On the Via Sacra, Bussaco.
Turning aside and descending the glen by a narrower path, a ramble of half a mile brings me to another scene of marvellous beauty. In the foreground is a pool covered with water lilies and overshadowed by trees; and from it, leading straight up the hillside, is the “holy stair,” or cold spring, as it is called. Eleven double flights of stone stairs, each pair of flights leading to a landing of black and white mosaic, whilst in the centre between the two lines of steps a rocky cataract leads a rushing stream of icy cold clear water from the fountain gushing at the top from the rock in its mosaic recess down to the bottom of the hill, where it tumbles tumultuously into the pool. Through the whole length of the long fall, flanked by stairs, perhaps two hundred feet, rare ferns and mosses grow with wild luxuriance, especially in and about the pools on the ten landings; and, embosomed as the whole hillside is in dense greenery, it is impossible to exaggerate the delicious coolness and beauty of this secluded spot.
From the top of the Fonte Fria, or Scala Santa, the path leads through a valley, and then precipitously up the ascent that faced me when on the morning after my arrival I stood upon the battlements for the first time. The hermitage of St. Antão stands upon a ledge high up the slope, a tiny dismantled cell, from which a view is gained on a clear day that fairly takes one’s breath away. Below, set in its vast bed of verdure, the white stone castle stands, the gold armillary sphere that crowns its tower glittering in the sun; whilst on the left the far-flung panorama of the plain, with the blue wall of the sea beyond, and the grey mountains on the north, is flooded with an inundation of light, and scattered with the abodes of men—the sombre masses of greenery and the profound silence that surround us making the contrast the more striking. A wider view still than this is obtained from the highest point of the domain, on the very outskirts towards the south, where the Cruz Alta, the “high cross,” marks the site of what in ancient times was a watch-tower of soldier-monks, overlooking the country towards Coimbra, whence the Moors might come to invade the sacred wood.
IN THE GARDENS, BUSSACO.
A greater battle than ever Christian and Moslem fought raged in later times upon this “Bussaco’s iron ridge,” just outside the granite walls of the wood on the north-west slopes of the long mountain. “Victory’s darling,” Massena, was to bring stubborn Portugal to heel at last. Soult had been expelled in 1809, after Wellington’s surprise of Oporto; and the Emperor was determined that nothing should stand between him and his small victim this time. Massena was at the height of his glory and success, and the flower of the imperial legions, eighty thousand men, marched through Spain, and carried all before him at first in Portugal. Almeida and Vizeu fell into his hands without a struggle; and the invaders thought that no serious obstacle would be offered to the march upon Lisbon by way of Coimbra. The road led them through the valley between the long mountains of Bussaco and the Cremullo range opposite, and Wellington, whose headquarters were at Coimbra, fifteen miles distant, decided to stop their progress there. Before the whole of his forces could be got into position, news came that the French had crossed the river Mondego, and the Anglo-Portuguese force gradually fell back, always fighting with the French advance-guard, until the whole of Wellington’s army of nearly 50,000 were stationed upon the long ridge of Bussaco, from the east wall of the domain to the river Mondego, where the mountain ends.
A curious relation exists, hitherto unnoted in English narratives, in which a monk of Bussaco gives a minute account from day to day of the events there from the 20th September 1810 until after the battle on the 27th, and the artless details of the good man are more personally interesting perhaps than the broad facts of the great battle itself. He tells that, on the 20th September, an orderly of Lord Wellington came to the monastery, and: “As soon as the door was opened to him he said, ‘I want to see the monastery, ha! ha! ha! To-morrow at two o’clock the commander-in-chief is coming here. He slept last night at Lorvão, and the French have already arrived at Tondella....’ The prior was told, and he showed the orderly the monastery and chapel, ordering the best lodging-chamber to be cleaned and got ready for the general, and the orderly, after drinking a little wine, galloped back to Lorvão.”
THE PORTA DA SULLA, BUSSACO.
Early next morning the whole wood, the hermitages, the monastery, and the chapel were filled with English officers, fifty officers being quartered in the monastery itself. Wellington arrived at midday, and when the prior showed him the best guest-chamber, swept and garnished for his use, he refused it, “although it was the best,” because it had only one door, and another apartment with two doors had to be found for him. Whilst this lodging was being prepared and cleaned, the general rode out of the domain by the gate on the north side and inspected the whole position from the highest point of the ridge to the east, on the bare granite crest of which he fixed his own position for the day of the battle. Standing upon this spot there spreads below the steep slopes in the foreground an undulating plain, some five miles across, with Caramulo mountains on the other side. Through this broken plain Massena was forced to march in order to turn or cross the Bussaco mountains, and proceed on his road to Coimbra, Lisbon, and Oporto. When he learnt that the English general had decided to risk everything by making a stand there with forces inferior to his own he at first refused to believe it, for constant success had made him think that his troops could do anything; and if Wellington were beaten here, then annihilation would await the English, and Portugal would follow Spain in bowing to the yoke of France. But if Wellington does take the risk, said Massena, “Je le tiens! demain nous finirons la conquête de Portugal, et en un pen de jours je noyerai le léopard.” Ney, Junot, and Regnier in vain counselled Massena not to fling his men away upon attacking such a tremendous position as that of Bussaco, and urged him to retire and await reinforcements from France; but Massena laughed at their wise fears, and decided to storm the height. “There is only the rearguard of the English there,” he said; “if the whole army is there so much the better, the good luck of the darling of victory will not abandon him.”