Читать книгу A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century - Anonymous - Страница 43

Table of Contents

Leaving this country of Prester John and the coast of the sea of Arabia Felix, and turning to the other part of the Red Sea, which is also called Arabia, and the Moors call it Barra Arab, there is a village, a sea-port called Suez,[43] and thither the Moors of Guida, the port of Mecca, bring all the spices, drugs, precious stones, seed pearl, amber, musk, and other merchandise of great value from the parts about India; and from there they load them on camels to carry them by land to Cairo, and from Cairo other merchants carry them to Alexandria; and from there the Venetians and other Christians usually export them. And this trade now, in a great measure, ceases on account of the Portuguese, whose fleets prohibit the navigation of the Moors from India to the Red Sea.[44] And the Great Sultan, lord of Cairo, who loses most by this, ordered a fleet to be built in the port of Suez, for which he had the wood and artillery, and other equipments transported by land, in which much money was expended; and this fleet was of ships and galleys, in order to pass with it to India and there forbid the Portuguese from cruising. And when this fleet was built many people of different nations went with it to the first India, which is the Kingdom of Cambay; and the Captain of it was Amir Uçen,[45] and with this fleet they met that of Portugal in front of a city named Dyu, and there they fought vigorously, and many people were killed, and at last the Moors, Turks, and Mamelukes were conquered and all their fleet was taken and part of it burned, and on this account and several other victories which the Portuguese gained over the before-mentioned Moors, they lost their navigation in the Red Sea, and the said port of Suez remains without the trade in spices.