Explore the Cintra Mountains.--Convent of Nossa Senhora da
Penha.--Moorish Ruins.--The Cork Convent.--The Rock of
Lisbon.--Marine Scenery.--Susceptible imagination of the Ancients
exemplified.
Sept. 19th, 1787.
Never did I behold so fine a day, or a sky of such lovely azure. The
M---- were with me by half-past six, and we rode over wild hills, which
command a great extent of apparently desert country; for the villages,
if there are any, are concealed in ravines and hollows.
Intending to explore the Cintra mountains from one extremity to the
other of the range, we placed relays at different stations. Our first
object was the Convent of Nossa Senhora da Penha, the little romantic
pile of white buildings I had seen glittering from afar when I first
sailed by the coast of Lisbon. From this pyramidical elevation the view
is boundless: you look immediately down upon an immense expanse of sea,
the vast, unlimited Atlantic. A long series of detached clouds of a
dazzling whiteness, suspended low over the waves, had a magic effect,
and in pagan times might have appeared, without any great stretch of
fancy, the cars of marine divinities just risen from the bosom of their
element.
There was nothing very interesting in the objects immediately around us.
The Moorish remains in the neighbourhood of the convent are scarcely
worth notice, and indeed seem never to have made part of any
considerable edifice. They were probably built up with the dilapidations
of a Roman temple, whose constructors had perhaps in their turn availed
themselves of the fragments of a Punic or Tyrian fane raised on this
high place, and blackened with the smoke of some horrible sacrifice.
Amidst the crevices of the mouldering walls, and particularly in the
vault of a cistern, which seems to have served both as a reservoir and a
bath, I noticed some capillaries and polypodiums of infinite delicacy;
and on a little flat space before the convent a numerous tribe of
pinks, gentians, and other alpine plants, fanned and invigorated by the
pure mountain air. These refreshing breezes, impregnated with the
perfume of innumerable aromatic herbs and flowers, seemed to infuse new
life into my veins, and, with it, an almost irresistible impulse to fall
down and worship in this vast temple of Nature the source and cause of
existence.
As we had a very extensive ride in contemplation, I could not remain
half so long as I wished on this aërial and secluded summit. Descending
by a tolerably easy road, which wound amongst the rocks in many an
irregular curve, we followed for several miles a narrow tract over the
brow of savage and desolate eminences, to the Cork convent, which
answered exactly, at the first glance we caught of it, the picture one
represents to one’s self of the settlement of Robinson Crusoe. Before
the entrance, formed of two ledges of ponderous rock, extends a smooth
level of greensward, browsed by cattle, whose tinkling bells filled me
with recollections of early days passed amongst wild and alpine scenery.
The Hermitage, its cells, chapel, and refectory, are all scooped out of
the native marble, and lined with the bark of the cork-tree. Several of
the passages about it are not only roofed, but floored with the same
material, extremely soft and pleasant to the feet. The shrubberies and
garden plats, dispersed amongst the mossy rocks which lie about in the
wildest confusion, are delightful, and I took great pleasure in
exploring their nooks and corners, following the course of a
transparent, gurgling rill, which is conducted through a rustic
water-shoot, between bushes of lavender and rosemary of the tenderest
green.
The Prior of this romantic retirement is appointed by the Marialvas, and
this very day his installation takes place, so we were pressed to dine
with him upon the occasion, and could not refuse; but as it was still
very early, we galloped on, intending to visit a famous cliff, the Pedra
d’Alvidrar, which composes one of the most striking features of that
renowned promontory the Rock of Lisbon.
Our road led us through the skirts of the woods which surround the
delightful village of Collares, to another range of barren eminences
extending along the sea-shore. I advanced to the very margin of the
cliff, which is of great height, and nearly perpendicular. A rabble of
boys followed at the heels of our horses, and five stout lads, detached
from this posse, descended with the most perfect unconcern the dreadful
precipice. One in particular walked down with his arms expanded, like a
being of a superior order. The coast is truly picturesque, and consists
of bold projections, intermixed with pyramidical rocks succeeding each
other in theatrical perspective, the most distant crowned by a lofty
tower, which serves as a lighthouse.
No words can convey an adequate idea of the bloom of the atmosphere, and
the silvery light reflected from the sea. From the edge of the abyss,
where I had remained several minutes like one spell-bound, we descended
a winding path, about half a mile, to the beach. Here we found ourselves
nearly shut in by shattered cliffs and grottos, a fantastic
amphitheatre, the best calculated that can possibly be imagined to
invite the sports of sea nymphs. Such coves, such deep and broken
recesses, such a play of outline I never beheld, nor did I ever hear so
powerful a roar of rushing waters upon any other coast. No wonder the
warm and susceptible imagination of the ancients, inflamed by the
scenery of the place, led them to believe they distinguished the conchs
of tritons sounding in these retired caverns; nay, some grave
Lusitanians positively declared they had not only heard, but seen them,
and despatched a messenger to the Emperor Tiberius to announce the
event, and congratulate him upon so evident and auspicious a
manifestation of divinity.
The tide was beginning to ebb, and allowed us, not without some risk
however, to pass into a cavern of surprising loftiness, the sides of
which were incrusted with beautiful limpets, and a variety of small
shells grouped together. Against some rude and porous fragments, not far
from the aperture through which we had crept, the waves swell with
violence, rush into the air, form instantaneous canopies of foam, then
fall down in a thousand trickling rills of silver. The flickering gleams
of light thrown upon irregular arches admitting into darker and more
retired grottos, the mysterious, watery gloom, the echoing murmurs and
almost musical sounds, occasioned by the conflict of winds and waters,
the strong odour of an atmosphere composed of saline particles, produced
altogether such a bewildering effect upon the senses, that I can easily
conceive a mind, poetically given, might be thrown into that kind of
tone which inclines to the belief of supernatural appearances. I am not
surprised, therefore, at the credulity of the ancients, and only wonder
my own imagination did not deceive me in a similar manner.
If solitude could have induced the Nereids to have vouchsafed me an
apparition, it was not wanting, for all my company had separated upon
different pursuits, and had left me entirely to myself. During the full
half-hour I remained shut out from the breathing world, one solitary
corvo marino was the only living creature I caught sight of, perched
upon an insulated rock, about fifty paces from the opening of the
cavern.
I was so stunned with the complicated sounds and murmurs which filled my
ears, that it was some moments before I could distinguish the voices of
Verdeil and Don Pedro, who were just returned from a hunt after
seaweeds and madrapores, calling me loudly to mount on horseback, and
make the best of our way to rejoin the Marquis and his attendants, all
gone to mass at the Cork convent. Happily, the little detached clouds we
had seen from the high point of Nossa Senhora da Penha, instead of
melting into the blue sky, had been gathering together, and skreened us
from the sun. We had therefore a delightful ride, and upon alighting
from our palfreys found the old abade just arrived with Luis de Miranda,
the colonel of the Cascais regiment, surrounded by a whole synod of
monks, as picturesque as bald pates and venerable beards could make
them.
As soon as the Marquis came forth from his devotions, dinner was served
up exactly in the style one might have expected at Mequinez or
Morocco--pillaus of different kinds, delicious quails, and pyramids of
rice tinged with saffron. Our dessert, in point of fruits and
sweetmeats, was most luxurious, nor would Pomona herself have been
ashamed of carrying in her lap such peaches and nectarines as rolled in
profusion about the table.
The abade seemed animated after dinner by the spirit of contradiction,
and would not allow the Marquis or Luis de Miranda to know more about
the court of John the Fifth, than of that of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
To avoid being stunned by the clamours of the dispute, in which two or
three monks with stentorian voices began to take part most vehemently,
Don Pedro, Verdeil, and I climbed up amongst the hanging shrubberies of
arbutus, bay, and myrtle, to a little platform carpeted with delicate
herbage, exhaling a fresh, aromatic perfume upon the slightest pressure.
There we sat, lulled by the murmur of distant waves, breaking over the
craggy shore we had visited in the morning. The clouds came slowly
sailing over the hills. My companions pounded the cones of the pines,
and gave me the kernels, which have an agreeable almond taste.
The evening was far advanced before we abandoned our peaceful,
sequestered situation, and joined the Marquis, who had not been yet able
to appease the abade. The vociferous old man made so many appeals to the
father-guardian of the convent in defence of his opinions, that I
thought we never should have got away. At length we departed, and after
wandering about in clouds and darkness for two hours, reached Cintra
exactly at ten. The Marchioness and the children had been much alarmed
at our long absence, and rated the abade severely for having occasioned
it.