As seen in the far-off horizon, Lisbon looks like a city of palaces. The dazzling whiteness of the houses, which catch and reflect the sun's rays,--the series of terraces along which they are built, rising, in the fashion of an amphitheatre, from the river's brink,--the many spires and towers which adorn its churches,--all these give an air of magnificence to the place which prepares you to encounter, at every turn, marks, not of squalor, but of wealth. How cruelly the result disappoints you! Walls stuccoed over, with the stucco crumbling to pieces,--narrow streets, choked up with filth of the most horrid kind,--miserable wretches crowding about, as if they lacked not only the inclination but the physical power to exert themselves,--all these, with a thousand symptoms besides of indolence and squalor, and a national character utterly degraded, left us, on landing, no room to inquire how far our expectations in reference to the Portuguese capital had outrun the reality. And yet Lisbon was in perpetual bustle during that season. Day after day ships arrived, bringing men, or stores, or munitions of war from England. The quays were continually crowded with soldiers, sailors, and camp-followers, while the river itself seemed to support a very forest of masts. Indeed, I never shall forget the splendour of the panorama on that day when our little squadron stemmed its strong current; for we met full in the teeth an enormous fleet, under convoy of the Caledonia, 110, and did not make our way through the throng without both giving and receiving some serious damage.

Black Horse Square will doubtless be familiar to many who honour these reminiscences with a perusal. It was there that, according to custom, we brought up; and there, after time had been given to arrange our accoutrements and get our harness in order, the regiment was formed. I was not so fortunate, however, as to march with my corps; for a serjeant's party having been directed to proceed on foot with the officers' baggage, it became necessary to intrust their horses to the care of some of their comrades, and my old friend, Serjeant Waldron, doubtless to show that I was not forgotten, committed to me the care of his charger. Now Serjeant Waldron was an extremely careless man. He had tossed his saddle, bridle, &c., he did not know where, on first embarking; and it took so much time to find them that long before I was in a condition to move, the last of the horse-party had departed. Moreover, when I did find them, they, or rather the saddle, was in a deplorable condition; for it had got into the horse's crib, and he, of course, had not spared it in any way. With some difficulty, however, I fastened it upon his back; and mounting my own, began, with the serjeant's charger in my hand, to thread my way in the best manner I could towards Belem. But such a journey! The horses being young and skittish from long confinement, pranced and kicked so that I could scarcely command them; and more than once the saddle on which I sat turned, through my inability to sit straight. I question, indeed, whether I should have reached my destination at all, but for the kindness of an English soldier who happened to come up just as, for the sixth time, my saddle had gone round and compelled me to dismount; and he volunteering to hold the serjeant's, I was enabled so to adjust my own beast that all his pranks proved insufficient, from that time, to incommode me in my seat. Then, following the guidance of my friendly comrade, I pushed on; and, finally, to my extreme delight, found myself delivered from a hateful office, and once more in comparative comfort, because restored to my regimental duty.

I am not going to swell these pages by describing matters of which a thousand accounts, more or less accurate, have appeared already. Lisbon was to me what it seems to have been to my countrymen in general,--a scene of very little enjoyment; for though the climate is delicious, and fruit and wine are abundant, the manners of the inhabitants were, and I doubt not still are, preeminently disgusting. Of the lower classes I am bound to state, that they are at once the most indolent and filthy portion of the human race with which I have ever formed an acquaintance. With the exception of a peculiar tribe, called Galegos, who are not, by-the-by, Portuguese, but Spaniards, there does not seem to be anywhere the smallest disposition to industry among them. The consequence is that these Galegos, though despised and shunned by their townsmen in general, are by far the best-dressed and healthiest-looking people in the city; and, as always occurs in such cases, they are likewise the most civil and the best informed. In like manner, the women appear to entertain very indefinite notions as to the duties which devolve upon mothers and sisters in families. They have no idea of keeping their habitations tidy, but move about among the filth, which both within doors and without surrounds them, as if the atmosphere produced by it were not only familiar but agreeable. But woe to the individual, whether male or female, who ventures to walk the streets by night. Unless he be sheltered by an umbrella, not even a progress along the crown of the causeway will save him; for the good folks of Edinburgh are lame in the art, compared with the Lisboners--who discharge their vessels without even a "gardeloo," and seldom miss their mark, provided there be a living thing beneath to aim at.

Nobody can have visited Lisbon without being struck with the frequency and magnitude of the religious processions which are there conducted. Of these, therefore, I need not take notice. But there was another ceremony--in its purpose, without doubt, humane and excellent, though in its results of doubtful utility--of which I am bound to make mention. I was struck one day with the sight of a string of eight or ten cars, each drawn by four fat oxen, before and after which went a crowd of persons, some well-dressed, others very much the reverse, among whom went sundry monks, bearing baskets in their hands, which they held up to the doors and windows of the better sort of houses as they passed. Into these the charitable threw loaves of bread, and other victuals, the whole of which being laid. up in the cars, are transported, by-and-by, to one of the churches. There the monks mix the whole into caldrons, and convert them, with other ingredients, into soup; for which dense crowds of ragged and miserable looking wretches wait eagerly at the doors. I found, upon inquiry, that the process went on--I do not exactly remember how often--but at stated intervals; and that the multitudes who looked to this precarious source for a large share of their subsistence were very great.

Of the dresses of the women, both high and low, why should I make mention? Wrapped up in their loose cloaks or mantillos, the former walk only to church, with faces so covered that a pair of bright black eyes are alone to be seen, and feet and ankles of excellent symmetry. Each of these is followed at a respectful distance by an aged attendant, or duenna. Whereas the poorer sort walk alone, in a mantle, formed frequently of scarlet cloth, with black velvet trimmings, long sleeves, and white handkerchiefs about their heads. Long black veils are likewise much worn, chiefly by respectable tradesmen's wives and daughters--who, not unattended by their duennas, pass to and fro without scruple in the dirty streets--and from the merry becks and nods which these girls cast upon you as you pass, you are apt, if a stranger, to form but an indifferent opinion of their virtue. But in this you are quite mistaken. The Portuguese women are naturally frank and good-natured; so that a bearing which among us would tell against a young woman on the score of immodesty, is among them the common method of marking their good will towards the party saluted.

I have spoken of Lisbon as being, at that time, a scene of perpetual bustle and great confusion. The arrival of fresh troops, and the departure of men unfit for service, were matters of hourly occurrence; while a sadder spectacle by far met us day by day, when on the beach we beheld multitudes of unhappy women, who, not having been permitted to follow their husbands to the front, were waiting till their respective turns came, that they might return home. Of these all interrogated eagerly each new-comer from the seat of war, as he arrived; though their inquiries seldom referred to others than the individuals on whom they respectively depended. Poor creatures, it made my heart bleed to listen to the shrieks of some, when told that their husbands were killed; and to the sad low moaning of others, to whom the vague reply was given, that the party appealed to was incapable of satisfying their wishes. And then to hear them deplore their wretched fate--that they had not been able to follow the one human being to whom they were attached--that they must go back to a country where nobody cared for or knew them. I declare that, though little given to the melting mood, I have often been obliged to hurry away, lest my feelings should quite overpower me in the very middle of the throng.

One anecdote more I crave permission to transcribe, ere I pass on to other and more stirring matters. It will not, I dare say, be forgotten by any who visited Lisbon in 1810, that the river was night and day crowded with country boats, the owners of which made a harvest by landing passengers from the ships as they came in, and would not make way for the ships' boats; which, on the contrary, they obstructed. It chanced, on a certain occasion, that an officer, charged with important despatches, endeavoured in a man-of-war's boat, to make good his landing at Belem Slips. The Portuguese watermen, as usual, blocked up the passage, and neither his threats nor his entreaties, nor the assurance that he was proceeding on urgent duty, could prevail upon them to give way. At last he stood up, and called upon one of these people, who had placed himself directly between the boat and the shore, to move aside. The man insolently refused, and, grasping a boat-hook, made signs that he would resist the farther advance of the Englishman by force. The officer lost all patience at this, and, drawing a pistol, shot the man dead on the instant. There was no delay after this in opening for him a passage. To the right and left the panic-struck boatmen drew aside, and he, landing, proceeded, on foot, unmolested to the place of his destination. But though the watermen were too cowardly to resent the death of their companion when it occurred, they made a prodigious fuss about it immediately afterwards. The corpse was carried in procession, unwashed, and in the dress in which it fell, through all the streets of the city; and money was collected from every passer by, in order to defray the expenses of the funeral. I never heard that any consequences more serious than this arose out of an affair which, in almost any other town in Europe, must have produced a bitter feud between the strangers and the natives. At the same time it is but fair to add, that there is no reliance to be placed either on the forbearance or the generosity of a Portuguese. If you happen to offiend him, and a convenient opportunity offer, he will thrust his knife into your body without scruple; and where the odds in number are much against you, the sooner you take to your heels the better.

After a sojourn of ten days in the capital of Portugal, we received orders to march to the front; and went forward on our way in the highest possible spirits, and full of anticipations of glory and enjoyment. We crossed the Tagus in open boats, to a place called Aldea Golegas, and proceeded thence to Estremadura. There a furious thunderstorm overtook us, with rain so incessant and heavy, that in an incredibly short space of time the whole town became inundated; the water running in the streets a depth of a foot at the least, and sweeping into the cellars, where most of the poorer people dwelt, with the fury of a river. Our condition was of course cheerless enough, yet we bore it without murmuring, and would have been truly thankful, so early as the following day, to take it back in exchange for that which then befel us; for at the village where we halted there arrived on cars, about 700 wounded men from Albuera, whose plight was as pitiable--I might have used a stronger expression, and said horrible--as it is easy for the human imagination to conceive. No doubt they had received, when first taken in hand by the surgeons, all the care which the nature of their condition would allow. But they had performed since that period a long journey, through a barren country, and under a broiling sun--and their wounds remaining undressed all this while, were now in such a state as to defy description.

There was no lack of willingness on our parts to assist them. We soon cleared out the best houses in the place; spread straw, and, where we could find it, linen, for them on the floors, and gave ourselves up to the business of cleansing their hurts, the smell proceeding from which was fearful. Over and over again we were forced to quit the miserable patients in a hurry, and run out into the open air, in order to save ourselves from fainting; while they, poor fellows, reproached us, with a degree of bitterness which none of us cared, even in thought, to resent for a moment. I need scarcely add that among that mutilated crowd there were here and there strange specimens of frail humanity. One pair of wretches I particularly remember, an Irishman and a Frenchman, who travelled in the same car, both of whom had lost their legs--not partially, but entirely--and who yet ceased not to abuse and revile one another from morning till night. It was melancholy to hear them railing, in their respective tongues, and threatening one another in a manner strikingly characteristic of the two nations. Paddy doubled his fist from time to time, and shook it at Jean Crapot, while Jean would put his hand towards his left side, as much as to say, "Would that there were a sword in mine hand, for then would I slay thee."

We did our duty faithfully by our mutilated countrymen; so faithfully, indeed, that weeks passed away ere I was able entirely to overcome the effect which the distressing occupation had produced upon me. I could neither eat nor sleep, for every thing seemed to be tainted with effluvia from those cankered wounds, and my dreams were all such as to make sleep a burden. Fortunately for us, however, we were not long condemned to the torture; for war must be fed for ever with new victims, and we turned our backs upon those already smitten, on the morning after we had met them. Our next stage was Elvas, where, in a beautiful olive-plantation, we formed our camp; and beyond which we were not destined, at least for a time, to proceed. Moreover, as if fate had determined to console us in some sort for the distressing rencounter of the preceding day, we met this morning, while on the march, about 500 French prisoners; who, under an escort of Portuguese, were proceeding to the depot at Lisbon, and ultimately to the hulks. Poor fellows, we pitied them too; for the Portuguese ceased not to insult and abuse them--flourishing their swords over the captives heads, and heaping all manner of offensive epithets upon them. Beyond this, however, they did not venture to go, because by this time English discipline was in some measure established in the Portuguese army; and English discipline, as well as English feeling, sanctions no act of cruelty towards a discomfited foeman.