It connected the trade from the Indian Ocean and all points west with that of the China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. It was the terminus for Chinese trading junks after their withdrawal from the west coast of India. Malacca was called the Eye of the Sun. It was the most cosmopolitan city on earth, where, according to Pires, eighty-four languages could be heard; he listed a whole alphabet of the trading peoples beyond Europe—men from Cairo, Ormuz, Goa, Cambodia, Timor, Ceylon, Java, China, Brunei. Even the parrots were said to be multilingual.
