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Small ships go up to Satagan where they load and unload their cargoes. In this port of Satagan twenty-five or thirty ships great and small are loaded yearly with rice, cotton cloths of various kinds, lac, great quantities of sugar, dried and preserved mirabolans, long pepper, oil of Verzino, and many other kinds of merchandise.
Not far from the blockhouse of Concepcion and in these same mountains, the Spaniards discovered a large quantity of amber, and in some caverns was distilled a greenish colour very much prized by painters. In marching through the forest there were places where all the trees were of a scarlet colour which are called by Italian merchants verzino, and by the Spaniards brazil wood.
This is the wood which the Italians call verzino and the Spaniards brazil wood. They claim that the dye-woods of Hispaniola are superior for the dyeing of wools. Profiting by the north-west wind, which the Italians call the grecco they sailed past numerous islands, depopulated by the ravages of the cannibals, but fertile, for they discovered numerous traces of destroyed villages.
This city belongs of right to Siam, and is situated on the side of a great river, which comes from the kingdom of Siam. At the month of this river there is a village called Mirgim, Merghi, or Morgui, at which some ships load every year with Verzino, Nypa, and Benzoin, with a few cloves, nutmegs, and mace, that come from Siam; but the principal merchandise are Verzino and Nypa.
Owing to this good treatment twenty-five ships, great and small, used to lade yearly in the port of Orissa, mostly with rice and with different kinds of white cotton cloths, oil of zerzerline or verzino which is made from a seed, and answers well for eating or frying fish, lac, long pepper, ginger, dry and candied mirabolans, and great store of cloth made from a kind of silk which grows on trees requiring no labour or cultivation, as when the bole or round pod is grown to the size of an orange, all they have to do is to gather it.
Another ship goes yearly from Malacca for Siam to lade Verzino . All these voyages belong exclusively to the captain of Malacca, and when he is not disposed to make them on his own account he sells them to others. Of the City of Siam.
They loaded their ships with red wood, which the Italians call verzino and the Spaniards brazil-wood, and which is suitable for dyeing wool; after which they returned home. I have learned these particulars by correspondence, and I here repeat them. I shall further relate what the other explorers accomplished.
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