c. 1470.—"I shipped my horses in a Tava, and sailed across the Indian Sea in ten days to Moshkat."—Ath. Nikitin, p. 8, in India in XVth Cent.
" "So I imbarked in a tava, and settled to pay for my passage to Hormuz two pieces of gold."—Ibid. 30.
1785.—"A Dow, the property of Rutn Jee and Jeewun Doss, merchants of Muscat, having in these days been dismasted in a storm, came into Byte Koal (see [BATCUL]), a seaport belonging to the Sircar...."—Tippoo's Letters, 181.
1786.—"We want 10 shipwrights acquainted with the construction of Dows. Get them together and despatch them hither."—Tippoo to his Agent at Muskat, ibid. 234.
1810.—"Close to Calcutta, it is the busiest scene we can imagine; crowded with ships and boats of every form,—here a fine English East Indiaman, there a grab or a dow from Arabia."—Maria Graham, 142.
1814.—"The different names given to these ships (at Jedda), as Say, Seume, Merkeb, Sambouk [see [SAMBOOK]], Dow, denote their size; the latter only, being the largest, perform the voyage to India."—Burckhardt, Tr. in Arabia, 1829, 4to, p. 22.
1837.—"Two young princes ... nephews of the King of Hinzuan or Joanna ... came in their own dhow on a visit to the Government."—Smith, Life of Dr. J. Wilson, 253.
1844.—"I left the hospitable village of Takaungu in a small boat, called a 'Daw' by the Suahilis ... the smallest sea-going vessel."—Krapf, p. 117.
1865.—"The goods from Zanzibar (to the Seychelles) were shipped in a dhow, which ran across in the month of May; and this was, I believe, the first native craft that had ever made the passage."—Pelly, in J.R.G.S. xxxv. 234.
1873.—"If a pear be sharpened at the thin end, and then cut in half longitudinally, two models will have been made, resembling in all essential respects the ordinary slave dhow."—Colomb, 35.