rnings, accompanied by officers, and sold things, and returned
again at night to prison. They wrote down every thing that I sold; and
at my embarking, the captain directed me to deliver all my money and
goods into the hands of the _scrivano_ or purser of the ship, which I
did, and the scrivano left an acknowledgement with the captain, that
myself with the money and goods should be delivered up to the veedor
general in India. But on our arrival here, the veedor would not meddle
with either money or goods, seeing that no crime was substantiated
against us: Wherefore the goods remained in the ship nine or ten days
after our arrival; and then, as the ship was to sail from thence, the
scrivano sent the goods on shore, where they remained a day and a night
without any one to receive them. In the end, they permitted the bearer
of this letter to receive them, who put them into a house which he hired
for me, in which they remained four or five days. When afterwards they
ought to have delivered the money, it was ordered by the _veedor_, that
both the money and goods should be given into the custody of the
_positor_, where they remained for fourteen days after I was liberated
from prison.

When in Aleppo, I bought a fountain of silver gilt, six knives, six
spoons, and one fork, all trimmed with coral, for 25 chekins, which the
captain of Ormus took to himself and only paid 20 pardaos, or 100
larines, though they were worth there or here at Goa 100 chekins. Also
he had five emeralds set in gold, worth five or six hundred crowns, for
which he only paid 100 pardaos. He likewise took 19-1/2 pikes of cloth,
which cost 20 shillings the pike at London, and was worth 9 or 10 crowns
the pike at Ormus, for which he only paid 12 larines. He also had two
pieces of green kersie, worth 24 pardaos each; besides divers other more
trifling articles which he and the officers took at similar inferior
prices, and some for nothing at all. But the real cause of all was
Michal Stropene, who came to Ormus without a penny, and is now worth
thirty or forty thousand crowns, and is grieved that any stranger should
trade there but himself. But that shall not avail him; for I trust yet
to go both hither and thither, and to buy and sell as freely as he or
any other.

There is a great deal of good to be done here in divers of our
commodities; and likewise there is much profit to be made with the
commodities of this country, when carried to Aleppo. It were long