It should not be inferred that life was an incessant round of parties, teas, and receptions for all hands of the _Corsair_ while at Lisbon. Many of the young men had other inclinations and fought shy of “the society stuff.” The city itself was fascinating to those who liked to wander and explore with their eyes open. In groups they loitered through the dark and narrow streets of the ancient quarter of the Alhama or enjoyed the noble prospect of fine buildings and open spaces along the Tagus, or strolled with the colorful crowds in the Praca do Commercio and investigated the luxurious shops and cafés of the Rua Augusta and the Rua da Prata. Automobiles could be hired, and parties of bluejackets might have been seen in the royal palaces, the storied old churches, and the monastery whose walls were built in 1499, on the spot where another sailor, Vasco da Gama, had embarked on a famous voyage two years earlier. The water-front of every large seaport is notorious for low-browed rascals who look at Jack ashore as easy prey, and it was not in the least to the discredit of the hospitality of Lisbon that a pair of _Corsair_ men should have run afoul of one of these land-sharks when they first hit the beach. The business-like manner in which the youthful seafarers handled the matter discouraged further attempts to molest them. One of the pair mentioned it in his diary: Got shore liberty and landed in jail one hour later. The way it happened was that the driver of the car we had chartered tried to rob us and we refused to stand for it, so he had us pinched. We explained the case in French to a generalissimo and he turned us loose at once and said we were dead right. He would see that it didn’t happen again. The tough driver was laying for us when we walked back to the ship and he tried to get me with a knife and a machinist’s hammer. Dave stopped him, and I got a big club and we organized to clean up, but a crowd gathered, so we decided to quit and go on our way as a bunch of sailors from the _Corsair_ and _Preston_ hove in sight and were all set to make a battle royal of it. I knew this would get us into serious trouble, although I did hate to let that auto bandit get away with it, so we withdrew in good order. [Illustration: THE CORSAIR IN DRYDOCK AT LISBON] [Illustration: AT HER MOORING BUOY, BREST] Yeoman Connolly improved the opportunity to see the sights of Lisbon and some of his impressions ran like this: