Note 525 — III The Sixteenth Century [1502-80] (continued 3)

He must have spent many a half-hour in the corner bookshop in Goa mentioned by Couto (Dec. VI. v. 8, 1781 ed., p. 400): o canto onde pousa um livreiro—unless this is a misprint for luveiro, as the neighbouring sirgueiro seems to indicate. The growth of Portuguese literature in the East would furnish matter for a curious essay. Great folios like the Cancioneiro de Resende (see Lopez de Castanheda, v. 12, and Barros, Asia, III. iii. 4, for the strange use made of it in India) and the Flos Sanctorum were taken out, and it is improbable that they were brought back when every square inch was required for pepper. Thousands of precious volumes must have gone down in shipwrecks, others—profane books and autos—were thrown overboard at the bidding of the priests. For the fate of a case of Hebrew Bibles (briuias) see Corrêa, Lendas da India, i. 656-7. Amadis de Gaula was apparently in India in 1519 (Lopez de Castanheda, v. 16). A most interesting list of books ready to be sent to the Negus of Abyssinia in 1515 is given in Sousa Viterbo’s A Livraria Real (1901), p. 8.