From this Persian candy that travels to Bengal"
(viz. his own poems).
1498.—"Bemgala: in this Kingdom are many Moors, and few Christians, and the King is a Moor ... in this land are many cotton cloths, and silk cloths, and much silver; it is 40 days with a fair wind from Calicut."—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 2nd ed. p. 110.
1506.—"A Banzelo, el suo Re è Moro, e li se fa el forzo de' panni de gotton...."—Leonardo do Ca' Masser, 28.
1510.—"We took the route towards the city of Banghella ... one of the best that I had hitherto seen."—Varthema, 210.
1516.—"... the Kingdom of Bengala, in which there are many towns.... Those of the interior are inhabited by Gentiles subject to the King of Bengala, who is a Moor; and the seaports are inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, amongst whom there is much trade and much shipping to many parts, because this sea is a gulf ... and at its inner extremity there is a very great city inhabited by Moors, which is called Bengala, with a very good harbour."—Barbosa, 178-9.
c. 1590.—"Bungaleh originally was called Bung; it derived the additional al from that being the name given to the mounds of earth which the ancient Rajahs caused to be raised in the low lands, at the foot of the hills."—Ayeen Akbery, tr. Gladwin, ii. 4 (ed. 1800); [tr. Jarrett, ii. 120].
1690.—"Arracan ... is bounded on the North-West by the Kingdom of Bengala, some Authors making Chatigam to be its first Frontier City; but Teixeira, and generally the Portuguese Writers, reckon that as a City of Bengala; and not only so, but place the City of Bengala it self ... more South than Chatigam. Tho' I confess a late French Geographer has put Bengala into his Catalogue of imaginary Cities...."—Ovington, 554.
BENGAL, s. This was also the designation of a kind of piece-goods exported from that country to England, in the 17th century. But long before, among the Moors of Spain, a fine muslin seems to have been known as al-bangala, surviving in Spanish albengala. (See Dozy and Eng. s.v. [What were called "Bengal Stripes" were striped ginghams brought first from Bengal and first made in Great Britain at Paisley. (Draper's Dict. s.v.). So a particular kind of silk was known as "Bengal wound," because it was "rolled in the rude and artless manner immemorially practised by the natives of that country." (Milburn, in Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. 3, 185.) See N.E.D. for examples of the use of the word as late as Lord Macaulay.]
1696.—"Tis granted that Bengals and stain'd Callicoes, and other East India Goods, do hinder the Consumption of Norwich stuffs...."—Davenant, An Essay on the East India Trade, 31.