Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/561

Rh HISTORY.] PORTUGAL 539 years, of which 3 are to be with the colours, 5 in the first reserve, and 4 in the second resei ve. The force is divided into 36 regiments of infantry, 10 regiments of cavalry, 4 regiments, 1 brigade, and 4 companies of artillery, and 1 regiment of engineers. In 1883, under the old regulations, the army contained 41 general officers ; its effective strength in time of peace was 33,231 men with 1643 officers, and on a war footing 75,336 men with 2688 officers. For colonial service there is one regiment of 1143 soldiers and 50 officers divided into 3 battalions, of which one is always stationed at Goa and another at Macao. The officers are trained in the military academy at Lisbon, and there is an asylum for the sons of soldiers. The navy is no longer the power it used to be, but, though small, it is equipped in modern fashion and furnished by the naval arsenal at Lisbon. It consisted in 1884 of 30 steam-ships, of which one was an armoured corvette mounting 7 guns, and 5 others cor vettes mounting 46 guns, and of 14 sailing ships, of which one was a frigate mounting 19 guns. Its personnel consisted of 283 officers and 3235 sailors. duca- Public Instruction. The public instruction of Portugal is regu- on. lated by the law of 1844, which enacted that all children should be bound to attend a primary school, if there was one within a mile, from the age of seven to fifteen, under penalty to the parents of a fine and deprivation of civil rights. Under this law there were in Portugal, in 1874, 2649 primary schools with 122,004 pupils of both sexes. Secondary education is not neglected, and under the same law of 1844 17 lycees have been established in the seven teen continental districts, and from them it is possible for a pupil to enter either the university of Coimbra, which during the present century has recovered some of its ancient lustre, or the special schools. These special schools are very ably conducted, and modern Portuguese policy gives, as we have seen, a higher status to teachers and professors of all grades than they obtain in most other countries. The most important of these schools are the polytechnic school at Lisbon, the polytechnic academy at Oporto, the medical schools and industrial institutes in both these cities, the institute-general of agriculture, the royal and marine observatories, and the academy of fine arts all four at Lisbon. The valuable public libraries of Lisbon, Evora, Villa Real, and Braga, supported by the state, and in addition the free library at Oporto, ought also to be mentioned, as well as the archives at the Torre del Tombo, with which a school of palaeography and diplomacy has lately been connected. Public Works. On 1st January 1884 there were 1245 miles of Public railway open (944) and in course of construction (301), also 50 miles works, of tramways were open, and 2900 miles of telegraph were in operation ; and every recent loan has been raised for the purpose of extending these important public works. The chief lines of rail way open are those from Lisbon to Valencia de Alcantara, and thence by Talavera to Madrid, and from Lisbon to Oporto, Tua, Nine, and Braga, while the line to Faro, which is to connect Algarves with the capital, has been already extended beyond Beja as far as Casevel. There is also an alternative line to Madrid open through Elvas and Badajoz, which connects Lisbon with the Andalusian system and gives a short route to Seville, Cadiz, and Malaga. As to smaller lines opening up Beira, the line from Figueira da Foz to Villar Formosa through Celorico and Guarda is completed, and one is projected parallel to the Lisbon-Oporto line from Villar Formosa to Alcantara on the south, which is to be connected with Oporto through Tua towards the west. The telegraph system is already very complete, and the last touch has been put to it by laying down a submarine cable from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, binding the mother -country still more closely with what was once her greatest colony. (H. M. S.) PART II. HISTORY. It has been stated that geographically the kingdom of Portugal is an integral part of the Iberian Peninsula ; the only reason why it has retained its independence, while the other mediaeval states of that peninsula have merged into the kingdom of Spain, is to be found in its history. When Philip II. of Spain annexed Portugal it was a century too late for it to coalesce with Spain. It had then produced Vasco de Gama and Affonso de Albuquerque, and its language had been developed from a Romance dialect into a literary language by Camoens and Sa de Miranda. Conscious of its national history, it broke away again from Spain in 1640, and under the close alliance of England maintained its separate and national existence during the 18th century. A union with Spain might have been possible, however, during the first half of the present century had not a generation of historians and poets arisen, who, by recalling the great days of the Portu guese monarchy, have made it impossible for Portugal ever again to lose the consciousness of her national existence. The history of Portugal really begins with the gift of the fief of the Terra Portucaleusis or the county of Porto Cale to Count Henry of Burgundy in 1094 ; for any attempt to identify the kingdom of Portugal and the Portuguese people with Lusitania and the Lusitanians is utterly with out foundation. With the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal was colonized by the Phoanicians and conquered by the Carthaginians ; and the Roman province of Lusi tania, whether according to the division of Iberia into three provinces under Augustus or into five under Hadrian, in no way coincided with the historical limits of the kingdom of Portugal. In common with the rest of the Peninsula, it Avas overrun by the Vandals, Alans, and Visigoths, and eventually conquered by the Arabs in the 8th century. It was not until the 15th century that an attempt was made by Garcia de Menezes to identify Lusitania with Portugal. Under the influence of the Renaissance, Bernardo de Brito insisted on the identity, and claimed Viriathus as a Portu guese hero. Other writers of the same epoch delighted in calling Portugal by the classical name of &quot; Lusitania,&quot; and Camoens, by the very title of his great epic, Os Lusiadas, has immortalized the appellation. For two centuries Portugal remained subject to the Omayyad caliphs, and under their wise rule the old Roman coloniae and municipia, such as Lisbon, Lamego, Viseu, and Oporto, maintained their Roman self-govern ment and increased in wealth and importance. Towards the close of the 10th century, as the Omayyad caliphate grew weaker, the Christian princes of Visigothic descent who dwelt in the mountains of the Asturias began to grow more audacious in their attacks on the declining power, and in 997 Bermudo II., king of Galicia, won back the first portion of modern Portugal from the Mohammedans by seizing Oporto and occupying the province now known as Entre Minho e Douro. In the beginning of the llth century the Omayyad caliphate finally broke up, and inde pendent emirs established themselves in every large city, against whom the Christian princes waged incessant and successful war. In 1055 Ferdinand the Great, king of Leon, Castile, and Galicia, invaded Beira ; in 1057 he took Lamego and Viseu, and in 1064 Coimbra ; and his son Garcia, who succeeded him as king of Galicia in 1065, maintained Nuno Mendes, count of Oporto, and Sesnando, a renegade Arab wazir, count of Coimbra, as feudal vassals of his court. In 1073 Alphonso VI., the second son of Ferdinand the Great, united once more his father s three kingdoms, and for a time rivalled his father s successes, until a fresh outburst of Mohammedan fanaticism ended in the rise of the Almoravide dynasty, and the defeat of the Christian king at Zalaca in 1086 by Yusuf ibn Tesh- ufin. To resist this revival of the Mohammedan power, Alphonso VI. summoned the chivalry of Christendom to his aid, and among the knights who came to his assistance were Counts Raymond and Henry of Burgundy. In the days of his success Alphonso had compelled Motawakkil of Badajoz to cede to him both Lisbon and Santarem, but the fortune of war had changed, and Sir, the general of the Almoravide caliph Yusuf, retook both cities. Al phonso felt the need of a valiant warrior on his Galician frontier, and in 1094 he combined the fiefs of Coimbra and Oporto into one great county and conferred it upon Henry of Burgundy with the hand of his illegitimate daughter Theresa, while to Raymond he gave Galicia and his legitimate daughter and heiress Urraca. Count Henry of Burgundy, the first count of Portugal,