DISCOVERING SPAIN.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17981, 26 January 1924, Page 11

DISCOVERING SPAIN.

IX.—-ON THE HILL TOPS,

(specially Vt F.TTT;;:; yc?. "THE PRESS."}

(By W. 3>"A. Cresswell.)

We saw but little of Montemor. Its deserted streets and shuttered houses did not suggest that there was much to be seen. "We halted for some coffee in a wineshop which wo had some difficulty in finding, as all the open doorways were hung with striped curtains upon which the sunlight beat to the very edge of a black darkness behind them. At length we read "vino" in faded letters above a shabby doorway, and we parted the curtains and stepped within. Immediately the few men in the street who had been observing us headed for the same doorway, and passed in behind us one by one. Taking no notice of the proprietor or his drinks, they sat on a form that almost covered the little earthen floor before the counter, and fixed upon, us a stare that seemed never satisfied, while we sat and fought off the flies and gazed as much at the stout barrels of wine upon the counter and tlio streaks of sunlight without as at them. They were wizened, taut little men, riders of mules and horses, wearing those leathern pieces above their trousers like the cowboys of the American West, and explaining to me the origin of that Californian habit, which must have come from Spain.

We hadn't tho least idea what was being prepared for us. We hoped it was coffee with milk, which, strangely, wo both preferred to good wine. The owner had disappeared into a back room,'and now dodged repeatedly between tho counter and something which was being prepared in a confusing darkness behind. Every now and then one of our audience, when they had consulted together, would fire at us a loud and rapid question, which, though I understood none of it, I would endeavour to answer, while M would be muttering beside, "Go away, for God's sake!" and other sayings of his. Soon a tray was brought to us, with every luxury the wine seller could procure, a basin for sugar,. cracked cups, and ono leaden spoon. Maybe Borrow stopped at that caf<s, an energetic, talkative fellow, delighting and annoying them by' turns, a man with a passion for the strenuous and bizarre, humping those Bibles through Spain and enjoying tremendously an adventure so ridiculous, hopeless, and uncommon. Perhaps they still had some? memory of him 'here, though it was four generations back. It would have been an interesting enquiry, could we have made it, He climbed, I know, to some ruins' on another hill above tho town, things that can be' observed much better from a distance, we thought, as wo pushed on through the curious streets. The plastered houses were high and deserted, on one side of us wrapt in a blue shadow, on the other brilliant ana white and shuttered against the sun, which seemed diverting enough. The perpetual argument between ligilt and shacle in this peninsula prevents its cities, at midday, from, seeming quite hushed and lifeless, fills their street's, in fact, with an air of something stienuous occurring, when there is but a donkey or two, tied to a doorway, in sight. Av'c needeu to purchase a few things for our supper and • then reach the eastern edge of the town and the road fo Evora before it became too dark for tramping. Some youths whom we nrcosted, accompanied- us to a fruit sliopj wnich was much out of our way, down many narrow streets. It was then that a curious thing happened. We wore toilowed, in a. processional manner, by a band of young men and boys who bore a placard photo of tiie Prince of Wales, and lwat upon tinoans and trays as they came. Vvo thought at first that this embarrassing demonstration was directed at us, but discovered later that it referred to a cinema show that evening, 'The Prince of Wales visits India in two Parts!' on behalf of which they were beating up the town.

Tho little shop where we bought some oranges and an, enormous lettuce was swept and i'resh. The aged, groping creature who served ns made a gallant attempt to wrap up the lettuce in a piece of Lisbon newspaper, the only piece she' had; and she changed our money in a long and • alarming fumble. The. oranges wo thrust inside our shirts, and when we had bought bread and figs and chocolate at two other shops, we had more than we could carry far. jVI took the lettuce, which at once burst loose in his arms, and so laden •wo halted at the first good camping place we could discover. It was the top of a high, bare hill, about three mites from the town. Tired as we were, we climbed this hill, because upon its summit was the only •tree in sigtit. It was a dark and ample pins, through which a small breeze was drifting, that grew at last into a gale as the'sun sank and reddened the western sky. What an appetite it gave us, to sit up there and face the, wind and darkening towers of 1 Montemor, to see how far we had come and know how hungry we must be. 1 tell you it is great, to sit on a hill at sunset in Portugal, oh, magnificent! Nothing' seems so fine then as being a man, nothing so lovely as the earth, so adventurous as the air, our new element. The country aro'jnd us was bare and hilly, and seemed to continue- in this condition so far as we could see towards Evoru. The river Jn which we had swum that afternoon now appeared brightly for a short distance .in the valley beside us, where some peasants were still at work among their corn. The gale blew surprisingly,' from a bland and flawless field of yellow sky above the town. Its music was magnificent. We sat and ate in silence. Whenever I glanced at Jl his eyes were fixed upon the sunset .in a "look of peculiar worship, if his teeth were fixed as devoutly in a piece of bread and lettuce, and his face and hands were bathed in a beautiful crimson. Upon my word, in thai condition it was for the best that, he had nothing to say. Tired and content with our long tramp and so much bathing that day, wo fell back soon beneath our blankets, as the first star appeared on the edges of the sunset, like the mast light of some ship that rides the gale. Soon all the stars were out and the wind had fallen until there was complete stillness. (To be continued.)