"I SAY!" howled a man; "I say!--a word!--I say! Pasagero!
Pasagero! Pasage-e-ero!" We were two hundred yards ahead by this
time.
"Go on," says the captain.
"You may stop if you like," says Lieutenant Bundy, exerting his
tremendous responsibility. It is evident that the lieutenant has a
soft heart, and felt for the poor devil in the boat who was howling
so piteously "Pasagero!"
But the captain was resolute. His duty was NOT to take the man up.
He was evidently an irregular customer--someone trying to escape,
possibly.
The lieutenant turned away, but did not make any further hints.
The captain was right; but we all felt somehow disappointed, and
looked back wistfully at the little boat, jumping up and down far
astern now; the poor little light shining in vain, and the poor
wretch within screaming out in the most heartrending accents a last
faint desperate "I say! Pasagero-o!"
We all went down to tea rather melancholy; but the new milk, in the
place of that abominable whipped egg, revived us again; and so
ended the great events on board the "Lady Mary Wood" steamer, on
the 25th August, 1844.
CHAPTER II: LISBON--CADIZ
A great misfortune which befalls a man who has but a single day to
stay in a town, is that fatal duty which superstition entails upon
him of visiting the chief lions of the city in which he may happen
to be. You must go through the ceremony, however much you may sigh
to avoid it; and however much you know that the lions in one
capital roar very much like the lions in another; that the churches
are more or less large and splendid, the palaces pretty spacious,
all the world over; and that there is scarcely a capital city in
this Europe but has its pompous bronze statue or two of some
periwigged, hook-nosed emperor, in a Roman habit, waving his bronze
baton on his broad-flanked brazen charger. We only saw these state
old lions in Lisbon, whose roar has long since ceased to frighten
one. First we went to the Church of St. Roch, to see a famous
piece of mosaic-work there. It is a famous work of art, and was
bought by I don't know what king for I don't know how much money.
All this information may be perfectly relied on, though the fact
is, we did not see the mosaic-work: the sacristan, who guards it,
was yet in bed; and it was veiled from our eyes in a side-chapel by
great dirty damask curtains, which could not be removed, except
when the sacristan's toilette was done, and at the price of a
dollar. So we were spared this mosaic exhibition; and I think I
always feel relieved when such an event occurs. I feel I have done
my duty in coming to see the enormous animal: if he is not at
home, virtute mea me, &c.--we have done our best, and mortal can do
no more.
In order to reach that church of the forbidden mosaic, we had
sweated up several most steep and dusty streets--hot and dusty,
although it was but nine o'clock in the morning. Thence the guide
conducted us into some little dust-powdered gardens, in which the
people make believe to enjoy the verdure, and whence you look over
a great part of the arid, dreary, stony city. There was no smoke,
as in honest London, only dust--dust over the gaunt houses and the
dismal yellow strips of gardens. Many churches were there, and
tall half-baked-looking public edifices, that had a dry,
uncomfortable, earth-quaky look, to my idea. The ground-floors of
the spacious houses by which we passed seemed the coolest and
pleasantest portions of the mansion. They were cellars or
warehouses, for the most part, in which white-jacketed clerks sat
smoking easy cigars. The streets were plastered with placards of a
bull-fight, to take place the next evening (there was no opera that
season); but it was not a real Spanish tauromachy--only a
theatrical combat, as you could see by the picture in which the
horseman was cantering off at three miles an hour, the bull
tripping after him with tips to his gentle horns. Mules
interminable, and almost all excellently sleek and handsome, were
pacing down every street: here and there, but later in the day,
came clattering along a smart rider on a prancing Spanish horse;
and in the afternoon a few families might be seen in the queerest
old-fashioned little carriages, drawn by their jolly mules and
swinging between, or rather before, enormous wheels.
The churches I saw were of the florid periwig architecture--I mean
of that pompous cauliflower kind of ornament which was the fashion
in Louis the Fifteenth's time, at which unlucky period a building
mania seems to have seized upon many of the monarchs of Europe, and
innumerable public edifices were erected. It seems to me to have
been the period in all history when society was the least natural,
and perhaps the most dissolute; and I have always fancied that the
bloated artificial forms of the architecture partake of the social
disorganisation of the time. Who can respect a simpering ninny,
grinning in a Roman dress and a full-bottomed wig, who is made to
pass off for a hero? or a fat woman in a hoop, and of a most
doubtful virtue, who leers at you as a goddess? In the palaces
which we saw, several Court allegories were represented, which,
atrocious as they were in point of art, might yet serve to attract
the regard of the moraliser. There were Faith, Hope, and Charity
restoring Don John to the arms of his happy Portugal: there were
Virtue, Valour, and Victory saluting Don Emanuel: Reading,
Writing, and Arithmetic (for what I know, or some mythologic
nymphs) dancing before Don Miguel--the picture is there still, at
the Ajuda; and ah me! where is poor Mig? Well, it is these State
lies and ceremonies that we persist in going to see; whereas a man
would have a much better insight into Portuguese manners, by
planting himself at a corner, like yonder beggar, and watching the
real transactions of the day.
A drive to Belem is the regular route practised by the traveller
who has to make only a short stay, and accordingly a couple of
carriages were provided for our party, and we were driven through
the long merry street of Belem, peopled by endless strings of
mules,--by thousands of gallegos, with water-barrels on their
shoulders, or lounging by the fountains to hire,--by the Lisbon and
Belem omnibuses, with four mules, jingling along at a good pace;
and it seemed to me to present a far more lively and cheerful,
though not so regular, an appearance as the stately quarters of the
city we had left behind us. The little shops were at full work--
the men brown, well-dressed, manly, and handsome: so much cannot,
I am sorry to say, be said for the ladies, of whom, with every
anxiety to do so, our party could not perceive a single good-
looking specimen all day. The noble blue Tagus accompanies you all
along these three miles of busy pleasant street, whereof the chief
charm, as I thought, was its look of genuine busines
s--that
appearance of comfort which the cleverest Court-architect never
knows how to give.
The carriages (the canvas one with four seats and the chaise in
which I drove) were brought suddenly up to a gate with the Royal
arms over it; and here we were introduced to as queer an exhibition
as the eye has often looked on. This was the state-carriage house,
where there is a museum of huge old tumble-down gilded coaches of
the last century, lying here, mouldy and dark, in a sort of limbo.
The gold has vanished from the great lumbering old wheels and
panels; the velvets are wofully tarnished. When one thinks of the
patches and powder that have simpered out of those plate-glass
windows--the mitred bishops, the big-wigged marshals, the shovel-
hatted abbes which they have borne in their time--the human mind
becomes affected in no ordinary degree. Some human minds heave a
sigh for the glories of bygone days; while others, considering
rather the lies and humbug, the vice and servility, which went
framed and glazed and enshrined, creaking along in those old
Juggernaut cars, with fools worshipping under the wheels, console
themselves for the decay of institutions that may have been
splendid and costly, but were ponderous, clumsy, slow, and unfit
for daily wear. The guardian of these defunct old carriages tells
some prodigious fibs concerning them: he pointed out one carriage
that was six hundred years old in his calendar; but any connoisseur
in bric-a-brac can see it was built at Paris in the Regent Orleans'
time.
Hence it is but a step to an institution in full life and vigour,--
a noble orphan-school for one thousand boys and girls, founded by
Don Pedro, who gave up to its use the superb convent of Belem, with
its splendid cloisters, vast airy dormitories, and magnificent
church. Some Oxford gentlemen would have wept to see the
desecrated edifice,--to think that the shaven polls and white gowns
were banished from it to give place to a thousand children, who
have not even the clergy to instruct them. "Every lad here may
choose his trade," our little informant said, who addressed us in
better French than any of our party spoke, whose manners were
perfectly gentlemanlike and respectful, and whose clothes, though
of a common cotton stuff, were cut and worn with a military
neatness and precision. All the children whom we remarked were
dressed with similar neatness, and it was a pleasure to go through
their various rooms for study, where some were busy at mathematics,
some at drawing, some attending a lecture on tailoring, while
others were sitting at the feet of a professor of the science of
shoemaking. All the garments of the establishment were made by the
pupils; even the deaf and dumb were drawing and reading, and the
blind were, for the most part, set to perform on musical
instruments, and got up a concert for the visitors. It was then we
wished ourselves of the numbers of the deaf and dumb, for the poor
fellows made noises so horrible, that even as blind beggars they
could hardly get a livelihood in the musical way.
Hence we were driven to the huge palace of Necessidades, which is
but a wing of a building that no King of Portugal ought ever to be
rich enough to complete, and which, if perfect, might outvie the
Tower of Babel. The mines of Brazil must have been productive of
gold and silver indeed when the founder imagined this enormous
edifice. From the elevation on which it stands it commands the
noblest views,--the city is spread before it, with its many
churches and towers, and for many miles you see the magnificent
Tagus, rolling by banks crowned with trees and towers. But to
arrive at this enormous building you have to climb a steep suburb
of wretched huts, many of them with dismal gardens of dry cracked
earth, where a few reedy sprouts of Indian corn seemed to be the
chief cultivation, and which were guarded by huge plants of spiky
aloes, on which the rags of the proprietors of the huts were
sunning themselves. The terrace before the palace was similarly
encroached upon by these wretched habitations. A few millions
judiciously expended might make of this arid hill one of the most
magnificent gardens in the world; and the palace seems to me to
excel for situation any Royal edifice I have ever seen. But the
huts of these swarming poor have crawled up close to its gates,--
the superb walls of hewn stone stop all of a sudden with a lath-
and-plaster hitch; and capitals, and hewn stones for columns, still
lying about on the deserted terrace, may lie there for ages to
come, probably, and never take their places by the side of their
brethren in yonder tall bankrupt galleries. The air of this pure
sky has little effect upon the edifices,--the edges of the stone
look as sharp as if the builders had just left their work; and
close to the grand entrance stands an outbuilding, part of which
may have been burnt fifty years ago, but is in such cheerful
preservation that you might fancy the fire had occurred yesterday.
It must have been an awful sight from this hill to have looked at
the city spread before it, and seen it reeling and swaying in the
time of the earthquake. I thought it looked so hot and shaky, that
one might fancy a return of the fit. In several places still
remain gaps and chasms, and ruins lie here and there as they
cracked and fell.
Although the palace has not attained anything like its full growth,
yet what exists is quite big enough for the monarch of such a
little country; and Versailles or Windsor has not apartments more
nobly proportioned. The Queen resides in the Ajuda, a building of
much less pretensions, of which the yellow walls and beautiful
gardens are seen between Belem and the city. The Necessidades are
only used for grand galas, receptions of ambassadors, and
ceremonies of state. In the throne-room is a huge throne,
surmounted by an enormous gilt crown, than which I have never seen
anything larger in the finest pantomime at Drury Lane; but the
effect of this splendid piece is lessened by a shabby old Brussels
carpet, almost the only other article of furniture in the
apartment, and not quite large enough to cover its spacious floor.
The looms of Kidderminster have supplied the web which ornaments
the "Ambassadors' Waiting-Room," and the ceilings are painted with
huge allegories in distemper, which pretty well correspond with the
other furniture. Of all the undignified objects in the world, a
palace out at elbows is surely the meanest. Such places ought not
to be seen in adversity,--splendour is their decency,--and when no
longer able to maintain it, they should sink to the level of their
means, calmly subside into manufactories, or go shabby in
seclusion.
There is a picture-gallery belonging to the palace that is quite of
a piece with the furniture, where are the mythological pieces
relative to the kings before alluded to, and where the English
visitor will see some astonishing pictures of the Duke of
Wellington, done in a very characteristic style of Portuguese art.
There is also a chapel, which has been decorated with much care and
sumptuousness of ornament--the altar surmounted by a ghastly and
horrible carved figure in the taste of the time when faith was
strengthened by the shrieks of Jews on the rack, and enlivened by
the roasting of heretics. Other such frightful images may be seen
in the churches of the city; those which we saw were still rich,
tawdry, and splendid to outward show, although the French, as
usual, had robbed their shrines of their gold and silver, and the
statues of their jewels and crowns. But brass and tinsel look to
the visitor full as well at a little distance,--as doubtless Soult
and Junot thought, when they despoiled these places of worship,
like French philosophers as they were.
A friend, with a classical turn of mind, was bent upon seeing the
aqueduct, whither we went on a dismal excursion of three hours, in
the worst carriages, over the most diabolical clattering roads, up
and down dreary parched hills, on which grew a few grey olive-trees
and many aloes. When we arrived, the gate leading to the aqueduct
was closed, and we were entertained with a legend of some
respectable character who had made a good livelihood there for some
time past lately, having a private key to this very aqueduct, and
lying in wait there for unwary travellers like ourselves, whom he
pitched down the arches into the ravines below, and there robbed
them at leisure. So that all we saw was the door and the tall
arches of the aqueduct, and by the time we returned to town it was
time to go on board the ship again. If the inn at which we had
sojourned was not of the best quality, the bill, at least, would
have done honour to the first establishment in London. We all left
the house of entertainment joyfully, glad to get out of the sun-
burnt city and go HOME. Yonder in the steamer was home, with its
black funnel and gilt portraiture of "Lady Mary Wood" at the bows;
and every soul on board felt glad to return to the friendly little
vessel. But the authorities of Lisbon, however, are very
suspicious of the departing stranger, and we were made to lie an
hour in the river before the Sanita boat, where a passport is
necessary to be procured before the traveller can quit the country.
Boat after boat laden with priests and peasantry, with handsome
red-sashed gallegos clad in brown, and ill-favoured women, came and
got their permits, and were off, as we lay bumping up against the
old hull of the Sanita boat; but the officers seemed to take a
delight in keeping us there bumping, looked at us quite calmly over
the ship's sides, and smoked their cigars without the least
attention to the prayers which we shrieked out for release.
If we were glad to get away from Lisbon, we were quite as sorry to
be obliged to quit Cadiz, which we reached the next night, and
where we were allowed a couple of hours' leave to land and look
about. It seemed as handsome within as it is stately without; the
long narrow streets of an admirable cleanliness, many of the tall
houses of rich and noble decorations, and all looking as if the
city were in full prosperity. I have seen no more cheerful and
animated sight than the long street leading from the quay where we
were landed, and the market blazing in sunshine, piled with fruit,
fish, and poultry, under many-coloured awnings; the tall white
houses with their balconies and galleries shining round about, and
the sky above so blue that the best cobalt in all the paint-box
looks muddy and dim in comparison to it. There were pictures for a
year in that market-place--from the copper-coloured old hags and
beggars who roared to you for the love of Heaven to give money, to
the swaggering dandies of the market, with red sashes and tight
clothes, looking on superbly, with a hand on the hip and a cigar in
the mouth. These must be the chief critics at the great bull-fight
house yonder by the Alameda, with its scanty trees, and cool
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