*_Gaspar da Gama._ This is the “Moor”, or renegade, who joined Vasco da Gama at Anjediva Island. Our anonymous author describes him as about forty years of age, and as being able to speak “Venetian” well. He claimed to have come to India in early youth, and was at the time in the service of the Governor of Goa. Vasco da Gama carried him to Portugal, where he was baptized and received the name of Gaspar da Gama. In the _Commentaries of Afonso Dalboquerque_ (Hakluyt Society, 1884) he is frequently referred to as Gaspar da India. Correa (_Lendas da India_) usually refers to him as Gaspar da Gama, but also calls him Gaspar de las Indias, or Gaspar d’Almeida. King Manuel, in his letter to the Cardinal Protector, calls him a “Jew, who turned Christian, a merchant and lapidary”. Sernigi (see p. 136) held a conversation with him at Lisbon. He speaks of him as a Sclavonian Jew, born at Alexandria. According to the information given by Barros and Goes, the parents of Gaspar fled from Posen, in Poland, at the time when King Casimir cruelly persecuted the Jews (about 1456). After a short residence in Palestine they removed to Alexandria, where Gaspar was born (Barros, I, pt. 1, pp. 364-5; Goes, pt. 1, c. 44). He accompanied Cabral as interpreter. Vespucci met him on his homeward voyage at Cape Verde, and in his letter of June 4, 1501, published by Baldelli (_Il Milione_, 1827), he speaks highly of Gaspar’s linguistic attainments, and refers to his extensive travels in Asia. Gaspar repeatedly accompanied Portuguese expeditions to India, and was last heard of in 1510. Goes (_loc. cit._) says that King Manuel liked him, and appointed him a cavalier of his household. Correa (Stanley’s _Vasco da Gama_, p. 247) describes this Gaspar as a Jew, who, “at the taking of Granada was a very young man; and who, having been driven from his country, passed through many lands ... on to India”. But, as Granada was only taken in 1492, this is absurd. Lunardo da Chá Masser, who came to Lisbon in 1504 as ambassador of the Signoria, in a letter written about 1506 and first published in the _Archivio Storico Italiano_ (Florence, 1846), says that Gaspar married a Portuguese lady,[423] and was granted a pension of 170 ducats annually, in recognition of the valuable information which he furnished respecting the Oriental trade. *_Monçaide_, who came on board Vasco da Gama’s vessel at Calecut, is stated by Barros (I, pt. 1, pp. 330 _et seq._) and Goes (I, p. 98) to have been a native of Tunis, who, in the time of King John II had done business with the Portuguese at Oran, and spoke Castilian. He accompanied Vasco da Gama to Portugal and was baptised. In King Manuel’s letter to the Cardinal Protector he is referred to as a “Moor of Tunis”. The author of the _Roteiro_ calls him a “Moor of Tunis” whom the Moors of Calecut suspected of being a Christian and emissary of the King of Portugal (p. 75).