The Jasper weekly courier., 1921-07-22

duced annually in Portugal for each
man, woman and child i'm the country
Port and Madeira are the best known
OF the vintages. They are shipped
through Opporto in great quantities,
going chiefly TO Great Britain and
Brazil, but in less quantities To many
other markets. Nearly two gallons Of
olive oil per inhabitant are produced
each year. Portugal's cork forests are
one of the chief sources of wealth for
the country. From them comes nearly
one-half of the cork produced in
the world. The United States imports
from Portugal about three-fourths of
the cork which it uses.
South of the Tagus river the long
occupation of the country by the Moors
is evident not only through the archi-
lecture, but also because of the APP
pearance of the people. Almost pure
Berber types are met in many parts
of the district.
Its Rise as a Kingdom.
There was really no Portugal during
Roman, Germanic and Moorish domina-
ton. Portugal may be considered
to have begun to emerge for the
first time in 1895 when the Spanish
crown, having conquered a small part
of the northern portion of the
present Portugal, made it an hered-
itary countship. The rise of Portugal
from this small beginning to an i'm
portant kingdom and then an. empire
constitutes perhaps the most spectacu-
lar development of nation TO be found
in modern history. The son of the
first count, Alfonzo Henriques, made
his country independent of Spain and
himself its king. He then began
what was practically crusade against
The Moors to the south, and with the
assistance of Christian knights from
other countries of Europe, succeeded
i'm driving the intdels from Lisbon in
1147 He and his successors continued
the fight, and by about the hundredth
anniversary of the fall of Lisbon the
entire area of the present Portugal
had been freed of Moorish dominion.
The country continued To grow in
Importance. wealth and power. Prince
Henry the Navigator became the patron
of navigation early i'm the Fifteenth
century, and under his encouragement
Portugars great page of discovery and
colonization began 10 he written. The
Portuguese were the first of the
Europeans 70 have the necessary vision
to make an ordered search for the
hidden places of the earth; and their
sailors were the first TO establish con
tact between Europe and large part
of the then unknown world, both east
and west.
But if the rise OF Portugal was rapid.
its fall from great power and wealth
was equally swift. Its man power was
severely drained 10 take care OF its
extensive possessions and its even
broader spheres of influence. Even
then colonial affairs were managed
rather poorly and there came the i'm
evitable reaction. Weak kings at home
with spendthrift proclivities combined
To undermine PortugalS rapidly built
overseas empire: and the competition
Of other nations which went about the
building of empires more methodically
was no unimportant factor in the dis
placing Of Portugal from the foremost
/ position in world affairs which she had
won 80 quickly and with such seeming
ease.
Even though shorn of many OF its
former possessions. Portugal still con-
trolls more than 10000 square miles
| of colonial dependencies. chiefly I'm
Africa The possession of this extern
sive territory makes Portugal the
fourth colonial power o. the world. IL
Russia be diSregarded.