III. INDIAN MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE IN MALAKA (16TH CENTURY)
i. Duarte Barbosa
“Many Moorish merchants reside in it, and also Gentiles, particularly Chetis, who are natives of Cholmendel (Coromandel): and they are all very rich and have many large ships, which they call jungos (junks). They deal in all sorts of goods in different parts, and many other Moorish and Gentile merchants flock thither from other countries to trade; some in ships of two masts from China and other places, and they bring thither much silk in skeins, many porcelain vases, damasks, brocades, satins of many colours, they deal in musk, rhubarb, coloured silks, much iron, saltpetre, fine silver, many pearls and seed pearl, chests, painted fans, and other toys, pepper, wormwood, Cambay stuffs, scarlet cloths, saffron, coral polished and rough, many stuffs of Palecate, of coloured cotton, others white from Bengal, vermilion, quicksilver, opium and other merchandise, and drugs from Cambay; amongst which there is a drug which we (Portuguese) do not possess and which they call putchô, and another called cachô[^1] and another called magican, which are gall nuts, which they bring from Levant to Cambay, by way of Mekkah, and they are worth a great deal in China and Java”.
—Cited by Ferrand JA. 11: 11 (1918) pp. 407-8. Cf. Longworth Dames ii 172-3.
ii. Castanheda
“. . . . In the northern part (of the city) live merchants known as Quelins (kling, the people of Kalinga from India); in this part the town is much larger than at any other . . . . . There are at Malaca, many foreign merchants, who, I said before, live among themselves; they are moors and pagans. The pagans come principally from Paleacate; they are installed permanently; they are very rich; they are the greatest merchants of the world at this period. They evaluate their wealth only by bahar of gold; there are some possessing 60 quintals (quintal = 100 kilogrammes) of gold. They do not consider as rich the merchant who, in a single day, does not buy three or four ships charged with merchandises of great value, and make them reload (the ships) and pay them their proper amounts. Thus, this port is the most important and has the richest merchandises known to the whole world . . . . . They (the Chinese ships) buy pepper, cloth from Cambaya, from Bengal and from Paleacate; grains, saffron, yellow coral, red lead, mercury, opium, the drugs of Cambaya called cacho and pucho and other articles of merchandise which come there by the Red Sea . . . . . (There come paraos laden with) pepper from Malabar. There come likewise merchants from the whole of India, from the Coromandel, from Bengal, from Tenasarim, from Pegu with provisions and rich merchandise. They carry likewise to Malaca the cloves of Molucus, the camphor of Borneo, the mace and the black nutmeg of Banda, the white and red sandal of Timor. Thus, as I said already, this is at this epoch the largest and the richest emporium in the world.”
—Castanheda (1528-38): Bk II ch. ii. on the city of Malaca: cited by Ferrand—JA. 11: 12 (1918) pp. 148-9.