Francisco De Azevedo

Abstract

Father de Azevedo spent nearly the whole of his life in India. Born at Lisbon in 1578 he left his native country when still a boy and joined the Society of Jesus at Goa at the age of nineteen. On completing his studies he was stationed at several places; thus he was at Diu in 1614 and at Rachol in 1620, after which he was appointed Visitor to the mission of Monomotapa in South-Africa ¹). In 1627 he went to the Mogor mission, and he was already fifty-two, when he received his commission for Tsaparang. The full account of the expedition which he wrote in Portuguese and addressed to Father Anthony Freire, the procurator of the Indian missions in Portugal covers 44 large, closely-written pages. It is divided into two parts: from Goa to Agra (p. 1–18), and from Agra to Tibet and back (p. 18–44), of which clearly only the second comes within the scope of this book. It will be found in Appendix I printed at length and with the original pagination ²). As, however, the route from Agra to Tsaparang has been sufficiently described and discussed in the chapter on Andrade, we shall not during this stage of his journey follow Azevedo step by step, but only dwell on such points of his description as fill up gaps in Andrade’s account or supplement his statements.