19 LISBON

They left Baltimore harbour in September 1864 on a steamship for Lisbon. The crossing was completed in five days, less than half the time they travelled from Saint Nazaire to New York on their first ocean voyage together.

Lisbon had changed much since his last visit. That was of no surprise to him; he had been there shortly after All Saints Day, a Saturday in 1755.

As a merchant, he owned a small cloth and spice exchange, bringing materials from across the sea in Brazil. He had a warehouse in Lisbon and one in each colonial city, Recife, and the groves in the Azores. His success allowed him to afford to become a partner in his ship to transport his goods and the goods of others.

Evelyn loved to hear the stories of that time. The ship and the sea. Although she now had crossed the Atlantic four times, her heart still swelled at Jonathan’s stories of smaller ships laden with what she imagined as treasure. The sails flapping and then being pulled taut by the wind, the uncertainty of the storms and what must have been worse, the storms at night.

She was also enthralled by the stories of the jungle and its natives, wild animals like jaguars, and birds of all colours, like a rainbow of feathers. 

As they entered the city’s harbour, Jonathan dropped his hand from hers and grabbed hold of the rail. She looked at him first with surprise and then with worry.

 “My dear, you look weak. Are you alright, my dearest Jonathan? Perhaps you should sit down for a moment, or at least not stand so close to the rail.”

“The last time I saw Lisbon from here, it was the ruin of a city—nothing but clouds of smoke and dust in the air. The smell of death was thick, and it seemed like the sun had not shone for days. The air was so black you could not see those hills in the distance nor even from one side of the harbour to the other.

First, you could not see the hills because of the smoke, and you could not look across the harbour because of the number of bodies. Hundreds of broken bodies of men, women, and children. Floating amid and amongst the wastes and refuse shortly before their homes. The strongest and most battle-hardened warriors I knew would not have been able to hold back their tears.

My ship was a few days out on an inward voyage. We felt the sea sway and toss continued for a day and a half. Of all the things I have forgotten, that is the one thing I wish I could and yet cannot.”

“Senhor, the Captain would wish to speak with you immediately, please, he says.”

“Yes, Ademar, go tell him I will be there in the immediate future.” He replied, pointing for the junior sailor to leave his quarters.

They were not much, but he had a small partitioned area as a part-owner of the ship. He knew the less space he had, the more room there was for cargo, and the fewer luxuries he had, the more the crew would accept him as a “trabalhador” or a “homem de verdade, " as a “worker” or a “real man.”

To his way of thinking, the Portuguese may have been the most hard-working and noble of all the people he had known.

He put his boots on, straightened his shirt and flattened down his hair. He may have wanted to be accepted by the crew, but he knew he should show respect to the captain. St Croix may have owned the ship, but it was the captain’s domain at sea. And João Dias Pereira was as good of a captain as the country ever produced, except for Vasco Da Gama and a few others.

“Captain Pereira, you wish to discuss a matter with me?”

“Yes, Senhor. Of all my days at sea, I feel a great unease. I ask for your opinion: Should we sail to the East and approach Africa or stay this course in deeper water?

“You are the captain, and I believe your sea gut. I believe that we should stay at sea as the seas out here are calm and no ill-looking clouds appear on any horizon. What you fear in feeling could be an arising “tempestade de areia,” which could damage the ship, and the sands would blind us if we were to approach the coast.”

“Very well, Senhor, I thought perhaps the same thing.”

There are few reference points in the middle of the sea, and there are no landmarks or a way to judge your direction or speed. But everyone on board the ‘Flor de la Mar’ felt the ship list the starboard, and with the only line of reference to make any observation, they saw the bow lift concerning the horizon. And unlike the cresting of a wave, the bow stayed raised for almost a quarter of an hour.

About an hour later, the ship listed again; this time, the bow dipped, and the boat felt like it was being pushed forward.

As they approached Lisbon, the sun was redder in the eastern sky. The adage, “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning, " was inadequate to prepare them for what they were about to encounter.

Still miles off the coast, they had begun to see debris, pieces of wood and other flotsam in the sea. Their first thought and reaction were to send a man up the main mast to look for any sailors or ships in distress. The lookout reported to the captain that there was no evidence of a vessel in trouble but that the sea was littered as far as he could see toward the coast.

The captain sent spotters to the bow to warn of any floating item that could damage the ‘Flor de la Mar,’ but they only saw more minor pieces of wreckage and a growing number of bodies. 

Two miles from port, the sky over the city appeared black and dull, and the sun began to fade. Once in sight of the shoreline, the shores appeared denuded of trees and all manner of the works of man. The hills looked just like mounds of bare earth.

As they entered the estuary of the Tagus River, one of the finest natural harbours in Europe, the magnitude of the destruction became apparent.

On a Saturday mid-morning, with the markets teeming and the city alive, a rumbling was felt beneath the feet of the shoppers and merchants. As the tremor began to shake the town in earnest, tiles began to fall from roofs, church bells began to peal, and those without support were tossed to the ground.  

The ground swayed from side to side for more than five minutes and heaved upwards and downwards. Many of the candles lit in the early morning to celebrate All Saint Day tumbled from their tables and lit countless fires across the city.

The buildings collapsed with the cracking sound of splitting timbers; deeper sounds reverberated as the stone and masonry walls split and crumbled. Once the trembling and pitching ground stopped, it became silent, and the panicking populace ran toward the coast and the broader open spaces near the harbour. Looking back toward the city, they saw hundreds of columns of smoke rising from the small fires that would later merge into a tremendous firestorm.

Turning toward the sea, they stood in mute stupefaction as they watched the sea withdraw from the harbour and coast. The waters moved with such dispatch that not only were ships left on the floor of the harbour basin, but one could walk out where the waters had been and collect stranded fish. Those not wishing to stand or collect fish fell to their knees, praying and crossing themselves, asking for forgiveness as they thought this was the end of days.

An uneasy calm settled across the crowds as husbands found wives and parents found children. Priests began walking through the crowds, speaking of aid and comfort and trying to explain how the will of a loving god could wreak such destruction.

In less than an hour, the first dogs began to howl, and then all the birds took flight. Those with keen hearing heard a low, swishing rumble from the sea.

Out in the reaches of the broad Atlantic, a massive swell of water was racing toward land. The swell quickly became a wall as it crossed the shallower sea bed.

Forty minutes after the ground had shaken, the wall of water, a tsunami, raged down upon the broken city. The Carcavelos and Caparica areas of the city region were the first to be inundated as they were on the west sides of the two bodies of land that form natural walls north and south to protect the harbour and Lisbon proper.

The water funnelled through the opening to the harbour, across the basin and into the eastern hills and moved far up the Tagus River channel. The speed it travelled was barely outpaced by men riding on horseback galloping as fast as they could to reach higher land for fear of being carried away. Over the day, the waves receded and returned twice more, piling more woe and misery upon the suffering citizenry.

The fires not extinguished by the waters grew and combined in strength, burning with such ferocity that a man within forty yards of the flames could not breathe.

From Faro and Algarve in the south to the northern reaches of the country, all the coastal communities and towns were fraught with destruction; even Covilhã, an inland city one hundred and forty miles north of Lisbon and seventy miles from that coast, had damage sustained to her ancient fortress walls.  

Regaining his composure, Jonathan relayed these facts to Evelyn, stood firmly, placed his arm around her, set his jaw, and said, “We are now home. Our new home.”