The woman of the house and her daughter had similar bags tied to their necks,containing charms,which they said prevented the witches having power to harm them.The belief in witchcraft is very prevalent amongst the peasantry of the Alemtejo,and I believe of other provinces of Portugal.This is one of the relics of the monkish system,the aim of which in all countries where it has existed,or does exist,seems to be to besot the minds of the people that they may be the more easily plundered and misled.The monks of the Greek and Syriac Churches likewise deal in this kind of ware,which they know to be poison,but which,as it brings them a price and fosters delusion by which they are maintained in luxury and idleness,they would rather vend than the wholesome drug.
The Sunday morning was fine,and the plain before the church of the Convent of San Francisco was thronged with people going to mass or returning.After having performed my morning devotions and breakfasted,I went down to the kitchen.The fine girl Geronima was seated by the fire.I asked if she had heard mass;she replied,'No,'and that she did not intend to hear it.Upon my inquiring her motive for absenting herself,she replied that,since the friars had been expelled from their churches and convents,she had ceased to attend mass or to confess herself,for that the Government priests had no spiritual power,and consequently she never troubled them.She said the friars were holy men and charitable;for that every morning those of the convent over the way had fed forty poor persons with the remains of their meals of the preceding day,but that now these people were allowed to starve.I replied that the friars who had lived upon the dainties of the land could well afford to bestow a few bones on the poor,and that their doing so was not the effect of charity,but merely a part of their artful policy,by which they hoped to secure to themselves friends in time of need.The girl then said that as it was Sunday I should perhaps like to see some of her books,and without waiting for a reply she produced them.They consisted principally of popular stories and lives and miracles of saints,but amongst them was a translation of Volney's RUINS OF EMPIRES.Iinquired how she became possessed of this book;she said that a young man,a great Constitutionalist,had given it her some months since and had pressed her much to read it,telling her that it was the best book in the world.Whereupon I told her that the author of the book in question was an emissary of Satan and an enemy of Jesus Christ and the souls of mankind;that he had written it with the sole view of bringing all religion into contempt,and that he had inculcated therein the doctrine that there was no future state nor rewards for the righteous nor punishments for the wicked.She made no reply,but going into another room,returned with her apron full of dry brushwood and faggot;all of this she piled upon the fire,and produced a bright blaze.She then took the book from my hand,and placed it upon the flaming pile;then sitting down,took her rosary out of her pocket,and told her beads till the volume was consumed.This was an AUTO-DA-FE,in the true sense of the word.