Showing posts with label Portugal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portugal. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Cloves, cumin, ginger

Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese explorer, died all of 490 years ago today. Although he did not leave behind a diary of his own, an unknown author did keep a journal of da Gama’s first expedition to India. This was stored in a Portuguese convent for centuries, before being published in the 1860s, and then translated into English in the 1890s. It provides a rich and colourful account of the very earliest days of European attempts to colonise the sub-continent.

Da Gama was born in Sines, Portugal, around 1460. His father was Estêvão da Gama, commander of the local fort. In 1492, Vasco da Gama was sent by King John II to the south of the country to take revenge against the French, who had been seizing Portuguese ships. Meanwhile, Estêvão da Gama was chosen by the king to lead a Portuguese fleet to India in search of lucrative trade routes. However, both the king and Estêvão da Gama died, and the mission was handed to Vasco de Gama by the new King Manuel.

In 1497, da Gama sailed from Lisbon with four ships; he rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and, with the aid of a pilot found on the east coast of Africa, sailed to the west coast of India, stopping at various ports, before reaching Calicut (now Kozhikode) on the Malabar coast. Unable to establish a colony because of opposition from the local Muslims, da Gama returned to Portugal, with a cargo of very profitable spices and the certain knowledge of a potential trade route. The mission was, thus, celebrated as a great success. Around 1500, he married Catarina de Ataíde who bore him six sons.

Vasco da Gama, by this time ranked as an admiral, undertook a second journey, in 1502, to try and secure the trading colony established in the interim by Pedro Carbal, but which had been wiped out in a massacre. He successfully laid siege to Calicut, and concluded favourable peace treaties with the native rulers. However, on his return, he felt inadequately rewarded, and became embroiled in an ongoing dispute concerning his ownership of the town of Sines (given him by the king in 1499, but still claimed by the Military Order of Santiago).

For some years after, da Gama lived a relatively quiet life. In 1519, he was appointed Count of Vidigueira; and, in 1524, after Manuel’s death, King John III appointed him as Portuguese Viceroy in India. He set sail for a third time, to try and restore administrative order to the Portuguese holdings. However, he fell ill at Cochin and died on 23 December 1524. Further information is available from Wikipedia, or from various out-of-copyright biographies available at Internet Archive, such as Vasco da Gama and his successors 1460-1580 by K. G. Jayne.

A diary account of da Gama’s first voyage - named Roteiro - survived over 300 years, and was first published in 1838. This was edited by Diogo Kopke and Dr. Antonio da Costa Paiva, both teachers at the Academia Polytechnica of Oporto, and funded by subscription. Only 392 copies were printed then, but a second edition appeared in Lisbon in 1861. A few years later, in 1869, the Hakluyt Society published Lord Stanley of Alderley’s translation of the Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, and intended to bring out an English translation of the Roteiro, but this latter was left in abeyance for another three decades, until the Society published, in 1898, A journal of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1497-99 as translated and edited by E. G. Ravenstein. The book is freely available online at Internet Archive or Googlebooks.

Ravenstein notes, in his introduction, that the extant manuscript is not the original, but only a copy, and that the author of the original remains unknown. He explains: ‘The manuscript originally belonged to the famous Convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, whence it was transferred, together with other precious manuscripts, to the public library of Oporto. [. . .] This copy, however, was taken in the beginning of the sixteenth century, as may be seen from the style of the writing. [. . .] It is quite possible, as suggested by Prof. Kopke, that the title by which the Roteiro was known at the convent of Santa Cruz misled certain bibliographers into a belief that Vasco da Gama himself had written this account of his voyage. [. . .] No one has yet succeeded in discovering the author of the Roteiro.’ Ravenstein adds that his translation is ‘literal and complete’. Here are a few extracts.

8 April 1497
‘On Palm Sunday the King of Mombaça sent the captain-major a sheep and large quantities of oranges, lemons and sugar-cane, together with a ring, as a pledge of safety, letting him know that in case of his entering the port he would be supplied with all he stood in need of. This present was conveyed to us by two men, almost white, who said they were Christians, which appeared to be the fact. The captain-major sent the king a string of coral-beads as a return present, and let him know that he purposed entering the port on the following day. On the same day the captain-major’s vessel was visited by four Moors of distinction.

Two men were sent by the captain-major to the king, still further to confirm these peaceful assurances. When these landed they were followed by a crowd as far as the gates of the palace. Before reaching the king they passed through four doors, each guarded by a doorkeeper with a drawn cutlass. The king received them hospitably, and ordered that they should be shown over the city. They stopped on their way at the house of two Christian merchants, who showed them a paper (carta), an object of their adoration, on which was a sketch of the Holy Ghost. When they had seen all, the king sent them back with samples of cloves, pepper and corn, with which articles he would allow us to load our ships.’

10 April 1497
‘On Tuesday, when weighing anchor to enter the port, the captain-major’s vessel would not pay off, and struck the vessel which followed astern. We therefore again cast anchor. When the Moors who were in our ship saw that we did not go on, they scrambled into a zavra attached to our stern; whilst the two pilots whom we had brought from Moçambique jumped into the water, and were picked up by the men in the zavra. At night the captain-major “questioned” two Moors whom we had on board, by dropping boiling oil upon their skin, so that they might confess any treachery intended against us. They said that orders had been given to capture us as soon as we entered the port, and thus to avenge what we had done at Moçambique. And when this torture was being applied a second time, one of the Moors, although his hands were tied, threw himself into the sea, whilst the other did so during the morning watch.

About midnight two almadias, with many men in them, approached. The almadias stood off whilst the men entered the water, some swimming in the direction of the Berrio others in that of the Raphael. Those who swam to the Berrio began to cut the cable. The men on watch thought at first that they were tunny fish, but when they perceived their mistake they shouted to the other vessels. The other swimmers had already got hold of the rigging of the mizzen-mast. Seeing themselves discovered, they silently slipped down and fled. These and other wicked tricks were practised upon us by these dogs, but our Lord did not allow them to succeed, because they were unbelievers.

Mombaça is a large city seated upon an eminence washed by the sea. Its port is entered daily by numerous vessels. At its entrance stands a pillar, and by the sea a low-lying fortress.Those who had gone on shore told us that in the town they had seen many men in irons; and it seemed to us that these must be Christians, as the Christians in that country are at war with the Moors.

The Christian merchants in the town are only temporary residents, and are held in much subjection, they not being allowed to do anything except by the order of the Moorish King.

It pleased God in his mercy that on arriving at this city all our sick recovered their health, for the climate (“air”) of this place is very good.

After the malice and treachery planned by these dogs had been discovered, we still remained on Wednesday and Thursday.’

17 April 1497
‘We approached nearer to the town [Malindi]. The king sent the captain-major six sheep, besides quantities of cloves, cumin, ginger, nutmeg and pepper, as also a message, telling him that if he desired to have an interview with him he (the king) would come out in his zavra when the captain-major could meet him in a boat.’

18 April 1497
‘On Wednesday, after dinner, when the king came up close to the ships in a zavra, the captain-major at once entered one of his boats, which had been well furnished, and many friendly words were exchanged when they lay side by side. The king having invited the captain-major to come to his house to rest, after which he (the king) would visit him on board his ship, the captain-major said that he was not permitted by his master to go on land, and if he were to do so a bad report would be given of him. The king wanted to know what would be said of himself by his people if he were to visit the ships, and what account could he render them? He then asked for the name of our king, which was written down for him, and said that on our return he would send an ambassador with us, or a letter.

When both had said all they desired, the captain-major sent for the Moors whom he had taken prisoner, and surrendered them all. This gave much satisfaction to the king, who said that he valued this act more highly than if he had been presented with a town. And the king, much pleased, made the circuit of our ships, the bombards of which fired a salute. About three hours were spent in this way. When the king went away he left in the ship one of his sons and a sharif, and took two of us away with him, to whom he desired to show his palace. He, moreover, told the captain that as he would not go ashore he would himself return on the following day to the beach, and would order his horsemen to go through some exercises.

The king wore a robe (royal cloak) of damask trimmed with green satin, and a rich touca. He was seated on two cushioned chairs of bronze, beneath a round sunshade of crimson satin attached to a pole. An old man, who attended him as page, carried a short sword in a silver sheath. There were many players on anafils, and two trumpets of ivory, richly carved, and of the size of a man, which were blown from a hole in the side, and made sweet harmony with the anafils.’

19 April 1497
‘On Thursday the captain-major and Nicolau Coelho rowed along the front of the town, bombards having been placed in the poops of their long-boats. Many people were along the shore, and among them two horsemen, who appeared to take much delight in a sham-fight. The king was carried in a palanquin from the stone steps of his palace to the side of the captain-major’s boats. He again begged the captain to come ashore, as he had a helpless father who wanted to see him, and that he and his sons would go on board the ships as hostages. The captain, however, excused himself.’

The Diary Junction

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Voyage to Lisbon

Two hundred and sixty years ago today, Henry Fielding, celebrated author and justice of the peace in London, died in Lisbon where he had journeyed in search of cures for his ailments. He was not a diarist by nature, but on the way to Lisbon, he decided to keep a journal. This was published posthumously and, apart from showing off his literary skill, it paints an ‘extraordinarily vivid picture of the tortuous slowness of 18th-century sea travel’.

Fielding was born in Somerset in 1707, into a well-connected family, but when he was three the family moved to Dorset. He was educated at Eton, leaving at 17 to take up the life of a gentleman. After an abortive elopement, and writing a play, he went to study at Leiden University, only to return to London when his father’s funds ran out. Settling in London, he became a successful playwright.

Fielding’s satirical style of writing, however, drew the wrath of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who engineered a law - the Theatrical Licensing Act - designed to put a stop to his plays. Subsequently, Fielding gave up on the theatre, and studied law. He married Charlotte Craddock in 1734, after another elopement, and they had several children, although only one survived to adulthood (but then died at the age of 23).

Fielding’s legal practice never took off, but he also continued to write satire, contributing to journals of the time. Then, a publisher took up a novel he had written, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, and another Joseph Andrews. In 1743, Fielding published three volumes of Miscellanies, works old and new, but, disappointed with his income from sales, he gave up writing for a couple of years.  He was often crippled with gout; and Charlotte, too, fell ill, and died in 1744. Three years later, he married her former maid, Mary Daniel, who was pregnant. They had two sons that survived childhood.

Fielding was in the habit of starting up satirical magazines, and by 1748 one of these had found favour with the government - for propaganda purposes. As a consequence of being in political favour, he was appointed justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex, with his own courthouse and residence. Historians say he brought great dignity to the post, and, in fact, was one of the best magistrates to serve in 18th century London. It was he that formed the famous police corps, the Bow Street Runners, to deal with street crime.

In 1749, Fielding published The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, and it would be his most famous work, and become considered one of the great English novels (see The Guardian for example). Here is Encyclopaedia Britannica’s assessment: ‘With its great comic gusto, vast gallery of characters, and contrasted scenes of high and low life in London and the provinces, it has always been the most popular of his works. The reading of this work is essential both for an understanding of 18th century England and for its revelations of the generosity and charity of Fielding’s view of humanity.’

Fielding’s health continued to deteriorate, and in 1754 he set off by ship to Portugal in search of a better climate for his ailments, but he died in Lisbon two months after arriving, on 8 October. Further information is available from Wikipeda, Kirjasto, or The Dorset Page.

Fielding was not a diarist by nature, apparently, but, near the end of his life, he kept a diary during the voyage to Lisbon. This was first published, posthumously, in 1755, as The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, but has since been republished and reprinted. Various versions are freely available to read online at Internet Archive.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘this work presents an extraordinarily vivid picture of the tortuous slowness of 18th-century sea travel, the horrors of contemporary medicine, the caprices of arbitrary power as seen in the conduct of customs officials, and, above all, [Fielding’s] indomitable courage and cheerfulness when almost completely helpless, for he could scarcely walk and had to be carried on and off ship.’ Here are several extracts, including the very last words in his diary (7 August).

28 June 1754
‘By way of prevention, therefore, I this day sent for my friend Mr. Hunter, the great surgeon and anatomist of Covent-garden; and, though my belly was not yet very full and tight, let out ten quarts of water, the young sea-surgeon attending the operation, not as a performer, but as a student.

I was now eased of the greatest apprehension which I had from the length of the passage; and I told the captain, I was become indifferent as to the time of his sailing. He expressed much satisfaction in this declaration, and at hearing from me, that I found myself, since my tapping, much lighter and better. In this, I believe, he was sincere; for he was, as we shall have occasion to observe more than once, a very good-natured man; and as he was a very brave one too, I found that the heroic constancy, with which I had born an operation that is attended with scarce any degree of pain, had not a little raised me in his esteem. That he might adhere, therefore, in the most religious and rigorous manner to his word, he ordered his ship to fall down to Gravesend on Sunday morning, and there to wait his arrival.’

30 June 1754
‘Nothing worth notice pass’d till that morning, when my poor wife, after passing a night in the utmost torments of the tooth-ach, resolved to have it drawn. I dispatched, therefore, a servant into Wapping, to bring, in haste, the best toothdrawer he could find. He soon found out a female of great eminence in the art; but when he brought her to the boat, at the water-side, they were informed that the ship was gone; for, indeed, she had set out a few minutes after his quitting her; nor did the pilot, who well knew the errand on which I had sent my servant, think fit to wait a moment for his return, or to give me any notice of his setting out.

But of all the petty bashaws, or turbulent tyrants I ever beheld, this sourfaced pilot was the worst tempered; for, during the time that he had the guidance of the ship, which was till we arrived in the Downs, he complied with no one’s desires, nor did he give a civil word, or, indeed, a civil look to any on board.

The toothdrawer, who, as I said before, was one of great eminence among her neighbours, refused to follow the ship; so that my man made himself the best of his way, and, with some difficulty, came up with us before we were got under full sail; for, after that, as we had both wind and tide with us, he would have found it impossible to overtake the ship, till she was come to an anchor at Gravesend.

The morning was fair and bright, and we had a passage thither, I think, as pleasant as can be conceived; for, take it with all its advantages, particularly the number of fine ships you are always sure of seeing by the way, there is nothing to equal it in all the rivers of the worid. The yards of Deptford and of Woolwich are noble sights; and give us a just idea of the great perfection to which we are arrived in building those floating castles, and the figure which we may always make in Europe among the other maritime powers. That of Woolwich, at least, very strongly imprinted this idea on my mind; for, there was now on the stocks there the Royal Anne, supposed to be the largest ship ever built, and which contains ten carriage guns more than had ever yet equipped a first rate. [. . .]

Besides the ships in the docks, we saw many on the water: the yachts are sights of great parade, and the. king’s body yacht is, I believe, unequalled in any country, for convenience as well as magnificence; both which are consulted in building and equipping her with the most exquisite art and workmanship.

We saw likewise several Indiamen just returned from their voyage. These are, I believe, the largest and finest vessels which are any where employed in commercial affairs. The colliers, likewise, which are very numerous, and even assemble in fleets, are ships of great bulk; and, if we descend to those used in the American, African, and European trades, and pass through those which visit our own coasts, to the small craft that ly between Chatham and the Tower, the whole forms a most pleasing object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of an Englishman, who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognize any effect of the patriot in his constitution.

Lastly, the Royal Hospital of Greenwich, which presents so delightful a front to the water, and doth such honour at once to its builder and the nation, to the great skill and ingenuity of the one, and to the no less sensible gratitude of the other, very properly closes the account of this scene; which may well appear romantic to those who have not themselves seen, that, in this one instance, truth and reality are capable, perhaps, of exceeding the power of fiction. [. . .]

Sailing in the manner I have just mentioned, is a pleasure rather unknown, or unthought of, than rejected by those who have experienced it; unless, perhaps, the apprehension of danger, or sea-sickness, may be supposed, by the timorous and delicate, to make too large deductions. [. . .] This, however, was my present case; for the ease and lightness which I felt from my tapping, the gaiety of the morning, the pleasant sailing with wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which I was constantly entertained during the whole way, were all suppressed and overcome by the single consideration of my wife’s pain, which continued incessantly to torment her till we came to an anchor, when I dispatched a messenger in great haste, for the best reputed operator in Gravesend.

A surgeon of some eminence now appeared, who did not decline tooth-drawing, tho’ he certainly would have been offended with the appellation of tooth-drawer, no less than his brethren, the members of that venerable body, would be with that of barber, since the late separation between those long united companies, by which, if the surgeons have gained much, the barbers are supposed to have lost very little.

This able and careful person (for so I sincerely believe he is) after examining the guilty tooth, declared, that it was such a rotten shell, and so placed at the very remotest end of the upper jaw, where it was, in a manner, covered and secured by a large, fine, firm tooth, that he despaired of his power of drawing it. [. . .] I came over to his side, and assisted him in prevailing on my wife (for it was no easy matter) to resolve on keeping her tooth a little longer, and to apply to palliatives only for relief. These were opium applied to the tooth, and blisters behind the ears.’

5 August 1754
‘In the night at twelve, our ship having received previous visits from all the necessary parties, took the advantage of the tide, and having sailed up to Lisbon, cast anchor there, in a calm, and a moonshiny night, which made the passage incredibly pleasant to the women, who remained three hours enjoying it, whilst I was left to the cooler transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooler as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation, is, at the same time, void of all ideas of friendship.’

7 August 1754
‘Lisbon, before which we now lay at anchor, is said to be built on the same number of hills with old Rome; but these do not all appear to the water; on the contrary, one sees from thence one vast high hill and rock, with buildings arising above one another, and that in so steep and almost perpendicular a manner, that they all seem to have but one foundation.

As the houses, convents, churches, &c. are large, and all built with white stone, they look very beautiful at a distance; but as you approach nearer, and find them to want every kind of ornament, all idea of beauty vanishes at once.

While I was surveying the prospect of this city, which bears so little resemblance to any other that I have ever seen, a reflection occurred to me, that if a man was suddenly to be removed from Palmyra hither, and should take a view of no other city, in how glorious a light would the ancient architecture appear to him? and what desolation and destruction of arts and sciences would he conclude had happened between the several areas of these cities?

I had now waited full three hours upon deck, for the return of my man, whom I had sent to bespeak a good dinner (a thing which had been long unknown to me) on shore, and then to bring a Lisbon chaise with him to the sea-shore; but, it seems, the impertinence of the providore was not yet brought to a conclusion. At three o’clock, when I was from emptiness rather faint than hungry, my man returned, and told me, there was a new law lately made, that no passenger should set his foot on shore without a special order from the providore; and that he himself would have been sent to prison for disobeying it, had he not been protected as the servant of the captain. He informed me likewise, that the captain had been very industrious to get this order, but that it was then the providore’s hour of sleep, a time when no man, except the king himself, durst disturb him.

To avoid prolixity, tho’ in a part of my narrative which may be more agreeable to my reader than it was to me, the providore having at last finished his nap, dispatched this absurd matter of form, and gave me leave to come, or rather to be carried, on shore.

What it was that gave the first hint of this strange law is not easy to guess. Possibly, in the infancy of their defection, and before their government could be well established, they were willing to guard against the bare possibility of surprize, of the success of which bare possibility the Trojan horse will remain for ever on record, as a great and memorable example. Now the Portuguese have no walls to secure them, and a vessel of two or three hundred tons will contain a much larger body of troops than could be concealed in that famous machine, tho’ Virgil tells us (somewhat hyperbolically, I believe) that it was as big as a mountain.

About seven in the evening I got into a chaise on shore, and was driven through the nastiest city in the world, tho’ at the same time one of the most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hath a very fine prospect of the river Tajo from Lisbon to the sea.

Here we regaled ourselves with a good supper, for which we were as well charged, as if the bill had been made on the Bath road, between Newbury and London.
And now we could joyfully say,  “Egressi optata Troes potiuntur arena.”
Therefore in the words of Horace,
“ -–– hic Fines chartaeque viaeque.” ’