OPORTO, a city of Portugal, in the province of Entre-Douro-e-Nlinho. It is situated about two miles from the mouth of the river Douro, and on its north bank. The town is chiefly built on a steep hill, which rises very abruptly from the bank of the river, and at some distance presents a very striking and romantic appearance. The houses being whitc-washed, give it an appearance of excessive cleanliness; but, on a closer inspection, many of the streets are found to be narrow though it is spacious and secure. " In front of the town the river is very deep. Two masted vessels can como to the town itself ; those with three masts within a quarter of a league ; and the great Brazil ships alone unload their cargoes in t'ne road. The principal article of commerce of Oporto, is white and red wine, but par ticularly port wine, which is made in the province of Tralos Moines, to the north-west, and in some districts of Entre-Douro-e-Itlinho to the north. The quantity annually exported is about 40,000 pipes, which goes ahnost wholly to England. The other articles of export are, oil of inferior quality, shumac, lemons, and oranges, and some colonial produce. The imports are flax, iron, cod-fish, rice, wheat, and goods of British manufacture. There are at Oporto some manufactories of hats, silks, linen stuffs, and pottery ; and there arc some rope-walks and docklards. Previous to 1790, 500 ships entered Oporto annually ; and in that year, the imports amounted to 600,000L and the exports to 801,000/. In 1789, nine millions of oranges were exported from Oporto alone.
In 1796, the following ships entered and sailed out of Oporto.
Entered. Cleared out.
and very dirty ; some, however, are wide anti airy, ex hibiting many new and handsome houses. In one uf the principal streets is situated the English factory-huuse, a large handsome building, erected about twenty years ago, in which the British consul has his office, and in which are also a library and reading room, and a spacious ball room. Many of the houses have gardens attached to them, and these hanging among the rocks, and filled with orange trees and vines, add much to the beauty of the city. The steep declivity of the hill, on whic'n the city is built, renders walking and riding' on horseback or in carriages more laborious than in Lisbon. On the
east side of the town are houses built against so steep a part of the declivity over the stream, that they can only be entered by steps cut out of the rock. This inconve nience is indeed compensated, at least to a stranger, by the romantic prospect they enjoy of the finest part of the opposite bank, with its towns, villages, monasteries, glad pine woods.
To the westward, along the declivity of the hill, are a number of detached houses, forming the market town of Gaya, a place remarkable both for its situation and name. Here, in former times, a place called Cale, of which the ancients speak, is said to have stood ; but Oporto being afterwards built, or being more convenient for ships, from the greater depth of the water along the bank, it was called Portus Cale, or the harbour of Cale, whence was derived Portucal, and at last Portugal. Portus Cale was at length called 0 Porto, (the Harbour) which name the town of Oporto afterwards received. Advancing to the eastward, and closely connected with the former, is the town called Villa Nova do Porto, chiefly inhabited by wine coopers, and others employed by the wine merchants of Oporto, in their immense magazines or lodges, as they are called there, where all the wine is kept from the period of its being brought down the Douro until it is exported. These magazines are all situated in that village, between which and Oporto there is a communication across the river by a bridge of boats, the expense of which is defrayed by each person paying a small copper coin as he passes and repasses. These boats are removed during a few weeks in spring, when the river is swollen from the rains, and the melting of the snow in the mountains of Spain, which is there called a fresh, and by which the water rises sometimes to a very great height. In 1820 it rose eighteen feet, and did much damage to the shipping then in the river. On a rocky eminence, near Villa Nova, is a monastery and its beautiful quinta, near which the British crossed the Douro in the peninsular war, under a tremendous fire from batteries erected by the French on the north side.