A.D. 

 1583-9 



Basaim. 

 Tana. 



Chaul. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



them. From thence we passed by Basaim, and from 

 Basaim to Tana, at both which places is small trade but 

 only of corne and rice. The tenth of November we 

 arrived at Chaul which standeth in the firme land. There 

 be two townes, the one belonging to the Portugales, and 

 the other to the Moores. That of the Portugales is 

 neerest to the sea, and commaundeth the bay, and is 

 walled round about. A little above that is the towne of 

 the Moores which is governed by a Moore king called 

 Xa-Maluco. Here is great traffike for all sortes of spices 

 and drugges, silke, and cloth of silke, sandales, Elephants 

 teeth, and much China worke, and much sugar which is 

 made of the nutte called Ga^ra : the tree is called the 

 palmer : which is the profitablest tree in the worlde : it 

 doth alwayes beare fruit, and doth yeeld wine, oyle, sugar, 

 vineger, cordes, coles, of the leaves are made thatch for 

 the houses, sayles for shippes, mats to sit or lie on : of 

 the branches they make their houses, and broomes to 

 sweepe, of the tree wood for shippes. The wine doeth 

 issue out of the toppe of the tree. They cut a branch of 

 a bowe and binde it hard, and hange an earthen pot upon 

 it, which they emptie every morning and every evening, 

 and still it and put in certaine dried raysins, and it be- 

 commeth very strong wine in short time. Hither many 

 shippes come from all partes of India, Ormus, and many 

 from Mecca : heere be manie Moores and Gentiles. 

 They have a very strange order among them, they wor- 

 shippe a cowe, and esteeme much of the cowes doung to 

 paint the walles of their houses. They will kill nothing 

 not so much as a louse : for they holde it a sinne to kill 

 any thing. They eate no flesh, but live by rootes, and 

 ryce, and milke. And when the husbande dieth his wife 

 is burned with him, if shee be alive : if shee will not, her 

 [II. i. 253.] head is shaven, and then is never any account made of 

 her after. They say if they should be buried, it were 

 a great sinne, for of their bodies there would come many 

 wormes and other vermine, and when their bodies were 

 consumed, those wormes would lacke sustenance, which 



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