1595-1678

Portuguese Jesuit missionary to India and Ethiopia who wrote an account of his visit to the latter, translated as Voyage to Abyssinia. Lobo first went to India in 1621, and in 1624 was sent to convert the Abyssinians from Coptic Christianity to Catholicism. Initially he enjoyed the protection of the Emperor Segued, but with the latter's death, he fell into a series of misadventures and ultimately departed to India. Lobo, who was said to have traveled 38,000 leagues (about 133,000 miles or 214,700 kilometers) in his career, died in Lisbon. His memoirs of Abyssinia first saw publication in 1728, with the French translation Voyage historique d'Abissinie.