SOCIAL SCIENTIST Steensgaard, Niels, The Asian Trade revolution of the Seventeenth Century -the East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1973. Subramanyam, Sanjay, The Political Economy of Commerce, Southern India, 1500-1650, Cambridge, 1990. Sinha, N K, 1968, The Economic History of Bengal from Plessey to the Permanent Settlement, Vols I & II, Calcutta. Sinha, Narendra Kishore, 1967, The History of Bengal (1757-1905), Calcutta. Tarafdar, M.R., Trade, Technology and Society in Medieval Bengal, International Centre for Bengal Studies, ICHS Series 12, Dhaka, 1995. Tavenier, Monsieur John Baptista, Travels in India, part II, Book I, printed for Moses Pit at the Angel, in St. Pauls Churchyard, MDC LXXXIV. Vartthema, Ludovico Di, The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India and Ethiopia, AD 1503 to 1508: translated from the original Italian edition of 1510, with a preface, by John Winter Jones, and edited with notes and introduction by George Percy Badger, London, 1863 by Hakluyt Society. NOTES Sar-band or seerband, band or fillet for hair (turban) according to the editorial note in the book. Lane argued that violence was needed to give protection to the ships. He made a distinction between tribute (the transferred income that exceeds production costs of the protection) and protection rent (difference between profits generated by different levels of protection). [Lane: 412-420]. Suta meant thread or yarn in Bengal. The name implied that already there was a market in yarn in existence when Charnock arrived. His decision to locate the great city, Calcutta, in this place, was probably influenced by this factor, though, as we have discussed it elsewhere, his bosses in London were opposed to it. As Baines commented, despite the low level of technology and little division of labour, they produced 'Fabric of the most exquisite delicacy and beauty, unrivalled by the products of any other nation" [Baines, 1966: 74] Baines attributed this to: "the fine sense of touch possessed by the effeminate people." {Baines, 1966: 74]'