We Have However Availed Ourselves Of Many Valuable Notes
And Illustrations Of The Text By The Editor Of Astleys Collection, All
Of Which Will Be Found Acknowledged And Referred To In Their Proper
Places.
And we have adopted from the same source some valuable additions
to the text of Faria, intimately connected with the subject, which are
likewise carefully acknowledged.
Thus, like many former articles in this
Collection, we trust that the present, as being greatly fuller, will be
found more satisfactory and informing than any similar account in former
Collections of Voyages and Travels.
After so considerable an interval employed on the Discoveries in
America, it may be proper to remark that the former Account of the
Discovery of the maritime route to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and
the commencement of the Portuguese Conquests in the East, as contained
in the Second Volume of this Work, Part II. Chap. VI. Sections I. to
IX. pp. 292-505, comprises only a period of nine years, from the
setting out of Vasco de Gama in July 1497, on his adventurous Voyage,
by which he completed the discovery of the way by sea to India from
Europe, projected by Prince Henry in 1412, eighty-five years before.
On that former occasion, following the narrative of Hernan Lopez de
Castaneda, we brought down the Transactions of the Portuguese in India
to the year 1505; including the almost incredible defence of Cochin by
the intrepid Pacheco against the immensely more numerous forces of the
Zamorin of Calicut; the relief of the chivalric besieged, by the arrival
of Lope Suarez de Menezes in September 1505; and the voyage of Suarez
back to Portugal in 1505, leaving Manuel Telez de Vasconcelles as
captain-general of the Portuguese possessions in India. It has been
formerly mentioned, Vol. II. p.500, note 5, that Castaneda names this
person Lope Mendez de Vasconcelles, and that he is named Manuel Telez de
Barreto by the editor of Astleys Collection, in which we now find that
he had followed the author of the Portuguese Asia. The difference
between these authorities is irreconcileable, but is quite immaterial to
the English reader. - E.
SECTION I.
Course of the Indian Trade before the Discovery of the Route by the
Cape of Good Hope, with some account of the settlement of the Arabs on
the East Coast of Africa[66].
Before the Discovery of the Route to India by the Cape of Good Hope,
formerly related in PART II. CHAPTER VI. the spices and other
productions of India were brought to Europe with vast trouble and at
great expence, 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
Luconia, 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 Aurea Chersonesus 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 mentioned, brought rubies from Pegu, rich stuffs from Bengal,
pearls from Calicare[67], diamonds from Narsinga[68], cinnamon and
rich rubies from Ceylon, pepper, ginger, and other spices, from the
coast of Malabar and other places where these are produced. From Ormuz
these commodities were conveyed up the Persian gulf to Basorah at the
mouth of the Euphrates, and were thence distributed by caravans through
Armenia, Trebisond, Tartary, Aleppo, and Damascus; and from these latter
cities, by means of the port of Barat 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 up the Red Sea, were
landed at Tor or Suez at the bottom of that gulf, whence they were
conveyed over land to Cairo in Egypt, and thence down the Nile to
Alexandria, where they were shipped for Europe.
[Footnote 66: De Faria, Portuguese Asia, I. 82.]
[Footnote 67: Named Kalekare by Astley; and probably alluding to some
place in the neighbourhood of the great pearl fishery in the Gulf of
Manar, between Ceylon and the Carnatic. - E.]
[Footnote 68: Now called Golconda. But the dominions of Narsinga seem
then to have included the whole southern peninsula of India, except the
coasts of Canara and Malabar, from Visiapour and the Deccan to Cape
Comorin. - E.]
Many princes apprehending vast loss to their revenues, by this new
course which the Portuguese had discovered for carrying on a direct
trade by sea between Europe and India, used their endeavours to drive
them from that country. For this purpose, the Soldan of Egypt[69], who
was principally affected by this new trade, gave out that he would
destroy the holy places in Jerusalem, if the Portuguese persisted in
trading to Malabar. Believing him in earnest, Maurus, a monk of Mount
Sinai, went to Rome with a letter from the Soldan to the pope,
signifying his intention to destroy those places, sacred in the
estimation of the Christians, in revenge for the injury done to his
trade by the Portuguese. The pope sent Maurus into Portugal, where the
purport of his message was known before his arrival, and such
preparations made for driving the Moors from the trade of India, that
Maurus returned to Cairo with more alarming intelligence than he had
brought. The king of Portugal informed his holiness by letter, that his
intentions in prosecuting these eastern discoveries were to propagate
the holy faith, and to extend the papal jurisdiction over the countries
of the heathen, by which the pope was entirely reconciled to his
proceedings.
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