151 and round the edge of their hair, they are shaven. They wear white shirts; caps on their heads; they go barefoot; they have long beards, and are very devout men. They say mass at the altar like here, with a cross in front of them. The priest who says mass has two other priests on either side of him to help him, they receive communion with salted bread instead of a wafer, they consecrate as much as they need of it for all those who are in the church. They share it all out among them like holy bread, and they come up to the altar to receive it from his hand. The wine is as follows: since there was no wine in India at that time, they took raisins that came from Mecca and Hormuz, and would leave them to soak overnight and on the next day when they said mass, they would squeeze the juice out of them and that is what they used in the service. They would charge for christenings and when they returned to their country from Malabar, they would be very rich, and thus, through a lack of money, many were left unchristened. Leaving the city of Quilon towards the South, one comes to a Mouros and gentile settlement along the coast called Tiruvankodu, where there are ships. It belongs to a Lord who is related to the King of Quilon. This country has a large supply of rice and meats. The Maldive Islands There is an archipelago of islands lying forty leagues off the coast of this country of Malabar. The Mouros say there are over twelve thousand of them and they start off the coast of Mount Dely, by the Padua shallows and they run towards Malacca. The first four are small, very flat and called Maldives. They are inhabited by Malabar Mouros and are said to belong to the King of Cannanore. There is nothing there except palmtrees, which is their sustenance, and rice, which is taken there in ships from Malabar, that load up on coir in the Maldives. There is plenty of dried fish in these islands; they also take back some small cowries
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