to Orissa with many
sick, and had lost a great number for want of water. The sick generally
died in four days illness. For the space of a year after, my throat
continued sore and hoarse, and I could never satisfy my insatiable
thirst. I judged the reason of this hoarseness to be from the continual
use of sippets dipped in vinegar and oil, on which I sustained my life
for many days. We had no scarcity of bread or wine; but the wines of
that country are so hot that they cannot be drank without water, or they
produce death. When we began to want water, I saw certain Moors who were
officers in the ship who sold a small dish of water for a ducat, and I
have afterwards seen a _bar_ of pepper, which is two quintals and a
half, offered for a small measure, and it could not be had even at that
price. I verily believe I must have died, together with my slave, whom I
had bought at a high price, had I not sold him for half his value, that
I might save his drink to supply my own urgent wants, and save my own
life.

SECTION XVI.

_Of the Kingdom of Orissa and the River Ganges_.

This was a fair and well regulated kingdom, through which a man might
have travelled with gold in his hand without danger, so long as it was
governed by its native sovereign who was a Gentile, and resided in the
city of _Catecha_[161] six days journey inland. This king loved
strangers, especially merchants who traded in his dominions, insomuch
that he took no customs from them, neither did he vex them with any
grievous impositions, only that each ship that came thither paid some
small affair in proportion to her tonnage. Owing to this good treatment
twenty-five ships, great and small, used to lade yearly in the port of
Orissa, mostly with rice and with different kinds of white cotton
cloths, oil of _zerzerline_ or _verzino_ which is made from a seed, and
answers well for eating or frying fish, lac, long pepper, ginger, dry
and candied mirabolans, and great store of cloth made from a kind of
silk which grows on trees requiring no labour or cultivation, as when
the _bole_ or round pod is grown to the size of an orange, all they have
to do is to gather it. About sixteen years before this, the Pagan king
of Orissa was defeated and slain and his kingdom conquered, by the king
of _Patane_[162], who was also king of the greatest part of Bengal.
After the conquest of Orissa, this king imposed a duty of 20 per centum
on all trade, as had been formerly paid in h