On This Account, And Because No Large
Vessels Can Go To _Cambaietta_ Or _Cambay_, By Reason Of The Shallowness
Of
The water in the gulf for 80 or 100 miles, the principal city of
Cambaia or Guzerat is _Amadaver_ or
_Amedabad_, a day and a half
journey from Cambay, being a great and populous city, and for a city of
the Gentiles it is well built with handsome houses and wide streets. In
it there is a fine bason or canul, having many ships, so that it
resembles Cairo, but not so large.
Cambay is situated on the sea at the head of the gulf of the same name,
and is a handsome city. While I was there it was suffering great
calamity, owing to a scarcity, insomuch that the Gentiles offered their
sons and daughters for sale to the Portuguese, and I have seen them sold
for 8 or 10 _larines_ each, which is of our money about 10s. or 13s.
4d.[124]. Yet if I had not actually seen it, I could not have believed
that Cambay had so great a trade. Every new and full moon, when the
tides are at the highest, the small barks that come in and go out are
quite innumerable. These barks are laden with all kinds of spices, with
silks of China, sandal-wood, elephants teeth, velvets of _Vercini_,
great quantities of _Pannina_, which comes from Mecca, _chequins_ or
gold coins worth 7s. each sterling, and various other commodities. These
barks carry out an infinite quantity of cloth of all sorts made of
_bumbast_ or cotton, some white, others stamped or painted; large
quantities of indigo, dried and preserved ginger, dry and confected
myrabolans, _boraso_ or borax in paste, vast quantities of sugar,
cotton, opium, asafoetida, _puchio?_ and many other kinds of drugs,
turbans made at Delhi, great quantities of carnelians, garnets, agates,
jaspers, calcedonies, _hematitis_, or bloodstones, and some natural
diamonds.
[Footnote 124: This comparison seems made by the translator between
_larines_ and sterling money. - E.]
It is customary at Cambay, though no one is obliged, to employ brokers,
of whom there are great numbers at this place, all Gentiles and of
great repute, every one of whom keeps fifteen or twenty servants. All
the Portuguese, and more other merchants who frequent this place, employ
these brokers, who purchase and tell for them; and such as come there
for the first time are informed by their friends of this custom, and
what broker they ought to employ. Every fifteen days, when the great
fleet of barks comes into port, these brokers come to the water side,
and the merchants immediately on landing give charge of their cargoes to
the broker who transacts their business, with the marks of all their
bales and packages. After this the merchant carries on shore all the
furniture for his dwelling, it being necessary for every one who trades
to India to carry a sufficient provision of household staff for his use,
as none such are to be procured.
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