monk, a distinguished Lisbon chemist (Henrique Diaz in i. 6), or a famous historian (ii. 3 by Diogo do Couto,[508] ii. 4 by João Baptista Lavanha[509]). All or most of their accounts are masterpieces of vivid phraseology. We follow as in a novel their adventures as the sea ‘breaks into flower--_quebrando em frol_’, as they are stranded on a desert island, boarded in sight of home, entrapped by savages, devoured by wild beasts, tottering, _arrimados em paos_, exhausted by thirst and hunger, or prostrated by heat, in comparison with which the _calmas_ of Alentejo ‘are but as Norwegian cold’: toils and perils borne with heroic courage, told with the simplicity of heroes, without _adorno de palavras nem linguagem floreada_. Many books of travel were the natural consequence of the discovery of India. The historian João de Barros’ passion for knowledge, especially geographical knowledge, was the first cause[510] of the learned and instructive _Chorographia_ (1561) of his nephew Gaspar Barreiros (†1574), a description of the places through which he passed on his way to Rome in 1545 to thank the Pope on behalf of the Infante Henrique, _Cardinalem amplissimum_, for his cardinal’s hat. But this work (edited by his brother, Lopo Barreiros) was an exception. Most of the travel books were concerned with the far East. The _Livro em que da relação do que viu e ouviu no Oriente_ (1516) by DUARTE BARBOSA of Lisbon, brother-in-law of Fernam de Magalhães, exists in a Portuguese manuscript in the Public Library of Oporto, but was first published in Portuguese in 1821 as a translation from the Italian _Libro di Odoardo Barbosa Portoghese_, itself a translation from a copy at Seville. The author had spent the greater part of his youth in India, and his work contains vivid and accurate notes on Eastern lands and cities, especially Malabar.