eagerly communicative on the subjects which have been the study of his
life. When I asked him to explain to me the difference of national
character which made the Portuguese attitude toward the Church so
different from the Spanish, he took me right back to the Ligurians--far
out of my ethnological depth--and gave me a most interesting sketch of
the development of the two nations. But when we came to topics of more
immediate importance, he showed, if I may venture to say so, a clear
practical sense, quite remote from visionary idealism. The Foreign
Minister, Dr. Machado, is of more immediately impressive personality.
Younger than the President by at least ten years, yet little short, I
should guess, of sixty, he is extremely neat and dapper in person,
while his very handsome face has a birdlike keenness and alertness of
expression betokening not only great intelligence but high-strung
vitality. He is a copious, eloquent, and witty talker, and his
remarkable charm of manner accounts, in part at any rate, for his
immense popularity. Assuredly no monarchy could have more distinguished
representatives than this Republic.

The desire of the Republic to "play fair" was manifested in another
little trait that interested me a good deal. In the window of every
book-shop in Spain a translation from the Portuguese, entitled _Los
Escandalos de la Corte de Portugal_, is prominently displayed. It is a
ferocious lampoon upon the royal family and upon Franco; but in Lisbon
I looked for it in vain. On inquiry I learned that it had been
prohibited under the Monarchy, as it could not fail to be; but, had
there been any demand for it, no doubt it might have been reprinted
since the revolution. There was apparently no demand. The people to
whom I spoke of it evidently regarded it as "hitting below the belt."
"We do not fight with such weapons," said a leading journalist. In no
one, in fact, did I discover the slightest desire or willingness to