The text A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): a contribution to the history of India is an amazing eye-witness account near the end of the Vijayanagar empire's rule in Vijayanagara, present-day Hampi. Written by the Portueguese Domingos Paes and Fernão Nunes about 1520 and 1535 and translated into English, a copy was available in a small bookshop located in the back of the Virupaksha temple, behind a room with a camera-obscura view of the temple's entry tower. The chronicles contain stunning information about how the king and people lived, a fabulously wealthy, capricious, brutal empire. I walk down the street in Hampi, where Paes describes walking to the Virupaksha temple--which may predate the empire and is still in use today--on a street lined with houses used by nobles; now the poor live there, sharing space with tourist trinket shops and Internet cafes. A child will walk up to you "hello, 10 rupee... chocolate? biscuit?" while a chicken crows in a tree. Dancing girls, human and animal sacrifice, wars, elephants slashing, self-immolation, taxes, bounty and wealth.