Five years after Mendez Pinto’s return to Portugal a book scarcely less strange than his _Peregrinaçam_, of atmosphere as oriental and of interest as absorbing although more scientific, was printed at Goa. Its author, GARCIA DA ORTA[522] (_c._ 1495-_c._ 1570), born at Elvas, the son, perhaps, of Jorge da Orta, owner of a shop (_temdeiro_) in that town, studied medicine for ten years (1515-25) at Salamanca and Alcalá, and in 1526 began to practise as a doctor at Castello de Vide. From 1532 to 1534 he was Professor at the University of Lisbon, and in March 1534 sailed with his friend and patron, the insatiable Governor Martim Afonso de Sousa,[523] to India as king’s physician. The East cast its spell over his curious and inquiring mind; he remained under twelve or more Governors and died at a good old age, probably at Goa. There, on the veranda of his beautiful garden, in this land of _bellissimi giardini_,[524] served affectionately by many slaves, and with the books of his well-stocked library ready to his hand,[525] he would regale his guests with strange fruits--all the _maneiras á gula_ of India--and with still stranger knowledge. His knowledge was based on personal observation, for although he respected Galen and Dioscorides as the princes of medicine and was possessed of great erudition, he was not disposed to bow blindly to the authority of any writer, Arab or Greek, least of all to Scholasticism, he went to Nature and in his _Coloquios dos Simples_ (1563) recorded what he had seen and heard, the truth without rhetoric, setting aside the _mil fabulas_ of Pliny and Herodotus. These fifty-nine dialogues, arranged in alphabetical order, pay more regard to facts than to style. They are full of varied information and give us a most pleasant insight into the writer’s character, strong, humorous, obstinate, and into his life at Goa. From a scientific point of view they are of great importance: not only did they provide the first description of cholera[526] and of many unknown plants, but after three and a half centuries they retain their scientific interest and value. Begun many years earlier in Latin,[527] they were published in the author’s old age, with an introductory ode by his friend, the poet Camões. Unhappily they became known to Europe chiefly in a garbled Latin version by Charles de l’Écluse (Clusius)--a fifth edition appeared in 1605--from which the Italian and French translations were made. It was not until the nineteenth century that the skilful and eager care of the Conde de Ficalho enabled a larger number of those who read Portuguese to appreciate Orta at his true worth.