INDIES ADVENTURE
By Elaine Sanceau Few people, apart from historians, will know anything about Alfonso de Albuquerque, but he was one of the greatest figures among fifteenth-century soldiers and colonisers, and Portugal owed much of her vast empire to his
genius. Indies Adventure (Blaekie, 12s. 6d.) gives a good popular account of his career, which should meet the present taste for historical biography. He was a typical figure of the great days of Portuguese expansion : fearless, capable of great cruelty and great kindness, equally skilful in handling his men on land or on sea and supremely, and rightly, confident of his powers " You could give me twelve kingdoms to rule, and I should do so both wisely and well," he once wrote. Completing the work of earlier explorers, he founded the Portuguese Indian Empire by capturing Goa, and the following year, 1511, set the foundations of the East Indian Empire by capturing Malacca. After the taking of Ormuz on the Persian Gulf his name was dreaded by all the rulers of the East. The author has treated her material with respect, wisely refraining from those inventions dear to many popular biographers:
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