Weights and Measures , &c.

Benjamin of Navarre, a Jenu mention’d before, has wrote a rela-tion ofhis voyage, which contains several curious things intermix-ed with some Falslioods. Marcus Paulus a Venetian soys that in histime, about the i zth Age, the Commerce on the Coast of Mala-bar was very inconsiderable. Mario Sanudo a Venetian , who livedabout the j 4th Age, a Man full of zeal for the recovery of theHoly Land, and the destruction of the Sultan of Ægypt, .tells us,that the greatest part of his Revenues arose from the Trade ofSpice and other Indian Goods. He names the two principalPorts in the Indies , Malabar and Cambaya ; that the Customs paidto the Sultan were about the third of the value of the Goods;he would have been more surprized at the customs of India Goodsin our time; he observes that the Spices brought by Land-carriagewere much better than those which came to Ægypt by Sea. Inthe History of the Moluccas , there is mention made of a VenetianShip seen in the Eafiern Seas, bound from Manillia to China , which-consequently must have doubled the Cape of Good Hope.

Smarcanda the Capital City of Transoxiana , the Maracanda ofthe Ancients, situated beyond the Oxus, was formerly a famousplace of Traffick, where the Chinese, Tartar, Persian and IndianMerchants resorted. This City was the Seat of the Empire of Ta-merlane. The Turkijh Conquests, and the Trade of the Portuguese,have diminished the Commerce of that place. Smarcanda hadeclipsed Bogar or Bokara, which was not far distant from it, situa-ted on the North of the River Ox us, in zs degrees of NorthernLatitude; it was formerly the Capital City of all that Country,and is now in the possestion of the Usbecks ; there is a descriptionof it by Anthony Jenkinson in Hackluifs Collection ; it was possessedof great Trade, and the native Place of A<vicenna , as Hera wasthat of Mircond Author of the Oriental History wrote in the Per-sian Tongue. Hera is one of the chief Cities of Chorosan , famousfor the Industry of the Inhabitants, and great resort of Merchants.Cand'achar, an ancient and populous City situated in the Provinceof the fame name, was formerly the Repository of the Indian and