Calicut Is Surrounded By Many Gardens And
Orchards, Producing All The Herbs And Fruits Of This Country In Great
Abundance, Having Also Many Palms And Other Sorts Of Trees, And Abounds
In Excellent Water.
This part of India produces but little rice, which is
a principal article of food in these parts, as wheat is with us; but it
procures abundance of that and all other kinds of provisions from other
countries.
The city is large, but the dwellings consist only of straw
huts; their idol temples, and chapels, and the kings palace excepted,
which are: built of stone and lime and covered with tiles; for, by their
laws, no others are permitted to build their houses of any other material
than straw. At this time, Calicut was inhabited by idolaters of many
sects, and by many Moorish merchants, some of whom were so rich as to be
owners of fifty ships. These ships are made without nails, their planks
being sewed together with ropes of _cayro_, made of the fibres of the
cocoa-nut husk, pitched all over, and are flat-bottomed, without keels.
Every winter there are at least six hundred ships in this harbour, and
the shore is such, that their ships can be easily drawn up for repairs.
"The subjects of the following digression are so intimately connected
with the first establishment of the Portuguese in India, as to justify
its introduction in this place, which will greatly elucidate the
narrative of Castaneda; and its length did not admit of being inserted in
the form of notes.
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