governors of India; but we have never been able to ascertain when the
former died and the latter abandoned the projected conquest of the
mines.

[Footnote 401: The commencement of the government of Barreto has been
already stated as having taken place in 1569. Antonio Moniz Barreto
governed India from 1573 to 1576: Hence the consecutive governments of
Francisco Barreto and Vasco Fernandez Homem in Monomotapa could not be
less than _four_ or more than _seven_ years.--E.]

SECTION IX.

_Continuation of the Portuguese Transactions in India, from 1576 to
1581; when the Crown of Portugal was usurped by Philip II. of Spain, on
the Death of the Cardinal King Henry._

In 1576 Ruy Lorenzo de Tavora went out as viceroy of Portuguese India;
but dying on the voyage, at Mozambique, Don Diego de Menezes assumed the
government in virtue of a royal patent of succession. Nothing
extraordinary happened during his government of nearly two years, when
he was superseded by the arrival of Don Luis de Ataide count of Atougaia
as viceroy of India for the second time. Ataide had been appointed
general in chief of the Portuguese forces by king Sebastian, who had
resolved to bury the glory of his kingdom in the burning sands of
Africa; and finding his own youthful impetuosity unable to conform with
the prudent councils of the count, he constituted him viceroy of India
as a plausible means of removing him. The count arrived at Goa about the
end of August 1577, where he immediately fitted out a mighty fleet which
struck terror into all the neighbouring princes. After continuing the
war for some time against Adel Khan, a peace was concluded with that
prince.

Soon afterwards news was brought to India of the melancholy catastrophe
which had befallen king Sebastian in Africa, and that the Cardinal Don
Henry had succeeded to the throne; but he soon afterwards died, and the
kingdom of Portugal came under the direction of a council of regency
consisting of five members. The viceroy Don Luis died soon afterwards at
Goa in the beginning of the year 1580, after governing India this second
time for two years and seven months. He seemed to have had a
presentiment of his death; for being applied to for leave to bury his
cousin Antonio Borello beside his brother Don Juan de Ataide, he refused
it, saying that he had long designed that situation for himself. He was
a man of most undaunted courage, of which the following instance may be
adduced. At the a