The Cruise of the Frolic

As Bubble’s friend was on his way to visit his wine-pipes, he took us first to Villa Nova, the place I have been speaking of. One lodge he showed us contained three thousand pipes, ranged in long lines, two and three pipes one above another, which, at fifty pounds a pipe, represents a capital of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Some of the English houses are said to have two or three times that quantity; but of course the young wine is not of the value I have mentioned. The Port wine is grown on the banks of the Douro, in a district commencing about fifty miles above the city. It is made in the autumn, and remains in large vats on the farms till the spring, when it is put into casks, and brought down in flat-bottomed boats to the lodges at Villa Nova. Here it is racked and lotted to get rid of impurities, and has brandy put to it to keep it. Our friend assured us that Port wine will not keep for any length of time without brandy; the experiment has been tried over and over again. The only way to make it keep for a short time is to rack it constantly; but then it becomes spiritless, vapid, and colourless. To one conclusion we came, that Port wine in the lodge at Villa Nova and Port wine out of decanter at an English dinner-table are very different things; for Port wine racked and lotted for the English market, and kept some years In a temperate cellar, is undoubtedly vastly superior to the juice of the grape before it is so prepared.

Having satisfied our curiosity, with our friend as guide, we crossed the river to Oporto. We landed at a gateway in the brown old wall of the city, which runs along the river and up the hill to the east and west, surmounted by high, pointed battlements of a very Moorish appearance, though the Moors did not plant their conquering standard so far north as Oporto. Passing along a very narrow, cool, dirty, and somewhat odoriferous street, we entered a wide, well-paved one, called the Rua Nova. In the middle of it congregate the merchants every afternoon, at the exchange hour, to transact their public business. At the end of the street is a fine stone building, called the Factory House, a sort of club belonging to the English, who become members by election. High above the end of the street, on a hill covered with houses, rises the old cathedral of Oporto. We found our way to it along some narrow, twisting streets, with oriental-looking shops on either side – tinmen and goldsmiths and shoemakers and stationers – a line of each sort together. The cathedral, as well as all the churches we saw at Oporto, were rather curious than elegant.

For the greater part of our walk we were continually ascending along tolerably well-paved and clean streets, with stone houses and wide, projecting balconies, some with stone, others with iron balustrades. We passed through a street called the Street of Flowers; the chief shops in it were those of jewellers, who showed us some very beautiful filigree work in gold – brooches and ear-rings and rings. We next found ourselves in a square at the bottom of two hills, with wide streets running up each of them, and a church at their higher ends. One has a curious arabesque tower, of great height, which we saw a long way out at sea, called the Torre dos Clerigos. Going up still higher we reached a large parade ground, with barracks at one end, and near them a granite-fronted church, called the Lappa, where, in an urn, is preserved the heart of the heroic Dom Pedro – the grandfather of the present King of Portugal. Oporto is full of gardens, which make the city spread over a wide extent of ground. We were agreeably surprised with its bright, clean, cheerful look. Built on a succession of granite hills, which afford admirable materials for the construction of its edifices, it has a substantial comfortable look. It is also tolerably well drained, and wayfarers are not much offended with either bad sights or smells. The variety of the costume of the inhabitants gives it a lively look; for although gentlemen and ladies have taken to French fashions, the townspeople still generally wear the graceful black mantilla, or coloured or white handkerchief over their heads, while the peasantry appear with broad-brimmed hats and cloth jackets, gay-coloured petticoats, and a profusion of gold ear-rings and chains. There are beggars, but they are not very importunate, and the smallest copper coin seemed to satisfy them. Our friend told us that he has seen a Portuguese gentleman, wanting a copper, take his snuff-box and present it to a beggar, who would take a pinch with the air of a noble, and shower a thousand blessings on the head of the donor in return. “The truth is, that the Portuguese as a nation are the kindest people I have ever met,” observed our friend. “They think charitably and act charitably, and do not despise each other; they are kindly affectionate one to another. A good government and a reformed church would make them a very happy people.”

Our walk through the city was a hurried one, as we wished to be on board again before dark. We passed near a large palace, with some ugly visages garnishing the front. Here Dom Pedro lived, and here Marshal Soult’s dinner had been prepared, when the Duke of Wellington entered the city and ate it up. We found a boat ready to carry us down the river, which we reached by a steep, winding road. Our friend kindly insisted on accompanying us.

At Foz a catria was prepared by our friend’s directions to put us on board the yacht. Oh, how refreshing to our olfactory senses, after the hot air of the streets, was the fresh sea-breeze as we reached the mouth of the river, and once more floated on the blue Atlantic! The sun descended beneath the far western wave in a blaze of glory, such as I have seldom seen equalled in any latitude; the glow lit up the Lappa church, the Clerigos tower, and the Sierra convent in the distance, suffusing a rich glow over the whole landscape. All sail was set, but we made little way through the water; a calm succeeded, and then the hot night-wind came off the land in fitful gusts, smelling of parched earth and dry leaves. Having stood off the land sufficiently to clear every danger, we kept our course. The night was somewhat dark, and we had all turned in, leaving the mate in charge of the watch.

I know not what it was made me restless and inclined to turn out, and breathe the fresher air on deck; probably I was heated with the long and exciting excursion of the day. As I put my head up the companion-hatch, sailor-fashion, I turned my eyes towards every point of the compass. Did they deceive me? “Hallo, Sleet, what’s that?” I exclaimed. “Port the helm; hard aport, or we shall be run into.” What was the look-out about? Where were Sleet’s eyes? All, I suspect, were asleep. There, directly ahead of us, like some huge phantom of a disordered dream, came gliding on a line-of-battle ship, her tall masts and wide-spreading canvas towering up into the sky – a dark pyramid high above our heads; our destruction seemed inevitable. With a hail which horror made sound more like a shriek of despair, I summoned all hands on deck. Happily, the man at the helm of the yacht obeyed my orders at the moment, and the agile little craft slipped out of the way as the huge monster glided by, her side almost touching our taffrail, and her lower studding-sail booms just passing over our peak – so it seemed; our topmast, I know, had a narrow squeak for it.

“What ship’s that?” shouted Porpoise, springing on deck.

“Her Britannic Majesty’s ship ‘Megatherium,’” so the name sounded.

“Then let a better lookout be kept aboard her Britannic Majesty’s ship ‘megatherium’ in future, or the Duke of Blow-you-up will have to report to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,” replied Porpoise, through the speaking-trumpet. “I hauled in the duke just to frighten them a bit,” he added; “they wouldn’t care for the plain mister. The chances are that some of the lookouts had their eyes shut, and the officer of the watch had gone to freshen his nip a bit. No one dreams of danger on a fine night like this, and if a few small fishing-boats had been run down, no one would have heard any thing about it; there would be just a cry and a shriek from the drowning people, and all would be over. There’s more danger of being run down on a calm night like this than in a gale of wind, when everybody has his eyes open.”

“What cutter is that?” hailed some on board the ship, through a speaking-trumpet, before Porpoise had done speaking.

“Bow-wow-wow! I leave you to guess,” he answered.

By this time the vessels were so far apart that a hail could scarcely be distinguished, and so we separated. I only hope those who deserved a reprimand got it, and that any of my brother-officers, or other sea-going men who read these pages, will take the hint, and have as bright a lookout kept in fine weather as in foul.

Chapter Sixteen

Cintra – The Tagus – Lisbon – Cadiz – Gibraltar – Sandgate again – Old Friends – News of my Heroine

Two days after our narrow escape, as the rising sun shed his bright rays over the world of waters, we again made the land a little to the northward of the Rock of Lisbon. We could see with our glasses the vast convent and palace of Mafra, built by that debauched devotee, Don John V. He had a notion, not uncommon at the present day, that, by rearing edifices of brick and mortar, he might thus create for himself a few stepping-stones towards heaven. The building shows a front of seven hundred feet at least towards the sea, with a lofty portico in the centre, and is capable of quartering all the troops in the kingdom. When monks dwelt there they must have had ample space for exercise.

Soon afterwards we came under the rocky heights of Cintra. They surround a perfect oasis, rising from the arid plains about Lisbon. Every one knows Cintra on account of its Convention, not over creditable to its executors; its convent cut out of the rock, and lined with cork to keep the old monks warm; and its palace, built by the talented and eccentric Beckford, now a mass of ruins. We just got a glimpse through a break in the rocks of its cork, orange, and citron groves, surrounded with sweet-scented shrubs.

Passing the Bay of Cascaes, a fresh breeze carried us by the white circular Bugio Fort, standing on a rock at the mouth of the Tagus, and with a fair tide we ascended the river.

In our company were a number of craft of all sorts, carrying flags of all nations. Iron-moulded and weather-stained Indiamen, and Brazilian ships surrounded by boats full of people, who had come out to welcome relations and friends after a long absence; men-of-war, with their polished sides and snowy, wide-spreading canvas; heavily laden and heavy-looking English merchant-brigs, more esteemed for capacity than for speed, like London aldermen; tub-shaped, yellow-sided Dutchmen, laden with cargoes more formidable in appearance than in reality. Instead of being bomb-shells or round-shot, proving, on nearer inspection, to be Dutch cheeses, to be dreaded only by those of weak digestion.

Contrasted with the heavy-looking foreign vessels were the Portuguese rascas, employed chiefly in the coasting trade, with their graceful, high-pointed, lateen sails, sharp bows, and rounded decks, and the native schooners or hiates, with hulls not destitute of beauty, but rigged with masts raking at different angles, and gaffs peaked at unequal heights. There were also numberless sloops, and schooners, and boats of various sorts, the most curious being the Lisbon fishing-boat, shaped like a bean-pod, curving up at stem and stern, with a short rounded deck at either end, and a single high lateen sail. A pilot whom we received on board off the Bugio Fort took us close to the white tower of Belem, and its Gothic church at the western end of Lisbon, and brought us to an anchor among a crowd of other vessels off Blackhorse Square. Lisbon rising on several hills from the waters of the wide-flowing Tagus – here many miles across – is noted as a very picturesque city; its white buildings glittering in the sun, crowned by the dark frowning castle, and surrounded by suburbs intermixed with gardens filled with richly-tinted orange-trees and flowers of many hues.

Gold and Silver Streets are handsome streets; and there are some fine palaces, and the Opera House is a respectable edifice, and has, moreover, a very good opera; but, though improved of late years, we were told, in cleanliness, it is still a very dirty city, and the lower orders have a marked inferiority to those we saw at Oporto. They are a darker, smaller race, with much Moorish blood in their veins, without any mixture of the nobler Gothic stream from which the inhabitants of the north have sprung. They are the fellows who have gained for the Portuguese the character of being assassins and robbers, which certainly those in the north do not deserve. However, a strong government, liberal institutions, and a street police have pretty well put a stop to such proceedings even there.

The best account I have ever read of Lisbon and its people, as they were before the French Revolution changed affairs not a little in most of the countries of Europe, is to be found in Beckford’s “Visit to the Convents of Alcobaça and Batalha,” and in his “Tour to Italy and Portugal.” There is a rich, racy humour in his descriptions, which has seldom been surpassed. At one of the convents a dance is proposed for the entertainment of the illustrious strangers, and while a few act as musicians, the greater number of the oleaginous, obese monks tuck up their frocks, and begin sliding and whirling and gliding about with as much gusto as a number of school-girls at play. But we must be off to sea again.

We lionised Lisbon, and paid a visit to Cintra, but as no adventure occurred worthy of note to any of our party, I will not enter into details.

Once more the “Frolic” breasted the waves of the Atlantic, her course being for fair Cadiz. On the third day after leaving the Tagus, we dropped our anchor off that bright, smiling city. Its flat-roofed houses give it somewhat of an eastern look, but it is far cleaner than any eastern city. The houses are built after the Moorish fashion, and very like the residences excavated at Pompeii. The colouring of the outside is more in accordance with the taste of the luxurious Romans in the days of their degeneracy, than with that of the ancient Greeks, which made them satisfied with softer hues; while the interior, on the other hand, is as cool and simple as the purest taste can make it. No sooner had we furled sails than all hands were eager to go on shore, to have a glimpse at the often talked of mantilla-wearing, fair, flirting, fascinating Gaditanas. The gig was lowered, and on shore we went.

We were not disappointed in the appearance of Cadiz. The streets are narrow, that the sun of that torrid clime may not penetrate into them, and those only who have lived in a southern latitude can appreciate the luxury of having a cool, shady road in which to walk. Verandas in front of every window reach nearly half-way overhead; they are closely barred, and sometimes glazed, so that no impertinent eye can penetrate their recesses. These verandas are full of flowers, and overhung with ivy or other luxuriant creepers.

The fronts of the houses are ornamented with various colours, as red, blue, yellow, green, and other tints; while the separation between each house and each floor is marked by lines of red, thus giving the whole street a singularly bright and cheerful appearance.

The gateway is the pride of a Cadiz house. Many we passed were very handsome. It was pleasant to look through them into the interior, where the column-surrounded patios with cool, sparkling fountains in their centres, and shrubs and flowers of every hue, were indeed most refreshing to the senses. Every house is a square, with one or more patios in the centre, their only roof the bright blue sky. Into this court of columns all the rooms of the house open. Shade and coolness are the great things sought for in that clime.

We wandered up and down the narrow streets till we began to wish that some one would take compassion on us and ask us in; but nobody did, and our only satisfaction was the belief that we created a mighty sensation in the bosoms of numberless lovely damsels whose bright eyes we saw flashing at us through the thickly-barred jalouses.

“Ah, my good fellows, but you did not see their small noses, thick lips, and swarthy skins,” observed that unsentimental fellow, Bubble, thus cruelly depriving us of the only consolation we enjoyed. The fact was that at that early hour of the day no one goes abroad who can stay at home, except, as the Spaniards say, dogs and Englishmen, putting the canine tribe before the biped. Fatigue drove us into a café, where we took some refreshment, and in the evening we were somewhat repaid by watching the crowds of bewitching damsels and gay cavaliers, who sauntered forth to enjoy the cool air, and each other’s conversation.

Cadiz is joined to the mainland by a narrow strip of sand, deprived of which it would be an island. Opposite to it, across the bay, is Port St. Mary’s, the port of Xeres, where the sherry wine is embarked.

The next day we visited that place to taste some of its celebrated wines. We were much captivated with some deliciously dry Mansanilla, inferior as it is in flavour, however, to the still more valuable Amontillado.

But interesting as was our visit to Cadiz to ourselves, attractive as were its far-famed dames, and delicious as were its wines, my readers will undoubtedly rather hear some of the more stirring events of our cruise.

Away, away, once more we went, bounding over the blue ocean. We were, however, destined not to find ourselves so soon inside the Mediterranean as we expected. A dead calm came on, and for many hours we lay sweltering under a sun not much less fierce than that of the tropics.

It was very tantalising to remain thus almost in sight of the entrance of that classic sea we all wished to behold, and yet not be able to get there. Once within the influence of that strange current which from age to age has unweariedly flowed into that mighty basin, and yet never has filled it, we should have advanced with sufficient rapidity. Another whole day tried our patience, and Hearty had begun to declare that, after all, he thought the Mediterranean could not be worth visiting, when, on the morning of the third day, a breeze sprung up, and the cutter began to slip through the water towards the Straits.

The chief strength of the current is in the centre, far out of reach of shot and shell from the shore on either side. I mention this because many people have a notion that the fortress of Gibraltar defends the entrance to the Straits. The fact is, that the narrowest part is seven and a quarter miles wide; but that narrowest part we passed through at a distance of fifteen miles from Gibraltar, before we reached it. We did not, indeed, see the Rock before we had passed the Narrows.

The distance from the Rock to Ceuta, opposite to it on the African coast, is twelve miles.

Gibraltar is formed by a tongue of land three miles long and one broad, with a sandbank joining it to the main, and terminating with a high promontory. No one ever expected to make it defend the Straits, even before steamers were introduced. The heaviest guns are turned towards Spain; at the same time the sea-side is made inaccessible by scarping. Below the Rock is a belt of level land, on which the modern town is built. The Rock has the form of a lofty ridge with three elevations on it, one at each end, and one in the centre. That in the centre is the highest, and has the flagstaff planted on it. When we landed, we went through the wonderful galleries excavated in the Rock. These excavations have been going on since the time of the Moors, who, I believe, made by far the largest number of them.

They were wonderful fellows, those Moors. I have always felt a vast respect for them when I have beheld their remains in the south of Spain. The reason of their success is, that they were always in earnest in whatever they undertook. However, I don’t want to talk here about the Moors. Gibraltar is a very curious place, and well worth a visit; with its excavated galleries, its heavy guns, its outward fortifications, its zig-zag roads, its towers and batteries, its narrow streets, its crowded houses, its ragged rocks, and its troops of monkeys, the only specimens of the family of simia, which reside, I believe, in a wild state in Europe. Gibraltar, in reality, from its geological formation, belongs rather to Africa than to Europe, it being evidently cut off from the African mountains, and having no connection with those of Europe.

It is a question for naturalists to solve how the monkeys came there – I don’t pretend to do so. We brought up in Gibraltar Bay, where the yacht lay very comfortably, and so do now our men-of-war. Should, however, a war break out with Spain, they would find the place too hot to hold them, as the bay is completely commanded by the Spanish coast, where batteries could speedily be erected, nor could the Rock afford the ships any protection.

Now I have talked enough about Gibraltar; I’ll however just describe it, like a big tadpole caught by the tail as it was darting away towards Africa. We spent some pleasant days there, and were very hospitably treated by some military friends in the garrison. Malta, the Isles of Greece, and the Levant, was our destination. I did not fail to make inquiries respecting Sandgate; and, curious enough, I fell in with a merchant who had in his youth fought in the Greek War of Independence. He told me that a youth of that name, and who in every way answered Sandgate’s description, had come out from England and joined the patriot forces. He was a brave, dashing fellow, but most troublesome from his unwillingness to submit to any of the necessary restraints of discipline, and utterly unprincipled. He had, however, plenty of talent, and managed to ingratiate himself with some of the Greek chiefs, though the more respectable, as did the English Philhellenes, stood aloof from him.

“The truth is,” said my friend, “many of those Greek chiefs had been notorious pirates themselves, and I have no doubt Sandgate learned his trade from them.”

“I suspect very strongly that the man you describe and Sandgate are one and the same person,” I remarked. “It is curious that I should so soon have gained a clew to him.”

The next day I again met my friend. “I have some further account of Sandgate to give you,” said he, taking me by the button; “he’ll give some little trouble before his career is closed, I suspect. My Smyrna correspondent is here, and he tells me that he knew of Sandgate’s being there, and of his selling his yacht. He served with me in the war, and knew him also: consequently, when he made his appearance he kept his eye upon him. He traced him on board a vessel, in which he went to one of the Greek islands. From thence he crossed to a smaller island owned by a chief who had once been a notorious pirate, and was strongly suspected of still following the same trade in a more quiet way. There he lost sight of him; but several piracies had been committed during the spring by a craft which it was suspected had been fitted out in the island in question.”

“We certainly have in a most unexpected way discovered a clew to Mr Sandgate’s whereabouts and course of life,” I remarked. “It would almost read like a romance were it to be put into print.”

“Oh, we have had many heroes of that description from time to time in the Mediterranean,” replied my friend. “There was that fellow Delano, who was hung at Malta a few years back, he was an Englishman – or a Yankee, I believe rather. How many piracies he had committed I do not know before he was found out, but at last he tried to scuttle a brig, which did not go down as he thought she had, so happily his intended victims escaped and informed against him. He was captured by a man-of-war’s boat’s crew, and he and his followers were carried in chains to Malta. Then there was a very daring fellow, a Greek, Zappa by name, who commanded a brig, and on one occasion attacked an Austrian man-of-war which he believed had treasure on board, and took her. Then there has been no end of Greek pirates of high or low degree. Gentlemanly cut-throats, princes and counts with fleets under their command, down to the disreputable owners of small boats which lie in wait behind headlands to rob unwary merchantmen who cannot defend themselves. Oh! the Mediterranean has reason to be proud of the achievements of its mariners from the times of the pious Aeneas down to the present day.”