xx Portugal

Far at the world then, strange fascinating lands beckoneth, with us rebel and their exotic spenders. Come with us as we head for a port of call. Along 360 miles of the Iberian Peninsula's west coast, lies a delightful little visited country, a fertile smiling land, half European and half African, whose sunny shores glow with a deep gold of

fragrant oranges, whose white beaches are fringed with feathery palm trees, come with us to Portugal. Seven centuries before the Christian era, the Phoenician navigators, having founded trading posts all around the Mediterranean basin, sought new outlets for their commerce. Sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, these hardy mariners bore to the north, dropped anchor

at the mouth of the River Tagoos, and there planted the nucleus of the same smiling city which now greets us, Lisbon, for the past six centuries the capital of Portugal, and in spite of the bustle of its port, Lisbon, and thrown upon its seven hills, still reminds us that it was once the favorite vacation land for the hoty nobles of ancient

Rome, and that its buried charms were celebrated by the great poets of antiquity. Making our way inland, we feel the intervening centuries slipping away. Soon we are immersed in the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, fraught with grim tragedy, with nightly courtesy, with the songs of the troubadours, the clash of armour, the mingled war cries of Christian chivalry

and of the Moorish warriors of Islam. Before the Gothic pile of the Church of Alacobka, the shades of the distant past seem to take shape before our eyes, and we witness anew the old tragedy of the love of Pedro the Severe, for the beautiful Ines de Castral.