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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Photograph by Edgar K. Frank 



A STURDY, INDUSTRIOUS, EFFICIENT TRIO, TYPICAL OF THEIR 

 RACE THE DUTCH 



The world owes much to the folk whose ancestral home is the land 

 wrested from the sea and preserved by dikes. The Dutch were the 

 first people to afford an asylum for free thought. People ostracized 

 from their own countries betook themselves to Rotterdam and Am- 

 sterdam, as they later did to London, to Geneva, and finally to 

 America. 



ing country, even across the Pyrenees as far 

 as the Loire, in France. 



In unusual degree Spanish and Portuguese 

 language, life, and character are the product of 

 historical development. Yet little line of cleav- 

 age between them appears until after the inva- 

 sion of the Moslem Saracens and Moors. That 

 invasion, begun in 710, deluged the entire penin- 

 sula. Charlemagne, hastening to repel the in- 

 vaders, was defeated at the Pass of Ronces- 

 valles and hurled back. The resistance of the 

 Christians, at first hopeless, never relaxed. 



THE PORTUGUESE * 



The Portuguese poets 

 attribute the separate ex- 

 istence of their nation 

 and language to the Lusi- 

 tani, who once occupied 

 the west of the penin- 

 sula as far north as the 

 Douro, and are immor- 

 talized by their intrepid 

 attacks upon the Romans. 

 At least from them Lusi- 

 tania, the poetical Latin 

 name of the country, is 

 derived. 



Portugal was born on 

 the battlefield. That was 

 the age of chivalry. War 

 against the infidels, ante- 

 dating the Crusades, at- 

 tracted the foremost 

 knights of Christendom. 

 Among them was Henry 

 of Burgundy, in prowess 

 little inferior to the Cid. 

 Alphonso of Castile re- 

 warded his valor with 

 his daughter's hand and 

 created him Count of 

 Portus Kale on the 

 Douro. The son of 

 Henry, Alphonso, against 

 desperate odds, inflicted 

 a great defeat on the 

 Moors at Ourique in 

 1 139. His exultant sol- 

 diers proclaimed h i m 

 King of Portus Kale, 

 now become Portugal. 



Henry refused the 

 crown conferred only by 

 the army. A States Gen- 

 eral was convened to 

 overcome his scruples. 

 That assembly is remark- 

 able. In it, for the first 

 time in European history, 

 representatives of the 

 common people sat and 

 acted as full equals of 

 the clergy and nobles. 



The assembly showed 

 the instinct of newborn 

 nationality. Its enact- 

 ments frequently repeat Portugal and Portu- 

 guese, as if the words were pleasant. The at- 

 tacks of Castile, which regarded the Portuguese 

 as rebellious vassals, unified the nation. Their 

 less sonorous, more nasal western dialect, here- 

 tofore disdained, was now encouraged as a 

 brand of nationality. 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "The Greatness of Little Portugal," by 

 Oswald Crawford, and "The Woods and Gar- 

 dens of Portugal," by Martin Hume (October, 

 1910). 



