f flashing, barbaric
pictures--Moorish magnificence and Christian chivalry, bull-fights,
boleros, serenades, tattered pride and cruel pleasure. All these things
go to form that piquant whole, half Eastern, half European, which is the
Spain of our imaginations. Our associations with the western part of the
Peninsula are, on the other hand, vague and incomplete. Vasco da Gama,
the earthquake of Lisbon, port wine and Portuguese plums are the
Lusitanian products most readily called to mind. After them would come
perhaps the names of Magellan, of Prince Henry the Navigator and of the
ill-fated Don Sebastian. One poet of the country, Camoens, is as often
referred to as Tasso or Ariosto. Those whose memories go back to the
European events of 1830 and thereabouts may recall the Portuguese civil
wars, the woes of Dona Maria and the dark infamy of Don Miguel. And more
recently have we not heard of the Portuguese _Guide to English
Conversation_ and relished its delicious discoveries in our language?
All these items do not, however, present a very vivid or finished
picture of the country: like the words in a dictionary, they are a
trifle disconnected.

Portugal was the first station of Childe Harold's pilgrimage, but it
holds no place in the ordinary European tour of to-day. It does not
connect with any of the main lines of travel in such a manner as to
beguile the tourist insensibly over its border: a deliberate start must
be made by steamer from England in order to reach Lisbon from the north.
Another and probably stronger reason for our neglect of its scenery is
that it is not talked of. We go to Europe to see places and follow up
associations with which fame has already made us familiar, and, though
Portugal has had a great past of which the records are still extant, it
has not been brought to our notice by art.

The two nations living side by side on the Peninsula, though originally
of the same stock and subjected to the same influences, present more
points of difference than of likeness. Their early history is the same.
Hispania and Lusitania both fell successively under the dominion of the
Romans and of the Moors, and were modified to a considerable extent by
the civilization of each. Moorish influence was predominant in
Spain--Portugal retained more deeply the Roman stamp. This is easily
seen in the literature of the two countries. Spanish ballads and plays
show the Eastern delight in hyperbole, the Eastern fertility of
i