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1893 Lisbon, September 28.
Dearest Henny: I received three days ago your letter of the 10th and that of dear mamma's of the 11th with the enclosures of deed &c. I have not attempted to send this back because of the uncertainty as to when you will be in N.Y. I don't know how even to address this letter - as mamma doubts whether she will be in 54th st. I cannot but hope it may be found practicable for you to hang out in ??grannie's?? apartment for a while, so that, if needs must, mamma can seek a new home unhurried. We have been here over a week out of quarantine & I find the place grows on me very much. I was rather sniffy in a letter I wrote to
Aunt Jenny two days ago, but my repeated wanderings increase my liking for it. I am sorry that we must go away - probably on Monday Oct 2. for Gibraltar. The climate is simply exquisite, clear, bright, sunny, warm but not too warm, and exhilarating. I have not nothing like it since Coquimbo - and then Coquimbo itself was a hole. This city is built on a succession of hills, along the river side for about a mile and a half. The hills are about four hundred feet high, the houses rising over above the other, mostly white but many often also blue, red, yellow or pink with mixture of other colors - a great deal of green hillside and the most delicious light blue sky and white clouds. It is really a dream --
like what we hear of Italy. Ashore the place has no particular beauty, at though there a few - very few - handsome shops - and some fine residence streets of the Spanish and Portuguese type; but what is perfectly delightful is the older parts - the streets about twelve feet wide, wandering round up hill and downhill, round corners and up lanes, just as if they had started out for a walk and had no particular reason to go one way rather than another. The houses in those parts are pretty high, and the windows all have verandas of different bright colors - usually green - and the picturesque effect is immensely increased by an artless way they have of hanging their wash on poles stuck out of the front windows - mingled with trousers, chenusis, children's petticoats +c. The windows not thus occupied are largely filled with the heads of women, speering out to see what is going on. On Sunday I found my way to a garden to which mamma and I were driven when we stopped here on our way home from South America with your useless little self of two years on the front seat - that is to say you were put on the front seat, and I think I can maintain without exaggeration that you often stayed on it as much as two seconds at a time. As I came down from the Jardim da Estrella, as it is called, I passed a scene which recalled your babyhood in Montevides, where you went out every morning in your nurse's arms, cup in hand, to get your milk fresh from the cow - at what is there called a Tambo. I saw a ??illegible?? tiled ??stash?? with ten cows, all beautifully groomed, feeding from a semi-circular manger, all there heads together in the center, and tails out. As there was plenty of hay for all, all seemed happy, and I
suppose the milk is sold on the premises. It was called Vaccaria Normanda. The language here is quite a study for me. I don't know it but its changes from the Spanish are of a pretty regular kind so I can spell my way through pretty well. It rejoices in vowels, discarding consonants. E. G. Union - Uniao; Concepcion Conceiçao; but could mamma tell what means " Irmaos " from her knowledge of Spanish -- "hermanos." It is quite funny to contrast with French thus: Without, [language abbreviation; above the line:] Fr sans, [language abbreviation; above the line:] Sp sin, [language abbreviation; above the line:] Port sem. The gardens are a very charming feature ofthis [of this] attractive town -- many plants that could not live with us growing freely and large outof [out of] doors -- ??chiefly?? great palms of different kinds, in addition towhich [to which] they have many of our own plants. These public gardens are scattered all over, and from many you get beautiful views. As for me, I simply
gander all over the place, starting for some point and getting there but hardly knowing how. I miss seeing any pretty faces on the streets, possibly there may be some somewhere but they dont show up. Tell mamma I will read the deed back as soon as I know where to send it, but as Dodie is also to sign I suppose there is no great hurry.
Sep. 30 I have kept my letter open until now thinking I might hear from mamma again, and her letter of the 14th was read to day. It calls for no notice, however, and I can only hope she may have thought of taking you to 34th St for October, which might solve many difficulties. I have nothing more to say but that I am well. Give my love to dearest mamma and to the rest.
Your loving father A.T.M.