No. 59. — 1907.] PORTUGUESE IN CEYLON. 



337 



: .:. b i. 



Letter of Gaspar da India to King Manuel. 1 



[16 November 1506.] 



Sire, on the sixteenth of November Dom Lourengo 



called me into his room, and spoke to me after this manner : 

 " You know, Gaspar, how I went to Ceilao and had Mygel 2 with 

 me as interpreter, because at that time when I was about to leave 

 for Ceilaom I could find no other interpreter, since your son 3 

 had left for Malaca 4 in the service of our lord the king, and my 

 father was sending you to the port of Batecala on other business 5 ; 

 and so I came to the port of Ceylao, and might well have brought 

 ten thousand cruz ados' worth of tribute to our lord the king, and 

 for want of such a man as you who know everything I brought 

 nothing, since the whole of the cinnamon that I brought is worth 

 in India two hundred and fifty cruzados. 6 " 



1 This letter, written from Cochin, is printed in Cartas de Aff. de 

 Alb. ii, 371-80. It contains interesting details of events not recorded 

 elsewhere. Regarding the writer see supra, A 1, note 2 . 



2 This was probably the Brahman of whom Barros tells us (I. v. 

 viii.) that, when Pedralvares Cabral was at Calecut in 1500, this man 

 came to him and professed his desire to become a Christian ; wherefore 

 he was taken to Portugal and baptized by the name of Miguel. In the 

 same chapter Barros relates that this man was sent by Pedralvares 

 with a message to the king of Cochin. 



3 From a letter of 12 January 1506, from Gaspar Pereira to the king, 

 printed in the same collection, we learn that the son's name was 

 Baltesar. 



4 By way of the Coromandel coast, as stated by the writer on a 

 previous page. The expedition left Cochin on 22 August 1506, but 

 was a failure (see supra, p. 304). 



5 According to the writer's own statement in the early part of this 

 letter he left on this mission in company with Gaspar Pereira on 1 

 September 1506 (but see p. 305, note f ). 



6 According to the letter of King Manuel to the pope (see infra, 

 B 3) the quantity of cinnamon brought from Ceylon by Dom Lourengo 

 after his " discovery " was 150 quintals, which is also the amount given 

 by Castanheda (infra, B 7), who, however, simply copies from D. 

 Manuel's letter. Barros, on the other hand, says (see infra, B 8) that 

 it was 400 bahars of cinnamon that D. Lourengo obtained ; while 

 Correa (see infra, B 9) does not specify the quantity, but tells us that at 

 the time of D, Lourengo' s visit cinnamon was worth (in Cochin, doubt- 

 less) one cruzado the bahar, " which," he adds, " is equal to four 

 quintals." This valuation of the bahar is identical with that attributed 

 to it by Leonardo Ca' Masser in 1506 and by Barbosa in 1516, while 

 Varthema in 1510 says it was equal to only " three of our cantari" 

 (see quotations in Hobson-Jobson s.v. " Bahar"). Couto also makes 

 one quintal equal three bahars (see B 10, infra). Mr. Ravenstein, m his 

 First Voy. of V. da Gama, pp. 103-4 n, gives a list of prices of various 

 spices at Calecut calculated from those given by Barbosa. Adopting 

 his basis of calculation (quintal =100 lb., bahar = 460 lb., cruzado — 



