[124] Barros speaks of these Christians as Banyans, while Goes and Castanheda say that these vessels belonged to merchants from Cranganor, in Malabar.
[125] Correa (p. 113) says that the Moor sent with this message was the Davane already referred to, and (p. 115) distinguishes him from the Moor who was captured on April 14th.
[126] Balandrau, a surtout worn by the Brothers of Mercy in Portugal.
[127] Lambel, a striped cotton stuff which had a large sale at the beginning of the African trade.—Herculano.
[128] I am indebted for a photograph of one of these trumpets to Sir John Kirk, who states that the Royal Trumpet, or Siwa, was peculiar to the cities ruled by the descendants of the Persians of Shiraz, who settled on this coast in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They were of ivory, or copper and wood, and consisted of three pieces. The ivory or copper was sometimes most elaborately carved, and bore Arabic texts.
[129] We learn from this passage that the “king” referred to by the author was in reality the king’s son, who acted as regent. He may be supposed to be the Sheikh Wagerage (Wajeraj), who in 1515 wrote a letter to D. Manuel, in which he begged for permission to send annually one vessel to Goa and to Mozambique. He very humbly (or sarcastically?) addresses the king as the “fountain of the commerce of all cities and kingdoms, the most equitable of sovereigns, and the enricher of all people”; when, indeed, the Portuguese had crippled the trade of Malindi, which had received them with open arms. Another letter addressed to King Manuel was written by “Ali, King of Melinde”, in 1520. Was this “king” the son of Wajeraj, or of the “prince who visited Vasco da Gama on board his vessel”? F. João de’ Sousa, who publishes these letters (Documentos Arabicos, Lisbon, 1790, pp. 67, 123), with a few comments, only obscures the point, unless indeed Wajeraj the Sheikh and Ali the Prince be one and the same person.
Cabral met a Sheikh Omar, a brother of the King of Malindi, who was present at Malindi when Vasco da Gama touched at that place; as also a Sheikh Foteima, an uncle of the king (Barros, Dec. I, liv. 5, c. 3).
On the ungenerous treatment dealt to the King of Malindi, see D. F. d’Almeida’s letter of 1507 (Stanley’s Vasco da Gama, p. 125).
[130] Of course they looked upon these Romish images and pictures as outlandish representations of their own gods or idols.
[131] Burton (Camoens, IV, p. 420) suggests that they cried Krishna, the name of the eighth Incarnation of Vishnu, the second person of the Hindu Trinity, and the most popular of Indian gods. Sir J. Kirk knows of no word resembling “Krist” likely to have been called out by these Indians.