NOTE 2.—­“Il font eschiel en la mer” (G.T.). Eschiel is the equivalent of the Italian schera or schiera, a troop or squadron, and thence applied to order of battle, whether by land or sea.

NOTE 3.—­The northern part of Malabar, Canara, and the Konkan, have been nests of pirates from the time of the ancients to a very recent date.  Padre Paolino specifies the vicinity of Mt. d’Ely as a special haunt of them in his day, the latter half of last century.  Somewhat further north Ibn Batuta fell into their hands, and was stripped to his drawers.

NOTE 4.—­There is something to be said about these Malabar spices.  The cinnamon of Malabar is what we call cassia, the canella grossa of Conti, the canela brava of the Portuguese.  Notices of it will be found in Rheede (I. 107) and in Garcia (f. 26 seqq.).  The latter says the Ceylon cinnamon exceeded it in value as 4:1.  Uzzano discriminates canella lunga, Salami, and Mabari.  The Salami, I have no doubt, is Sailani, Ceylonese; and as we do not hear of any cassia from Mabar, probably the last was Malabar cinnamon.

Turbit:  Radex Turpethi is still known in pharmacy, at least in some parts of the Continent and in India, though in England obsolete.  It is mentioned in the Pharmacopoeia of India (1868) as derived from Ipomoea Turpethum.

But it is worthy of note that Ramusio has cubebs instead of turbit.  The former does not seem now to be a product of Western India, though Garcia says that a small quantity grew there, and a Dutch report of 1675 in Valentyn also mentions it as an export of Malabar. (V., Ceylon, p. 243.) There is some ambiguity in statements about it, because its popular name Kabab-chini seems to be also applied to the cassia bud.  Cubeb pepper was much used in the Middle Ages as a spice, and imported into Europe as such.  But the importation had long practically ceased, when its medical uses became known during the British occupation of Java, and the demand was renewed.

Budaeus and Salmasius have identified this drug with the [Greek:  komakon], which Theophrastus joins with cinnamomum and cassia as an ingredient in aromatic confections.  The inducement to this identification was no doubt the singular resemblance which the word bears to the Javanese name of cubeb pepper, viz., Kumukus.  If the foundation were a little firmer this would be curious evidence of intercourse and trade with Java in a time earlier than that of Theophrastus, viz., the 4th century B.C.

In the detail of 3 cargoes from Malabar that arrived at Lisbon in September 1504 we find the following proportions:  Pepper, 10,000 cantars; cinnamon, 500; cloves, 450; zz. (i.e. zenzaro, ginger), 130; lac and brazil, 750; camphor, 7; cubebs, 191; mace, 2-1/2; spikenard, 3; lign-aloes, 1-1/3.