Page:Lisbon and Cintra, Inchbold, 1907.djvu/258

Rh was right loyally entertained by the brothers. All the Philips had a particular partiality for the Convent of Christ, and it was at that epoch that the beautiful city of Thomar had to submit to the horrible spectacle of an auto-da-fé, not within the walls of the monastery but at the old pelourinho, at the end of the Rua da Graça. Near the kitchen of the monastery are some low, sinister rooms, badly lighted with windows, defended with great bars of iron, which are supposed to have been the prisons of the Inquisition.

Before passing out of the truly enchanted site of so many crowded interests I went again into the precincts of Gualdim Paes' splendid old fortress castle, saw the ruined bareness of the palace of Prince Henry, and mounted to a balcony or mirante of the alcaçova. The brown and white roofs of the town spread out below, the Paço do Conselho was exactly beneath the hill. The winding river could be traced through the plain, the richly treed avenues, the silvery olive groves, all presented an idyllic picture of sylvan serenity and remoteness from worldly strife that will often recur to mind, together with the suave, kindly effect that this environment has produced on the disposition of the Thomarense.

Two stations on the route to Lisbon bear names which are identified with the historic Lines of Torres Vedras, Alhandra and Alverca. At the time of the Convention of Cintra it was patent to Wellington that the only way of defending Portugal was by means of the hills near the capital. The constructions of defence were taken in hand swiftly and secretly, forming two lines of fortification, one of them extending from the mouth of the river Sizandro, near Torres Vedras, to the back of Sobral, and on to the Tagus by Alhandra, the other also coming from the coast, covering the great palace-monastery of Mafra, the 194