In Portugal

While the utterly opposed characters of the two peoples must probably render the divorce between Spain and Portugal eternal and reduce hopes of union to the idle dreams of politicians, Portugal in itself contains an infinite variety — the charnecas and cornlands of Alemtejo; the hills and moors, pinewoods, corkwoods and olives of Extremadura; the red soil and faint blue mountains of Algarve, with its figs and carobs and palms, and little sandy fishing-bays; the clear streams and high massive ranges and chimneyless granite villages of Beira Baixa and Beira Alta; the vines and sand-dunes and ricegrowing alagadiços of Douro; the wooded hills, mountain valleys, flowery meadows and transparent streams and rivers of rainy Minho, with its white and grey scattered houses, its crosses and shrines and chapels, its maize-fields and orchards and tree- or granite-propped vines; and, finally, remote inaccessible Traz-os-Montes, bounded on two sides by Spain, on the South by the Douro, to which its rivers of Spanish origin, Tâmega, Tua, Sabor, flow through its range on range of bare mountains, with precipitous ravines and yellow-brown clustered villages among olives, chestnuts and rye. Each of the eight provinces (more especially those of the alemtejanos minhotos and beirões) preserves many peculiarities of language, customs and dress; and each, in return for hardships endured, will give to the traveller many a day of delight and interest.

Aubrey F. G. Bell (Preface, 1912)