CAMOENS. Luis de Camoens, a native of Por tugal, was born at Lisbon about A.D. 1524, and educated at the University of Coimbra, but, fall ing in love with Catharina de Atayade, he was banished from court. He joined the army in vading Morocco as a soldier, where he was often wounded, and lost an eye, and he describes himself then as with `one hand the pen and one the sword employed ;' but, neglected, he left Por tugal A.D. 1553, and landed at Goa, after a voyage of nine months. He joined an expedition against the king of Pimenta, and a year afterwards accompanied Manoel de Vasconcellos up the Red Sea, and returned to Goa, but he involved himself by writing his Absurdities of India, and was banished to the Moluccas. During the five years that he remained there, ho visited some of tho islands of the Archipelago, and amassed a small fortune, but, embarking it in trade, he was ship wrecked near the river Mei-kong in Cambodia, sav ing only the manuscript of his poem, the Lusiad, deluged with the waves, through which, clinging to a plank, ho forced his way to the shore. The
Lusind describes the system of modern commerce, founded on the discovery of the Cape route. The geographical descriptions are singularly accurate. He returned to Lisbon, where he lived in great poverty, till his death in the Lisbon hospital, A.D. 1579. His poem, the Lusiad, celebrates the great voyage of Vasco da Gama, and gives a history of the Portuguese in India. The `Cave of Camoens,' where he is supposed to have written a portion of his Lusiad, is a place of interest at Macao. It is picturesquely situated upon the summit of a small hill on the margin of the inner harbonr.—Ameri can Expedition to Japan, p. 165.