Page 89 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

Hakluyt's description of the Hajj 79

some sixty officers and men captured at Muscat in 1552, some of
whom were rescued in 1564 and some of whom remained in
captivity after that. With his usual acumen and erudition, Levi
della Vida noticed the close resemblance between the Portuguese
narrative and Hakluyt's text. He concluded his article on the
subject by saying: ‘Of course, the Hakluyt text was by no means
written by the Portuguese, and the reports of two independent
observers of the same object may well coincide. However, since the
Portuguese either went to Italy after having been rescued from his
captivity, or at least came into contact with Italians (how could we
otherwise explain that the manuscript which he owned found its
way into the Vatican Library?), it would not be unlikely, although
a definite proof is impossible, that some kind of relationship may
exist between the two documents.’ With this no one can disagree.
The Hakluyt text does afford evidence of having been written by
someone with military interests. The writer is careful to record the
size of garrisons, the strength of fortifications, and the quality of
harbours. It is likely enough that he was a soldier. The vocabulary
yields two slight, but inconclusive indications of a Portuguese
connection. The word ‘santon’ occurs several times. At this time it
was becoming current in several European languages, and this is
the first instance of its use in English recorded by the O.E.D. It is
of Iberian origin. The other possible sign of Portuguese influence is
the spelling mesquita or mosquita instead of the usual Italian forms
moschea and meschita.
In conclusion, though neither the authorship nor the date of this
work is known, it can be stated confidently that it is a single work,
not a conflation, that it was translated into English from Italian,
that the manuscript in the British Library is an inferior copy of
part of the work, and that it must have been written not before,
and probably not long after 1575. It is almost certainly connected
in some way with the Portuguese manuscript in the Vatican
Library.

Notes

1. A revised version of a paper read to the symposium on Religion and
the Arts in Islam organised by the University of Manchester Egyptian and
Oriental Society, convened at Hulme Hall, Manchester, in July 1976.
2. I wish to thank Professor D. B. Quinn and Mrs Alison Quinn for
directing my attention to the problems posed by this narrative.
3. D. B. Quinn (ed.), The Hakluyt handbook, II, 1974, 419.