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0040 Southern Tibet : vol.7
Southern Tibet : vol.7 / Page 40 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000263
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20

has been proved that everything Wilford says of Monserrate was perfectly correct,
and that nobody, except myself, had made a mistake, in supposing that Wilford
should have confounded Monserrate and Tieffenthaler. I am very glad now to be
able in this historical account to give Monserrate the high place and credit which
is due to him.

Rev. H. Hosten gives, in his Introduction, all details regarding the discovery,
in 1906 in Calcutta, of the valuable MS. of Antonio de Monserrate.¹ A note contains
the principal dates of his curriculum vitae and references to C. SOMMERVOGEL and
E. DE GUILHERMY for other details. In FR. ANT. FRANCO'S Imagem da Virtude em
o Noviciado . . . . . de Lisboa, Coimbra, M. DCC. XVII, pp. 278—301 are recommended
for a full account of his life.²

Monserrate's own preface is dated Sanaa, Arabia, Jan. 7th 1591. Hosten con-
cludes that the MS. is not a copy, but Monserrate's own original, written in his
prison at Sanaa.

There are 140 folios, numbered on the recto. The Calcutta MS., as is evident
from the preface and an inspection of the contents, constitutes only a small portion
of Monserrate's writings.

Hosten shows that the »Bk. I», as he calls the volume first discovered and
now published, was accompanied by a Bk. II, containing geographical and antiquarian
matter, which »remains to be discovered». Much of the contents of the intended,