Travels in India (Tavernier) 31.1.3

31.1.3

If the Portuguese had not been so much occupied with guarding so many fortresses on land, and if, in the contempt they had for the Dutch at first, they had not neglected their affairs, they would not be to-day reduced to so low a condition. The Portuguese who go to India have no sooner passed the Cape of Good Hope than they all become Fidalgos or gentlemen, and add Dom to the simple name of Pedro or Jeronimo which they carried when they embarked ; this is the reason why they are commonly called in derision “ Fidalgos of the Cape of Good Hope.” As they change in their status so also they change in their nature, and it may be said that the Portuguese dwelling in India are the most vindictive and the most jealous of their women of all the people in the world. As soon as they entertain the least suspicion about their women they will, without scruple, make away with them by poison or the dagger. When they have an enemy they never forgive him. If they are of equal strength and dare not come to a struggle, they have black slaves, who will blindly obey their master’s order to go and kill any one ; and this is done generally with a stroke of a dagger, or the shot of a blunderbuss, or by felling the man with a large stick of the length of a short pike which they are accustomed to carry.