________________
60
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1902.
wood of Syam there will be formed here another C. da India,13 because this country has great want of this wood of Sya, which at present is worth much her. Other arti ies of merchandise can be dispensed with, but not this wood.14
Let these letters, Sir, be shown to the captains-major; let them not be kept secret, Sir; for if Jorge Alvarez15 had shown the letters that he took to Dom Estevão,16 and they had known about us, I am confident that we should not have remained here in this prison either dead or alive. Within two years either the governor would have sent, or from Malaca something would have been ordered by means of which we should have been rescued from here; because much service will be done to our lord the king in seeking for every means to deliver us, Sir, from here. Therefore, Sir, I trust that your honor, when these are delivered, will not wait for orders from Portugal from our lord the king to come to this country, but that your honor will settle it with the governor in India, For, however great the wishes that the king of this country has, our lord the king is not in error as to his having these wishes; only we are astonished that no force has come against this country for so many years back: we do not know the reason. So, Sir, in one way or another, with six ships, as will be seen by other letters, all can be accomplished, Sir, while engaged in our release.
In one way or another, by whichever, Sir, they shall come, as soon as they shall arrive at that port let the juribassos at once prepare letters regarding us: let them not order, Sir, to kill; asking for us very boldly, because they have come for that purpose; [f. 131] and that as there was reason for a great force to come so it had arrived in that port to ask for us very insistently. Because these mandarins are afraid of us, Sir, that we know the country, that is the reason why they do not release us and keep us in this prison, it being the strongest that there is in this city.
I am not able, Sir, to write more fully because my hand is painful with wounds that keep opening, and because of its not being further necessary, since Christovão Vieyra does not fail to describe everything else.
Done in this prison of the Anchal in the tenth moon and on such a day of October 18 Praying our Lord to guard you and to carry you in safety wherever your honor desires.
The servant of your honor, VASCO CALVO.
This man, whom your honor should take as guide, is a respectable man. He was a man that had property, and was a long time a prisoner, but freed himself and was banished, and took an opportunity of going to Malaca. He is, Sir, a man worthy of honor's being done to him, and he is a capable man as regards this country. Let there be given him, Sir, sustenance in Malaca, and to the juribasso what are necessary.
Sir, This province of Cantão will have under its rule in a circuit of two hundred leagues well built cities and towns and villages. The whole is built on the flat ground, placed beside rivers,
18 The India House in Lisbon.
14 The orig. has thrice "pão" (bread) for pao. The wood referred to is that known under the names of kalambak, agila, eagle-wood, lign-aloes, etc. (See Yule's Hobson-Jobson, s. vu. Calambac' and 'Eagle-wood.') The Chinese used the wood for incense in their temples. (See Mendoza, Hak. Soc. ed., I. p. 58, who copies verbally from Gaspar da Cruz. In the translation of the latter in Purchas, however, at p. 196, the word aguilla of the original has been wrongly rendered "civet.")
18 See Introd, regarding this man.
16 D. Estevão da Gama, who, as mentioned in the Introduction, succeeded to the captaincy of Malacca on the death of his brother Paulo in 1584. He left Malacca for India at the beginning of 1599, and became governor of India in 1540. The writer's reference to letters sent by Jorge Alvares is puzzling: apparently he was ignorant of the fact
that this man had died at Tamão in 1521.
17 This apparently represents Chinese ngancha (er'); since it was in the prison of this official that the writers of these letters were confined. (See Christovão Vieyra's statement supra, f. 108v.)
18 The year is not given; but it was probably 1536, as the letter was finished in November 1586.
