Excerpt from Portuguese Discoveries, Dependencies and Missions in Asia and Africa There are some subjects which, at first sight, seem to present little difficulty, and to demand but a very moderate amount of research. When, however, the student has commenced his investigations, he sees new fields opening up on every side and the difficulty is not to find materials for his work, but to select from the vast mass before him such elements as are solely, or chiefly, suitable for his enterprise. This has been our principal embarrassment in the preparation of the following Essay; for it was soon discovered that the volumes bearing upon our subject would have furnished matter for a history, instead of contributing to the pages of a monograph. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.