Travels in India (Tavernier) 68: Concerning Silks.

68

Kāsimbāzār, a village in the Kingdom of Bengal, can furnish about twenty-two thousand (22,000) bales of silk annually, each bale weighing one hundred (100) livres. The 22,000 bales weigh 2,200,000 livres at 16 onces to the livre. The Dutch generally took, either for Japan or for Holland, 6000 to 7000 bales of it, and they would have liked to get more, but the merchants of Tartary and of the whole Mogul Empire opposed their doing so, for these merchants took as much as the Dutch, and the balance remained with the people of the country for the manufacture of their own stuffs. All these silks are brought to the Kingdom of Gujarat, and the greater part come to Ahmadabad and Surat, where they are woven into fabrics.
Firstly, carpets of silk and gold, others of silk, gold, and silver, and others altogether of silk, are made in Surat. As for the woollen carpets, they are made at Fatehpur, 12 coss from Agra.
In the second place, satins with bands of gold and silver, and others with bands of different colours, and others all uniform are made there, and it is the same with the taffetas.
Thirdly, patoles which are stuffs of silk, very soft, decorated all over with flowers of different colours, are manufactured at Ahmadabad. They vary in price from eight (8) to forty (40) rupees the piece. This is one of the profitable investments of the Dutch, who do not permit any member of their Company to engage in private trade in it. They are exported to the Philippines, Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and other neighbouring countries.
As for crude silks, it should be remarked that none of them are naturally white except that of Palestine, of which even the merchants of Aleppo and Tripoli have difficulty in obtaining a small quantity. Thus the silk of KAsimbazar is yellow, as are all the crude silks which come from Persia and Sicily. But the people of KAsimbazar know how to whiten theirs with a lye made of the ashes of a tree which is called Adam’s fig, which makes it as white as the silk of Palestine. The Dutch carry their silks and the other goods which they obtain in Bengal by the canal which goes from KAsimbAzAr to the Ganges, and this canal is nearly 15 leagues long. There remains an equal distance to descend by the Ganges to Hugly, where they ship their goods on board their vessels.