— 108 — 
have collected, goes to prove most incontestably that Mauri- 
tius was not discovered by the Portuguese, either by the per- 
sons, or at the time mentioned by all the modern writers on 
the subject. No mention of such a discovery, or of such an 
island appears in the great Historians from whose works I 
have copied those passages which, while detailing the lives 
and exploits of the persons supposed to have made the dis- 
covery, prove collaterally by the silence of the Historians, 
that such was not the case. 
Barros, the author of the Asia Portuguesa, is always rec- 
koned the greatest and fullest of the Historians of Portugal ; 
it is an extremely rare work, and rarer still to meet with all 
the Decades complete, as Decade VI for instance, was nearly 
all destroyed by fire. Only the First Three Decades also are 
by Barros ; the rest are by Diego Couto up to XII, and the 
XHIth is by A. Bocarra. The First Decade begins with the 
first voyages to India under Vasco Gomez, Pacheco, Cabral 
etc., and the voyage of Governor Aln.eida (1505) to India as 
the first Viceroy, does not begin before the 8th Book of the 
First Decade. The whole of the principal events and voya- 
ges to and from the Indian Ocean in his time which were in 
any way near Madagascar, or connected with the discovery of 
that Island, or Ceylon etc. have been copied. The names of 
the various captains of the different fleets sent out to explore 
in these seas, have also been added. Those chapters contain- 
ing nothing bearing on the subject, have had merely their 
contents put down, so as to connect them with the rest of the 
history. The voyage of Joao Gomez D’Abreu, (one of 
D’Acunha’s fleet), to the River Matatana on the East Coast, 
where he was left behind with some of his men who after- 
wards set out (it is said) for Mozambique, is evidently the 
only time they were likely to have come across the islands of 
Bourbon or Mauritius, though no mention of such islands, by 
any names whatever, occurs, as will be seen by the Extracts 
copied from the Decada Sequerela liv. T. C. I and II etc. 
The voyages and adventures of the famous Albuquerque 
and other celebrated captains have been extracted ; at Ch. 
VII is mentioned his ship which is called the Cirne ; and also 
in Book V. C. III. In Book VII Decada II occurs the first 
