The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of Prester John, Being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520

1961

Journals G161 H2 Ser.2 no.114

Cambridge: Published for the Hakluyt Society at the University Press

The missionary Francisco Álvares (c.1465-1541) was among 13 others of the Portuguese embassy expedition, who landed at Massawa on the west coast of the Red Sea in April 1520. They were the first Europeans to have reached the Ethiopian Court, and return safely from it, six years later. On returning to Lisbon, Álvares wrote one of the earliest travel books on Ethiopia, in English: A True Relation of the Lands of Prester John of the Indies (1540). Despite claims that ‘the author is prone to exaggerate’, the work remains important on two levels: it is a first source for Christian Ethiopia (pre-Muslim Somali and Galla invasions); and it contains early descriptions of the antiquities of ancient Aksum and the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. This second, much corrected, Hakluyt translation was published in 1961.