CAESAR FREDERICK ad. 



1563-8: 

 sorts of marchandlse which they trade withall in those 

 parts : and the fleet which commeth every yeere from 

 Portugall, which are five or sixe great shippes that come 

 directly for Goa, arrive there ordinarily the sixth or 

 tenth of September, and there they remaine forty or 

 fifty dayes, and from thence they goe to Cochin, where 

 they lade for Portugall, and often times they lade one 

 shippe at Goa and the other at Cochin for Portugall. 

 Cochin is distant from Goa three hundred miles. The 

 city of Goa is situate in the kingdome of Dialcan a 

 king of the Moores, whose chiefe city is up in the 

 countrey eight dayes journey, and is called Bisapor : this 

 king is of great power, for when I was in Goa in the 

 yeere of our Lord 1570, this king came to give assault 

 to Goa, being encamped neere unto it by a river side 

 with an army of two hundred thousand men of warre, 

 and he lay at this siege foureteene moneths : in which 

 time there was peace concluded, and as report went 

 amongst his people, there was great calamity and mor- 

 tality which bred amongst them in the time of Winter, 

 and also killed very many elephants. Then in the yeere 

 of our Lord 1567, I went from Goa to Bezeneger the 

 chiefe city of the kingdome of Narsinga eight dayes 

 journey from Goa, within the land, in the company of 

 two other merchants which carried with them three 

 hundred Arabian horses to that king : because the horses 

 of that countrey are of a small stature, and they pay 

 well for the Arabian horses : and it is requisite that the 

 merchants sell them well, for that they stand them in 

 great charges to bring them out of Persia to Ormus, 

 and from Ormus to Goa, where the ship that bringeth 

 twenty horses and upwards payeth no custome, neither 

 ship nor goods whatsoever ; whereas if they bring no 

 horses, they pay 8 per cento of all their goods : and at 

 the going out of Goa the horses pay custome, two and 

 forty pagodies for every horse, which pagody may be of 

 sterling money sixe shillings eight pence, they be pieces 

 of golde of that value. So that the Arabian horses are 



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