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Updated: May 4, 2025
This was done out of policy to deceive the general and to detain our ships, till the king might be able to send his own fleet to set upon him, or till the ships might arrive from Mecca to take him prisoner. Some of the Malabars continued to come off daily, all of whom the general commanded to be well entertained, as he saw none of sufficient importance to be detained.
On perusal of this letter, the kings factor communicated the same to the king, who commanded him to take the Portuguese to his own house, that he might not appear to have had any hand in their detention; and then to restore them to the general in return for the Malabars, whose wives had made a great clamour about the detention of their husbands.
Suarez immediately disembarked his troops, which soon put Naubea Daring to flight, who commanded the land army of Calicut. The Moors and Malabars in their flight, plundered the houses of Cranganor, which was immediately afterwards set on fire by the Portuguese.
Next day the zamorin came to the shore accompanied by 12, 000 men, and sent off the Portuguese people and their commodities to the ships in thirty almadias, with orders to bring back the hostages. But none of the Malabars in the almadias dared to approach the ships, being afraid of the Portuguese, and returned therefore to the land without delivering our people and commodities.
This zamorin or king of Calicut was a bramin, as his predecessors had been, the bramins being priests among the Malabars.
Passing under the frowning batteries of the old fortifications, we landed at a handsome wharf among a crowd of people of various tints, from the white skin of the European to the ebon one of the sons of Africa, and habited in every variety of Eastern costume Englishmen in white dresses wisely shading their heads under japanned umbrellas; Parsees, Chinese, Caffres, and Chetties from the coast of Coromandel, wearing prodigious ear-rings, and with most peculiar head-dresses; then there were Malays, Malabars, and Moors, Buddhist priests in yellow robes; Moodhars, Mohandirams, and other native chiefs, habited in richly embroidered dresses with jewelled swords and pistols.
As there was no appearance of getting back his people, De Gama again set sail; but for want of wind had to come again to anchor, almost out of the sight of land. An almadia now came to the ships with certain Malabars, who said that Diaz and the others were in the kings palace, and would be assuredly sent on board next day.
His guard are a thousand men, which stand round about him, and he in the middle; and when he marcheth, many of them goe before him, and the rest come after him. They are of the race of the Chingalayes, which they say are the best kinde of all the Malabars. Their eares are very large; for the greater they are, the more honourable they are accounted. Some of them are a spanne long.
The inhabitants are idolatrous Malabars, having among them many rich Moorish merchants, more especially since the war broke out between us and the zamorin, as many of these merchants had left Calicut to reside at Coulan. They trade with Coromandel, Ceylon, the Maldive islands, Bengal, Pegu, Camatia, and Malava.
Thus passing the coast we arriued in Cochin the 22 of March, where we found the weather warme, but scarsity of victuals: for here groweth neither corne nor rice: and the greatest part commeth from Bengala. These people here be Malabars, and of the race of the Naires of Calicut: and they differ much from the other Malabars.
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