Note (return) — FAMISHING PORTUGAL.

Now for its effects on the land. What growth of forest trees had followed the abolition of emphyteusis under the Gothic and Saracenic monarchs was destroyed under the government of Christian nobles, and to-day there is scarcely a tree in Portugal—the woods, including fruit and nut trees, covering less than 400,000 out of 22,000,000 acres, the entire area of the country. The destruction of the woods, to say nothing of its effects upon the rainfall, caused the top soil to be washed away, and thus impoverished the arable land, filling the rivers with earth, rendering them innavigable, and converting them from gently-flowing streams to devastating torrents, which annually bestrew the valleys and plains with sand and stones.2 In the next place, emphyteusis has caused every kind of improvement to be avoided. The soil has been exhausted by over-cropping; public works, like roads, wells, irrigating canals, etc., have been neglected; and the numerous works left by the industrious Saracens have been allowed to go to ruin. Finally, the tenant, being placed entirely in the power of the lord, was continually kept at the point of starvation. To escape this dreadful fate he has committed every conceivable offence against the laws of Nature and humanity. Tyranny and starvation have made of him a liar, thief, smuggler, assassin, beast. The very ground is tainted with his tread, the air is redolent of his crimes.