Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c11.s1.17

c11.s1.17

It speaks very highly of the business zeal of the Portuguese that they penetrated the mysterious Orient as soon as the new sea-route was open to them. Duarte Barbosa started in about 1500 A.D., and spent sixteen years in India in the service of the Portuguese.¹³ Barbosa mentions the importance of Aden from where the Indian products were taken to Alexandria by caravans. A few years after Egypt fell to the Turks who already possessed Aleppo, the greatest emporium of the Persian Gulf. The Portuguese counteracted this by occupying Ormuz, but the trade with Alexandria still flourished. Barbosa talks about the great quantity of cotton goods, which Aden received from Cambay (Chap. 34), as also Zanzibar (Chap. 14). Thus Gujarāt, with Cambay as its principal port, was the chief exporter of cotton goods, but it was already under the Muslim rulers who were allied with the Turkish and Egyptian Sultans, the Portuguese found great difficulty in breaking the Muslim monopoly of the Oriental commerce. The population of Gujarāt was cosmopolitan, specially in the sea ports; Turks, Mamelukes (of Egypt), Persians (of the Gulf), and Khorasanis came to stay there from the sea or the north. These Moors of Cambay spoke various languages, Arabic, Turkish and Gujarātī¹⁴. They carried business transactions with rich Hindu merchants whom Barbosa calls gentios or gentils. Cambay was an ancient port touched by the boats sailing to the Occident even in the days of the Periplus, but Broach (Barygaza) on the river Narbadā was no longer a port; Barbosa like his predecessors speaks of the dangers of the Gulf for navigation.¹⁵ Later on, Cambay was abandoned for Surat, which in the course of time was eclipsed by Bombay.