JOHN ELDRED ad. 



1584. 

 Calecut cloth. These ships are usually from forty to 

 threescore tunnes, having their planks sowed together 

 with corde made of the barke of Date trees, and in 

 stead of Occam they use the shiverings of the barke 

 of the sayd trees, and of the same they also make 

 their tackling. They have no kinde of yron worke SA JP S made 

 belonging to these vessels, save only their ankers. wU ™ ut y ron 

 From this place six dayes sailing downe the gulfe, m/a 

 they go to a place called Baharem in the mid way to 

 Ormus : there they fish for pearles foure moneths in the 

 yere, to wit, in June, July, August, and September. 

 My abode in Balsara was just sixe moneths, during which 

 time I received divers letters from M. John Newbery 

 from Ormus, who as he passed that way with her 

 Majesties letters to Zelabdim Echebar king of Cambaia, Zelabdim 

 & unto the mighty emperour of China, was traiterously E ^ bar ktn S 

 there arrested, and all his company, by the Portugals, and 

 afterward sent prisoner to Goa : where after a long and 

 cruell imprisonment he and his companions were delivered 

 upon sureties, not to depart the towne without leave, at 

 the sute of one father Thomas Stevens an English re- 

 ligious man, which they found there : but shortly after 

 three of them escaped, whereof one, to wit, M. Ralph 

 Fitch, is since come into England. The fourth, which 

 was a painter called John Story, became religious in the 

 college of S. Paul in Goa, as we understood by their 

 letters. I and my companion William Shales having dis- He returneth 

 patched our businesse at Balsara, imbarked our selves in f rom ^ alsara 

 company of seventy barks all laden with marchandise, 

 having every barke 14 men to draw them, like our 

 Westerne bargemen on the Thames, and we were forty 

 foure dayes comming up against the streame to Babylon, 

 where arriving and paying our custome, we with all other 

 sorts of marchants bought us camels, hired us men to 

 lade and drive them, furnished our selves with rice, Their prom- 

 butter, bisket, hony made of dates, onions and dates : ston °A 

 and every marchant bought a proportion of live muttons, 

 and hired certaine shepheards to drive them with us : we 



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