To the Rev.A.Brandram (ENDORSED:recd.Jan.10,1836)EVORA IN THE ALEMTEJO,15TH DEC.,1835.
AT length I departed for Mafra;the principal part of the way lay over steep and savage hills,very dangerous for horses,and I had reason to repent,before I got back to Cintra,that I had not mounted one of the sure-footed mules of the country.I reached Mafra in safety;it is a large village,which has by degrees sprung up in the vicinity of an immense building,originally intended to serve as a convent and palace,and which next to the Escurial is the most magnificent edifice in the Peninsula.In this building is to be seen the finest library in Portugal,comprising books in all sciences and languages,and which,if not suited to the place in which the building stands,which is almost a desert,is yet well suited to the size and grandeur of the building which contains it.
But here are now no monks to take care of it;they have been driven forth,some of them to beg their bread,some of them to serve under the banners of Don Carlos in Spain,and many,as I have been informed,to prowl about as banditti.The place is now abandoned to two or three menials,and exhibits an aspect of solitude and desolation which is truly appalling.Whilst I was viewing the cloisters an exceedingly fine and intelligent-looking lad came up to me,and asked (I suppose in the hope of obtaining a trifle)if Iwould permit him to show me the village church,which he told me was well worth seeing.I said 'No,'but that if he would show me the village school,I should be much obliged to him.He looked at me with astonishment,and assured me that there was nothing to be seen in the school,at which not more than half a dozen boys were instructed,and that he himself was one of the number;but I told him that he should show me no other place,and he at last unwillingly attended me.On the way he said that the schoolmaster was one of the brothers of the convent who had lately been expelled,and that he was a very learned man and spoke French and Greek.We went past a stone cross,and the boy bent and crossed himself with much devotion:I mention this circumstance,as it was the first instance of devotion which I had observed amongst the Portuguese since my arrival.When near the house where the schoolmaster resided,he pointed it out to me and then hid himself behind a wall,where he waited till I returned.
On stepping over the threshold I was confronted by a short stout man,between sixty and seventy years of age,dressed in a blue jerkin and grey trousers,without shirt or waistcoat.He looked at me sternly,and enquired in the French language what was my pleasure.I apologised for intruding upon him,and stated that,being informed that he occupied the situation of schoolmaster to the place,I had come to pay my respects to him,and to beg to be informed respecting the manner of instruction which he adopted.He said that whosoever told me that he was a schoolmaster lied,for that he was a brother of the convent.I replied that I had heard that all the friaries had been broken up and the brothers dismissed;whereupon he sighed,and said it was too true.He was then silent for a minute,and his better nature overcoming his angry feelings he produced a snuff-box and offered it to me.The snuff-box is the olive-branch of the Portuguese,and he who wishes to be on good terms with them,or to conciliate them,must never refuse to put his finger and thumb into it when preferred;I took therefore a large pinch,though I detest the dust,and we were soon friendly enough.He was eager to obtain news,especially from Lisbon and Spain.I told him that the officers of the regiments at Lisbon had the day before I left that place gone in a body to the Queen,and insisted upon her either receiving their swords or dismissing her Ministers;whereupon he rubbed his hands and said,'I am sure that things will not remain tranquil at Lisbon.'Upon my saying that the affairs of Don Carlos were on the decline,he frowned,and said that it could not possibly be,for that God was too just to suffer it.I felt for the poor man,who had been driven from his home in the noble convent close by,and from a state of comfort and affluence reduced in his old age to indigence and misery,for his dwelling seemed to contain scarcely an article of furniture.I tried twice or thrice to induce him to converse on the school,but he always avoided the subject or said shortly that he knew nothing about it;the idea of being a schoolmaster was evidently humiliating to him.