THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE PORTUGAL 



By Oswald Crawfurd 



The early navigators of this youngest of republics discovered Bra::il and 

 hath of the ocean routes to the Indies — via Cape of Good Hope and Magellan 

 Strait. Her present population is about that of Nezv York City, and her size 

 corresponds to Maine or Indiana. According to statistics, her people have the 

 longest heads in Europe and arc also the sniallest in stature. Three-fourths 

 of the population above six years of age can neither read nor write, notwith- 

 standing a lazu passed hi 1844 making primary education compulsory. The fol- 

 lowing article is abstracted from "The Contemporary Reviezv" of Edinburgh. 



TRAVELERS leaving the unquiet 

 waters of the Bay of Biscay be- 

 hind them and getting their first 

 sight of the peninsular mountains on 

 the steamer's port bow must often have 

 asked themselves, How has it come to be 

 that, in this huge Iberian peninsula, one 

 little slice of territory facing the western 

 sea has remained independent through- 

 out the ages, when so many other and 

 seemingly more powerful principalities 

 have tottered and gone to the ground? 



Is the country too mountainous and 

 inaccessible to permit invasion and 

 conquest, like Wales or our British 

 highlands? Or is there some ])eculiar 

 virtue or quality in the inhabitants of 

 this corner of the land that has served 

 to keep it free and untainted by the foot 

 of the conqueror? Or, again, has some 

 one great man stood forth in the hour 

 of his country's need, repelled the in- 

 vader, and left lasting traditions of free- 

 dom and independence, never afterwards 

 to be forgotten ? 



Nearly all these questions can be 

 answered in the affirmative, and Portu- 

 gal owes her existence to this day as a 

 nation, not to any one of the circum- 

 stances here suggested, but to all of them 

 conjointly. 



The territory of Portugal is in point 

 of fact a huge fortress whose enceinte 

 is constituted by ranges of mountains in 

 the north and in the east, and by the sea 

 on its western and southern frontiers ; 

 but no fortress is safe from attack and 

 capture unless the garrison is adequate, 

 and the Portuguese have shown them- 



selves at all times of their history, from 

 the first forlorn hope of their uprising, 

 under Sertorius, against the Romans, a 

 people apt for freedom and strong and 

 stout in opposing foreign domination. 



The country is indeed hard of access, 

 but not inaccessible, as has been proved 

 in every age of its history, and, com- 

 pared to almost any part of Spain, its 

 fertility, the amenity of its climate, and 

 the richness of its soil have invited in- 

 vasion. There is nothing in Portugal 

 resembling the vast, arid, sunburnt, cen- 

 tral tableland which constitutes nine- 

 tenths of the neighboring country. The 

 whole kingdom, sloping from the fron- 

 tier mountains to the sea, forms a suc- 

 cession of fertile valleys interspersed 

 with rich alluvial plains, watered by in- 

 numerable rivers, streams, brooks, rivu- 

 lets, and water-s]:)rings ; the air, tempered 

 by breezes from the sea and mountains, 

 and made agreeable by wood and stream, 

 is far more genial than that of the great 

 S])anish tableland. It is a regicMi that 

 has been coveted by the dwellers on the 

 l)arren Iberian uplands in an age when 

 agricultural wealth was nearly the only 

 wealth. 



In the early days of savagedom this 

 region was eagerly colonized by Rome, 

 and, later on, seized and settled on by 

 Gothic tribes from the north, and, after 

 that, appropriated by the Mahometan 

 Moors. It was against these latter, and 

 against the several nations of Spain that 

 were beginning to rise to power against 

 the yoke of Islam, that the first efifectual 

 struggle for freedom was made by the 



