A Century of Discovery

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Excerpt from A Century of Discovery: Biographical Sketches of the Portuguese and Spanish Navigators From Prince Henry to PizarroIn the rugged mountain tract which separates the arid tableland of central Spain from the humid coast of the Bay of Biscay we trace the origin of the modern states of the Pyrenean peninsula. Into this wild and scarcely accessible region, which occupies the whole north-west corner of the peninsula, and lies among the Cantabrian Mountains, a thousand Christian families fled before the wild storm of Arabs which in 711 destroyed at Xeres de la Frontera the kingdom of the West Goths, and forthwith inundated the whole peninsula. Thus was formed the Christian state of Asturias, which still enjoys peculiar rights among the Spanish provinces. From it the Crown Princes of Spain have been used to take their title, and its inhabitants boast with genuine Spanish arrogance that they, whose soil the foot of the Moslem has never trodden, are the noblest of all the Spaniards.From mere defence the Asturians soon proceeded to direct attacks upon the invaders, and during the following centuries the neighbouring states, by dint of never-ceasing struggles, were gradually recovered by the Christians.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.