Read "Journey to Portugal" by José Saramago online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
When the traveller left Beja for a second time, he was not taking by way of provisions the wonderful smile that the birth of St John the Baptist had offered him. But he found sustenance in another Roman villa, at Pisoes, refreshed by the geometrical mosaics and the generally relaxed atmosphere of the remains there. This stood him in good stead for the torrid heat he was about to venture into. But the smile he set out with disappeared in just a few kilometres, as fleeting as a snowflake. Only the day before yesterday the traveller was speaking of his astonishment, not to put it more crudely, at the fields of Entre-Murao-e-Moura and Entre-Moura-e-Serpa. So what can he say about the flat lands leading to Castro Verde through Trindade and Albernoa? Oh, all those of you who stretch out on a beach to enjoy the sun, come and see the fields of Albernoa if you really want to know what the sun really is!
See how dried up the streams are, at Marzelona, or the River Terges, the tiny, invisible streams that hardly make any impression on the landscape, each as dry as the other. Here you don't need a dictionary to know the meaning of the words heat, thirst, and major landowners. The traveller thought he knew what to expect, but what one sees with one's own eyes is always more than one bargained for.