Rua Direita, The Main Thoroughfare of Goa

Within hundred years after the arrival of Da Gama, by the end of the 16th C., Goa had become a city bustling with many nationalities seeking their fortunes. John Huygen van Linschoten, a Dutch aide to the Portuguese Archbishop in Goa described the vitality of the city thus,
“Who can adequately describe the other riches and products of this city? ………. let antiquity no longer stand in awe of Cornith or Alexandria…it has been outstripped by the greatness of the wealth and the sublimity of this city…......” “inhabited by people of various descent: Heathens, Moors, Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Persians, Indians from the surrounding areas, Banyans from Cambia and people from Gujarat and Deccan.” And Linschoten described India as "third part of all the land that is inhabited,…all very fruitful and yielding such treasure and rich Merchandize, as none other place of the whole world can afford"

Linschoten, J. H. van, Itinerario: voyage ofte schipvaert van Jan Huygen van Linschoten 1579-1592  (Translation, John Huighen van Linschoten: His discourses of voyages into ye East and West Indies.” Hakluyt Society, Printed at London by John Wolfe, 1598, Beinecke Library Yale University. )