Oporto

“ The elaborate high-relief carvings prevalent in Portugal are usually executed in soft marble-like limestone, which hardens with exposure to the air; but here in the Bolsa of Oporto the intricate festoons and ingenious caprices that stand out everywhere in relief on walls, pillars, and staircases are carved out of the solid grey granite of which the edifice is built, as if out of defiance the most difficult material had been sought. ”

“ Was it consistent with reason to march two hundred miles in search of a combat, which the very state of Oporto would render it almost impossible to gain, and for an object perhaps already lost? Suspicion was alive all over the country: if Oporto was already taken, the army must come back; that would be the signal for fresh tumults—for renewed cries that the country was to be abandoned; Lisbon would instantly be in a state of insurrection, and would be even more formidable to the British than the enemy; besides, it was impossible to reckon upon Cuesta’s aid in keeping Victor employed. ”

“ Not this so-called Raphael, but another picture of the highest interest and beauty, is the principal artistic treasure of the city. In the board-room of Oporto’s most cherished and beneficent institution, the vast charitable organisation called the Misericordia, there hangs a painting that has few, if any, equals in Portugal. ”

“ A handsome, thriving city is Oporto, mounting in terraces up the slope of a steep hill. A fine quay runs the length of the town along the Douro, and here the active life of Oporto is mainly concentrated. Any stranger watching this stir of movement and color will be struck by the prominent position which women fill in the busy crowd. The men do not absorb all branches of labor. Besides the water-carriers, market-women and fruit-vendors there may be seen straight, stalwart lasses acting as portresses to convey loads to and from [Pg 481] the boats which are fastened to the river-wall. ”

“ Every large, enduring community comes to attain a distinct character of its own, which the outlander can only know by long association or sympathetic insight, sometimes not at all. I had looked for a people exuberant and gay in outward seeming with an underlying spirit of bitter mockery, such as I had known in so many other Iberian cities; but somehow these Oporto people were quite different. ”

“ The approach to Oporto up the winding and fjord-like estuary is one of singular beauty. On the north the streets rise in terraces up the steep bank, built in many cases of granite overlaid with plaster, so that white is the prevailing colour of the city; on the south are the hamlets of Gaia and Furada, and the red-tiled wine lodges of Villa Nova de Gaia, in which vast quantities of " port " are manufactured and stored. The architecture of the houses and public buildings is often rather Oriental than European in appearance. ”

“ It is they who reap the harvests for the more lazy Castilians and gather the vintage of Oporto; it is they who do nearly all the hard work in all the chief towns, not of Spain only, but also of Portugal. They are proverbially honest and trustworthy as servants, though slow and somewhat lacking in intelligence. ”

“ Among the counties of Gallicia was one called the 'comitatus Portucalensis,' because it contained within its boundaries the famous city at the mouth of the Douro, known in Roman and Greek times as the Portus Cale, and in modern days as Oporto, or 'The Port.' This county of Oporto or Portugal was the one destined to give its name to the future kingdom, and was held at the time of Ferdinand's death by Nuno Mendes, the founder of one of the most famous families in Portuguese history. ”

“ Oporto is the only city of Portugal besides Lisbon. The latest returns give a population of 194,000. The total number of foreigners is 7,210, of which 3,110 are Brazilians, 2,764 Spaniards, 289 French, 229 Germans, and 579 English (census of 1911) . It is a busy industrial city, and has no parades of idleness like Lisbon, where the busy workers are crushed away into side streets and quays, for fear the foreigner should see such undignified behaviour. ”

“ The one bright point, both in Oporto and Lisbon, is the care, skill, and attention with which the public gardens and squares are tended. The palms, tree-ferns, cacti, and other semi-tropical and sub-tropical plants are beautiful in themselves, and are arranged and intermingled with other trees and shrubs in a most artistic manner. The grass (upon which no one, of course, may walk) is kept green by constant watering, and affords a delightful contrast to the generally dry and dusty aspect of the city. ”

“ Here is a smart schooner hailing from the Cornish port of Fowey, from which stockfish from Newfoundland is being landed on the heads of women, flat salt slabs as hard and dry as wood, but good nutritious food for all that; and farther along, with their prows to the shore, rest a dozen un-ladened wine and fruit boats from up the Douro, and flat-bottomed passenger skiffs into which women and men with baskets and bundles, representing their week’s supplies purchased in Oporto, are crowding to be carried back to their homes in the rich vineyard villages miles up the river. ”

“ These are the people, and their social betters of the same race, whom a sudden flash of sympathy brought closer to me, as in the pellucid golden sunlight all Oporto was spread before and beneath me, palpitating with life. The absence of vociferation and vehemence in the people did not mean sulkiness or stupidity, but was the result of the intense earnestness with which their daily life was faced ”

“ We lay there but a very short time, when we proceeded on our way to Oporto, where we arrived just before nightfall, and marched, into the town with bugles playing and all the colours we had left flying; for they were tattered and torn with shot. The inhabitants of the town gave us a hearty cheer, and had pitchers of wine ready for us as we passed along and went into our old residence at the Convent of St. Lazarus, there to lie until further orders. ”

“ The towns of Portugal have to thank their position on steep hills, strong sites chosen against attack of Moor or Christian, for having kept in some at least of their quarters a peculiar character of mediaeval charm. So steep are many of Oporto’s streets that a strike of tramcars—which in Portugal ascend streets truly perpendicular—leaves the citizens in a comical helplessness, infants without arms. Oporto covers several hills on the right bank of the Douro. ”

“ As a rule, however, the natives of Oporto are strong and of fine physique; they also show fewer signs of negro descent than the people of Lisbon. Their numbers tend to increase very rapidly; in 1864 the population of Oporto was 86,751, but in 1878 it rose to 105,838, in 1890 to 138,860, and in 1900 to 167,955. Many of the men emigrate to South America, where their industry usually enables them to prosper, and ultimately to return with considerable savings. The local dialect is broader than the Portuguese of the educated classes, from which it differs more in pronunciation than in idiom. ”

“ BRAGA AND BOM JESUS The famous port-wine is grown upon a well-defined region nearly sixty miles up the river from Oporto, and, interesting as the manufacture is, the arid and inhospitable-looking land of terraced hillsides, where the glorious grape grows upon the loose, stony soil, offers little attraction to the seeker after the picturesque. ”

“ Two cities in Portugal dominate the whole country—Lisbon and Oporto. They are the power houses from which emanates the movement carrying life and activity into the provinces. Both of them are seaports, but Lisbon is the seat of government, and possesses the superior advantage of offering navigation one of the finest natural havens of the world, an important bourne of the great Ocean in touch with the seas of the north and the Mediterranean. ”

“ On the other hand, the inhabitant of Oporto is proud of his business. He is more vigorous and active, and has a sterner and more independent outlook on life. And the two cities are rivals, sometimes almost bitterly hostile. ”

“ This, though occasioned by the impurity of the nigh shore and the disemboguing rivers, forms a home scene; it is warm and landlike. The air is balmy and genial, and all that the fresh breeze can do can scarcely keep under its vernal warmth. The country round about Oporto seems darkly wooded ”

“ The cities of the coast, Lisbon, Oporto, appear more like dwelling-places conveniently placed the better to enjoy the sunlight and the ocean breezes than wide-awake communities guarding their mercantile interests in the commercial exchange of the products of the Old World with the riches of the New. ”

“ Les villes de Braga, Oporto, Bacellos, Viana, Villa de Conde, Povoa de Barcim, Feira, et Ovar, eurent exprimé leurs vœux, des nombreuses deputations se rendirent à Oporto pour les remettre au marechal Soult et le prier de le faire parvenir à l’empereur. Des adresses qui renfermaient l’expression de ce vœu étaient couverts de plus de trente mille signatures du clergé, de la noblesse, des négocians, et du peuple.”—“Pendant son séjour à Oporto. Le M. Soult fit des proclamations et rendit divers arrêtés sur l’administration et la police de la province Entre Minho e Douro. ”

“ A Oporto, et à Barcelos, les habitants ont aussi manifesté les mêmes sentiments, et tous sentent la nécessité d’avoir un appui auquel les citoyens bien intentionnés puissent se rallier pour la défense et le salut de la patrie, et pour la conservation des propriétés. ”

“ The Engraving represents the most ancient part of the city of Oporto. We are here directly fronting the bishop's palace, which, with the Sé, or Cathedral,4 and buildings, to the left, occupy the crest of the hill. Further left is the steeple of the church dos Clerigos, said to be the loftiest in Portugal after that of Mafra. This tower is visible from the sea at a distance of ten leagues, and serves as an important landmark for ships steering to the mouth of the Douro. ”

“ To adventure upon an advance to Oporto, two hundred miles from Lisbon, when the very object is, perhaps, at this moment lost, seems to be a point only to gratify the good feelings of every soldier, but quite opposed to the sober dictates of the understanding, and the ultimate view of things. ”

“ Here in North Portugal the note struck in the cathedrals is not mystery richly dight, as in Spain, but sincere austerity, and a simple faith so essential in 19the edifice that the grave granite columns and arches appear as unaffected by the heaps, and piles, and masses of curly carved gilt wood around them as a monolith might be by the lizards that bask and slither round its base. Here in Oporto, for instance, the low, massive, granite pillars that line the narrow nave, and support the round romanesque arches, seem sullenly to bid defiance to time and decay; such is their prodigious solidity. ”

“ The cloisters are five centuries old, the oldest part of the building. In the sordid surroundings and in the summer heat, which can be more oppressive at Oporto than at Lisbon, the Cathedral is a cool refuge to which, however, few of the citizens have apparently the leisure to go; or the energy, unless they live in some little black court or smothered alley in its neighbourhood. More central is the eighteenth-century Priests’ Tower—Torre dos Clerigos—nearly a twentieth of a mile high, from which all Oporto and the surrounding country can be seen. ”

“ The garrison of Almeida departed about the same time: they had maintained themselves without difficulty against the Portuguese insurgents, but duly yielded up the place on the arrival of British troops. They were marched down to Oporto under an escort of 200 men, a force so weak that it nearly led to a disaster. For the mob of Oporto, under the pretext that church plate and other public plunder was being carried off by the French, fell upon them as they were embarking and nearly made an end of them. ”

“ Here is held the market where all the port wine growers assemble at the end of the vintage, and here come all the wine merchants from Oporto, and make their purchases for the season. The veritable port wine district is a very remarkable country. It is situated on the banks of the Douro, which are here composed of lofty, undulating hills, clothed with rich soil, rising rapidly from the river, about forty miles above Oporto, where the granite formation, on which no vines will grow, ceases. The district consists of the transition rocks above the granite ”

“ Reduced railway rates and improved hotel accommodation have facilitated the growth of this traffic. Many tourists land at Oporto and visit Braga (q.v.) , Bussaco (q.v.) and other places of interest, on their way to Lisbon. There is also a large tourist traffic from Germany. The exports of Oporto include wine, cottons, wood, pitwood, stone, cork, salt, sumach, onions, oranges, olives and beans. American competition has destroyed the export trade in live cattle for which Great Britain was the principal market. ”

“ A few yards distant, through a little maze of mediæval streets, is the cathedral, the Sé, with a quiet little courtyard before it, from the parapet of which the red roofs and abundant verdure of the city spread downward in waves to the water-side. These north Portuguese cathedrals are marvellously alike; sharing the early beauties and 17later barbarities of their successive generations of masters. This of Oporto is a good specimen. The sturdy warrior kings who wrested Portugal, bit by bit, from Castilian and from Moor, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were true crusaders. ”