Fëanor translates Afanasii Nikitin’s fifteenth century memoirs of his travel to India (Journey Across Three Seas):

Who was Nikitin? He was a merchant of Tver, a principality abutting the Mongol domains in Russia. He set out down the Volga sometime in the 1470s with some merchandise, was robbed by Tartars, and decided that he could not return to Rus without making some money at least. Having heard that there was much demand for horses in India, he took a colt with him over the seas to the Deccan, where he spent much of the next two or three years. He made detailed observations about the peoples he encountered – both the wealthy nobility of Persian origin in the Bahmani Sultanates, and the indigent commoners – often repeating descriptions of their dress and economic conditions, beliefs and legends. He noted that the Bahmanis waged constant war with the neighbouring Hindu kingdom (Vijayanagar), but that its capital was never captured, and the fortunes of war were fickle, with the Muslims sometimes winnning and sometimes losing.

Very interesting.