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 to resist his assumed authority. Consequently when his fleet made its appearance, the king of Cochym was ready to receive him with every honour; and when his boat, with its canopy of crimson velvet, very richly dressed, approached the shore, the king, accompanied by his people, came to the water-side to meet him, prepared to secure his friendship by any submission, however abject. Numerous rich and valuable presents having been interchanged, arrangements were made to provide the cargo the captain-major required, on similar conditions to those which had been entered into at Cananore.

When the queen of Coulam, a neighbouring and friendly state, where the pepper was chiefly produced, heard of the wealth which the king of Cochym and his merchants were making by their commercial intercourse with the Portuguese, she sent an ambassador to Dom Gama to entreat him to enter into similar arrangements with herself and her people, saying that "she desired for her kingdom the same great profit, because she had pepper enough in her kingdom to load twenty ships each year:" but Dom Gama was a diplomatist, or at least a dissembler, as well as an explorer. To fall out with the king of Cochym did not then suit his purpose, which he would very likely have done had he allowed the queen of Coulam to share in the lucrative trade without his sanction; but he nevertheless appears to have made up his mind to reap the advantage of the queen's trade under any circumstances. Consequently, he sent word to the queen "that he was the vassal of so truthful a king, that for a single lie or fault which he might commit against good faith, he would order his