99 died childless, the king inherited her entire estate; when she had passed away, the king ordered that all her estate be collected and he discovered that she had left him seventy thousand pardaus, in addition to the twelve thousand that she had put to one side during her lifetime and that she bequeathed to a serving girl that she had raised since infancy. This is no great wonder, for there is more and richer merchandise here than anywhere else in the world, and there are large cities where many rich Mouros and gentile merchants live,who trade on a large scale, in particular in precious stones, which are highly valued in this kingdom and which they consider a mark of social standing. The king has a fine collection of them of which he is very proud: whenever he hears of a good stone, he sends someone to fetch it, because he says that whatever he pays for it, it is worth it just so that he can possess it. Whenever the king leaves, no less than one hundred thousand soldiers go with him, and he marches in such a way that they do not travel more than three leagues per day. When they have covered this distance, they set up their very large camp, which is a huge city of straw, with houses laid out in rows and with many squares. They stay there for three days, which means that it takes them three days to cover three leagues, and when they are about to leave, they bang a gong and set light to the town and everyone leaves. And this is how they travel to their destination. The Kingdom of Orissa Heading further inland, one comes to another kingdom which borders on Vijayanagara and on other sides, with Bengal and the great kingdom of Delhi, which is a gentile kingdom. The King of Orissa is a Mouros and has many foot soldiers as I have already said. He is often at war with the King of Vijayanagara, and they take each other’s lands whenever they can and are rarely at peace. I am not going to write about these people and their settlements because we do not know so much
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy