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PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, 15oo-17oo
'By Lieutenant C. 1(. 'Boxer
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SoME account of the interesting exhibition of sixteenth and
seventeenth century Portuguese Roteiros-Rutters or Ruttiers
as our Tudor and Stuart ancestors sometimes called
them-held at the Naval College in Lisbon during the first
week in January of this year, will probably be of interest to
readers of The Mariner's Mirror, and I have therefore written
the present article which is largely based on the noteworthy
lecture of Commander Fontoura da Costa on the opening day of
the exhibition 1 .
The first Roteiros were of Mediterranean origin and probably
date from the time of the earliest Phoenician navigators. Oral
to begin with, they were transmitted from generation to generation,
with such additions as the rough and ready observations
of the mariners of those times permitted them to record. In this
fashion they continued for centuries until the appearance of the
earliest portulan charts, the work of Italians, which were in a
way the forerunners of the Lusitanian Roteiros. These last owe
their being to that great genius Prince Henry the Navigator,
for it was he who first traced a definite plan for the prosecution
of the Portuguese voyages of discovery along the West coast of
Africa, organising and centralising the direction of this navigation
from his chosen base in Algarve. With the systematic prosecution
of these voyages under his directing hand came the
necessity of delineating and describing the sinuous African
coasts; of recording their characteristics and those of the inhabitants
of the newly discovered lands; of knowing their
shallows and depths; of charting their perilous banks; of a
knowledge of the prevailing winds and currents, and of recording
directions and distances-in short, there arose the necessity
of acquiring a knowledge of all the elements of which a Roteiro
is composed.
Although no single Roteiro prior to the year I 500 has come
1 The chief credit for organising the exhibition was due to Captain Tancredo
de Moraes, Commander Fontoura da Costa and Snr. Frazao de Vasconcelos,
all of the Escola Naval.
PORTUGUESE ROTEJROS, I500-I700
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down to us, either in manuscript or in print, yet there can be
no doubt that the first Portuguese Roteiros began to be compiled
some time after the doubling of Cape Bojador in 1434. The
actual Roteiro of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1497 is
unfortunately very deficient in scientific nautical observations,
systematically noted and recorded, it being rather a simple
description of the voyage, and hence scarcely deserves its title.
With the discovery of India, however, as a result of this momentous
voyage, a fresh impulse was given to the describing and
recording of the new sea route; and during the ensuing century
were compiled those works on navigation and sailing directions
which served as guides and models to the early English and
Dutch navigators, who were destined to deprive their Lusitanian
predecessors of their hard-won inheritance, and were the
origin of the magnificent English Pilot series of the present day.
For practical purposes it is best to divide Portuguese Roteiros
written during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries into the
following three groups:
(A) Roteiros before Dom Joao de Castro (1500-40).
(B) Roteiros from the time ofDom Joao de Castro until 1 6oo.
(C) Seventeenth-century roteiros.
(A) Roteiros before Dom 'Joao de Castro.
I. Although, as has been stated, the earliest Portuguese
Roteiros must already have been in circulation in manuscript
during the last quarter of the fifteenth century, yet the oldest
document we have is a copy of some Roteiros of this period
recorded by the famous German bombardier, printer and author,
Valentim Fernandes, and probably written down in Lisbon
about the year I so6. The language is simple-not to say rude
-in the extreme, as may be seen from the following passage:
And the cape of Saint Paul lies east north east and west south west with the
River of Lago. And this distance is 72 leagues straight along the shore.
This is followed by a description of the villages, woods, and
recognisable features which lie along the coast between the Cape
and river referred to. Valentim Fernandes does not tell us from
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PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I500-I700 173
where he copied this manuscript, which is now preserved at
Munich; but from another part of this same Codex we gather
the names of two navigators of the period, namely Gon~alo
Pires and Joao Rodrigues. This earliest Roteiro does not go
further than the Gulf of Guinea, but in the next landmark we
are well on the way to India.
II. In the Esmeralda of the famous hero Duarte Pachecothe
Portuguese Achilles-we have a detailed Roteiro of the
coasts of West Africa, [and] passing the Cape of Good Hope until
the River of the Infante, written about I505-8. In this the
language is a good deal more polished than in the first Roteiro
mentioned, as might be expected from so cultured and erudite
a scholar, whilst the information given is likewise more detailed
1 •
III. We now come to the earliest Roteiros of the Indian
Ocean, namely those of Joao de Lisboa and Andre Pires. The
first of these, namely the Livro das Rot as of J oao de Lis boa, is an
improved copy of an earlier fifteenth-century one, extended to
include the coasts of India and Malaisia. It seems certain that
the work includes many passages from contemporary Arab
sailing directions, since no Portuguese ship had yet reached the
islands of the East Indian Archipelago which are recorded in
this work. The original dating from 1 5 I 4 has been lost; but a
fine contemporary copy exists in the Library of the Duke of
Palmella, which was printed by J. I. de Brito Rebello in I903,
and to this work, entitled Livro de Marinharia. Tratado de
Agulha de Marear de ]oao de Lisboa, etc. the reader is referred
for further details. This pilot Joao de Lisboa, who was still
alive in I 52 8, enjoyed a great reputation amongst his contemporaries,
although critics were not wanting among his own
countrymen, amongst these latter being the celebrated Chronicler
of India, Diogo do Couto (I 54 2-I 6 I 6), who sarcastically
observes in one of his works that he had little use for such pilots,
who were so clever at drawing charts, or making great play with
mathematical instruments, but who invariably ended by wrecking
their ships on some shore, thus losing their own lives
I Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, two editions, both published at Lisbon in I 892 and
I 90 5 respectively.
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174 PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I500-I700
together with those of the crews entrusted to their care 1 • The
Roteiro of Andre Pires, written about I 5 I 8-24, is little more
than a copy of that of Joao de Lisboa, and does not need any
special mention.
IV. The next Roteiro cited by Commander da Costa is a
Livro de Rotear de Portugal para a India, which exists in Seville,
and which from various indications he assumes to be little more
than a modified copy of one of the above-mentioned Roteiros.
V. We now come to the first Roteiro dealing with Brazil.
This is the famous Roteiro do Brasil written by Pero Lopes de
Sousa in I 5 30-2, when accompanying his brother, the more
celebrated Martim Affonso de Sousa, on his voyage thither in
I 5 30. This Roteiro is a notable piece of work, and although the
original has long since disappeared, a copy of it was published
by Varnhagen at Lisbon in I 839 with the title Didrio da navega{ao
da armada, que foi a terra do Brazil em I 5 30 sob a capitania
mar de Martim Affonso de Souza, escrito por seu irmaff Pero Lopes
de Sousa. Incidentally Martim Affonso himself was also an
expert navigator 2 •
VI. The three well-known Roteiros of Dom Joao de Castro
deserve special mention, as marking a turning point in the
history of Portuguese nautical science. The first of these Roteiros
deals with the voyage from Lisbon to Goa in I 53 8, the second
with that from Goa to Diu in I 53 8-9, and the third with his
expedition to the Red Sea in I 541 3 . The depth of knowledge
which these works reveal is truly extraordinary, and nothing
seems to have escaped the keen perception of his scientific mind.
From the numerous observations which show his exceptional
value as a practical observer, Commander da Costa selects the
two following :
I. Because the needle of the compass varied on board ship,
when moved from one place to another, he concluded that this
was due to the fact that it had been placed near an iron cannon,
and that "the iron of the cannon attracted to itself the needle
I Dia!ogo do So/dado Pratico. Lisboa, 1798.
2 Cf. the documents printed on pp. 254--6 of Letters qf King John III of
Portugal, where Martim Affonso makes several interesting suggestions about the
sea route to India and alterations in the Roteiros.
3 First published in r88z, 1843 and 1833 respectively.
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PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I 500-I700
and made it move." Commander da Costa observes that here
we have the deviation of the needle noted I 28 years before it was
vaguely suggested by Denis of Dieppe.
2. Because the needle varied when the ship was close to the
shore off the bar of Bassein river, he concluded that this was
due to "these rocks being of the same sort and substance as that
of the magnet," which is the phenomenon of local attraction
verified in the distant sixteenth century. In addition, his
descriptions of meteorological phenomena, such as the water
spout and halo, are of an astonishing accuracy, whilst his observations
on coastal navigation leave nothing to be desired in
precision, as the following extract, relating to the crossing of
the bar of Bassein river, will serve to show:
and of the bank and flats within the river, very close to the shore on the south side
and off a prominent tongue of land, lies a great heap of black stones, which are
visible at low tide and disappear from view at high tide. Along this heap of stones
is situated the deepest and most frequented channel, which is used when entering
the river or port. This channel I sounded with my own hand at low-tide one
morning, and I found I! fathom of water on the bank. Before we get clear of
these banks, going along the channel, on one side there is a crown-shaped rock at
a depth of one fathom, and when we are over it, the island will lie to the North
quarter of the North East, and one of the four islets to the South quarter of the
South West. Once this bank is passed, the depth increases rapidly, and at once
we find three and afterwards four and further on five fathoms, and in some places
six, and so it goes until we get close to the prominent tongue of land which I said
was projecting from the shore of the south bank of the river.
The maps which accompany the descriptions of his voyages
to Diu and the Red Sea are veritable hydrographic charts, most
remarkable considering that they were drawn up in an era when
such were unknown.
Dom Joao de Castro's talents did not pass unnoticed in his
own day. The famous Spanish cosmographer, Alonso de Santa
Cruz, took special pains to meet him when he visited Lisbon
in I545, whilst our own Sir Walter Raleigh purchased the
original of Castro's Red Sea Roteiro, for the sum of £6o (a
colossal price for those days), it being published in translation
by Purchas in his Pi/grimes more than 200 years before its first
printed appearance in its native tongue 1 •
I Purchas also says that the original was dedicated to the Infante Dom Luis,
and that Sir Walter Raleigh had added numerous marginal notes and observations.
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I 76 PORTUGUESE ROTEJROS, I 500-J700
Enough has been said to show that the works of Dom J oao de
Castro form a veritable landmark in the history of nautical
science, and as regards Portuguese Roteiros, the standard they
set was never surpassed, though personally I consider that the
works of Gaspar Ferreira Reimao in the early seventeenth century
come near to equalling them. Passing over some Roteiros
of Sumatra and the Moluccas by Antonio Dias and Manoel
Godinho, believed to have been written about I 520-5, but of
which all trace has long been lost, we come to the second division
of our classification, namely:
(B) Sixteenth-century Roteiro~ after Dam Joaf! de Castro
(IH0-99)·
VII. Omitting, for lack of space, all mention of a few
Roteiros of this period of which little has been preserved, save
the citation of their authors in subsequent works, we come to
the Roteiros of Manuel Alvares and Aires Fernandes of circa
I 540-50.
A Codex of the works of these two pilots is cited by the
Visconde de Santarem and other nineteenth-century writers,
as being in the National Library at Paris, but no trace of it could
be found during Commander da Costa's visit there in 1932.
Fortunately, however, a sixteenth-century Roteiro, acquired by
the present writer in London a short while ago, turned out on
examination to be the original manuscript of Manuel Alvares,
or at least a contemporary copy thereof, since it bears the autograph
signature of Andre Thevet, the celebrated French
traveller, and the date I 56 3 in the text. That this Roteiro was
written by Alvares himself is placed beyond all doubt by the
fact that referring to the banks of Judea off the East African
coast, he states inter alia" ... and I Emanuel Alvares, and Ayres
Fernandes, saw the banks of Judea from afar, by steering N.E.
etc"; but whether the observations of Fernandes are also included
in the work, as Commander da Costa suggests, is open
to some doubt. Alvares refers also to the loss of the Bam Jesus
in 1533, so that this work must have been written between
1533 and 1563. It is also worth noting that Manuel Alvares
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PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I500-I700
I77
was the pilot of Dom J oao de Castro on his outward voyage to
India in I 53 8, whilst the manuscript contains an interesting
Roteiro of the Red Sea, so that all things point to its being influenced
by the works of Dom Joao, although the first part is
practically identical with that of Diogo Affonso, of whom
more anon.
VIII. The Roteiro do Cabo de Boa Esperanfa ao das Correntes
of Manoel de Mesquita Perestrelo (I 57 5) is also a notable piece
of work, and has been reproduced in whole or in part several
times, the earliest being in a French translation by Thevenot
in I 664. The original has been lost, but two contemporary
(or nearly so) manuscript copies exist at Evora and Oporto
respectively.
IX. Still more famous are the Roteiros compiled by two great
India pilots of the sixteenth century, Diogo Affonso and
Vicente Rodriguez of Lagos. The original work of the former
pilot has long since disappeared; but fortunately the greater part
of it was copied by Linschoten circa I 58 3 and reproduced by
him in his famous Itinerario, first printed at Amsterdam in r 596
and subsequently reprinted in English, French, Latin and
German in editions too numerous to mention here. Commander
da Costa suggests that this Roteiro was compiled about
I 570, but personally I am inclined to date it some twenty years
earlier. Diogo Affonso himself states that he was on board the
Santa Clara as pilot when he saw the Bom Jesus founder off the
Cape of Good Hope, and as we know that this disaster occurred
in I 53 3, it is more reasonable to suppose that the Roteiro would
have been compiled about I 5 40-50 than in I 570, when Diogo
Affonso, if still alive at that date, must have been a very old man.
As we have seen, Manuel Alvares also refers to the loss of the
Bom Jesus in I 53 3, and as both these Roteiros have much in
common it seems probable that they are both of the same
decade, 1 540-50; but which is the earlier of the two it is difficult,
if not impossible, to say.
X. Vicente Rodriguez has left us two Roteiros, both dating
from between I 570-go, the second being a slightly expanded
and corrected copy of the first. A contemporary copy of the
second Roteiro is preserved in the National Library at Lisbon,
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I78
PORTUGUESE ROTEIRAS, I500-J700
and was published by Gabriel Pereira in his Roteiros portugueses
da viagem de Lisboa a India, nos seculos XVI e XVII, Lisbon,
I 8 9 8. Linschoten in his Itinerario has likewise preserved for us
a translation of part of Rodriguez's Roteiro-whether the first
or second is open to some doubt. Commander da Costa supposes
it to have been the former; but it is equally possible that
it may have been the latter, as Vicente Rodriguez lost his life
in the ship Bom Jesus which disappeared on the homeward
voyage in I592 as her earlier namesake had done in I533; this
being the case, his last Roteiro must have been written before
I 59 I, so that there would have been plenty of time for Linschoten
to secure a copy before the publication of his work in
I 596. Incidentally, it may not be out of place here to remark
on the excellence of Linschoten's monumental treatise, which
has preserved for us, in contemporary translation, so many
Portuguese Roteiros of the period which would otherwise have
been lost. If all the printed and manuscript copies of Portuguese
Roteiros which are known to exist were to disappear,
leaving only Linschoten's Itinerario, this would still be more
than sufficient to establish the fame and efficiency of those pilots.
Linschoten, as he himself tells us, took especial pains during
his seven years' residence at Goa to seek out and secure the
Roteiros of the best Portuguese pilots, and although he himself
was never east of Cape Comorin, yet so successful was he in his
efforts to secure trustworthy Portuguese portulans and Roteiros,
that John Saris, sailing from Japan to China after the first visit
of an English ship to the land of the Rising Sun in I 6 I 3, noted
that he found" Jan Huyghen's booke to be very true, for thereby
wee directed ourselves setting forth from Firando." It is well
known that copies of Linschoten's work were carried on board
all English and Dutch East-Indiamen sailing to the East, for
many years, and the Itinerario is indeed a worthy monument,
not only to the industry and acumen of the learned Hollander,
but also to the ability of the sixteenth-century Lusitanian pilots.
Particularly noteworthy in Linschoten's work are his transcriptions
of Roteiros of the Japan and China coasts, which
occupy sixty folio pages in the English edition of I 598, and are
remarkable for their accuracy of detail. No copies of any of
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PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, 1500-I700
I79
these Roteiros survive in Portugal to-day, and had it not been
for the diligent Fleming, no record of them would have been
preserved. Reverting to Vicente Rodriguez, we may add that
his Roteiro, with slight alterations, was first printed in Portuguese
by Manoel de Figueiredo in I 6o8-more than ten years
after its appearance in translation in the Itinerario. The remaining
Roteiros of the sixteenth century need not detain us, as they
are of small importance except perhaps the-
XI. Roteiro of Manuel Gaspar, written in I 594, which
deserves a passing mention as containing one of the earliest
Roteiros of the West Indies. This work and that of Linschoten
bring us to the end of the sixteenth century, and to the next and
final section of our classification.
(C) Portuguese Roteiros of the seventeenth century.
XII. The earliest of these is due to the hand of the versatile
Joao Baptista Lavanha, who, in despite of his Jewish origin,
rose to be Engineer, Cosmographer and Chronicler-in-chief of
Portugal, and was the author of numerous scientific, historical
and literary works. It was a copy of the Roteiro da India of
Vicente Rodriguez, but with numerous additions and corrections.
Unfortunately neither the original nor any copy has
survived; but that it existed is certain, as the India fleet of I 6o8
were ordered to take copies with them, and to correct or annotate
the same during the voyage when necessary. In this connection
the King's instructions dated March I 3th, I 6o8, to Gaspar
Jorge do Couto read:
For the voyage you will use the Roteiro da India which was compiled by Joao
Baptista Lavanha, and of which you will take a copy; and should you find it to
differ in any part from what your actual experience teaches you, you will note the
same, so that it may be corrected where necessary.
The actual title of the work was-Roteiro da navegarao da
India, & de Rotas com ha .Agulha ferrada debaixo da flor de Lis, e
di.fferenras della, & signaes correntes de .Agoa, he Fentos q em
diversas parages se acha'O: Este derroteiro foi, ho que emmendon
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180 PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I500-J700
Joao Baptista Lavanha polio de J7icente Rodriguez, E he muito
certo, E tem muitas E mui boas curiosidades, and dated from about
I604.
XIII. Dating from the same period is the next item on our
list, which is the Roteiro da Carreira da India written by Gaspar
Manuel of Villa do Conde. This Gaspar Manuel, who appears
to have been a different person from the Manuel Gaspar whose
Roteiro is cited under No. XI above, went to India as the Pilot
Major of the Viceroy Martim Affonso de Castro in I 604.
Whether this work was compiled before or after this particular
voyage is uncertain; but if the latter, then it must date from
about I 6o6. A contemporary copy exists in the National
Library at Lisbon, which was printed by Gabriel Pereira in his
above-quoted work published in I 898.
XIV. This brings us to the earliest printed collection of
Roteiros in Portugal, which are those included in the various
editions of Manoel de Figueiredo's Hydrographia. Exame de
Pilotos &c., first published in I 6o8; and with subsequent reprints,
more or less slightly altered, in I 609, I 6 I 4, I 62 5 and
I 6 3 2. We have neither the time nor the space to sort out the
differences between these various editions, which is a well-nigh
impossible task considering their erratic pagination, complicated
arrangement, and the fact of the few existing copies being
bound au diable, so that no two of them are alike. Interested
readers are therefore referred to Commander da Costa's
Bibliografia dos Roteiros Portugueses ate ao anno de qoo (Lisbon,
I934), but even this work, although a vast improvement on all
previous efforts, contains several errors and omissions. Here
we can only note that the Roteiro of Vicente Rodriguez was
printed for the first time (in his native tongue) in I 6o8, perhaps,
to judge from the title, from the version of Joao Baptista
Lavanha; whilst another issue of the same year contains the
earliest printed Roteiros of Brasil, Angola, Guine and Cabo
Verde, as well as that of New Found Land. In I609 followed
a supplement with the Roteiros of the Spanish Main and West
Indies; and all of the foregoing were reprinted in I 6 I 4· At
some date between this year and I 62 5 was issued a second
edition of Vicente Rodriguez's Roteiro, very much altered and
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PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I500-I700
extended from the original, and with extracts taken from a
Dutch Roteiro 1 in the part describing the island of Mauritius,
and some brief extracts from some of the Roteiros of Japan,
China, Siam and the Philippines which had already been reproduced
(and in full) by Linschoten in I 596. This version was
issued without a frontispiece, and is found bound up with
either the edition of I 6 I 4 or, more often, with that of I 62 5.
It should further be noted that all of these editions-save that
of I 609 and the second edition of Rodriguez's Roteiro-are
prefaced by an Arte de Navegar of about 30 pages, divided into
a number of chapters in which are explained the rules of elementary
mathematics, geometry, and astronomy together with
illustrations of the use of navigational instruments, sufficient,
as the author states rather naively, to make a good pilot of
anyone who studies them. Another point worth noting is that
the first edition of this Arte de Navegar of I 6o8 is very different
from the subsequent issues of I 6 I 4-3 2, as in these latter
editions it appears in a much altered and expanded form.
Stockier, in his work on the history of Mathematical studies in
Portugal, accuses Manoel de Figueiredo of arrant plagiarism
and states that all of value in his work has been taken wholesale,
and without acknowledgment, from the works of his sixteenthcentury
predecessor, Andre de Avellar. This may be true as
regards the purely theoretical and mathematical part of his
work; but Portugal at least owes him a debt of gratitude for
collecting, editing and publishing all the Roteiros of the East and
West Indies which his various editions contain, and which
would otherwise have been lost for ever. The works of Figueiredo
(who served as Cosmographer-Major of Portugal from
I 6o7 until his death in I 62 2 ), or rather these Roteiros as published
by him, became the basis of all future publications of a
similar kind in Portugal, and continued to be reprinted, with
little or no alteration, under differing titles throughout the
next two centuries. Actually, however, of more value and
I8I
I At least I presume these additions were copied from a Dutch source. The
chapter in question starts by saying that the Hollanders frequent the island; and
as the Portuguese seldom or never went there, it seems probable that the account
was taken from the Hollanders. I know of no Portuguese version.
MM
I82
PORTUGUESE ROTEJROS, I500-I700
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interest than the Roteiro da India Oriental of Figueiredo, who
never went to sea at all so far as is known, is the-
XV. Roteiro da Carreira da India, of Gaspar Ferreira
Reimao, printed at Lisbon in I 6 I 2, and of which only one copy
-that now in the National Library of Lisbon-is known to
exist, apart from a few contemporary manuscript versions.
Gaspar Ferreira, who was sota-piloto of the ill-fated Sao Thome
in I 58 9, rose to be the Pilot-Major of India, and as such went
out to the East with the Viceroy Rui Lourens:o de Tavora in
r 6o8. Returning to Portugal in I 6 I o, he was made a Knight
of the Order of Santiago and again went out to India in 1 6 I 4
as Pilot-Major of a squadron of five ships. He made the return
voyage in I 6 I 5 on board the ship of Nuno da Cunha (fresh
from his unsuccessful attacks on the English off Swalley Hole),
which, after touching at Angola, was wrecked off Faial in the
Azores with great loss of life, though Ferreira himself was
amongst the survivors. He enjoyed a great reputation amongst
his contemporaries, in spite of the fact that most of the voyages
he made were rather unlucky, and his Roteiro circulated in
manuscript both before and after its publication. As is the case
with all seventeenth-century Roteiros, it was based on that of
Vicente Rodriguez, but with considerable detail added by the
author, principally concerning the East African coast where
Ferreira had wintered with his whole fleet in the island of Ibo
in I 609. In this connection, it is worth noting the following
passage in the Instructions given to Rui Gon<;:alo de Sequeira,
who was appointed chief of an expedition of seven caravels to
carry reinforcements to the Philippines in March I 6 I 3:
and you will ensure ... that good relations are maintained between the Spanish
and Portuguese pilots, in such wise that the Portuguese instruct the Spaniards in
the art of navigation, taking the latitude of all the islands and lands which you see,
taking soundings thereof, and carefully making the necessary observations of the
course taken, with due care and vigilance ... taking in each of the caravels a copy
of the Roteiro of Gasper Ferreira, Pilot-Major of my Crown of Portugal, printed
in Lisbon in the past year of r612.
XVI. In a manuscript collection of Roteiros compiled by
Dam Antonio de Ataide (Captain-Major of the India Fleet in
I 611-I 2, and Captain-General of the Home Fleet in I 6 I 8-
2I) dating from about I6I5-JI, and to which extensive
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PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I500-I700
I8J
reference has been made elsewhere 1 , we find practically the
whole of the work of Gaspar Ferreira transcribed, together with
most of the charts which accompany the original work. However,
Dom Antonio de Ataide has added two which were not
included by Ferreira, one of them being a singularly fine and
detailed map of Madagascar-probably from the hand of Luis
or Joao Teixeira, famous cartographers of the early seventeenth
century-and copied from the original one which accompanied
the account of the expedition sent from Goa to explore and
chart the coasts of Madagascar in the year I 6 I 3, written by its
leader, the pilot Paulo Rodrigues da Costa on his return to Goa
in I 6 I 4· This latter version is still preserved in Evora, and has
been published; but the original map has long since disappeared,
so that the copy made for Dom Antonio de Ataide forms an
important and hitherto unregistered contribution to the history
of the early cartography of Madagascar.
XVII. Another important and oft-quoted Roteiro of the
period is the Roteiro da Carreira da India written by the pilot
Aleixo da Motta about r 62 I, after he had made the voyage six
times. There is a contemporary manuscript copy of this work
in the National Library at Lisbon, with some additions in the
hand of the pilot of the galleon Nossa Senhora de Atalaya, I 64 I,
but its first appearance in print was in a French translation
included in Thevenot's Voyages of I 664. In the last quarter
of the same century it was included in Pimentel's Roteiros
(cf. infra), and was published in entirety for the first time by
Gabriel Pereira in I 8 9 8. Of the remaining seventeenth-century
works the most remarkable are:
XVIII. The Roteiros compiled by Antonio de Mariz Carneiro
and published by him in r642, I655and I666. Antonio
de Mariz Carneiro who served as Cosmographer-Major of
Portugal from I6JI until some time after r666, is an elusive
figure of whom little is known. He was nicknamed the Agulha
Fixa, on account of his preoccupation with the problem of
magnetic variation, and was the inventor, or adaptor, of several
nautical instruments of doubtful merit. Personal honesty was
r Cf. my article Um Roteirista desconhecido do seculo X/711, printed in the
Arquivo Historico da Marinha, Lisbon, 1934.
I2•2
PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I 500-1700
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certainly not one of his virtues, for his Roteiro da India Oriental
is taken wholesale from those of Manoel de Figueiredo (I6o8),
and Gaspar Ferreira (I 6 I 2 ), with the unblushing substitution of
his own person for the name of the latter wherever it occurred
in the original! Similarly, his Roteiros of Brazil, Africa and
America are likewise ''lifted'' from those of Figueiredo; whilst
his Arte de Navegar is equally copied word for word from that
of his predecessor. The editions of I 642 and I 6 55 are furthermore
very badly printed and with the proofs left uncorrected,
so that the latter version especially is almost unintelligible in
parts. These two editions are accompanied by eleven singularly
badly executed wood-cuts of the chief ports between Vigo and
Cadiz inclusive, with a brief description of the entry into each,
which appears to be Mariz Carneiro's sole original contribution
to the Roteiros printed in his name. Barbosa Machado states
that the author died in I 642, and even reproduces the inscription
on his tombstone; but this is certainly an error as was
discovered a few years ago by Mr Frazao de Vasconcelos who
published a document proving that Mariz Carneiro was exiled
to Brazil for some unspecified crime in I 646 for a period of
five years. That he returned to Portugal and was reinstated in
his former post is also certain, as his signature as Cosmographer-Major
in June I 666 appears in a document of that
date printed in the Roteiro da India Oriental which was published
in the same year at Lisbon.
Of more value than the rather scratchy productions of Mariz
Carneiro are:
XIX. The Roteiros of Luis Serrao Pimentel of I 67 5 and
I 68 I, and of his son:
XX. Manoel Pimentel in I 699. The Roteiro of 167 5 concerns
the Mediterranean only, and was translated from some
foreign work. The edition of I 68 I contains Roteiros relating to
all seas save the Mediterranean. The Roteiro da India Oriental
in this edition is a copy of that of Aleixo da Motta, whilst the
others are drawn from the works of Manoel de Figueiredo, save
the Roteiro of the South African coast by Manoel de Mesquita
which is here printed for the first time in Portuguese. The I 699
edition by Manoel de Pimentel is a slightly increased and im-
PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, I 500-I700 I 8 5
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proved reprint of the I 68 I edition together with the Arte de
Na'Vegar which was included therein. This last edition was
frequently reprinted throughout the eighteenth century and
even into the nineteenth, but these later versions fall outside
the scope of our article.
It is not worth while to quote extensive passages from these
old Portuguese Roteiros, for many of the best amongst them are
readily accessible in the inimitable contemporary translations of
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten; readers of that work will agree
that they are models in their descriptions of the coasts visited
and of their geographical situation; in their records of the
different compass readings obtained, and of the magnetic variation;
of the physical and natural features of the lands, bays,
ports and anchorages visited; in their observations of meteorological
and oceanographic phenomena, as well as of the prevailing
winds and currents, and consequently of the various
courses recommended for different seasons of the year 1 • Small
wonder that Richard Hawkins-a contemporary Englishman
and a competent judge-noted in his Observations 2 of r622
that:
In this poynt of Steeridge, the Spaniards and Portingalls doe exceede all that
I have seene, I meane for their care, which is chiefest in Navigation. And I wish
in this, and in all their workes of Discipline and reformation, we should follow
their examples .... In every Ship of moment, vpon the halfe decke, or quarter
decke, they haue a chayre, or seat; out of which whilst they Navigate, the Pilot, or
his Adiutants (which are the same officers which in our Shippes we terme, the
Master and his Mates) never depart, day nor night, from the sight of the Compasse;
and haue another before them; whereby they see what they doe, and are ever
witnesses of the good or bad Steeridge of all men that do take the Helme ....
Enough has been written in this article to show the importance,
scope and interest of the recent Lisbon exhibition, which
certainly achieved its purpose in arousing fresh interest in the
pioneer part played by Portugal in the advancement of nautical
I For further details concerning all the Roteiros and other books quoted in
this article, see the Bibliografia dos Roteiros Portugueses ate ao anode 1700 printed
in the Arquivo Historico da Marinha, Lis boa, 1934-, which also contains an account
of Commander Fontoura da Costa's lecture, Este Livro he de rotear ..., on which
this article is based.
2 Cf. Observations, p. 57. Argonaut Press edition by J. A. Williamson.
London, 1933·
186 PORTUGUESE ROTEIROS, 1500-1700
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science. Several new and unrecorded editions of the printed
works of Manoel de Figueiredo and of Antonio de Mariz
Carneiro came to light as a result of it, as well as some manuscripts,
including an unregistered version of Dom Joao de
Castro's Roteiro.
It is to be hoped, also, that those who gazed upon these worn
title-pages or well-thumbed manuscripts, gave a thought to the
sufferings of the countless nameless pilots who sacrificed their
lives in unchartered seas for the making of them; since Portugal
of old, like England, is entitled to exclaim with mingled pride
and sorrow,
If Blood be the price of Admiralty, Lord God we have paid in full.