FATHER A. MONSERRATE’S MONGOLICAE LEGATIONIS COMMENTARIES. 
525 
To return to Monserrate’s Mongolicce Legationis Commentarius , what do we knew of 
the earlier vicissitudes of the volume ? I am sorry to say that I can ascertain very 
little with certainty. So much is sure, that none of our bibliographers was acquainted 
with the work, and that none of the biographers of Bl. Rudolf Aquaviva utilized 
it. It is not mentioned, for instance, in the long list of Bartoli’s authorities at 
the beginning of his Missione al Gran Mogor, and though I have addressed myself 
to three of the best authorities on Jesuit bibliography in Europe, H. Hafner (Holland), 
C. Beccari (Rome), and the Editor of the Moriumenta Historica S.J. (Madrid), no in- 
formation has been elicited. 
In 1907, I wrote that a report of the Provincial of Goa, dated November, 1590, 
contained a reference to Monserrate’s MS. 1 The passage is as follows: “Father 
Anthony Monserrate states that when the Emperor took him on an expedition [to 
Kabul] which he at one time made, he had with him five thousand elephants, exclusive 
of those used for baggage, and that in the whole Empire there are 50,000 elephants 
stationed for warlike purposes at various centres.” 2 The latter part of this state- 
ment about the 50,000 elephants does not occur in the Calcutta MS., and it is 
evident that the Provincial did not quote from the Calcutta MS., since in 1590 Mon- 
serrate was still at work on it in Arabia. Nor is the passage found in the abstract 
made by Monserrate in 1582, to which I alluded above. 3 
Even Father Francis de Sousa, S.J., who wrote his Oriente Conquistado at Goa 
from materials “da nossa secretaria de Goa,” does not seem to have been acquainted 
with Monserrate’s Mongolicce Legationis Commentarius . It is true, de Sousa acknow- 
ledges openly his indebtedness to Monserrate’s MSS. in his Oriente Conquistado , 4 and 
most of the incidents related by him concerning the journe3^ of the three first Jesuits 
to Fatehpur are, indeed, to be found in our MS., but there are so many details 
not traceable in it that I must conclude he was in possession of letters written by 
Monserrate and his companions from the various stages of their journey to Fatehpur. 
de Sousa may have had Monserrate’s Bk. II. As for his remarks on the Tibetans, 6 
they do not seem to be taken either from Bk. I. or from Monserrate’s report of 
November 26th, 1582, alluded to above. If de Sousa had had Bk. I, the MS. before 
us, the wonder is that, he should not have made greater use of it. We do not detect 
any ad litter am quotations. None the less, we have reasons enough to assert that 
Monserrate had brought back his MSS. from Arabia, and we may well suppose that 
reference must be to one of the following of de Guilliermy’s authorities : Juvencius, Hist. Soc., part 5a, lib. 22, n. 13, 
IS. PP- 7 OI > 7 ° 3 ; Franco, Ann. glorios., 5a Mart., p. 136 ; Teceez, Chronica S. J. na Provincia de Portugal , t. 2, 1 . 4. 
c. 40 and 43; Idem, Historia geral da. Ethiopia , pp. 209 — 229; du Jarric, Hist, des choses . . . memorables . . . advenues 
, .. . es hides . . ., liv. 1, ch. 20, p. 322; liv. 2, ch. 9, p. 615; ch. ii, p. 630; d’Oui/Treman, Tableaux des personnages 
signalez . ... p. 259. 
1 Cf. my Jesuit Missionaries in North India . . . , Op. cit., p. 7. 
2 Cf. C. D. Maceagan, Jesuit Mission to Emperor Akbar, in J. As. Soc. Beng., 1896, p. 63. 
3 In the Calcutta MS we find at fol. 48a. 3, that about 500 fighting elephants and camels accompanied the Kabul 
expedition; at fol. 51b. 2 we read that Akbar kept at his own expense 5,000 elephants. 45,000 horse and a very large 
number of foot- soldiers. In time of war, his vassals were required to bring in their quota. 
■i Cf. Oriente Conquistado, Lisboa, MDCCX, Vol. II, C.I, D. II, §§ 43-48, 53-64. Father F. Goldie, S.J., made good 
use of this work in his The First Christian Mission to the Great Moghul, Dublin, Gill, 1897. 
6 Cf. ibid., C. I, D. II, § 63. 
