Twilight of the Sultanate c17.s8.39

c17.s8.39

The main Indian sea ports were Deybul in Sindh, Cambay (Khambāyat), Thānā (near Bombay), and Broach in Gujarat; Choul and Dabhol in Bahmanī kingdom, Mangalore in Vijāyanagar kingdom, while Calicut, Quilon, and Cape Comorin were in Malabar.¹⁵⁶ Deybul was "a remarkable centre of trade" of various kinds of goods.¹⁵⁷ Calicut and Quilon had ship building and repairing yards on the west coast.¹⁵⁸ For the east coast there is the testimony of Mahuan who writes: "The rich build ships in which they carry on commerce with foreign nations".¹⁵⁹ Nicolo Conti describes the ships built by Indians and prefers them to ships built in Europe in his times.¹⁶⁰ Similar is the preference of Varthema in the sixteenth century.¹⁶¹