The Portuguese in the Sea of Oman

_ 17 _ The next day, which was Thursday, after we had anchored, we went ashore with the captain-major and we captured one of their men, who was small in stature and resembled Sancho Mexia. He was gathering honey on some waste land, because the bees in that country make it beneath the bushes. We took him to the captain-major's ship, who sat him down at table with him and he ate everything that we ate. The following day, the captain-major dressed him up very well and gave orders for him to be set ashore. The day after that, fourteen or fifteen of them came to where our ships lay. The captain-major landed and showed them many goods in order to ascertain if such things were to be found in that country. The goods were cinnamon, cloves, seed pearls, gold, as well as other items, but they knew nothing of such things and acted like people who had never seen them before. Consequently, the captain-major gave them some small bells and tin rings. This was on the Friday, and the same thing happened the following Saturday. On the Sunday, something like forty or fifty of them appeared. When supper was over, we went ashore and with some ceitil coins that we took, we obtained shells that they wore in their ears, which appeared to be silver, and fox-tails that they carried stuck on sticks, with

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