THE VINTAGE, DOURO
Strange Imports.
But the most remarkable imports into Portugal are those of wheat, maize and rice, in which, as in garden produce and cattle, Portugal should be able to become almost, if not quite, self-supporting. While whole regions remain untilled and emigrants are counted by the thousand monthly, immense sums are spent every year in importing wheat and maize: in 1913 the Treasury received about £600,000 merely from the duty on these imports. Maize is grown chiefly in the north, where in summer it gives a cool peaceful look to the province of Minho, wheat in Alemtejo, and rye in Traz os Montes. Official statistics for 1911 give the number of hectares sown with corn as follows in the various districts: Beja 117,324 (11·44 per cent. of the entire area of the district), Castello Branco 68,299 (10·21 per cent.), Evora 65,290 (8·82), Lisbon 54,810 (6·90), Portalegre 47,608 (7·64), Santarem 29,252 (4·41), Faro 19,648 (3·91), Bragança 18,563 (2·85), Guarda 8,996 (1·64), Coimbra 5,754 (1·47), Vizeu 2,776 (·55), Villa Real 2,691 (·60), Porto 2,064 (·89), Braga 1,492 (·55), Aveiro 1,004 (·56), Vianna 996 (·44). Alemtejo, besides corn, provides wide pasture lands, and live stock forms one of Portugal’s principal exports (chiefly to England and Spain), while, on the other hand, large quantities of meat are imported from South America. Mules and pigs are most numerous in the province of Alemtejo, horses and donkeys in Estremadura, sheep and goats in Traz os Montes, and oxen in Minho.
Exports and Imports.
Portugal’s chief exports, besides wine and cork, are cattle, fish, fruits, minerals, wood, olive oil. There is no reason why all of these, with the exception perhaps of wine, should not show a gradual increase as fresh markets are obtained, and better methods (especially in the preparation of olive oil) and quicker communications, which will enable Portuguese fruits and flowers to be exported in ever-growing quantities.[24] The principal imports, apart from machinery and articles of luxury, are wheat, maize, sugar, cod, rice. A large number of Dutch cheeses is imported every year, although the curious little soft white cheeses, about the size of half a crown, are very common in Portugal, and are a favourite food of the peasants. Indolence, ignorance, mistaken finance and lack of capital have hitherto fettered agriculture in Portugal, neglect on the part of the State and of private landowners going hand in hand with illiteracy and distrust on the part of the peasants. But it can hardly be doubted that Portuguese agriculture has a prosperous future and that the miserable lot of the peasant will be improved. Portugal should be able to become a land of enlightened and cultured farmers, such as are sometimes found in the north of Europe (for instance, in Denmark), as it were a land of little Herculanos, combining farming with scholarship.
CHAPTER III
LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
The “Chiado.”
For many, too many, Portuguese, Lisbon is Portugal. They will put up with much misery in the provinces so long as Lisbon has fine shops and streets and squares. The ambition of the peasant is to see Lisbon, and many prefer to live, however wretchedly, as citizens of that great city than quietly at their ease in the country. The rich inhabitants inhabit Paris, or else, as in the days of Garrett, “spend their lives between the Chiado and the Rua do Oiro,” although the motor-car now lures many from the clubs of the Rua Garrett and the cafés of the Rocio at least as far afield as Cintra or the Estoris. Rua Garrett is now the official name (after the poet Almeida-Garrett, 1799-1854), but it remains the Chiado in common speech. Its name derived probably from the name, or rather from the nickname, of another poet, Antonio Ribeiro, o Chiado. He was a popular sixteenth-century Lisbon poet, and lived in a house just off this street: it is thought that the frequent phrase “Vámos ao Chiado” (“Let us go and see Chiado”) led to the name being given to the street, hitherto called Rua direita das Portas de Santa Catharina. The quaint lift which suspends people like the mediaeval Virgil in a basket over the city, and, like some of the other eight ascensores, gives a splendid view, still has the words written up at its Largo de São Julião entrance: “Ao Chiado.”
The “Baixa.”