A Dutchman named Linschoten,[15] in an account of his travels and voyages, in 1596, gives an exaggerated account of the effects of opium. He says: “Amfion, so called by the Portingales, is by the Arabians, Mores (Moors) and Indians called affion, in Latin, opio or opium. It cometh out of Cairo in Egypt, and out of Aden upon the coast of Arabia, which is the point of the land entering into the Red Sea, sometimes belonging to the Portingales, but most part out of Cambaia, and from Deccan; that of Cairo is whitish and is called Mecerii; that of Aden and the places bordering upon the mouth of the Red Sea is blackish and hard; that which come from Cambaia and Deccan is softer and reddish. Amfion is made of sleepeballs, or poppie, and is the gumme which cometh forth of the same, to ye which end it is cut up and opened. The Indians use much to eat Amfion, specially the Malabares, and thither it is brought by those of Cambaia and other places in great abundance. He that useth to eate it must eate it daylie, otherwise he dieth and consumeth himself. When they begin to eate it, and are used unto it, they eate at the least twenty or thirty grains in weight everie day, sometimes more; but if for four or five days he chanceth to leave it, he dieth without fail. Likewise he that hath never eaten it, and will venture at the first to eate as much as those that daylie use it, it will surely kill him, for I certainly believe it is a kind of poyson. Such as use it goe alwaise as if they were half asleepe. They eate much of it because they would not feel any great labour or unquietness when they are at work, but they use it most for lecherie ... although such as eate much thereof, are in time altogether unable to company with a woman and whollie dried up, for it drieth and whollie cooleth man’s nature that use it, as the Indians themselves do witness. Wherefore it is not much used by the nobilitie, but only for the cause aforesaid.” Cæsar Fredericke,[16] a Venetian merchant, who travelled extensively in the East, writes, about 1581, an account of his voyages and some of his ventures: “And for because that at my departure from Pegu opium was in great request, I went then to Cambay, to employ a good round summe of money in opium, and there I bought sixty parcels of opium which cost me 2,000 and 100 duckets, every ducket at 4 shillings 2 pence....” It is interesting to note that one Ralph Fitch,[17] who travelled in the East from 1583 to 1591, visited Burma, or Pegu as it was called by voyagers then, writes that opium from Cambay and Mecca was in great demand. These references, and a great many more could be given, go to show that by the sixteenth Century opium was not only well known, but formed an important item of maritime trade in the East.