9 BOOK III

The Great Province (if this name can be given to that part of the world) which we call China, is the most eastern Asian country, the largest part of which is flanked by the Great Ocean, 1 thus being the opposite to our Europe which begins from the Island [of] Cadiz. 2 This Island is surrounded by the Western Ocean, 3 and then reaches the Cape of Finisterre, then runs to the North until arriving at the regions of the kingdom of Denmark, and thus making the huge inlet which we call the Baltic Sea, between Sarmatia and Norway, even continuing to Lapland and the other frozen area unknown to us.

Therefore this region which we call China, beginning from the Island of Hainan•, which is her farthest part west, neighbouring the kingdom [of] Cauchi, 4 which we call Cochin-China, which is part of their state, the sea encircles the southern part and runs along following the route which sailors call the east-northeast-ward, which narrows itself when it can heading north until reaching the farthest most eastern cape where lies the city of Ningbo,• which we incorrectly call Liampó.• And from here it faces the northeast and north, and continues making another very deep inlet, and above it another coast opposite the lower coast, meaning that the higher land is attacked by the north chills, where the Tartars live, who they call Tátas, with whom they are continuously at war. 5

The similarity between these two ends of habitable earth are not so much a question of degrees as appearance, because the Island [of] Cadiz is at a latitude of almost thirty-seven degrees from our Arctic Pole, and a lot of the land mass of Europe, as far as we know, ends at a latitude of seventy-two degrees. The Island of Hainan is at nineteen degrees and the land of China, which is close to it (in the way that Cadiz is with our Europe), the part of it we have heard of ends at fifty degrees north, except that it does continue further. From this distance we can measure the vastness of this state as in width (speaking in geographical terms) this land of China is at thirty-one degrees and Europe is at thirty-five. And not only talking of length, as because of the difference in the parallels, of which we do not yet have verification from instruments which we use in describing the tables of our Geography, 6 for this place, we will leave out the distance.

We shall only say that one marvellous thing this region of China has traversing its length is a wall, 7 which with regard to how we calculate the earth's gradient, lies between forty-three and forty-five degrees, and runs from the west, from a city call Qiaoya, • 8 which is situated between two very high mountain ranges, almost like a gateway to that region, and it continues to the east until closing off in another great mountain ridge which drinks from the eastern sea like a cape, whose length seems to be more than two hundred leagues. They say of this wall that the kings from that Chinese region ordered it to be built as a defence against the people who we call Tartars and they call Tancas· or Tátas, 9 although further to the north of the wall they have still been winning over them.

This wall was entered in a geographical map of that whole region, made by the Chinese themselves, where they placed all the mountains, rivers, cities, and small towns with their names written in their lettering, which we sent to be looked at with a Chinese man to interpret them, as well as some books which we also had. And prior to this map we had a book on Cosmography, a small volume, with tables of the earth's position and a commentary on them in the style of an itinerary. 10 Then even though this wall did not appear in it, we had information about it, and with regard to this they led us to believe that it was not completely continuous, as there was a very craggy mountain range between the Chinese and the Tartars and the wall had been built in some of the valleys. However now that we have seen it drawn [in this map], we hold great admiration. This map, although it did not come with a scale shown, did correspond to the book of tables, which we had obtained earlier, as far as the measurements that they had used, which are three, like a furlong, a mile and a journey.

The first and smallest distance they have is a li,• 11 which has as much space as a level tract of land, on a quiet, peaceful day, in which a man's shout can be heard; ten of these li ·make a pio, ·12 which [cor]responds to [a] little more than a league for us Spaniards, for ten of them make the distance travelled by one man in a day, which they call an yichao. 13 Up until now we have not known what places the distance from the earth in corresponding degrees to the celestial orbit, although we know they have this use in their horoscopes, when they use astrology, about which they are learned men. And it is not demeaning to them that they do not have these terrestrial gradients, as until the time of Ptolemy is was not used in geography.

Within this earth which we divide up, of which it is all from a pagan principle, as we have mentioned earlier, they have fifteen kingdoms, or principalities, which they called governments, the names which we [now] come to list: Guangdong, · Fujian, · Zhejiang, · Shandong, · Nanzhili, · Jianxi, · which are their coastal [provinces] and Guizhou, · Hunan, · Guangxi, · Sichuan, · Huguang, · Jiangxi, · Shanzi, · Henan· and Shaanxi· which are inland. 14 Within them, according to our geographical map which we have, they contain two hundred [and] forty-four noteworthy cities, of which all end in the syllable fu·, 15 which means city, like in Chincheu-fu,• Nimpó-fu,• as the cities [of] Chincheu • and Nimpó, · where our own Portuguese go to trade. In this way they are similar to the Greeks, lets us say in Constantinople, Adrianopolis, like the towns which the emperors Constantine and Hadrian build or rebuilt. The rest of their towns also have the ending denoting town, which is zhou, 16 as they do not have a suffix for smaller inhabited areas, as they are villages, although there are many of them which have more than three thousand inhabitants. Nor around them do they make this division of village and town, for the fact of there being more or less inhabitants, merely because towns are enclosed by a wall, like cities, and they have their insignias, like the justice administration as with other governmental departments of the area and distinctions of honour.

Because as each one of these fifteen governments or provinces has a a city which is its head -- to where all the cities come which they are contained therein, like towns come to cities in their turn, and the villages to the towns. All claims concerning anything at all go to those main cities -- be it the ministry of justice or the treasury, or of war -- where the main governors preside over that state. The first and principle head they call a tu tang·, 17 this is the governor of all aspects which concern the state and the justice administration; and the ruler of the treasury is called a conggnan;• 18 and the captain-general of war, chong-bing.• 19And as each one of these has a large number of officials under their jurisdiction with whom they complete their staff, with their own department, and in one, which is the main department in the city assigned to this, each month on particular days, all three gather together to discuss the main affairs, and oversee in front of each other like a consultation so that they can determine things with more prudence. Such posts held in the city would not last for more than three years, and even less quite often. Without them knowing, they could be taken by surprise, removed from office and transferred to another area, and this would be when the offence was minimal, because under serious circumstances they were punished even as far as the death penalty.

[And it is] done in this fashion. The king and head of the Great Empire, 20 chooses from the men who live around him, one in whom he has great faith and gives him wine to drink three times that they use there, 21 this is by way of an oath and homage, and he is sent as the head of these provinces, to which he gives so much jurisdiction and authority that according [to] the severity of the crime, he can give punishment without being himself the king. And this is done with all the secrecy possible, because although he carries edicts signed by the Prince, these edicts generally order people to obey him. They do not specify the places to where he is going, so it is not known by the officials who make the edicts, only [knowing] he was verbally told by the king.

Apart from these powers, he arrives at a city where he has been sent to as a stranger, and sees and hears how each one of the officials is carrying out his duties. After having information on the work of each one, the day that the three governors meet, he goes before them as a man who wishes to request something. He presents the edicts brought from the king, they descend from their chairs, and place themselves before him, awaiting [to know] which sentence they will hear, to which, no matter how serious, the culprit's sentence is carried out immediately. This superior judge, who they call yushi22 provides new officials, and those who have served well move to other posts of more confidence in the same province to where they had been sent. The prince of this empire has yet another method for a way of governing; that the officials of the justice administration cannot be natives of the same region, but outsiders, just like the way it is done in Portugal by using judges which are called 'from outside'. This is to administer justice to every [and any] person without bias for family and friends. The captains of war have to be natives of their own region which indicates that they love their country and would work harder to defend [it].

Frontespiece.

TERCEIRA / decada da A∫ia de / loam de Barros: Dos feytos que os Portugue∫es / fizeram no de∫cobrimento / & conqui∫ta dos mares / & terras do Oriente. / EM LISBOA / Por loam de Barreira. M. D. LXIII. [1563].

It is just like the Greeks with regard to all the other nations inhabited by barbarians, thus the Chinese say that they have two eyes to understand everything around them; and [they say that] those from Europe, after we had established contact, have one eye; and all the [other] nations are blind. And truly it can be seen in the form of their religion, their saintly temples, the religious men who live in monasteries, their way of praying day and night, their time of fasting, their sacrifices, their general studies where they learn everything [to do with] natural science and morals, their way of giving degrees to each of these sciences and the vigilance they have to not suffer subordination. They have printing presses much older than ours, and on top of this they have the governing of their republic, the mechanics of working with metal, clay, wood, cloth, silk, and we see that these heathens had all the things for which the Greeks and Trojans are praised.

Such people, to not lose sight of being conquerors, already carried on this way, conquering inland, until they reached the kingdom of Pegu, in which remnants of their presence can be found [even today], like letters which tell of it, and like metal bells of very exaggerated grandeur and cannons of the same kind, where it seems that the first use was found among them rather than among us. And in the countryside of the Ava Kingdom, 24 north of Pegu, between the two cities of Piandá and Mirandu were found the great ruins of a city which they had built. And not only these named cities, but others included in the great kingdom [of] Siam, which we described before, like the kingdoms [of] Melitai, Bacam, Chalam, Varagu, like others inland which border them. In some way they all follow and maintain part of their religion, Chinese, along with the scientific knowledge of nature, calculating the year by lunar months, the twelve signs of the zodiac and other information on the movement of the heavenly bodies. Because during the time when they were conquerors in those parts, they left the seeds of this knowledge. And still, as proof that all these kingdoms were conquered by that Chinese Empire, almost up until our times, their kings sent them their ambassadors with some form of present every three years. 25 These ambassadors always had to be four of more because prior to arriving before this great Emperor and Prince of that state, the route's distance was enormous from that state, and they took so long in being heard and dispatched, that a couple of them could die first of all; and when illness did not kill them, in some banquet they would be given something which would end their life. A sumptuous grave would be made for them with an inscription, on which was written who they were and why they were sent, all to perpetuate the memory of their empire.

Nevertheless, in this conquering of land that they did, as well as overseas, like when they reached India, as we have already said, 26 they showed more prudence than the Greeks, Carthegians and Romans, who, because of conquering distant lands, were so far from their homeland that they ended up losing. However27 the Chinese did not wish to experiment with causing total damage. Beforehand, seeing how India had used up so many of their people, and so much material from their own kingdom and that they were vexed by neighbours, at the same time that they were continuing to conquer far away lands, in their own country they had gold, silver and other metals and such great science of machinery that everyone copied them and they copied no-one. By a decree of a prudent king who governed at the time, [China] ended up closing itself off inside the state they had, with [the king] making a pragmatic {decree} prohibiting, under the death penalty, [that] anyone should sail to those places. 28

Today they keep two aspects of that law. [Firstly, that neither] by land or sea could any man enter this kingdom. And those who enter with some important business under the services of the king bearing the name of ambassador, had their steps followed by informers ordered to do so [in such a way] as to know how much they did. And even the traders who wish to go to China overland gather together and make one of them their head, appoint him as ambassador, and with this cautiousness they buy and sell. The second thing is that no native inhabitant can sail overseas, and some who live on the islands close to the mainland are allowed to sail to parts where they could go and return within that year. 29 For such an outward journey they ask permission from the administrators of land and give a guarantee that they will return within the said period, and it is forbidden to have a ship over one hundred and fifty tons; and if one asks for a license for a larger one, they do not want to give it as they say you wish to go farther away from the kingdom. And if some foreigners go there by sea and [call] on these islands and [stay] there half-hidden, those from over the shore come to buy and sell, and in this way we carry out trading today. However, although on this occasion Fernão Peres de Andrade had made peace and friendship with them, 30 others [Portuguese] later did things which meant that they stayed at war with us. 31

The people of this province [of] Guangdong• where he was, compared to the other one closer to the north where he lived, are like the people of Africa to the Germans, they are not alike, neither in whiteness nor dress, nor how they treat each other in a way which those of the lower {province} seem like slaves to the upper {province}. Only with regard to trade in this city [of] Guangzhou• do the people treat themselves well and are rich in their own way, which because of this many goods of all descriptions come from the provinces of the hinterland, and from different nations, that they all revert to the Guangdongnese language, as among themselves they understand each other almost like the Greeks did, acquiring vocabularies from some more than others. 32

Generally they are meagre men in all business, mainly in that of merchandise; and are very astute in warfare trade, and in artifices for naval warfare, and from the experience that we have, they have nothing to envy in Europe and when we went there they already had artillery. 33 However, after they had seen our type, they soon followed that way, because they are such excellent founders who work with metal in vessels for household use, as we saw the brass of Nuremburg, and it is worked for trading with all those Islands of the great Orient; but as it is cast iron it breaks like glass.

The women are good looking in their way, and they are well treated, and the men are so mindful of them that they see them very little; and when they have to venture outside, they are inside sedan chairs all covered in silk, 34 on men's shoulders, surrounded by servants. And however all the men usually have two or three wives, only one is the first wife and has legitimate respect. The women, as are the men, are very exquisite and dainty in their attire [and] in their grooming, and with eating they waste as much food as time, because every {meal} is a banquet whereby they spent days and nights, in a way that neither the Flemish or Germans could match. At these banquets there is every type of music, acrobats, farces, jesters and all other diversions which can liven up one. The serving of the food is in the most immaculate way possible, with everything on fine porcelain, given that they also serve from gold and silver vessels, and everything is eaten with a fork made in their style, without placing the hands in the food, no matter how minute. Yet there is a difference with banquets here as every second table [for eating] has a small table, even if there are fifty guests at the house, and with each kind of delicacy there has to be a. change of tablecloths, plates, knives, forks and spoons. And because of jealousy the women do not eat with the men, as they are served at those banquets by unmarried women, who earn their living doing this, being almost like jesters, because the waiting of the tables in accompanied by entertainers as well as others with different talents who are hired for this. The actual wives, although they are not at these banquets, have their own with their friends inside their homes where no man can enter, only some blind men who sing and play. Noble men generally have grand homes, with patios, covered porches, gardens, and all are houses on one level, at least in the city [of] Guangzhou and all the coast which we saw;and we have heard it said that in the provinces further to the north there are buildings of with more than one level.

Almost the majority of these provinces, or states, as they call themselves, mainly the coastal ones, are all divided by rivers, some of fresh water and others are estuaries of sea water which come a long way inland; and for being very level [the land] its shoreline seems composed of wetlands but it is not; by the industriousness of the native people, they inhabit part of it like an irrigated orchard. From there we see that there are a great abundance of service boats from these rivers, which seem to be the home for as many people on water as on land; for the boatmen, as though it were their domain, bring their wife [and] children, and their worldly belongings to a part covered over like a house, and another part covered over as well for passengers according to the time of year. It is as any long, wide river would be, because some can come and go, and almost all are attached to other boats which are like shops where one can find all the organisation of a city. Finally these are people who earn their living through hard work and there is nothing that they cannot invent. They have carriages with sails on land, which they steer as they can a boat on the river, where people travel like the way the carriages of Flanders and Italy do, although they have others with horses.

The city of Guangzhou, where Fernão Peres was, not only from information we have from him, 35 and from others who were with him, but from a sketch of the city which we brought from there, we know that it was situated along one of these navigable rivers, 36 which we mentioned, to which the entrance of the bay/sandbanks were some islands population by farmers, and from there until the city runs the river of two-hundred yards in width and up to seven arms' lengths in depth, along whose banks were small, lush places. The main area of the city is a lovely flat field, all planted out; except for in the middle, within walls, is a high mound, which looks like a breast, where a sumptuous temple is placed with spires in the style of a pyramid, for which they use cement up to the peak, making the city appear very beautiful, as well as other temples which they have there, which do not show so much, just like the houses, because as we said, they are all on one level.

The circumference of the {city} wall appears to be more the three miles, not so much calculating by sight as by counting, as one evening in which they had a splendid festival with great lantern lights, 37 in the same way that we celebrate the night of St. John the Baptist, António Fernandes, a strange man among those who Fernão Peres took along with him, was inside the city at that time, because during the day he would not dare to attempt it, and ran on top of the wall around the whole city and counted ninety towers, which were in the style of guard posts. The entire wall is sloped38 on the outside, standing on top of the ground without any other foundation and bonded with masonry and whitewash. It is so wide at the base that it is three times wider than the middle of the wall; and on top, where it runs all around, it would be more than twenty hands, filled up inside with more than two fractions of its height, which could be forty hands. This mortar comes out of a very broad trench, which is filled with water surrounding the wall, leaving between it and the wall a space so wide that it would be possible for six men mounted on horseback to go through, and just a many on the inside of the wall. In this way one can see everything and avail of everything inside and out, without any buildings interfering with the view. In each of one of those towers there is a type of sentry-box which protects the guard from wind and rain, where every night there are lights to keep watch under orders from the city.

What makes this setting of the city so beautiful is the neatness of the houses in having two roads in the shape of a cross, which have four city gates and seven service entrances and in this way they are in a straight, regular line and whoever places himself at one door can see the other in front. From the two main streets all the others branch out and at the front door of every house there is an evergreen tree just for giving shade and coolness, and thereby they are placed in order so that from the foot of one tree the eye can follow the line of all the others. On the seven gates which serve the city there are seven bridges of stone and whitewash, and each gate has a tower with an entrance which comprises of three doors, so entering one it is still defended by the other; and if any boats wish to go underneath the bridge, they can very well do so, as the trench has a navigable depth, however they must to it with the masts down. At each one of the city's entrance gates there is a man as the captain of the guard, who has ministers with him. He does not allow anyone to enter except for a local or known person; and among the locals no-one can carry weapons, only those who are ministers of the guard from there, like soldiers between us, who are recognised by their uniforms. Foreigners who travel there from other provinces and from beyond China, are lodged in the outskirts of the city and even so there would nobody whose origins and business would not be known; and if he were a vagrant he would be imprisoned.

Finally, the laws and the jurisprudence of this land dictate that unmarried women live outside the walled precinct [of the city] so as not to blemish the integrity of its citizens. Because all country folk have work there is not a single pauper begging for charity; all men with the use of their feet, hands or eyes earning enough to eat. There are no more than four thousand blind people in this city and even these are employed in hand-mills grinding wheat and rice. As we have said already, the other superior qualities of this land, its government and customs, will appear in the tomes of the Geography, 39 which has been described sufficiently to understand the adventures of Fernão Peres heresx, a full report of which we hope to provide as soon as possible. 40

Translated from the Portuguese by: Linda Pearce

For the Portuguese text, see:

BARROS, João de, LOUREIRO, Rui Manuel, intro., Informação da China, in "Antologia Documental: Visões da China na Literatura Ibérica d o s Séculos XVI e XVII", in "Revista de Cultura", Macau, 31 (2) Abril-Junho [April-June] 1997, pp.58-65 -- For the Portuguese modernised version by the author of the original text, with words or expressions in square brackets added to clarify the meaning.

For the original source of the Portuguese text, see:

BARROS, João de, Da Asia de João de Barros: Década Terceira, Lisboa, Livraria Sam Carlos, 1973, liv. [bk.] 2, cap. [chap.] 7 [facsimile of the 1777 edition] -- Partial transcription.

Translator's note: Words or expressions between curly brackets occur only in the English translation.

NOTES

Numeration without punctuation marks follow that in João de Barros's original text selected in Rui Loureiro's edited text in "Revista de Cultura" (Portuguese edition), Macau, 31 (2) Abril-Junho [April-June] 1997, p.65.

The spelling of Rui Loureiro's edited text [Port.] is indicated between quotation marks and in italics《""》-- unless the spelling of the original Portuguese text is indicated.

1 "[...] grande Oceano, [...]" ("[...] Great Ocean, [...]"): the Pacific Ocean.

2 "Cález" [original Port.] or 'Cádis' [Port.] ("Cadiz"): probably meaning, this city in Southern Spain, which is along a peninsula and it is situated approximately at the latitude later referred to.

3 "[...] mar Ocidental, [...]" ("[...] Western ocean, [...]"): the Atlantic Ocean.

4 "Cácho" [original Port.] or "Cauchi" ("Cauchi"): meaning in this context, 'Cochinchina' ('Cochin-China').

5 "tatas" ("Tátas"): the Tartars -- who in those days frequently made predatory incursions across the northern borders of the Middle Kingdom.

6 The- author often refers in his works to a Geografia (Geography) Treatise which he had compiled but it has never been found to date.

7 "[...] um muro, [... ]" ("[...] a wall, [...]"): the Great Wall of China.

8 "Ochióy"• [original Port.] -- probably a typographical error for 'o Chióy'· [Port.] ("Qiaoya") = Jiayu• or Jiayuguan· [Chin.]: a Chinese pass in the western end of the [Ming] Great Wall [-- in the province of Gansu· -- ] which, during the Ming dynasty, extended to the east until the Gulf of Zhili· [Chihli,• or Po Hai]. ·

9 "tata[s]" or "tanca[s]" [original Port.] ("Tanca[s]") = danjia [Chin.]: name given in Guangzhou· to 'boat people', the sector of the population from the city who lived on floating vessels. The author seems to be mistaken here [in associating "tatas" ('Tartars') with "tancas" ('boat people').

10 This book of Cosmografia (Cosmography) could have reached the author's hands through an intermediary of the Portuguese prisoners in Guangzhou, Cristóvão Vieira and Vasco Calvo (See: Text 4 -- Cristóvão Vieira).

11 "li" [Port.] ("li") = li· [Chin.]: a Chinese measure of length approximately six-hundred and twenty metres.

12 "pu·" [Port.] ("pio") = pu· [Chin.]: a Chinese measure of length approximately six-thousand one-hundred metres.

13 "ichão" [Port.] ("yichao") = [?] [Chin.]: a subjective measurement unit used in China to equal a journey.

14 "Cantão" [Port.] ("Guangdong") = Guangdong [Chin.]; "Foquiem" [Port.] ("Fujian") = Fujian [Chin.]; "Chequeam" [Port.] ("Zhejiang") = Zhejiang [Chin.]; "Xantom" [Port.] ("Shandong") = Shandong [Chin.]; "Nanquim" [Port.] ("Nanzhili") = Nanzhili [Chin.]; "Quinci" [Port.] ("Jiangxi") = Jiangxi [Chin.]; "Quicheu" [Port.] ("Guizhou") = Guizhou [Chin.]; "Junam" [Port.] ("Hunan") = Hunan [Chin.]; "Quanci" [Port.] ("Guangxi") = Guangxi [Chin.]; "Sujuam" [Port.] ("Sichuan") =Sichuan [Chin.]; "Fuquam" [Port.] ("Huguang")= Huguang [Chin.]; "Canci" [Port.] ("Jiangxi") = Jiangxi [Chin.]; "Xianxi" [Port.] ("Shanxi") = Shanxi [Chin.]; "Honam" [Port.] ("Henan") = Henan [Chin.]; "Sansi" [Port.] ("Shaanxi") = Shaanxi [Chin.]. This list of Chinese provinces seems to be quite similar to the one presented by Cristóvão Vieira a few years earlier. (See: Text 4 -- Cristóvão Vieira) The prisoner's letter was one of the author' sources.

15 "fu" [Port.] ("fu") =fu [Chin.]: a Chinese district as well as its main city.

16 "cheu"· [Port.] ("zhou") = zhou [Chin.]: a Chinese county dependant on a fu, as well as its main settlement.

17 "tutão"· [Port.] ("tu tang ") = dutang• [Chin.]: the Viceroy or governor general of a Chinese province.

18 "Conquão"· [Port.] ("conggnan")·= zongguan·[Chin.]: the exchequer of a Chinese province.

19 "Chumpim"· [Port.] ( "chong-bing ")· = zongbing·[Chin.]: the commander of a Chinese province's armed forces.

20 The author and Fernão Mendes Pinto are the only Portuguese authors from the sixteenth century who refer to China as an "império" ("Empire").

21"[...] vinho que eles lá usam, [...]" ("[...] wine [...] that they use there [...]"): possibly meaning in this context, 'tea'.

22 "Ceui"·[Port.] ("yushi") = yushi ·[Chin.]: an official censor invested with the duties of an Imperial itinerant commissioner.

23 In the ancient kingdom of Ava, on the shores of the upper part of the Irrawadi river, taking up territory inside of Burma (presently Myanmar).

24The author probably refers to the ruins of Pagan, the ancient Burmese capital, of which some majestic remains survive today.

25 The Chinese civilisation exercised an enormous influence on the Indochinese peninsula, however the author exaggerates the vastness of the territories conquered by the Middle Kingdom. China previously maintained tax-paying relations with many kingdoms from those parts, which were bound together with regular tax missions to Beijing.

26 The author is referring to the early fifteenth century great maritime voyages of the Chinese [carried out by Zheng He's• powerful armadas of hundreds of junks], during which the imperial vessels friendly visited without conquest purposes a number of Oriental kindoms, scattered from the eastern coast of the Cochin-China to the oriental coast of Africa.

27"Peró" [original Port.] ("However"): meaning, 'mas ', (lit.: 'but').

28 This passage of the Déada da Ásia -- III (Decade of Asia --III) has been interpreted by the author as a direct criticism of the Portuguese 'expansion', which had reached a truly enormous extension in the middle of the sixteenth century. However other passages of the author's work presume that he would have been an ardent supporter of Portuguese Oriental 'expansion'.

29 "sofre-se" ({not translated}): meaning, 'tolera-se' ('can be tolerated').

30 The author is referring to Fernão Peres de Andrade's expedition to Guangzhou inl517-1518.

31 This refers to the Portuguese-Chinese conflicts which happened between 1521-1522 with the islands on the Zhujian's ·(Pearl River) estuary.

32 In China there are several dozen languages and dialects which are mutually incomprehensible, leading the Chinese to generically use the so called Guanhua• ('Mandarin language'), as used in the region of Beijing, and its written characters in order to understand each other.

33 Artillery existed for long before this time in China, however they had quite inferior firing power compared to the Europeans.

34 "anda[s]" (lit.: 'portable[s]' or 'carrier[s]'): meaning, 'liteira[s]' ("[...] sedan chair[s] [...]" or 'palanquin[s]').

35 The period when the author was feitor (Administrator) of the Casa da Índia (Indian Government Office), Fernão Peres de Andrade carried out the post of provedor (supplier of government warchasses and provider of state weaponry) in Lisbon, probably meant that the two of them had to meet regularly, giving the writer the opportunity to document the great Portuguese 'expansion' in China at the same time.

36 The city of Guangzhou is situated on the banks of the Zhujian· (Pearl River).

37 "iluminária[s]" ("[...] lantern light[s] [...]"): the Yuanxiao Jie· (Exhibition of Lanterns), part of the Chinese New Year celebrations.

38 "alomborado" ({?}): meaning, 'escarpado'("slooped").

39 One of the author's multiple reference to the lost Geografia (Geography) Treatise which he was then compiling. (See: Note 6)

40 The following chapter of Década da Ásia -- III (Decade of Asia--III) relates the adventures of Fernão Peres de Andrade and his men along the China coast.