The Hekluyt Society has published for its members the first
volume of The Book of Duarte Barbosa, newly translated from the Portuguese by Mr. N. Longworth Dames. The work is well known to students through a translation made by Lord Stanley from an Italian version fifty years ago; but the Portuguese text is now rendered into English for the first time. Duarte Barbosa was an official in Portuguese India ; he accompanied Magellan, his brother-in-law, on his great voyage round the world, and was murdered by the natives in the Philippines on May Day, 1521, a few days after Magellan's death. In his book, finished in 1517, Barbosa described the coast of East Africa, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the western coast of India before entering into detail regarding Southern India. He writes at length, for example, about the great city of Vijayanagar, now represented by the ruins of Hampi. The editor has annotated the book in scholarly fashion and has produced a most readable text. If the Portuguese could have maintained the Eastern Empire which Barbosa served, the history of India might have been very different.
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