A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar | Page 4

of two pages of the text, so that no doubt may remain on this point. The first portion consists of the conclusion of the text of Fernao Nuniz; the second of the covering letter written by the person who sent the originals to Europe; the third of the beginning of the text of Domingo Paes.
Paes being the earlier in date (about 1520) I have given his account of personal experiences first, and afterwards the historical summary composed by Nuniz about the year 1536 or 1537.
I have stated that the person to whom the documents were sent from Goa was probably the celebrated historian Barros. He is alluded to in the covering letter in the words: "It seemed necessary to do what your Honour desired of me," "I send both the summaries ... because your Honour can gather what is useful to you from both;" and at the end of the long note on "Togao Mamede," king of Delhi, quoted in my introduction, "I kiss your Honour's hand."
Since the first DECADA of Barros was published in 1552,[3] this argument is not unreasonable; while a comparison between the accounts given by Nuniz and Barros of the siege and battle of Raichur sufficiently proves that one was taken from the other. But we have fortunately more direct evidence, for the discovery of which we have to thank Mr. Ferguson. I have mentioned above that at the end of the MS. volume are copies of two letters concerning China. These were written subsequent to the year 1520 by Vasco Calvo and Christovao Vieyra. Mr. Ferguson has pointed out to me that, in the third DECADA (liv. IV, caps. 4, 5), after quoting some passages almost verbatim from this chronicle of Nuniz regarding Vijayanagar, Barros writes: "According to two letters which our people had two or three years afterwards from these two men, Vasco Calvo, brother of Diogo Calvo, and Christovao Vieyra, who were prisoners in Canton, etc...." He also mentions these letters in two subsequent passages, and quotes from them. This renders it certain that Barros saw those letters; and since they are copied into the same volume which contains the chronicles of Nuniz and Paes, we may be sure that Barros had the whole before him. It is of little importance to settle the question whether the chronicles of Nuniz and Paes were sent direct to Barros -- whether, that is, Barros himself is the addressee of the covering letter -- or to some other official (the "our people" of the passage from Barros last quoted); but that Barros saw them seems certain, and it is therefore most probable that the Paris MS. was a volume of copies prepared for him from the originals.
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These documents possess peculiar and unique value; that of Paes because it gives us a vivid and graphic account of his personal experiences at the great Hindu capital at the period of its highest grandeur and magnificence -- "things which I saw and came to know" he tells us -- and that of Nuniz because it contains the traditional history of the country gathered first-hand on the spot, and a narrative of local and current events of the highest importance, known to him either because he himself was present or because he received the information from those who were so. The summaries of the well-known historians already alluded to, though founded, as I believe, partly on these very chronicles, have taken all the life out of them by eliminating the personal factor, the presence of which in the originals gives them their greatest charm. Senhor Lopes, who has published these documents in the original Portuguese in a recent work,[4] writes in his introduction: "Nothing that we know of in any language can compare with them, whether for their historical importance or for the description given of the country, and especially of the capital, its products, customs, and the like. The Italian travellers who visited and wrote about this country -- Nicolo di Conti, Varthema, and Federici -- are much less minute in the matter of the geography and customs of the land, and not one of them has left us a chronicle." They are indeed invaluable, and throw an extraordinary light on the condition of Vijayanagar as well as on several doubtful points of history.
Thus, for instance, we have in Nuniz for the first time a definite account of the events that led to the fall of the First Dynasty and the establishment of the second by the usurpation of Narasimha. Previous to the publication of these chronicles by Senhor Lopes we had nothing to guide us in this matter, save a few vague and unsatisfactory lines in the chronicle of the historian Firishtah.[5] Now all is made clear, and though as yet the truth cannot be definitely