While at Aleppo, I hired two Nazarenes, one of whom has
been twice in India, and speaks the language well; but he is a very lewd
fellow, wherefore I will not take him with me.
The following are the prices of wares, as they are worth here at
present: Cloves and mace the _bateman_, 5 ducats; cinnamon, 6 ducats,
and very little to be had; ginger, 40 medins; pepper, 75 medins;
turbetta[433], 50 medins; neel [or indigo,] the _churle_ 70 ducats: the
churle is 27-1/2 rotils of Aleppo; silk, much better than that which
comes from Persia, 11-1/2 ducats the bateman, each bateman being 7
pounds 5 ounces English. From Bagdat this 20th July 1583.
[Footnote 433: Most likely turmeric, anciently called turbith vegetable,
in contradistinction to turbith mineral, so named from its yellow colour
resembling turbith or turmeric. - E.]
No. 4. - _Letter from, John Newbery to Messrs John Eldred and William
Scales at Basora_.
Time will not permit to give you an account of my voyage after my
departure from you. But on the 4th day of this present September, we
arrived here at Ormus; and the 10th day I and the rest were committed to
prison. The middle of next month, or thereabout, the captain proposes
sending us all in his ship to Goa. The cause for which we have been
imprisoned is said to be, because we brought letters from Don Antonio:
But the truth is, Michael Stropene is the only cause, through letters
written to him by his brother from Aleppo. God knows how we may be dealt
with at Goa; and therefore, if you our masters can procure that the king
of Spain may send his letters for our release, you would do us great
good, for they cannot with any justice put us to death, though it may be
that they will cut our throats, or keep us long in prison. Gods will be
done.
All the commodities I brought to this place had been well sold, if this
trouble had not come upon us. You shall do well to send a messenger in
all speed by land from Basora to Aleppo, to give notice of this
mischance, even though it may cost 30 or 40 crowns, that we may be the
sooner released, and I shall thereby be the better able to recover again
what is now like to be lost. From prison in Ormus, this 21st September
1583.
No. 5. - _Letter Mr J. Newbery to Messrs Eldred and Scales_.
The bark of the Jews is arrived here two days ago, by which I am sure
you wrote; but your letters are not likely to come to my hands.
