The _Jornada de Africa_ (1607) by JERONIMO DE MENDOÇA, of Oporto, is divided into three parts, describing the expedition and the battle of Alcacer Kebir, the ransoms and escapes of the captives, and the death of Christian martyrs in Africa. Its object was to refute certain statements in Conestaggio’s recent work _Dell’unione del regno di Portogallo alla corona di Castiglia_, but Mendoça had fought at Alcacer Kebir and had been taken prisoner; he thus writes as an eyewitness, and his excellent style and power of description give more than a controversial value and interest to his book and make it matter for regret that this short history was apparently his only work. MIGUEL DE MOURA (1538-1600), secretary to five kings and one of the three Governors of Portugal in 1593, set an example too rarely followed by those who have played an important part in Portuguese history by composing a brief autobiography: _Vida de Miguel de Moura_. It was written on the eve of St. Peter’s Day, 1594, except a few pages which were added in the year before the author’s death. Incidentally it has the distinction of containing one of the longest sentences ever written (114 lines--1840 ed., pp. 126-9). The painstaking and talented DUARTE NUNEZ DE LEAM (_c._ 1530-1608), born at Evora, son of the Professor of Medicine João Nunez, besides genealogical and legal works, _Leis extravagantes_ (1560, 1569), wrote two valuable treatises on the Portuguese language and an interesting _Descripção do Reino de Portugal_ (1610), which he finished in 1599. He also found time to spare from his duties as a magistrate to recast the chronicles of the Kings of Portugal. The _Cronicas dos Reis de Portugal_ (1600) contain those from Count Henry to King Fernando, and the _Cronicas del Rey Dom Ioam de gloriosa memoria_ those of Kings João I, Duarte, and Afonso V. Shorn of the individuality of the early chroniclers, they yet retain much of interest, and Nunez de Leam would be accorded a higher place as historian were it not for our knowledge of the inestimable value of the originals which he edited and ‘improved’. Two generations earlier Cristovam Rodriguez Azinheiro (or Acenheiro), born in 1474 (he tells us that he was sixty-one in May 1535), had treated the early chronicles in the same way, but only succeeded in retaining all that was jejune without preserving their picturesqueness in his _Cronicas dos Senhores Reis de Portugal_.[488]