well-educated, competent observer, and later investigations have proved the accuracy of his enquiries. He visited India at a most interesting crisis in its history, when Indian culture for the first time came definitely into contact with that of the Western world. Hitherto students have depended upon the edition by Lord Stanley, issued by the Hakluyt Society in 1865. This was made from a Spanish version of the original, and in the way of annotation it left much to be desired. Mr. Longworth Dames, who is well acquainted with India, and is an excellent Portuguese, Arabic, and Persian scholar, has retranslated the work from the standard Portuguese edition published in 1813. It well deserves the elaborate commentary which the editor has provided. During the four centuries which have passed since Barbosa wrote, much has changed in India. Many of the old geographical names have disappeared, and the western coast of the peninsula has been much altered by the silt deposited by the great rivers. The editor has spared no pains in working out the many geographical problems. The book abounds in curious facts interesting to students of folk-lore; the covering of his face by the king of Abyssinia; the rule of women in Sokotra; the king brought up on poison. As Butler wrote:
Is asp and basilisk and toad.”
We find women going to war; cases of suttee; naked Jogis; the strange duels at Baticala, with much information at first hand of the ethnography and customs of the people. The second volume will be more interesting when Barbosa comes to deal with the Nayars and their strange marriage customs. The book well deserves study in this excellent edition.
Hamd-Allah, the compiler of this work, was Mustawfi, or State Accountant of Sultan Abu Sa’id, the last of the Mongol Ilkhàni kings of Persia, and grandson of Hūlāqū, the conqueror of Baghdad. It is in the form of a Gazetteer of Persia, Mesopotamia and the adjoining countries. Besides the value of the work as a geographical record, it possesses considerable folk-lore interest. Writing of the city of Nasibin, he tells us that the
