340 the poet's grotto. 



whenever a whistle was given, they raised their heads 

 above the water. We read of the wretched natives 

 taking refuge with the tiger of the jungle and the 

 panther of the hills ; of mothers being forced to pound 

 their children to death in the rice mortars, and of other 

 children being danced on the point of spears, which it 

 was said was teaching the young cocks to crow. The 

 generation of heroes passed away; the generation of 

 favourites began. Courtiers accepted offices in the 

 Indies with the view of extorting a fortune from the 

 natives as rapidly as could be done. It was remarked 

 that humanity and justice were virtues which were 

 always left behind at the Cape of Good Hope by pas- 

 sengers for India. It was remarked that the money 

 which they brought home was like excommunicated 

 money, so quickly did it disappear. And as for those 

 who were content to love their country and to serve 

 their king, they made enemies of the others, and were 

 ruined for their pains. Old soldiers might be seen in 

 Lisbon wandering through the streets in rags, dying in 

 the hospitals, and crouched before the palace which they 

 had filled with gold. Men whose names are now wor- 

 shipped by their countrymen were then despised. 

 Minds which have won for themselves immortality 

 were darkened by sorrow and disgrace. In the island 

 of Macao, on the Chinese coast, there is a grove paved 

 with soft green velvet paths, and roofed with a dome 

 of leaves which even the rays of a tropical sun cannot 

 pierce through. In the midst is a grotto of rocks, 

 round which the roots of gigantic trees clamber and 

 coil; and in that silent hermitage a poor exile sat and 

 sang the glory of the land which had cast him forth. 

 That exile was Camoens ; that song was the Lusiad. 

 The vast possessions of the Spaniards and Portu- 



