captives, prove conclusively that he could accommodate the style to the subject like all writers worthy of the name. Had he lived a century later, he would have certainly been placed in the first rank of Portuguese prosists; while, as it is, his antiquated and at times inflated language has gone far to prevent him from being appreciated, or even read, by any save the studious.[79] [Footnote 74: _Chronica de D. Pedro de Menezes_, ch. 63, and _Chronica de Ceuta_, ch. 38.] [Footnote 75: _Chronica de Guiné_, chs. 61 and 62.] [Footnote 76: _Chronica de Guiné_, chs. 7 and 28; _Chronica de Ceuta_ chs. 34, 52, and 57; _Chronica de D. Duarte de Menezes_, ch. 34.] [Footnote 77: _Chronica do Principe D. João_, ch. 6, and _Asia_, Dec. 1, liv. ch. 2.] [Footnote 78: _Ineditos_, vol. ii, p. 210.] [Footnote 79: Compare the remarks on Azurara's style by Sotero dos Reis in his _Curso da litteratura Portugueza e Brazileira_. Maranhão, 1866, vol. I, lição xiv.] As an historian he had an unbounded respect for authority, on his own confession, and the speeches he puts in the mouths of his heroes remind the reader at times of Livy, and make it clear that he was writing under the immediate influence of classical models.[80] The historical importance of his Chronicles is of the first order. They are contemporary with the events they relate, and contain the history of the Portuguese expeditions to and rule in Mauritania from the reign of João I down to that of Affonso V, and furnish a complete account of all the voyages of discovery along the African Coast, due to the initiative of D. Henrique, until 1448. True, the _Chronica de Guiné_ omits to mention some other voyages that were the result of private enterprise, for Azurara wrote it in the capacity of Chronicler to the King and as a panegyric of the Prince, and never intended to relate discoveries unconnected with his hero and with the land that gives his book its title. The _Chronica de Guiné_ must, of course, always take rank as Azurara's masterpiece. It was the first book written by a European on the lands south of Cape Bojador, and it restores to us, in great part, the lost work of Cerveira entitled a _History of the Portuguese Conquests on the Coast of Africa_, on which it is founded, besides making up for the regrettable disappearance of the naval archives of the early period of modern discovery. [Footnote 80: Cf. _Chronica de Ceuta_, ch. 1.]