The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1898-07-23
HArERS OF SPAIN.
Despised the Spaniards
for Centuries.

Il was astounded last week when !
saw that bulletin about Portugal hesi-
tating to turn the Spanish fleet away
from the Cape Verde islands," said
cosmopolitan lookeron in New York.
what struck me as so impossible about
it was the hint of an alliance between
Spain and Portugal.
''Why, l have lived in Portugal and
mixed with the people, and know that
they could stand almost anything bet
ter than that. Portuguese sentiment
the sentiment of the people at large, of
Antonio e Maria'-consists chiefly of
hatred to the Spaniards. They may be
Indifferent about other matters, or di-
vided in feeling. Some of them are
Miguelistas, or legitimists, some are
heartily attached to the actual dynasty;
many in the cities-most of all in Lis
bon-are republicans, but the one uni
flying sentiment of the people is the
anti-Spanish sentiment.
when you come to consider what
their history has been / don't see how
this could have been otherwise. They
have altogether five great national he
roes, Dom Enrique, who was the pio-
neer of all European exploration in
the Atlantic; Vasco de CANA, Dom Sc
bastian, "the Faithful Prince" who is
the center of various poetical legends;
Dom Joao, the bastard; and Gil cannes
Pereira. 1t is safe to say that most of
the plain people of the whole country
know little or nothing of the first two
of these beyond their names. As for
the Faithful Prince, many of them,
probably, are not quite sure whether
he was a real historical parsonage or
only mythical. But every Portuguese
'lavrador,' from the Mimic to ST. Vim
cent, knows Dom Joao, who in 1885 drove
the Spaniards all the way from Aljubar-
rota. in Portugal, to Burgos, in the mid
die of Spain, and Gil cannes, who beat
them at Valverde in the same year.
Those two are the Bruce and the Wal
lace of the Portuguese, but there is this
difference between the Scottish and the
Portuguese hero-worship, that the one
is mere matter of historical pride,
while the other is part of living, active
political force.
''The fact is that since she lost Brazil
and fell into state of general decline
the people of Portugal have become
intensely retrospective. They nourish
their pride on national memories, and
the fundamental national fact for them
is their independence of Spain. They
began to be nation when they broke
loose from the kingdom of CASTLE and
Leon in the eleventh century, and ever
since then, except for couple of gen.
erations in the sixteenth and seven.
teenth centuries, they have existed as
a nation under the continual threat
of absorption into Spain. The house
of Braganza stands to the Portuguese
people for no good thing but the re-
volt Of 1640, by which the country was
redeemed into independence. And the
people feel that the price of independ-
ence is perpetual hatred of Spaniards.
We can understand the feeling only by
imagining what it would have been in
our own country if the original 10 states
had been collectively much smaller
than Great Britain and separated geo.
graphically from that country only by
line on the map.
Nobody who has lived in Portugal
can fail to have noticed the signs of
this undying hatred on all hands. Do
you know, for instance, the true mean
ing of the saying, "A bad Spaniard
makes good Portuguese?' Of course,
there is the Spanish Interpretation,
which is the obvious one. But there
is also the deeper Portuguese interpre-
tation, and that is, that any bad friend
to Spain is by that very fact a good
friend to Portugal.
"You can see evidences of the feel
ing, too, in the very language of Portu-
gal, which its speakers seem to have
purposely developed in such a way as
to make it as unlike Spanish as posi-
BILE. Written, it looks like Spanish, but
spoken it sounds much more like Po-
fish or Czech. 1t is curious fact that
no self-respecting Portuguese woman
would be seen wearing a mantilla, for
the mantilla is the Spanish woman's
headgear. Aud during the last reign
it used to be remarked in Lisbon that
only two ladies there ever smoked, the
queen, Maria Pia, mother of the pres
ent king-an Italian-and the duchess
of Palmella-this, again, because the
habit of smoking had long been dis
tinctive of the Spanish among all other
womankind.
II believe this anti-Spanish feeling
has been kept alive all these centuries
very largely through the perseverance
of the Portuguese women. Perhaps
they remember that it was a woman
who cast the die for the anti-Spanish
revolt in 164O by pronouncing the men,
orable sentence, AS for me, would
rather have death as queen of Portugal
than fOuu life a G duchess IF PRO <ro y, ~, I,