_ 89 _ from all parts of the Orient, large caravans’ merchants and others flocked there from the interior of Persia, Khurassan, Georgia and all other kingdoms and even from as far as Muscovy, to buy and sell their wares. These caravans were often obstructed on the roads of the Kings of Shiraz and Lar and other Lords of the trough which they passed, which was a considerable loss for the island of Ormuz because of the decrease in their imports. So, the King of Ormuz was forced to come to an agreement with the kings and lords through whose lands the caravans passed to ensure that they did not close the roads to them, giving them so many leques a year, not as tribute but as a present, which they call macarrias. I mentioned these in relation to the founding of the Kingdom of Ormuz but without explaining what they were. This is what the Ambassador of Persia was coming to collect from Ormuz when Afonso de Albuquerque took the city, who sent to him baskets full of cannon balls and laid heads, saying that those were the tribute paid by that kingdom, which belonged to the King of Portugal, to those who demanded it. King Salgur Shah, either because he would not or for some other reason, failed to pay these macarrias to the
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