A Momentous Journey

61 and elephants, which come from Ceylon through Malabar to be sold to his kingdom. Horses are plentiful in his land, thus he uses horses and elephants to wage a terrific war on the gentiles in the kingdom of Gujarat, called Rajputs who still refuse him obedience, and on other kings with whom he sometimes has wars. They build a wooden castle on the elephants’ backs, which holds three or four men, who carry bows; arrows; muskets and other weapons and they fight their enemies from there. The said elephants are so well-trained that when they enter the fight, they seriously injure the horses and people with their tusks. They therefore quickly win any battle and as they soon wounding the enemy, the latter quicklyflee and trample over each other. The King of Cambay always has some four or five hundred such elephants, enormous and fine-looking ones, which he buys at his ports for around one thousand andfive hundred ducats each, where they are brought to be sold. Hence, they fight with great skill on these elephants and horses, which gallop at great speed. They gallop wildly with long stirrups and carry small, round shields, adorned with silk and each of them carries two swords; a dagger and a Turkish bow withfine arrows. Others carry steel maces and many wear chainmail and others quilted cotton shirts. Their horses wear steel caparisons and thusfight very well. They are quick and artful in the saddle, and they play polo on horseback. They esteem this game as much as we do reeding. The Mouros of this kingdom are white, and most of them are foreigners from many different places, such as Turks, Mamluks, Arabians, Persians and Corassans, Targinese, others from the Great Kingdom of Delhi, and others are from this land itself , and they all come here because this a very rich and fertile land. They are well-paid by the king. They arefinely clad in gold; silk; cotton and camlets. They all wear turbans on their heads. Their clothes are long, like Mouros shirts and they wear long-johns, with buskins made of thick cordovan leather that come up to their knees, with fine criss-cross lacing. Their

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