Evening star., 1923-07-01
BY SIR PHILIP GIBBS.


n gal which led to the exile OF
~ King Manuel and the over
a = throw of the roya1ist regime
In favor of a republic~under the presi-
dency of Alfonso Costa, ! was asked
by Lord Lytton to go out and report
upon the condition of the prisons In
that country.
They were packed with royalists
and with all people, of whatever po-
litical opinion, who disapproved OF
the principles and methods of the
new government, including large
numbers of the poorest classes. Sim
lister stories had leaked through
about the frightful conditions of
these political prisoners, and public
opinion in England was stirred when
the Dowager Duchess of Bedford,
who had visited Portugal, published
some sensational statements. l sus-
pected that the dear old Duchess OF
Bedford was Influenced a good deal
by sentiment for the foyalist cause.
although when | saw her she was
emphatic in saying that she had
never me. King Manuel and was
moved to take action for purely hu-
manitariah reasons.
Lord Lytton. man OF liberal and
idealistic mind, was certainly not ac-
tuated by the desire for royalist OF
anti-republican propaganda. and in
asking me to make, an investigation
on behalf of a committee, he made II
clear that he wished to have the facts
uncolored by prejudice.
I found. before going, that the NOV
ing spirit behind the accusations OF
cruelty appearing in the British press
against the new rulers of Portgual
and behind the Duchess of Bedford
was a little lady named Miss Tension
She has all the facts in her hands, =
said Lord Lytton. and you ought &c
have a talk with her. You will have
to make long Journey"
= x K 4
T MADE the journey to a remote
4 part of England. where l found a
very ancient little house, unchanged
by any passing OF time through many
centuries. | was shown into a low
long room, haunted, l am certain, by
the ghosts of Tudor and Stuart Eng
land. Two elderly ladies, who intro
duced themselves as Miss Tensions
aunts, sat on each side of a medieval
fireplace. Presently Miss Tension ap-
peared and for more than moment
for all the time of my visit-I imag-
ined myself in the presence of one OF
those ghosts which should properly
inhabit a house like this-a young
lady in an old-fashioned dress, sc
delicate. so transparent so spiritual
that / had the greatest difficulty in
accepting her as an inhabitant OF this
coarse and material world.
She was entirely absorbed in the
Portuguese affair, and her aunts told
me that she dreamed at night about
the agony of the royalist prisoners In
their dungeons. She was in corre-
spondence with many royalist refu-
gees, and with those still hiding in
Portugal, from whom she obtained
the latest news. She had q romantic
admiration-though not knowing hin
personally-for the Conte d'Almeida
who had led counter-revolution and
had been captured sword in hand
before being flung into prison and
treated as a common convict. She
hated Alfonso, the president, as Rus
sian emigreS afterward hated Lenin
II was from this little lady. ethe-
real in appearar ce but as passionate
In purpose as Lytton Strachey's
Florence Nightingale, that L gained
my first insight into the Portuguese
situation and my letters of introduc-
tion to some great people still hiding
in Lisbon. / left her house with the
sense of having begun romantic
adventure, with this remarkable lit
tie lady in the first chapter.
The second chapter of my adven-
ture was fanta site, for 1 found my
self in the wilds of Spain. suddenly
responsible for a German wife and
six bandboXes filled with the lingerie
Of six Brazilian beauties. 1t sounds
incredible. but it is true.
1t happened that tunnel fell down
on the engine of a train Immediately
ahead of the one in which 1 was
travelling through northern Spain on
the way to Lisbon. This brought our
train to standstill in rather desc
late spot. There was vast excitement,
and a babble of tongues. Most of the
travellers were on their way to Lis
bon, to catch a boat to Brazil which
was leaving the following day.
Among them was a stout little Ger
man, with a large, plump and sad
looking wife Neither of them could
speak anything but German, but the
husband was almost apoplectic with
rage and anxiety, seemed to divine by
intuition that a local train which had
halted at the wayside station might
go somewhere in the direction of Lis
bon. Entirely forgetting his wife, or
thinking, perhaps. that she would
follow him whithersoever he went,
he sprang on to the footboard Of the
local train. and scrambled in just as
it steamed away.
So there I was with the German
wife, to whom I had previously ad-
dressed a few words, and who now
appealed to me for advice, protection