Lisbon—The two Kings of Portugal, and of Barataria—King Fernando and the Countess—A Lisbon bull-fight—The "hat-trick"—Courtship window-parade—The spurred youth of Lisbon—Portuguese politeness—The De Reszke family—The Opera—Terrible personal experiences in a circus—The bounding Bishop—Ecclesiastical possibilities—Portuguese coinage—Beauty of Lisbon—Visits of the British Fleet—Misguided midshipmen—The Legation Whaleboat—"Good wine needs no bush"—A delightful orange-farm—Cintra—Contrast between the Past and Present of Portugal.
A professional diplomat becomes used to rapid changes in his environment. He has also to learn to readjust his monetary standards, for after calculating everything in roubles for, let us say, four years, he may find himself in a country where the peseta or the dollar are the units. At every fresh post he has to start again from the beginning, as he endeavours to learn the customs and above all the mentality of the new country. He has to form a brand-new acquaintance, to get to know the points of view of those amongst whom he is living, and in general to shape himself to totally new surroundings. A diplomat in this way insensibly acquires adaptability.
It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast to Petrograd than Lisbon, which was my next post.
{212}
After the rather hectic gaiety of Petrograd, with its persistent flavour of an exotic and artificial civilisation, the placid, uneventful flow of life at Lisbon was restful, possibly even dull.
Curiously enough, in those days there were two Kings of Portugal at the same time. This state of things (which always reminded me irresistibly of the two Kings of Barataria in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Gondoliers") had come about quite naturally. Queen Maria II (Maria da Gloria) had married in 1836 Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who was raised next year to the title of King Consort. Maria II died in 1853 and was succeeded by Pedro V. During his son's minority King Ferdinand acted as Regent, and Pedro, dying unmarried eight years after, was succeeded in turn by his brother Luiz, also a son of King Ferdinand.
When the Corps Diplomatique were received at the Ajuda Palace on New Year's Day, the scene always struck me as being intensely comical. The two Kings (universally known as Dom Fernando and Dom Luiz) entered simultaneously by different doors. When they met Dom Luiz made a low bow to Dom Fernando, and then kissed his father's hand. Dom Fernando responded with an equally low bow, and kissed his son's hand. The two Kings then ascended the throne together. Had "The Gondoliers" been already composed then, I should have expected the two Monarchs to break into the duet from the second act, "Rising early in the Morning," in which the two Kings of Barataria
{213}
explain their multitudinous duties. As King Luiz had a fine tenor voice, His Majesty could also in that case have brightened up the proceedings by singing us "Take a pair of sparkling eyes."
Dom Fernando was a perfectly delightful old gentleman, very highly cultured, full of humour, and with a charming natural courtesy of manner. The drolly-named Necessidades Palace which he inhabited was an unpretentious house full of beautiful old Portuguese furniture. Most of the rooms were wainscoted with the finest "azulejos" I ever saw; blue and white tiles which the Portuguese adopted originally from the Moors, but learnt later to make for themselves under the tuition of Dutch craftsmen from Delft. These "azulejos" form the most decorative background to a room that can be imagined. A bold pictorial design, a complete and elaborate picture in blue on white, runs along their whole length. It is thus very difficult to remove and re-erect "azulejos," for one broken tile will spoil the whole design. The Portuguese use these everywhere, both for the exteriors and interiors of their houses, and also as garden ornaments, and they are wonderfully effective.
Dom Fernando had married morganatically, as his second wife, a dancer of American origin. This lady had a remarkably strident voice, and was much to the fore on the fortnightly afternoons when Dom Fernando received the men of the Corps Diplomatique. For some reason or other, the ladies of the Diplomatic Body always found themselves
{214}
unable to attend these gatherings. The courteous, genial old King would move about, smilingly dispensing his truly admirable cigars, and brimful of anecdotes and jokelets. The nasal raucaus tones of the ex-dancer, always known as "the Countess," would summon him in English. "Say, King! you just hurry up with those cigars. They are badly wanted here."
I imagine that in the days of her successes on the stage the lady's outline must have been less voluminous than it was when I made her acquaintance. The only other occasion when I heard a monarch addressed as "King" tout court was when a small relation of my own, aged five, at a children's garden-party at Buckingham Palace insisted on answering King Edward VII's questions with a "Yes, O King," or "No, O King"; a form of address which had a pleasant Biblical flavour about it.
The Portuguese are a very humane race, and are extraordinarily kind to animals. They are also devoted to bull-fights. These two tendencies seem irreconcilable, till the fact is grasped that a Portuguese bull-fight is absolutely bloodless. Neither bulls nor horses are killed; the whole spectacle resolves itself into an exhibition of horsemanship and skill.
The bulls' horns are padded and covered with leather thongs. The picador rides a really good and highly-trained horse. Should he allow the bull even to touch his horse with his padded horns, the unfortunate picador will get mercilessly hissed.
{215}
These picadores do not wear the showy Spanish dresses, but Louis Quinze costumes of purple velvet with large white wigs. The espada is armed with a wooden sword only, which he plants innocuously on the neck of the bull, and woe betide him should those tens of thousands of eager eyes watching him detect a deviation of even one inch from the death-dealing spot. He will be hissed out of the ring. On the other hand, should he succeed in touching the fatal place with his harmless weapon, his skill would be rewarded with thunders of applause, and all the occupants of the upper galleries would shower small change and cigarettes into the ring, and would also hurl their hats into the arena, which always struck me as a peculiarly comical way of expressing their appreciation.
The espada would gaze at the hundreds of shabby battered bowler hats reposing on the sand of the arena with the same expression of simulated rapture that a prima donna assumes as floral tributes are handed to her across the footlights. The espada, his hand on his heart, would bow again and again, as though saying, "Are these lovely hats really for me?" But after a second glance at the dilapidated head-gear, covering the entire floor-space of the arena with little sub-fuse hummocks, he would apparently change his mind. "It is really amazingly good of you, and I do appreciate it, but I think on the whole that I will not deprive you of them," and then an exhibition of real skill occurred. The espada, taking up a hat, would
{216}
glance at the galleries. Up went a hand, and the hat hurtled aloft to its owner with unfailing accuracy; and this performance was repeated perhaps a hundred times. I always considered the espada's hat-returning act far more extraordinary than his futile manipulation of the inoffensive wooden sword. During the aerial flights of the hats, two small acolytes of the espada, his miniature facsimiles in dress, picked up the small change and cigarettes, and, I trust, duly handed them over intact to their master. The bull meanwhile, after his imaginary slaughter, had trotted home contentedly to his underground quarters, surrounded by some twenty gaily-caparisoned tame bullocks. To my mind Spanish bull-fighting is revolting and horrible to the last degree. I have seen it once, and nothing will induce me to assist a second time at so disgusting a spectacle; but the most squeamish person can view a Portuguese bull-fight with impunity. Even though the bull has his horns bandaged, considerable skill and great acrobatic agility come into play. Few of us would care to stand in the path of a charging polled Angus bull, hornless though he be. The bandarilheros who plant paper-decorated darts in the neck of the charging bull are as nimble as trained acrobats, and vault lightly out of the ring when hard pressed. Conspicuous at a Lisbon bull-fight are a number of sturdy peasants, tricked out in showy clothes of scarlet and orange. These are "the men of strength." Should a bull prove cowardly in the ring, and decline to fight, the public
{217}
clamour for him to be caught and expelled ignomiously from the ring by "the men of strength." Eight of the stalwart peasants will then hurl themselves on to the bull and literally hustle him out of the arena; no mean feat. Take it all round, a Portuguese bull-fight was picturesque and full of life and colour, though the neighbouring Spaniards affected an immense contempt for them on account of their bloodlessness and make-belief.
A curious Portuguese custom is one which ordains that a youth before proposing formally for a maiden's hand must do "window parade" for two months (in Portuguese "fazer a janella"). Nature has not allotted good looks to the majority of the Portuguese race, and she has been especially niggardly in this respect to the feminine element of the population. The taste for olives and for caviar is usually supposed to be an acquired one, and so may be the taste for Lusitanian loveliness. Somewhat to the surprise of the foreigner, Portuguese maidens seemed to inspire the same sentiments in the breasts of the youthful male as do their more-favoured sisters in other lands, but in bourgeois circles the "window-parade" was an indispensable preliminary to courtship. The youth had to pass backwards and forwards along the street where the dwelling of his innamorata was situated, casting up glances of passionate appeal to a window, where, as he knew, the form of his enchantress would presently appear. The maiden, when she judged that she might at length reveal herself
{218}
without unduly encouraging her suitor, moved to the open window and stood fanning herself, laboriously unconscious of her ardent swain in the street below. The youth would then express his consuming passion in pantomime, making frantic gestures in testimony of his mad adoration. The senhorita in return might favour him with a coy glance, and in token of dismissal would perhaps drop him a rose, which the young man would press to his lips and then place over his heart, and so the performance came to an end, to be renewed again the next evening. The lovesick swain would almost certainly be wearing spurs. At first I could not make out why the young men of Lisbon, who had probably never been on a horse in their whole lives, should habitually walk about the town with spurs on their heels. It was, I think, a survival of the old Peninsular tradition, and was intended to prove to the world that they were "cavalleiros." In Spain an immense distinction was formerly made between the "caballero" and the "peon"; the mounted man, or gentleman, and the man on foot, or day-labourer. The little box-spurs were the only means these Lisbon youths had of proving their quality to the world. They had no horses, but they had spurs, which was obviously the next best thing.
Fortunes in Portugal being small, and strict economy having to be observed amongst all classes, I have heard that these damsels of the window-sill only dressed down to the waist. They would assume a corsage of scarlet or crimson plush, and,
{219}
their nether garments being invisible from below, would study both economy and comfort by wearing a flannel petticoat below it. It is unnecessary for me to add that I never verified this detail from personal observation.
Some of the old Portuguese families occupied very fine, if sparsely furnished, houses, with enfilades of great, lofty bare rooms. After calling at one of these houses, the master of it would in Continental fashion "reconduct" his visitor towards the front door. At every single doorway the Portuguese code of politeness dictated that the visitor should protest energetically against his host accompanying him one step further. With equal insistence the host expressed his resolve to escort his visitor a little longer. The master of the house had previously settled in his own mind exactly how far he was going towards the entrance, the distance depending on the rank of the visitor, but the accepted code of manners insisted upon these protests and counter-protests at every single doorway.
In Germany "door-politeness" plays a great part. In one of Kotzebue's comedies two provincial notabilities of equal rank are engaged in a duel of "door-politeness." "But I must really insist on your Excellency passing first." "I could not dream of it, your Excellency. I will follow you." "Your Excellency knows that I could never allow that," and so on. The curtain falls on these two ladies each declining to precede the other, and when it rises on the second act the doorway is still there,
{220}
and the two ladies are still disputing. Quite an effective stage-situation, and one which a modern dramatist might utilise.
In paying visits in Lisbon one was often pressed to remain to dinner, but the invitation was a mere form of politeness, and was not intended to be accepted. You invariably replied that you deeply regretted that you were already engaged. The more you were urged to throw over your engagement, the deeper became your regret that this particular engagement must be fulfilled. The engagement probably consisted in dining alone at the club, but under no circumstances must the invitation be accepted. In view of the straitened circumstances of most Portuguese families, the evening meal would probably consist of one single dish of bacalhao or salt cod, and you would have put your hosts to the greatest inconvenience.
With the exception of the Opera, the Lisbon theatres were most indifferent. When I first arrived there the Lisbon Opera had been fortunate enough to secure the services of a very gifted Polish family, a sister and two brothers, the latter of whom were destined later to become the idols of the London public. They were Mlle. de Reszke and Jean and Edouard de Reszke, all three of them then comparatively unknown. Mlle. de Reszke had the most glorious voice. To hear her singing with her brother Jean in "Faust" was a perfect revelation. Mlle. de Reszke appeared to the best advantage when the stalwart Jean sang with her, for she was
{221}
immensely tall, and towered over the average portly, stumpy, little operatic tenor. The French say, cruelly enough, "bête comme un ténor." This may or may not be true, but the fact remains that the usual stage tenor is short, bull-necked, and conspicuously inclined to adipose tissue. When her brother Jean was out of the cast, it required an immense effort of the imagination to picture this splendid creature as being really desperately enamoured of the little paunchy, swarthy individual who, reaching to her shoulder only, was hurling his high notes at the public over the footlights.
At afternoon parties these three consummate artists occasionally sang unaccompanied trios. I have never heard anything so perfectly done. I am convinced that had Mlle. de Reszke lived, she would have established as great a European reputation as did her two brothers. The Lisbon musical public were terribly critical. They had one most disconcerting habit. Instead of hissing, should an artist have been unfortunate enough to incur their displeasure, the audience stood up and began banging the movable wooden seats of the stalls and dress circle up and down. This produced a deafening din, effectually drowning the orchestra and singers. The effect on the unhappy artist against whom all this pandemonium was directed may be imagined. On gala nights the Lisbon Opera was decorated in a very simple but effective manner. Most Portuguese families own a number of "colchas," or embroidered bed-quilts. These are of satin, silk,
{222}
or linen, beautifully worked in colours. On a gala night, hundreds of these "colchas" were hung over the fronts of the boxes and galleries, with a wonderfully decorative effect. In the same way, on Church festivals, when religious processions made their way through the streets, many-lined "colchas" were thrown over the balconies of the houses, giving an extraordinarily festive appearance to the town.
As at Berlin and Petrograd, there was a really good circus at Lisbon. I, for one, am sorry that this particular form of entertainment is now obsolete in England, for it has always appealed to me, in spite of some painful memories connected with a circus which, if I may be permitted a long digression, I will relate.
Nearly thirty years ago I left London on a visit to one of the historic châteaux of France, in company with a friend who is now a well-known member of Parliament, and also churchwarden of a famous West-end church. We travelled over by night, and reached our destination about eleven next morning. We noticed a huge circular tent in the park of the château, but paid no particular attention to it. The first words with which our hostess, the bearer of a great French name, greeted us were, "I feel sure that I can rely upon you, mes amis. You have to help us out of a difficulty. My son and his friends have been practising for four months for their amateur circus. Our first performance is to-day at two o'clock. We have sold eight hundred tickets for the benefit of the French Red Cross,
{223}
and yesterday, only yesterday, our two clowns were telegraphed for. They have both been ordered to the autumn manoeuvres, and you two must take their places, or our performance is ruined. Je sais que vous n'allez pas me manquer." In vain we both protested that we had had no experience whatever as clowns, that branch of our education having been culpably neglected. Our hostess insisted, and would take no denial. "Go and wash; go and eat; and then put on the dresses you will find in your rooms." I never felt so miserable in my life as I did whilst making up my face the orthodox dead white, with scarlet triangles on the cheeks, big mouth, and blackened nose. The clown's kit was complete in every detail, with wig, conical hat, patterned stockings and queer white felt shoes. As far as externals went, I was orthodoxy itself, but the "business," and the "wheezes"! The future church-warden had been taken in hand by some young Frenchmen. As he was to play "Chocolat," the black clown, they commenced by stripping him and blacking him from head to foot with boot-blacking. They then polished him.
I entered the ring with a sinking heart. I was to remain there two hours, and endeavour to amuse a French audience for that period without any preparation whatever. "Business," "gag," and "patter" had all to be improvised, and the "patter," of course, had to be in French. Luckily, I could then throw "cart-wheels" and turn somersaults to an indefinite extent. So I made my entrance in
{224}
that fashion. Fortunately I got on good terms with my audience almost at once, and with confidence came inspiration; and with inspiration additional confidence, and a judicious recollection of the stock-tricks of clowns in various Continental capitals. Far greater liberties can be taken with a French audience than would be possible in England, but if anyone thinks it an easy task to go into a circus ring and to clown for two hours on end in a foreign language, without one minute's preparation, let him try it. The ring-master always pretends to flick the clown; it is part of the traditional "business"; but this amateur ring-master (most beautifully got up) handled his long whip so unskilfully that he not only really flicked my legs, but cut pieces out of them. When I jumped and yelled with genuine pain, the audience roared with laughter, so of course the ring-master plied his whip again. At the end of the performance my legs were absolutely raw. The clown came off badly too in some of the "roughs-and-tumbles," for the clown is always fair game. The French amateurs gave a really astonishingly good performance. They had borrowed trained horses from a real circus, and the same young Hungarian to whom I have alluded at the beginning of these reminiscences as having created a mild sensation by appearing at Buckingham Palace in a tiger-skin tunic trimmed with large turquoises, rode round the ring on a pad in sky-blue tights, bounding through paper hoops and over garlands of artificial flowers as easily and
{225}
gracefully as though he had done nothing else all his life. Later on in the afternoon this versatile Hungarian reappeared in flowing Oriental robes and a false beard as "Ali Ben Hassan, the Bedouin Chief." Riding round the ring at full gallop, and firing from the saddle with a shot-gun, he broke glass balls with all the dexterity of a trained professional. That young Hungarian is now a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Before 1914 I had occasion to meet him frequently. Whenever I thought that on the strength of his purple robes he was assuming undue airs of ecclesiastical superiority (to use the word "swanking" would be an unpardonable vulgarism, especially in the case of a bishop), I invariably reminded his lordship of the afternoon, many years ago, when, arrayed in sky-blue silk tights, he had dashed through paper hoops in a French amateur circus. My remarks were usually met with the deprecatory smile and little gesture of protest of the hand so characteristic of the Roman ecclesiastic, as the bishop murmured, "Cher ami, tout cela est oublié depuis longtemps," I assured the prelate that for my own part I should never forget it, if only for the unexpected skill he had displayed; though I recognise that bishops may dislike being reminded of their past, especially when they have performed in circuses in their youth.
In addition to the Hungarian's "act," there was another beautiful exhibition of horsemanship. A boy of sixteen, a member of an historic French family, by dint of long, patient, and painful
{226}
practice, was able to give an admirable performance of the familiar circus "turn" known as "The Courier of St. Petersburg," in which the rider, standing a-straddle on two barebacked ponies, drives four other ponies in front of him; an extraordinary feat for an amateur to have mastered. My friend the agile ecclesiastic is portrayed, perhaps a little maliciously, in Abel Hermant's most amusing book "Trains de Luxe," under the name of "Monseigneur Granita de Caffe Nero." It may interest ladies to learn that this fastidious prelate always had his purple robes made by Doucet, the famous Paris dressmaking firm, to ensure that they should "sit" properly. On the whole, our circus was really a very creditable effort for amateurs.
The entertainment was, I believe, pronounced a tremendous success, and at its conclusion the only person who was the worse for it was the poor clown. He had not only lost his voice entirely, from shouting for two hours on end, but he was black and blue from head to foot. Added to which, his legs were raw and bleeding from the ring-master's pitiless whip. I am thankful to say that in the course of a long life that was my one and only appearance in the ring of a circus. My fellow-clown, "Chocolat," the future member of Parliament and churchwarden, had been so liberally coated with boot-blacking by his French friends that it refused to come off, and for days afterwards his face was artistically decorated with swarthy patches.
Before 1914, I had frequently pointed out to my
{227}
friend the bishop that should he wish to raise any funds in his Hungarian diocese he could not do better than repeat his performance in the French circus. As a concession to his exalted rank, he might wear tights of episcopal purple. Should he have retained any of the nimbleness of his youth, his flock could not fail to be enormously gratified at witnessing their chief pastor bounding through paper hoops and leaping over obstacles with incredible agility for his age. The knowledge that they had so gifted and supple a prelate would probably greatly increase his moral influence over them and could scarcely fail to render him amazingly popular. Could his lordship have convinced his flock that he could demolish the arguments of any religious opponent with the same ease that he displayed in penetrating the paper obstacles to his equestrian progress, he would certainly be acclaimed as a theological controversialist of the first rank. In the same way, I have endeavoured to persuade my friend the member of Parliament that he might brighten up the proceedings in the House of Commons were he to appear there occasionally in the clown's dress he wore thirty years ago in France. Failing that, his attendance at the Easter Vestry Meeting of his West-end church with a blackened face might introduce that note of hilarity which is often so markedly lacking at these gatherings.
All this has led me far away from Lisbon in the "'eighties." Mark Twain has described, in "A Tramp Abroad," the terror with which a foreigner
{228}
is overwhelmed on being presented with his first hotel bill on Portuguese territory. The total will certainly run into thousands of reis, and the unhappy stranger sees bankruptcy staring him in the face.
As a matter of fact, one thousand reis equal at par exactly four and twopence. It follows that a hundred reis are the equivalent of fivepence, and that one rei is the twentieth of a penny.
A French colleague of mine insisted that the Portuguese were actuated by national pride in selecting so small a monetary unit. An elementary calculation will show that the proud possessor of £222 10s. can claim to be a millionaire in Portugal. According to my French friend, Portugal was anxious to show the world that though a small country, a larger proportion of her subjects were millionaires than any other European country could boast of. In the same way the Frenchman explained the curious Lisbon habit of writing a number over every opening on the ground floor of a house, whether door or window. As a result the numbers of the houses crept up rapidly to the most imposing figures. It was not uncommon to find a house inscribed No. 2000 in a comparatively short street. Accordingly, Lisbon, though a small capital, was able to gain a spurious reputation for immense size.
A peculiarity of Lisbon was the double set of names of the principal streets and squares: the official name, and the popular one. I have never known this custom prevail anywhere else. Thus the
{229}
principal street was officially known as Rua Garrett, and that name was duly written up. Everyone, though, spoke of it as the "Chiada." In the same way the splendid square facing the Tagus which English people call "Black Horse Square" had its official designation written up as "Praça do Comercio." It was, however, invariably called "Terreiro do Paço." The list could be extended indefinitely. Street names in Lisbon did not err in the matter of shortness. "Rua do Sacramento a Lapa de Baixio" strikes me as quite a sufficiently lengthy name for a street of six houses.
Lisbon is certainly a handsome town. It has been so frequently wrecked by earthquakes that there is very little mediæval architecture remaining, in spite of its great age. Two notable exceptions are the Tower of Belem and the exquisitely beautiful cloisters of the Hieronymite Convent, also at Belem. The tower stands on a promontory jutting into the Tagus, and the convent was built in the late fifteen-hundreds to commemorate the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama. These two buildings are both in the "Manoeline" style, a variety of highly ornate late Gothic peculiar to Portugal. It is the fashion to sneer at Manoeline architecture, with its profuse decoration, as being a decadent style. To my mind the cloisters of Belem (the Portuguese variant of Bethlehem) rank as one of the architectural masterpieces of Europe. Its arches are draped, as it were, with a lace-work of intricate and minute stone carving, as delicate
{230}
almost as jewellers' work. The warm brown colour of the stone adds to the effect, and anyone but an architectural pedant must admit the amazing beauty of the place. The finest example of Manoeline in Portugal is the great Abbey of Batalha, in my day far away from any railway, and very difficult of access.
At the time of the great earthquake of 1755 which laid Lisbon in ruins, Portugal was fortunate enough to have a man of real genius at the head of affairs, the Marquis de Pombal. Pombal not only re-established the national finances on a sound basis, but rebuilt the capital from his own designs. The stately "Black Horse Square" fronting the Tagus and the streets surrounding it were all designed by Pombal. I suppose that there is no hillier capital in the world than Lisbon. Many of the streets are too steep for the tramcars to climb. The Portuguese fashion of coating the exteriors of the houses with bright-coloured tiles of blue and white, or orange and white, gives a cheerful air to the town,—the French word "riant" would be more appropriate—and the numerous public gardens, where the palm-trees apparently grow as contentedly as in their native tropics, add to this effect of sunlit brightness. As in Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries, the houses are all very tall, and sash-windows are universal, as in England, contrary to the custom of other Continental countries.
House rent could not be called excessive in Portugal. In my day quite a large house, totally lacking
{231}
in every description of modern convenience, but with a fine staircase and plenty of lofty rooms, could be hired for £30 a year, a price which may make the Londoner think seriously of transferring himself to the banks of the Tagus.
In the "'eighties" Lisbon was the winter headquarters of our Channel Squadron. I once saw the late Admiral Dowdeswell bring his entire fleet up the Tagus under sail; a most wonderful sight! The two five-masted flagships, the Minotaur and the Agincourt, had very graceful lines, and with every stitch of their canvas set, they were things of exquisite beauty. The Northumberland had also been designed as a sister ship, but for some reason had had two of her masts removed. The old Minotaur, now alas! a shapeless hulk known as Ganges II, is still, I believe, doing useful work at Harwich.
As may be imagined, the arrival of the British Fleet infused a certain element of liveliness into the sleepy city. Gambling-rooms were opened all over Lisbon, and as the bluejackets had a habit of wrecking any place where they suspected the proprietor of cheating them, the Legation had its work cut out for it in endeavouring to placate the local authorities and smooth down their wounded susceptibilities. One gambling-house, known as "Portuguese Joe's," was frequented mainly by midshipmen. They were strictly forbidden to go there, but the place was crammed every night with them, in spite of official prohibition. The British midshipman being a creature of impulse, the
{232}
moment these youths (every one of whom thought it incumbent on his dignity to have a huge cigar in his mouth, even though he might still be of very tender years) suspected any foul play, they would proceed very systematically and methodically to smash the whole place up to matchwood. There was consequently a good deal of trouble, and the Legation quietly put strong pressure on the Portuguese Government to close these gambling-houses down permanently. This was accordingly done, much to the wrath of the midshipmen, who were, I believe, supplied with free drinks and cigars by the proprietors of these places. It is just possible that the Admiral's wishes may have been consulted before this drastic action was taken. Midshipmen in those days went to sea at fourteen and fifteen years of age, and consequently needed some shepherding.
As our Minister had constantly to pay official visits to the Fleet, the British Government kept a whale-boat at Lisbon for the use of the Legation. The coxswain, an ex-naval petty officer who spoke Portuguese, acted as Chancery servant when not afloat. When the boat was wanted, the coxswain went down to the quay with two bagfuls of bluejackets' uniforms, and engaged a dozen chance Tagus boatmen. The Lisbon boatman, though skilful, is extraordinarily unclean in his person and his attire. I wish the people who lavished praises on the smart appearance of the Legation whaleboat and of its scratch crew could have seen, as I
{233}
often did, the revoltingly filthy garments of these longshoremen before they drew the snowy naval white duck trousers and jumpers over them. Their persons were even dirtier, and—for reasons into which I need not enter—it was advisable to smoke a strong cigar whilst they were pulling. The tides in the Tagus run very strong; at spring-tides they will run seven or eight knots, so considerable skill is required in handling a boat. To do our odoriferous whited sepulchres of boatmen justice, they could pull, and the real workmanlike man-of-war fashion in which our coxswain always brought the boat alongside a ship, in spite of wind and tremendous tide, did credit to himself, and shed a mild reflected glory on the Legation.
The country round Lisbon is very arid. It produces, however, most excellent wines, both red and white, and in my time really good wine could be bought for fourpence a bottle. At the time of the vintage, all the country taverns and wine shops displayed a bush tied to a pole at their doors, as a sign that they had new wine, "green wine," as the Portuguese call it, for sale. Let the stranger beware of that new wine! Though pleasant to the palate and apparently innocuous, it is in reality hideously intoxicating, as a reference to the 13th verse of the second chapter of the Acts will show. I think that the custom of tying a bush to the door of a tavern where new wine is on sale must be the origin of the expression "good wine needs no bush."
{234}
The capabilities of this apparently intractable and arid soil when scientifically irrigated were convincingly shown on a farm some sixteen miles from Lisbon, belonging to a Colonel Campbell, an Englishman. Colonel Campbell, who had permanently settled in Portugal, had bought from the Government a derelict monastery and the lands attached to it at Torres Vedras, where Wellington entrenched himself in his famous lines in 1809-10. A good stream of water ran through the property, and Colonel Campbell diverted it, and literally caused the desert to blossom like the rose. Here were acres and acres of orange groves, and it was one of the few places in Europe where bananas would ripen. Colonel Campbell supplied the whole of Lisbon with butter, and the only mutton worth eating came also from his farm. It was a place flowing, if not with milk and honey, at all events with oil and wine. Here were huge tanks brimful of amber-coloured olive oil; whilst in vast dim cellars hundreds of barrels of red and white wine were slowly maturing in the mysterious shadows. Outside the sunlight fell on crates of ripe oranges and bananas, ready packed for the Lisbon market, and in the gardens tropical and sub-tropical flowering trees had not only thoroughly acclimatised themselves, but had expanded to prima-donna-like dimensions. The great rambling tiled monastery made a delightful dwelling-house, and to me it will be always a place of pleasant memories—a place of sunshine and golden orange groves; of
{235}
rustling palms and cool blue and white tiles; of splashing fountains and old stonework smothered in a tangle of wine-coloured Bougainvillea.
The environs of all Portuguese towns are made dreary by the miles and miles of high walls which line the roads. These people must surely have some dark secrets in their lives to require these huge barriers between themselves and the rest of the world. Behind the wall were pleasant old quintas, or villas, faced with my favourite "azulejos" of blue and white, and surrounded with attractive, ill-kept gardens, where roses and oleanders ran riot amidst groves of orange and lemon trees.
Cintra would be a beautiful spot anywhere, but in this sun-scorched land it comes as a surprising revelation; a green oasis in a desolate expanse of aridity.
Here are great shady oak woods and tinkling fern-fringed brooks, pleasant leafy valleys, and a grateful sense of moist coolness. On the very summit of the rocky hill of Pena, King Fernando had built a fantastic dream-castle, all domes and pinnacles. It was exactly like the "enchanted castle" of one of Gustave Doré's illustrations, and had, I believe, been partly designed by Doré himself. Some of the details may have been a little too flamboyant for sober British tastes, but, perched on its lofty rock, this castle was surprisingly effective from below with its gilded turrets and Moorish tiles. As the castle occupied every inch of the summit of the Pena hill, the only approach to it
{236}
was by a broad winding roadway tunnelled through the solid rock. Openings had been cut in the sides of the tunnel giving wonderful views over the valleys far down below. This approach was for all the world like the rocky ways up which Parsifal is led to the temple of the Grail in the first act of Wagner's great mystery drama. The finest feature about Pena, to my mind, was the wood of camellias on its southern face. These camellias had grown to a great size, and when in flower in March they were a most beautiful sight.
There was a great deal of work at the Lisbon Legation, principally of a commercial character. There were never-ending disputes between British shippers and the Custom House authorities, and the extremely dilatory methods of the Portuguese Government were most trying to the temper at times.
I shall always cherish mildly agreeable recollections of Lisbon. It was a placid, sunlit, soporific existence, very different from the turmoil of Petrograd life. The people were friendly, and as hospitable as their very limited financial resources enabled them to be. They could mostly speak French in a fashion, still their limited vocabulary was quite sufficient for expressing their more limited ideas.
I never could help contrasting the splendid past of this little nation with its somewhat inadequate present, for it must be remembered that Portugal in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the leading maritime Power of Europe. Portugal had
{237}
planted her colonies and her language (surely the most hideous of all spoken idioms!) in Asia, Africa, and South America long before Great Britain or France had even dreamed of a Colonial Empire.
They were a race of hardy and fearless seamen. Prince Henry the Navigator, the son of John of Portugal and of John of Gaunt's daughter, discovered Madeira, the Azores, and the Cape Verde islands in the early fourteen-hundreds.
In the same century Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and Vasco da Gama succeeded in reaching India by sea, whilst Albuquerque founded Portuguese colonies in Brazil and at Goa in India. This race of intrepid navigators and explorers held the command of the sea long before the Dutch or British, and by the middle of the sixteenth century little Portugal ranked as one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe.
Portugal, too, is England's oldest ally, for the Treaty of Windsor establishing an alliance between the two countries was signed as far back as 1386.
This is not the place in which to enter into the causes which led to the gradual decadence of this wonderful little nation, sapped her energies and atrophied her enterprise. To the historian those causes are sufficiently familiar.
Let us only trust that Lusitania's star may some day rise again.