ABSTRACT
A STUDY of the map of Portugal will suggest some of the causes that led her people to become navigators. The country possesses a long seaboard, a splendid natural harbour in Lisbon and a number of others, such as Oporto, Vianna and Setubal, which in the days of small ships proved adequate, while some of them could even shelter crusading fleets. On the north and east lies Spain, divided in the Middle Ages into three kingdoms, the largest of which, Castile, by her superior power prevented the Portuguese from expanding landward and obliged them to look to the ocean as a field of energy and profit. Though the Celts have never been seamen, the Celtic strain in the race provided the imagination necessary for the undertaking of great enterprises, while pluck and perseverance came from other sources, perhaps from the half-tamed Lusitanian stock and the Germanic invaders, for the Phoenician element was too small to have had much influence.
