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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


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


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.


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.


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.


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


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,


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


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


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



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


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



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


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


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


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.

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