hus
divided. All the coast from the river Cintacora opposite the island of
Anchediva, to the north and west is subject to the Mahometans, and all
to the eastwards to the Pagans; except the kingdom of Malacca, part of
Sumatra, and some parts of Java and the Moluccas, which are held by the
Mahometans. In that tract are the following sovereign princes. The kings
of Aden, Xael, and Fartaque, who have many ports of great trade, and
their subjects, the Arabs, are brave and warlike. Next is the king of
Ormuz, greater than the other three put together. Then the king of
Cambaya, equal in grandeur and warlike power to Xerxes, Darius, or
Porus. From Chaul to Cincatora belong to Nizamaluco and Hidalcan[85],
two powerful princes, who maintain great armies composed of sundry
warlike nations well armed. The Moors[86] of Sumatra, Malacca, and the
Moluccas were well disciplined, and much better provided with artillery
than we who attacked them. The heathen sovereigns were the kings of
Bisnagar, Orixa, Bengal, Pegu, Siam, and China, all very powerful, but
chiefly the last, so that it is difficult to express and scarcely
credible the prodigious extent of his power. Siam extends above 500
leagues, and has seven subject kingdoms, which are Cambodia, Como,
Lanchaam, Cheneray, Chencran, Chiamay, Canibarii, and Chaypumo. The king
of Siam has 30,000 elephants, 3000 of which are armed for war, and he
has 50,000 soldiers in _Udia_ alone, the metropolis of his kingdom. The
kingdom of China exceeds them all in extent, and the king of that
country is as powerful as all the sovereigns in Europe together. His
empire is above 700 leagues in extent, possessing abundance of metals,
and far exceeds Europe in manufactures, some of which seem to exceed
human art, and the silks, provisions, and luxuries with which it abounds
are beyond computation.

[Footnote 86: These are unquestionably the Malays, called Moors by
Faria, merely because they were Mahometans.--E.]

All the heathens of India, particularly between the Indus and Ganges,
write without ink on palm leaves, with pens or stiles rather of wood or
steel, which easily cut the letters on the leaves. Some of these I have
seen in Rome curiously folded. What they intend to be lasting is carved
on stone or copper. In writing they begin at the left hand and write
towards the right, as we do in Europe. Their histories are extremely
fabulous. About 600 years before the arrival of the Portuguese in India,
ther