The City of Cail

CHAPTER 21. The City of Cail

Cail is a great and noble city, and belongs to Ashar, the eldest of the 5 brother Kings.

This is where all the ships touch that come from the west, as from Hormos and from Kis and from Aden, and all Arabia, laden with horses and with other things for sale.

This brings a great concourse of people from the country round about, and so there is great business done in this city of Cail.

The King possesses vast treasures, and wears upon his person great store of rich jewels.

He maintains great state and administers his kingdom with great equity, and extends great favour to merchants and foreigners, so that they are very glad to visit his city.{2}

This King has some 300 wives. In those parts the man who has most wives is most thought of.

This great province of Maabar has 5 crowned Kings, who are all own brothers born of one father and of one mother.

This king is one of them.

Their mother is still alive.

When they disagree and go forth to war against one another, their mother throws herself between them to prevent their fighting.

Should they persist in desiring to fight, she will take a knife and threaten that if they will do so she will cut off the paps that suckled them and rip open the womb that bare them, and so perish before their eyes.

In this way hath she full many a time brought them to desist. But when she dies it will most assuredly happen that they will fall out and destroy one another.

All the people of this city, as well as of the rest of India, have a custom of perpetually keeping in the mouth a certain leaf called Tembul, to gratify a certain habit and desire they have, continually chewing it and spitting out the saliva that it excites.

The Lords and gentlefolks and the King have these leaves prepared with camphor and other aromatic spices, and also mixt with quicklime.

This practice was said to be very good for the health.

If any one desires to offer a gross insult to another, when he meets him he spits this leaf or its juice in his face.

The other immediately runs before the King, relates the insult that has been offered him, and demands leave to fight the offender.

The King supplies the arms, which are sword and target, and all the people flock to see, and there the two fight till one of them is killed.

They must not use the point of the sword, for this the King forbids.]{5}

CHAPTER 22. The Kingdom of Coilum

When you quit Maabar and go 500 miles towards the south-west you come to the kingdom of Coilum.

The people are Idolaters, but there are also some Christians and some Jews.

The natives have a language of their own, and a King of their own, and are tributary to no one.{1}

A great deal of brazil is got here which is called brazil Coilumin from the country which produces it; ’tis of very fine quality.

Good ginger also grows here. It is known by the same name of Coilumin after the country.

Pepper too grows in great abundance throughout this country.

The pepper-trees are (not wild but) cultivated, being regularly planted and watered.

The pepper is gathered in May, June, and July.

They have also abundance of very fine indigo.

This is made of a certain herb which is gathered, and [after the roots have been removed] is put into great vessels upon which they pour water and then leave it till the whole of the plant is decomposed.

They then put this liquid in the sun, which is tremendously hot there, so that it boils and coagulates, and becomes such as we see it.

They then divide it into pieces of four ounces each, and in that form it is exported to our parts.

The heat of the sun is so great there that it is scarcely to be endured; in fact if you put an egg into one of the rivers it will be boiled, before you have had time to go any distance, by the mere heat of the sun!

The merchants from Manzi, and from Arabia, and from the Levant come thither with their ships and their merchandise and make great profits both by what they import and by what they export.

There are in this country many and divers beasts quite different from those of other parts of the world.

Thus there are lions black all over, with no mixture of any other colour; and there are parrots of many sorts, for some are white as snow with red beak and feet, and some are red, and some are blue, forming the most charming sight in the world; there are green ones too. There are also some parrots of exceeding small size, beautiful creatures.

They have also very beautiful peacocks, larger than ours, and different.

They have cocks and hens quite different from ours.

In short, everything they have is different from ours, and finer and better.

Neither is their fruit like ours, nor their beasts, nor their birds; and this difference all comes of the excessive heat.

Corn they have none but rice. So also their wine they make from [palm-]sugar; capital drink it is, and very speedily it makes a man drunk.

All other necessaries of man’s life they have in great plenty and cheapness. They have very good astrologers and physicians.

Man and woman, they are all black, and go naked, all save a fine cloth worn about the middle. They look not on any sin of the flesh as a sin.

They marry their cousins german, and a man takes his brother’s wife after the brother’s death; and all the people of India have this custom.{6}

There is no more to tell you there; so we will proceed, and I will tell you of another country called Comari.

CHAPTER 23. The Country Called Comari

Comari is a country belonging to India, and there you can see something of the North Star, which we had not been able to see from the Lesser Java thus far. In order to see it you must go some 30 miles out to sea, and then you see it about a cubit above the water.{1}

This is a very wild country, and there are beasts of all kinds there, especially monkeys of such peculiar fashion that you would take them for men! There are also gatpauls{2} in wonderful diversity, with bears, lions, and leopards, in abundance.