subscription for the poor fellow; who, the
rest of the voyage, was a little delirious,
wandering about, day and night, with a white
cloth bound round his head, but speaking to
no one. He it was who went ashore at
Vigo to buy meat, at that market where a
broken-legged fat turkey stands sentry, and
returned just as our steam was snorting
signals, triumphant with a boat full of joints
of beef and mutton, piles of rocky melons,
and nets of golden-rinded lemons. He it
was who when the heedless Galician
butcher, that came with him, left his
scarlet umbrella behind, to prevent keeping
the steamer till the gesticulating rogue
could return for it, sent it afloat over
the waves, much to the Galician's annoyance.

At Oporto, that steward's character broke
upon us in new and finer lights. We had
been running along a fine line of battlemented
coast, dreading quarantine at Oporto, as the
yellow fever had appeared at Vigo, and when
once a man at Vigo has the yellow fever, such
is the sympathy and unanimity of that
people, that every one has it. We knew our
danger, and were straining all our eyes to
the shore of the Promised Land. The robust,
fierce-faced Portuguese colonel was leaning
over the bulwarks; the wine-merchant with
the pretty governess and portly wife going
out to escape our autumn fogs, were sitting
on Marius-in-Carthage heaps of labelled
luggage; the little cynical usher was clinging
to the shrouds, not thinking much of any of
us, but with a special glance of indignation
at the steward, who was cursing Oporto to
the white cook, polishing a banjo-shaped
stewpan; the ladies were in chattering
groups, prettily anxious, and asking
unnautical questions; the short, stout captain,
who has a cheery voice that would talk down
a monsoon, stands in a thoughtful attitude
on the bridge. The engine seems to have
some disease of the heart, and beats
intermittiiigly. "Stop her!" roars the captain.
There we are swinging up and down in the
wide blue sea, two miles from the bar of
Oporto, swinging in a high wind as if some
great spirit were rocking us up and down
for a joke. The great blue horizon, that
seems of molten lead, sullen and yet fluent,
rising and lowering like a sudden inundation,
running up and down is too much for our
little usher. Tom Cringle, in the red and
yellow Routledge cover, drops from his hand;
with a groan, he lies down at full stretch
on the raised roof of the cabin, shutting his
eyes against that hideous giddy rising and
falling, like an egg-shell on the sea; my eyes
strain at the coast. All I see is a white
line of surf—that is the bar; the fort and
two or three houses—one of these is the
signal-station. Oporto lies round inside there to
the left.

"Do you see any boat coming?" roars the
captain to the first officer.

First officer, with his long glass tube
pointed at the dilatory town, thinks they
are putting off a boat. "No! there is
nothing. Yes! there is a flag going up at
the tower."

"Bring the signal-book!" thunders the
captain. It is in his hand. The steward
brought it. "What do you make it?"

"Had we touched at Vigo?"

We replied (97—white and black), "We
had, but had only received fumigated
letters."

Now there is a hitch.

They reply, "Is Mr. Smith on board?"

"No! No! No!" we go on answering, till
the deck is strewn with rolls of red, yellow,
blue, and green flags.

We have exhausted the signal-book, and
can get no answer but that ridiculous question
of "Is Mr. Smith on board?" Somebody
says 40 does not mean Smith but Jones; and
we all get so confused that, at last, the captain,
red in the face with hurling anathemas at
the obstinate city, orders the flags to be taken
back to the quartermaster's cabin, and slams
up the signal-book. Steward thought, it would
come to that when we carried away that sheet
last night, and when we brought to at Vigo
after gunfire instead of going on and refusing
to communicate with the yellow fever. He
is just beginning again his great story of the
Sultan of Trebizond, when "I think I see
a boat, sir! " sings out the first officer,
whose black tube has never left his keen
and anxious eye.

"How far off do you make it?"

"About a mile from land."

Now we shall hear something, and this
dreadful up and down will have an end.

Immense excitement as the boat grows
from a dancing speck to a real eight-oared
fishing-boat, which has put off at some risk,
for the bar in this weather is not very safe to
pass, and the P. and O. steamers indeed only
touch at Oporto wind and weather permitting.
It comes bobbing over the great blue hill waves,
pulled by some stalwart fishermen, to whom
we throw a rope, but they keep as far as they
can from our supposed fever-haunted vessel,
and push off with oars and boathooks. The
captain, a yellow ape of an old man, in
broken straw hat, stands up and hands us on
a cleft stick a letter from the English
consul. The crew, hardy-looking, dark-eyed
fellows, are all smoking, except one young
Don Juan, the handsomest stripling I
think I ever saw, who is conscious of
our admiration, and pretends to tighten his
soiled red sash. Every wave sends the boat
up ten or twelve feet, till I get giddy staring
at the strange foreign-looking crew and the
gesticulating angry captain, who refuses all
communication with us, telling his men to
row back, though we hand him a grand
sealed letter from the consul at Vigo
proclaiming our sound health. He pretends to
read the letter, then tosses it back with a