186 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. |May, 1912. 
In compliance with the instructions of the Provincial of 
Goa, Monserrate had kept a diary during his stay of two years 
and a half in Mogor. Between 1582 and 1588 he was busy 
casting and recasting it into a connected narrative, to be 
entitled Mongolice Legationis Commentarius. When in Febru- 
ary 1589 he was sent to Abyssinia, he took his MS. with him, in 
the hope of completing it in his new mission-field. The next 
year, he was a prisoner at Dhafar,in Arabia.! In the beginning 
of his captivity, which lasted six years and a half, he was 
honourably treated, and was even allowed to complete his writ- 
ings. His Commentary on his experiences in Mogor was finished 
in his prison at Sanaa, in Arabia, on oe. feast of St. Damasus, 
December 1590. Ransomed, at last, in August 1596, he had 
returned to Goa in Dec. 1596, * bringing back with him his MS. 
and materials for two works on Arabia. Somehow, his Mon- 
golice Legationis Commentarius was never sent to Europe. In 
some strange. mysterious manner, the autograph copy, tran- 
scribed within the prison walls of Sanaa, found its way to ver 
cutta in the beginning of last century, and after passing suc- 
cessively through Fort William College, the Calcutta Metcalfe 
Hall Library, and the Imperial Library, it was discovered in 
1906 by the Rev. W. K. Firminger in the Library of St. 
Paul’s Cathedral Library, Calcutta. I am now preparing it for 
publication in the original Latin.* It is a most valuable work, 
apparently a unique copy of the earliest known description of 
North India by a European since the days of Vasco de Gama. 
ee 
1582, and had been sent through different directions to Europe. 
Some of them reached their destination. A photographic copy 
of one of these, dated Goa, 26th Nov. 1582, was lately sent me 
a confrére in Europe. I publish it here in Portuguese, and 
in Acca es It is entitled Relacam do Equebar, Rei dos 
‘An account of Akbar, King of the Mogores,’ covers 
pp. ar ‘ooloap, and was sent ‘22 via.’ How m many copies of 
- were made at Goa, or how many in Europe, it is impossible 
say. The ie before me is unsigned, and the writing is not 
that of Monserrate. Certain orthographical mistakes warrant 
me to suppose that the copyist felt occasionally puzzled. From 
the acquaintance have’ made of Monserrate’s Mongolice 
Legationis Commentarius, there is, however, no doubt that, if 
Monserrate did not himself draft Ase Relagam, it was derived 
from his diary, generally word for 
At least one other copy of this Relacam reached Europe. 
Prince Frederic von Schleswig-Holstein (Graf von Noer) wrote 




1 Cf. pv JaRrio, Se gsiggs site poss ‘. I, Ch. xx, 231-236. 
2 On Dhofar or Dhafar, cf. E. Reocius, Ui ds Antérieure » p- 905. 
3 Cf. The Englishman, Caled, Febr. 6, 912. 
