Two anecdotes will give an idea of the spirit that animated the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. During the siege of Diu a soldier, Fernão Penteado, seriously wounded in the head, went to the surgeon, but, finding him busy with other wounded and hearing the noise of a Turkish attack, he returned to the fight and came back with a second serious wound in the head, only to find the surgeon busier than before. Again he went to fight, and when the surgeon was finally able to attend to him he had a third wound, in his right arm. The second incident occurred in North-West Africa. During a fight Dom Affonso da Cunha, aiming a mighty cut with his sword at a Moor, missed him, and the sword leapt from his hand. “Go fetch it, you dog!” roared Cunha, and the terror-stricken Moor obediently picked it up and gave it to him, trembling. Cunha thereupon spared his life. Such were those Portuguese of old, persistent, brave, proud, magnificent. And something of their spirit survives in the Portugal of to-day, ready to reappear at a crisis--more of it, perhaps, than is generally imagined. FOOTNOTES: [1] Antonio Coelho Gasco in his _Conquista, Antiguidade e Nobreza da mui insigne e inclita Cidade de Coimbra_ (Lisboa, 1805) drew the following rash picture of her from an ancient portrait at Coimbra: “This very saintly lady was of gigantic frame and very stout, very white and very red, with a long face and large serene green eyes, nose rather low with wide nostrils, head long and beautiful.” [2] Isabel Fernandez, Barbara Fernandez, and Isabel Madeira. Later heroines at home were Isabel Pereira in the defence of Ouguella against the Spanish in 1644 and Elena Perez in the similar siege of Monção in 1656. [3] The Portuguese accounts of these discoveries are most vivid and minute, a fascinating introduction to the geography of what is now largely part of the British Empire. [4] Garcia da Orta introduces him with the words “The Devil entered into a Portuguese.” Contents I PAGE KING DINIS 1 II NUN’ ALVAREZ 17 III PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR 47 IV VASCO DA GAMA 61 V DUARTE PACHECO PEREIRA 79 VI AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE 103 VII DOM JOÃO DE CASTRO 127 List of Illustrations NUN’ ALVAREZ _Frontispiece_ From the earliest (1526) edition of the _Cronica_. FACING PAGE PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR 49 VASCO DA GAMA 63 AFFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE 105 From Gaspar Correa, _Lendas da India_, frontispiece to vol. ii. pt. 1. JOÃO DE CASTRO 129 I KING DINIS (1261-1325)