he at once condemned it as unskillful, wasteful, and slovenly; in
short, just what was to be looked for in this benighted land.

"What a pity it is, Moodie, you cannot speak Portuguese," said Lady
Mabel; "you might seize many a chance of giving these benighted people
a valuable hint, particularly how to ferment their wine, and press
their olives."

"I am sure," replied Moodie, "I could make as sour wine and rancid oil
as the best of them, and they make no other."

"You are a fault-seeking traveler," said Lady Mabel; "and so will find
nothing to please you, while I enjoy all around me, and see nothing to
find fault with, except the abominable custom of the women riding
astride on their _burras_, which I am glad to see is not universal."

"Nay, my lady, the country pleases me well enough. The pasturage is
poor and parched, yet the oxen are fine in spite of their monstrous
horns; and I see corn land that might yield good oats or barley in
Scotland. The land is well enough; it is the people I find fault
with."

"Moodie's verdict on Portugal," said L'Isle, "can be summed up in four
little words: '_Bona terra, mala gens_.'"

"What pleasure," continued Moodie, not heeding the interruption, "can
a Christian man find in traveling in a land where the people grovel in
ignorance and a besotted superstition, which manifests that God has
given them over to a reprobate heart. I cannot speak their language; I
can only look on their wanderings in the dark, and think of the wrath
to come."

"And so here is a missionary lost!" Mrs. Shortridge exclaimed.

"But, according to Moodie's favorite dogma," said L'Isle, "were he
gifted with the purest and most eloquent Portuguese, or had he the
gift of St. Francis Xavier, who, when thrown among any strange people,
was soon found exhorting them in their own tongue, he could be to this
people only a prophet of evil. You say that they are given over to a
state of reprobation. Do you, like a great English philosopher,
believe in election and reprobation by nature?"

"Not exactly; nor do I know any thing of your English philosopher; but
since I have been among these people, I have seen much to lead my
thoughts that way. And we have example for it. Had not God his chosen
people of old? And the seven nations of Canaan, were they not swept
off as utterly reprobate from the face of the earth?"

"And now," suggested L'Isle, wishing to know the old man's views,
"election is for the Scotch natio