PORTUGUESE HTSTORY OF MALACCA. 119 



p. 263, it is stated that the King of Malacca went to China 

 to pay homage in person in the year 1411 ; but he is called 

 Peilimisula, i.e., Paramisura. 



Before the discovery of the route to India by the Cape of 

 Good Hope, the spices and other productions of India were 

 brought to Europe with vast trouble and expense, so that they 

 were necessarily sold at very high prices. The cloves of the 

 Moluccas, the nutmegs and mace of Banda, the sandal-wood of 

 Timor, the camphor of Borneo, the gold and silver of Luco- 

 nia, (*) with all the other and various rich commodities, spices, 

 gums, perfumes, and curiosities of China, Japan, Siam, and 

 other kingdoms of the continent and islands of India, were 

 carried to the great mart of Malacca, a city in the peninsula 

 of that name, which is supposed to have been the A urea Cher- 

 sonesus of the ancients. From that place, the inhabitants of 

 the more western countries, between Malacca and the Red Sea, 

 procured all these commodities, dealing by way of barter, no 

 money being used in this trade, as silver and gold were in 

 much less request in these eastern parts of India than foreign 

 commodities. By this trade, Calicut, Cambaya, Ormuz, Aden, 

 and other cities were much enriched. The merchants of these 

 cities, besides what they procured at Malacca as before-men- 

 tioned, brought rubies from Pegu, rich stuffs from Bengal, 

 pearls from Calicare, diamonds from Narsinga, cinnamon and 

 rich rubies from Ceylon, pepper, ginger, and other spices from 

 the coast of Malabar and other places where these are pro- 

 duced. From Ormuz these commodities were conveyed up 

 the Persian Gulf to Bassorah, at the mouth of the Euphrates, 

 and were thence distributed by caravans through Armenia, 

 Trebizond, Tartary, Aleppo, and Damascus; and from these 

 lntter cities, by means of the port of Beyrut in Syria, the 

 Venetians, Genoese and Catalonians carried them to their 

 respective countries, and to other parts of Europe. Such of 

 these commodities as went by the Red Sea were landed at Tor 

 or Suez, at the bottom of that gulf, whence they were con- 

 veyed overland to Cairo in Egypt, and thence down the Nile 

 to Alexandria, where they were shipped for Europe. 



( l ) i.e. Luzon. 



