He Knew Nothing Of All This, But Said That Two
Or Three Years Before, An English Boy Was At Gangamora
Along with the
Portuguese, whom he now thought dead, but knew not how he came there.
This town of Doman
Contains about an hundred houses, strongly built of
stone and lime, and its inhabitants are orderly and civil. They carry
on trade with the coasts of Melinda, Magadoxa, Mombaza, Arabia, and
Madagascar, carrying slaves taken in their wars, which they sell for
nine or ten dollars each, and which are sold afterwards in Portugal for
100 dollars a-head. At Mombaza and Magadoxa, they have considerable
trade in elephants teeth and drugs; and it was therefore agreed to
advise the honourable company of this, that they might consider of
sending a pinnace yearly to make trial of this trade. In Mohelia, we
bought two or three bullocks for a bar of iron of between twenty and
twenty-five pounds weight. We bought in all 200 head of cattle, and
forty goats, besides poultry, fruits, &c.
"Malalia [Mohelia] is one of the Commora islands, the other three
being Angazesia, [Comoro] Juanny, [Joanna or Hinzuan] and Mayotta,
stretching almost east and west from each other. Angazesia [Comoro]
bears N. by W. from Mohelia, and is the highest land I ever saw. It is
inhabited by Moors trading with the main and the other three eastern
islands, bartering their cattle and fruits for calicoes and other cloths
for garments. It is governed by ten petty kings, and has abundance of
cattle, goats, oranges, and lemons. The people are reckoned false and
treacherous. Hinzuan lies east from Mohelia and Mayotta. All these
three islands are well stored with refreshments, but chiefly Mohelia,
and next to it Hinzuan. Here lived an old woman who was sultaness of all
these islands, and under her there were three deputies in Mohelia, who
were all her sons. The sultan in whose quarter we anchored is so
absolute, that none of his people dared to sell a single cocoa-nut
without his leave. Four boats were sent to his town to desire this
liberty, which was granted. Captain Newport went ashore with forty men,
and found the governor sitting on a mat, under the side of a junk which
was then building, and attended by fifty men. He was dressed in a mantle
of blue and red calico, wrapped about him to his knees, his legs and
feet bare, and his head covered by a close cap of checquer work. Being
presented with a gun and sword, he returned four cows, and proclaimed
liberty for the people to trade with us. He gave the English cocoa-nuts
to eat, while he chewed betel and areka-nut, tempered with lime of burnt
oister shells. It has a hot biting taste, voids rheum, cools the head,
and is all their physic. It makes those giddy who are not accustomed to
its use, producing red spittles, and in time colours the teeth black,
which they esteem handsome, and they use this continually.
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