Many Mahometan
Merchants Dwell In This City; And Being Received Into One Of Their
Houses, We Told Him Whence We Came, And That We Had Brought Saffron And
Coral For Sale, With Other Merchandise, Of Which He Was Very Glad.
At
this city wheat is scarce, but rice is to be had in great plenty; and in
other respects the productions of the neighbouring country are much the
same as at Calicut.
But as the inhabitants were preparing for war, we
departed from thence, and after thirteen days sail we arrived at the
city of _Tarnasari_ or Tanaserim, a hundred miles distant.
The city of Tanaserim is not far from the sea, well walled, seated on a
fine plain, and has a famous port on a fine river that runs past its
north side. The king is an idolater of great power, and is constantly at
war with the kings of Narsinga and Bengal[86]. He is able to bring into
the field an hundred thousand foot and as many cavalry, together with a
hundred of the largest and finest elephants I ever saw. The weapons of
his troops are swords, round bucklers, _peltes_, bows and arrows, and
javelins or darts made of long reeds; they also use for defence cotton
jacks wrought very hard and close quilted. The houses in their towns are
built close together like those in Italy. This country produces wheat,
cotton, silk of various kinds, Brazil wood, sundry kinds of fruit like
those of Italy, with Assyrian apples, oranges, lemons, citrons, gourds,
cucumbers, and many others.
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