Niccolò dei Conti  Niccolò dei Conti,  (born c. 1395, Chioggia?,
near Venice—died 1469, Venice?), Venetian merchant who brought
back a vivid account of his 25 years of travels in southern
Asia.  As a young man living in Damascus, he learned Arabic. In
1414 he set out for Baghdad, then journeyed down the Tigris
River and eventually reached Hormuz, now in Iran, near the
southern end of the Persian Gulf. He moved on to Calacatia, a
trading centre on the Persian coast, learned the language, and
entered a partnership with some Persian merchants who
accompanied him on his travels.  In India, where he apparently
married an Indian woman, he visited the state of Cambay in the
northwest; Vijayanagar (now Hampi, Karnataka state), about 150
miles east of Goa; and Maliapur (now Mylapore, a suburb of
modern Madras). Maliapur, regarded as the resting place of St.
Thomas the Apostle, was the shrine most sacred to Indian
Christians. He then went to Sumatra, where he encountered
cannibalism and found pepper and gold. He also v