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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by A. F. Sherman 



"open my heart and you will see graved inside oe 

 it 'italy'" (see also page 449) 



The Italians, like the Americans, are a most composite people. No- 

 where else in Europe have so many foreign elements fused with the 

 native element to produce a modern nation (see text, page 511). 



The Portuguese have always been a warlike 

 and proud people. The spirit of that first 

 democratic assembly, even when under seeming 

 eclipse, has never been wholly lost. That spirit 

 finally drove out the Moslems and extended 

 their language beyond its natural frontiers. It 

 rendered Portugal in the fifteenth century the 

 foremost maritime, commercial, and colonial 

 power in the world. It sent Diaz, Da Gama, 

 and Magellan across many seas and demon- 

 strated the earth a sphere by circumnavigation. 

 The same spirit today fired the sons of Por- 

 tugal to act their valiant part on the fields of 

 Flanders and made them copartners in sacrifice 

 and victory. 



Camoens, the preemi- 

 nent writer of Portugal, 

 inspired by love of coun- 

 try, in the "Lusiads'' em- 

 bodied the romantic 

 "epic of discovery" and 

 shaped and stabilized the 

 Portuguese language. 

 Literary Portuguese is 

 still called "the speech of 

 Camoens." His work, 

 though less creative than 

 that of Dante, is no less 

 permanent. 



THE SPANISH * 



The peninsula writhed 

 beneath the heel of the 

 Moslem for eight hun- 

 dred years. No other 

 people has incarnated a 

 national tragedy so pro- 

 longed. The Portuguese 

 farther west suffered 

 less in the intensity of 

 the struggle, which 

 wrought itself into the 

 soul of the Spanish char- 

 acter. To this day Span- 

 ish peasants address one 

 another as caballero. or 

 knight. The struggle 

 produced that rigor and 

 intensity of religious con- 

 viction which found ex- 

 pression in Torquemada 

 and the Inquisition and 

 which could not endure 

 peoples of alien faiths, 

 like the Jews and Moors, 

 on Spanish soil. 



Ferdinand and Isabella, 

 joint sovereigns of re- 

 united Spain, inflicted the 

 final overthrow upon the 

 Moslems at Granada in 

 1492. 



From that camp at 

 Granada Columbus, com- 

 missioned by the Queen, 

 went forth to the voy- 

 age that brought to Eu- 

 rope the New World. To the Spanish and the 

 Portuguese of right belong the greatest glory 

 for the epochal discoveries of that marvelous 

 generation. Other nations emulated, but could 

 not equal, their achievements upon the sea. 



The decline of Spain from her preeminence 

 and the suppression of Portuguese independ- 

 ence resulted from the reign of Philip II, 

 great-grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. 



The many invasions of the peninsula had 

 contributed many additions to the original 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "Romantic Spain," by Charles Upson 

 Clark (March, 1910). 



