Читать книгу Adventures with the Connaught Rangers, 1809-1814 - William Grattan - Страница 3

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The Author leaves the depot at Chelmsford, and proceeds to join his regiment in Portugal—The Samaritan—Arrival at Lisbon—Measures adopted by General Junot—A night’s rest—Portuguese barbers—Priest Fernando and Major Murphy—March to Aldea Gallega—First sight of the Connaught Rangers.

On the 10th day of October 1809 I left the depot at Chelmsford, and proceeded to Portsmouth for the purpose of joining the first battalion of my regiment (the 88th) in Portugal.

The newspapers announced that a fleet of transport vessels would sail in a few days from Portsmouth for Lisbon, and although I belonged to the second battalion, at that period stationed at Gibraltar, I waived all ceremony, and without asking or obtaining leave from the general in command at Chelmsford (General Colburn), I took the first coach for London, where I arrived that evening, and the next day reached Portsmouth.

I waited upon Colonel Barlow, who commanded at Hilsea, and from him received an order to be admitted on board a transport ship named the Samaritan. No questions were asked as to my qualification for this request, as it was much easier in those days to get out to Portugal than return from it. I then requested of the Colonel that he would give me an order for “embarkation money,” which I told him I understood was allowed to officers on going to Portugal. He laughed at the demand, and treated me with so little courtesy that I was glad to be rid of him.

I have said the name of the ship in which I was to make my first voyage was the Samaritan. So it was. But it most certainly could not be fairly called the Good Samaritan, for a more crazy old demirep of a ship never floated on the water. She was one of those vessels sent out, with many others at this period, to be ready to convey our army to England in the event of any disaster occurring to it. On board of her were ten or a dozen officers, who, like myself, had seen little of the world. We had no soldiers on board, and an inadequate ship’s crew; but those deficiencies were amply made up for by the abundance of rats which infested the vessel, and which not only devoured a great portion of our small supply of provisions, but nearly ourselves into the bargain. One officer, ill from sea-sickness, was well-nigh losing half of his nose, and another had the best part of his great toe eaten away. Providence, however, at length decreed that we should soon be rid of these torments, and on the 29th day of October the Rock of Lisbon presented itself to our view.

It is difficult to convey to the eye, much less to the imagination of those who have not seen it, a more imposing or beautiful sight than Lisbon presents when seen from the deck of a vessel entering the Tagus; its northern bank, upon which the city stands, sweeping with a gentle curve along the extent of the city, shows to great advantage the vast pile of buildings, including palaces, convents, and private dwellings, standing like a huge amphitheatre before the view of the spectator; the splendid gardens and orange groves, the former abounding with every species of botanical plant, while the latter, furnishing the eye with a moving mass of gold, presents a coup d'œil which may be felt or conceived, but which cannot be described.

Our vessel had scarcely reached the river when a pilot boat came alongside of us, and for the first time I had an opportunity of looking at the natives of Portugal. I confess I was inexpressibly disgusted; the squalid appearance of those half-amphibious animals, their complexion, their famished looks, and their voracious entreaties for salt pork, gave me but a so-so opinion of the patriots I had heard of and read of with so much delight and enthusiasm. Their bare throats, not even with muscle to recommend them, their dark eyes portraying more of the assassin than the patriot, and their teeth, white no doubt in comparison with their dark hides, was sufficient to stamp them in my eyes as the most ill-looking set of cut-throats I had ever beheld. Their costume, too, is anything but striking, except strikingly ugly. Short demi petticoat trousers of white linen, a red sash, and their arms and legs naked, give them the appearance of a race of bad bred North American Indians.

On landing at Lisbon, your foot once upon terra firma—

The cloud-cap’d towers,

The gorgeous palaces—

and the fine gardens all vanish, not into thin air, but into the most infernal pestiferous atmosphere that ever unfortunate traveller was compelled to inhale. Here is a hideous change from what the first view led you to expect. It is, indeed, “love at first sight.”

You are scarcely established in the first street, when you behold a group of wretches occupied in picking vermin from each other; while, sitting beside them, cross-legged, holding a distaff and spindle in her left hand, and fanning her fogareioro with her right, is a woman who sells chestnuts to any one whose stomach is strong enough to commence the process of mastication in so filthy a neighbourhood.

The appearance of everything in Lisbon is so novel to an Englishman, that he is at a loss what most to fix his attention upon. But the number of beggars and the packs of half-famished dogs which infest the streets are in themselves sufficient to afford food for the mind, if not for either the beggars or the dogs. The latter crowd the streets after nightfall and voraciously devour the filth which is indiscriminately thrown from the different windows, and it is a dangerous service to encounter a pack of those famished creatures.

In every country there are customs known,

Which they preserve exclusively their own;

The Portuguese, by some odd whim infected,

Have Cloacina’s temple quite rejected.

The French general, Junot, whatever his other faults might be, did a good thing in ridding Lisbon of this nuisance. On the fourth day after his arrival he ordered all dogs found in the streets after nightfall to be shot; and the proprietor of every door before which was found any dirt, after a certain hour in the morning, he caused to pay a fine according to the quantity found in front of his premises. But Junot had been too long driven from Lisbon to have his orders respected at the period I write of, and we were in consequence subjected to the annoyance of being poisoned by the accumulated filth, or to the danger of being devoured by the herds of dogs who seemed to consider these windfalls as their particular perquisite.

The beggars, offensive as they were, were less so than the dogs, because in Portugal, as in most countries professing the Roman Catholic religion, the giving of alms is considered an imperative duty; and according to their means, all persons supply the wants of the poor. From the gates of the convents, and from the kitchens of the higher classes, food is daily distributed to a vast number of mendicants, and those persons actually conceive they have a right to such donations; long habit has in fact sanctioned this right, and secure of the means to support their existence, they flock daily to their respective stations, awaiting the summons which calls them to the portal to receive the pittance intended for them. Thus it is that strangers suffer less inconvenience from this description of persons than they otherwise would, for the laziness of these wretches is so great, that although they will not hesitate to beg alms from a passing stranger, they will barely move from their recumbent posture to receive it, much less offer thanks for it.

Satisfied with my first evening’s excursion, I returned to the hotel where we had bespoken our dinner and beds. The former was excellent; good fish, for which Lisbon is proverbial, ragoûts, and game, all well served up, gave us a goût for our wine. We discussed the merits of divers bottles, and it was late ere we retired to our chamber—I was going to say place of rest—but never was word more misplaced, had I made use of it. Since the hour of my recollection, up to the moment that I write these lines, I never passed such a night. From the time I lay down, in hopes of rest, until the dawning of morning, I never, for five minutes at a time, closed my eyes. Bugs and fleas attacked me with a relentless fury, and when I arose in the fair daylight, to consult my looking-glass, I had scarcely a feature recognisable. I was not, however, singular, for all my companions had shared the same fate. But it was absolutely necessary, before we attempted to perambulate the streets, that something should be done to render our appearance less horrible. We accordingly summoned the landlord with the view of ascertaining the name of some medical person who could administer to our wants; but he laughed at the idea of calling in surgical aid for so trifling a matter, which he said, and I believe him, was an everyday occurrence at his hotel. He recommended to us a man, as he was pleased to say, “well skilled in such cases,” and one who had made a comfortable competency by his close residence to the hotel we occupied. The person who could have doubted the latter part of our host’s harangue must have indeed been casuistical, because the number of patients which, to our own ears, not our sight, for sight we had none, fell to him in one night, was a sufficient guarantee that his yearly practice must be something out of the common.

The person thus described, and almost as soon introduced, was no other than the far-famed Jozé Almeida Alcantaro de Castreballos, half-brother to the celebrated Louiranna well known in Lisbon. A man, who as he himself jocosely said, had taken many a British officer by the nose. He was, in fact, neither more nor less than a common barber, who gained a livelihood by shaving, bleeding, and physicking his customers.

The Portuguese barbers are like those of other countries, great retailers of scandal, and amply stocked with a fund of amusing conversation. They know everything, or seem to know everything, which, to nine-tenths of those they meet, is the same thing! This fellow told us all the news of the day, and added to it a thousand inventions, which his own fertile imagination supplied. He described the retreat of Wellington from Talavera as one caused by the want of the Portuguese army to co-operate with him: and if his account was to be given credit to, the whole world put together did not contain such an army as that of Portugal. He said that General Peacock, who commanded in Lisbon, invented stories every day, and that no intelligence from the army ought to be considered sterling, except what emanated from his (the barber’s) shop. But then, said he, shrugging up his shoulders, and in broken English. “It is not one very uncommon ting, to see one Peacock spreading a tail!” He laughed at his pun, and so did we; but I have since heard that the merit of it did not belong to him.

“But, gentlemen,” resumed the barber, “I come here as a professional man, not as a wit, though for that matter I am as much one as the other—but to the point, gentlemen! you seem to have suffered, and I am the man, able, ready, and willing to serve you. Look here,” said he, holding up a white jar, having a superscription on the outside to the following effect: “bixas boas” (good leeches): “I am none of your quacks, that come unprepared! I do not want to write a prescription that will cost my customers a mint of money! Well did I know what you stood in need of when you sent for your humble servant. Within the last ten days, that is to say, since the arrival of the fleet of transports from Portsmouth, I have given employment to one thousand leeches in this very house. This hotel has made my fortune, and now, with the blessing of God and the Virgin Mary, I’ll add to the number, already made use of, one hundred more, on the faces of those to whom I have the honour of addressing myself.”

There was so much truth and sound sense in what the barber said, that we all submitted to the operation of leeching, which was of material service to us. Old Wright of the 28th, already, from a wound, blind of one eye, now began to peep a little with the other, and it was amusing enough to those who could see it, to witness the coquetting between him and the barber. Indeed it would be difficult to say which of them was most pleased—he who received his sight, or he who was the means of restoring it. Quantities of cloths, steeped in warm water, were applied to our faces, and the crimson hue with which every basin was tinctured showed but too plainly that the “bixas boas” of the barber Jozé, were of the right sort. We kept our rooms the entire day, ate a moderate and light dinner, and at an early hour retired to our chambers, not without some misgivings of another night-attack. But the barber assured us there was no danger; and whether it was that the vermin, which nearly devoured us on the preceding night, had gorged themselves, or that the applications which Jozé Almeida had administered to our wounded faces was of that nature to give them a nausea towards us, I know not, but, be this as it may, we enjoyed, unmolested, a comfortable night’s repose, and in the morning our features had resumed their original shape and appearance.

We were seated at breakfast when the barber again made his appearance. He congratulated us upon our recovery, received his fee, which was extremely moderate, and took his leave. I have not since seen him, or is it likely I ever shall. In 1809 he was approximating to his sixtieth year; now thirty-seven years added to sixty would make him rather an elderly person. However, should he be still alive, and able to fulfil the functions of his calling as well as he did when I met with him, I recommend him to all those who may visit Lisbon and require his aid; on the other hand, should he be no longer in the land of the living, I have paid his memory a just tribute—but not more than he deserved.

At twelve o’clock I took a calash and reported myself to Major Murphy of the 88th, who commanded at Belem. By him I was received with great kindness, and asked to dine with him at six o’clock. I returned to our hotel, where I found my companions awaiting my arrival. Although not perfectly restored to their good looks, they agreed to accompany me in a stroll through the town, which was a different quarter from that we had before explored. It was more obscure, and overstocked with beggars of every grade.

At six o’clock I arrived at Major Murphy’s quarters at Belem, where were several officers of the depôt. Just as we were about to enter the dining-room a note was handed to Murphy from the celebrated priest Fernando: he was an intimate friend of Murphy, and called the 88th his own regiment, because when that corps landed in Lisbon it was quartered in the convent of which Fernando was the head. Nothing could exceed his kindness and hospitality, and, being the principal of the Inquisition, he was a man of great authority. His note was in these words:—

“Priest Fernando will cum dis day in boat to dine with Mr. Major Murphy.”

He was as good as his word, for the note had been scarcely read aloud by Murphy when Fernando made his appearance. He was a remarkably handsome man, about forty years of age; full of gaiety and spirits, a great talker, a prodigious feeder, and a tremendous drinker. So soon as I was introduced to him he took out a book from his pocket which he opened and handed to me, requesting that I would write down my name in it. This book contained the name of every officer in the first battalion, and according as any died, or were either killed or wounded in action, it was regularly noted after his name. His conduct was of the most disinterested kind, and one of his first questions invariably was—“Did we want money?” It was late before we broke up, and next day an order was issued, directing us to be in readiness to march to join the army on the day but one following.

It did not require many hours' preparation to complete our arrangements, as there were several experienced officers to accompany the detachment, and they not only brought their own animals and provisions, but aided us by their advice in the purchase of ours. At the appointed hour all was in readiness, and the detachment, consisting of fifteen officers and two hundred and twenty men, composed of different regiments, marched from Belem, and embarked on the quay in boats which were prepared to carry us to Aldea Gallega. A short sail soon brought us across the Tagus, and towards evening we disembarked and took up our quarters at Aldea for the night. Our route, which was made by easy marches, was uninterrupted by any circumstance worthy of notice. We passed through the different towns of the Alemtejo, in each of which we were hospitably received by the inhabitants; not so on our arrival at Badajoz, the headquarters of Lord Wellington. Nothing could exceed the dogged rudeness of the Spaniards; and it was with difficulty we could obtain anything even for money. Civility was not to be purchased on any terms, and one of the detachment was killed in a fracas with some drunken muleteers. Next morning we left this inhospitable town, and each party took their respective routes, with the view of rejoining their regiments. Mine, the 88th, was stationed at Monforte, distant one march from Badajoz, and here, for the first time, I saw the “Connaught Rangers.”