_ 207 _ sick, and avoided some reefs before the feast of the eleven thousand virgins [20 October] “by a miracle”. Couto(A) was born in Lisbon in 1542, sailed for India in 1559 where he saw military action and took part in the taking of Mangalore in 1568. He returned to India in 1571 and died in Goa in 1616. He mentions Matias de Albuquerque often as an important personality. In the first period Couto and Albuquerque were both simple soldiers (Decada VIIII, [1564-1571]=cap.20, pp.116169: taking Mangalore at the beginning of 1568); captain of Cape Comorin, Decada IX [1571-75], pp.13-14; in Malabar again, now as Commander, Decada X, 1 [1581-1584], pp.157169, and later, ib. 328, 333-334, with outstanding actions against the enemy in the Serra and Olala, and the Mecca carracks; Decada X, 2 [1583-1588] describes Matias’s activity as Captain of Ormuz, pp. 65-71, and the qualities he displayed there. He adds something lacking in the Vida, that the Nakhili broke the treaty of peace and the Captain sent some ships against them, which were wrecked. Decada XI [1588-1597], which Couto completed in 1610(B), is lost, and the missing parts were replaced in 1788 by other accounts. (A) G. Schurhammer, Franx Xavier, 11,2, Freiburg, 1971, 445-448. (B) Ibidem, 445.
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