commandant directly under the orders of the Sultan. The viceroy administered by means of his agents the flourishing ports of Rajapur in the north and Karwar in the south, through which the trade of the rich inland places flowed to Europe. In both towns the English had factories.
"The best pepper in the world is of the growth of Sunda, known in England by [the name of] Karwar pepper, though five days' journey distant from thence." (Fryer, ii. 42.) Indeed, after the loss of Chaul, Karwar became the greatest port of Bijapur on the west coast. "The finest muslins of western India were exported from here. The weaving country was inland, to the east of the Sahyadris, at Hubli (in the Dharwar district), and at other centres, where the English East India Company had agents and employed as many as 50,000 weavers." (Bom. Gaz., xv., Pt. ii, pp. 123-125.)
At Mirjan, a port twenty miles south-east of Karwar, pepper, saltpetre and betel-nut were shipped for Surat. Gersappa, a district annexed by Bednur, was so famous for its pepper that the Portuguese used to call its Rani "the Pepper Queen." (Ibid, 333 and 124.)
In 1649 the pepper and cardamom trade of Rajapur was the chief attraction that induced the English Company to open a factory there. Vingurla was spoken of in 1660 as a great place of call for ships from Batavia, Japan and Ceylon on the one side, and the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea on the other.
