There Were A
Prodigious Number Of Artificers Who Made Ivory Bracelets Called Mannij,
Of, Various Colours, With Which The Gentile Women Are In Use To Decorate
Their Arms, Some Covering Their Arms Entirely Over With Them.
In this
single article there are many thousand crowns expended yearly, owing to
this singular custom, that, when any
Of their kindred die, they break
all their bracelets in token of grief and mourning, so that they have
immediately to purchase new ones, as they would rather go without meat
as not have these ornaments.
SECTION VI.
_Of Damann, Bassen, Tana, Chaul, and some other places_.
Leaving Diu, I went on to Damann, the second city belonging to the
Portuguese in the territory of Guzerat, and distant from Diu 120 miles.
This place has no trade of any importance, except in rice and wheat, and
has many dependent villages, where in time of peace the Portuguese enjoy
the pleasure of a country retirement, but in time of war they are all
spoiled and plundered by the enemy, so that then they derive very small
benefit from them. The next place is Bassen, a small dirty place in
comparison with Damann, which supplies Goa with rice and wheat, besides
timber for the construction of ships and gallies. At a small distance
from Bassen is a small island named Tana, well peopled with Portuguese,
Moors, and Gentiles. This place affords nothing but rice, but contains
many manufacturers of _armesies_? and weavers of girdles made of wool
and cotton, black and red like _moocharie_?
Beyond this is Chaul on the continent, where there are two cities, one
belonging to the Portuguese, and the other to the Moors; that which
belongs to the Portuguese is lower than the other, commands the mouth of
the harbour, and is very strongly fortified. About a mile and a half
from this city is that of the Moors, belonging to their king _Zamaluco_,
or Nizam-al-mulk. In time of war no large ships can go to the city of
the Moors, as they must necessarily pass under the guns of the
Portuguese castles, which would sink them. Both cities of Chaul are
sea-ports, and have great trade in all kinds of spices, drugs, raw silk,
manufactures of silk, sandal-wood, _Marsine, Versine_[125], porcelain of
China, velvets and scarlets, both from Portugal and Mecca[126], with
many other valuable commodities. Every year there arrive ten or fifteen
large ships, laden with great nuts called _Giagra_[127], which are cured
or dried, and with sugar made from these nuts. The tree on which these
nuts grow is called the _Palmer_ tree, and is to be found in great
abundance over all India, especially between this place and Goa. This
tree very much resembles that which produces dates, and no tree in the
world is more profitable or more useful to man; no part of it but serves
for some useful purpose, neither is any part of it so worthless as to be
burnt.
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