"Lisbon, July 16. 1809.
"Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous
sights, palaces, convents, &c.;--which, being to be heard in my
friend Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall not anticipate
by smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and
clandestine manner. I must just observe, that the village of Cintra in
Estremadura is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world.
"I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talk bad Latin to
the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,--and I goes
into society (with my pocket-pistols), and I swims in the Tagus all
across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears
Portuguese, and have got a diarrhoea and bites from the musquitoes.
But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a
pleasuring.
"When the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say, 'Carracho!'--the great
oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place of
'Damme,'--and, when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I pronounce him
'Ambra di merdo.' With these two phrases, and a third, 'Avra bouro,'
which signifieth 'Get an ass,' I am universally understood to be a
person of degree and a master of languages. How merrily we lives that
travellers be!--if we had food and raiment. But in sober sadness, any
thing is better than England, and I am infinitely amused with my
pilgrimage as far as it has gone.
"To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 miles as far as Gibraltar,
where we embark for Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will find
me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. Pray embrace the Drury and
Dwyer, and all the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing with Butler's
donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility.
"Hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital
crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of
literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. All this
will be pleasant--'Suave mari magno,' &c. Talking of that, I have been
sea-sick, and sick of the sea.
"Adieu. Yours faithfully," &c.