Negapatan, they fish for pearles. And there is fished euery yere very much;
which doth serue all India, Cambaia, and Bengala, it is not so orient as
the pearle of Baharim in the gulfe of Persia. From cape de Comori we passed
by Coulam, which is a fort of the Portugals: from whence commeth great
store of pepper, which commeth for Portugall: for oftentimes there ladeth
one of the caracks of Portugall. Thus passing the coast we arriued in
Cochin the 22 of March, where we found the weather warme, but scarsity of
victuals: for here groweth neither corne nor rice: and the greatest part
commeth from Bengala. They haue here very bad water, for the riuer is farre
off. [Sidenote: People with swollen legges mentioned also by Ioh. Huygen.]
This bad water causeth many of the people to be like lepers, and many of
them haue their legs swollen as bigge as a man in the waste, and many of
them are scant able to go. These people here be Malabars, and of the race
of the Naires of Calicut: and they differ much from the other Malabars.
These haue their heads very full of haire, and bound vp with a string: and
there doth appeare a bush without the band wherewith it is bound. The men
be tall and strong, and good archers with a long bow and a long arrow,
which is their best weapon: yet there be some caliuers among them, but they
handle them badly.

[Sidenote: How pepper groweth.] Heere groweth the pepper; and it springeth
vp by a tree or a pole, and is like our iuy berry, but something longer
like the wheat eare: and at the first the bunches are greene, and as they
waxe ripe they cut them off and dry them. The leafe is much lesser then the
iuy leafe and thinner. All the inhabitants here haue very little homes
couered with the leaues of the coco-trees. The men be of a reasonable
stature; the women little; all blacke, with a cloth bound about their
middle hanging downe to their hammes; all the rest of their bodies be
naked: they haue horrible great eares with many rings set with pearles and
stones in them. The king goeth incached, as they do all; he doth not