[Illustration: VASCO DA GAMA.
_From a portrait in colour in a Spanish MS. (Sloane, 197, fol. 18) in
the British Museum._]
If this was the case with the Spaniard, it was far more marked in the
case of the Portuguese. In some respects, perhaps, no nation colonized
with quite the same amount of enthusiasm as this. Its pioneers once
definitely settled in the country, whichever it might be, there arose no
question of looking upon the new conquest as a place to be resided in
for a certain number of years and no more. The Portuguese went to the
east and to the south-west to make themselves part and parcel of the
soil of the country they had annexed. To this end they mingled from the
very start with the natives, and inter-married with an entire want of
restraint with the Indian women.
Thus from the very inception of the Portuguese colonial era we are
confronted with a race of half-castes, and we see the forces brought
about by a mixture of blood and climatic conditions working more
powerfully in the Portuguese colonies than in any others. The result
was, in one sense, the formation of a new race, and an almost complete
absence of rebellion and native unrest in those parts where genuine
civilization had been attempted.
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