87 poor people, who buy plenty of it. They make a lot of money from it as they buy it so cheaply, more than they make from the good rice. They also take a large quantity to the Maldive islands, which lie off the coast of Malabar, because they are inhabited by poor Mouros, who are happier with the black rice, because it is cheaper, than with the white. They swap it for coir, which is a thread for making ropes and cordage, made out of coconut husks. They make a lot of it here and it is a good commodity wherever it is taken. The village of Kumbala has a lord who rules and governs it and is appointed by the king of Vijayanagara, and it borders on the kingdom of Cannanore. And this is as far as the kingdom of Vijayanagara stretches along the coast of Tulunadu province.Of the Kingdom of Vijayanagara itself and its greatness Going further along the coast and heading inland some fifteen to twenty leagues from the sea, one comes to a very high and craggy escarpment, which runs from the beginning of the Kingdom of Vijayanagara as far as Cape Comorin, which lies beyond the Malabar lands. And here in the Tulunadu lands, there is a large swathe of lowlying land between the sea and the hills, and the Mouros say that in ancient times the sea came in as far as the hills and that this plain was completely submerged, and that over the course of time the sea has gone out and this land where they live emerged and that even now there are traces of shellfish and other marine creatures all over the mountains, as if the sea had reached there at one point. The land is veryflat and unchanging on the far side of the mountains, and on this side, the ascent is so rugged that one appears to be scaling the heavens, and so craggy that people can only pass at certain places and points. This is why the kings of Malabar are so independent, because were it not for the barrier of these mountains, the King of Vijayanagara would have conquered them by now, because the Malabar
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