s agents and factors, who, as we have seen, were being slowly
distributed at various points east of Aden. Irregular as the receipt of
these advices was, and incomplete and belated in themselves, they yet
were a useful guide to the company in equipping its new ventures.

"We are in great hope to get good and peaceful trade at Cambay and
Surat," writes Anthony Marlowe to the company from Socotra, "where our
ship, by God's grace, is to ride. Our cloth and lead, we hear, will sell
well there; our iron not so well as at Aden; that indigo we shall have
good store at reasonable rates; and also calicoes and musk, and at Dabul
good pepper; so as I hope in God the Hector shall make her voyage at
those places and establish a trade there, to the benefit of your
worships and the good of our country."

For Captain Keeling, Marlowe has many words of praise. "His wisdom,
language, and carriage are such as I fear we shall have great want of at
Surat in the first settling of our trade." Of some of the other servants
of the company Marlowe is not so enthusiastic, and he does not spare his
opinion of their characters. In a subsequent letter we are brought right
face to face with a very pretty quarrel between Hippon, the master of
the Dragon, and his mate, William Tavernour, in which Hawkins tries to
act as peacemaker, but is foiled by the bloodthirsty Matthew Mullinux,
master of the Hector, who had himself a private grudge against the said
Tavernour, or, as is written here, "a poniard in pickle for the space of
six months."

"And not contented with this (he) afterward came up upon the deck and
there before the boatswain and certain of us did most unchristianlike
speak these words: that if he might but live to have the opportunity to
kill the said Tavernour he would think it to be the happiest day that
ever he saw in his life, an it were but with a knife."

There seems to have been a surfeit of these internecine brawls for some
time to come, and, indeed, stories of dissensions among the servants of
the company in the East are plentifully sprinkled throughout its
history, both in this century and the next. Of hints for trade the
company's agents are profuse in this growing correspondence.

"There is an excellent linen," writes one of them, "made at Cape
Comorin, and may be brought hither from Cochin in great abundance if the
Portugals would be quiet men. It is about two yards broad or better and
very strong cloth, and is called _cachade