The quays swarm with people hard at work loading and unloading cargo. Women pass up and down along narrow planks from shore to ship with baskets full of coal balanced on their heads. Longshoremen and idlers look on, contentedly smoking. Groups of boys may be seen playing cards or throwing dice, and younger urchins, of similar tastes but fewer possessions, gambling excitedly with buttons. Here also are barefooted, brightly-dressed fishwives, and girls selling fruit, children at play, chestnut-sellers with their little charcoal stoves, rough brigand-like men rolling barrels of wine ashore, strings of pack-mules, and ox-carts waiting to be loaded, each with its pair of pretty browny-yellow oxen, under their high, elaborately carved yokes. It all forms the most charming medley of movement and colour against a background of tumble-down overhanging houses with projecting gables and painted balconies. There are vine-trellises offering leafy shade, clothes hanging out to air, rows of fine old trees, and here and there glimpses of the ancient river-wall. In this wall are many deep recesses used as wine-shops, or as general stores, where the sailorman may satisfy his numerous requirements in the way of oilskins, ropes, blocks, and all the many articles smelling of tar, so dear to the seafarer’s heart. This is Oporto as seen from below, down by the water’s edge; but the best view of the whole town is to be had much higher up, where the great bridge of Dom Luiz spans the narrow gorge. From this point of vantage you may look straight down on the river and on the busy wharfs far below; you may see the narrow, rough-paved streets that lead by flights of steps up the hillside, the many churches, the solid square towers of the cathedral on the hill, the old Moorish walls, and the odd little gardens--bright patches of colour in unexpected nooks and corners. Beyond the bridge, on the south side of the river, stands the ancient convent of Nossa Senhora da Serra do Pilar, Wellington’s headquarters in May, 1809, when he so successfully drove the French army under Marshal Soult out of Oporto. Six weeks earlier, after a three days’ siege, Soult had assaulted and taken the brave old city, which had gallantly, if foolishly, refused to surrender. Its fall was followed by hideous scenes of rapine and slaughter. The French gave no quarter, and the hunted people fled down to the river in thousands, hoping to escape by a bridge of boats that stretched across to the other bank. So great a crowd proved more than the bridge could bear. It sank under the weight, and over 18,000 men, women, and children were drowned, or butchered by the French soldiers. It was, however, a short-lived triumph for the arms of France. Three weeks later Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future great Duke of Wellington, landed at Lisbon, and before he had been in the country ten days he was on his way north to retake Oporto.