of the sanguinary battle of Aljuabarrota, the greatest victory the Portuguese ever gained over the Castilians:[153] and some others, of the like character, which might still be enumerated. The picture of the battle of Aljuabarrota excels all the similar descriptions which occur even in the Lusiad, remarkable as that poem is for such passages. The valiant Nuno Alvares, who by his eloquence and his personal authority, no less than by his courage, saved the political existence of Portugal, shines with such conspicuous lustre at the head of the Portuguese warriors, that he with far more propriety than Vasco da Grama might be denominated the hero of the Lusiad, were it a work which ought to be judged according to the rules usually applied to epic poetry.[154] Even in this great battle picture, the finest touches are unquestionably copied from nature, for the poet was no less in his place amidst the tumult of war than in the more tranquil region of the Muses.[155] In the continuation of the narrative of the first discoveries of the Portuguese in the east, the particular interest which the poet took in allegoric description is again displayed in a novel manner. The two principal rivers of India, the Indus and the Ganges, are made to appear to King Emmanuel in a dream under the personification of two old men. The representation is truly excellent.[156] In Vasco da Gama’s narrative of his own voyage, the following passages must always be particularly distinguished: first, the description of the farewell to the Portuguese shore:[157] secondly, a sort of didactic episode, consisting of reflexions made by an old man on the vanity of human ambition, quite in the spirit of that true poetry which embraces the whole range of human existence;[158] and thirdly, another kind of episode which introduces the giant Adamastor, whom Camoens conjured up from the old world of fable to render him the spirit of the Cape of Good Hope.[159] In the description of this part of the voyage, Camoens for the first time uses the freedom of relieving the solemn seriousness of his narrative by some comic touches. Fernaõ Velloso is the humourist among the enterprising followers of Vasco da Gama.[160] Camoens also occasionally breaks the poetic tone of the whole description by a display of his mythological and historical pedantry, and by his endeavours to express in a poetic manner things which are totally unpoetic; as for example, in alluding to the day of the departure of the fleet, he says:--“When the eternal orb of light had entered the sign of the Nemæan monster, and when the decaying world in its sixth age, moved feebly and slowly after having observed the sun’s circuitous course repeated fourteen hundred and ninety-seven times.”[161] These deformities sometimes injure the beauty of the finest parts of the poem.