No. VI, No. 8]. The Marsden MSS. in the British Museum. 447 

 [N.S.] 



" Ootacamund we had the pleasure of knowing in 1863 ' the 

 " Reverend Whitehouse, who did us the favour of communicat- 



C I 



4 (. 





t t 



. C 





C ( 



ing to us the MS. and, at his request, we translated it into 

 English. After he had read the version, he wrote to us the 



' ' following : ' The MS. I read with great interest. And from 

 what I know of these hills and the tribes inhabiting them, I 

 should say that the narrative, in all its parts, bears the impress 

 of truth. It is a most interesting document. 5 



"For us the document has yet another quality, which 

 makes it more interesting, and it is that it proves that the 

 Portuguese Jesuits were the first who, in the beginning of the 

 ' seventeenth century, penetrated into the steep mountain- 

 ous regions, which to-day are the sanitarium and recreation 

 grounds of Southern India, where only in the year 1820 the 

 English built the first house. 



"Finally, it is proper to observe that as the MS. was 

 copied by a foreigner, who was ignorant of the Portuguese 

 language, there are in various places, principally where the 

 original has abbreviations, some gaps and mistakes which it 



" ' was impossible for us to restore to their true reading." 



Subsequently, in 1873, the Rev. Thomas Whitehouse used 



and commented on da Cunha Rivara's translation in his : Lin- 



gerings of Light in a dark land London, 1873, pp. 134 — 44. 2 



. i 



1 1 



- V 



(■ 1 



t ( 



da Cunha Rivara and Whitehouse call the author of the expedi- 

 tion into the Nilgiris and of the letter on the Todas i ' Fr. Jacom* 

 Ferreira," and Mr. P. took considerable pains in toying to 

 decipher the name from the Marsden MSS. It is now agreed 

 that the name should be read "Fenicio." It appears under 

 the form " Fenicio " in du Jarric. 



Fr. Jacome Fenicio' s letter is copied into the text of the 

 Annual Letter of 1603.* Mr. P. collated da I Unha Rivara's 

 text — a faulty one in some matters of detail — with the original 

 in the British Museum and sent his corrected copy with notes 

 to the Right Rev. Bishop A. E. Medlycott. The Bishop found 

 in it, however, no materials for his India and the Apostl Thomas 

 (London, David Nutt, 1905). Mr. P. also sent the Bishop a 

 complete transcript and a tentative translation of lida^ao sobre 

 a Serra feita em 1604 The document is full of interest. [Mnrs- 

 den MSS. 9853, foil. 525— 53S (old numbering) or foil. 8&— 99 

 (modern pencil numbering).] 



1 I suppose when he went there with Archbishop Saba, da Cunha 

 Kivara had been appointed in 1862 Portuguese Royal Commissary to 

 carry out with Archbishop Saba the delimitation of the dioceses under 



the Concordat of 1857. _ 



* At p. 135 of his work, Mr. Whitehouse refers the document to 



Marsden MSS. No. 98f>:» Read !'853. 



3 Mr. P. remarks that the document from fol. 475 to 601 i m 



different handwritings, the writing and the form of the abbreviations 



changing where the word Acentadas begins a new leaf. I he signature 

 is in the writing of a third person. 



