WORKS ISSUED BY

The Hakluyt Society.

DESCRIPTION OF THE COASTS OF

EAST AFRICA AND MALABAR.

A DESCRIPTION

OF THE COASTS OF

EAST AFRICA AND MALABAR

IN THE BEGINNING OF

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY,

BY

DUARTE BARBOSA,

A PORTUGUESE.

TRANSLATED FROM

AN EARLY SPANISH MANUSCRIPT IN THE BARCELONA LIBRARY

WITH NOTES AND A PREFACE,

BY

THE HON. HENRY E. J. STANLEY.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

Landmarks in Anthropology, a series of reprints in cultural anthropology

General Editor: Weston La Barre

First reprinting 1970, Johnson Reprint Corporation

Printed in the United States of America

Note to Thirty-fifth Publication of the Hakluyt Society,

"Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar."

This volume was published by the Hakluyt Society as the work of Duarte Barbosa on the authority of Ramusio, for neither the three Spanish MSS. of Barcelona and Munich, nor the Portuguese MS., give his name; it is probable that Barbosa contributed a largo part of it, for Damian de Goes refers his readers for an account of Malabar and its religion and customs to a book by Duarte Barbosa, who is stated to have spoken the language of Malabar with great correctness, and who resided a long time in that country; yet the authorship must be ascribed to Magellan, for I have just seen, in the possession of Don Pascual de Gayangos, another Spanish MS. which states at the top of the first page,—"Este libro compuso Fernando Magallanes Portugues piloto lo qual el vio y anduvo." "This book was composed by the Portuguese Fernando Magellan the pilot, the things narrated in which he saw and visited." This heading is in the same writing as the rest of the MS., which is clear handwriting of the sixteenth century, and like that of the second part of the MS. No 571 of the Munich Library. The MS. of Mr. Gayangos appears to be part of a larger book, since its second leaf is numbered 111 (the corner of the first is worn off), and the last is numbered 170, and ends with the description of the Lequeos. The Epitome de la Biblioteca Oriental, Occidental, Nautica y Geografica of D. Antonio de Leon Pinelo, Madrid, 1737, mentions, at p. 667 a work of Magellan's under the following heading: Fernando de Magallanes, Efemerides, or Diary of his Navigation, a MS. which existed in the possession of Antonio Moreno, Cosmographer of the House of Trade, according to Don Nicolas Antonio.

The Translator.

Madrid, February 1867.

ERRATA.

Note to pp. 228-229.—See pages 249-251 of The Travels of Ludovico de Varthema, Hakluyt Society, and notes, also Mr. R. Major's able Introduction to the Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia. This passage, written about five years later than when Varthema wrote, is a fuller statement than Varthema's: and taking the two together, there can be little doubt that the information they contain was based on actual knowledge of Australia.

COUNCIL

OF

THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, K.C.B., G.C.St.S., F.R.S., D.C.L., Corr. Mem. Inst. F., Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad. Sc. Petersburg, etc., etc., President.
 

CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq., F.S.A., Honorary Secretary.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The Spanish manuscript from which this volume has been translated is in the handwriting of the beginning of 1500, full of abbreviations, and without punctuation or capital letters at the beginnings of sentences or for the proper names, which adds much to the difficulty of reading it. It contains eighty-seven leaves. The handwriting more resembles an example of the year 1510 than those dated 1529 and 1531, given at p. 319 of the "Escuela de Leer Letras Cursivas Antiguas y Modernas desde la entrada de los Godos en España, por el P. Andres Merino de Jesu Christo, Madrid, 1780." This work was translated into Spanish from the original Portuguese in 1524, at