunes, interspersed with patches of
rusty moorland, and here and there a
muddy creak. The soil is strained
bright red in spots, with wild sorrel,
that looks like splashes of human blood.
all is treeless, flowerless and birdless,
except for an occasional buzzard cir
cling above some carcass, or perched
contemplatively on sand-pile; and the
view is bounded by hideous red and yell
low hills, their bare cliffs topped with
scraggy stone-pine. Had Dante wished
to represent the future state Of the i'm
pentent farmer, he could not have
found more typical inferno, where
wind and water, soil, sun and climate
combine against the unfortunate filler
of the earth Though the fervid sun
withers and kills, winds blow damp and
chill Malaria burdens the air, and the
haggard faces of the inhabitants show
That Ill are Representatives. TLNeI Lie
blessed rains of the desert, falling alike
on the just and the unjust, are of little
benefit here, soaking at once through
the loose sand and leaving no moisture
behind. Yet, strange to say, agriculture
fights for a foothold even here, and
with considerable success. The desolate
region produces the best wine of south
ern Portugal, the famous Lavarado, so
called from the adjacent village of that
name, which in turn was named in
honor of the late Count do Lavarado,
long the Portuguese Minister to the
Court of st. James. But what disap-
pointment to eyes not used to wine
growing. are these vineyards stretching
for miles half cooked in the sun. There
Is not the slightest suggestion of 1.-The
lush LEAKAGE of the graceful gadding
vine'' which poets have taught us to
look for on the trellises of France and
the Seventh Circle, wherein the souls of
suicides were transformed into gaunt |
knotted trees, fed on by harpies and |
conscious of physical pain. Here a |
is rough field, enclosed only |
by low sand mounds, if enclosed at all, |
with stunted 'prickly-pear' cactus
Within the weed-grown, sandy expanse, |
ut intervals of two varas, dark, twisted |
stumps raise their heads, like black |
snakes with half their bodies in the air.
,ontorted in their struggles to free
themselves from the earth. You can
hardly believe that these bear the lus-
,ious Muscatel grapes, the best in the
world, from which the far-famed white .
vine is made. At this season of the |
year the vines have been pruned back.
Next spring they will put forth a few
scattering leaves, and each snaky
stump will send out four or five yard
ong shoots. Wind raughts passing,
EAST and west along the great Tagus es-
uary, particularly torment this unshel-
cred plain. Hardly tree can stand
against their biting gales, and the giant
eed-cane, indispensable for vine-plant
stalking, which grows 20 and 80 feet
,igh in more favored localities, is here
iwinded to the height Of walking
tick But Mother Nature, according
o her immutable laws of compensation
her beneficent forces in
he sweetness and rare flavor of this
rrapes. The painter of the now cele-
,rated MAN with the Hoe may here
ind his perfect model. The Portuguese
Zoe seems to have been especially de-
Used 10 increase Che husbandman'
,lIrden Of toll Its blade is very broad