2 A SPRING TOUR IX PORTUGAL. 



tation and joy, however, which was somewhat chequered 

 at the pang of leaving home, and damped by the recol- 

 lection which would continue to intrude upon our minds, 

 that a weary voyage of four days at least, at a season 

 alarmingly near to the spring equinox, and over a sea pro- 

 verbially liable to storms, intervened, ere we could hope 

 to reach that warm and delicious climate, now more than 

 ever appreciated as w^e shivered in our misery on the deck 

 of the little vessel which carried us and our fellow-pas- 

 senofers from our native land. 



At length that tedious transit was effected ; and as we 

 made our way amidst a crowd of cargo boats, luggage 

 boats, provision boats, and others which hovered round 

 the Shannon, and looked at her vast proportions as she 

 loomed large, and black, and heavy, on that lowering 

 morning, a very whale among the minnows, and as steady 

 as a rock amidst her dancing, bobbing satellites, we 

 thought we had never seen so enormous a steamer, a con- 

 clusion which w^as not dispelled, when, on mounting the 

 stairs and entering her side, we found ourselves between 

 decks with long vistas of cabins, stretching out in endless 

 succession on either hand, and staircases innumerable, 

 conducting upwards to the main deck and downwards to 

 other tiers of cabins and the spacious saloons. 



Xo sooner on board than our luggage and our berths 

 first claimed our attention ; for, like experienced mariners 

 as we were, we knew that the comfort of our voyage de- 

 pended in no small degree on securing such articles of the 

 former as we needed whilst at sea, and in appropriating to 

 ourselves the cabin which w^e had been at so much pains 

 to select, as near as might be amidships, where the roll of 

 a vessel in a heavy sea would be less sensibly felt, and yet 

 so far forwards as to escape the churning noise of the 

 engines as well as the powerful odours which reigned 

 supreme in the neighbourhood of the kitchen. It was no 



