[004]
There was, and perhaps still is, a custom in all maritime
countries that have ports, that all merchants arriving there with
merchandise, should, on discharging, bring all their goods into a
warehouse, called in many places "dogana," and maintained by
the state, or the lord of the land; [005]where those that are assigned
to that office allot to each merchant, on receipt of an invoice of
all his goods and the value thereof, a room in which he stores
his goods under lock and key; whereupon the said officers of the
dogana enter all the merchant's goods to his credit in the book
of the dogana, and afterwards make him pay duty thereon, or on
such part as he withdraws from the warehouse.
[006]
By which book of
the dogana the brokers not seldom find out the sorts and quantities
of the merchandise that is there, and also who are the owners
thereof, with whom, as occasion serves, they afterwards treat of
exchanges, barters, sales and other modes of disposing of the goods.
[007]
Which custom obtained, as in many other places, so also at Palermo
in Sicily, where in like manner there were and are not a few women,
fair as fair can be, but foes to virtue, who by whoso knows them not
would be reputed great and most virtuous ladies.
[008]
And being given
not merely to fleece but utterly to flay men, they no sooner espy a
foreign merchant in the city, than they find out from the book of
the dogana how much he has there and what he is good for; and
then by caressing and amorous looks and gestures, and words of
honeyed sweetness, they strive to entice and allure the merchant to
their love, and not seldom have they succeeded, and wrested from
him great part or the whole of his merchandise; and of some they
have gotten goods and ship and flesh and bones, so delightsomely
have they known how to ply the shears.
