A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama 1497-1499. Anonymous

and published, for the same author, in his Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, makes use of the same equivocal expression when describing another voyage to India, expressly stated by him to be still in MS.

      Moreri, in his Dictionnaire (1732), quoting as his authority a Bibliotheca Portuguesa in MS., which he had from “a man of judgment and of vast erudition”, states that Vasco da Gama is said to have published an account of his first voyage to India, but that no copy of it had up till then been discovered.

      Similarly, Barbosa Machado, the author of the standard Bibliotheca Lusitana (t. iii, p. 775), 1752, accepting Nicoláo Antonio as his authority, says that Vasco da Gama “wrote an account of the voyage which he made to India in 1497”.15

      We are quite safe in assuming that no such a narrative has ever been published, although it is equally certain that Vasco da Gama furnished official reports of his proceedings, which were still available when João de Barros wrote his Decades, but are so no longer.

      No one has yet succeeded in discovering the author of the Roteiro. Prof. Kopke attempts to arrive at the name by a process of elimination, and in doing so starts with several assumptions which we cannot accept. First of all he assumes that Castanheda must have known the writer of the MS. of which he made such excellent use in writing his history. But Castanheda only became acquainted with this MS. after 1530, when he took up his residence at Coimbra on his return from India, that is, more than thirty years after it had been written. Of course, the author might then have been still alive, notwithstanding the lapse of years; but had this been the case, and had Castanheda been personally acquainted with him, he would surely have obtained from him an account of the termination of the voyage, instead of abruptly breaking off in the same way as the Roteiro does, with the arrival of the fleet at the shoals of the Rio Grande (see p. 93), adding that he had been unable to ascertain the particulars of the further voyage of the captain-major, and only knew that Coelho arrived at Cascaes on July 10th, 1499.16 It is probable, moreover, that if Castanheda had known the name of the author to whom he was so greatly indebted, he would have mentioned it in his book.

      Prof. Kopke assumes further that the writer was a common sailor or soldier, and most probably the former: first, because he frequently makes use of the expression “nós outros” (we others) as if to draw a distinction between the officers of the ships and the class to which he himself belonged; and, secondly, because “the style of his narrative would seem to point to his humble condition”. We can admit neither of these conclusions. The author by no means uses the expression “we others” in the restricted sense in which Prof. Kopke understands it. In proof of this we may refer to such sentences as are to be found at pp. 57 and 61:—“When the King beckoned to the captain he looked at us others”; “as to us others, we diverted ourselves”—the “others”, in both these cases, including the thirteen men who attended Vasco da Gama to Calecut, and among whom were the three pursers, the captain-major’s secretary, and others who may not have been “persons of distinction” but who nevertheless cannot be classed with “common soldiers or sailors”. As to the literary style of the Journal, we may at once admit that its author cannot take rank with Barros, Castanheda or Correa, but this by no means proves him to have been an uncultured man, or of “humble condition.” His spelling may not have been quite in accordance with the somewhat loose rules followed in the fifteenth century, but his narrative is straightforward and to the point, and shows that he was a man of judgment perfectly able to give an intelligent account of the many novel facts which came under his observation. If he looked upon the Hindus as fellow-Christians, he shared that opinion with the other members of the expedition, including its chief. It only needs a perusal of such a collection of letters, reports, and narratives as is to be found in Alguns documentos do Archivo nacional (Lisbon, 1892) to convince us that there were men holding high positions in those days whose literary abilities fell short of those which can be claimed on behalf of our author. Moreover, it is not likely that access to the information required to enable him to write a Roteiro da Viagem would have been given to a “common sailor or soldier”, even if such a person had been bold enough to ask for it.

      We shall now follow Prof. Kopke in his “process of elimination”:—

      1. The author, in the course of his narrative, mentions a number of persons by name, and these we must eliminate forthwith. They are: Vasco and Paulo da Gama, Nicolau Coelho (p. 22), Pero d’Alenquer (p. 5), João de Coimbra (p. 30), Martin Affonso (pp. 12, 17), Sancho Mexia (p. 6), and Fernão Veloso (p. 7).

      2. We know further that the author served on board the S. Raphael.17 This disposes of Gonçalo Alvares and Diogo Dias18 of the S. Gabriel; and of Gonçalo Nunes, Pero Escolar, and Alvaro de Braga, of the Berrio.

      3. The author mentions certain things as having been done by persons whose names he does not give. The name of one of these is supplied by Castanheda and Barros. We thus learn from Barros that Fernão Martins was the sailor mentioned by the author (p. 23) as being able to speak the language of the Moors; and from Castanheda (I, p. 51) that he was one of the two men sent with a message to the King of Calecut (p. 50). The convict who was sent to Calecut on May 21st (p. 48) was João Nunez, according to Correa. The author states (p. 64, line 18, and p. 65, last line) that the captain-major sent three men along the beach in search of the ships’ boats. According to Castanheda (I, pp. 71 and 72), one of these men was Gonçalo Pires.

      We may therefore strike out all these names from the list of possible authors.

      4. Three members of the expedition are reported to have died during the voyage, namely, Pedro de Covilhão, the priest; Pedro de Faria de Figueredo, and his brother Francisco, all of them mentioned by Faria y Sousa alone.

      5. Lastly, there are four convicts whose names are given by Correa, none of whom is likely to have been the author of the MS. The presence of some of these convicts is, moreover, very doubtful.

      We have thus accounted for all the members of the expedition whose names are known, with the exception of eight.

      Four of these—João de Sá, Alvaro Velho, João Palha and João de Setubal—are stated to have been among the thirteen who attended Vasco da Gama to Calecut (p. 51), and of these, João de Sá was clerk in the S. Raphael, the author’s ship. He certainly might have been the author. Prof. Kopke thinks not, first, because of the author’s supposed humble position; secondly, because. João de Sá, if we may credit an anecdote recorded by Castanheda (I, p. 57),19 had his doubts about the people of India being Christians, whilst the author unhesitatingly affirms them to be so. The only other person mentioned by Castanheda as having been connected with the expedition is Alvaro Velho, a soldier, who, according to Prof. Kopke, may “fairly be looked upon as the author of this Journal.” He admits, however, that this conclusion is acceptable only on the assumption that Castanheda knew the author: a purely gratuitous assumption, in our opinion.

      Castanheda only mentions six out of the thirteen who were present at Vasco da Gama’s audience of the Zamorin. Correa mentions two others—João de Setubal and João Palha. Five remain thus to be accounted for; and, although these may have included servants and trumpeters, not likely to have troubled about keeping a journal, our author may have been among them. It will thus be seen that this process of elimination has led to no result, and that we cannot even tell whether the author’s name occurs in any single account of this expedition. Comparing his “Journal” with the contents of Sernigi’s first letter, it almost seems as if he had been the person from whom the Florentine derived the bulk of his information. In that case his name may perhaps turn up some day in the Italian archives. If our choice were limited to Alvaro Velho and João de Sá, we should feel inclined to decide in favour of the latter.

      Correa mentions three other persons as having been with Vasco da Gama: namely, João Figueiro, whose diary he claims to have used, and who cannot therefore have been the author of a “Journal” the contents of which are so widely different; André Gonçalves and João d’Amoxeira. Camões adds a fourth name, that of Leonardo Ribeyra. This exhausts the muster-roll, as far as the names are known to us.

       The Portuguese Editions of the “Roteiro”. 20

      The