Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 109, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1920 — In Portugal [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

In Portugal

TO PORTUGAL, land of almost eternal sunshine, American investors are going, with great schemes for the development of the latent resources waiting only for the capital and energy necessary for their unfolding. In the Rocio,-the principal business street of Lisbon, buildings have been secured to reor newly build large storehWses. At Mount Estoril, the Palm Beach of Portugal, the Important hotels and concessions have been secured by Ampricans, with the purpose of making it a rival to San Sebastian on the Spanish coast, says a writer in the Christian Science Monitor. An electric railway will connect it with Lisbon and Cintra, whose chief attraction is the Pena castle. Cintra, once the home of the Moorish kings, and later occupied by the kings of Portugal. • A large casino is being erected on the beach, and several large hotels of American design and furnishings will be built along the shores of this charming site. And of Vigo, Spain, the American investor will concern himself—-there he has taken up the extensive harbor Improvements and inland communications, thus to realize the vast undeveloped mineral possibilities of the Galician hinterland and Leon. Railways will be extended to Madrid, making a more rapid route for tourists Paris and South America.

Everything but Energy.

Portugal is a country rich in all things save in popular energy. Germany and France, until the late war, exploited its sardine industries, one of its most valuable Items of commerce. The cork forests are abundant, and the olive and grape are very prolific in their yield. Tropical and subtropical fruits of many varieties abound, and can be bought for trifling amounts. The Portuguese peasants have been called the most kindly and dependable of all Europe. Each province Is distinguished by a different and most picturesque costume. The excellence of its climate; the varied aspects and diversity of its vegetation; the multiplicity of Its hot and cold springs; the progressive improvement in its hotel accommodations, offered at a lower price than that of any others in Europe, make Portugal one of the most favored of lands for the exploitation of the tourist. At the present time the Mother of Navigators, as Portugal has been named, is less known by geographers and archeologists than any other country on the continent. No lands have been better glorified by nature; and buried Roman and Celtic-Iberian cities, treasure houses of antiquity, are rich mines for conquest with pick and shovel. Portugal is an agricultural country, but the sardine Industry makes- up a large part of her commerce. Millions of boxes of this product of Portuguese canners bear the imprint of French packers, some even with France as the country of origin. The abundant olive lends itself to the packer of the better-grade sardine, yielding, as it does, a superior oil. The cork tree, which produces a new bark once In ten years, gives an important article for export. Each stripping furnishes about $lO worth of bark per tree. The other woods most abundant are the acacia, poplar, elm ash, eucalyptus, pine and oak. About one acre in five of the total area of Portugal is wooded. The more remote agricultural and timber districts are handicapped by the lack of even reasonably good transportation facilities, either railroad or wagon. Conglomeration of Races.

Ethnclogically Portugal is a conglomerate. The people of the northern province of Entre Douro and Minho and Tras-os-Montes are of Galician stock; in the lower provinces the Portuguese have intermarried with the Arab, Dutch, French and English, and, in one province, rhe Frisian. The Jews, after their forced corversion by King Emanuel, intermarried with all races. On the southern coast from Cape St. Vincent to the Spanish frontier the influence of African ancestry is very apparent—due to the’ Importation of slaves for service in the olive groves and vineyards of Alemtejo and Algarves. I? Portugal has a distinct national personality in art, music and, literature—each having a unique vigor. It ... ; ; — . ; - 7 ~ ~

has been said that all Portuguese are singers. On fete days and on Sundays the roads abound with gayly costumed peasants carrying mandolas and singing the songs of Portugal, inspired by Camoens, whose poems have enriched the literature of Iberia. In art and architecture the names Carlos Reis, Santos Braga, Texeira Lopez, Colombano, Adelide Lima, Malho, Saiga de, and Fernandez stand out. —The cathedrals, veritable monumeo|s to the architectural genius of succeeding generations, vie v'ith the noblest examples of ecclesiastical edifices in Europe. The sandstone — so abundant in Portugal—lends Itself to the sculptor’s chisel.

The Castle of Pena, Portugal.