They seem to consider ye front of a house only as a high
wall with boles larger or smaller to admit light as occasion
requires."

This exactly pictures Lisbon as it stands to- I
day. From Black Horse Square on the Tagus J
bank run the Rua Augusta and two other parallel 1
streets, called respectively the streets of "gold
and "silver," straight as a line to the busy centr
231



THROUGH PORTUGAL
of Lisbon, the fine parallelogram, called the Pra^a
de Dom Pedro, or the Rocio, paved with its in-
evitable mosaic of black and white waves, at the
end of which is the theatre of Donna Maria, the
central railway station, and the entrance to the
handsome Avenida da Libertade, a garden and
tree-shaded drive of good houses occupying the
whole of the narrow valley for nearly two miles
into the suburbs. On either side of the Avenida
and the principal rectangular streets in the valley
the hills rise precipitously, and when the tops of
these have been surmounted a series of sudden
dips and rapid ascents succeed east and west.
The city is, therefore, a most fatiguing one to
explore, as to go anywhere away from the river-
bank, which with the exct;ption of Black Horse
Square is irretrievably ugly and squalid, and from
the streets " //Wj au cordon'" m the central valley,
formidable hills have to be faced. This of late
years has been much relieved by a complete
system of electric trams, which practically cover
the city, and by the instalment of funicular rail-
ways and lifts up some of the more difficult
ascents.
