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Show AboufforWl j? . m i : j ' - ' - - - f -i tm?titit ! b s - vt v a fv ' -I JUNDERWOOD ft. '4 Lisbon's Beautiful Harbor. PORTUGAL, the most recent nation na-tion to be drawn into the maelstrom mael-strom of the European war, was once a part of the ancient Roman province of Lusitania, sayj a bulletin issued by the National Geographic Geo-graphic society. With a population scarcely exceeding exceed-ing the combined population of New York city, Jersey City, and Newark, and an area in Europe less than the state of Indiana, Portugal has not played a major role in the politics of continental Europe in many years, not, in fact, since Wellesley, afterward after-ward the Duke of Wellington, landed land-ed his English forces and, with the aid of native troops, defected Soult and Massena, Napoleon's Eiarshals, in the two peninsular cjppaigns. But the colonial etf;i)ir of Portugal Is out of all propr.-.-tion to the importance im-portance of the tome country. In fact there were, s.t the beginning of the war, only thr-ie other countries in Europe; Great Britain, France, and Germany whobS flags floated over more territory beyond the boundaries of the home country. The combined area of the New England and North Atlantic states would equal less than one-fourth of the territory under the dominion of the tiny republic occupying occupy-ing tho western edge of the Iberian peninsula, whose navigators in the fifteenth fif-teenth and sixteenth century were the wonders of the world. Yet all this vast territory ia held by 8.000 colonial colo-nial troops, supplemented by native armies. Peasants Are Poets. A curious anomaly is to be found among the peasants of Portugal, who are classified as among the most illiterate il-literate of Western Europe, yet among the most intelligenL Many of the farmers three-iifths of the population Is devoted to agricultural pursuits have a remarkable gift for versification, versifica-tion, and many of the poems of the country are handed down from generation gen-eration to generation without being recorded. The peasants also are noted for their sobriety, and yet the annual production of wine exceeds 25 gallons for each inhabitant. So great, in fact, Is the product of the vineyards that in the cities the various qualities of water are discussed with keener interest in-terest than the grades of wine. While Portugal's maritime glory is a thing of the past, a large number ot Portuguese still follow the sea for a livelihood, and the fishing industry Is important. The Portuguese sardines, sar-dines, however, are preserved in Italian Ital-ian olive oil, although one-fifteenth of the cultivated area of the nation is given over to olive groves, for the production pro-duction of oils of a cheap grade. The Portuguese peasant woman is an important bread winner, but she receives lor her day's labor of 16 hours in the held only a shilling or less, while the men got two shillings. One of the profitable and extremely p ipular "industries" of the rural pop-uiation pop-uiation is a placid laying in wait for tourists .lu attempt to motor through the country on the less-frequeutetl and often impassablo public roads. With an ox-teara the peasant waits at a favorable spot until a motorist, traveling on an automobile on which an import tax of $1-0 has been collected col-lected by the Portuguese government, sticks in the mud. To haul out such tn unfortunate is ofteu moro profit-ible profit-ible than several days' work in the .vheat, maize, or rice fields. Lisbon's Beautiful Harbor. The harbor of Lisbon, where the seizure of the German merchant ships precipitated Portugal into the war, is ;ne of the most beautiful in all Europe, Eu-rope, ranking scarcely second to Naples Na-ples and Constantinople. The city is vbout tho size of Pittsburgh, and has been the political center of the na-;lon na-;lon since it was wrested from the Moors in the middle of the twelfth cen-cury cen-cury by Affonso Henriques, the founder if the kingdom. It was the English nho aided Affonso In his war against the Moors, and the following century the two countries effected an alliance which has existed unbroken during the succeeding 700 years, save for such sporadic interruptions as when Napoleon Na-poleon forced the little kingdom to declare de-clare war against the island empire. The Portuguese, especially those of Lisbon, are a pleasure-loving people. They are fond of sports of many sorts. Including the bull-fight, but the toreador tore-ador is not the idol in this country that he is in Spain, nor are the contests as fierce. Horses are seldom if ever sacrificed in the Portuguese trocade-ros. trocade-ros. Lisbon is an even greater "night city" than was Paris, the streets appearing ap-pearing at their busiest usually at 3 a. m. The principal thoroughfares are admirably kept nowadays but as late as 135 a "clean-up" campaigner was in r oeful minority when he began la urge the authorities to put a stop to such practices as breaking horses in the streets and singeing pigs in the main avenues of trade. He also protested pro-tested against keeping pigs alive in the streets "or tied to the doors," while he thought it advisable to put an end to the custom of allowing dead animals to lie for indefinite periods in the streets. There are about 100 journals published pub-lished in Portugal, the majority of these being of a political nature, and many of them are owned by the leaders lead-ers of the various political parties. It has been said that "if Lisbon turns Turk tomorrow all Portugal will wear the turban," so when the monarchy mon-archy was overthrown in 1910, after 100 persons had been killed and 500 wounded in the capital, King Manuel taking refuge in England, it was a matter of course that the rest of the nation would quietly acquiesce in the new order of things. Portugal today has much the same outward form of governmont as our own. Each parliament par-liament is supposed to last three years; senators are elected for six years, and presidents for four years. The head of the government receives ?20,000 a year. Money, however, is reckoned chiefly in reis, and, therefore, even a day laborer's wages is sweet to the ear, for it takes 20 reis to make a penny Portugal's transcendant contribution contribu-tion to world history was the colonization coloniza-tion of Brazil, the largest nation in South' America and the third largest in the Western hemisphere. While Brazil was discovered by Columbus' companion, Pinzon, and formal possession posses-sion taken by him in the name of Spain, Cabral landed in 1500, a year later, and proclaimed it Portuguese territory. Portugal settled the country coun-try and ruled it until 1S22 when, under un-der the leadership of the Portuguese prince, Dom Pedro, independence from the mother county was declared. |
