Prof. Kopke suggests[13] that the copyist of this valuable MS. was the famous historian Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, who was Apparitor and Keeper of the Archives in the University of Coimbra, and was engaged there during twenty years, much to the injury of his health and private fortune, in collecting the materials for his _Historia do Descobrimento e Conquista da India_. In support of this assumption he publishes a signature (see the facsimile on page xxii) taken from a copy of the first book of Castanheda’s history, published in 1551. But A. Herculano,[14] whilst admitting this signature to be genuine, points out that the cursive characters of the MS. are of a type exceedingly common during the first half of the sixteenth century, and that it would consequently not be safe to attribute it to any writer in particular. Until, therefore, further evidence is forthcoming, we cannot accept the Professor’s theory that we are indebted for this copy to Castanheda; though, as we have already said, there can be no doubt that in writing his account of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama he depended almost exclusively for his facts upon the anonymous author of this _Roteiro_. _The Author of the “Roteiro”._ It is quite possible, as suggested by Prof. Kopke, that the title by which the _Roteiro_ was known at the convent of Santa Cruz misled certain bibliographers into a belief that Vasco da Gama himself had written this account of his voyage. Thus Nicoláo Antonio, in his _Bibliotheca Hispana Veta_ (1672), lib. 10, c. 15, § 543, says:— “Vascus da Gama ... dedit reversus Emanueli suo Regi populari Portugaliæ idiomate navigationis suae ad Indiam anno MCDXCVII relationem, quae lucem vidit.” The words “quae lucem vidit” need not, however, be understood as conveying the meaning that this narrative was actually printed 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.