ABSTRACT
IN the inland country of this Kingdom of Peeguu, going thence towards :Malaca between the Kingdoms of Racanguy 1 and Anseaom there is a Heathen Kingdom wherein among other great towns there is one exceeding great city which they call Ava 2 inhabited by wealthy merchants where there is much trade in valuable precious stones, rubies and spinels which are found there. Hither gather Moorish, Heathen and Chati merchants from divers lands to purchase them, and also the abundance of musk there is there. And these stones and musk the King takes for himself, and they are sold to foreigners, who come hither to seek for them on his account. From Cambaya they bring here copper, quicksilver, vermilion, saffron, rosewater, opium, coloured Meca velvets, and many other things valued among them, in exchange wherefor they take away the aforesaid stones (and musk) which the King causes to be gathered among the mountains and rivers, and to find it they dig very deep pits, the spinels are found on the ground level and the rubies at the bottom, there are always skilful lapidaries in this city who know them right well. And for the musk,1 it is found in certain animals as large as gazelles, they have small tusks like those of elephants which produce under their bellies certain growths like boils, and also on their breasts [like unto a chila which is found in old men] and after these have come to a head with the matter, they itch so that they scrape themselves on the trees, from which men gather some particles of good and genuine musk. There are hunters who track them by scent and trap them or catch them in nets and take them alive and convey them to a house kept by the King for that purpose, and there they cut round those swellings through the skin, and let them dry; what is left is the true musk pouch, and the most excellent. But very few of them can be got in this way, and they therefore make imitations of them in divers manners. They cut these swellings out of the live animals and apply numbers of leeches to the wounds and let them fill themselves with blood, when full they let them dry in the sun .. They apply so many of these that the beast loses all its blood and falls dead, on which they flay it and make counterfeit pouches of its skin which seem like the real pouches. Then having pounded the dry leeches to a powder they make it by hand into grains, and taking a piece of the true musk-pouch and seven or eight of the leeches, they mix the whole together and make it into good musk and so good that if it came thus to our lands they would hold it to be a piece of good fortune, for after this the dealers falsify it yet further, and it is purchased for foreign lands in this city, as the true musk is so strong that if you put it near the tip of your nose it makes you sneeze violently and blood flow from your nostrils.
