56 great kingdom of Cambay and on the other Persia, and its king obeys Sheik Ismael. They are brown and white-skinned Mouros, they have their own language and they also speak Persian and Arabic. Wheat and barley are grown here, and meat is plentiful. The land comprises flat fields and there is little wood. They sail very little, but they have very long beaches, where they make some wonderful catches of fish. They take some very large fish and dry them, so they can be taken to the interior, and they also take them to many other kingdoms; they feed dried fish to the horses. Some ships that come here from India bring rice; sugar and some spices, timber; planks, and some canes that there are in India, that are as stout as a man’s leg. They earn plenty of money from this and return home with cotton; horses, and cloths. A wide river, which comes from the middle of Persia, flows into the sea in this kingdom. The Mouros say that it comes from the river Euphrates. There are some very rich Mouros villages along its banks; the land is fertile and supplies many provisions. The Kingdom of Gujarat Heading further along past the kingdom of Dewal, one soon enters thefirst India which is the kingdom of Gujarat. It seems that King Darius was king and lord of this kingdom, because the Indians still have many stories about him and Alexander the Great. The kingdom of Gujarat is vast, with many towns and cities, both in the interior and along the sea coast. It has many ports with busy shipping, which are populated by both Mouros and gentiles, who are principal merchants and deal in a wide range of merchandise here. It used to be a gentile kingdom, but the Mouros conquered it, thus the king is now a Mouros, but there are still many gentile principal merchants there and they trade amongst each other. Before the Mouros took the city of Gujarat, some gentiles lived there whom the Mouros called Rajputs who at that time were the knights and protectors of their land and waged war wherever necessary.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy