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Ainan standeth 19 degrees on this side of the Equinoctiall line neere China, from whence the Chinish nation haue their prouision for shipping and other necessaries requisite for their Nauie. The cause wherefore they go in such attire I could not vnderstand, except it bee for that they do counterfeit the deuil in the forme of a brute beast, offring themselues vp to him.
Amongst the rest this seemed in my iudgement one of the principall, and therefore the rather I tooke vpon me to doe it into English. Of the Iles beyond Iapan in the way from China to the Moluccas. Amongst other Iles in the Asian sea betwixt Canton a Chinish hauen in Cathaio and the Moluccas, much spoken of in the Indian histories and painted out in Maps, Ainan and Santianum are very famous.
Rubies, sapphires and spinels are found in Pegu. Diamonds are found in several places, as in Bisnagur, Agra, Delhi, and the Javan islands. The best pearls come from the isle of Bahrein in the gulf of Persia; and an inferior sort from the fisheries near Ceylon, and from Ainan, a large island off the southern coast of China.
Wellsted, in his list of the Hadhramout towns, mentions Henan as Ainan, and as a very ancient town, on the hill near which are inscriptions and rude sculptures.
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