We Anchored On The 30th In Fifteen Fathoms, About Twenty-Six Leagues To
The North Of Cape Comorin Right Over
Against a little village, whence
presently came off six or eight canoes with water and all kinds of
provisions; the
Name of this place is Beringar, which our mariners
usually call Bring-John, being in the kingdom of Travancor. The 1st
February, the king sent me a message, offering to load my ship with
pepper and cinnamon, if I would remain and trade with him. The 5th we
were abreast of Cape Comorin, where we had a fresh gale of wind at E. by
N. which split our fore-top-sail and main bonnet, yet a canoe with eight
men came off to us three or four leagues from the land. We were here
troubled with calms and great heat, and many of our men fell sick, of
which number I was one. On the 8th we were forced back to the roads of
Beringar. This place has good refreshments for ships, and the people
are very harmless, and not friends to the Portuguese. From this place to
Cape Comorin, all the inhabitants of the sea coast are Christians, and
have a Portuguese priest or friar residing among them. It is to be
remarked, that the whole coast, even from Damaun to Cape Comorin, is
free from danger, and there is fair shoaling all the way from Cochin to
that cape, having sixteen, eighteen, and twenty fathoms close to the
land, and no ground five or six leagues off, after you come within
twenty-five or thirty leagues of the Cape.
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