On the arrival of the expedition at Calicut,[9] multitudes of people flocked to the beach, and the Portuguese were at first well received; for the king, having ascertained the real wealth of the strangers, and that Vasco de Gama had gold, and silver, and rich merchandise on board, to exchange for the pepper, spices, and other produce of the East, immediately sent him presents of “many figs, fowls, and cocoa-nuts, fresh and dry,” and professed a desire to enter into relations with the “great Christian king,” whom he represented. Calicut, the capital of the Malabar district, was then one of the chief mercantile cities of India, having for centuries carried on an extensive trade with Arabia and the cities of the West, in native and Arabian vessels. Hence among its merchants were many Moors,[10] who, holding in their hands the most profitable branches of the trade, naturally “perceived the great inconvenience and certain destruction which would fall upon them and upon their trade if the Portuguese should establish trade in Calicut.”[11] These men therefore took counsel together, and at length succeeded in persuading the king’s chief factor, and his minister of justice, that the strangers had been really sent to spy out the nature of the country, so that they might afterwards come and plunder it at their leisure. But, as Correa remarks, “it is notorious that officials take more pleasure in bribes than in the appointments of their offices,” so the factor and the minister did not hesitate to receive bribes, both from the Moors and from the strangers, and recommended the king, whose interests were opposed to his fears, to open up a commercial intercourse with Vasco de Gama. Accompanied by twelve men, of “good appearance,” composing his retinue, and taking with him numerous presents, De Gama at last presented himself on shore. The magnificent display of scarlet cloth, the crimson velvet, the yellow satin, the hand-basins and ewers chased and gilt, besides a splendid gilt mirror, fifty sheaths of knives of Flanders, with ivory handles and glittering blades, and many other objects of curiosity and novelty, banished, at least for the time, any doubts in the mind of the Malabar monarch with regard to the honest intentions of the strangers. [Sidenote: and concludes a treaty with the king.] Having concluded a treaty, whereby it was stipulated that the Portuguese should have security to go on shore and sell and buy as they pleased, and that they should be placed in all respects on the same footing as other foreign merchants, the king added his desire that the stranger should be treated “with such good friendship as if he was own brother to the king of Portugal.”[12] [Sidenote: His treachery.]