THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE PORTUGAL 



878 



colonization was not learnt in a day by 

 Portugal, but it has never been forgotten. 

 Other and wealthier nations have lost 

 most of their oversea holdings, or keep 

 them still with a rule so rigorous that it 

 means servitude.- The colonial kingdom 

 of Portugal, under a wiser and more 

 tolerant policy, has endured, not intact, 

 indeed, but still a valuable and extensive 

 kingdom beyond the seas. 



The splendid example then set by 

 Prince Henry the Navigator was fol- 

 lowed by the Portuguese explorers and 

 adventurers for nearly two centuries, and 

 led to achievements and conquests of 

 which the whole world is aware. It led 

 to the great discoveries of Vasco da 

 Gama, Pedro Cabral (the discoverer of 

 Brazil), Amerigo Vespucci, and Alagal- 

 haes ( Magellan) in the East and West 

 Indies respectively, and to the conquests 

 and tenure of part of India by Albu- 

 querque ; but these great triumphs must 

 not diminish the fame of the man who 

 first, in an age of comparative darkness, 

 ignorance, and superstition, braved the 

 terrors which the unknown seas then 

 held for learned and simple alike. 



Will this small nation ever again play 

 a predominant part in the liistory of the 

 world ?~ In the modern race of the na- 

 tions for wealth Portugal has established 

 no record. It is still a small and agri- 

 cultural nation, striving after industrial 

 wealth which it has never attained and 

 will never attain. It contains, however, 

 in its most prosperous regions — the dis- 

 trict lying immediately north and south 

 of the River Douro — an object lesson in 

 the prosperity of its yeoman farmers. 

 This is a region where, by a slow struggle 

 of the farmer against all the forces above 

 him — feudal, ecclesiastic, and govern- 

 mental — the small farmer has gradually 

 won to independence and prosperity as 

 a holder of the land. It would take more 

 pages than this whole number contains 

 to tell the full story of this struggle for 

 existence and freedom which has ended 

 in constituting a body of small yeoman 

 farmers, their country's real strength, 

 the like of whom is hardly to be found 

 elsewhere. 



A LAND OF YE:0ME:N 



It was mainly from among this yeo- 

 manry that the regiments were recruited 

 who fought side by side with our troops 

 in the Peninsular War, whose hardiness 

 and whose good pluck were the admira- 

 tion of our men and officers, and of 

 whom Wellington himself said that they 

 were "the fighting cocks of the Penin- 

 sula." 



The popular idea of Portugal, in my 

 own experience, is that it is a sort of 

 second-class Spain, the people lazy and 

 idle, the language ugly and difficult, the 

 literature poor. This report, absolutely 

 and demonstrably false as it is, would be 

 corroborated by most Spaniards. Neigh- 

 bor nations seldom love each other. They 

 seldom understand each other, and Span- 

 iards and Portuguese are no exception. 

 This attitude toward each other has been 

 likened to that of two men sitting back 

 to back on a bench who will neither turn 

 nor speak to each other. 



It is of course an error to consider 

 either Spaniards or Portuguese as a sin- 

 gle race. Galicians, Asturians, Aragon- 

 ese, Castilians, and /Vndalusians dififer 

 among themselves as much as the man 

 of northern Portugal from the dweller 

 south of tlie Tagus. The difiference in 

 both countries is often as marked as that 

 between Germans and Italians. 



Portugal has been less written about 

 than perhaps any country of its size and 

 importance in Europe. The difficult 

 Portuguese language has been a bar to 

 the traveler and travel-writer. 



Portugal is nearly the same now as 

 it was ten, twenty, perhaps fifty years 

 ago. It is an agricultural country, and in 

 its most prosperous provinces it is a land 

 of small proprietors, farmed by the hold- 

 ers themselves. I speak chiefly of the 

 region north of the Tagus. On a 20-acre 

 farm there can be no room for improved 

 agricultural machinery, or for steam 

 plows, reapers, or threshers. The land 

 is mainly hilly, the fields are tiny and 

 often built up into terraces by supporting 

 Avails, and their surface broken by the 

 leaders and water channels that, in the 



