1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

Offto the Upper Bouro: the Qidnta da Boa Vista. 31

ofthe fields, hanging from them in long waving festoons. It is from grapes thus grown far away from the roots of the vine, and which never completely ripen, that the vinhos verdes, or rough acidulous wines di'unk commonly throughout Portugal, are made. The valley gradually widens, the hills grow loftier, the country becomes more barren and wilder-looking, and everywhere rocks are seen cropping up out of the soil. Stone walls, too, divide the fields, the vines give place to fir-trees, and distant mountains rise up before us grey, cold, and gloomy. Whenever the train stops peasant-girls lay down their distaffs and rush to gaze at it,and at most of the stations bread is being hawked and keenly bargained for by hungry third-class pas sengers. After a time the country becomes more fertile again: little churches peer above the pine-woods, vines smother the trees with theii* embraces, and, trained on trellises, subdue the white glare of the farmhouses and cottages, in front of which peasants are threshing the newly-harvested maize, or drying the husked cobs in the burning sun. A little river rushing over its rocky bed dashes down a series of steep falls and loses itself in the windings of the valley, which soon expands into a wide stretch of open country. At Cahide, where we quit the train, several vehicles are in waiting to convey members of Oporto firms to the Port-wine vintage in the Upper Douro. In Spain these adventurous gentlemen would run the risk of being way laid and marched up the mountains until ransomed; but in the wildest and most solitary districts of Portugal there is no fear of any such mishap as this befalling them. For a time it is something like a general race, until the better-horsed vehicles, leaving the others far behind, go rattling along the roughly-paved streets of the picturesque antique little town of Amarante,noted alike for its wines and its peaches,and which has one of its church towers intheform ofthe papal tiara, and the open arcade of its grand Dominican church decorated with life-size statues of potentates and saints. In this latter edifice is a finely-sculptured efiigy of San Gon9alo, the patron saint of Amarante,who charmed the fish out of the Tamega,