odigious
number of Mahometans. There were many from Malacca and Bengal, from
Tanaserim, Pegu, and Coromandel, from the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra,
from all the cities and countries of Western India, and various
Persians, Arabians, Syrians, Turks, and Ethiopians. As the idolaters do
not sail on the sea, the Mahometans are exclusively employed in
navigation, so that there are not less than 15,000 Mahometans resident
in Calicut, mostly born in that place. Their ships are seldom below the
burden of four or five hundred tons, yet all open and without decks.
They do not put any tow or oakum into the seams of their ships, yet join
the planks so artificially, that they hold out water admirably, the
seams being pitched and held together with iron nails, and the wood of
which their ships are built is better than ours. Their sails are made of
cotton cloth, doubled in the under parts, by which they gather much wind
and swell out like bags, having only one sail to each vessel. Their
anchors are of marble, eight spans long, having two on each side of the
ship, which are hung by means of double ropes. Their voyages are all
made at certain appointed times and seasons, as one time of the year
answers for one coast, and another season for other voyages, which must
all be regulated according to the changes of the weather. In the months
of May, June, and July, when with us in Italy every thing is almost
burnt up with heat and drought, they have prodigious rains. The best of
their ships are built in the island of _Porcai_, not far from Calicut.
They have one kind of vessel or canoe, made all of one piece of wood
like a trough, very long, narrow, and sharp, which is propelled either
by oars or sails, and goes with amazing swiftness, which is much used by
pirates.

The palace of the king of Calicut exceeds a mile in circumference, and
is well constructed of beams and posts artificially joined, and
curiously carved all over with the figures of devils. It is all however
very low, for the reason before-mentioned, as they cannot dig deep for
secure foundations. It is impossible to express in words the number and
riches of the pearls and precious stones which the king wears about him,
which exceed all estimate in regard to their value. Although, when I was
in that place, the king lived rather in a state of grief, both on
account of the war in which he was engaged with the Portuguese, and
because he was afflicted by the venereal disease which ha