The career of Mendes Pinto illustrates the extraordinary energy and indomitable courage of the Portuguese in Asia, and it is a subject for wonder how one little country, one of the very smallest of the European states, could produce not only great governors and conquerors, like Francisco de Almeida, Affonso de Alboquerque, Nuno da Cunha, and João de Castro, and their lieutenants; and military heroes like Duarte Pacheco, Antonio de Silveira, and João de Mascarenhas, and their soldiers; but also daring adventurers like Duarte Coelho, who boldly penetrated into the interior of Siam, and Mendes Pinto. These men, from the highest to the lowest, seem to have had unbounded confidence in themselves, and, as will be seen later, two Portuguese adventurers, with hardly any support, Sebastião Gonzales and Philip de Brito, established themselves as practically independent princes in Arakan. It has been shown that this extraordinary energy and enterprise exhausted the kingdom of Portugal. Of the thousands who left their homes in Europe, but an infinitesimal portion ever returned. Not one of the early governors of Portuguese India died in Portugal until the time of Dom Constantino de Braganza; they either died in India, like Alboquerque, Vasco da Gama, and Noronha, or on their way home, like Almeida and Nuno da Cunha. The drain upon the energies of the people was immense, and the wonder is not that Portugal was soon exhausted, but that it ever put forth such vitality at all. The greatness of the Portuguese in India was due to the courage and heroism of the Portuguese people, and these qualities they owed to a succession of great kings, who had trained the people to freedom, self-reliance, and constancy; were it not for great kings like John “the Great” and John “the Perfect,” and great princes like Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, and Prince Henry “the Navigator,” the Portuguese nation would never have done what it did, and the Story of Portugal teaches the useful lesson that a people, trained to lofty thoughts and a high conception of duty, will be sure to find scope for its energies, and exhibit the result of its training in noble deeds. [Illustration: text decoration] [Illustration: text decoration] X. THE PORTUGUESE IN BRAZIL.