From Cambay, they bring the finest incense that those districts furnish. It is worth three taes per pico. They bring it from Far, which is Arabia the Blest [la Felice], and also from the island of Samatra, which the Portuguese call by another name Dachen.
From Timor, white sandal wood, which grows in no other part, while they bring the red from Santo Tome.
From Borney they bring camphor, which is the best which is usually found. It passes in its own kingdom weight for weight with silver. They also bring a great quantity of wood of the same tree for tables and writing desks, and it is very beautiful and sweet-smelling.
From the islands of Ternate, Tidore, and three or four others, the spice of the clove.
From the island of Banda, and from other islands, nutmeg and mace. From the same island they bring certain very beautiful birds which have no feet or claws. They have a very long tail with very beautiful feathers, and resemble young herons.
From Xapon a great quantity of silver; [abundance?] of tunny-fish; certain catans (which resemble cutlasses, and are very large), and daggers wrought very richly in gold; and other things.
From Sunda and many other places they bring various other articles. The Spaniards take from the Philipinas many pieces of cotton of very fine quality, and many pieces of various-colored damask; all kinds of taffeta, in greater or less quantity; much spun and loose silk of all colors; a great quantity of earthenware—which, together with the silk, is all brought to Manila by the Chinese themselves, who also bring a great amount of gold, wrought and unwrought, and of different carats. The following are the names of the gold in the Philipinas and their carats: first, gold of ariseis, of twenty-three carats three granos, and worth per tae in the said islands, nine eight-real pesos; gold of guinogulan, of twenty carats, worth seven pesos; gold of orejeras, of eighteen or nineteen carats, and worth five and one-half pesos per tae; gold of linguin, of fourteen or fourteen and one-half carats, and worth four or four and one-half pesos; gold of bislin, of nine or nine and one-half carats, and worth three pesos; gold of malubay, of six or six and one-half carats, and worth one and one-half and two pesos.[14]
[1] The ancient city of Ormuz was on the mainland, but was removed to the opposite island, Jerún, because of repeated Tartar attacks. Its fame almost rivaled that of Venice from the end of the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. It was owned by the Portuguese during 1507–1622, when it was taken by Shah Abbas, with the aid of the English East India Company. It was next to Goa the richest of Portuguese possessions. See Voyage of Pyrard de Laval (Hakluyt Society’s publications, London, 1888), ii, p. 238, notes 1 and 2.
[2] The editors of Voyage of Pyrard de Laval (ii, p. 357, note) say of the clove: “It is curious that this spice seems not to have been known to the Romans, nor to any Europeans till the discovery of the Moluccas by the Portuguese.” Duarte Barbosa, in East Africa and Malabar (Stanley’s trans., Hakluyt Society edition, London, 1866), pp. 219–220, quotes cloves from Maluco as worth per bahar in Calicut 500 and 600 fanoes; and, when clean of husks and sticks, 700 fanoes, 19 fanoes being paid as export duty. At Maluco they were worth from one to two ducats per bahar, and in Malacca as much as fourteen. Captain John Saris (see Satow’s edition of Voyage of Capt. John Saris, Hakluyt Society publications, p. 33) bought cloves for “60 rials of 8 per Bahar of 200 Cattyes.”