A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
I learned here that the king of _Juanni_ [Joanna or Hinzuan] was
sovereign of this island, but entrusted its government to the sultan,
who resides here. The 29th, a vessel arrived at _Doman_ from
_Gangamora_, in the island of Madagascar, and I was desired by the
general to examine what were its commodities, which I found to consist
of rice, and a kind of cloth manufactured of the barks of trees, which
makes very cool garments. I enquired from the pilot, who spoke good
Portuguese, respecting Captain Rowles and the other Englishmen who were
betrayed on that island. He knew nothing of all this, but said that two
or three years before, an English boy was at Gangamora along with the
Portuguese, whom he now thought dead, but knew not how he came there.
This town of _Doman_ contains about an hundred houses, strongly built of
stone and lime, and its inhabitants are orderly and civil. They carry
on trade with the coasts of Melinda, Magadoxa, Mombaza, Arabia, and
Madagascar, carrying slaves taken in their wars, which they sell for
nine or ten dollars each, and which are sold afterwards in Portugal for
100 dollars a-head. At Mombaza and Magadoxa, they have considerable
trade in elephants teeth and drugs; and it was therefore agreed to
advise the honourable company of this, that they might consider of
sending a pinnace yearly to make trial of this trade. In Mohelia, we
bought two or three bullocks for a bar of iron of between twenty and
twenty-five pounds weight. We bought in all 200 head of cattle, and
forty goats, besides poultry, fruits, &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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