83 awful black rice, which the Malabars come to buy for the poor. They take it in small zambucos, and in return bring coconuts; their oil, and a lot of palm-sugar which is very popular in this land. Honavar Further along the coast beyond Mirjan, one comes to another river, where afine village called Honavar stands. Its inhabitants speak the local language and that is what they call it; the Malabars call it Poncuarão. The Malabars trade a lot here, buying a lot of black rice like the rice from Mirjan and in return bringing coconuts; their oil; palm-sugar, and palm-wine, and all in great quantities. Every year, an infinite number of both large and small sambooks come here to trade, because a lot of rice is used in Malabar as it is their staple diet. In this village of Honavar, there were two local pirates who were favoured by the local lord. One was known as Timoja and the other Daogy. Each had five or six very large vessels and well-armed crews. When they set out to sea, they would capture as many ships as they could (except for the Malabars’) and steal their entire cargo, sparing people’s lives. Their shared their booty with the local lord, for he would allow them to do this and they lived off this and were very rich and well-established in this place. They were originally from the Deccan Kingdom and came to this place in order to free themselves from the Mouros. They were scattered and no longer dared to continue with their business, once Our Lord and King’s navies started to sail in these waters of India. Bhatkal Heading further along the coast past the river of Honavar, one comes to another rather small river where a fine town stands, called Bhatkal. There is a lot of trade in many different goods there. It has
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy