first day of his comming thither found a way to an Armenian Christians house who sold wine in that place they call Armenian Wine But by the way I do believe that there was scarce another in that populous City of that trade the greater shame for those whosoever they be that suffer so many unnecessary tipling-houses in the places where they have power to restrain them which are the Devills nursery the very Tents wherein Sathan dwells where Almighty God receives abundance of dishonour drun keness being a sin which hath hands and fingers to draw all other sins unto it For a drunkard can do any thing or be any thing but good That Armenian Wine I speak of is made of Reysons of the Sun and Sugar with some other things pur and boyled in water which Wine when it is ripe and cleer is in Colour like to our Muscadels pleasant enough to the tast but heavy and heady The Cook had his head quickly over-freighted with it and then staggering homeward in his way met the Governors Brother of Surat as he was riding to his house the Cook made a stand staying himself up upon his sword scabbard and cry'd out to the Governours Brother Now thou Heathen dog He not understanding his foul language replyed civilly in his own Ca-ca-ta which signifies what sayest thou the Cook answered him with his sword and scabbard with which he strook at at him but vvas immediatly seised on by his follovvers and by them disarm'd and carried to Prison the Ambassadour had present intelligence of the misbehaviour of his drunken servant and immediatly sent vvord unto the Governours Brother that he vvas not come thither to patronize any disorderly person and therefore desir'd him to do vvith him what he pleased upon which he presently sent him home not doing him the least hurt But before I leave this storie it will not be amiss to enquire who was the Heathen dog at this time whether the debaucht drunken Cook who call'd himself a Christian or that sober and temperate Mahometan who was thus affronted In our journey towards the Court after we had been in our way about seven dayes from Surat we rested at a place called Ditat where many of the Inhabitants offered to guard us and our goods though we observing there no danger desired it not but they would do it and in the morning expected and asked something of us by way of recompence One of our Company who had been in East India a year or two before told them that what they had done they did without ouâ— desire and therefore they should have nothing from us but some ill language which he then gave them We set forward in the morning according to our wonted custom they followed after us to the number at the least of three hundred men for the place was great and populous and when we were gone about a mile from that Town stopped our carriages he of our Company who told them they should have no recompence was presently ready to shoot at them with his Musket which made them all to bend their Bowes at us but I happily and suddenly stepping in prevented his firing at them and their shooting at us which if I had not by Gods good Providence done but we had madly engaged such a great multitude there could not have been less expected in the sad issue thereof than the loss of all our lives and goods but having a little Parlee with them for the value of three shillings of English money given amongst them they were all quieted and contented and immediatly left us wishing us a good journey After this when we had gone forward about twenty dayes journey which daily remooves were but short by reason of our heavy carriages and the heat of the weather it happened that another of our Company a young Gentleman about twenty years old the Brother of a Baron of England behaved himself so ill as that we feared it would have brought very much mischief on us This young man being very unruly at home and so many others that have been well born when their friends knew not what to do with them have been sent to East India that so they might make their own Graves in the Sea in their passage thither or els have Graves made for them on the Indian shore when they come there A very cleanly conveyance but how just and honest I leave to others for Parents to be rid of their unruly Children but I never knew any who were thus supposed to be sent thither but they outlived that voyage For the young Gentleman I spake of his imployment was to wait upon our chief Commander in his Cabin who very courteously when he came to Sea turn'd him before the mast amongst the common saylors a great preferment for a man of his birth but for all this he outliv'd that harsh usage and came safely to East India and my Lord Ambassadour hearing of him and being well acquainted with his great kindred sent for him up to the Court and there entertain'd him as a Companion for a year then giving him all fit accommodations sent him home again as a passenger for England where after he safely arrived But in our way towards that Court it thus happened that this hot-brains being a little behind us commanded him then neer him who was the Princes servant before spoken of to hold his horse the man replyed that he was none of his servant and would not do it Upon which this most intemperate mad youth who was like Philocles that angry Poet and therefore called Bilis Salsigo Choler and Brine for he was the most hasty and cholerick young man that ever I knew as will appear by his present carriage which was thus first he beat that stranger for refusing to hold his horse with his horse-whip which I must tell you that people cannot endure as if those whips stung worse than Scopions For of any punishments that carry most disgrace in them as that people think one is to be beaten with that whip where with all they strike their beasts the other to be beaten and this they esteem the more disgracefull punishment of the two about the head with shooes But this stranger being whipt as before came up and complained to me but to make him amends that frantick young man mad with rage and he knew not wherefore presently followed him and being come up close to him discharg'd his Pistol laden with a brace of bullets directly at his body which bullets by the special guidance of the hand of God so flew that they did the poor man no great hurt only one of them first tearing his coat brused all the knucles of his left hand and the other brake his bow which he carried in the same hand We presently disarmed our young Bâ—dlam till he might return again to his witts But our greatest business was how to pacifie the other man whom he had thus injured I presently gave him
phansie for one of his great Lords gave our Merchants there twelve hundred pounds sterling for one Pearle which was brought out of England The Pearle was shaped like a Pare very large beautifull and Orient and so its price deserved it should be Now the Mogol having such an abundance of Jewels wears many of them dayly enough to exceed those women which Rome was wont to shew in their Starlike dresses who in the height and prosperity of that Empire Were said to wear The spoils of Nations in one ear Or Lollia Paulina who was hid with Jewels For the great Mogol the Diamonds and Rubies and Pearls which are very many dayly worn by him are all of an extraordinary greatnesse and consequently of an exceeding great value And besides those he wears about his Shash or head covering he hath a long Chain of Jewels hanging about his Neck as long as an ordinary Gold Chain others about his wrists and the Hilts of his Sword and Dagger are most curiously enriched with those precious Stones besides others of very great value which he wears in Rings on his fingers Ventilat aestivum digitis sudantibus aurum Nec sufferre queat majoris Pondera gemmae Ju. Sat. 1. He airs his sweaty fingers with rings freight And Jewels as if burdened with their weight The first of March the Mogol begins a royal Feast like that which Ahasuerus made in the third year of his Reign Esth 1. wherein he shewed the riches of his glorious Kingdom This feast the Mogol makes is called the Nooroos that signifies nine dayes which time it continues to usher in the new year which begins with the Mahometans there the tenth day of March. Against which Feast the Nobles assemble themselves together at that Court in their greatest Pomp presenting their King with great gifts and he requiting them again with Princely rewards at which time I being in his presence beheld most immense and incredible riches to my amazement in Gold Pearls Precious stones Jewels and many other glittering vanities This Feast is usually kept by the Mogol while he is in his Progresse and lodges in â—ents Whether his Diet at this time be greater than ordinary I know not for he alwayes eats in private among his Women where none but his own Family see him while he is eating which Family of his consists of his Wives and Children and Women and Eunuchs and his boyes and none but these abide and lodge in the Kings houses or Tents and therefore how his Table is spread I could never know but doubtlesse he hath of all those vanities that Empire affords if he so please His food they say is served in unto him in Vessels of Gold which covered and brought unto him by his Eunuchs after it is proved by his Tasters he eats not at any set times of the day but he hath provision ready at all times and calls for it when he is hungry and never but then The first of September which was the late Mogols birth day he retaining an ancient yearly Custom was in the presence of his chief Grandies weighed in a Balance the Ceremony performed within his House or Tent in a fair spacious Room whereinto none were admitmitted but by special leave The Scales in which he was thus weighed were plated with Gold and so the beam on which they hung by great Chains made likewise of that most precious Metal the King sitting in one of them was weighed first against silver Coin which immediately after was distributed among the poor then was he weighed against Gold after that against Jewels as they say but I observed being present there with my Lord Ambassadour that he was weighed against three several things laid in silken Bags on the contrary Scale when I saw him in the Balance I thought on Belshazzar who was found to light Dan. 5. 27. By his weight of which his Physicians yearly keep an exact account they presume to guesse of the present estate of his body of which they speak flatteringly however they think it to be When the Mogol is thus weighed he casts about among the standers by thin pieces of silver some of Gold made like flowers of that Countrey and some of them are made like Cloves and some like Nutmegs but very thin and hollow Then he drinks to his Nobles in his Royal wine as that of Ahasuerus is called Esth 1. 7. who pledge his health at which solemnity he drank to my Lord Ambassadour in a Cup of Gold most curiously enameled and set all over the outside with stones which were small Rubies Turkesses and Emeralds with a Cover or Plate to set it in both of pure Gold the brims of which plate and the cover were enameled and set with stones as the other and all these together weighed twenty four ounces of our English weight which he then gave unto my Lord Ambassadour whom he ever used with very much respect and would moreover often ask him why he did not desire some good and great gifts at his hands he being a great King and able to give it the Ambassadour would reply that he came not thither to beg any thing of him all that he desired was that his Countrey-men the English might have a free and safe and peaceable trade in his Dominions the Mogol would answer that he was bound in honour to afford them that we coming from the furthermost parts of the world to trade there and would often bid the Ambassadour to ask something for himself who to this would answer that if that King knew not better to give then he knew to ask he must have nothing from him upon these terms they continually both stood so that in conclusion the Ambassadour had no gift from him but that before mentioned besides an horse or two and sometimes a Vest or upper Garment made of slight Cloath of Gold which the Mogol would first put upon his own back and then give it to the Ambassadour But the Mogol if he had so pleased might have bestowed on him some great Princely gift and found no greater misse of it than there would be of a Glasse of water taken out of a great Fountain yet although the Mogol had such infinite Treasures yet he could finde room to store up more still the desires of a covetous heart being so unsatiable as that it never knows when it hath enough being like a bottomlesse purse that can never be fill'd for the more it hath the more still it covets See an image hereof in Alcmaeon who being will'd by Craesus to go into his Treasure house and there take as much Gold as himself could carry away provided for that purpose a long Garment that was double down to his ankles and great bootes and fill'd them both nay he stuffed his mouth and tied wedges of Gold to the locks of his head and doubtlesse but for killing himself he would have fill'd his skull bowels therewith Here was an heart set upon Gold
A Voyage to EAST-INDIA Wherein Some things are taken notice of in our passage thither but many more in our abode there within that rich and most spacious Empire Of the Great Mogol Mix't with some Parallel Observations and inferences upon the storie to profit as well as delight the Reader Observed by Edward Terry then Chaplain to the Right Honorable Sr. Thomas Row Knight Lord Ambassadour to the great Mogol now Rector of the Church at Greenford in the County of Middlesex In journeying often in perils of waters in perils of Robbers in perils by the Heathen in perils in the Sea 1 Cor. 11. 26. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters yea than the mighty waves of the Sea Psal 93. 4. Digitis a morte remotus Quatuor aut Septem Ju. Sat. 12. Qui Nescit orare discat navigare ubique Naufragium London Printed by T. W. for J. Martin and J. Allestrye at the Bell in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1655. To the Reader READER THere was never age more guilty than this present of the great expence and waste of paper whose fair innocence hath been extreamly stubber'd by Errors Heresies Blasphemies and what not in these bold times which like so many the foulest of all blots blurs hath defiled very much of it so true is that of the Poet Tenet insanabile multos Scribendi Cacoëthes Ju. Certainly there hath been of late abundantly more printed than ought than should if what follows in this discourse lay under the guilt of any such just exception it should feel the fire not the press The summe substance of what here follows as a description of that Empire I long since composed shortly after my return from East-India and then presented it in writing unto the late King when he was Prince of Wales in the year 1622. with this short following Epistle Most Renowned Prince I Have nothing to plead for this high presumption but the Novelty of my subject in which I confesse some few have prevented me who bv traveling India in England or Europe have written somewhat of those remotest parts but like unto poor Tradesmen who take up Wares on trust have been deceived themselves and do deceive of others For my self I was an eye-witnesse of much here related living more than two years at the Court of that mighty Monarch the great Mogol who prides himself very much in his most famous Ancestor Tamberlane in the description of whose Empire your Highnesse may meet with large Territories a numerous Court most populous pleasant and rich Provinces but when all these shall be laid in the Balance against his miserable blindnesse your Highnesse shall have more cause to pity than envy his greatnesse I am not ambitious to make this my Relation publick and therefore if it consume more paper it shall not be my fault As it is in a fearfull boldnesse 't is offered to your Princely hands and if it may be any way pleasing and usefull I have my reward if not my most humble desires to have ministred something this way unto your Highnesse shall be my comfort Thus Reader thou hearest when this Relation was first written and into what hands it was then put And although there be now a very great space of time 'twixt the particulars then observed and their publication now which may make thee look upon that which is here brought forth as an untimely birth or as a thing born out of due time Therefore know which may give thee some satisfaction herein that for the commodities and discommodities of those remote parts for the customes and manners of that people for their Religion and policie with every thing beside wherein thou mayest desire information which lies within the vast compasse of that huge Monarchy expressed in the Map and further described in this following discourse time not making that people at all to varie from themselves thou mayest look upon it now as if it hath been taken notice of but immediately before it was here communicated and if it prove usefull now I shall be very glad that it was reserved even for this present time wherein it might do some good Yet notwithstanding this it should never have been brought by me into this more open view especially in such a scribling writing age as this where there is no end of making many books and many of those written to no end but what is evil and mischievous but that the Printer who had gotten my Original Copie presented as before desired to publish it And because so I have revised and in some particulars by pertinent though in some places very long digressions which I would intreat the Reader to improve so enlarged it that it may if it reach my aim contain matter for instruction and use as well as for relation and novelty So that they who fly from a Sermon and will not touch sound and wholesom and excellent treatises in Divinity may happily if God so please be taken before they are aware and overcome by some Divine truths that lie scattered up and down in manie places of this Narrative To which end I have endeavoured so to contrive it for every one who shall please to read it through that it may be like a well form'd picture that seems to look stedfastly upon everie heholder who so looks upon it But here Reader let us sit down and wonder that in these dayes which are called times of Reformation manie choise books are often published which contain in themselves and declare unto others very much of the minde of God yet are laid aside as if they were not worth the looking into and in their stead Romances and other Pamphlets ejusdem farinae of the like kinde which do not inform but corrupt rather the mindes of those which look so much into them teaching wickednesse while they seem to reprove it are the books O times which are generally call'd for bought up read and liked When a Traveller sometimes observed the women in Rome to please themselves in and overmuch to play with their Curs and Monkeys he asked whether or no the women of Rome did not bear Children to delight themselves withall The storie is so parallel to what I before observed that he who runs may make Application and therefore I forbear to do it As for that I have here published I know habent sua fata libelli that books have their Fates as well as their Authors and therefore this Relation now it is got into the World must take its chance whatsoever its successe or acceptance be But however I shall never be of their minde who think those books best which best sell when certain it is that they are not to be valued by their good sale but good use Which while some may make of this others who love to carp and censure and quarrel so as to make a man an offender for a word may put harsh interpretation upon some passages they may find in this
all this contented him not for never any seemed to be more weary of ill usage than he was of Courtesies none ever more desirous to return home to his Countrey than he For when he had learned a little of our Language he would daily lye upon the ground and cry very often thus in broken English Cooree home goe Souldania goe home goe And not long after when he had his desire and was returned home he had no sooner set footing on his own shore but presently he threw away his Clothes his Linnen with all other Covering and got his sheeps skins upon his back guts about his neck and such a perfum'd Cap as before we named upon his head by whom that Proverb mentioned 2 Pet. 2. 22. was literally fulfill'd Canis ad vomitum The dogge is return'd to his vomit and thâ— swine to his wallowing in the mire From all which wee may draw this Conclusion that a continued Custome may make many things that seem strange and loathsom to some even naturall to others and that the most brutish life may seem civill and best to a most brutish man and he thus pleading for it Custome the Nurse of Nature oft is prov'd Like Nurses than the Mother more belov'd Thus Bestiall crimes men by their wont excuse And love not what is good but what they use So Plutarch's Gryllus argues turn'd a Swine Against the Lawes that Wit and Arts refine Affirmes that man too curiously nice Bought his poor Reason at too dear a price Since all his actions limited must bee By measur'd Rules when beasts have liberty And unconfin'd on Natures Common feed No Lawyer no Physician Taylor need Clothes are but marks of shame medâ—cines but show Diseases and we Lawes to Quarrells owe Cookes are the Instruments of Luxury Painters of Lust Builders of Vanity Let all then live as Nature them produc'd And frame their maners as they have bin us'd 'T is most strange that a Creature who hath any thing of Reason in him should thus degenerate thus plead or thus doe but it is most true in these as of millions more of brutish Heathens in the world who live as if they had nothing at all of man left in them For man the worst of brutes when chang'd to Beast Counts to be civiliz'd to be opprest And as he tames Hawks makes Lions mild By Education so himself growes wild After this fellow was returned it made the Natives most shie of us when we arrived there for though they would come about us in great Companies when we were new come thither yet three or four dayes before they conceiv'd we would depart thence there was not one of them to be seen fearing belike we would have dealt with some more of them as formerly we had done with Cooree But it had been well if he had not seen England for as he discovered nothing to us so certainly when he came home he told his Country-men having doubtless observed so much here that Brass was but a base and cheap commoditie in England and happily we had so well stored them with that metall before that we had never after such a free Exchange of our Brass and Iron for their Cattell It was here that I asked Cooree who was their God he lifting up his hands answered thus in his bad English England God great God Souldania nâ— God Now if any one desire to know under whose Command these Brutes live or whether they have any Superiority Subordination amongst themselves or whether they live with their females in common with many other questions that might be put I am not able to satisfie them But this I look upon as a great happiness not to be born one of them and as great nay a far greater misery to fall from the loyns of Civill Christian Parents and after to degenerate into all brutishness as very many doe qui Gentes agunt sub nomine Christianorum the thing which Tertullian did most sadly bewail in many of his time who did act Atheism under the Name of Christianity and did even shame Religion by their light and loose professing of it When Anacharsis the Philosopher was sometime upbraided with this that he was a Scythian by birth he presently returned this quick and smart answer unto him that cast that in his teeth Mihi quidem Patria est dedecus tu autem Patriae my Country indeed is some disparagement to me but thou art a disgrace to thy Country as there be many thousands more beside who are very burdens to the good Places that give them Breaâ—h Bread Alas Turkie and Barbary and these Africans with many millions more in that part of the world in America and in Asia I and in Europe too would wring their hands into peeces if they were truly sensible of their condition because they know so little And so shall infinite numbers more one day born in the visible Church of God in the valley of visions Es 22. 1. have their very hearts broken into shivers because they knew so much or might have known so much and have known and done so little for without all doubt the day will one day come when they who have sinned against the strongest means of Grace and Salvation shall feel the heaviest miserie when their means to know God in his will revealed in his Word shall be put in one Balance and their improvement of this means by their Practice in the other and if there have not bin some good proportion betwixt these two manifested in their lives what hath been wanting in their Practice shall be made up in their Punishment But I would not here more digress I have one thing more which accidentally relates to this place and then I will leave it In the year 1614. ten English men having received the sentence of death for their severall crimes at the Sessions house in the old-Baily at London had their Execution respited by the intreaty of the East-India Merchants upon condition that they should be all banished to this place to the end if they could find any peaceable abode there they might discover something advantagious to their trade And this was accordingly done But two of them when they came thither were taken thence and carried on the voyage One whose sirname was Duffield by Sir Thomas Row that year sent Ambassadour to the Great Mogol that fellow thus redeemed from a most sad Banishment was afterward brought back again into England by that noble Gentleman and here being intrusted by him stole some of his Plate and ran away another was carried on the Voyage likewise but what became of him afterward I know not So that there remained eight which were there left with some Ammunition and victual with a small â—oat to carry them to and from a very little unâ—â—habited Island lying in the very mouth of that Bay a place for their retreat and safety from the Natives on the Main The Island called Pen-guin Island
stayed a time to gain the company of a Caravaâ— which consists of a great mixt multitude of people from divers parts which get and keep together travelling those parts for fear of the incursions and violences by Thieves and Murtherers which they would undoubtedly meet withall if they travelled single or but few together With these he after set forwards towards and to that City antiently called Nineveh in Assyria which we find in the Prophesie of Jonah was sometimes a great and excellent City of three daies journey Jonah 3. 3. but now so exceedingly lessen'd and lodg'd in obscurity that passengers cannot say of it this was Nineveh which now hath its old name changed and is called Mozel From hence they journied to Babylon in Chaldaea situated upon the River Euphrates once likewise so great that Aristotle called it a Countrey not a City but now it is very much contracted and 't is called Bagdat From this place they proceeded through both the Armeniaes and either did or else our Traveller was made to believe that he saw the very Mountain Ararat whereon the Ark of Noah rested after the Flood Gen. 8. And from hence they went forward towards the Kingdome of Persia and there to Uzspahan the usual place of residence for that great King then called Sha Abbas or King Abbas And after they went to Seras antiently called Shushan where the great King Ahasuerus kept his Royal and most Magnificent Court Est 1 From hence they journied afterwards to Candahor the first Province North east under the subjection of the Great Mogol and so to Lahore the chiefest City but one belonging to that great Empire a place as I have been often told by Tom Coryat and others of very great trade wealth and delight lying more temperately out of the Parching Sun than any other of his great Cities do And to this City he wanted not Company nor afterwards to Agra the Mogol's Metropolis or chief City And here it is very observable that from Lahore to Agra it is four hundred English miles that the Countrey betwixt both these great Cities is rich even pleasant and flat a Campania and the rode-way on both sides all this long distance planted with great Trees which are all the year cloathed with leaves exceeding beneficial unto Travellers for the shade they afford them in those hot Climes This very much extended length of way 'twixt these two places is called by Travellers the Long Walk very full of Villages and Towns for Passengers every where to find Provision At Agra our Traveller made an halt being there lovingly received in the English Factory where he staid till he had gotten to his Turkish and Morisco or Arabian Languages some good knowledge in the Persian and Indostan Tongues in which study he was alwaies very apt and in little time showed much proficiency The first of those two the Persian is the more quaint the other the Indostan the vulgar Language spoken in East-India In both these he suddenly got such a knowledge and mastery that it did exceedingly afterwards advantage him in his Travels up and down the Mogol's Territories he wearing alwaies the Habit of that Nation and speaking their Language In the first of these the Persian tongue he made afterwards an Oration to the Great Mogol bringing in that Story of the Queen of Sheba 1 King 10. in which parts of that Sacred Historic the Mahumetans have some knowledge and he told him that as the Queen of Sheba having heard of the fame of King Salomon came from far to visit him which when she had done she confessed that though she had heard very much of him and many things beyond her belief yet now seeing what she did acknowledged that she had not heard half of that which she now saw concerning the Wisdome and Greatness and Reâ—inue and Riches of Salomon So our Orator told the Mogol that he had heard very much of him before he had the Honour to see him when he was very far off in his own Countrey but now what he beheld did exceedingly surmount all those former Reports of him which came to his ears at such a distance from him Then larding his short Speech with some other pieces of Flattery which the Mogol liked well concluded And when he had done the Mogol gave him one hundred Roopus which amounts to the value of twelve pounds and ten shillings of of our English Money looking upon him as a Derveese or Votary or Pilgrim for so he called him and such as bear that name in that Countrey seem not much to care for money and that was the reason I conceive that he gave him not a more plentiful Reward After this he having got a great mastery likewise in the Indostan or more vulgar Language there was a woman a Landress belonging to my Lord Embassadors house who had such a freedome and liberty of speech that she would sometimes scould brawl and rail from the Sun-rising to Sun-set one day he undertook her in her own language and by eight of the clock in the morning so silenced her that she had not one word more to speak I shall have occasion to say more of this man in some passages of this following Discourse and therefore shall not wrap all I have to speak of him in this although it be a very long digression Yet because I must now shortly bring you to his journies end I shall take the freedome to enlarge my self a little further concerning him here in this place before I leave him for the present and to give thee Reader a piece of his Character it speaks thus That he was a man of a very coveting eye that could never be satisfied with seeing as Salomon speaks Eccles 1. 8. though he had seen very much and I am perswaded that he took as much content in seeing as many others in the enjoying of Great and Rare things He was a man that had got the mastery of many hard Languages as before I observed to the Latine and Greek he brought forth of England with him in which if he had obtained wisdome to husband and manage them as he had skill to speak them he had deserved more fame in his generation But his knowledge and high attainments in several Languages made him not a little ignorant of himself he being so covetous so ambitious of praise that he would hear and endure more of it than he could in any measure deserve being like a Ship that hath too much Sail and too little Ballast Yet if he had not fall'n into the smart hands of the Wits of those Times he might have passed better That itch of Fame which engaged this man to the undertakings of those very hard and long and dangerous Travels hath put thousands more and therefore he was not alone in this into strange attempts onely to be talked of One long ago built a Temple to Diana in hope of Glory intending it for one of the Great Wonders of the
World Another after in hope of Fame burnt it Whither will not the thirst of Fame carry men It hath made some seek to climbe up to Heaven though by a wrong way Thus the Builders of Babel say one to another Let us build us a City and a Tower whose top may reach up to Heaven and let us make us a Name Gen. 11. 4 And it hath made others who are penurious of their Honour and prodigal of their Souls not fear to run down headlong into Hell 'T was Fame without doubt that stirred up this man unto these voluntary but hard undertakings and the Hope of that Glory which he should reap after he had finished his long Travels made him not at all to take notice of the hardship he found in them That hope of name and repute for the time to come did even feed and feast him for the time present And therefore any thing that did in any measure eclipse him in those high conceivings of his own worth did too too much trouble him which you may collect from these following instances Upon a time one Mr. Richard Steel a Merchant and servant to the East-India Company came unto us from Surat to Mandoa the place then of the Mogol's residence of which place somewhat more hereafter at which time Mr. Coryat was there with us This Merchant had not long before travelled over-land from East-India through Persia and so to Constantinople and so for England who in his travel homeward had met with Tom Coryat as he was journeying towards East-India Mr. Steel then told him that when he was in England King James then living enquired after him and when he had certified the King of his meeting him on the way the King replied Is that Fool yet living which when our Pilgrim heard it seemed to trouble him very much because the King spake no more nor no better of him saying that Kings would speak of poor men what they pleased At another time when he was ready to depart from us my Lord Embassadour gave him a Letter and in that a Bill to receive ten pounds at Aleppo when he should return thither The Letter was directed unto Mr. Libbeus Chapman there Consul at that time in which that which concerned our Traveller was thus Mr. Chapman when you shall hand these Letters I desire you to receive the Bearer of them Mr. Thomas Coryat with curtesy for you shall find him a very honest poor Wretch and further I must intreat you to furnish him with ten pounds which shall be repayed c. Our Pilgrim likâ—d tho gift well but the language by which he should have received it did not at all content him telling me That my Lord had even spoyled his curtesy in the carriage thereof so that if he had been a very Fool indeed he could have said very little less of him than he did Honest poor Wretch and to say no more of him was to say as much as nothing And furthermore he then told me that when he was formerly undertaking his journey to Venice a Person of Honour wrote thus in his behalf unto Sir Henry Wottâ—n then and there Embassodour My Lord Good Wine needs no Bush neither a Worthy man Letters Commendatory because whithersoever he comes he is his own Epistle c. There said he was some language on my behalf but now for my Lord to write nothing of me by way of Commendation but Honest poor Wretch is rather to trouble me than to please me with his favour And therefore afterwards his Letter was phras'd up to his mind but he never liv'd to receive the money By which his old acquaintance may see how tender this poor man was to be touched in any thing that might in the least measure disparago him O what pains this poor man took to make himself a Subject for present and after discourse being troubled at nothing for the present unless with the fear of not living to reap that fruit he was so ambitious of in all his undertakings And certainly he was surprized with some such thoughts and fears for so he told us afterwards when upon a time he being at Mandoa with us and there standing in a room against a stone Pillar where the Embassadour was and my self present with them upon a sudden he fell into such a swoon that we had very much ado to recover him out of it but at last come to himself he told us that some sad thoughts had immediately before presented themselves to his Fancy which as he conceived put him into that distemper like Fannius in Martial Ne moriare mori to prevent death by dying For he told us that there were great Expectations in England of the large Accounts he should give of his Travels after his return home and that he was now shortly to leave us and he being at present not very well if he should dye in the way toward Surat whither he was now intended to go which place he had not as yet seen he might be buried in Obscurity and none of his Friends ever know what became of him he travelling now as he usually did alone Upon which my Lord willed him to stay longer with us but he thankfully refused that offer and turned his face presently after towards Surat which was then about three hundred miles distant from us and he lived to come safely thither but there being over-kindly used by some of the English who gave him Sack which they had brought from England he calling for it as soon as he first heard of it and crying Sack Sack Is there such a thing as Sack I pray give me some Sack and drinking of it though I conceive moderately for he was a very temperate man it increased his Flux which he had then upon him and this caused him within a few daies after his very tedious and troublesome Travels for he went most on foot at this place to come to his Journies end for here he overtook Death in the Month of December 1617. and was buried as a foresaid under a little Monument like one of those are usually made in our Church-yards On which he should have been remembred by this or the like Epitaph if it could have been there engraved upon his Tombe Here lies the Wanderer of his age Who living did rejoyce Not out of need but choyce To make his life a Pilgrimage He spent full many pretious daies As if he had his being To wast his life in seeing More thought to spend to gain him Praise Some weaknesses appear'd his stains Though some seem very wise Some yet are otherwise Good Gold may be allow'd its Grains Many the Places which he ey'd And though he should have been In all parts yet unseen His eye had not been satisfi'd To fill it when he found no Room By the choyce things he saw In Europe and vast Asia Fell blinded in this narrow Tombe Sic exit Coryatus Hence he went off the Stage and so must all after
singular good Fowl They have variety of Fish all which by reason of their Plenty and because many of the Natives eat no kind of Flesh at all nor of any thing that hath or may have life and those that feed on such things eat not freely of any of those living Creatures they are all bought there at such easy rates as if they were not worth the valuing They do not cut their Chickens when they be little to make Capons and therefore they have no Creatures of that name but men their Eunuchs called there Cogees or Capons in their Language so made when they be very young and then deprived of all that might after provoke jealousie and therefore they are put to be attendants on their women the great men of that Nation keeping many of them a soft tender people tener Spado as Juvenal cals one of them that never come to have any Hair on their Faces But to return again to their Provisions the Beeves of that Countrey differ from ours in that there are none of them very large and those they have have each of them a great bunch of grisly flesh which grows upon the meeting of their shoulders The flesh of their Beeves is much whiter than the flesh of ours and very sweet tender and good Their Sheep differ from ours by their great fleshy Bob-tails which severed from their bodies are very ponderous Their Wool is generally coarse but their flesh is not so Now to season all their good Provisions there is great store of Salt and to sweeten all abundance of Sugar growing in that Countrey which after it is well refined may be there had at a very low rate out of which they make very pure white Sugar-Candy which may be had there at a small easy Price likewise Their Fruits are every way answerable to the rest the Countrey abounding in Musk-Melons very much better because they are better digested there by the heat of the Sun than these with us They have many Water-Melons a very choyce good Fruit and some of them as big as our ordinary Pompions and in shape like them the substance within this Fruit is spongie but exceeding tender and well tasted of a colour within equally mixed with red white and within that an excellent cooling and pleasing liquor Here are likewise store of Pome-granats Pome-citrons here are Limons and Oranges but I never found any there so good as I have seen elswhere Here are Dates Figs Grapes Prunelloes Almonds Coquernuts of which I observed something before and here they have those most excellent Plums called Mirabolans the stone of which Fruit differs very much from others in its shape whereon Nature hath curiously quartered several strakes equally divided very pretty to behold many of which choyce Plums they write are very cordial and therefore worth the prizing are there well preserved and sent for England They have to these another Fruit we English there call a Planten of which many of them grow in Clusters together long they are in shape made like unto slender Cucumbers and very yellow when they are Ripe and then tast like unto a Norwich Pear but much better Another most excellent Fruit they have called a Manggo growing upon Trees as big as our Walnut-trees and as these here so those Trees there will be very full of that most excellent Fruit in shape and colour like unto our Apricocks but much bigger which taken and rolled in a mans hands when they are through ripe the substance within them becomes like the pap of a roasted Apple which then suck'd out from about a large stone they have within them is delicately pleasing unto every Palate that tasts it And to conclude with the best of all other their choyce Fruits the Anâ—anas like unto our Pine-Apples which seems to the Taster to be a most pleasing Compound made of Strawberies Claret-wine Rose-water and Sugar well tempered together In the Northernmost parts of this Empire they have variety of Pears and Apples every where good Roots as Carrets Potatoes and others like them They have Onions and Garlick and some Herbs and small Roots for Salads and in the Southernmost parts Ginger growing almost in every place the large Races whereof are there very excellently well preserved as we may know by our tasting them in England And all these things I have last named may be there likewise bought at very low rates And lastly some one kind or other of their very good and choyce Fruits may be there had at every time or season of the Year And here I cannot chuse but take notice of a very pleasant and clear liquor called Toddie issuing from a Spongie Tree that grows strait and tall without Bowes to the top and there spreads out in tender branches very like unto those that grow from the Roots of our rank and rich Artichokes but much bigger and longer This Toddie-tree is not so big but that it may be very easily embraced and the nimble people of that Countrey will climb up as fast to the top thereof the stem of the Tree being rough and crusty as if they had the advantage of Ladders to help them up In the top tender branches of those Trees they make incisions which they open and stop again as they please under which they hang Pots made of large and light Gourds to preserve the influence which issues out of them in a large quantity in the night season they stopping up those vents in the heat of the day That which thus distils forth in the night if it be taken very early in the morning is as pleasing to the tast as any new White-wine and much clearer than it It is a very piercing and medicinable and moffensive drink if taken betimes in the day onely it is a little windy but if it be kept till the heat of the day the Sun alters it so as if it made it another kind of liquor for it becomes then very heady not so well relished and unwholsome and when it is so not a few of our drunken Sea-men chuse to drink it and I think they so do because it will then presently turn their brains for there are too too many of the common sort of those men who use the Sea who love those brutish distempers too much which turn a man out of himself and leave a Beast in the skin of a man But for that drink if it be taken in its best and most proper season I conceive it to be of it self very wholsome because it provokes urine exceedingly the further benefit whereof some there have found by happy experience thereby eased from their torture inflicted by that shame of Physicians and Tyran of all Maladies the Stone And so cheap too is this most pleasing Wine that a man may there have more than enough for a very little money At Surat and so to Agra and beyond it seldome or never rains but one season of the year but yet there is a refreshing
Dew during all that time the Heavens there are thus shut up which every night fals and cools and comforts and refresheth the face of the earth Those general Rains begin near the time that the Sun comes to the Northern Tropick and so continue till his return back to the Line These showers at their beginning most extremely violent are usher'd in and usually take their leave with most fearful Tempests of Thunder Lightning more terrible than I can express yet seldome do harm the reason in Nature may be the subtilty of the Air in those parts wherein there are fewer Thunder-stones made than in such Climates where the Air is thick gross and cloudy During those three months it rains usually every day more or less sometimes one whole quarter of the Moon together scarce without any intermission which abundance of moysture with the heat of the Sun doth so enrich their Land which they never force if I observed right by Soyling of it as that like Egypt by the inundation of Nilus it makes it fruitful all the year after When the time of this Rain is passed over the face of the Skye there is presently so serene and clear as that scarcely one Cloud appears in their Hemisphere the nine months after And here a strong Argument that may further and most infallibly shew the goodness of their Soyl shall not escape my Pen most apparent in this That when the Ground there hath been destitute of Rain nine months together and looks all of it like the barren Sands in the Deserts of Arabia where there is not one spire of green Grass to be found within a few daies after those fat enriching showers begin to fall the face of the Earth there as it were by a new Resurrection is so revived and throughout so renewed as that it is presently covered all over with a pure green Mantle And moreover to confirm that which before I observed concerning the goodness of that Soyl amongst many hundred Acres of Corn of divers kinds I have there beheld I never saw any but what was very rich and good standing as thick on the Ground as the Land could well bear it They till their Ground with Oxen and Foot-Ploughs their Seed-time in May and the beginning of June they taking their time to dispatch all that work before that long Rainy season comes and though the Ground then hath been all the time we named before without any sufficient moysture by showers or otherwise to supple and make it more fit for tilliage yet the Soyl there is such a brittle fat mould which they sow year after year as that they can very easily till it Their Harvest is in November and December the most temperate months of all that year Their Ground is not enclosed unless some small quanty near Towns and Villages which stand scattered up and down this vast Empire very thick though for want of the true names not inserted in the Map They mow not their Grass as we to make Hay but cut it off the ground either green or withered as they have occasion to use it They sow Tobacco in abundance and they take it too very much but after a strange way much different from us for first they have little Earthen Pots shaped like our small Flower-pots having a narrow neck and an open round top out of the belly of which comes a small spout to the lower part of which spout they fill the Pot with water then putting their Tobacco loose in the top and a burning coal upon it they having first fastned a very small strait hollow Cane or Reed not bigger than a small Arrow within that spout a yard or ell long the Pot standing on the ground draw that smoak into their mouths which first falls upon the Superficies of the water and much discolours it And this way of taking their Tobacco they believe makes it much more cool and wholsome The Tobacco which grows there is doubtless in the Plant as good as in any other place of the world but they know not how to cure and order it like those in the West-Indies to make it so rich and strong The Countrey is beautified with many Woods and Groves of Trees in which those winged Choristers make sweet Musick In those Woods some excellent Hawks make their nests and there are very often to be seen great flocks of Parakeetoes or little Parrats who have their breeding and lodging amongst those Melancholy Shades And in the number of many other Creatures covered with Feathers there are some very little Birds less than our Wrens who are exceeding pretty for their neat shape and their covering with most curious parti-colour'd Feathers full of variety of little spots I have seen there many of those rare Creatures kept together in large Cages who please the Eye with their curious Colours and the Ear with their variety of pleasant Notes The Woods and Groves in the Southernmost parts of Indostan have great store of wild Apes and Monkeys and Baboons in them some of which I have seen as high as our tallest Greyhounds which live among the Trees and climbe them at pleasure Those Apes c. are very terrible to those little Birds which make their Nests in those Woods and therefore Nature hath taught them this subtilty to preserve their young ones from those Creatures which would otherwise destroy them to build their Nests in the twigs and the utmost boughs of those Trees where some of them hang like little Purse-nets to which those Apes and Monkeys be they never so little and light cannot come to hurt them Besides their Woods they have great variety of fair goodly Trees that stand here and there single but I never saw any there of those kinds of Trees which England affords They have very many firm and strong Timber-trees for building and other uses but much of their brush or small wood I observed to be very sappie so that when we brake a twig of it there would come a substance out of some of it like unto Milk and the sappiness of that underwood may as I apprehend it be ascribed in part to the fatness of that Soyl. Some of their Trees have Leaves upon them broad as Bucklers others are parted small like out Fern or Brakes as the Tamerine Tree which bears Gods somewhat like our Beans in which when the Fruit is ripe there is a very well tasted pulp though it be sowr most wholsome to open the body and to cool and cleanse the blood There is one very great and fair Tree growing in that Soyl of special observation out of whose Branches or great Arms grow little Sprigs downward till they take Root as they will certainly do if they be let alone and taking Root at length prove strong supporters unto those large Branches that yield them Whence it comes to pass that those Trees in time their strong and far-extended Arms being in many places thus supported grow to a very great height and
wears out They have pure Gold Coyn likewise some pieces of great value but these are not very ordinarily seen amongst them I have now done with this Section wherein I have related much of the Commodities Riches as before of the Provisions and Pleasures which are to be found in that vast Monarchy and I conceive nothing but what Truth will justifie And now lest that place I have describ'd should seem to be an Earthly Paradise I must acquaint my Reader that the Contents there found by such as have lived in those parts are sour'd and sauc'd with many unpleasing things which he must needs know when he takes notice SECTION IV. Of the discommodities inconveniences and annoyances that are to be found or met withall in this Empire AS the Poets feigned that the Garden of the Hesperides wherein were Trees that bare Golden apples was guarded by a Serpent so there are stings here as well as fruits all considered together may not unfitly be resembled by those Locusts mentioned Re. 9. 7 8 10. verses who had the Faces of men and the haire of women and Crowns as of Gold on their heads but they had too the teeth of Lyons and the tayles of Scorpions and there were stings in those tayles Here are many things to content and please the enjoyers of them to make their life more comfortable but withall here are Teeth to tear and stings to Kill All put together are nothing but a mixture made up as indeed all earthly things are of good and bad of bitter and sweet of what contents and of what contents not The annoyances of these Countryes are first many harmfull beasts of prey as Lions Tygres Wolves Jackalls with others those Jackalls seem to be wild Doggs who in great companies run up and down in the silent night much disquieting the peace thereof by their most hidious noyse Those most raâ—enous creatures will not suffer a man to rest quietly in his grave for if his body be not buried very deep they will dig him thence and bury as much of him again as they can consume in their hungâ—y bellyes In their Rivers are many Crocodiles and Latet anguis in herbâ on the land not a few overgrown snakes with other veneâ—â—ous and pernicious creatures In our houses there we often see Lyzards shaped like unto Crocodiles of a sad green colour and but little creatures the fear of whom presents its self most to the eye for I do not know that they are hurtfull There are many Scorpions to be seen which are oftentimes felt which creep into their houses especially in that time of the raines whose stinging is most sensible and deadly if the patient have not presently some oyl that is made of Scorpions to annoint the part affected which is a suddain and a certain cure But if the man can get the Scorpion that stung him as sometimes they do the oyly substance it affords being beaten in peeces suddenly applyed is a present help The sting of the Scorpion may be a very fit resemblance of the sting of Death the bitterness and anguâ—sh whereof nothing can asswage and cure so well as a serious consideration and a continuall application of the thoughts of Dying Facile contemnit omnia qui cogitat se semper moriturum that man may trample upon every thing whose meditations are taken up with the thoughts of his change He cannot dye but well who dyes dayly dayly in his preparations for death though he dye not presently The Scorpions are in shape like unto our Crafishes and not bigger and look black like them before they are boyled they have a little round tayl which turns up and lyes usually upon their backs at the end whereof is their sting which they do not put in and lâ—t out of their bodyes as other venemous creatures doe but it alwayes appeares in their tayles ready to strake it is very sharp and hard and not long but crooked like the talon of an Hawk The aboundance of Flyes like those swarmes in Egypt Ex. 8. 21. in those parts did likewise very much annoy us for in the heat of the day their numberless number was such as that we could not be quiet in any place for them they beeing ready to fly into our cupps and to cover our meat assoon as it was placed on the table and therefore we had alwayes some of the Natives we kept there who were our servants to stand round about us on purpose while we were eating with Napkins to fright them away And as in the day one kinde of ordinary flyes troubled us so in the night we were likewise very much disquieted with another sort called Musquâ—etoes like our Gnatts but somewhat less and in that season we were very much troubled with Chinches another sort of little troublesome and offensive creatures like little Tikes and these annoyed us two wayes as first by their biting and stinging and then by their stink From all which we were by far more free when we lodged in tents as there we did much than when we abode in houses where in great cities and towns to adde unto the disquiets I before named there were such an aboundance of large hungry Ratts that some of us were bitten in the night as we lay in our bedds either on our toes or fingers or on the tipps of our eares or on the tops of our noses or in any part of our bodies besides they could get into their mouths The winds in those parts as I observed before which they call the Moâ—t soone blow constantly one way altering but few points six months Southerly and six months Northerly The months of April May and the beginning of June till the rain falls are so extremely hot as that the winde when it blowes but gently receives such heat from the parched ground that the reflection thereof is ready to blister a mans face that receives the breath of it And if God did not provide for those parts by sending a breeze or breath or small gale of winde daily which somewhat tempers that hot sulphureous air there were no living in that Torrid Zone for us English who have been used to breath in a teÌ„perate climate and notwithstanding that benefit the air in that place is so hot to us English that we should be every day stewed in our own moisture but that we stirre very little in the heat of the day and have cloathing about us as thin as we can make it And no marvail for the coldest day in the whole year at noon unless it be in the time when those raines fall is hotter there than the hottest day in England Yet I have there observed most strange and suddaine changes of heat and cold within few houres as in November and December the most temperate months of their year as before and then at midnight the air was so exceeding fresh and cold that it would produce a thin Ice on the water and then as we lay in our Tents
we made no more night marches Those Indians I named before are so faithfull to their trusts unto whomsoever they engage to the English as well as to any other that if they be at any time assaulted they will rather dye in their defence than forsake them at their need So that I am very confident that if an English Merchant should travel alone with a very great treasure in gold and Jewels both or either from Surat to Lahor which is more than one thousand English miles and take those Indian servants only for his company and guard and all they knew what be carried with him He paying them their wages they would be so far from injuring him of the least penny of his wealth that whosoever besides should attempt his spoyling must make a way through their blood before they should be able to do it Here is a great and good example of Faithfulness and it is very true But I much doubt that if a great Indian Merchant I mean a native of that Countrey should come for England with the like treasure with a desire to pass through this whole nation and should for his more safe passage take a guard of sword-men here and pay them well for their service they might lye under such a strong tentation as might make them to spoyl the Egyptian by shortning his journey dividing his substance and by disposing so of his person that it should never tell tales But for that people as their faithfulness is very remarkable so is their diligence very exemplary likewise for they keep continually within the call of their Masters and will not at any time depart thence without special leave And the plenty of all provisions being very great throughout the whole Monarchy they serve at very low rates which I never knew them to rayse not requiring more than five shillings sterlings every new Moon payd the next day after its Change which is all the recompence they do desire or expect from their Masters to provide themselves with all necessaries quibus hinc toga Calceus hinc est Et Panis fumusque Domi. Juvenal-sat 1. Their coat their shooes their bread their fire And all besides bought with this hire And for this do as good service as if they had ten times as much wages They stand to be hyred in the Bazar or Market-place an antient custom as may appear Matth. 20. 3. where some of them may be at all times had But it is their manner when they are hyred to receive advance-money that is one moneths pay before hand and to have their pay thus in hand every moneth so long as they serve and so honest they are that if they be bidden to provide themselves of other Masters they will serve out the time for which they have received pay to an hour before they depart Now these who are so exact in performing their dutie by their faithfulness and diligence must be exactly paid their Salary at the time they expect it otherwise they will be ready to quit their service as one of them whom we thus hyred left us as we we were travelling up to the Court the reason because our money was almost quite gone though we were supplyed again a day or two after and we could not punctually pay him at his day as we had formerly done This fellow led one of our Camels and had been with us two moneths before but upon this little fayling him would needs leave us but before he departed he made a speech to his Camel telling him that he had led him thus long and had during that time lived by him but now our money as he supposed quite fayling he told him that he must begon desiring God to bless him and that he might have some other to lead him that might not be less carefull of him than he had been So he took leave of his Camel though not of us and departed All the rest of his company were perswaded to continue with us and had their pay a day or two after and so we proceeded on our journey and so shall I further in this discourse And now I have spoken something of the people I shall speak SECTION IX Of their buildings in Villages Townes and Cities How their Houses are furnished Of their Sarraes or houses for the entertainment of Passengers Of their Tents Wells and of their places of pleasure c. I Observed before the Richness of their Soyl and how those Provinces are watered by many goodly Rivers fed with abundance of Springs and how their fields are clothed with very much plenty of Corn of divers kind sold there at such low rates that every one may there eat bread without scarceness Now I come to take notice of their buildings and here I must tell my Reader that this people are not much taken or infected with that plague of building as the Italians call it wishing the love of it as a Curse to posses the thoughts of them they most hate and therefore as the stones in India are not all precious so the houses there are not at all Palaces the poor there cannot erect for their dwellings fair Piles and the Grandees do not cover their heads under such curious Roofs as many of the Europeans doe the reason first because all the great men there live a great part of the year in which their Moneths are more temperate as from the middle of September to the middest of April in Tents Pavilions or moveable habitations which according to their Fancyes they remoove from place to place changing their air as often as they please And secondly because all the great men there have their Pensions and whole subsistence from the King which they hold upon very fickle and uncertain tearmes for as they are setled upon and continued unto them by the Kings favour so are they forfeited and lost by his frown Of which more afterward Yet though they make not much use of them they have in plenty excellent good materials for building as Timber Bricks stone and marble of divers kinds and colours of which I have seen some very good Vaults and Arches well wrought as in their Mosquits or Churches so in some of their high erected Tombos of which more afterward and so in some other places likewise For their buildings in Cities and Towns there are some of them handsome others fair such as are inhabited by Merchants and none of them very despicable They build their houses low not above two stories and many of their topps flat and thick which keep off the violence of the heat and those flat topps supported with strong Timber and coated over with a plaster like that we call plaster of Paris keep them dry in the times of the Raines Those broad â—arases or flat Roofs some of them loftie are places where many people may stand and so they often doe early in the morning and in the evening late like Camelions to draw and drink in fresh ayr and they
white Cloath the Daroo or Harboode accompanies the dead body near unto the door which enters that place alwayes kept fast shut but when it is opened upon this occasion to let in their dead and come thither speaks these words in the audience of all those which are thither assembled That whereas the party deceased consisted of all the four Elements he desires that every one of them may now take his part And this is the form they use when they there thus dispose of the bodies of their dead Which being there so left in that open place are presently laid bare by the Fouls of the Air who in short time after pick all their flesh clear from their bones by consequence their fleshly part having no other Sepulchres Graves or Tombs but the Craws and Gorges of those ravenous Fouls And when upon this occasion they enter that round stage of Mortality the bare Skelitons they there finde which have parted with all their flesh are by those bearers of the dead cast into that deep round pit where they mix promiscuously together and so make room for other dead bodies But now that my Reader may not â—onceive that I have endeavoured in some of these strange relations to write a new Romance I would have him to think that for my part I do believe that there is very much of truth in the particulars I have inserted if there be any credit to be given to some men of much integrity that lived amongst them who made it a great part of their businesse to be satisfied in many of the particulars here spoken of or if I might trust mine own eyes and ears that saw and heard much of it which could have enabled me to have written a great deal more concerning the Rites Ceremonies Customes wilde conceivings and mad Idolatries of this people as of the Hindoos spoken of before if I durst have thrown away more time upon them all which would have made my judiciour Reader thus to have concluded with me that those Mahometans and Heathens ground very many of their opinions upon custom tradition and phansie not reason much lesse upon safe rules that might lead them into and after keep them in the way of truth They esteeming it a very great boldnesse a very high presumption to be wiser in their Religion thâ—n their forefathers were as many of the more ignorant sort of Papists will often say though it be directly against themselves and therefore are desirous to do and to believe as their Ancestors have before them to fare as they have fared and as they have sped to speed though they perish everlastingly with them never considering of or ruminating on those things which they hold and maintain for truths being like unto unclean Beasts which chew not the Cudde So much of that people in general I come now more particularly to speak SECT XXII Of their King the great Mogol his discent c. NOw those Mahometans and Gentiles I have named live under the subjection of the great Mogol which Name or rather Title if my information abuse me not signifies circumcised as himself and the Mahometans are and therefore for his most general title he is called the great Mogol as the chief of the circumcised or the chief of the circumcision He is lineally descended from that most famous conqueror called in our stories Tamberlane concerning whose birth and original Histories much differ and therefore I cannot determine it but in this all that write of him agree that he having got together very many huge multitudes of men made very great conquests in the South-East parts of the World not onely on Bajazet the Emperour of the Turks but also in East-India and elsewhere for what cannot force by multitudes do This Tamberlane in their stories is called Amir Timur or the great Prince and Emperor Timur who as they say towards his end either by an hurt received in his thigh or else by an unhappy fall from his Horse which made him halt to his grave was ever after that called Timur lang or Timur the lame from whence he is corruptly in our stories named amberlane the late Mogol at whose Court we lived was the ninth in a direct line from that his great Ancestor And now that my Reader may see the great Mogol in a Portrature which was taken from a Picture of his drawn to the life I have caused that to be here inserted which presents him in his dayly unvaried Habite as he is bedeckt and adorned with Jewels he continually wears for the fashion of the Habite in which he is here presented it is for the fashion the Habite of that whole vast Empire so that he who strictly views this may see the dresse of the men throughout that whole great Monarchy After this I have set up the Royal standard of the great Mogol which is a Couchant Lyon shadowing part of the body of the Sun And after that I have caused his Imperial Signet or great Seal to be laid down before my Readers eyes wherein nine rounds or Circles are the Names and Titles of Tamberlane and his lineal successors in Persian words which I shall make presently to speak English and as I conceive no more in English than what is fully expressed in those original words The Royall Signet of the great MOGOL For Timar-lang or Tamberlane he was famous about the year of Christ 1398. in the last year of the Reign of Richard the Second King of England And he the first of the Race of those great Monarchs hath a Title which speaks thus 1. Amir Timur Saheb Ceran that is the great Conqueror or Emperor Timur or Tamberlane Lord possessor of the Corners or of the four Corners of the World 2. The second his Son was called Mirath-Sha the King and inheritor of Conquests 〈◊〉 the inheritor of his Fathers Conquests 3. The third his Son was called Mirzae Sultan Mahomeds the Prince and Commander for Mahomet or the Desender of the Mahometan Religion for this King as it should seem was the first Indostan Emperor that professed Mahometisme which Tamberlane his Grand-father was a great enemy too therefore ever strongly opposed it But this third Monarch of that line and all his successors since have been Mahometans 4. The fourth his son was called Sultan Abusaid the Prince and Father or fountain of Beneficence 5. The fifth his son was called Mirzee Amir Sheick the Imperial Princely Lord. 6. The sixth his son was called Baba Padsha the King the Father or the King the Father of his Countrey 7. The seventh his son was called Hamasaon Podsha the King Invincible 8. The eight his son was called Achabar Padsha the great King or Emperor that is most mighty or the King most mighty 9. The ninth his son was called Almozaphar Noor Dein Gehangeir Padsha Gaze the most warlike and most victorious King the Light of Religion and the Conqueror of the World Here are very high titles taken by
poor thing indeed which is freely given and is not worth the taking The Mogol sometimes by his Firmauns or or Letters Patents will grant some particular things unto single or divers persons and presently after will contradict those Grants by other Letters excusing himself thus that he is a great and an absolute King and therefore must not be tied unto any thing which if he were he said that he was a slave and not a free man Ye what he promised was usually enjoyed although he would not be tied to a certain performance of his promise Therefore there can be no dealing with this King upon very sure terms who will say and unsay promise and deny Yet we English men did not at all suffer by that inconstancy of his but there found a free Trade a peaceable residence and a very good esteem with that King and people and much the better as I conceive by reason of the prudence of my Lord Ambassadour who was there in some sense like Joseph in the Court of Pharoah for whose sake all his Nation there seemed to fare the better And we had a very easie way upon any grievance to repair to that King as will appear now in my next Section which speaks SECT XXIV Of him shewing himself three times publickly unto his people every day and in what state and glory he doth oftentimes appear FIrst early in the morning at that very time the Sun begins to appear above the Horizon He appears unto his people in a place very like unto one of our Balconies made in his houses or Pavilions for his morning appearance directly opposite to the East about seven or eight foot high from the ground against which time a very great number of his people especially of the greater sort who desire as ofâ—en as they can to appear in his eye assemble there together to give him the Salam or good morning crying all out as soon as they see their King with a loud voice Padsha Salamet which signifies live ô Great King or O great King health and life as all the people cried 1 King 1. 39. God save King Solomon and thus they clapped their hands for joy when Jehoash was made King crying God save the King or let the King live 2 King 11. 12. At noon he shews himself in another place like the former on the South-side and a little before Sun-set in a like place on the West-side of his house or Tent but as soon as the Sun forsakes the Hemisphear he leaves his people ushered in and out with Drums and Winde instruments and the peoples acclamations At both which times likewise very great numbers of his people assemble together to present themselves before him And at any of these three times he that hath a suite to the King or desires Justice at his hands be he poor or Rich if he hold up a Petition to be seen shall be heard and answered And between seven and nine of the Clock at night he sits within his House or Tent more privately in a spacious place called his Goozalcan or bathing house made bright like day by abundance of lights and here the King sits mounted upon a stately Throne where his Nobles and such as are favoured by him stand about him others finde admittance to but by special leave from his Guard who cause every one that enters that place to breath upon them and if they imagine that any have drunk wine they keep him out At this time my Lord Ambassadour made his usual addresses to him and I often waited on him thither and it was a good time to do businesse with that King who then was for the most part very pleasant and full of talk unto those which were round about him and so continued till he fell a sleep oft times by drinking and then all assembled immediately quitted the place besides those which were his trusted servants who by turns watched his Person The Mogol hath a most stately rich and spacious house at Agrae his Metropolis or chief Citie which is called his Palace Royal wherein there are two Towers or Turrets about ten foot square covered with massie God as ours are usualy with Lead this I had from Tom. Coriat as from other English Merchants who keep in a Factory at that place And further they told me that he hath a most glorious Throne within that his Palace ascended by divers steps which are covered with plate of silver upon the top of which ascent stand four Lions upon pedestals of curiously coloured Marble which Lions are all made of Massie silver some part of them guilded with Gold and beset with precious stones Those Lions support a Canopy of pure Gold under which the Mogol sits when as he appears in his greatest state and glory For the beauty of that Court it consists not in gay and Gorgious apparel for the Countrey is so hot that they cannot endure any thing that is very warm or massie or rich about them The Mogol himself for the most part is covered with a garment as before described made of pure white and fine Callico Laune and so are his Nobles which Garments are washed after one dayes wearing But for the Mogol though his cloathing be not rich and costly yet I believe that there is never a Monarch in the whole world that is dayly adorned with so many Jewels as himself is Now they are Jewels which make mens covering most rich such as people in other parts sometimes wear about them that are otherwise most meanly habited to which purpose I was long since told by a Gentleman of honour sent as a Companion to the old Earle of Nothingham when he was imployed as an extraordinary Ambassadour by King James to confirm the peace made 'twixt himself and the King of Spain which Ambassadour had a very great many Gentlemen in his train in as Rich cloathing as Velvets and Silks could make but then there did appear many a great Don or Grandee in the Spanish Court in a long black bayes Cloak and Cassack which had one Hatband of Diamonds which was of more worth by far than all the bravery of the Ambassadours many followers But for the Mogol I wonder not at his many Jewels he being as I conceive the greatest and richest Master of precious stones that inhabites the whole earth For Diamonds which of all other are accounted most precious stones they are found in Decan where the Rocks are out of which they are digged the Princes whereof are the next Neighbours and Tributares to the great Mogol and they pay him as Tribute many Diamonds yearly and further he hath the refusal of all those rich stones they sell he having Gold and Silver in the greatest abundance and that will purchase any thing but heaven and he will part with any mony for any Gems beside that are precious and great whither Rubies or any other stones of value as also for rich Pearls And his Grandees follow him in that