514 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



crowns a In 

 eastward. an< 

 o f quaint 



Photograph by Clifford Albion T 



A MUNICIPAL STREET ELEVATOR IN LISBON 



This is one of the methods of gaining the heights of the city from 

 the lower levels of the Cidade ; it is one of the best methods and is 

 never lacking in patronage. From the Rua da Santa Justa this asccn- 

 sore rises to the iron bridge spanning the Chiado and leading to the 

 Largo do Carmo, eight or nine stories above the "shopping district." 



width of the peninsula. Far-famed Toledo 

 is on its banks, and beautiful Alcantara 

 also. 



almada is Lisbon's Brooklyn 



Our ship was moored a short distance 

 off the docks of Almada, a full mile, how- 

 ever, from the public landings of the 

 Praca do Commercio on the Lisbon side 

 of the estuary. 



Almada is a modest suburb of Lisbon. 

 From the ship we could see a small town 

 hanging by its eyelash, so to speak, from 

 a green and yellow hillside. An old fort 



to the 

 i range 

 houses, 

 broken by several 

 garden-like fracas, or 

 squares, lies between 

 the mouldering barri- 

 cade and the interest- 

 ing old chapel of Sao 

 Paulo, perched on an- 

 other little hillock to 

 the west. Dwarfed 

 replicas of British 

 Channel packet-boats 

 ply as ferry craft be- 

 tween Lisbon and this 

 miniature Brooklyn. 



Almada is not with- 

 out its claims to fame. 

 English Crusaders 

 settled here in fairly 

 large numbers after 

 the capture of Lisbon 

 from the Moors in 

 1147. The followers 

 of the Cross, delayed 

 en route to the Holy 

 Land, glad of an op- 

 portunity to deal the 

 Moslems a body-blow, 

 joined the Portuguese 

 forces of Dom Af- 

 fonso Henrique s, 

 sailed into the Tagus, 

 and drove the Moors 

 out of Lisbon into the 

 mountains back o f 

 Cintra. 



Directly in line be- 

 tween our ship and 

 the praqa, swinging 

 and bobbing in the 

 choppy tide, was the 

 selfsame mooring buoy to which the 

 NC-4 was made fast on May 27, 191 9, 

 when she landed in the Tagus after wing- 

 ing her way across the Atlantic, the first 

 aircraft of any type to join America and 

 Europe by the aerial route.* Her skipper, 

 Commander Albert C. Read, U. S. N., the 

 ''Columbus of the Air," reversing the 

 voyage of Columbus of old, made Lisbon 

 the 20th-century San Salvador. Nothing 

 can rob the city of that distinction. 



* See "The Azores, Half-way House of Amer- 

 ican Transatlantic Aviators," by Arminius T. 

 Haeberle, in The Geographic for June, 1919. 



