_ 153 _ else. So, if a merchant sells some merchandise, he expects you to pay him in tin and not in gold. The reason why they steem tin above gold is that they do not have either gold or silver coins. Gold also varies in value according to the carats, whereas the price of tins constant. The Portuguese made little effort to collect tin because it was so heavy and seemed of little value. I advised the Commander to use the crews from the five ships to collect tin, but he laughed the idea out of court. Item 14: Rui de Araujo told the Commander that there was a man in the city named Ninachato, a native of Coromandel, who had given him a wonderful welcome, and to whom it would be advantageous to give a safe conduct because he would bring other merchants with him. The Commander assented and Rui de Araujo arranged with Ninachato to collect all the tin in the city which must have been worth 40,000 cruzados. Item 15: After this, Joao and Leonardo, the factors of the merchant ships, went round with cruzados in their hands because all the spices they wanted to buy they found for cruzados rather than tin, which is worth a little less than copper in India. If he so wished, Rui de Araujo could have benefitted Your Highness to the tune of thirty or forty thousand cruzados, but the advice of a poor person is not listened to.
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