PREFACE.
(TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE EDITION, LISBON, 1812.)
I, Duarte Barbosa, a native of the very noble city of Lisbon, having navigated for a great part of my youth in the Indies discovered in the name of the king our lord, and having travelled through many and various countries neighbouring to the coast, and having seen and heard various things, which I judged to be marvellous and stupendous, and which had never been seen nor heard of by our ancestors, resolved to write them for the benefit of all, as I saw and heard of them from day to day, striving to declare in this my book the towns and limits of all those kingdoms to which I went in person, or of which I had trustworthy information; and also which were kingdoms and countries of the Moors and which of the Gentiles, and their customs. Neither have I left in silence their traffic, the merchandise which is met with in them, the places where they are produced, nor whither they are transported. And besides what I saw personally, I always delighted in inquiring of the Moors, Christians, and Gentiles, as to the usages and customs which they practised, and the points of information thus gained I endeavoured to combine together so as to have a more exact knowledge of them, this being always my special object, as it should be of all those who write on such matters; and I am convinced that it will be recognized that I have not spared any diligence in order to obtain this object, as far as the feeble extent of the power of my understanding allows of. It was in the present year of 1516 that I finished writing this my book.
DESCRIPTION OF THE EAST INDIES AND COUNTRIES ON THE SEABORD OF THE INDIAN OCEAN IN 1514. [ [3]
THE CAPE OF ST. SEBASTIAN AFTER PASSING THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
Having passed the Cape of Good Hope in a north-easterly direction, at Cape San Sebastian, there are very fair mountain lands, and fields, and valleys, in which there are many cows and sheep, and other wild animals; it is a country inhabited by people who are black and naked. They only wear skins with the fur of deer, or other wild animals, like some cloaks in the French fashion, of which people the Portuguese, up to the present time, have not been able to obtain information, nor to become acquainted with what there is in the interior of the country. They have no navigation, neither do they make use of the sea, neither have the Moors of Arabia and Persia, or the Indies, ever navigated as far as this, nor discovered them, on account of the strong currents of the sea, which is very stormy.