The present king of Portugal, Carlos I, born in 1863, has shown a decided determination to seek the peace his country so much needs. He has shown also a real interest in science and letters and since the five hundredth anniversary of Prince Henry the Navigator celebrated in March, 1894, he has shown a lively concern for deep-sea soundings and exploration. He has made personal studies and both published their results and shown them at an oceanographic exhibition which he opened in 1897. The world is too well mapped to offer such prizes as once lay hidden in the Sea of Darkness, but there is a peculiar fitness in the present monarch’s interest in that ocean across which his great predecessor showed the path that led Portugal to greatness, and through Portugal turned the whole world to exploration.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[184] [Partisans of the liberal constitution of 1838.]
[185] [This insurrection was called the War of Maria da Fonte or “Patuleia” and was ended through foreign influence, by the Convention of Granada, June 29th, 1847.]
[186] [“Dom Pedro V, although only sixteen, showed as soon as he ascended the throne a subtlety of spirit, a greatness of soul, and so precocious an intelligence that his people augured the most happy destiny for the country, and in its joy gave him the surname of ‘El Esperanzo,’ their hopes in him being so great. But a short time after (1861) the young prince in his turn also died, smitten in the flower of his age, in the midst of unfinished works.”—Silvercruys.[h]]
A Portuguese Peasant
