174 Malabar and Cambay, thus this city of Malacca is the richest port, with the major principal merchants and the busiest shipping and trade in the entire world. So much gold comes in that the principal merchants only calculate their wealth by counting in bahars of gold, which as I said in previous chapters are four quintals each. There are merchants here who alone canfill three or four ships with thefinest cargo for a crossing and can load them up again with their stock alone and have the same number of ships cross with provisions, and they are all fully paid and loaded. There are many foreigners from a variety of places living in this city. As I have said, the locals are Mouros who speak a separate language. They are called Malays; they are good-humoured; they go naked from the waist up, and cover themselves with cotton cloths below the waist. The most respected wear light silk; scarlet, or brocade coats which come down as far as the middle of their thighs, and on top a girdle. They carry damascened daggers called kris at their waists. Their women are brown-skinned, they wearfine silks wrapped around themselves and short shirts. They are very pretty and are always well-dressed. Their hair is beautiful. These Malays are great worshippers of the Koran and Mohammed. They have many mosques, they bury their dead, their sons are their heirs; they live in large houses outside the city with many orchards; vegetable-gardens and tanks, where they have a comfortable life. They have separate houses in the city for their business; they have many slaves with women and children, who live separately and obey their masters. They are very intelligent; polite, enjoy music and are romantic. There are merchants from Coromandel here, who are rich, potbellied men, who are naked above the waist and cover themselves with cotton cloths below the waist. There are also many Javanese in this city, who are stout, sluggish men with broad, deformed chests and broad faces. They are Mouros, they go naked, they cover themselves with cotton cloths below the waist and which they wrap around themselves
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