Portugal of the Portuguese

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GENERAL VIEW, LISBON

Portugal of the Portuguese

By
Aubrey F. G. Bell
AUTHOR OF “THE MAGIC OF SPAIN,” “IN PORTUGAL,” ETC

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
597-599 Fifth Avenue

1917

Printed by
Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., London, England

PREFACE

Since the murder of King Carlos and of the Crown Prince Luis Felipe on the 1st of February, 1908, Portugal has been in the limelight. A swarm of writers have descended like locusts on the land, and the printing-presses of Europe have groaned beneath the mass of matter concerning this unfortunate country. Yet most often the matter has been necessarily superficial, and a few outstanding features, a murder, a revolution, the methods of a secret society, have laid hold on public attention. The Portuguese is, therefore, apt to be regarded less as a poetical dreamer, heir of the glories of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, than as a political schemer, with a pistol in one pocket and a bomb in another. And since in the matter of political disturbances the end is not yet, and a strident minority is likely for some years to come to impose itself in Portugal and attempt to impose itself on public opinion abroad, crying out that all criticism of it springs from hatred of Portugal, it is of importance to distinguish between this minority of misguided, unscrupulous and half-educated persons, and the true people of Portugal. We do not usually mistake a little yellow froth on the surface for the sea, and only the ignorant will saddle the Portuguese people with the words and deeds of a political party with which it has no connection whatever, not even that of the vote. Great Britain has everything to gain from a better understanding of a people with which she has so many dealings, and which is in itself so extraordinarily interesting and attractive. Prejudices rather easily formed against it vanish in the light of better knowledge. In intellectual matters at present Portugal turns almost exclusively to France, but there is no reason why the business connection between Great Britain and Portugal should not lead to closer ties. A needful preliminary is that Englishmen should be at pains to learn something more of her ancient ally than is manifested in its politics, often as representative of Heligoland or Honolulu as of Portugal.

AUBREY F. G. BELL.

S. João do Estoril,
June, 1915.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Portugal of the Portuguese

CHAPTER I
CHARACTERISTICS

The People.

Too many judge the character of the Portuguese from a hasty study of what Beckford nearly a century ago impolitely called the Lisbon canaille. The life of the Portuguese in a political and literary (written literature) sense is concentrated in Lisbon, but outside this narrow circle exists the Portuguese people proper, to the foreigner almost an unknown quantity, taking no concern for the latest political party formed or the latest volume of second-rate verse published, yet constituting in its strength or weakness the political future of Portugal and containing within itself a whole literature of prose and poetry, legend and song. In some measure those who know the Irish peasant know the Portuguese, and those who know the Irish will realise from this comparison what a delightful mine of interest is here to hand. Indeed, if you take the Irish peasantry, add hot sun, a spice of the East, and perhaps something of the negro’s vanity and slight hold on life, you have the Portuguese. The quick intelligence, the dreaming melancholy, the slyness and love of intrigue, the wit and imagination are here, and the power of expression in words. Generosity, too, and habits as unpractical as could be desired.

Patriotism.

The politician in Portugal who looks at the statistics, and, seeing that 75 per cent. of this people are illiterate, shrugs his shoulders—non ragionar di lor—makes a great mistake, for it is here that those who have considered the political intrigues of the capital and despaired of Portugal’s present find a new hope: a population hard-working, vigorous, and intelligent, increasing fairly rapidly, content with little, not willingly learning to read or write, but in its own way eagerly patriotic, each loving Portugal as represented by his own town or village or farm, though he may not have grasped the latest shades of humanity, fraternity, or irreligion.

A minha casa, a minha casinha,

Não ha casa come a minha.

From the earliest times the inhabitants of this western strip of the Iberian peninsula had shown themselves capable of heroic deeds and at the same time impressionable, open to new ideas and foreign influences, more ready to co-operate with the French and English than with their inland neighbours the Castilians. Had the characters of these two neighbours been less incompatible, Portugal might have come to recognise the hegemony of Castille, as sooner or later did all the other regions of the Peninsula, some of which were separated from the central plains by natural barriers more difficult than was Portugal. But to the Portuguese the Castilian too often was and is a stranger and an enemy.

King Manoel the Fortunate.

As the power of Castille grew, Portugal called in a new world to redress the balance of the old. Unfortunately in reaching out for this support Portugal fatally overstrained her strength, and the brilliant reign (1495-1521) of King Manoel I (“that great, fortunate, and only Emanuel of Portugall,” Sir Peter Wyche called him) resembled the Cid’s famous coffers, all crimson and golden without, but containing more sand than gold. Those who look at the bedraggled coffer hanging in Burgos Cathedral wonder how it can have deceived the two Jews, and those who see the present somewhat penniless and forlorn condition of Portugal are apt to forget that it was once a great world-empire. Before Portugal became that we have glimpses of the Portuguese as a contented people, fond of song and dance, a pipe and drum at every door, living rustic, idyllic lives as cultivators of the soil in a “land abounding in meat and drink, terra de vyandas e beveres muyto avondosa” (fifteenth century).

ROMAN TEMPLE, EVORA

[[See p. 105]

Discovery of the Indies.

But the discoveries and conquests followed, the magic of the sea, the mystery of the East wove a spell over the imagination of the Portuguese, the country was drained of men, devastated by plague and famine. Lisbon and the East absorbed energies hitherto given to the soil. Portugal, moreover, was doomed to share Spain’s losses during the period 1580-1640, and later was ravaged by frequent civil wars. In fine one might expect to find a dwindling miserable population, dying out from sheer exhaustion. But this would be very far from being a true statement of the case. Portugal is only lying fallow. There are reserves of health and energy, especially in the north, in the sturdy peasants of Beira and Minho. Politically it is only a potential strength, and the real people of Portugal has never yet come into its own, although it was on the point of doing so at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was not allowed to develop naturally after the first third of that great century. Even to-day there are said to be certain politicians who would dress it up in a suit of ready-made clothes which has caught their fancy in some shop window when they were on a visit to Paris. The Portuguese people deserves better than that, and if it can be given a national government, and a national policy and ideals, it may yet surprise Europe. It is a question of encouraging the indigenous side of Portuguese civilisation—in language, literature, dress, legislation, drama, cookery, in everything—which since the sixteenth century has been set aside for the imported foreign-erudite; to develop as it were the Saxon element at the expense of the Norman. The people have succeeded in keeping many of their old and excellent customs—but by the skin of their teeth now—as they have their own names for many of the Lisbon streets and their own words side by side with those of learned origin.

Foreign Ingredients.

But in order to become acquainted with the Portuguese people it is necessary to go far afield, to the remote villages of Alemtejo or Minho or of the Serra da Estrella, and, the means of doing this being often primitive or non-existent, the traveller contents himself with swift generalities derived from observation of the inhabitants of the towns, precisely, that is, where the Portuguese most displays his weaknesses and where the population is most mixed. Reclus considered the Portuguese “très fortement croisés de nègres,” and other foreign observers have denied the existence of a Portuguese nationality, dismissing it as a mere pot pourri of many races. If this is an exaggeration, it cannot be denied that the many peaceful or warrior invaders—Phoenician, Celt, Carthaginian, Greek or Goth—attracted by this lovely land from age to age, and the numerous slaves imported from Portugal’s overseas dominions have contributed to form a mixed population, especially in and around Lisbon. At Lisbon many persons evidently have negro blood in their veins, and others are of Jewish descent. Sobieski, the Polish traveller, wrote in 1611: “There are in Portugal very many Jews, so many that various houses have a Jewish origin. Although they have burnt and expelled them, many live hidden among the Portuguese.” This was 114 years after the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal.

The Provinces.

But Lisbon is a country in itself, divorced in many ways from the rest of Portugal. The Portuguese provinces present many differences of character among their inhabitants, from the lively chattering algarvio in the south to the duller, quietly poetical and dreamy minhoto on the border of Galicia, unfairly described by Oliveira Martins as “without elevation of spirit, dense, the Dutch of Portugal,” the fervent, hardy beirão mountaineer or the stolid farmers of Alemtejo.

Taking the character of the Portuguese as a whole, its main feature seems to be vagueness. Their minds are not inductive.

General Character.

They think in generalities and abstractions, and their deductions often have a closer relation to these than to the facts of life. No doubt the dreamy climate (King Duarte in the fifteenth century noted the effect of climate on character), the misty blue skies and wide sea horizons have exercised as much influence on the character of the inhabitants as the many foreign ingredients, the uncertain land boundaries, the fear of attacks from the sea, the indefinite dangers of earthquake and plague. Everywhere in Portugal is this lack of precision evident, in the fondness for abstractions and unsubstantial grandeur, the counting in réis (most transactions continue to be made in réis, which though apparently clumsy is really simpler than the new system of centavos—10 réis—and escudos—1,000 réis), the love of the lottery, the perpetual tendency to exaggerate, the inexhaustible and vague good-nature which some more direct minds find so trying, the facile criticism which encourages the existence of too many poets, politicians and other nonentities, the absence of discipline, the belief in the efficacy of words and rhetoric, the idle expectation of better things, the sebastianismo which looks for the return of the ill-fated king—a later Arthur—“on a morning of thick mist”—the universal cult of undefined melancholy and saudade. The French saying, “Les portugais sont toujours gais,” should be rendered—

Nos labios chistes,

No coração tristes.

(On their lips a smile,

Sad at heart the while.)

“Saudade.”

None but a nation with a beautiful land and delightful climate could be so sad. Less favoured peoples are fain to be content with what they can get, and, in their necessary efforts to obtain something, often obtain much. The Portuguese, living in a land where it is possible to support life on almost nothing, has little incentive to effort. Moreover, the Portuguese turns his imagination to the ideal, and comparing it with the real, is saddened. His pessimism is essentially that of the idealist: disillusion. He wishes for all or nothing, aims at a million and misses an unit, whereas men more practical with less intelligence it may be, and certainly less imagination, set themselves to the work before them, and prosper. But it must not be thought that, because the Portuguese cultivates a gentle melancholy, he has a poor heart that never rejoices. His sadness is often as superficial as the Englishman’s impassivity. He is, generally, far too intelligent to find life ever dull, or if he yields to ennui it is of the gorgeous philosophical kind which takes a subtle pleasure in saying that “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” As a rule, his sense of ridicule on the one hand and his nervous self-consciousness on the other make of life for him a perpetual feast of little comedies and tragedies. But in practical matters, failing to realise his ideal, he does not attempt to idealise the real, but views it with laughter or disdain. The ideal is usually vague and set apart from practical life.

Humanity.

Thus the humanity of the Portuguese is real, they have no love of violence or bloodshed, but it is a state of mind rather than a course of action, and can be curiously combined with cruel persecutions in practice. The expulsion of the Jews came to Portugal from Spain, and it is difficult to believe that the Portuguese people ever viewed the Inquisition fires in the Rocio with anything but horror. But Vasco da Gama, Affonso d’Albuquerque, Dom João de Castro and other Portuguese in the East perpetrated cruelties as terrible as any practised by the Inquisition. It was the habit of the early discoverers to seize a few natives and, if they desired information, put them to the torture. For sheer callousness the following deed recorded of Vasco da Gama is remarkable (the date might almost be 1915): “Namen wi een scip van Mecha daer waren in drie hondert mannē en̄ tachtich en̄ veel vrouwen en̄ kinderen. En̄ wi namen daar wt wel xii. dusent ducaten en̄ noch wel x. dusent an comanscap. En̄ wi verbranden dat scip en̄ al dat volc te pulwer den tersten dach in October.” (That is: Having captured a peaceful trading ship from Mecca, and taken thereout the ducats and merchandise, the Portuguese under Vasco da Gama blew up the ship with 380 men and many women and children in her.) The Flemish sailor chronicles the fact with more directness than would have marked a Portuguese account. What is so striking is that the dreamy humanity of the Portuguese does not desert him in such an event. To take a recent instance—the murder of Lieutenant Soares in Lisbon—no foreigner could ever forget the gentle good-nature of the assassins, apparently bonhommes and affable, nor the indifference and equanimity of the small crowd that collected. Few Portuguese would consider Stevenson anything but a pagan when he exclaims, at the idea of loving all men: “God save me from such irreligion!” Such directness is foreign to their temperament. They would understand better the cry of the Canadian poet, Émile Nelligan, “J’ai voulu tout aimer et je suis malheureux,” or Corneille’s strange recommendation, “Aimez-les toutes (all women) en Dieu.”

Women.

The position of women in Portugal is another instance of vague ideals. Woman is set on a pedestal, but women are not always treated with consideration, and in some parts of the country are little better than slaves. Over and over again you will meet a man and a woman, husband and wife, perhaps, the man in lordly fashion carrying a small parcel or nothing at all, the woman bowing under a huge load. No one thinks of protesting against this, it passes without notice, nor has the Republican Parliament, which has shown itself copious in legislation, bestirred itself to introduce a bill dealing with the position of women, although it has denied them the right to vote. The peasant women continue to do twice the work of the men, and to receive half the wages. Frei João dos Santos at the beginning of the seventeenth century noted (Ethiopia Oriental, 1609) that it was “as natural for Kaffir women to work in the fields as to the women of Minho to spin,” but at the present day it is the women in Portugal who do a heavy part of out-of-door work. To their semi-slavery and Moorish toil may perhaps be ascribed partly the fact that the women in Portugal are less graceful and good-looking than the men. On the other hand, Portuguese women of all classes often display a common sense and strength and firmness of character to a greater degree than do the men.

Liberty.

Another good instance of the gulf between the ideal and the real is to be found in the conception and the practice of liberty. Abstract Liberty with a great L goes to the head of the Portuguese like wine, and in its name they have effected many a revolution and committed many a crime. In practice it can still be used, as two thousand years ago, “for a cloak of maliciousness.” “Luminous in its virginal essence rises the beneficent aspiration of a régime of liberty.” No doubt these celebrated words of Dr. Theophilo Braga on the occasion of the proclamation of the Republic were sincere, in so far as words so abstract can have any concrete quality, but their vagueness was characteristic and ominous. Equally indefinite had been the poet Snr. Guerra Junqueiro’s description of the future Republic in 1897. The Republic was to be “a high road towards a new formula of civilisation.” Such phrases, hollow and resounding like an empty barrel, have an immense success in Portuguese politics.

WOMEN AT WORK

Business Capacity.

But the same vagueness pervades business. In business the Portuguese appears incurably careless and combines with this fault the most meticulous scruples. The result is too often delay and confusion. There as in other matters the Portuguese shows a genius for setting himself in the wrong, his real ability is eclipsed by superficial errors, the mistakes in estimates or accounts are not always in his favour, and the unscrupulous can easily take advantage of his hesitations and candour. The personal element is always present, and vanity, together with much real delicacy of feeling, enters into business matters. A fact this which Englishmen dealing with Portuguese have been slower to recognise in the past than other nations. Moreover the Portuguese is harassed out of his wits by the details of business, he likes a good lump sum down rather than much larger but gradual profits, he goes for the pounds and leaves the pennies to look after themselves. If he sees the advantage of an enterprise, he rarely combines with this intelligence the necessary perseverance and force of character to carry it through. Yet here as always the Portuguese shows a marvellous inclination to fritter away his energies in matters of the minutest interest and minor importance, an inability to omit, to leave off. They either have no method or a method so minutely conceived that it is almost certain to break down in practice. Portuguese scholarship sometimes vies with German in unprofitable minuteness. For instance, Alexandre Herculano, the historian, wrote a few fine poems: one of his Portuguese critics has taken the trouble to ascertain the number of verses (6,800) contained in all his original poems and translations.

Religion.

In religion, again, the same vagueness. Many Portuguese prefer an undefined pantheism and a mystic love of Nature or Humanity to dogmatic beliefs. The ostentatious art of Roman Catholic ceremonies and the exact precision of Protestant services are both in a sense congenial to them, the former appealing to their fondness for pomp and show, the latter to their quiet thoughtfulness. But neither the one nor the other affects them with sufficient force to fasten upon their minds a fanaticism which is foreign to dreamy and comfortable natures. The Roman Catholic religion exercises a greater influence on the dramatic character of the Spanish than on the essentially lyrical and idyllic nature of the Portuguese. Nor do the latter show any marked enthusiasm for Protestantism, although the number of Protestants is certainly larger than it is in Spain. Perhaps it is too clear and reasonable for them. They require vagueness and mystery.

Contrasts.

The character of a Portuguese is much more rarely than that of a Spaniard all of one piece. The Spaniard’s, clear-cut and angular, admits less readily of contrasts and contradictions, whereas the very vagueness of the Portuguese enables it to combine opposing elements. Certainly, at least, there would seem to be many puzzling inconsistencies in the character of the Portuguese people. For they are like a quiet stream with sudden falls. They are fatalists, but with moments of heroic rebellion and effort, apathetic, with bursts of energy in private and revolution in public life; kindly and docile, yet with outbreaks of harshness and arrogance, indifferent yet with fugitive enthusiasms and a real love of progress and change. They are mystic and poetical with intervals of intense utilitarianism, erratically practical, falling from idle dreams to a keen relish for immediate profit. They combine vanity with diffidence and pessimism; naïveté, which makes them the butt of Spanish stories, with slyness, whereby they have their revenge; indolence with love of sport and adventure; respect for the feelings of others with fondness for satire, sarcasm, and ridicule. They go easily from heights of rapture to depths of melancholy and suicidal despair, from frank trustfulness to extremes of suspicion and intrigue, and their dreamy thoughtfulness passes at rare intervals to explosions of passion and abuse.

The Real and the Ideal.

The fact is that both in life and literature they are incorrigibly romantic, and when they turn from their romantic dreams to reality they are peculiarly exposed to the danger of not considering it worth an effort. They let things be, they easily persuade themselves that things must be as they are, or that they are as they in words imagine them; and so in their saudade for some impossible ideal they sink into desleixo and drift (deixarse-ir, deixarse-estar). Or the Portuguese will continue to live in his romanticism and ignore reality altogether; his vanity helps him to ignore it; he will wear cheap and garish chains and rings and trinkets and imagine himself rich, he will eke out the picture by the help of his quick imagination and ever-ready flow of words, heaping rhetoric and exaggeration, and in his vagueness drifting ere he is aware into falsehood. Then, if his efforts to impose the picture of his imagining on others at his own valuation fail, he will feel hurt by their brutal directness, their incapacity to see that a mere string of words may move mountains.

“Desleixo.”

They are taxed with laziness, but it should at least be observed that the laziness is not due to lack of energy, but rather to the conviction that “it is not worth while”—desleixo. When a thing does appear to be worth while the desleixo disappears like a cast-off mask. The amount of work achieved, for instance, by some Portuguese politicians or men-of-letters is extraordinarily large.

More serious is the accusation that they do not know what the word justice means, hate or love, acquit or condemn, fawn or bully, persecute or place on a pinnacle as occasion offers, and lose all sense of fair play in their vindictiveness. But after all it is the attraction of the Latin temperament that it is quick and impulsive, even if it therefore rarely attains that impartial justice which is all-important for the ruling of an Empire, but the absence of which certainly adds a picturesque and unforeseen element to life.

Attitude to Foreigners.

Unhappily the Portuguese delicacy often meets with rougher manners in foreigners and shrinks as from a rebuff. The Portuguese himself is excessively sensitive and he will go out of his way and sacrifice his own comfort and indolence in order not to hurt the feelings of others, perhaps in some trifling matter of which the person thus contemplated, especially if he is a foreigner, remains serenely unaware. The Portuguese do not know how to treat foreigners. This may seem a strange statement to those who have visited Portugal and experienced the kindness and courtesy of high and low on all sides. But they make too great a difference between themselves and foreigners, and have an almost morbid desire to stand well in the eyes of the stranger, to appear civilised and bien élevés. On one occasion when a spirited affray was proceeding in the Rocio of Lisbon, and several persons were killed and wounded, a Portuguese spectator did not seem in the least concerned by the fact that men were being shot down, but much concerned that it should be witnessed by foreigners. “A nice thing for foreigners to see,” was all he said. Outwardly he pays too much deference to the foreigner, and one cannot help suspecting that all the time he is aware of his own greater delicacy and of the poor foreigner’s ill manners. Being self-conscious and susceptible and, moreover, himself intimately persuaded that Portugal is a backward country unworthy of Paris or London’s civilisation, he does not conceive that the foreigner may be making comparisons favourable to the country he is visiting, but easily imagines that he is slighting or smiling at him and his customs. His own love of satire and ridicule which is apt to paralyse his private initiative and political action, makes him prone to suspect ridicule in others. He will then brood silently over his offended feelings, and nurse his susceptibilities till they have vent in one of those sudden outbreaks not unknown to quiet natures. But the Portuguese, despite his exaggerated politeness towards the stranger in his land, and a very real and hospitable wish to be of help to him, does not love foreigners. A Spanish writer in the seventeenth century, Vicente Espinel, described the Portuguese as “gente idólatra de si propria, que no estima en nada el resto del mundo.” If he despised foreigners then, it is scarcely to be wondered at if he should dislike or distrust them now. Vast colonies and the lordship of the sea, which were once Portugal’s, are now in the hands of other nations, and she never forgets this. She considers herself to be, like the fallen Napoleon, at once “conqueror and captive of the earth.” Were Germany mistress of the seas, and London fallen from its high estate to a provincial destiny, the English would probably feel some bitterness towards not only their German conquerors but all foreigners.

Dream of Vanished Splendour.

And if the Portuguese does not easily forget that Portugal was once the greatest empire in Europe, he considers that other nations forget it too often. It may be that other nations sometimes do not allow sufficiently for the fact that without pioneer Portugal their own empires had been less easy of acquisition, but it would certainly be to Portugal’s advantage were she herself to forget it occasionally. Under modern conditions it is of little use for a penniless person to dwell on the fact that his ancestors possessed vast estates: he must make the best of his present poverty, and, if he has some estates left which cost him more than they bring in, he will think no shame to sell part in order to be able to administer the rest—always provided he can find a purchaser. But the majority of Portuguese reject indignantly the idea of parting with an inch of their Indian or African possessions. Rather their thoughts run to extending their territory, to the construction of a fleet, or the conquest of Spain. Even the idea of a general subscription among the whole population is not unknown, with a view to securing one or more of these objects. Dr. Affonso Costa knew his countrymen well when he promised them a large surplus, to be employed in building a fleet. Such is the great but misguided patriotism of the Portuguese people, while the interests and well-being of Portugal itself, which only needs proper development to become a flourishing country, are overlooked. They dream of high-flown projects and the work immediately to hand is—postponed. The Portuguese people is not really indifferent, or at least its indifference is confined to the play of party politics in Lisbon. In the fall and rise of a ministry, in the debates of Parliament or in the elections, the interest of the country at large is of the slightest. The expectations of the people have been too frequently disappointed for it to set great store now by political promises, but the Portuguese have a real love of their country for which they are willing to sacrifice much—everything, it sometimes seems, except personal vanity and party intrigues.

Forms of Address.

Another apparent inconsistency is the democratic feeling which, in private life, prevails in Portugal to a greater degree than perhaps in any other country, social distinctions being often ignored there, not only by those who are not distinguished but by those who are, to an extent that would be utterly impossible in England. For this democratic usage has to be reconciled with the widespread vanity of the Portuguese. In place of the plain “you” employed in England in addressing king or cobbler, there are in Portugal all kinds of gradations, from Vossa Excellencia to O senhor (in the third person), Vossemecé, or the more familiar Vossé, which even so is a contraction of “Your Worship.” Ladies are always addressed as Vossa Excellencia, and are given the title of Dona (= the Spanish Doña). The title Dom is only given to men belonging to old aristocratic families, whereas in Spain the use of Don is, of course, far more general, and in South America it descends still further, corresponding there, indeed, to the English use of “Mr.” instead of “Esq.” Letters are often addressed to the Most Illustrious, Most Excellent, Senhor, and, generally, the Portuguese are more ceremonious even than the Spanish. The humanist, Luis Vives, in the sixteenth century, complained of the pomposity of address then beginning in Spain (i.e., Spain and Portugal) and Italy: and soon, he said, we shall be saying “Your Deity”—mox, ut opinor, Deitas. But the fiery Spanish dignity is absent, although the Portuguese have a quiet resolution and dignity of their own, and their gentle sadness rarely sinks to a spiritless despondency, and still more rarely to the grovelling abjection—lowest of the low—described by Byron.

The Peasants.

The Portuguese peasantry, especially, is gifted with a delicacy and intelligence which make life pleasant and poverty no hardship in that climate. The illiterate are often the flower and cream of the nation. They are able to express themselves with fluency and correctness, in fact you will often find a peasant’s speech purer and more refined in accent than that of an educated Portuguese, and will be amazed at the clearness and delicacy of tone and expression coming from a person barefoot and in tatters. Thrice fortunate they who can associate and converse with the peasants during the summer romaria or village festa, or as they sit round the winter fire (a lareira), or gather for some great common task, a shearing (tosquia) or esfolhada (separating the maize cob from its sheath), for they are certain to glean a rich store of proverbs, folk-lore, and philology, and will learn much about spirits and witches. These peasants have poetical imagination, witty speech, no dearth of ideas, a ready sympathy, and, moreover, a sobriety, patience and self-control which are the more remarkable in that by nature, although not quick, they are impulsive and extraordinarily sensitive. It may be said without exaggeration that the Portuguese people, for all its colossal ignorance and lack of letters, is one of the most civilised and intelligent in Europe.

Folk-Lore.

It is full of superstitions, and in few countries—Ireland again naturally occurs to the mind—can there be more legends and charms and incantations, ignorance thus fostering an immense popular literature in prose and verse. The varieties of sorcerers and diviners are many: there are benzedores and imaginarios, magicos and agoureiros, bruxas and feiticeiras, etc., etc. Only during the last thirty years has this begun to be a written literature, thanks to the brilliant initiative and untiring researches of Z. Consiglieri Pedroso, A. T. Pires, Snr. F. Adolpho Coelho, Snr. Leite de Vasconcellos, Snr. Theophilo Braga and others. Round every hill and stream of the country has the people woven some quaint fancy or preserved some ancient myth or fact. To take a solitary instance: the great rock (Pedra Amarella), above the convent of Pena Longa, at the foot of the Serra de Cintra, is covered with yellow moss. What is the explanation of this? That the moss grew there, you say. But the Portuguese people is not likely to dismiss anything in heaven or earth with four words. The fact is that an old woman, believing this rock to contain a hidden treasure, was anxious to break it open and to that purpose kept throwing eggs at it. She did not succeed in her object, but the rock remains covered with the yolks of the eggs. The Portuguese people is especially devoted to music, flowers, dance and song. The humblest, most ramshackle cottage will have an old tin of carnations on its window ledge or hanging anyhow from the wall. Many of the flowers have popular names of no little charm. Goivo, the old Portuguese word for joy, is given both to the stock and the wallflower, the fuchsia is lagrimas (tears), anemones beijinhos (little kisses), the roadside iris is lirio (lily), any downhanging creeper is chorão (weeper). A common creeper of that name grows extraordinarily fast, and once boasted that it would scale heaven, whereupon it was sentenced to advance always in a downward direction.

Popular “Cantigas.”

Of the fascinating popular quatrains (quadras) an immense collection might be formed, indeed some of those already in existence are not trifling, as, for instance, the 10,000 Cantos populares portuguezes, collected in four volumes by A. Thomaz Pires (Elvas, 1902-10). Those who are alarmed by so great a number may read the Cancioneiro popular (Porto, 1914), selected by Snr. Jaime Cortesão, which contains 563. Or, still better, make a selection of their own, writing them down at the dictation of many a peasant who can himself neither write nor read. These cantigas or quadras spring up continually like mushrooms, and perish unrecorded, or go from mouth to mouth of the illiterate in endless variation. They are delightful examples of unpremeditated art, many of them showing real delicacy and poetical imagination, more so than the melancholy fado or ballad of fate of the professional fadistas. A vague melancholy underlies most of these cantigas. Sadly in the soft summer evenings many a canção perdida is sung to the slow and plaintive accompaniment of the guitar—

Triste canta uma voz na syncope do dia.

(Guerra Junqueiro, Os Simples, 1892):

Com os passaros do campo

Eu me quero comparar:

Andam vestidos de pennas,

O seu allivio é cantar.

(With the birds of the air

I compare

My plight:

’Tis their solace to sing,

Dark of wing

Is their flight.)

The pun on the words pennas (feathers) and penas (woes) is untranslatable.

Ó mar alto, ó mar alto,

Ó mar alto sem ter fundo:

Mais vale andar no mar

Do que na boca do mundo.

(O sea so deep, O sea so deep,

O sea so deep beyond our ken:

Better to go upon the sea

Than upon the lips of men.)

Os teus olhos, ó menina,

São gentias da Guiné:

Da Guiné por serem pretos

Gentios por não terem fé.

(Heathen are thine eyes, O maiden,

And from Guinea must they be:

From Guinea eyes that are so black,

Heathen that look so faithlessly.)

With this cantiga readers of Julio Diniz may be already familiar. It occurs in his Ineditos (1900).

Ó rosa d’este canteiro,

Deixa-te estar até ver,

Que eu vou ao Brazil e volto,

Rosinha, p’ra te colher.

(O rose that flowerest here,

Here till we meet remain,

For, little rose, to Brazil I go,

Then to cull thee come again.)

Chamaste me trigueirinha,

En não me escandalizei:

Trigueirinha é a pimenta

E vae á mesa do rei.

(Brown of hue you called me,

Nor to sting were able:

Brown of hue is pepper,

Yet it goes to the King’s table.)

Ó vida de minha vida,

Quanto tenho tudo é teu,

Só a minha alminha não:

Hei de da-la a quem m’a deu.

(Life thou in whom I live,

All that I have is for thee:

Only my soul (animula) must I give

Unto Him who gave it me.)

Quando era solteirinha,

Trazia fitas e laços!

Agora que sou casada

Trago os meus filhos nos braços.

(When I was unwed,

O the ribbons and the laces!

Now each arm instead

A fair babe embraces.)

Nos mais rijos temporaes;

O vento solta gemidos:

Gemidos soltam eguaes

Amantes quando trahidos.

(In the stress of the tempest

The wind makes moan:

So moaneth the lover

Betrayed and alone.)

O annel que tu me deste

Era de vidro e quebrou-se:

O amor que tu me tinhas

Era pouco e acabou-se.

(The ring that thou gav’st me

Was of glass and is broken,

And ended the love

By thy lips lightly spoken.)

Eu direi que em peito amante

Inda amor excede o mar:

Pois que o mar tem a vazante,

E amor tem só preamar.

(Love is more ev’n than the sea

In a lover’s breast, I know:

For love is ever at the full

While the sea’s tides ebb and flow.)

Aqui estou á tua porta

Como o feixinho de lenha,

A espera da resposta

Que de teus olhos me venha.

(Here like a bundle of sticks

Stand I still at thy door,

An answer from thy eyes

Awaiting evermore.)

Cada vez que vejo vir

Gaivotas a beira-mar,

Creio que são os meus amores

Que me desejão fallar.

(When the seagulls come flying

In from the sea,

I think ’tis my love

That would speak with me.)

Cantas tu, cantarei eu

Que o cantar é alegria,

Tambem os anjos cantaram

Canções á Virgem Maria.

(I will sing as thou art singing,

Joy is in the heart of song;

Songs, too, to the Virgin ringing

Came once from the angel throng.)

Illiterate Poets.

Anyone with a spirit of enterprise and a thorough knowledge of Portuguese might collect a goodly crop of such cantigas, together with thousands of delightful expressions and sayings peculiar to each region of Portugal. Minho especially, that charming province of crystal streams and cool maize-fields, offers a wide scope. But it is a narrowing opportunity, since education, however slow its progress in Portugal, is gradually advancing. Many of the cantigas, composed by illiterate persons, are not intended to survive the occasion that gave them birth. Hence their naturalness and charm. The lovely Greek epigrams show a more conscious art. They are the perfect daffodils and hyacinths, whereas the Portuguese cantigas are the forgotten celandines and primroses of the lanes and woods. In 1911 died an old workman of Setubal, Antonio Maria Euzebio (born in 1820), who could neither read nor write, but had composed verses with great ease from an early age. A volume of his verses was published in 1901, with introduction by Snr. Theophilo Braga and Snr. Guerra Junqueiro. Of a poetic art as such he had no glimmering, but, in Portugal at least, such ignorance would help rather than injure him as a poet.

Nature and Art.

The Portuguese are richly gifted by nature, but, in matters of art or in artificial surroundings, their natural taste sometimes seems to desert them. Corruptio optimi. Under circumstances which do not allow them to be themselves some of the aspersions of an eighteenth century writer may be true of them: “Ils sont jaloux au suprême degré,” wrote the author of the Description de la ville de Lisbonne (Amsterdam, 1738), “dissimulés, vindicatifs, railleurs, vains et présomptueux sans sujet.” (The same writer admits that they have great virtues: “Ils ont avec beaucoup de vivacité et de pénétration un attachement extraordinaire pour leur Prince; ils sont fort secrets, fidèles amis, généreux, charitables envers leurs parens, sobres dans leur manger, ne mangeant presque que du poisson, ris, vermicelli, légumes, confitures, et ne buvant pour l’ordinaire que de l’eau.”) The family life of a Portuguese, especially in some country quinta, is extremely attractive, and he only becomes uninteresting when he follows the customs of foreign nations. So long as he is natural, few nations excel him; when he ceases to be natural he lags woefully behind in the ruts of foreign imitation. There was a grain of truth in the remark of a critic that Camões, with a great lyrical gift, was unsuccessful in the sonnet owing to his attempt to introduce naturalness into an essentially artificial form. The Portuguese, where their love of nature does not help them, are left at the mercy of extravagance and tawdriness.

Artistic Sense.

Not that the ordinary artisan does not turn out much good honest work. Indeed, while the Spanish make things for show rather than for use, and the French for a little of both, the Portuguese agrees with the English in making them with a regard for comfort and a sublime unconcern for the look of them. And in this no doubt they show their good sense. But they are not artistic. This is shown in a thousand ways, in the curve of a chair, the finish of a book-case, in their buildings, in the colour of their dress and of the wash for their houses, in which squashed hues, and especially pink, predominate; in the shape of the water-jars, in which the soul of a Latin people is often expressed. (The Portuguese jars are often rather useful than ornamental, squat in shape, fashioned to contain the greatest possible quantity of water, and with but one handle, for use, instead of two, for art’s sake.) In the construction of modern houses, as in many matters of daily life, the Portuguese makes comfort or a saving of trouble the principal consideration. Their ancient buildings in which, indeed, foreign architects had no little part—Batalha, for instance, or Alcobaça—can vie in beauty with those of any country. But, although Manoeline architecture in some cases may have justified its existence, in principle it was an outrage against pure Gothic, and a similar tastelessness may be noted in daily life at the present time. The undertakers add a horror to death in other cities besides Lisbon, but in no other can the grandest funerals be marked by a more grotesque and fantastic ugliness. Nor is it easy to forget a coffin at a funeral in the provinces—not that of a child. It was bright pink with silver scales. It is most curious, this tendency to tinsel on the part of a people which appears to have natural good taste. Perhaps it is an importation from the East.

Soft Wax.

Certainly foreign influences and a half-education are extremely dangerous in Portugal. In many parts of the country the people is still unspoilt, and the demagogue and politician appear like a bull in a china shop, with vast possibilities of damage and destruction. Portugal is but a little wax, wrote the novelist Eça de Queiroz (1843-1900). The Portuguese people is “soft wax” repeated Snr. Guerra Junqueiro in 1896: “What we need is a great sculptor.” The history of Portugal has been the history of a few great men who have passed on the torch of her glories from century to century, a Nun’ Alvares, the soldier-saint, or the splendid Affonso d’Albuquerque, who often found it as difficult to cope with his own followers as with the enemy in the East. But for all that Portugal is a land of strongly-rooted and noble traditions, and these the required sculptor must take into account if he is to be successful in his task. It would be wrong to infer that the anonymous mass that forms the background to those great figures of the past is characterless. For, beneath the apathy, the docility, the contradictions of the Portuguese people remains something perhaps not very easy to define, but which has an intimate peculiar flavour, something pliant, adaptable, insinuating but with a real will and persistency of its own. Potential, it may be, rather than actual, but certainly a sound and promising basis for growth and development, if properly directed.

“What is urgent,” to quote again Snr. Guerra Junqueiro, “is not a social or a political but a moral revolution.” “Quant à la moralité,” wrote M. Léon Poinsard later, in 1910, “elle semble plutôt en voie de diminuer” (Le Portugal Inconnu). A few years earlier a Lisbon newspaper, O Diario de Noticias, in a leading article (16th September, 1902) deplored the podridão moral of Portuguese society, the “perversão de caracteres e desbragamento dos costumes politicos.” Such remarks apply usually to Lisbon rather than to Portugal as a whole. In village life, considering the circumstances, the absolute lack of direction, the landed gentry absentee, the authority of the priest undermined, morality may be said to stand remarkably high. And the great mass of the Portuguese people is, emphatically, désorienté rather than degenerate. They would answer readily—yes, even Beckford’s Lisbon canaille—to a leader capable of leading something more than a pack of yelping political parasites.

The Portuguese at Home.

It must always be remembered that the foreigner often views the Portuguese at his worst, in an artificial atmosphere, rarely in his natural life and surroundings. He seldom has occasion to see him in his home life, in which the real affectionateness of his nature is evident, nor to realise the nobility and delicacy of his dreams and ideals which are so often shattered by harsh reality, and the genuine kindliness which proves that his politeness and courtesy are not merely superficial. If they have not the immediate attraction of some other nations, they prove, on longer acquaintance, to be a people not only pleasant but of a real good-nature, of a child-like simplicity beneath their vanity, and with a certain strength and determination for all their apparent pliancy. Intensely susceptible and easily driven by rudeness and violence into furtive, hypocritical and vindictive tactics, they answer with extreme goodwill to any show of friendliness and respect. If they are capable rather of occasional heroic actions than of securing a gradual prosperity, they are nevertheless a people peculiarly gifted, under proper guidance, to achieve what, presumably, is the end to which modern civilisation aspires—a state of peace and culture with ever-widening and deepening international relations. Only, of course, such relations can never be set on a satisfactory basis by sacrificing anything that is genuinely Portuguese. For a nation can hardly look for respect which has nothing of its own to offer, and prides itself exclusively on its foreign imitations. And the Portuguese of all peoples will find their best models in their own past history and literature. Voltaire, not a bad judge in the matter of wit, called the Portuguese “une nation spirituelle,” and, in spite of all their national misfortunes, a witty nation they remain. It will be well if their wit be directed not to pull down national customs and institutions, but—as by many writers of the sixteenth century—against those who ape foreign manners.

CHAPTER II
POPULATION AND EMPLOYMENT

Census of 1911.

The latest census of the population, that is, the returns at the end of the year 1911,[1] presents some interesting figures. This is the fifth census taken in Portugal. The first, in 1864, gave the population as 4,118,410, in the census of 1878 it was 4,698,984, of 1890 5,049,729, and of 1900 5,423,132. That of 1911 gives a population of 5,960,056. Thus, in fifty years the population of Portugal has increased by nearly a third, and, although something must be allowed for the more accurate returns in recent years, is evidently in no danger of diminishing, in spite of increasing emigration. Moreover, there are no less than 211,813 families (over a seventh of the whole number, 1,411,327) of seven or more persons.

Increasing Population.

The density is 65 persons to the square kilomètre, as compared with 44 for the average of all Europe, Portugal coming eleventh on the list of European countries, Spain nineteenth (39 persons to the square kilomètre). The district which shows the largest increase is that of Minho (including the country between the rivers Douro and Minho), which was already overcrowded in 1900 with 162 inhabitants to the square kilomètre. It now has 178. Estremadura (which includes Lisbon) has also risen considerably—from 68 to 80. The other provinces show a much slighter increase (Beira Alta from 88 to 95, Algarve from 50 to 54, Beira Baixa from 39 to 42, Traz os Montes from 39 to 40, Alemtejo from 17 to 20).

Foreigners.

Other points of interest are the increase of the city population[2] at the rate of 15 per cent., one-third more, that is, than the rate of increase for the country population, and the decrease in the number of foreigners by some 500 since the beginning of the century (41,197 in 1911, 41,728 in 1900, 41,339 in 1890). The number of Spaniards has fallen from 27,029 in 1900 to 20,517 in 1911, the French from 1,841 to 1,832, Italians from 561 to 547, Belgians from 188 to 170. On the other hand, the number of Brazilians has increased from 7,594 to 12,143, of English from 2,292 to 2,516, Germans from 929 to 969.

Details of Population.

In the census of 1900 there were 108·8 women to 100 men in the population of Portugal. During the next ten years the percentage slightly increased, so that there are now 110 women to 100 men, that is, 4 per cent. more than in any other country of Europe. The census of 1911 gives the number of persons over eighty years of age in Portugal as nearly one per cent. of the entire population: 52,783. Of these 31,891 were women, and 20,892 men. These figures are subdivided as follows: Women, between 80 and 84 years, 21,154; from 85 to 89 years, 6,489; from 90 to 94 years, 2,900; from 95 to 99 years, 992; over 100 years, 265. The corresponding numbers of men are 14,256, 4,452, 1,554, 500, 130. This says much for the excellence of the climate and the hardiness of the race. On the other hand, the mortality among the children of the poor is enormous: it is quite common for two to grow up out of a family of seven or nine.

Emigration.

Emigration from Portugal has increased on a vast scale in recent years. The official statistics for 1909 (published in 1912) gave the number of emigrants as 30,288. Other statistics for the same year gave 38,213, of whom 30,580 were bound for Brazil. Both figures are well below the truth if the clandestine emigration is taken into account. It is impossible to keep count of those who cross the frontier into Spain, and many even of those who emigrate by sea succeed in escaping registration. In 1908 the number of registered emigrants was 35,731, in 1907 31,312, in 1906 27,332, in 1905 25,594. Of the 30,288 emigrants of 1909 25,039 were male (of whom 12,822 could read) and 5,249 women (of whom only 804 could read). Since 1909 the emigration has doubled and trebled. A Republican newspaper, O Seculo,[3] printed some figures in 1913. The writer pointed out that there were whole regions in Portugal without labourers for the fields, and that whole families were now emigrating as never before. Emigration agencies pululam por todo o Norte, fourteen agencies being established in Oporto alone. The Diario de Noticias[4] declared that there were tens of leagues of uncultivated land in Portugal, while over two millions sterling of cereals were imported annually. In 1912 the number of emigrants had more than trebled since 1902 in the districts of Oporto, Coimbra, Guarda, Vianna, Vizeu, Villa Real, Bragança, Leiria and Santarem. In the last five districts it had more than doubled since 1910. The figures given for the district of Bragança were 10,504 in 1912, 6,331 in 1907, and 550 in 1902! (the other chief increase being at Villa Real, respectively 7,732, 3,140, and 1,356). These are the two principal towns of Traz os Montes. The total number of emigrants in 1912 bordered on 100,000; but in 1914 there was a notable decrease. A large number of the emigrants go to Brazil (and indeed they are totally unfitted to go to any country of which they do not know the language), and maintain relations with the mother country, sending money home and sometimes returning as enriched Brazileiros.

Salaries.

In Portugal the salaries are low and give no great incentive to labour, especially as they have remained almost stationary, while the price of food and rent has risen. Even during the long harvest days the women receive only a shilling a day or even less for working perhaps sixteen hours in the fields, the men two shillings or less. Some instances of wages are given in M. Poinsard’s Le Portugal Inconnu. A day labourer of the Douro district receives 200 réis (= tenpence), an agricultural labourer in Alemtejo 250 (500 in time of harvest), a carpenter of the Serra da Estrella 320 réis, a miner in a lead-mine near Aveiro 350, a mason of Minho 400, a carpenter of Braga 400, a weaver of Guimarães 500, a mason of Lisbon 700, a weaver of Lisbon 700, a shoemaker’s assistant at Coimbra from 220 to 440, a carpenter in Alemtejo 400, a dressmaker’s assistant in Lisbon 240.

Poverty and Ignorance.

Many families live from day to day and from hand to mouth by odd jobs, and the tendency to live thus precariously has been increased by the recent unrest. They live on little or nothing, and devote all their energy and wits to pay arrears of rent sufficient to prevent them from being turned out of their houses, which often consist of but one or two rooms. In one instance a family of seven lives in a single room, the entire furniture consisting of an old mattress in one corner. Needless to say, the windows are kept closed at night and there is no fire-place, a comparatively rare thing in the Portuguese climate. (The cooking is done over three stones.) Far worse than their poverty is their ignorance and carelessness of health and hygiene. Not that these deficiencies are confined to the peasants of Portugal, but they are most serious in a hot climate. Little attention is given to the advantages of air and water, and what wonder when even educated persons pay little heed to them. During some days of exceptional heat, in the summer of 1913, the correspondent of a Lisbon newspaper at Oporto wrote that the heat there had been so terrible that windows had to be kept open at night. And this in a climate which rarely gives excuse for closed windows. There is no direction from above; many villages have not a single educated inhabitant, and but few inhabitants who can write or read, and have not even a church.

Sanitation.

The mayors of many a town and village are too much occupied with high politics to think of such sublunary matters as the cleanliness of the streets. Rubbish is left in the burning sun for children to play in, street, river, and cliff being polluted with it, and many small towns are in a truly miserable state. The mayor of one of them was asked why a cart was not sent to collect the rubbish, and his answer was typical. Although it was well known that no such cart was in existence, he did not say that a cart would be sent or that he would see what could be done or any other such polite evasion. He merely said that a cart is sent every day, and there was an end of the matter. With such simplicity are these questions solved. It is worth while to dwell on such matters since they are of more importance than fine-sounding party programmes. The local authorities, appointed for party reasons, would no doubt scout the idea that anti-clericalism may be of less value than the destruction of flies. They drive out the “ominous soutane,” and the land, as Egypt of old, is “corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies.” “The unhealthiness of a great part of the country, the crowded and sometimes wretched houses, the complete absence of any hygienic discipline among the rural population, are other probable causes of the lack of energy of the agricultural labourer, who for the rest is constitutionally capable of great endurance.... With notable power of endurance, a climate which permits an almost uninterrupted activity, both for labourers and vegetation, the agricultural population of Portugal will have a wide future before it when food, houses, and hygiene are improved, and many regions rendered more healthy, when irrigation and technical instruction are extended, crops better adapted to the soil, machinery more generally employed and agrarian societies organised.”[5]

Overcrowding and Starvation.

In many houses such a thing as a bed is unknown, but in houses that can afford it the articles are far more numerous (and ugly) than, for instance, in Spain, and in the kitchen an infinite variety of pots and pans fills up the room to the exclusion of cleanliness. Many families subsist on bread, potatoes, mussels, sardines, with occasional rice and bacalhau, meat being unknown. Their state has not changed much since the sixteenth century, when many of the Portuguese are represented as “ne vivant quasi d’autre chose que de caracolles, de moulles et petits poissons”—a people “non adonné aux superfluités.”[6] With overcrowding in unhealthy quarters in the towns and gnawing poverty in the country it is not surprising that the mortality is high.

Absentee Landlords.

The evils are increased by the total lack of direction. Sometimes at the very gates of a large and flourishing property one comes across a village of tumble-down hovels like so many walls of loose stones built irregularly and picturesquely along a “street” of stone and rock which becomes a torrent in winter; and one is inclined to compare them with the neat, comfortable cottages in villages under the supervision of those “harassing” English squires. Yet in each case it needs only the interest and goodwill of one person to alter the state of the whole village and give an impetus to cleanliness and comfort and education, but that person will certainly not be the agent of an absentee landlord.

A FARMHOUSE, MINHO

Small Holdings of Minho.

In the size of holdings there is the same difference between the north and south of Portugal as between Galicia and Andalucía in Spain. In Minho the land is all dividing walls and hedges round diminutive fields, the average size of holdings being under an acre, and many of them mere patches the size of a pocket handkerchief. In 1908 for 5,423,132 inhabitants the number of holdings was given as 11,430,740! “And if it is considered that this division is increased in, and almost confined to part of the centre and to the north, the extent of the evil will be clear. I know of many proprietors who, to obtain a total rent of fifteen or twenty escudos,[7] have over a hundred properties scattered over the parish, the rent of some of them representing fractions of a halfpenny.... In many parishes of the north there are olives, chestnut-trees and oaks in the property of one person but belonging to someone else, and sometimes these trees are divided between more than one owner.”[8]

Large Estates.

In Alemtejo the average size of a property is forty or fifty times greater than in the north, properties of 20,000 acres being not unknown. Alemtejo, under the Romans flourishing with corn, has large tracts of waste land, and when the land is cultivated modern machinery is rarely in use. When introduced by the owner of the land it is allowed to fall out of use, if possible, by the workmen, and at harvest time one has the picturesque sight of an interminable row of labourers at work without any of the noise and bustle of machinery. It has been suggested that some of the emigrants from the north of the country should be encouraged to go to Alemtejo instead of Brazil, and that the cultivation of seven or eight hundred more acres of Alemtejo as corn-land would put an end to the importation of corn which now drains the country of hundreds of thousands of pounds yearly, and seems to belie the undoubted fact that Portugal is above all an agricultural country. There are difficulties in the way of the scheme, since Alemtejo is a little too near home to form the Eldorado of the peasant of Minho and Traz os Montes. Moreover, if a part of Alemtejo were subdivided into small holdings for peasant colonists, whatever advantages were given to them the probability is that the holdings would gradually accumulate in the hands of one or two persons and form a few more Alemtejan montes and herdades. At least this was the result of a similar experiment in Andalucía.

Irrigation.

There is also the difficulty of water, Alemtejo more than the rest of Portugal standing in need of irrigation (artesian wells), although irrigation is welcome to agriculture throughout the country in view of the long summer droughts. Given water, vegetation of all kinds grows and prospers with marvellous rapidity in this land of hot sun and warm air.

Afforestation.

A requirement that goes hand in hand with irrigation is that of afforestation. It is true that woods cover above 22 per cent. of the total area of Portugal, which is double the average in Spain and two-thirds of the average in Europe. The cultivated area was given as 5,068,454 hectares in 1906, the uncultivated as 3,842,186. Trees were calculated to occupy some 1,700,000 hectares,[9] and most of these trees are of a valuable kind. Those of widest extension are pines (about 430,000 hectares[10]), evergreen oaks (azinheiras: 416,000 hectares), cork-trees (366,000[11]), and olives (329,000). Chestnuts cover some 84,000 hectares, and oaks 47,000.[12] But, especially in Traz os Montes, Alemtejo, and the Serra da Estrella, there is plenty of scope for afforestation. In the latter, which compares so unfavourably with the well-wooded Serra do Gerez, something has been done. Near Manteigas about 2,000 acres have been afforested (chiefly with pine and oak). In 1913 alone some four hundred bushels of acorns were sown. Altogether since the law of 1901, which placed the woods under the Department of Public Works, some 12,000 acres have been afforested[13] by the State, and private individuals are said to afforest almost as many acres annually, the State selling 30,000 kilos (at threepence the kilo)[14] of pine seed yearly. The State itself possesses comparatively little land, and the town councils have shown no inclination to be dispossessed of their commons. The more enlightened Portuguese from King Diniz onwards have always been keenly alive to the advantages of afforestation, but the more remote town councils have done nothing to counteract the destruction of trees at the hands of the peasants.[15] At the new annual “Festival of the Tree” trees are planted throughout the country by the school-children. The yield of a hectare of the famous Leiria pine woods is estimated at four milreis, and the expense at one milreis, giving a net profit of about twelve shillings. This would be increased by easier and cheaper means of transport.

A FARMER

Roads.

The state of the Portuguese roads has recently been attracting much attention, and during the last sixty years has been the constant care of Ministers of Public Works. (This department was created in 1852.) About 13,000 miles of roads have been projected by the State, only about a half of which have been constructed[16]—almost all in the second half of last century. The worst is, however, not that roads are not made, but that there is apparently no money to keep them in repair. Yet an average of over a thousand contos has been spent on roads annually during the last sixty years. A writer recently in O Seculo[17] remarks that Portugal “is imperfectly equipped with roads and, moreover, those which exist are in such a state, in most districts, that they can scarcely be used. We know various places which are so to say isolated from neighbouring towns, and can only be approached easily by railway. The state of the roads with ruts and holes in which carts sink has in certain parts given rise to a curious industry, that of rescuing vehicles which have stuck fast. It is exercised by peasants possessing yokes of oxen, who at sunrise, armed with hooks and ropes, lead them to the worst places, and there wait patiently for a motor-car or other vehicle to sink in, and then immediately offer their assistance, in return for a few shillings or pence, according to the quality of the vehicle and its occupants.” Motor-cars, which are surprisingly numerous in Portugal, and are all imported from abroad, deserve a better fate than this, considering that they pay a tax of £24 at the Customs.

Propaganda de Portugal.

But, on the whole, the roads of Portugal compare favourably with those of Spain, and any improvement to encourage tourists must be carried out in connection with Spain, that is, with the roads between the Portuguese frontier and Irun. Now, both in Portugal and Spain, societies are established to watch over the interests of tourists. The Sociedade de Propaganda de Portugal, which is doing good work, has its headquarters at the Largo das duas Igrejas, Lisbon, and is most prompt and willing in answering any inquiries. It may be hoped that improvement will be rapid, and of course it is equally important for agriculture, which especially requires the construction of a large number of small by-roads. The construction of roads in both countries has been too often intimately connected with politics, and their repair, when entrusted to the local authorities, has been a disastrous failure. Were a first-rate road to prolong to the Portuguese frontier the road of five hundred miles from Paris to the Bidasoa, and could the roads in Portugal be compared with those of the Basque provinces (both in France and in Spain), a country so beautiful and with so many famous buildings would be overrun with motor-cars (so that quiet people would flee to the mountains).

Railways.

The railways are even more deficient. When those in construction have been completed the total will amount to a little over two thousand miles. The whole of the south of Portugal is served by but one line, which goes from Lisbon (i.e., from Barreiro across the Tagus) to Faro, branching off midway to Evora and Villa Viçosa and again to Moura. The journey to Faro requires over twelve hours, with the result that Algarve is practically cut off from the capital. The desert of Sahara is scarcely more remote. A briefer route and a bridge over the Tagus at Lisbon are in contemplation. Hitherto facilities given to travel have chiefly taken into consideration persons leaving Portugal or coming so far as Lisbon and Oporto only, and many of the most delightful and characteristic parts of the country are left unvisited.

The postal service between Lisbon and foreign countries is good, but in the provinces it differs little from the service in Spain, where the receipt of a letter is as hazardous as the winning of a prize in the lottery.[18]

Mines.

Besides tourists and agriculture, improvement in the communications would encourage the development of the mining industry. At present the number of miners in Portugal is small, although the subsoil is known to be rich in minerals. Many of the mines that are worked are in the hands of foreigners, and the minerals are often exported in the condition in which they leave the mine. The statistics for 1912 show an increase in the production of coal (70 contos), iron (21), copper (254), and tin (33). The mineral obtained in largest quantities is wolfram; gold, antimony, uranium, zinc, and other minerals are produced on a very small scale. The total yearly output of the mines in Portugal is estimated at under £400,000.

Fishing Industries.

About 60,000 persons, or one per cent. of the entire population, are engaged in fishing or in selling or preparing fish. Sardines are very plentiful, and donkeys laden with them are driven far inland. The number of Portuguese who go to the north seas to fish for bacalhau has greatly increased in recent years, and in 1911 amounted to 1,400, in forty-five boats of an average size of 280 tons, whereas in 1902 there were but fifteen boats with an average size of 180 tons.

Portuguese Manufactures.

The number of workmen employed in the cutting and preparation of cork may be 5,000, but, even if these be included, the total industrial population of Portugal will scarcely exceed three per cent. of the whole population. The largest number are employed in cotton and woollen factories of the north (Covilhã Guimarães, Portalegre, etc.), the former with some 30,000, the latter with some 10,000 workmen. A far smaller number are engaged in factories of paper, glass, glazed tiles (azulejos), silk, etc.[19] Portuguese industries, although they are bolstered up by an excessive protection, are not congenial to the climate or the character of the people, and but for protection many of them could not exist for a month, while under protection they tend to vegetate and to raise the prices rather than the quality of their products. It is sometimes complained that the Methuen treaty killed Portuguese cottons and woollens, but as a matter of fact an even more exaggerated protection could not enable them to compete with foreign goods. They are exported chiefly to the Portuguese colonies; the woollen goods supplied in Portugal are mostly of a very rough sort, such as peasants’ caps and cloaks, excellent of their kind. The Portuguese have always shown a preference for English stuffs.[20] In the same way the paper produced is of the commonest; perhaps the only manufacture in which they excel is that of the glazed tiles, with which so many houses are lined within and without.

Agriculture.

The main business of the Portuguese is not industry, not even politics, but agriculture,[21] the number of persons engaged in agriculture being calculated at about three-fifths of the whole population. Agriculture often, too often, means vineyards. The soil and sun of Portugal combine to make it a land of the grape; and along the sea vines can grow where other crops cannot, dying down to escape the winter storms, then receiving the spring rains till the grapes begin to swell and sweeten in the summer months of drought.

Wines.

Nearly every other village seems to be celebrated for its wines—common wines prepared without care, and selling for twopence or threepence the litre bottle. The yearly average of production is about a hundred litres to every inhabitant in Portugal. The wines chiefly exported are of course port wine and Madeira.[22] The wines of Collares, Bucellas, and Carcavellos have a great reputation in Portugal, as also those of Ribatejo, the Moscatel of Setubal, and the light vinhos verdes of Minho (Amarante, Basto, Monsão). The famous treaty of Methuen in 1703, which stipulated that Portuguese wines should be exported to England at a reduced tariff (see pages 126 and 225) has been blamed by some Portuguese for the fall of the price of wines in Portugal. That is, they blame England because the Portuguese after the treaty, in their eagerness to benefit by it, devoted themselves to vine-growing to the exclusion of other branches of agriculture. The Portuguese vine-growers have had to contend against this over-production, against the ravages of phylloxera, which a quarter of a century ago destroyed nearly two hundred thousand acres (since for the most part replanted), against foreign falsifications, against the competition of France, Italy, and Spain.[23] Recently the export of common red wines of Portugal to Brazil has greatly increased, Brazil being now the country to which, after England, Portugal exports most wine—as also the export of generous wines to Germany since the German-Portuguese commercial treaty of 1908. Against these advantages must be set the closure of French markets and the decreasing popularity of port wine in England. The districts of Portugal which produce most wine are those of Lisbon (about 160,000 acres of vineyards), Braga (about 75,000 acres), Vizeu (about 72,000 acres), Santarem (about 65,000), Oporto (about 62,000).

Olive Oil.

The total cultivated area in Portugal exceeds twelve million acres, and of this area olives occupy about a fifteenth, or 329,000 hectares (in 1906), vines 313,000 hectares, and fruit trees (chiefly the fig, almond and carob, which need little rain and flourish in Algarve) about 630,000 acres. Olives are grown principally in the districts of Santarem (75,000 hectares), Leiria (35,000), Castello Branco (33,000), Beja, Bragança, and Coimbra (some 25,000 hectares each), and Faro (20,000). The annual export of olive oil is considerable, but it cannot compare for excellence with the oil of Italy: it is in fact from Italy that oil comes for the tinning of fish in Portugal.