Africa as a volunteer where before Ceuta he lost his eye. How familiar that maimed, rugged, yet strong, noble physiognomy becomes to the sojourner in Portugal, for in every town, house, almost every cottage one comes across it in some shape or form, as a bust, or in a print, or cast. Wounded, he returned to Lisbon, but slighted, overlooked, he did what all enterprising Portuguese yearned to do in those days, set sail for India, and again became a fighter in an expedition against the King of Cochin China. When he returned to Goa, the metropolis of Portuguese India, he had the indiscretion to publish a satire on the abuses which everywhere met his notice. He had to leave the town and seek refuge in the island of Macao, where having found a humble employment he began Os Lusiadas. Five years passed quickly, then he was recalled to Goa, but the ship on which he embarked stranded on the coast, and he lost everything he possessed except his poem, which he bore on his person when he was cast into the sea. Misfortune dogged him at Goa, for the viceroy who had recalled him set out for Europe, and his earlier enemies caused him to be put in irons under false accusations. When the new viceroy arrived, Camões's petition for liberty was not unheeded, and from this time forward the soldier merged into the poet, the great epic drew to a close.
In 1569, sixteen years since he had left Lisbon, he returned to his country. The young Sebastião was King. Although making a cult of religion rather than the muses, he accepted the dedication of the Lusiadas, and awarded to the author the puny pension of fifteen milreis—about the same sum that Paradise Lost gave to Milton.
From that time forward Camões had no resource but his pen, and in consequence tradition has stored many tales concerning the straits to which poverty reduced
73
