1375.] Portuguese Inscriptions from Monibassa. 2 Lo 



otherwise mutilated, and others disfigured by misspelling, but are most 

 unsystematically transposed. Add to this the vacant spaces in the middle 

 and beginning of the inscription where letters are entirely worn out, and 

 the difficulties of their decipherment become apparent. Although these 

 lacunas have been filled up, the substitution of words is but a mere guess- 

 work. Fortunately there are historical grounds for these conjectures. 



A transcript of the inscription from its almost unintelligible inscrip- 

 tionary writing of the sixteenth century into correct and modern Portu- 

 guese would run thus : — Reinando (o mui alto e poderoso or o serenissimo)* 

 Pei d' Phelipe II. mandon a Antonio de Sousa Godinho por sen mandado 

 por (esta) ombreiraf n'esta fortaleza nova da ilha de Mornbaca ao mez d' 

 Abril de 1593 (no tempo) em (que era) Vice-rei da India Mathias d'Albo- 

 querque (Esendo) Matheus Mendes (de Vasconcillor Capitao mor) da costa 

 do mar de Melindi mandon fazer esta fortaleza (Ajudado pelo Engenheiro) 

 da India (mestre Joao) Bautista Cairato servindo de (pedrevin Manoel) de 

 Sousa e (Ascanio Asis) Rodrigues. The parentheses above mark the vacant 

 spaces which have been filled up. 



The facts here recorded are, that in the reign of the King Phelipe II. 

 of Spain and I. of Portugal, which lasted from 1580 to 1598, % when 

 Mathias d' Albuquerque was Viceroy of India and whose Viceroyalty conti- 

 nued from 1591 to 1597§, Antonio de Sousa Grodinho, who was the second 

 Governor of Mombaza||, was commanded by the King to place the above 

 inscription dated 1593 on the door-post of the fortress newly built in the 

 island of Mombaza, while Matheus Mendes de Vasconcillor was the Chief 

 Captain of the coast of Malindi and also the first Governor .of Mombaza^f 

 with the assistance of an Engineer, famous in those times in India, by name 

 Joao Baptista Cairato, who was charged with the building of the fortress.** 



Here all facts coincide and the date of 1593, so clearly given, is really 

 the key to the decipherment of this rather problematical inscription. The 

 only doubt that may be brought forward respecting the right interpreta- 



* It was usual among the Portuguese in the epoch this inscription refers to to place 

 the words o mui alto e poderoso or o serenissimo, meaning ' the most high and powerful' 

 or 'the most serene' before the names of Kings, a fact attested to by the existing 

 inscriptions of the coasts of Guzcrat and Kaskan. One of these designations, besides, 

 woidd exactly fill up the lacuna that precedes the name of the King d' Phelipe II. 



f The word ombreira, which simply means ' door post' stands here for ' a door 

 post with an inscription.' 



% Die. Hist. Capt. Novo Goa (1848) p. 108. 



§ Borg. Hist, de Goa Idem (18-38) p. 41. 



|| Arch. Port. Orient. Idem (18C1) Fuse. 3, pt. II, doc. 20G, 111. 



If Arch. Port. Orient, ut supra doc. 77, XXV, 110, XXV111., 1G2, 111, 20G11, 

 244, XIV. 



** Ibid doc. 7G to IX. 



