_ 135 _ name of this port was frequently confused with that of the kingdom itself. It was an unwalled city whose white houses were decorated with carved wood. The foreign merchants who went there were mainly from the Middle East. Cambay offered all the produce of its hinterland, that is, raw cotton, hardstone gems. Indigo, opium, handcraft products and above all an infinite range of textiles which were woven and dyed in the towns of the interior. The satellite ports of the region around Cambay Surat, Rander, and Diu, the seat of a military garrison each had commercial relations with some other specific port on the Indian Ocean. In each of the maritime cities of Gujarat trade was organized through cooperation between Muslim Sea traders and Hindu financiers (Bania or Jaina)(A) whom the Portuguese thought the most able businessmen in the whole world. The other ports of India's west count dealt with the coastal trade in rice, sugar, textiles and other everyday (A) Bania (from the Sanskrit vanij = merchant) was a general term used to designate high caste Hindi merchants, particularly in Gujarat. Jain member of a non-Brahman religion founded by Jina in the 6th century B.C. Early Portuguese accounts tended to confuse these two groups.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy