The Cruise of the Frolic

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Porpoise’s story lasted out the gale. We were not sorry to see the conclusion of the latter, though it left old ocean in a very uncomfortable state for some time. A downright heavy gale is undoubtedly a very fine thing to witness—at least the effects are—and every man would wish to see one once in his life; but having experienced what it can do, and how it makes the ocean look and human beings feel, a wise man will be satisfied, at all events if he is to fall in with it in a small cutter in the Bay of Biscay when that once is over. I’ve had to go through a good many in the course of my nautical career; and though I’ve often heard sung with much gusto—

“One night it blew a hurricane,
The sea was mountains rolling,
When Barney Buntline turned his quid,
And cried to Billy Bowline:
“‘Here’s a south-wester coming, Billy;
Don’t you hear it roar now?
Lord help ’em, how I pities those
Unhappy folks ashore now!
“‘While you and I upon the deck
Are comfortably lying,
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-tops
About their heads are flying!’”

I mustn’t quote more of the old song; for my own part I like a steady breeze and a smooth sea, when plates and dishes will stay quietly on the table, and a person may walk the deck without any undue exertion of the muscles of the leg.

The gale had driven us somewhat into the bay, and finding it would cause us little delay to look into Corunna, we determined to go there. The entrance to the harbour is very easy—a fine tall lighthouse on the south clearly making it. We brought up off the town, which is situated along the circular shore of a bay something like Weymouth. After paying our respects to the consul, we mounted a troop of steeds offered us for hire, and galloped off to inspect the chief scenes of the engagement between the English and the French, when the former retreated under Sir John Moore. On our return we visited his tomb, situated on the ramparts on the sea side of the town; the tomb is surrounded with cannon, with their muzzles downward—a fit monument to the hero who sleeps beneath. Carstairs did not fail to repeat with due effect—

“Not a sound was heard; not a funeral note.”

They are truly magnificent lines, rarely equalled. Some, however, of a like character appeared lately on Havelock, which are very much to my taste.

But where am I driving to with my poetry and criticism? We got on board the same night, and made sail by daybreak the next morning. We looked into the deep and picturesque Gulf of Vigo, and thought the town a very nasty one, in spite of its imposing castle on the top of a hill. Had we come from the south we might have formed a different opinion of the place. We hove-to off Oporto, and should have gone in, but though exempt from harbour-dues, we found that the pilotage would be heavy, and that we might have some difficulty in getting out again over the bar which has formed across the mouth of the Douro. The city stands on a granite hill on the north side of the river, and about three miles from the sea. Fortunately for us, while we were hove-to there, the steamer from England came in sight, and we were able to obtain a passage on shore in the boats which brought off the mail bags. Hearty, Bubble, and I formed the party; Carstairs and Porpoise remained to take care of the ship. Away we pulled with the glee of schoolboys on a holiday excursion; the boat was large, but of the roughest description—with the stem and stern alike—probably not changed since the earliest days of the Portuguese monarchy; she was double-banked, pulling twelve oars at least. The men mostly wore red caps, with a coloured sash round their waists, and had shoeless feet; some had huge wooden slippers, almost big enough to go to sea in. Many of them were fine-looking fellows, but they were very unlike English sailors, and oh! how they did jabber. To those who understood them their observations might have been very sensible, but to our ears their voices sounded like the chattering of a huge family of monkeys in their native woods. The view before us consisted of the blue shining sea, a large whitewashed and yellow-washed village to the north, called St. Joâo da Foz, with a lighthouse on a hill at one end of it, a line of black rocks and white breakers before us, and to the south a yellow beach with cliffs and pine-trees beyond, and a convent, and a few of the higher standing houses and churches of Oporto in the distance. When we got near the white foam-topped rollers, all the jabbering ceased, our crew bent to their oars like men worthy of descendants of Albuquerque’s gallant crew; and the boat now backed for an instant, now dashing on, we were in smooth water close under the walls of a no very formidable-looking fortress. A little farther on we landed at a stone slip, at the before-mentioned village, among fishwomen, and porters, and boatmen, and soldiers, and custom-house guards, and boys, all talking away most vociferously. As we had no luggage to carry, we were allowed to look about us. What we should have done I scarcely know, had not Bubble, who never failed to find acquaintance in every place, recognised an English gentleman who had come down to the river to embark for the city. Bubble’s friend was invaluable to us; he first invited us to go up the river in his boat, and pointed out numerous spots of interest on the way. The boat was a curious affair; it had a flat bottom and sides, and narrowed to a rising point forward. The greater part was covered with a wooden awning painted green, and supported by wooden stanchions; and the seats run fore and aft round the sides; it had yellow curtains to keep out the sun or rain; the crew, three in number, stood up with their faces to the bow, pressing against the oars; two stood on a deck forward, and one, who occasionally brought his oar in a line with the keel, rowed aft. Dressed in red caps with red sashes, and mostly in white or blue-striped garments, they had a picturesque appearance.

Although the civil war which overthrew despotism, and planted the present line on the throne, had occurred so long before, our new friend spoke of it with as much interest as if it had but lately been concluded. Such an occurrence, indeed, was the great event in the lives of a generation.

On the south side of the entrance of the river is a long sandbank; on the north side is the castle of Foz, or the mouth. This castle was built by the Pedroites, and it was literally the key on which depended the success of the enterprise. Had it been taken, the communication with the sea and Oporto would have been cut off, and the Liberals would have been starved out. For the greater portion of the time occupied by the struggle, Dom Pedro’s followers held little more than the city of Oporto and a line of country on the north bank of the Douro scarcely a mile wide, leading from the city to the sea. They held the lighthouse at the north point of the village; but a few hundred yards beyond was a mound on which the Miguelites erected a strong battery. Not a spot along the whole line but what was the scene of some desperate encounter; and most certainly the Portuguese Constitutionalists of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, fought as bravely as men could fight in the noblest of causes. Heaven favoured the right, and in spite of apparently overwhelming hosts opposed to them, of disease and gaunt famine, they won their cause, and the mother of the present enlightened King of Portugal ascended the throne.

But I am writing the cruise of the “Frolic,” and not a history of Portugal. Still I must dot down a few of our friend’s anecdotes. While the north side of the river was held by the Constitutionalists, the south was in the hands of the Miguelites, and the two parties used to amuse themselves by firing at each other across the stream, so that it was dangerous to pass along the lower road by daylight.