introduction: "Nothing that we know of in any language can compare with
them, whether for their historical importance or for the description
given of the country, and especially of the capital, its products,
customs, and the like. The Italian travellers who visited and wrote
about this country -- Nicolo di Conti, Varthema, and Federici --
are much less minute in the matter of the geography and customs of
the land, and not one of them has left us a chronicle." They are
indeed invaluable, and throw an extraordinary light on the condition
of Vijayanagar as well as on several doubtful points of history.

Thus, for instance, we have in Nuniz for the first time a definite
account of the events that led to the fall of the First Dynasty and the
establishment of the second by the usurpation of Narasimha. Previous
to the publication of these chronicles by Senhor Lopes we had nothing
to guide us in this matter, save a few vague and unsatisfactory lines
in the chronicle of the historian Firishtah.[5] Now all is made clear,
and though as yet the truth cannot be definitely determined, at least
we have an explicit and exceedingly interesting story. Paes too,
as well as Nuniz, conclusively proves to us that Krishna Deva Raya
was really the greatest of all the kings of Vijayanagar, and not the
mere puppet that Firishtah appears to consider him (Firishtah does not
mention him by name); for Paes saw him on several occasions and speaks
of him in warm and glowing terms, while Nuniz, whose narrative was
evidently firsthand, never so much as hints that his armies were led
to victory by any other general but the king himself. Nuniz also gives
us a graphic description from personal knowledge of the character of
Krishna's degenerate successor Achyuta, whose feebleness, selfishness,
cowardice, and cruelty paved the way for the final destruction of
the great empire.