TEIXEIRA, Pedro. 15?? — after 1610. Portuguese Traveller. Born in a Portuguese Jewish family, probably in Lisbon, but without Jewish education. Of his life, little is know beyond the meagre information in his book. Even his profession is unknown, Fleming thinks that perhaps he was physician. He spent a long time in the East, where he had arrived before 1587 (perhaps 1586 at Goa), and returned in 1600-01 via Mexico. Beside Goa he visited Hormuz, Ceylon, Malacca and Philippines. As the money sent from Malacca to Lisbon had not arrived he returned to Goa in 1603. Apparently he found his money as four months later in winter 1604 he was again homeward-bound, but now using different route, taking ship to Hormuz and Basra and then by land to Aleppo and by ship to Venice, arriving in April 1605. Finally he came to Antwerp (then Spanish territory) and wrote there his book. Further information is missing, but Ferguson supposes that he lived many years there and did no further travels. He knew Persian and some Arabic.
The name is not rare and he is sometimes (e.g. in German Wikipedia) confused with another P.T. (d. 1641), an officer who explored Amazonas in 1637-38.
Publications: Relaciones de Pedro Teixeira d’el Origen Descendencia y Svccession de los Reyes de Persia, y de Harmuz y de un Viage hecho por el Mismo Autor dende la India Oriental hasta Italia por tierra. 6+384 (Relaciones) +8+215 (Harmuz & Viage) +15 p. Amberes 1610; Viage in English first as The travels of Peter Teixeira from India to to the Low Countries by land; with a Short Account of a Voyage from India to Spain, by way of the Philippine Islands and the Kingdom of Mexico. A View of the Universe 5. 1710; new transl. by W. P. Sinclair, The Travels of Pedro Teixeira. 107+292 p. L. Hakluyt Soc. 1902.
Sources: D. Ferguson, long introduction to Sinclair’s translation 1901; J.V. Fleming, Literature of Travel and Explor. 3, 2003, 1164-1166.
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