Portuguese literature
returned to Portugal in 1569, and in the same year began his _Tractado
em que se cõtam muito por estẽso as cousas da China_ (1570). He calls
it a _singella narraçam_, but it contains valuable information about
China, nor did the author neglect his style. The Dominican FREI JOÃO
DOS SANTOS (_c._ 1550-_c._ 1625?)[513] was born at Evora about the
middle of the sixteenth century, and went out to East Africa and India
as a missionary in 1586. He returned to Lisbon in August 1600 and nine
years later published his _Ethiopia Oriental_ (1609), an attractive,
curious account, written in a clear and easy style, of the natives,
their land and customs. It is to be feared that some of the settlers
sadly abused his credulity, as in the case of the _mercador’s_ tale
of the native sorcerer or the man 380 years old, but this does not by
any means impair the interest of his book. More individual and vivid
is the _Itinerario_ (1560) of ANTONIO TENREIRO, who in brief, staccato
sentences describes minutely what he saw (the _rosaes_ of red, white,
and yellow roses in May near Damascus, the red roses of Shiraz, the
fair, white Gurgis, complexioned like Englishmen) during his travels
from Ormuz to the Caspian Sea and in Palestine and Egypt, and his
overland journey from Ormuz to Portugal (1529) in which, alone with an
Arab guide, he spent twenty-two days in crossing the desert. A similar
land journey, a generation later, is described with an equal wealth
of curious detail in the _Itinerario_ (1565) of Mestre MARTIM AFONSO,
surgeon to the Viceroy, Conde de Redondo,[514] while the Franciscan
FREI PANTALEAM DE AVEIRO in his _Itinerario da Terra Santa_, &c. (1593)
described his journey to the Holy Land. Not less adventurous were the
travels of another Franciscan, FREI GASPAR DE S. BERNARDINO, who
related them with greater parade of erudition in a clear, elegant style
in his _Itinerario da India por terra_ (1611), the promised second
part of which was unhappily not finished or at least not published.
Half a century later the Jesuit MANUEL GODINHO (_c._ 1630-1712),[515]
in the _Relaçam do novo caminho que fez por terra e mar_ (1665), gave
a remarkable account, in a style not untouched by the _culteranismo_
of the time, of his return journey in 1663 from Baçaim. But various
and arresting as are the books of Portuguese travellers, they are all
eclipsed by the wonderful _Peregrinaçam_ (1614) of FERNAM MENDEZ PINTO
(_c._ 1510-83). This prince of travellers and adventurers was born at
Montemôr o Velho. His parents were of humble station, and at the time
of King Manuel’s death (1521) he was brought by an uncle to Lisbon in
order to earn his living. Although he remained in Portugal for sixteen
years, in the service first of a lady of Lisbon and later of D. João de
Lencastre,[516] lord of Montemôr o Velho, at Setubal, he was but just
in his teens when, crossing in a boat from Alfama, he was captured off
Cezimbra by a French corsair as a foretaste of pleasures to come. In
March 1537 he set out for India and his odyssey began in earnest. He
had no sooner reached Diu than he re-embarked on an expedition to the
Straits of Mecca. His hope was to make a rich prize and become _muito
rico em pouco tempo_. He went next with three others on a mission to
Ethiopia, and on the return voyage he was captured by the Turks, placed
in a subterranean dungeon, and then sold to a Greek renegade, whom he
describes as ‘the most inhuman and cruel dog of an enemy ever seen’.
Fortunately after three months the Greek sold him for 12,000 _réis_ to
a Jew, who brought him to Ormuz. After spending little over a fortnight
there he embarked with a cargo of horses for Goa, and later was wounded
in a fight with the Turks. He next proceeded to Malacca, and was sent
thence on a mission to the King of the Batas, by whom he was made
welcome ‘as rain to our rice crops’. After accompanying the king on a
campaign he returned to Malacca, losing his cargo of tin and benjamin
on the way. His next mission was to the King of Aaru. He returned to
Malacca a slave, as his ship was wrecked, and after fearful sufferings
he, the only survivor, was bought cheap by a poor Moorish trader. A
trading expedition to Pão and Lugor ended as disastrously: after a
fight with Moors he succeeded in swimming wounded to land, but returned
penniless to Patane. In despair he joined the freebooting Antonio de
Faria, and they preyed on Chinese junks till their ship was weighed
down with silver and silk, damask and porcelain. Faria and his men are
represented fighting, torturing, murdering, plundering, playing at dice
on deck for pieces of silk, praying a litany, and promising rich and
good spoil to Our Lady of the Hill at Malacca. After being shipwrecked
they joined a Chinese pirate and again built up their fortunes. They
weathered a storm by throwing overboard twelve cases of silver, sacked
a Chinese city, were received in honour at Liampo (Ningpo), but again
inordinate greed for gold proved their ruin, and, after a daring
attempt to plunder the rich tombs of the Emperors of China in the
island of Calemplui, they were finally stranded in China and arrested
as vagabonds. After six weeks in the crowded prison at Nanking the
Portuguese were taken to Peking and thence deported to Quansi (Kansu),
where they were freed by the timely attack of the King of Tartary. He
sent them to Cochin-China, but on the way they entered the service
of a Chinese pirate. When they reached Japan only three Portuguese
survived, the first Europeans, Mendez Pinto claims, to set foot there.
When he brought news of this land to Liampo a trading expedition was
hastily equipped and set out in defiance of times and seasons. Few of
those who embarked in the nine junks ever saw land again. Mendez Pinto
eventually reached Malacca (1544). Pedro de Faria later sent him on a
mission to the King of Martavão. Martavão was, however, sacked soon
after his arrival, and he was carried a prisoner to Pegu. He escaped
by night and after many adventures returned to Goa. He immediately set
out again ‘to challenge fortune in China and Japan’. After accompanying
the King of Sunda on a war expedition he was again wrecked and spent
thirteen days on a raft. Of the eleven survivors three were eaten
by crocodiles and the rest sold as slaves. Released by the King of
Calapa, Mendez Pinto served under the King of Siam and returned to Pegu
and thence to Malacca. Once more he set out for Japan, and this time
his voyage prospered and he came back with a fair profit. At Malacca
he was eagerly questioned by St. Francis Xavier (1506-52) as to the
conditions in Japan. He seems to have been infected with the saint’s
enthusiasm, as were most of those who met him, and after his death he
perhaps gave up a considerable fortune in order to return as missionary
and ambassador to Japan. Before leaving Goa (April 1554) with St.
Francis Xavier’s successor, Padre Belchior, he had been received into
the Company of Jesus. After many hardships they landed in China in July
1556. In the spring of 1558, a few weeks after returning to Goa, Mendez
Pinto sailed for home and arrived at Lisbon on September 22. The Lisbon
officials dallied with his pretensions to reward for his services.
During his wanderings in India, Ethiopia, China, Japan, Tartary, and
Arabia he had persevered through captivities, battles, and shipwrecks,
but four or five years of official evasions broke his spirit, and he
retired to live in poverty at Almada. Philip II, stirred to interest
in this legendary figure, granted him two bushels of wheat in January
1583, and in July of the same year he died. He had long before left
the Company of Jesus, either of his own free will or expelled, perhaps
on suspicion of Jewish descent.[517] His name was erased from the
Company’s records and letters. Of his twenty-one years of trader,
envoy, pirate, and missionary in the far East he wrote for his children
a narrative of breathless interest, and, speaking generally, it bears
the stamp of truth. We gather that he was brave and adventurous,
despite a natural timidity, of a consuming curiosity which often got
the better of his fears, pious, temperate, apt to be carried away by
fugitive enthusiasms, but persistent, gay, and optimistic in defeat
and disappointment. He appears not to have been particularly vain. He
does not disguise some of his less creditable actions, and he certainly
does not exaggerate his services in Japan.[518] He may possibly have
been one of the three Portuguese who discovered it in 1542: their
names are given by Couto (V. viii. 12) as Mota, Zeimoto and Peixoto.
Gifted with keen imagination, he could exaggerate[519] when expediency
required, but he knew that in the account of his travels exaggeration
was not expedient, and he was constantly on guard against the notorious
scepticism of his fellow-countrymen.[520] He may have heightened the
colour occasionally, but as a rule he writes with restraint, although
with delight in a good story and skill in bringing out the dramatic
side of events. It is one of the charms of his work that it is very
definite in dates and figures, but this also, through inevitable errors
and misprints, afforded a handle to the pedantry of critics. The fatal
similarity of Mendez and mendacity gave rise to the play on his name:
_Fernam, mentes? Minto_ (‘Fernam, do you lie?--I lie’), and Congreve,
in _Love for Love_, by calling him ‘a liar of the first magnitude’
clinched the matter in England. But comparatively early a reaction
set in,[521] and modern travellers have unequivocally confirmed the
more favourable verdict and corroborated his detailed descriptions of
Eastern countries. The mystery of the East, the heavy scent of its
cities, its fervent rites and immemorial customs, as well as the magic
of adventure, haunt his pages. A hundred pictures refuse to fade from
the memory, whether they are of silk-laden Chinese junks or jars of
gold dust, vivid descriptions of shipwreck (the hiss and swell of the
waves are in his rich sea-Latin) or the awful pathos of the Queen of
Martavão’s death, the sketch of a supercilious Chinese mandarin or of
St. Francis Xavier tramping through Japan.
Five years after Mendez Pinto’s return to Portugal a book scarcely
less strange than his _Peregrinaçam_, of atmosphere as oriental and of
interest as absorbing although more scientific, was printed at Goa. Its
author, GARCIA DA ORTA[522] (_c._ 1495-_c._ 1570), born at Elvas, the
son, perhaps, of Jorge da Orta, owner of a shop (_temdeiro_) in that
town, studied medicine for ten years (1515-25) at Salamanca and Alcalá,
and in 1526 began to practise as a doctor at Castello de Vide. From
1532 to 1534 he was Professor at the University of Lisbon, and in March
1534 sailed with his friend and patron, the insatiable Governor Martim
Afonso de Sousa,[523] to India as king’s physician. The East cast its
spell over his curious and inquiring mind; he remained under twelve
or more Governors and died at a good old age, probably at Goa. There,
on the veranda of his beautiful garden, in this land of _bellissimi
giardini_,[524] served affectionately by many slaves, and with the
books of his well-stocked library ready to his hand,[525] he would
regale his guests with strange fruits--all the _maneiras á gula_ of
India--and with still stranger knowledge. His knowledge was based on
personal observation, for although he respected Galen and Dioscorides
as the princes of medicine and was possessed of great erudition, he
was not disposed to bow blindly to the authority of any writer, Arab
or Greek, least of all to Scholasticism, he went to Nature and in his
_Coloquios dos Simples_ (1563) recorded what he had seen and heard,
the truth without rhetoric, setting aside the _mil fabulas_ of Pliny