One of the causes that most moved Portugal to curiosity and acted as an incentive to discovery were the vague rumours of the existence of a mighty Christian prince, the half-mythical Prester John, Negus of Abyssinia. The priest FRANCISCO ALVAREZ (_c._ 1470?-_c._ 1540) set out with Duarte Galvam, first Portuguese Ambassador to Abyssinia, in 1515, but Galvam’s death delayed the mission, and it was not till 1520 that Alvarez and the new ambassador, D. Rodrigo de Lima, reached the Court of Prester John. They remained for six years in the country, and during this time Alvarez recorded in straightforward notes every detail of the country and its inhabitants with minuteness and accuracy. He considered himself old[511] in 1520; he was certainly active: he shoots hares and pheasants, washes unsuccessfully for gold, looks after his slaves, his nine mules, his fourteen cows, and organizes a procession against locusts. On their return, in Alvarez’ friend Antonio Galvam’s ship, to Lisbon, bringing ‘the length of Prester John’s foot’, he was eagerly questioned by king, prelates, and courtiers--the whole Court trooped out along the road from Coimbra to meet them--and when he published his fascinating diary of travel, _Verdadeira Informaçam das terras do Preste Joam_ (1540), it was soon translated into almost every language of Europe.[512] FREI GASPAR DA CRUZ of Evora, missionary in China, returned to Portugal in 1569, and in the same year began his _Tractado em que se cõtam muito por estẽso as cousas da China_ (1570). He calls it a _singella narraçam_, but it contains valuable information about China, nor did the author neglect his style. The Dominican FREI JOÃO DOS SANTOS (_c._ 1550-_c._ 1625?)[513] was born at Evora about the middle of the sixteenth century, and went out to East Africa and India as a missionary in 1586. He returned to Lisbon in August 1600 and nine years later published his _Ethiopia Oriental_ (1609), an attractive, curious account, written in a clear and easy style, of the natives, their land and customs. It is to be feared that some of the settlers sadly abused his credulity, as in the case of the _mercador’s_ tale of the native sorcerer or the man 380 years old, but this does not by any means impair the interest of his book. More individual and vivid is the _Itinerario_ (1560) of ANTONIO TENREIRO, who in brief, staccato sentences describes minutely what he saw (the _rosaes_ of red, white, and yellow roses in May near Damascus, the red roses of Shiraz, the fair, white Gurgis, complexioned like Englishmen) during his travels from Ormuz to the Caspian Sea and in Palestine and Egypt, and his overland journey from Ormuz to Portugal (1529) in which, alone with an Arab guide, he spent twenty-two days in crossing the desert. A similar land journey, a generation later, is described with an equal wealth of curious detail in the _Itinerario_ (1565) of Mestre MARTIM AFONSO, surgeon to the Viceroy, Conde de Redondo,[514] while the Franciscan