৪০ ten hy EARLIEST EUROPEAN WRITERS 69 about 1620, states that Daecea has a ‘“ehureh of the Augustinians, a very stately pile;”! Portuguese Church ৪7০৮6. and Hosten, in his papers on Roman Catholic Missions and Missionaries, gives interesting accounts, from original records, of this Missio de 8. Nicolao Tolentino, near Bhawal, Dacca.? Manoel da Assumpead, a native of Evora and an Augustinian friar of the Congregacaé Manoel da Assump- aad da India Oriental, was the Rector of this Mission. Of his life and labours, nothing definite is known: but he seems to have ‘been a zealous missionary and com- His two works in Beall posed two hooks and edited one in Bengali with the object of affording facilities to the missionaries in their Bengali discussions with the “Bramenes and Gentoos.’’3 Of these three works, his earliest composition seems to have been what Father Thirso Lopes, in his note to Hoste.’s paper,* calls an Abridgment of the Mysteries of Faith (Compendio dos misterios da fee, ordenado em lingua Bengalla pelo P. Fr.
' Tavernier’s Travels, ed. Ball, London, 1889, vol. i., p. 128.
- References given ante. The other centres of these Augustinian
- missionaries in Bengal was the Convent of N. Senhora do Rosario of Ugalim (Hnugli) in Bengala. > Father Hosten states (Bengal Past and Present, vol. ix, pt. i. p. 42) that he has been informed that MSS of these works are now in the Public Library of Evora.
- Quoted in note (4) above. Father Lopes’s authorities, in
addition to Barbosa Machado and Ossinger, are; Catalogo dos Manus- criptos da Bibliotheca Publica Eborense ordenado pelo Bibliothecario Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara, t. i p. 345; Silva, Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez t. v. p. 367; Bonifacio Moral, Revista La Ciudad de Dios, t. 37, pp. 433-34. Unfortunately these books are not available here. .
