They may be pardoned for declaring that their heroes’ achievements outshone those of Greek and Roman. For indeed the half-century (1498-1548) between the voyage of Vasco da Gama and the death of Dom João de Castro is thick with names; the great men tread on one another’s heels in the halls of fame, worthily continuing the work of their predecessors during four centuries in Portugal. Sousa, Mello, Meneses, Cunha, Castro, Noronha, Mascarenhas, Coutinho, Pereira, Pacheco, Almeida, Azevedo, Sá, Silva, Silveira--these are names the very catalogue of which must be music to a Portuguese, and which would require a large volume to chronicle in detail. And many women hold a high place in Portuguese history, as the Queen-Saint Elizabeth (or Isabel),[1] the stout-hearted bakeress of Aljubarrota, Brites (Beatrice) de Almeida, who slew, if we are to trust the tradition, seven Spaniards with her wooden baker’s shovel, or the heroines of Diu.[2] Among the men there is Affonso Henriquez, first King of Portugal, half French by birth, and grandson of the Spanish King of Leon, but in heart and action wholly Portuguese; loyal Egas Moniz; Gualdim Paes and other legendary heroes in the conflict with the Moors which transformed Portugal from a dependent province into a free kingdom; and later, if not less legendary, Fernão Rodriguez Pacheco, the astute defender of Celorico, who in starvation by a miracle obtained a fish and sent it to the besieger to show that plenty reigned in the town; or the defender of Coimbra, Martim Freitas, heroically, almost quixotically loyal to the deposed King Sancho II. On the sea the first to signalise himself was Fuas Roupinho, in the twelfth century; and thenceforth Portugal never failed to produce hardy if obscure seamen, to fish for cod in the Northern Seas or to discover the west coast of Africa till Bartholomeu Diaz rounded the Cape of Storms in 1487, and King João II rechristened it the Cape of Good Hope.[3] João II (1481-95), “the Perfect Prince,” or as Queen Isabella of Spain more bluntly called him _el hombre_, “the man,” was one of a series of great kings of the House of Avis, founded by João I (1385-1433) “of good memory,” darling of the Lisbon people. João I was succeeded by his eldest son, the noble but unfortunate student-king Duarte (1433-8). Other brothers of Prince Henry the Navigator, scarcely less famous, were the Infante Pedro, statesman and author, who travelled through “the seven parts of the world,” and the Infante Fernando, who died slowly with saintly patient heroism as a prisoner of the Moors in Africa.