Portuguese literature
xii is incomplete, although the first five books bring the history
to the end of the century (1599). His successor in the Goa Archives,
Antonio Bocarro, took up the history at the year 1612, in a work
which was published in 1876: _Decada 13ᵃ da Historia da India_. The
manuscript of his _Dialogo do Soldado Pratico na India_ (written before
the fourth _Decada_) was also stolen. The indomitable Couto re-wrote it
and both versions have survived. They were not published till 1790, the
title given to the earlier version being _Dialogo do soldado pratico
portugues_. With its _verdades chans_, this dialogue between an old
soldier of India, an ex-Governor, and a judge forms a most valuable and
interesting indictment of the decadence of Portuguese rule in India,
where the thief and rogue escaped scot-free, while the occasional
honest man was liable to suffer for their sins, and the sleek soldier
in velvet with gold ribbons on his hat had taken the place of the
bearded _conquistadores_ (_Dialogo_, pp. 91-2).
GASPAR CORRÊA (_c._ 1495-_c._ 1565) claims, like Fernam Lopez de
Castanheda and Barros, to have been the first historian of the
Portuguese in the East.[454] He went to India sixteen years before
Lopez de Castanheda and no doubt soon began[455] to take notes and
collect material, but he was still working at his history in 1561 and
1563, and his _Lendas da India_ were not published till the nineteenth
century. In the year 1506 Corrêa entered the king’s service as _moço
da camara_,[456] and six years later went to India, where he became
one of the six or seven secretaries of Afonso de Albuquerque.[457]
They were young men carefully chosen by the Governor from among those
who had been brought up in the palace and to whom he felt he could
entrust his secrets.[458] Theirs was no humdrum or sedentary post,
for they had to accompany the Governor on foot or on horseback, in
peace and war, ever ready with ink and paper. Thus Corrêa had occasion
vividly to describe Aden in 1513, and helped with his own hands to
build the fortress of Ormuz in 1515. After Albuquerque’s death Corrêa
seems to have continued to fight and write. In 1526 he was appointed
to the factory of Sofala,[459] and in the following year the _moço da
camara_ has become a _cavaleiro_ and is employed at the customs house
at Cochin.[460] He cannot have remained much longer at Cochin than at
Sofala, since he signed his name in the book of _moradias_ at Lisbon
in 1529, and in 1530-1, in a ship provided by himself (_em um meu
catur_), went with the Governor of India’s fleet to the attack of Diu.
Later he was commissioned by the Viceroy, D. João de Castro, to furnish
lifesize drawings[461] of all the Governors of India, so that he must
then have been living at Goa. The ever-growing abuses in India and
the scanty reward given to his fifty years of service and honourable
wounds[462] embittered his last years, and if his spoken comments were
as incisive as the indictment of the Governors and Captains contained
in the _Lendas_[463] he must have made enemies in high positions: it
seems, at least, that his murder one night at Malacca went unpunished,
as if to prove the truth of his frequent complaint that no one ever
was punished in India. At the time of his death he may still have
been at work, as in 1561 and 1563, on the revision of his _Lendas_ or
_Cronica dos Feytos da India_,[464] originally completed in 1551.[465]
The first three books relate the events from 1497 to 1538; the last
carries the history down to 1550. The account of the discovery is based
on the narrative of one, and the recollections of others, of Vasco da
Gama’s companions, and the subsequent events are drawn largely from
Corrêa’s own experience. He spared no trouble to obtain first-hand
information, from aged officials, Moors, natives, captives, a Christian
galley-slave, or a woman from Malabar, distrusting mere hearsay. He
lays frequent stress on his personal evidence.[466] Without necessarily
establishing the trustworthiness of his work on every point, this
method had the advantage of rendering it singularly vivid, and it
contains many a brilliantly coloured picture of the East. In many
respects he is the most remarkable of the historians of India. It was
not for nothing that he had written down some of Albuquerque’s letters
to King Manuel.[467] If Albuquerque’s words are still striking when
read after four centuries, we may imagine their effect on the boy still
in his teens to whom he dictated them. _Tinha grande oratoria_, says
Corrêa, and many years afterwards some of the phrases remained in his
memory.[468] He no doubt learnt from Albuquerque his direct, vigorous
style, his love of concrete details, his regard for truth. His account
of the sack of Malacca--the rifled chests of gold coins and brocades
of Mecca and cloth of gold, the narrow dusty streets in shadow in the
midday _calma_--must, one thinks, be that of an eyewitness; yet Corrêa
was not in India at the time. The explanation is that it was largely
the account of Albuquerque.[469]
Corrêa writes in even greater detail than Lopez de Castanheda. There
is no trace of literary leanings in his work; he is sparing of
descriptions as interrupting the story.[470] Whole pages have scarcely
an adjective, and this gives his narrative clearness and rapidity,
yet he is careless of style. It has been called redundant and verbose,
but that is true mainly of the prefaces, which show that Corrêa in
a library might have developed into a rhetorical Zurara of _boas
oratorias_. It is, however, no longer the fashion to sneer at this
‘simple and half barbarous chronicler’, this ‘soldier adventurer in
whose artless words appears his lack of culture’.[471] His _Lendas_
are infinitely preferable to the sleek periods of Barros and often as
reliable, being legendary in little beyond their title, as understood
by the ignorant (for the word _lenda_ meant not legend but record or
log). They have a harsh flavour of religious fervour and of lust for
gold[472] and an intense atmosphere of the East--_sangre e incenso,
cravo e escravaria_, St. James fighting for the Christians, St. Thomas
transformed into a peacock, all in a region of horror and enchantment.
Corrêa was aware that it was dangerous to write history in India
(iii. 9)--_periculosae plenum opus aleae_--but although he had no
intention of immediately publishing it[473] he evidently expected
some recognition of his work. The appearance of Lopez de Castanheda’s
_Historia_ and Barros’ _Decadas_ must have been a blow almost as cruel
as the daggers of his assassins a few years later.
The events of India from 1506-15, chronicled by Castanheda and Barros,
necessarily centred round the great figure of Afonso de Albuquerque,
and they were recorded afresh by his illegitimate son BRAS DE
ALBUQUERQUE (1500-80), whom the dying Governor recommended to the king
in his last letter. King Manuel in belated gratitude bestowed his
favour on this son and bade him assume the name of Afonso in memory of
his father. His _Commentarios de Afonso de Alboquerque_ (1557) were
revised by the author in a second edition (1576) four years before his
death. They are written in unassuming but straightforward style and
furnish a very clear and moderate account based on letters written by
Albuquerque to King Manuel.[474] The author seems to have realized that
Albuquerque’s words and deeds speak sufficiently for themselves, but
the reflection produced is somewhat pale.
The gallant and chivalrous apostle of the Moluccas, ANTONIO GALVAM
(_c._ 1490?-1557), ‘as rich in valour and knowledge as poor in
fortune’,[475] printed nothing in his lifetime but his manuscripts were
handed over after his death to Damião de Goes as _Cronista Môr_.[476]
We have only a brief treatise by him published posthumously. Copious
in matter rather than in length, for it has but eighty small folios in
spite of its lengthy title, this _Tratado_ (1563), or, if we adopt the
briefer title from the colophon, this _Lyvro dos Descobrimentos das
Antilhas & India_, is remarkable for the curious observation shown and
its vivid, concise style of a man of action. Written in the form of
annals, it begins with the Flood, and on f. 12 we are still in the age
of Merlin; but the most valuable part consists in the writer’s direct
experience--he tells of buffaloes, cows and hens ‘of flesh black as
this ink’, of mocking parrots, fires made of earth ‘as in Flanders’.
Goes, who had certainly handled the manuscript, may have added this
comparison; he evidently interpolated the account of his own travels
(ff. 58 v.-59 v.). The life of Galvam gives a further interest to this
rare book, for, a man of noble and disinterested character, himself a
prince by election, he has always been regarded as a stock instance of
the ingratitude of princes. Born in the East, the son of Albuquerque’s
old friend, the historian Duarte Galvam, he won fame by his courage and
martial qualities, both as soldier and skilful mariner. After subduing
the Molucca Islands he, as their Governor (Captain), spent his energies
and income in missionary zeal and in developing agriculture. On the
expiry of his term as Governor (1536-40) he refused the position of
Raja of Ternate, which the grateful natives besought him to accept. He
arrived penniless in Portugal and penniless died seventeen years later
in the Lisbon hospital.
Besides the general histories many briefer records of separate regions
or events were written, and these are often of great value as the
accounts of men who had seen and taken part in what they describe.
LOPO DE SOUSA COUTINHO (?1515-77), father of Frei Luis de Sousa and
one of the captains in the heroic siege of Diu (1538)--he is said to
have died by accidentally running himself through with his sword when
dismounting from his horse--wrote a striking account of the siege,
especially of its last incidents, in his _Livro Primeiro do Cerco de
Diu_ (1556). The siege of Mazagam (1562) was similarly described in
clear, vigorous prose by AGOSTINHO GAVY DE MENDONÇA: _Historia do
famoso cerco qve o Xarife pos á fortaleza de Mazagam_ (1607). JORGE
DE LEMOS, of Goa, wrote a careful _Historia dos Cercos ... de Malaca_
(1585), and ANTONIO CASTILHO, the distinguished son of the celebrated
architect João, published a _Commentario do Cerco de Goa e Chaul no
anno MDLXX_ (1572). Events in the Moluccas were briefly recorded in an
_Informaçam das cousas de Maluco_ (1569) by GABRIEL DE RABELLO, who
went out as factor of Tidore in 1566.
The anonymous gentleman of Elvas who wrote the _Relaçam verdadeira_
(1557) of Soto’s discovery of Florida was a keen observer and related
what he saw in direct language. His publisher, André de Burgos, in a
short preface washes his hands of the style as insufficiently polished
(_limado_).
The deeds of D. Cristovam da Gama, his conquest of a hundred leagues of
territory in Ethiopia, his defeat, torture, and beheadal, are recounted
with the vivid details of an eyewitness by MIGUEL DE CASTANHOSO, of
Santarem, who accompanied him on his fatal expedition. This _Historia_
(1564) was published by João da Barreira, who dedicated it to D.
Cristovam’s nephew, D. Francisco de Portugal.
MANUEL DE ABREU MOUSINHO wrote in Spanish a brief account of the
conquest of Pegu by Salvador Ribeiro de Sousa, of which a Portuguese
version appeared in the 1711 edition of Mendez Pinto’s travels: _Breve
discurso em que se contem a conquista do reyno de Pegu_, nearly a
century after the original edition, _Breve Discvrso en qve se cventa_,
&c. (1617). The _Jornada do Maranhão feita por Jeronymo de Albuquerque
em 1614_ is ascribed to DIOGO DE CAMPOS MORENO, who took part in that
_conquista_. It was published in the _Collecção de Noticias para a