And
he described well the picturesque and lofty mountains that cut off its
narrow strip of maritime territory from the rest of Portugal; its
tropical vegetation and its animal life, its perpetual summer,
tempered alternately by the ocean and the mountain breeze. When he
mentioned any fact which Lady Mabel thought might liken this region to
Africa in Moodie's imagination, she would turn and repeat it for his
benefit. Thus, the wolves and the wild boars abounding in the
mountains, became to him nameless monsters infesting the country; the
serpents were magnified in bulk, and the poisonous lizard redoubled
its venom. The fevers common there grew more malignant; the plague
broke out occasionally, and a few earthquakes were thrown in to
enliven the narrative. She garbled it too, sadly, suppressing the fact
that Algarve had furnished a large proportion of the adventurers who
had discovered and conquered India and Brazil, and its mariners of
this day, the best in Portugal, she converted into Barbary
corsairs. She said nothing about Algarve having been the first
province to rise against the French, or about the half-dozen
adventurous seamen who had sailed boldly in a fishing-boat to Brazil,
to inform the regent that Portugal still dared to struggle and to
hope.
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