anywhere.
The consequence is, that this last-named crop, the principal
bread-food of the country, has failed, and famine prevails throughout
the land. Having lived in America, I know what you, so accustomed to
freedom and plenty, will say to this:

"France, Sprain, Morocco, England--all these countries are near to
Portugal. If she is short of bread, let her simply exchange wine for
it, and there need be no fears of a famine."

Ah, my dear American friends, little do you suspect the artlessness
of this reply. Know, then, that those who own the wines of Portugal do
not lack for bread, and those who lack for bread do not own the wines;
that the first of these classes are the aristocrats and foreigners who
live in the cities or abroad, and the second the people at large;
that there exists an abyss between these classes so profound that no
political institutions yet devised have been able to bridge it; that
there is no credit given by one class to the other, and few dealings
occur between them; and that the laws of Portugal discourage the
importation of grain into the kingdom.

You are a straightforward people, and dive at once to the bottom of
a subject. "Why do not the Portuguese devote themselves so largely to
the cultivation of grain that there need never be danger of famine?"
you will now ask. My answer to this is: The people do not own the
land.

"What! Were the reforms of Pombal, the French Revolution, the
Portuguese revolution of 1820 and the various constitutions since that
date, the abolition of serfdom and mortmain, and the law of 1832, all
ineffectual to emancipate the Portuguese peasant from the thralldom of
land?"

Alas! they were indeed all in vain, and the Portuguese peasantry
stands to-day at the very lowest step of European civilization--far
beneath all others. The number of agricultural workers in Portugal is
about eight hundred and seventy-five thousand. Of this number,
some seven hundred thousand are hired laborers, farm-servants,
_emphyteutas_ (you shall presently know the meaning of this ominous
word) and metayers; that is to say, persons who may cultivate only
such products as their employers or landlords choose, and the latter
in their greed and short-sightedness always choose that the former
shall cultivate wine. The remainder, or some one hundred and
seventy-five thousand, consist chiefly of small proprietors, owning
three, four, five and ten acre patches of land, often intersected by
othe