The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.s4.38

v3.c29.s4.38

Soon after 1500 the opening of the sea routes brought the Talaings great prosperity. Burma lay off the beaten track and her goods could be bought in Malacca. Her spices were few, and her finished articles crude. But two places in Burma lay near the track: Martaban and Tenasserim. These commanded short cuts over the hills to Siam, saving a dangerous sea voyage. Martaban sold the produce brought down the Salween and Irrawaddy rivers, and in 1519 the Portuguese¹ founded a trading station there which lasted till 1613. Tenasserim², which belonged to Siam till 1760, commanded an even better overland route, and the Portuguese had a settlement there till 1641. The Portuguese imported European clothes and velvets, and exported rubies, lac, wax, ivory, horn, lead, tin, Pegū jars (‘Martabans’), and long pepper, which grew in the moist forests of Tenasserim; they exported also pepper from Achīn, camphor from Borneo, and porcelain and scented woods from China, brought by the junks for sale in the Talaing ports. There was no coinage, but goods were weighed against lumps of *ganza*, an alloy of lead and tin which passed as currency. Nikitin³, a Russian from Tver, who travelled in the East about 1470, mentions Pegū as ‘no inconsiderable port, inhabited principally by Indian dervishes. The products derived from thence are sold by the dervishes,’ which indicates that then, as now, the merchant community was largely foreign.