Portugal of the Portuguese UNIFORM with THIS VOLUME
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
}AL FHE Portugal of the Portuguese UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES SERIES Each in imperial 16mo, cloth gilt, gilt top, with about 30 full-page plate illustrations. ITALY OF THE ITALIANS BY HELEN ZIMMERN FRANCE OF THE FRENCH BY E. HARRISON BARKER SPAIN OF THE SPANISH BY MRS. VILLIERS-WARDELL SWITZERLAND OF THE Swiss BY FRANK WEBB GERMANY OF THE GERMANS BY ROBERT M. BERRY TURKEY OF THE OTTOMANS BY LUCY M. J. GARXETT BELGIUM OF THE BELGIANS BY DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER SERVIA OF THE SERVIANS BY CHEDO MIJATOVICH JAPAN OF THE JAPANESE BY PROF. J. H. LONGFORD AUSTRIA OF THE AUSTRIAN'S, AND HUNGARY OF THE HUNGARIANS BY L. KELLNER, PAULA ARNOLD, AND ARTHUR L. DELISLE RUSSIA OF THE RUSSIANS BY H. W. WILLIAMS, PH.D. AMERICA OF THE AMERICANS BY HENRY C. SHELLEY GREECE OF THE HELLENES BY LUCY M. J. GARNETT HOLLAND OF THE DUTCH BY DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER SCANDINAVIA OF THE SCANDINAVIANS BY H. GODDARD LEACH EGYPT OF THE EGYPTIANS BY W. LAWRENCE BALLS 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 1915 PRINTED BY SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD., LONDON 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 under- standing of a people with which she has so many dealings, and which is in itself so extraordinarily interesting and vi Preface 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. JOAO DO ESTORIL, June, 1915. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFACE V I. CHARACTERISTICS 1 II. POPULATION AND EMPLOYMENT ... 25 III. LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY . .41 IV. RELIGION AND EDUCATION . .61 V. A LAND OF FLOWERS ..... 76 VI. CONVENTS AND PALACES 88 VII. HISTORICAL SURVEY . , . .107 VIII. LITERATURE ....... 133 IX. PLAYS GIL VICENTE 152 X. POLITICS AND THE PRESS . 164 XI. FROM MONARCHY TO REPUBLIC . 183 XII. RECENT EVENTS 199 XIII. GREAT BRITAIN AND PORTUGAL . 216 XIV. PORTUGAL OF THE FUTURE .... 229 GLOSSARY ....... 259 INDEX 263 MAP ...... end of book ILLUSTRATIONS GENERAL VIEW, LISBON Frontispiece ROMAN TEMPLE, EVORA . facing page 2 WOMEN AT WORK .... 8 A FARMHOUSE, MINHO 30 A FARMER 32 THE VINTAGE, DOURO 38 TERREIRO DO PAgO, LISBON 42 BOM JESUS DO MONTE, BRAGA . 50 A SHEPHERD ..... 60 CONVENTO DE JERONYMOS, BELEM 88 CASTELLO DA PENA, CINTRA 90 CLOISTER OF D. DINIZ, ALCOBAQA 92 TOMB OF D. INS DE CASTRO, ALCOBAgA 94 GENERAL VIEW, OPORTO 102 THE CONVENT, MAFRA 128 THE CHURCH, BATALHA 130 THE CATHEDRAL, BRAGA . 140 GENERAL VIEW, COIMBRA . 146 THE WASHING-PLACE, COIMBRA . 164 CASTLE OF ALMOUROL 170 x Illustrations GENERAL VIEW, VILLA REAL . facing page 174 TOWER OF CASTLE, BEJA ....,, 178 RUINED CASTLE, LEIRIA . 182 DOORWAY OF THE UNFINISHED CHAPELS, BATALHA . 208 INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH, BATALHA . ,. 214 CONVENTO DE CHRISTO, THOMAR . 216 GENERAL VIEW, FARO . ,, 232 A SQUARE, LISBON ,, 236 CEDAR AVENUE, BUSSACO . 240 A STUDY IN COSTUMES 248 Portugal of the Portuguese CHAPTER I CHARACTERISTICS 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 The People. 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 pea- santry, 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 melan- choly, 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. 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 Patriotism. 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 1 i (2404) 2 Portugal of the Portuguese 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, Nao ha casa como 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. 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 Manoel King overstrained her strength, and the brilliant Fortunate. 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 Portu- guese as a contented people, fond of song and dance, a pipe and drum at every door, living rustic, idyllic lives as cultivators Characteristics 3 " of the soil in a land abounding in meat and drink, " terra de vyandas e beveres muyto avondosa (fifteenth century). But the discoveries and conquests followed, the magic of the sea, the mystery of the East wove a spell over the imagina- tion 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 cen- tury. It was not allowed to develop naturally after the first third of that great century.