cts shall be as pleasant to them as it will
be delightful to me."

From so wise a king and good a queen the people derived great benefit;
disputes never went beyond the ears of the chief minister, and, in the
words of the immortal barber and poet of the city, "the kingdom
flourished under the guidance of a mule; which proves that there are
qualities in the irrational beings which even wisest ministers would do
well to imitate."

A LEGEND OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

It is a point of faith accepted by all devout Portuguese that
thirty-three baths in the sea must be taken on or before the 24th of
August of every year. Although the motive may not seem to be very
reasonable, still the result is of great advantage to those believers
who occupy thirty-three days in taking the thirty-three baths, for
otherwise the majority of them would never undergo any form of ablution.

That the demon is loose on the 24th of August is an established fact
among the credulous; and were it not for the compact entered into
between St. Bartholomew and the said demon, that all who have taken
thirty-three baths during the year should be free from his talons, the
list of the condemned would be much increased.

Now, there was a very powerful baron, whose castle was erected on the
eastern slope of the Gaviarra, overlooking the neighbouring provinces of
Spain, and he had always refused to take these thirty-three baths, for
he maintained that it was cowardly on the part of a man to show any fear
of the demon. His castle was fully manned; the drawbridge was never left
lowered; the turrets were never left unguarded; and a wide and deep
ditch surrounded the whole of his estates, which had been given him by
Affonso Henriques, after the complete overthrow of the Saracens at
Ourique, in which famous and decisive battle the baron had wrought
wondrous deeds of bravery.

All round the castle were planted numerous vines, which had been brought
from Burgundy by order of Count Henry, father of the first Portuguese
king; and in the month of August the grapes are already well formed, but
the hand of Nature has not yet painted them. Among the vines quantities
of yellow melons and green water-melons were strewn over the ground,
while the mottled pumpkins hung gracefully from the branches of the
orange-trees.

In front of the castle was an arbour, formed of box-trees, under which a
lovely fountain had been constructed; and here, in the hot summer
months, would