522 
INTRODUCTION TO 
of Akbar’s conversion. The first Jesuit Mission to Akbar’s Court had come to an 
end, and the projected embassy was allowed to lapse. 
During the next six years (1582-88), Fr. Monserrate was employed in or near Goa, 
and, as he tells us, he utilized his leisure hours in drawing up a methodical relation 
of his stay in North India. Then came the order to proceed to Ethiopia. Captured 
at Dhafar in Arabia, in December 1588, or January 1589, he was sent on to “Eynan ” 
(Ainad), to “King” Omar. 
If we combine, at this place, the information contained in the preface with the 
notes at the end of the book, we gather that he spent the four months of his 
captivity at Eynan in correcting and adding to his notes. “ I finished this commen- 
tary,” he writes, ‘ ' at Eynan in Arabia, on the day of St. Anthony of Padua in the month 
of June of the year 1590.” 1 During the subsequent march on Sanaa, he was robbed of 
his MSS. by the Turks, but the Turkish Viceroy had them restored to him. “ My 
copy ( exemplar ) was taken by the Turks ; but I received it back at Sanaa, on the day of 
the Eleven Thousand Virgins, in the month of October of the same year.’ ’ * Again, he 
tells us that he finished making a fair copy of the original on December nth, 1590. 
“ Finem describendi et ab exemplaris litturis vindicandi feci Senaa in Arabia , ferijs D. 
Damasi PP. rnensis Decembris anni 1590. ” 3 Finally, the preface is dated from Sanaa, 
January 7th, 1591, and insists on the fact that the work was free from erasures. 
In fact, the Calcutta MS., which appears to have been written with a quill, is in a 
uniform hand from fol. 1 to fol. 140 verso. The suppressions, corrections, and addi- 
tions were made at a later date, as is plain from the different kinds of ink employed 
and the nature of some changes introduced into the text or marginally. 
Some additions were made after his return from captivity in Arabia. Monserrate 
was six years and a half a captive in Arabia. Ransomed thence with Father P. Paez, 
he returned to Goa (December 1596). An old man now, he was posted to Salsette to 
recover his health “tanquam in asylum quietis causa,” and died there on March 5th, 
1600. Evidently, the note introduced into the preface about his account of the 
journey to Ethiopia and about his MS. on the Geography and Natural History of 
Arabia could have been written only at the end of his captivit}^ in Arabia, when 
a long sojourn had made him thoroughly familiar with the country. Judging from 
the writing, I conclude that that note was not penned till after Monserrate’s return 
to Goa. At fob 105a., there is an allusion to the third Jesuit Mission to Akbar’s Court, 
under Fr. Jerome Xavier. This Mission had left Goa only on December 3rd, 1594, 
and Monserrate could hardly have heard of it before his return to Goa. Besides, at 
fob 138a. 3 we have an allusion to the death of 'Abdullah Khan, king of Samarqand 
and Bukhara, who died on Febr. 12, 1597. ^ 
We can recognize at least six stages in the composition of the MS. : the 1st, the 
ie., June 13th, 1590. Cf. fol. 1406. 
i.e.. October 21st, 1590. Cf. ibid. 
I finished this copy, and freed it from the erasures of the original, at Sanaa in Arabia, on the day of St. Damasus , 
>n the montli of December T590.” (December 11th). 
* ef. Keene-Beaee’S Orient Biogr. Diet., s.v. ‘Abdullah Khan. 
