[257] Burma, above Pegu, is still famous for its rubies.
[258] This is evidently a duplicate account of what has been said above about Bemgala.
[259] Prof. Kopke would identify this with Timor, where there is a fort called Camanaça. This, however, is quite inadmissible, for there are no elephants in Timor. I am more inclined to think that “Conimata” stands for Sumatra, a small state in North Sumatra, adjoining Pedir. The voyage to Pater and Conimata is stated to occupy the same time, viz., fifty days. If this be so, there is a duplication of Sumatra as well as of Bengal.
[260] This seems to be Pedir, a small kingdom in Northern Sumatra, which had a pagan king when Varthema was there, although many of the inhabitants were Mohammedans. Rhubarb (Rheum officinale) is, however, only to be found in W. and N.W. China and in Tibet. The lacca tree is a native of Sumatra.
[261] Say £966.
[262] In calculating these values we have assumed the quintal to be equivalent to 100 pounds, the bahar = 460 pounds, the ratel = 1 pound. The cruzado is taken at 9s. 8d.
It is interesting to compare these prices with those given by Duarte Barbosa for Calecut. Assuming the fanão to be worth 6.5d. they were as follows per pound:—Cinnamon, 4.3d.; cloves, 7.2d. to 8.3d.; pepper, 2.9d. to 3.3d.; ginger, 0.5d. to 0.9d.; nutmeg, 3.0d. to 3.36d.; lac, 3.6d. to 5.2d.; rhubarb, 9s. 9d. to 11s.; musk, £15 11s.; aloe-wood, 24s. 7d.; frankincense, 0.9d. to 1.5d. A purchaser of one pound of each of these commodities would have paid at Calecut £17 13s. 6d., and would have received at Alexandria £57 12s. 8d., an increase of 210 per cent. (See Lord Stanley of Alderley’s version of Duarte Barbosa, Hakluyt Society, 1866, p. 219.)
Present Retail Prices in London are as follows (per pound): cinnamon, 1s. 8d.; cloves, 1s. 6d.; pepper, 7½d. to 10½d.; ginger, 10d. to 1s. 4d.; nutmeg, 2s. 6d. to 3s.; lac, 8d.; rhubarb, 8s. to 12s.; musk, £117.
[263] The words placed within brackets have been kindly furnished me by the Rt. Rev. J. M. Speechly, D.D., who was Bishop of Travancore, 1879-89. In a letter to me he remarks that, “at the sea-port towns generally the worst Malayālam is spoken. Many Malayālam words are the same in Tamil, and in this list there are some which a Tamil scholar would be able to point out. Also, it is not unlikely that there are some Arabic words Malayālamised in the list. The anonymous author’s list is a very interesting one, and his journal, I have no doubt, will be so also. The ‘ne’ which ends so many words may stand for ‘nī’, ‘thou’. Sometimes it is only an expressive ending”.
[264] She died in childbed on August 24, 1498; and Dom Manuel, having been granted a dispensation from the Pope, married her sister, Doña Maria, on August 24, 1500, the second anniversary of his first wife’s death.