[451] What he lacks in _gravidade_ (cf. _Dec._ X. x. 14)--he is quite ready to admit that he writes _toscamente_ (VII. iii. 3), _singelamente, sem ornamento de palavras_ (VI. ii. 3), _simplesmente, sem ornamento nem artificio de palavras_ (V. v. 6)--he makes good by directness as an eyewitness, _de mais perto_ (IV. i. 7; cf. IV. x. 4 _ad init._). When he had not himself been present he preferred the accounts of those who had, as Sousa Coutinho’s description of the siege of Diu (_Commentarios_) _em estilo excellente e grave, e foi o melhor de todos, porque escreveo como testemunha de vista_, V. iii. 2) or Miguel de Castanhoso’s _copioso tratado_ (V. viii. 7). Among the traces of his close touch with reality are the popular _romances_, _cantigas_, _adagios_, which Barros would have deemed beneath the dignity of history. [452] As the fleets grew, long catalogues of the captains’ names were perhaps inevitable. They are certainly out of place in a biography, but Couto’s _Vida de D. Paulo de Lima Pereira_ (1765) is really a collection of those passages from the _Decadas_ which bear on the life of Couto’s old friend, a _fidalgo muito pera tudo_. As far as chapter 32 it is told in words similar to or identical with those of _Decada_ X. Chapter 32 corresponds with the beginning of the lost _Decada_ XI. [453] His biographer, Manuel Severim de Faria, says that he left (in manuscript) ‘a large volume of elegies, eclogues, songs, sonnets and glosses’ (Barbosa Machado calls them _Poesias Varias_), and that he wrote a commentary on the first five books of the _Lusiads_. _Carminibus quoque pangendis non infeliciter vacavit_, says N. Antonio. [454] _Lendas_, iii. 7: _nom ouve alguem que tomasse por gloria escrever e cronizar o descobrimento da India_. In an earlier passage (i. 3) he refers to narratives of travellers such as that of Duarte Barbosa. [455] He says (_Lendas_, ii. 5): _quando comecei esta ocupação de escrever as cousas da India erão ellas tão gostosas, per suas bondades, que dava muito contentamento ouvilas recontar_. [456] _Lenda_, iii. 438. [457] _Fui hum dos seus escrivães que com elle andei tres annos_ (ii. 46). Elsewhere (i. 2) he says that he went to India _moço de pouca idade_ sixteen years after the discovery of India. 1512 was fourteen years after the actual discovery (1498), but might be counted the sixteenth year from 1497. [458] _Homens da criação d’El Rei_, says Corrêa with some pride, _de que confiasse seus segredos_ (ii. 46). [459] Lima Felner, _Noticia preliminar_ (_Lendas_, i, p. xi). [460] Ibid.; but Corrêa says (_Lendas_, ii. 891) that he held this post at Cochin (_almoxarife do almazem da Ribeira_) in 1525. [461] _Por ter entendimento em debuxar._ The portraits, drawn by Corrêa and painted by ‘a native painter’ so cleverly that you could recognize the originals (iv. 597), as well as Corrêa’s very curious drawings of Aden and other cities, are reproduced in the 1858-66 edition of the _Lendas_.