channels and basins. The largest basin is 900 yds. long by 500 broad and has a minimum depth of 6 fathoms. On the north side of the inlet are quays (completed 1909), fitted with electric cranes, &c. Here are the customs-house, coal sheds and goods station. The town proper lies on the south side of the inlet, connected with the quays by a railway bridge. Besides government offices the public buildings include hospitals, and a branch of the Gordon College of Khartum. Beyond the bridge in the upper waters of the inlet is a dry dock. The climate of Port Sudan is very hot and damp and fever is common. Adjacent to the town is an arid plain without vegetation other than mimosa thorns. Some 10 m. west is a line of hills parallel to the coast.
The port dates from 1905. It owes its existence to the desire of the Sudan administration to find a harbour more suitable than Suakin (q.v.) for the commerce of the country. Such a place was found in Mersa Sheikh Barghut (or Barud), 36 m. north of Suakin, a harbour so named from a saint whose tomb is prominent on the northern point of the entrance. When the building of the railway between the Nile and the Red Sea was begun, it was determined to create a port at this harbour—which was renamed Port Sudan (Bander es-Sudan). Up to the end of 1909 the total expenditure by the government alone on the town and harbour-works was £E914,320. The railway (which has termini both at Port Sudan and Suakin) was opened in January 1906 and the customs-house in the May following. Port Sudan immediately attracted a large trade, the value of goods passing through it in 1906 exceeding £470,000. In 1908 the imports and exports were valued at about £750,000. It is a regular port of call of British, German and Italian steamers. The imports are largely cotton goods, provisions, timber and cement; the exports gum, raw cotton, ivory, sesame, durra, senna, coffee (from Abyssinia), goat skins, &c. Forty miles north of Port Sudan is Mahommed Gul, the port for the mines of Gebet, worked by an English company.
The Foreign Office Report, Trade of Port Sudan for the Year 1906, by T. B. Hohler, gives a valuable account of the beginnings of the port. A chart of the harbour was issued by the British Admiralty in 1908. See also Sudan: § Anglo-Egyptian.
PORT TOWNSEND, a city, port of entry and the county-seat
of Jefferson county, Washington, U.S.A., on Quimper Peninsula,
at the entrance to Puget Sound, about 40 m. N.N.W. of Seattle.
Pop. (1905), 5300; (1910), 4181. The city is served by the Port
Townsend Southern railway (controlled by the Northern Pacific,
but operated independently) and by steamship lines to Victoria
(British Columbia), San Francisco, Alaska and Oriental ports.
The harbour is 712 m. long and 312 m. wide, and is deep, well
sheltered and protected by three forts, of which Fort Worden is
an excellently equipped modern fortification ranking with the
forts at Portland (Maine), San Francisco, Boston and New York.
The United States government has at Port Townsend a customs house,
a revenue cutter service, a marine hospital, a quarantine
station and an immigration bureau. Port Townsend is the port of
entry for the Puget Sound customs district. In 1908 its exports
were valued at $37,547,553, much more than those of any other
American port of entry on the Pacific; its imports were valued
in 1908 at $21,876,361, being exceeded among the Pacific ports
by those of San Francisco only. The city has a considerable
trade in grain, lumber, fish, livestock, dairy products and oil;
its manufactures include boilers, machinery and canned and
pickled fish, especially salmon and herring. Port Townsend was
settled in 1854, incorporated as a town in 1860 and chartered
as a city in 1890.
PORTUGAL, a republic of western Europe, forming part of
the Iberian Peninsula, and bounded on the N. and E. by Spain,
and on the S. and W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900),
5,016,267; area, 34,254 sq. m. These totals do not include the
inhabitants and area of the Azores and Madeira Islands, which
are officially regarded as parts of continental Portugal. In shape
the country resembles a roughly drawn parallelogram, with
its greatest length (362 m.) from N. to S., and its greatest
breadth (140 m.) from E. to W. For map, see Spain.
Frontiers
and Coasts.The land frontiers are to some extent defined by the course of the four principal rivers, the Minho and Douro in the north, the Tagus and Guadiana in the south; elsewhere, and especially in the north, they are marked by mountain ranges; but in most parts their delimitation was originally based on political considerations. In no sense can the boundary-line be called either natural or scientific, apart from the fact that the adjacent districts on either side are poor sparsely peopled, and therefore little liable to become a subject of dispute. The Portuguese seaboard is nearly 500 m. long, and of the six ancient provinces all are maritime except Traz-os-Montes. From the extreme north to Cape Mondego and thence
onward to Cape Carvoeiro the outline of the coast is a long and
gradual curve; farther south is the prominent mass of rock and
mountain terminating Westward in Capes Roca and Espichel; south of this, again, there is another wide curve, broken by the headland of Sines, and extending to Cape St Vincent, the south-eastern extremity of the country. The only other conspicuous promontory is Cape Santa Maria, on the south coast. The only deep indentations of the Portuguese littoral are the lagoon of Aveiro (q.v.) and the estuaries of the Minho, Douro, Mondego, Tagus, Sado and Guadiana, in which are the principal harbours, The only islands off the coast are the dangerous Farilhões and
Berlings (Portuguese Berlengas) off Cape Carvoeiro.
Physical Features.—Few small countries contain so great a variety of scenery as Portugal. The bleak and desolate heights of the Serra da Estrella and the ranges of the northern frontier are almost alpine in character, although they nowhere reach the limit of perpetual snow. At a lower level there are wide tracts of moorland, covered in many cases with sweet-scented cistus and other wild flowers. The lagoon of Aveiro, the estuary of the Sado and the broad inland lake formed by the Tagus above Lisbon (q.v.), recall the waterways of Holland. The sand-dunes of the western coast and the Pinhal de Leiria (q.v.) resemble the French Landes. The Algarve and parts of Alemtejo might belong to North-West Africa rather than to Europe. The Paiz do Vinho, on the Douro, and the Tagus near Abrantes, with their terraced bush-vines grown up the steep banks of the rivers, are often compared with the Rhine and the Elbe. The harbours of Lisbon and Oporto are hardly inferior in beauty to those of Naples and Constantinople. Apart from this variety, and from the historic interest of such places as Braga, Bussaco, Cintra, Coimbra, or Torres Vedras, the attractiveness of the country is due to its colouring, and not to grandeur of form. Its landscapes are on a small scale; it has no vast plains, no inland seas, no mountain as high as 7000 ft. But its flora is the richest in Europe, and combines with the brilliant sunshine, the vivid but harmonious costumes of the peasantry, and the white or pale tinted houses to compensate for any such deficiency. This wealth of colour gives to the scenery of Portugal a quite distinctive character and is the one feature common to all its varieties.
The orography of Portugal cannot be scientifically studied except in relation to that of Spain, for there is no dividing line between the principal Portuguese ranges and the highlands of Galicia, Leon and Spanish Estremadura. Three so-called Portuguese systems are sometimes distinguished: (1) the Transmontane, stretching between the Douro and the Minho; (2) the Beirene, between the Douro and the Tagus; (3) the Transtagine, south of the Tagus. The following ranges belong to the Transmontane system, which is the southern extension of the mountains of Galicia: Peneda (4728 ft.), forming the watershed between the river Lima and the lower Minho; the Serra do Gerez (4817 ft.), which rises like a gigantic wall between the Lima and the Homem, and sends off a spur known as the Amarella, Oural and Nora, south-westward between the Homem and the Cavado; La Raya Seca, a continuation of Gerez, which culminates in Larouco (4390 ft.) and contains the sources of the Cavado; Cabreira (4196 ft.), which contains the sources of the river Ave and separates the basin of the Tamega from that of the Cavado; Marão (4642 ft.), Villarelho (3547 ft.) and Padrella (3763 ft.), forming together a large massif between the rivers Tamega, Tua and Douro; and Nogueira (4331 ft.) and Bornes (3944 ft.), which divide the valley of the Tua from that of the Sabor. The Beirene system comprises two quite distinct mountain regions. North of the Mondego it includes Montemuro (4534 ft.), separating the Douro from the upper waters of its left-hand tributary the Paiva; Gralheira (3681 ft.) between the Paiva and the Vouga; the Serra do Caramullo
