With due allowance for time and circumstances, much in this passage might have been written to-day instead of nearly ninety years ago, and one cause of the difference in feeling is no doubt explained truly enough.  Perhaps some shallow persons are affected by the fact that in good looks the Portuguese are as a race inferior to the Spaniards.  But there is no such real difference in character as to justify an impartial observer in using a phrase so essentially galling to England’s allies, of whom Napier said:  “The bulk of the people were, however, staunch in their country’s cause ... ready at the call of honour, and susceptible of discipline, without any loss of energy.”

Throughout the whole Iberian Peninsula the main axiom of life appears to be the same:  “Never do to-day what you can put off to to-morrow.”  On the left bank of the Guadiana it is summarised by the word manana; on the right bank the word used is amanha.  There is only a phonetic distinction between the Spanish and the Portuguese idea.  It is necessary for the traveller in these countries to keep this axiom well in mind, for it affords a clue to character and conduct the value of which cannot be over-estimated, and not only to the character and conduct of individuals, but to the whole national life of the inhabitants.  In Portugal it permeates all public and municipal life, and appears to affect most especially that portion of the population who do not earn their living by manual labour.  The higher one goes up the scale, the greater becomes the evidence of the ingrained habits of dilatoriness and procrastination, and so any hard work on the part of the lower class of toilers cannot be properly directed, and the commerce and industry of the country either dwindle away together, or fall into the hands of more energetic and active foreigners, who naturally carry off the profits which should be properly applied to the welfare and prosperity of the Lusitanians.

The mineral wealth and natural resources of the country are enormous, and it is really sad to contemplate the little use that is made of the one or of the other unless developed by alien energy and worked by alien capital.  As regards this latter important factor, the administrative corruption and the unsound state of the national finances render it difficult to find foreign capitalists who are able and willing to embark in the industrial enterprises, the successful issue of which affords the only chance for this most interesting nation to recover something of its ancient prosperity and to once more take a position in the world worthy of the land of the hardy sailors and valiant captains who have left so imperishable a record over the earth’s surface.