Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/340

284 PYRAED DE LAVAL'S DESCRIPTION OF BENGAL more than two hundred thousand men and ten thousand elephants. He has many tributary kings: for instance, the kings of Aracan, of Chaul, 1 and other great lords, as well Mohammedan as Gentile, who are bound to fur- nish him, when he goes out to war, with a certain num- ber of men, elephants, and horses. They also pay him tribute for such harbours as they have in their terri- tories; and at all of these a great trade is carried on in all sorts of merchandise, the merchants exporting large quantities of goods, by reason whereof they dare not risk the loss of this king's good- will. The country is healthy and temperate, and so won- drous fertile that one lives there for almost nothing; and there is such a quantity of rice, that, besides sup- plying the whole country, it is exported to all parts of India, as well to Goa and Malabar, as to Sumatra, the Moluccas, and all the islands of Sunda, to all of which lands Bengal is a very nursing mother, who sup- plies them with their entire subsistence and food. Thus, one sees arrive there every day an infinite num- ber of vessels from all parts of India for these pro- visions; and I believe it would be still greater, were not the navigation so perilous by reason of the banks and shallows wherewith all this Gulf of Bengal is full. So it happens that when the Bengal ships are behind their time, or are lost, rice is fabulously dear, and there is a cry, as it were, of the extremity of famine. On the contrary, when the navigation is good, the rice is as cheap as if it grew in the country, and fetches no more 1 Possibly the district of the Chaul Khoya River, Assam.