evening resort for all classes of the inhabitants. Here in the Padro is a very ugly building, which contains that much neglected collection of very rare paintings belonging to the Royal Museum of Art. The houses of the city are generally well built, but neither the streets nor the people are remarkable for their cleanliness. During the heat of the day, from twelve to three, the shops in the best part of the city are closed, and the people at their siesta. This general closing in the middle of the day seems singular to an American, but we are not sure that it would not be a good plan for New York and Chicago to follow on the hot days of July and August.

The notable event during our short stay in Madrid was the witnessing by the General of the attempt to assassinate King Alfonso. General Grant was standing, when the shot was fired, at a window of the Hotel de Paris. This hotel is a long distance from the scene of the attack, but looks across the great central plaza, directly down the Calle Mayor. The General, who was following with his eyes the progress of the royal cavalcade, which had just passed across the Puerta del Sol before him, said to the writer that he clearly saw the flash of the assassin's pistol.

It was from this city that we toiled over the most barren and stony road to that striking and wonderful monument, the embodiment of the genius of Philip II., the Spanish Escurial. The building was intended as a convent, but was used by King Philip as a palace from 1584 until the time of his death in 1598. The site of the building is 2,700 feet above the sea; its form is a rectangular parallelogram, 744 feet from the north to the south, 580 from east to west, and covers about a half-million square feet; there are 88 fountains, 15 cloisters, 86 staircases, 16 court-yards, and 3,000 feet of fresco. We wandered through its dreary rooms and halls, noting the many scenes which had transpired there, but were glad to come again into the sunshine, and were deeply thankful that the power which it embodied had gone into the depths, with the crimes and follies of antecedent generations, and that its only value now is as the monument of a cruel and degrading age.

ISBON is a city built as it were on billows. The view from the river is very beautiful, recalling in some degree the view of Constantinople from the Bosphorus. The skies were gracious to our coming, and the air was as warm as a Virginia spring. There are so many stories about the foundation of Lisbon that the reader may take his choice. Ulysses is said to have made this one of his wanderings, and to have, in the words of Camoens, bidden "the eternal walls of Lisbon rise." There is a legend to the effect that Lisus, friend of Bacchus, was the founder, while other authorities say that it was the great grandson of Noah, a person named Elisa, and the date they fix at two thousand one hundred and fifty years before Christ, or two hundred and seventy-eight years after the Deluge. The value of these

legends is that there is no way of contradicting them, and one is about as good as another. I find it easier to believe the narratives I hear, and to fancy, as I walk up and down the steep, descending streets, that I am really in classical society. It is due to Elisa's claim to say that the time is fixed, and that it was only four thousand and twenty-eight years ago. As we come into more attainable chronology we find that Lisbon was once a part of the Carthaginian dominions, and supported Hannibal. That astute commander had such hard luck in the world that I have always been disposed to take his part, and Lisbon has a friendlier look now that I know she stood by the Carthaginian captain against the power of Rome. It shows a lack of enterprise in the Lisbon people that they have not found out the house in which Hannibal lived or the trees under which he prayed, as all well-regulated towns in the United States do concerning Washington. There was no trace of Hannibal in Lisbon. The people seemed to be under the impression that the only great commanders who had ever been in Lisbon were Don Sebastian and the Duke of Wellington. They show the very quay from which Don Sebastian embarked on the journey from which he has not returned, and the lines of Torres Vedras are in the suburbs, where the duke began his sentimental errand of delivering Europe.

Julius Cæsar was kind to Lisbon, although the people— such is the ingratitude of modern times-seem to have forgotten it. Then came the Goths, who took it from the Romans and plundered it. The Goths, who seem to have been an uninteresting people, well deserving their fate, were driven out by the Moors more than eleven centuries ago. The Moors never had much peace in Lisbon, and the chronicles of their reign are chronicles of assaults and counter-assaults—now Christian ahead, and now the infidel-for centuries, so that real estate must have been as bad an investment during their day as in New York since the panic. But there came a prince of the House of Burgundy, about seven centuries ago, and he whipped the Moors in a pitched battle. The chief incident in this transaction was the appearance of our Saviour to the king on the morning of the

battle, with a bright halo around his head, who assured the prince of victory. This sovereign is called the founder of the present kingdom of Portugal. He was known as Affonso the Conqueror, and his remains are in a magnificent sepulcher at Coimbra. He flourished about the time of Henry II., who had the fatal quarrel with Becket. For two centuries Lisbon re

mained under her kings,

until a king of Castile came over and burned a greater part of the town. It seems that there was a woman in the case, for Camoens tells of the beauteous Leonore, who was torn from her husband's widowed arms against the law and commandments. In 1497, Vasco de Gama sailed from Lisbon on the expedition which was to result in the discovery of the passage around the Cape of Good Hope to the Indies. This was the beginning of a career of commercial splendor. For two centuries the wealth of the Indies was poured into her coffers. In 1580, Philip II. of Spain took the town and annexed Portugal. During his reign the Spanish Armada was fitted out at Lisbon and sailed from here to conquer England. If Philip had made Lisbon his capital and transferred the government of the whole peninsula hither there is little doubt that Spain and Portugal would be one country still, with advantage to the two nations and the world. Lisbon is the natural site for such a capital. But Philip was infatuated with his monkish career at the Escurial, and his successors did

SCHELL & Hogan

not think much of Portugal except as a good province to tax, and so in 1640 the people arose one December night and drove the Spaniards out, and from that time it has been in the hands of its own people.

The most memorable event in Lisbon history was the earthquake of 1755, traces of which you can see to-day, and about which people converse-as the people of Chicago do about their fire-as though it happened the other day. It was on the feast of All Saints, in the early morning, when Christians were at mass praying for the repose of the souls of the dear ones gone. A noise was heard as of thunder, the buildings tossed like a ship on the billows, darkness fell upon the earth, and, as all the churches were crowded, hundreds were crushed to death at the altar's foot by the falling timbers. Nearly every church in the town was destroyed. Then the people rushed to the water side and to the higher places of the town, mainly to a church called St. Catherine's. Surely there was safety on the high places and on the banks of the river. But a second shock came. St. Catherine's Church fell with a crash. The river became a sea, and there rolled over its banks a mountainous wave, sweeping the lower streets and all that lived on them; and the earth opened, and the ships went down, likewise a magnificent marble quay, on which people had assembled-all went down, down into the depths; and when the wave receded it was found that all had been swallowed up. The river rose and fell three fathoms in an instant. The ships' anchors were thrown up to the surface. A third shock came, and vessels that had been riding in seven fathoms of water were stranded. Then a fire broke out and raged for six days. Never since cities were founded was any one so sorely smitten as beautiful Lisbon.

The best authorities say that the loss to Lisbon was three hundred million dollars in money. Of twenty thousand houses only three thousand remained. Thirty thousand lives were lost. Then the robbers came and plundered the ruined town, and it was given over to plunder until the resolute Marquis Pombal, ancestor of the recently deceased Soldanba, came, and, building gallowses in various parts of Lisbon, hanged every one who could