When the Portuguese had once established their dominion in the East, they no longer spread themselves abroad to gratify curiosity, or for the liberal purpose of enlarging their knowledge of the globe. The wealth of the Indies and the weakness of the natives called forth their worst passions. Avarice, inflamed by religious bigotry, became their chief spring of action, and they are thenceforward to be viewed not so much in the light of skilful and intrepid navigators, as in that of rapacious adventurers, military merchants, pirates, and missionaries. The personal narrative of one of the most extraordinary adventurers of that remarkable age remains to us, and in it we find marked out not only the farthest extent of the geographical knowledge of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, but also an exact and vivid picture of their manners.

Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, the author and hero of this narrative, was one of the first Europeans who visited Japan; and if the geographical notices which occur in his volume are too often obscure and unintelligible, he contributes, on the other hand, to throw a light on the history of geography, by revealing to us the habits and character of those of his countrymen who first reached the remotest countries of the East.