Poetry and verse in measure with Meetre and called their Poets Harauee that is Inventors Their Temples were of stone magnificently built sumptuous for gold and silver The statue of the Sun was massy gold which a Spaniard took and gam'd away in a night whereupon one said by way of jeâ—r that he had plaid away the Sun before he was up Of precious stones they have none but Emeraulds and Torqueses the country yields neither Diamonds nor Rubies In their golden garden were all sorts of hearbs and plants trees flowers fruits animals of massy gold and silver to the life In short the Spaniard found there unspeakable wealth yet all was nothing in comparison of that the Natives concealed or cast into the Sea or Lakes which could never be recovered There were Monasteries of maids dedicated to the Sun bound to perpetual virginity and never beholding other person the superiours called them Mamacunes The last of these Incas was Atahualpa the 14 from Manco Capac Leon the 7. Inca called Viracocha was a great souldier and Conquerour who saw in a vision one of their Gods Viracocha a Phantasm with long Mustachoes and a long gown of the Spaniards fashion whom for this cause they call Viracocha the Indians having no beard and wearing short garments They say this Phantasme foretold the arrival of the Spaniards an unknown people who should take away their Estates and Religion Tapangui the tenth King atchieved great conquests and extended his Empire to Chisa above 1000. leagues and built the fortification of Cusco that seems rather rocks grafted together by enchantment than an edifice built by industry and strength of men for the vastnesse of the stones of 38. foot long and 18. broad when they had use neither of Iron Waggons Oxen Cranes nor Pullies but fetched all from remote parts by humane strength The 12. Inca Huaina Capat by the Spaniards called Guainaecauan that made the famous roads with the monumentall stones and Innes from Quito to Cusco for above 500. leagues the one by the Mountains the other along the Sea shore upon the plain works far surpassing all the Romans boast of for length art labour and cost besides the rich and prodigious chain of gold every link wrist thick made for a sort of dance never found by the Spaniards This King was capable of the true Religion for he would reason that the Sun could not be the Soveraign God but that there must be one more powerful that commanded his perpetual circulation because were the Sun his own master he would sometimes rest for his pleasure not for necessity whereas the Soveraign God ought to enjoy the most perfect tranquillity without perturbation which was not seen in the Sun King Huiana now in peace at his palace of Tamipampa in 1515. had intelligence of certain strangers not altogether unknown that coasted the shore of his Dominions First Nunez Balboa discovered it in 1513. afterwards Pizarra and his Company who first gained it in 1531. The news much disturbed the King calling to mind an ancient oracle amongst them how a forraign bearded people should conquer and destroy their Empire besides in 1512. they had divers presages that portended the same For which reason the King dying advised his Sons with the white men with beards that were to be their Masters and the Indians in excuse that they no better defended themselves against such a handfull of Spaniards say 't was not for want of courage but in obedience to the orders and premonitions of their Prince Huiana had by all his wives above 300. children yet but one legitimate called Hilascar by his wife who was his Sister and one other by his dear Concubine called Acabalipa to whom he left the kingdom of Quito and Huascat reigned soveraign at Cusco But Acabalipa to throw off his homage to his Brother invaded him with a bloudy war defeated him and took him and put to death all the Incas and Princes of the blood-Royal that he might reign sole King though according to the Sanctions of the State not capable his Mother being Daughter neither of Coya that is a Queen nor of Palla a Princess of the blood He gave death to above two hundred of his Brothers then to as many of his alliance as he could lay hands on as well men as women with cruell torments and extended his tyranny upon the very servants and officers royal with fire violations and other villanies In the Province of Canares alone he put to death sixty thousand men because they had held with his Brother and covered the land with carcases and horrible desolations In recompense this villain was justly punished by the Spaniards more wicked than himself and they afterwards by themselves not finding any that could exceed them again in villany In the year 1526. Francisco Pizarra and Diego Almagro being at Panarma having lived a long time in the Indies and assisted at the conquest of Vraba Cartagena and other places resolved upon the expedition and discovery of Peru where they met with ill-favoured entertainments at their first landing Then Pizarra going to Spain obtained the chief command in the designed conquest and with four of his Brothers Diego Almagro and others made their invasion in the year 1531. with most fortunate success Acabalipa they took who paid a ransom of gold and silver neverthelesse they gave him an ignominious death by the hands of the Hangman Thus was this mighty and opulent Empire conquered by a handfull of Spaniards divine providence in inscrutible councels making the avarice cruelty and other vices of these Victors instrumentall to bring these people to the knowledge of the true God Now is the time the Spaniards glut their avarice and cruelty perpetrate all insolencies and truculencies imaginable which have been so fully represented observed and exaggerated by their own histories and Authours I shall not need to paint them in any other colours but they all or the greatest part paid dear for it when by intestine discord envy and amutinies amongst themselves they butchered one another and so revenged the nefarious treatment of the poor Indians and those who overstood this self-destruction were justly executed by the command of Charles the fifth who commissioned certain Licenciados Vacca de Gastro and Gasca to pronounce severe justice upon these seditious Mutineers there the Pizarras Almagros and others all perished The fifth Viceroy established in Peru was Blasius Nuez 1544. Lima or the Town of Kings was founded at this time first by Pizarra in 1533. afterwards the residence of the Viceroys the seat of Parliament Inquisition University and the Metropolitan Church of the whole Countrey As to Chila that wide Countrey which the Incas could never subdue Almagro first discovered it then in 1540. oâ—e Valdiâ—ia entred and over-run it but he found such opposition of the Araucans a small people of this great Territory that he breathed his last there was slain and eaten and from that time for 50. years they
pepper and ginger bruised together They compound an admirable drink with Areca mingled with the confection of the leaves of Bettel they preserve Tamur which is a sort of palm called Tamarindi myrabolans or plums the roots of a certain Bul-rush Clove Gillyflower tops or buds another root called Cucuma and many others They are of complexion more fair than black their cloathings are stuffs of cotton silk damask satin and velvet Their breeches cassocks or coats are almost of the Italian mode especially when they visit Ladies as at Ormus Their chiefest drink is milk with Sugar and Cinamon they make it of three sorts Sugar and Cinamon are still added and sometimes pepper Durions Mancoustan and Bananes The Banane tree is fifteen handfull high the trunk juycy and covered with a bark and leaves growing like the scales of fish two foot large and five foot long of a light green her root growing in the ground casts out sprouts that in time grow up to trees when this tree is come to full growth she puts forth from the middle of her stock a flower of a reddish colour about the bignesse and shape of an artichoke whence springs a bough hung with fruit to the number of a hundred each a handfull in length and four fingers large and bears but once a year which is held a wonder From incisions made into the tree there flowes good store of juyce or water very pleasant and gustfull in some places of the Indies they are called Masa in others Pican and say 't is the tree that bears the fruit of life In that Country Partridges are all white and bigger than ours there is plenty of all other fowle We went from Bengale in the company of many Merchants to trade at Castigan where were arrived some Portuguese ships and in those meetings much is got by the trade of gold and silver and in the exchange of our own commodities Castigan or Catigan belongs to the kingdom of Bengale which reaches over 400. leagues of land and the Lordship of Aracan a Kingdom between Bengale and Pegu stronger by Sea than land and wages often war with Pegu and some years since they say hath swallowed up Pegu but ruined by neighbours and therefore the King is called King of Aracan Tiparat Chacomas Bengale and Pegu. This King hath entertained the Fathers of the society at Chandecan his Royal Town and his whole state is strangely altered on a suddain as all the East is subject to innovations and changes the strongest still overcomming the weaker Catigan is a good Haven Town in the Mogor or Mogull's Country a great Kingdom and rich in all sorts of cattle in fish rice white and black spices especially pepper myrabolans and ginger which they candy and preserve and is better than any grows at Cananor the Prince of this Town called Banastarin his Son Achamu was converted by the Fathers of the society and obtained leave of the King his father to have a Church built for them he married the Princesse Cassubi a Christian Lady newly baptized he followed herein the advice of those holy Fathers for otherwise he intended to have ended his dayes in Celibat They relate many miracles of him amongst others that the first night they were bedded offering both their prayers to God upon their knees they were suddenly enlightned by a glorious light and smelt many sweet perfumes whereupon they mutually resolved to abstain from enjoyment and dedicate the remainder of their lives to chastity and sanctity He left his kingdom to his Brother Agazima desiring justice might be preserved in his Kingdom and that he would follow the advice of Father Philip of the society Agazima promis'd a performance but those Princes are all so jealous of our religion holding that the Christians adore one God great above the rest that wil not suffer any others disdaining to communicate himself to any and that he sets a greater esteem and value upon innocent poor and simple people then upon the rich Kings and Princes and that Princes had need to preserve to themselves the affections and obedience of their subjects to reign with more ease these were the seeming reasons Agazima offered his Brother and 't is those poor abused creatures ordinary discourse and opinion and the difficulty they find in our religion ignorant of the true and pure grounds thereof that teach subjects their obedience and subjection to their temporall Kings and Princes above all others Of Cassubi or Chasubi subject to Aracan I will hereafter speak In the kingdom of Bengale is the Town of Sartagan or Sartogan scituate upon a River that runs and loses her self in Ganges where the Portuguese have a fort There are great plenty of rice fine linnen cloaths sugar myrabolans and many other drugs The people are Gentils and in their Temples adore many Idols strangely and horridly shap'd others adore the first they meet my Camarade and I being lodg'd at a Brokers house who was happy in a sweet disposition'd a modest wife as we accompanied her one day from the market some of those Idolaters prostrated themselves at our feet and begun to make their prayers to us and were extreamly incensed when they saw we only endeavored to disabuse them and to laugh them out of their fopperies and idolatries they answered they were thus instructed by their parents and therefore thought it just and equitable They told me they were not of the Guzerates religion but were absolutely opposite to Mahometanism They esteem it a happiness to be near the Ganges believing that water purifies them from all filth and sin and therefore are carried thither both in health and sickness some leave orders that after their deaths their bodies may be burnt and their ashes cast therein that so they may go strait to heaven others hold the same of Euphrates and for this reason the Portuguese and other Christians abominate these rivers and never make anyuse of the water but of force and necessity which is a little superstitious on the other side the water of Ganges being the sweetest the wholsomest in the world and many drinking of it have been cured of great paines of the stomach which hardly afforded them any rest before 't is soveraign against many other pains aches and diseases The Indian Priests sing in their Temples from break of day to noon and after dinner they have other prayers which last till night when they hear this service they wash their hands feet and faces then walk barefoot upon stone laid on purpose to the Temple which is matted and there they stand upright without the least motion and after awhile they sit crosse-legged like Taylors There are two Altars one for the rising the other for the setting Sun and so they turn their faces ever to the Sunne They bury their dead in their Churches as we do and maintain women to lament and weep over the dead according to the ancient Roman fashion These
being come to their fifteen yeares one said to the other Brother it must be you that must murther me for I will sooner dye a hundred deaths then do you the lest harm imaginable the other reply'd believe it not good Brother I desire you for you are as dear and dearer to me than my self But the Father to prevent the misfortune resolved to separate them whereupon they grew so troubled and melancholly he was constrained to protract his design till an occasion happened that invited all three the Father and two Sons to a war betwixt the Kings of Narsinga and Pegu upon Title of Territories one detained from the other but by mediation of the Bramins a peace was concluded upon condition these two young Princes should espouse the two daughters of the King of Narsinga and the King of Baticalas Sister two Princesses of transcendent beauty and that the King of Pegu on him that should marry the elder should conferre all the Countryes he took in the last war with the Kingdome of Martaban and the other Brother besides the Kingdome of Tazatay should have that of Verma which containes the Seniory of Zait that payes yearly for tribute twelve pearles weighing two Serafs of Gold and of intire perfection These contracts agreed upon were signified to the two Princesses of Narsinga who though then very young told their Father they consented to the marriages but on this condition that their husbands happening to die before them if they made not voluntary sacrifice of themselves it should not be imputed an infamy to them because they were unacquainted with them This was agreed to and the Nuptials consummated to the generall joy of all men for the common peace accompanied them and great feasting there was every where The one of these Princes stayed with his Lady in Narsinga the other went to possesse the Province of Verma lands spaciously divided so as a long time they were without inter-view visiting each other onely by missius and presents of value or curiosity Now it fell out the King of Tazatay was engaged in a sharp war with the King of Mandranella and sent to the two Brother-Princes his Sons for aid who both hastening with a good strength of Souldiers one knowing nothing of the other the one declining his direct way marched up to the enemy and in a bloudy fight defeated him thence went to present himself to his Father but by sad destiny on the morrow his Brother arriving from Verma with his Lady in the evening came secretly into the Town to visit a Lady once their ancient Mistresse the other Brother being on the same design they met at the Ladies gate by night not knowing one another where furious with jealousie after some words they drew and killed each other One of them dying amongst many other things said he gave humble thanks to God that he had prevented the direfull destiny of his Horoscope in not making him the assassine of his Brother as 't was prejudicated Hereupon the other finding him by his voice and discourse drawing near his end himself crept to him and embraced him with tears and lamentations and so both dolefully ended their dayes together The Father being advertized of it seeing his white haires led by his own fault to so hard a fortune overborn with grief and despair came and slew himself upon the bodies of his Sons and with the grief and tears of all the people were buried all three in the same monument which shews us the danger of too great curiosity nor is it an easie question how this can be found by knowledge of the stars or if they are things inevitable which I leave to be decided by the more learned But before I end this Chapter I shall observe that amongst such a diversity of Idols as well of the great Corcouitas who is the principal and most ancient on whom all the others depend as of the Oysima the promotor of all things and diverse other strange and horrible shapes every one with Temples and Sacrifices peculiar amongst all this they have as I said the image of the blessed Virgin with her infant which with lighted lamps they honour reverently These lamps are not of glasse but Talc stone of which they have abundance whole mountains at one point of the Countrey eastward They work it very artificially and make of it severall sorts of Utensills compounding the mettle Calin so much esteemed through the Indies from Persia as far as China like silver but as easily melted as tin Of this they likewise make their windowes and lantorns lantorns they likewise make of the triple coloured tortoise shell I spoke of before I omitted to tell you that for their dances they use a sort of pans which being wel handled yeild an elegant melody but to play well requires long practice They have other Musicall instruments not of use in Europe amongst the rest a sort of pans flat and double the cover whereof stands two fingers distant set with wyar strings they call it a Hydrac it is tedious and difficult to learn For the quality of their yeares I could not well understand their manner of account but in generall I find they reckon by Moones as the greater part of the east and their dayes by the sun out of these Moones they raise five dayes allowing thirteen Moones to the year and the fift day being come about midnight they make a solemn sacrifice in their Temples where they universally meet I conferd with some about this matter who told me the Peguan year was like that they use in China which is Lunary and that they compare it as neer as may be to the Solary for their year consisting of twelve moneths twice in five years they gain a Lunary month making that year of thirteen Moones so as they have no knowledg of the golden number nor the nineteen years circle and the anticipation of one hour and twenty eight minutes which remits the new Moones to the golden number with them is accommoded by the annuall supputation for they neither have nor will have a perpetuall Calander but at great charge print every year a new one which they send through all the Provinces of China It may be our Peguans would imitate this after their fashion and according to their understanding which is very weak for such matters which the best wits amongst us find task hard enough Of the Philosophy of the Indians and their opinions in Astronomy and Geography I shall say something hereafter Before I leave the state of Pegu I will not omit what some of the Peguans told me and have mentioned in writing in their Travailes That some yeares before we arrived there was in the Countrey a King of the ancient Royall Race who had many Deputies in the Countrey of Bramaa towards the Lake Chiamay amongst the rest one in the Kingdom of Tangu that rebelled against him defeated and slew him and made himself King of
Pegu they called him the Bramaa of Tangu a great Tyrant and a Potent Prince who by force of Armes joyned many Kingdomes to his Empire as Pram Melintay Calani Bacam Mirandu Aua Martaban and others He afterwards was put to death by a Peguan Lord called Xemin of Zatan who made himself King but was defeated and slain by another called Xemindoo who likewise being made King was not long after defeated and put to death by Chaumigren of near aliance to Bramaa who became one of the most Powerfull Kings hath raigned in Pegu who brought totally under the Empire of the Kingdom of Syan with twelve great Kingdomes more They report that in the War of Syan he led into the field seventeen hundered thousand Combatants and seventeen thousand Elephants whereof nine thousand were for fight the rest for carriage To which the immense Armies brought heretofore by the Persian Kings against the Grecians may induce us to give credit the cause is that in all these Eastern Countreys the greater part of the people go to the wars and that there are not amongst them so many Ecclesiasticks Lawyers Clarks Book-men and idle Persons as are with us The King that raigned in Pegu in our time called the Brama was as I think the son of this Chaumigren afterwards hard enough dealt with by the Kings of Tangu Aracan and Syan as I said before But it is time to advance to the Provinces and Towns of high India subject or confining and neighbours to Pegu as Abdiare Vilep Canarane Cassubi Transiane Tasata Mandranella Tartary and others CHAP. XXXIII Of Abdiare and Vilep Towns of Pegu Fismans Apes Unicornes and other animalls Fotoque an Idol with three Heads PErsevering constantly in our trafick thorough the Towns and Provinces of this great Empire of Pegu and the Countreyes adjacent amongst others in the Town of Abdiare and Vilep a Kingdom in high India subject to the Peguan and having traded with certain Merchants whom we found open and reall treating with the Sensall or factor not by words but by fingers and joynts of the hand the practise of all the Indies to conceale the price of Merchandises We parted from Vilep with good company and within three houres came to the descent of a hill exceeding shady upon the hanging whereof was a pleasant fountain where the whole company stayed for refreshment but we had not been long there when there came about us an extraordinary number of Apes the greater part black as jet some small ones black and white very lepid one of them addressed himself to me as it had been to crave something of that I was eating and thinking to fright him away he was not scared at all as if he were accustomed to passengers I cast a piece of bread to him which he took very modestly and divided with his company and two young ones he had with him presently there came three more which seemed to crave their share I gave them something and they eat very quietly but on a sudden part of our company arose and took their Armes by reason of a heard of Fismans or wilde dogs they discovered making towards us which with one musket shot were all scared away in our sight they fed on grasse like sheep Proceeding on our way we met with abundance of other sorts of strange animalls as likewise of fruits some whereof of growth much to be admired some that bore rosin that smell like Mastick others a red berry wherewith they dye carnation which never fades but dayly becomes more lively Having thus travelled ten or twelve dayes through diversity of soyles meeting with many rivers animalls trees and other things unknown to us amongst others abundance of civit Cats whereof they have some domesticall which you may buy foure for one Pardai but they are stinking and their dung smells like Mans. At length we took to the River Jiame and in three dayes came to the Village called Tanza on the morrow to Canarane a faire Town rich and flourishing as any Town in India the Capitall of a Kingdom bearing the same name confining eastward on the Country of Tazatay south on Carpa and northward on Moantay another great Kingdom The Town is seated betwixt two great rivers Jiame and Pegu it is in circuit about foure leagues magnificently built in customes and conditions the people differ much from those of Pegu for they never go barefoot as the others do Princes and Noble Men weare rich buskins and sandalls set with gold The King of Canarane is Potent and Wealthy in Mines of gold and silver He hath also one of Emerald the finest in the east whence he drawes great profit This Prince was never known to diminish but augment his Treasure Likewise they have Mines of Turkesses When a King dies they interr all his Treasure with him and sweare his Successor not to meddle with it For the first year he and his Court are maintained at the Subjects charge and all the Nobility by obligation come to make their acknowledgment with rich presents and sue to be establisht in their Estates Offices Seniories for the King hath right to sell estates of all sorts then vacant and hereupon all his people high and low are tied with petition in hand and with presents to sue for their offices and vacancies which raises him in this year a marvellous treasure No one can wear shooes rings nor girdles of gold without the Kings license which brings him in a great gabel a share whereof belongs to the King of Pegu as soveraign who granted him the grace because the Countrey is colder than Pegu and I have heard it of Merchants that in the winter here rage certain in windes or Mounsons which come from the North so cold that travellers lose their toes the cold is so sharp and rigorous Their custom is if a Merchant will oblige himself he obliges likewise all his goods wife and children and failing at the day promised the Creditor may seize on all for slaves The usual money is called Canza and all the Peguan is currant there which the King stamps in gold or silver through the Indies called Jamis besides what every particular Prince coins of his own They have another sort of silver money called Pardain and Tazifo They make some likewise of tin mixt with copper which being no coyn royal is lawfull for any man to stamp as also another sort called Bise wherewith they may buy any thing one must be carefull in taking it or he may be deceived The King keeps abundance of slaves for his Elephants and stables In their structures they use ciment mixt with sugar as in Pegu which mixt with calcin'd shels becomes very firm the shels are dear and sold by measure They have many plantations of sugar the canes whereof they give their Elephants who love them exceedingly so as when they commit any fault they deprive them of that food and so easily chastize and instruct
wife children and all his allies to death to the great content of the people for the hatred he bore to this unfortunate Fratricide Then they imagined an ancient Prophecy which they kept amongst them was accomplished That the Lamb should kill both the Wolfe and his wife She was called Gildada and was drowned But the King of Dafila incensed with the death of his daughter and Son-in-law brought a most cruell warre upon the new King Nahi wherein fell numbers on both sides In the mean while amongst the Princes who had scap'd the truculent hands of their brothers one there was who strayed far off and got into the kingdome of Deli where contenting himself to live meanly as an unknown private person he purchased a small possession for his livelihood and betook himself to labour where taking a wife she brought him a son they called Alfondi who at seven or eight years of age gave the world great hopes of his person for the excellent parts which began to bud in him and which made him amiable to all men in so much that addicting himselfe to the words as yeares encreased his vigour he did wonders in the slaying of Lions Beares Tigars and other furious beasts and in all his actions appeared nothing but what was great and noble insomuch as hearing spoken on day how strenuous a war there raged betwixt Tahachi his unknown great Uncle and the King of Dafila he was transported with emulation to be a Party and being furnished with a good horse and Arms with the society of a Troop of brave young men he hasted to those parts where in the service of Tahachi he soon gave proofe of his Courage and abilities in warr but amongst others on one signall occasion which presented it selfe where with a small party of Souldiers he defeated the much more numerous Enemy and the King of Dafila admiring his Valour endeavoured under-hand to win him to his side by offering a Daughter of his in Marriage with a Province which he had taken from Tahachi To which Afondi seeming to give eare dexterously made use of the opportunity to seize upon the Towne of Amazen a most considerable place which exceedingly pleased Tahachi and heightned his affection to him feeling I know not what secret motion in his soul which pushed him on to this Dearnesse without any apprehension that he was his Nephew but Good blood as they say cannot dissemble At length Alfondi assisted with his Uncles Forces did such Atcheivements and Exploits that within six Months he delivered the Empire Zanzibar from the oppression of the Enemy which obliged Tahachi for recompense to give him one of his Daughters in Marriage without any deeper knowledg of him then his Heroick Actions and Noble Aspect forall the Orientall and Meridionall Princes regard more the Mind and Physiognomy of a Man then they do the extraction or Nobility of Blood Alfondi raised to so high a degree reflects upon his father the honest labourer whom he omitted not to send for who being arrived and having declared who he was begat an unparalleld joy in Tabochi and his whole kingdome every one shedding teares for his discovery rendring praise to God and his just providence for reducing things to so unhoped for a point and after so many years reposing the inheritance on him to whom of right it appertained For this Prince was immediately acknowledged by all even Tahachi himselfe who voluntarily released the Empire which he surrendred into the hands of his Daughter his Son-in-law and Nephew Alfondi who with the consent of the good man his Father to the general joy of all was received and crowned King and governed with so much equity and justice that he gained the hearts and suffrage of his people who adored him as a God nor failed he in rendring to his Father and Uncle while they lived a due honour and respect This Prince had reigned forty seven yeares when he arrived in the countrey Before I conclude my discourse of Tahachi and his condition I shall not omit another story which testifies the singular justice he dispenses with indifferency to all his subjects He had constituted in the Province of Quame one Abdalami a person of high quality his confident a gallant Cavalier and one who had done most signal services in the war with the King of Dafila but being inclined to avarice and hord up wealth he played the Tyrant and sacked the country to satiate his own humour and the desires of some women he gave entertainment to When Tahachi was informed thereof he was much displeased for 't was his rule to maintain equal justice peace and freedome amongst his subjects Notwithstanding he concealed his resentments for a while giving way to his proceedings as well for his great services as for that he had bestowed on him a kinswoman to wife called Abiasinda by whom he had children He admonished him often by letter to bear himselfe more temperately but perceiving his small regard by the constant intrusion of complaints that came to him he sent expresse command that he should repaire immediately to Court to give account of his actions upon pain of death and being proclaimed rebell and guilty of his treason Abdalami understanding his own wealth and power slighted this summons and fortified himself in the holds of his Government Whereupon the King caused his wife and children to be apprehended and brought prisoners to his city royall This Princesse with her best art excused her husband beseeching his Majesties mercy towards him for his former services adding withall that these complaints were but a calumny raised by the malice of his enemies The King covering his resentments mildely answered her that she should only procure her husband to come to Court but she fearing to bring his person in danger thought best only to advise him to send a certain Casket of rings and all sorts of rich jewels for a present to the Queen and by that means work his peace This he did and she having presented it the Queen shewed them to the King who wondred at so great a treasure where amongst others were five hundred pearles each being a Miticale or Crown and half in weight besides many other jewels of value sufficient to buy a kingdome 'T was much affliction to the Prince to see such treasures gotten at the price of his peoples blood and then he commanded the Princesse his kinswoman to bring her husband to Court by a day appointed or he would make feel the weight of his displeasure Poor Abdalami was amazed at the news and fearing not without cause the Kings incensement failed not to come accordingly and without calling on his wife and children went strait to the Palace where having sounded the Trumpet according to the custome as I observed before he unclothed himself and sitting on the ground stark naked only a linnen cloth before his concealed parts he attended in this manner the mercy of the King whereof notice being brought to his Lady
businesse then to be merry They are a strenuous people docile and capable of religion were it not for the unsufferable Tyranny of the Spaniard who of four hundred thousand soules found on this Island have left scarce the hundreth part which is the cause you meet scarce with any thing but desolation and dead mens bones The first of these kingdomes is called Mangna a fertile soyle with many good and large rivers in length 80. leagues from the South sea to the North invironed with mountaines amongst which are these Cibar where are gold mines of 23. Carats and a half the second kingdome is Sigouaya the third Magana or Magnane the fourth Xantiga the fifth Hegay Magana abounds in gold and sugar and different from the rest the King is created by election The King dead foure Tabusamin who are principal Peeres assemble the people at the Palace of Bibical a Conquerour and establisher of the state This Bibical was the miracle of his time for strength who came hither from Mecheoarin on the Continent in Mexico to visit his brother servant to the King of Mangna and one of his chief dancers being here would needs see the other dominions of the Island at Sigouaya where the exercise of wrestling is much in request he made some stay as indeed in war it self the matter is decided as much or more by vigour of arm as weapon and being very perfect he entered lists with the best amongst them and in the Princes presence came off with such advantage that he gained the honour of a Lions skin a matter so considerable with them that in warre 't is worne by none but persons of quality Invited by the King he stayed at Court but the King of Mangna with whom his brother was having notice he sent expressely to have him return and that he would find an honourable employment for him withall sent him an ample present not in wealth but Mexican curiosities as Jewels to hang in the ears and lips and the like the people not prizing so much gold as innocent and simple gaity and with great reason liberty above all All the Kings civilities nor his brothers entreaties could draw him from the Prince of Sigouay who had designed him to march with a hundred Indians into the kingdom of Magana and take a strong town called Saalan for that it maintained it self a free town and would submit to no Prince With much joy Bibical received the Commission and by his valour reduced the place to his Princes obedience with many famous gallantries putting numbers to the sword and the rest to flight Their Bastion called Courcoumeca barrocadoed with timber twice mans height he took by assault By this means not the town alone but the whole countrey was subjugated to the King of Sigouaya who repayed Bibical with collation of honours and erected him monumental trophies of stone with this inscription Aray jourcoumac Bifical that is a man worthy of principality Gibbeleca the Kings sister became so passionate a lover of him that she resolved to marry him though her brother in displeasure secur'd her in a secret prison Biblical freed her married her and carried her to Magana where he made himselfe King of the Countrey which so incensed the brother he used all meanes to destroy him for which purpose he suborned an Indian who from an ambush shot him on the high way with a poysoned shaft this so moved Biblical that he invaded him with a vigorous and violent warre assisted by his brother Gouayquibal and at last overthrew him but the venome of the wound he had formerly received by degrees so prevailed over him that he dyed swelled and black as a coale leaving no child behind him The people petitioned the Dowager she would marry again that they might have a Prince to govern them whereto though with difficulty she at last condescended and called a Councel where 't was ordered that the most strong and active should succeed and marry the Queen Then they proclaimed an Assembly at all exercises of strength as leaping wrestling and Clubbe-fight in which amongst them all one Calips prov'd eminent and was made King For his chief Councel he elected the deceased Kings brother to whom he gave his sister in marriage and since that time the Kings have been elected by strength which custome continued to Moulsamberc who died at the Spaniards invasion This Island was heretofore exceedingly vexed with the Canibales of the Antilles and other neighbour-Islands who come to hunt men and women as others do savage beasts the men to eat them and the women for procreation This Island though under the torrid Zone enjoyes a temperate ayre and almost a perpetual spring by meanes of Mountains which shelter it from the North and refresh it as in most parts under the Zone The Fecundity of the soyle is such that corn sowed produces most great and long eares of above a thousand cornes in an ear Besides it yields Gold Mastick Aloes Cotton Silk Sugars Spices Pepper and Ginger with Jucan and Cassaue whereof they make their bread 'T was from hence the Spaniards first took and brought into Europe the Morbus and remedy Guaicum Here chiefly raign the furious winds called Vracans or Foracanes furies that rend trees dash the waves against the sky destroying Navies and other prodigies But as these people were delivered from the cruelty of the Canibales they fell under that of the Spaniards a hundred times worse who laid the Island with the rest of her neighbours desert and depopulate though the Natives at their landing used them with all humanity but they fell presently to bloudy butchery carrying them slaves to other Countries and reduced them to such despair that the wretches thought better to use violence on themselves and children then to be led slaves under these Salbins thieves and tyrants As one of these miserable Kings was going to be burnt a Father of St. Francis exhorted him to baptism he liked well of all he told him of eternal life and heaven but understanding the Spaniards went thither also he lost his vocation saying in his language Heiti siltiba Salbin Spaniards in heaven and I with them fie fie adding he had rather live with the Yares the Devil and so dyed they destroyed all generally being glutted weary with slaughter they made markets of the rest as of Cattle to toyle and carry burthens not regarding any countermands of the Spanish King to keep them slaves These new guests at first they called children of the Sun but afterwards they changed their stile and called them Solbins and Devils and with good reason when these new-comes would lay insupportable burthens on them and when they failed or fainted cut off their heads to save a labour of unlocking an iron collar about their neck to put upon another Notwithstanding they were a people very capable of religion and doctrine as appeared in such as were converted who proved very pious Christians but
The famous Trauellour Vincent le Blanc of Marseilles THE WORLD SURVEYED Or The FAMOUS VOYAGES TRAVAILES OF Vincent le Blanc or WHITE of Marseilles Who from the Age of Fourteen years to Threescore and Eighteen Travelled through most parts of the World Viz. The East and West Indies Persia Pegu the Kingdoms of Fez and Morocco Guinny and through all Africa From the Cape of good Hope into Alexandria by the Territories of Monomotapa of Preste John and Aegypt into the Mediterranean Isles and through the principal Provinces of EVROPE Containing a more exact Description of several parts of the World then hath hitherto been done by any other Authour The whole work enriched with many Authentick Histories Originally written in French and faithfully rendred into English by F. B. Gent. LONDON Printed for John Starkey at the Miter near the Middle-Temple Gate in Fleet-street 1660. TO THE Most worthy of all Honour PETER BROOK OF MEIRE In the County of CHESTER Esq MY Name being to appear in publick with this Translation in an age that flourishes with Pens and Criticks conscious of my disadvantage I apprehended a Patron necessary whose Name in the Front like a Princes stamp upon Lead might give authority and make it currant coyne In my low condition I have often heard your Name glorious for worth and goodness which made me hope though far transplanted and obscure you would grant me priviledge to claim a Title in your favour and let the Reader opening this Book see it is something belongs to you it will I am confident keep him modest and prevent his discharges at my defects The Authour I dare say will for gravity novelty and variety be acceptable to your conversation for though divers have set forth accounts of this nature I have not met with any in my opinion of such credit as this Le Blanc was a traveller from his infancy to his grave 64. years surveying the Master-piece of his maker was a person of capacity judgement and integrity one seems as it were framed and designed to be sent forth and to bring home a perfect discovery and the truth of things fables and vanity have so much abused You will finde him a person of morall and religious principles one who kept select company one who in all parts he arrived at took not his information at the shore or Suburbs but either for occasion or curiosity visited the intestines and supreme whence he might the better look below and round about him I do ingeniously acknowledge I have injured him in the rudenesse of translation which next to my want of faculty I beseech you attribute to the haste was pressed upon me for I had no more dayes allowed to translate it then would sufficiently have served to transcribe it and it was the first piece I ever attempted As it is I petition you would afford our aged Traveller to take up a resting room at last in your study and me the honour to be owned Your most humble and most respectfull Servant FRANCIS BROOKE THE AUTHOURS PREFACE I Cannot look but with admiration upon the stupidity of such as are not confirmed in a due belief of divine Providence since all mundane effects shew daily such sensible testimonies and especially humane Actions wherein this wise guide directing all things to their end is sufficiently apparent though silently yet forcibly compelling all things There appears testimony enough in my particular that from my first entrance into the world have been assisted by this divine wisdome and goodnesse to my 78. year my instant age so as I can give most reall assurance I have been sensible of supernatural effects in my continual peregrinations through such diverse parts and so remote from inhabitable Land for above sixty four years in such several dangers both by Sea and Land amongst people so discrepant in Religion Laws Manners Language and course of living through all by divine providence preserved healthful and secure with the blessing at last to produce something that may be beneficial to my country and posterity For having ever had an obstinate Propension to travail when I was scarce advanced out of my Infancy and of judgement neither for discourse nor election I felt though secret such vigorous motions that I had not power to resist them So as without considering why or for what end like a man forlorn I threw my selfe into this course of pererration which afterward invited by affaires and unspeakable content I embraced with design and resolution Nor needs it be much admired since well considered our life is but a continual voyage without rest or assured home till we arrive at the end where in a sempiternall state our Soveraigne felicity inhabits THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS CHap. 1. The Authours imbarking for Alexandria and his shipwrack page 1. Chap. 2. Of the Towns of Tripoli and Damas with the relation of a Murder p. 4. Chap. 3. Of the deserts of Arabia of Spirits or Apparitions there of the Sea of Sodome of the Hills of Sina and Oreb and the three Arabia's p. 7. Chap. 4. Of the town of Medina and the false Prophet Mahomets successors p. 12. Chap. 5. How Mahomet compos'd his Alcoran his victories and of the rarities and ceremonies of Meka p. 14. Chap. 6. Of Arabia Felix of Prince Sequemir Governour of Cassia and other commodities of Sabaea p. 17. Chap. 7. Of the state of Sequemir Prince of the Happy Arabia Of his Salsidas and of the Califf of Bagdet p. 20. Chap. 8. Of Babylon the Red Sea Homerites Aden a strong Town and famous Haven Cameran and other places in the Red Sea p. 22. Chap. 9. Of Dalasci a Town belonging to the grand Neguz of the Isle of Socotora with a description of a prodigious tempest p. 25. Chap. 10. Of the Island and Kingdom of Ormus of the King and his Government of the trade there and of his several Conquests p. 29. Chap. 11. Of Persia her Confines and Provinces Of Babylon and the Lake of pitch p. 31. Chap. 12. Of the Town of Tauris Sumachia Bachat Casbin and some of the chiefest places of Persia p. 34. Chap. 13 Of the Kings of Persia their power pleasures Of the Sophi Hali and some Sects of Religious Persians of the ancient Mages and other Officers of the kingdom p. 37. Chap. 14. Of the East-Indies the conquest of them Sects and Religion of the East and other particulars of the country p. 41. Chap. 15. Of Diu her State and Forts and the neighbouring countries of Cambayette of the fidelity of the Indian Censals and of the marvellous ebbing and flowing of the Sea p. 43. Chap. 16. Of Deli Malabar of Goa the Capital town of India p. 49. Chap. 17. Of Baticola Decan Amadiva and of the kingdom of Cananor p. 54. Chap. 18. Of the kingdom and Samorin of Calicut of the Natives of that country and of their horrible superstitions p. 57. Chap. 19. Of the kingdome of Cochin the goodnesse of the soyle customes of
the Inhabitants with a strange history of certain French Pyrats p. 89. Chap. 20. Of the Isle of Zeilan where they fish for pearles and charm certain great fishes an Idoll of a Monkeys tooth An Isle deserted for the infestation of Spirits and of the Isles Maldives p. 67. Chap. 21. Of the kingdom of Bisnegar or Narsingue of the King his Bramins or Priests of Meliapar where they say reposes the body of Saint Thomas the Apostle with a strange History of a Bear p. 72. Chap. 22. Of the kingdom of Bengala and Ternassery of Musk some rare remarks of the River Ganges Of the Torrid Zone and the conversion of a yong Prince Idolater to Christianisme p. 80. Chap. 23. Of the Isles of Archipelagus of Saint Lawrence of the Island of Sumatra of Elephants and other particulars p. 90. Chap. 24. Of the Isle of Java of the Inhabitants their conditions and of the riches of the Country p. 96. Chap. 25. Of the kingdomes of Malaca and Syam with a prodigious History of Serpents p. 102. Chap. 26. Of the kingdom of Martaban marvellous strength of Macaraou or the flowing of the sea particularities of Pegu. p. 106. Chap. 27. Of the kingdom of Pegu of a bloody war for a white Elephant of Crocodiles and the nature of Elephants p. 112. Chap. 28. Continuation of Pegu of the Government and Policy of superstitions and Magicians p. 120. Chap. 29. Of the Idols in Pegu bloody sacrifices Exorcismes strange Communions p. 125. Chap. 30. The Peguans diet their military exercises their medicinable drugges their Summer p. 131. Chap. 31. The election of the King of Pegu their Officers the Homages and presents of the subjects to their new Prince p. 133. Chap. 32. Of the Justice and Policy with the Peguans their sacrifices and horrible dances A lamentable History of two young Princes p. 139. Chap. 33. Of Abdiare and Vilep Towns of Pegu Fismans Apes Vnicorns and other Animals Fotoque an Idoll with three heads p. 148. Chap. 34. Of the kingdom of Casubi their Religion p. 154. Chap. 35. Of Macharana the hunting of Tygars and other wild beasts a history of the Rhinocerot of the Escurial The esteem they have for the French there p. 158. Chap. 36. Of Transiana the valour of their women p. 163. Chap. 37. Of the kingdom of Tazatay and the phylosophy of the Indians p. 169. Chap. 38. Of Tartary frightful deserts fierce dogs a strange history of two lovers the Empire of the Tartars and their Religion p. 163. Chap. 39. The Authours return with a summary of Asia p. 182. The Contents of the Second Part. CHap. 1. A general Description of Africa p. 177. Chap. 2. A Description of the Isle of Saint Lawrence with the conditions of the people p. 182. Chap. 3. The customes of the Inhabitants of Belugara or Monopotapa Salubrious winds venting from a 〈◊〉 p. 186. Chap. 4. The country of Monbaze Melinde and Quiloa the nature of the Inhabitants and the respect they bear their Prince p. 188. Chap. 5. Of Mozambique the nature of the Inhabitants Cefala Mines of gold in Ophir Belugara p. 191. Chap. 6. Of Monopotapa the Princes estates and Government his way of living and the singularity of his country p. 193. Chap. 7. The History and strange adventure of Prince Alfondie Another of the Amours of Princesse Abederame p. 204. Chap. 8. The Authours voyage into Ethiope A Description of Preste Johns Dominions with the quality of his people p. 211. Chap. 9. Of the town of Bagamidri and the coronation of their Kings p. 218. Chap. 10. Of the Mansion of Preste John and his Justice A History upon this subject p. 220. Chap. 11. Magnificence of the Negus and his military Officers p. 223. Chap. 12. The victory of the Negus over the Goragues His entrance into Barua 227. Chap. 13. The manner of service at the Negus's table the receipt of the Portuguese Embassador p. 229. Chap. 14. Of the kingdom and policy of Mongibir of the mountain Amara where the Abyssin Princes are p. 233. Chap. 15. Of the town of Barua Bagamidri and other stories of Sorcerers p. 247. Chap. 16. Of the Queen of Saba and the kingdome of Caraman p. 251. Chap. 17. Gf some particular towns in Ethiope visited by the Authour in his peregrination p. 256. Chap. 18. A prodigious History of a young Abissin Prince by name Joel by enchantment transformed into an Ape p. 261. Chap. 19. Of the Desert Beniermi and the Towns Dangala Machida Georgia c. p. 271. Chap. 20. Of Grand Caire of Balm of Egypt of Nile of Crocodiles and the particulars of Egypt p. 274. Chap. 21. Of the town of Alexandria the Isle of Malta and the Authors return to Marseils p. 281. Chap. 22. The Authours voyage to the kingdom of Morocca he is taken by the Spaniards an accident befell the Authour at Arache the battel of Sebastian King of Portugal p. 286. Chap. 23. Of the kingdomes of Marocca and Fez. p. 297. The Contents of the third Part. THe Authours voyage to Constantinople p. 305. The Authours voyage into Italy p. 313. The Authours voyage to Guinea p. 320. Chap. 1. The Authours voyage in the West-Indies the description length and distances of America p. 327. Chap. 2. The Authours Departure particulars of Demingo p. 331. Chap. 3. A violent tempest the Isle of Cuba and Hispaniola the customes of the Inhabitants and their Kings p. 334. Chap. 4. Of the coasts of New Spain of the torrid Zone and winds which blow there p. 340. Chap. 5. Of South and North America the Qualities and Discovery p. 344. Chap. 6. Of Canada or New France p. 349. Chap. 7. Of Virginia and Florida Fountains of youth dangerous love p. 352. Chap. 8. Of Mexico the nature of the Inhabitants their Kings sacrifices c. p. 356. Chap. 9. The Mexican year their Paradise Infernal and their Dances p. 362. Chap. 10. Burning mountains the conquest of Mexico and some particular trees p. 365. Chap. 11. Of New Spain the Provinces thereof and of Peru. p. 370. Chap. 12. Of certain Fountains Lakes Rivers c. in this country p. 377. Chap. 13. The Mines of the new world p. 382. Chap. 14. Of Peru of the Kings or Incas and of the country of Chila p. 387. Chap. 15. Of the streight of Magellan p. 392. Chap. 16. Of Brasil the Conquest of it and of the Brasilians c. p. 395. Chap. 17. The Isle of S. Thomas according to a Description made to the Athour by Sieur de la Courbe and Cassis p. 404. Books Printed for John Starkey at the sign of the Miter near the Middle-Temple Gate in Fleet-street Books in Divinity MAster Hall's Practical and Polemical Commentary or Exposition upon the third and fourth Chapters of the latter Epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy wherein the Text is explained some controversies discussed sundry cases of Conscience are cleared many common Places are succinctly handled and divers useful and seasonable observations raised Fol. Mr. Thomas
from him and safely accomplish my intended journey Thus we took our way for Zibit accompanied with severall Christians and other Merchants we Inn'd the first night at a little village called Ferragous where we were but ill accommodated the next day we came to Outor a Castle noted by some travellers not far remote from the red Sea There is a deep well whence they draw water with a wheel turned round by a yoke of Bulls the water was sharp and hard but nothing brackish necessity made us like it at two leagues from Outor we left the most part of our company they took the right hand the ready way to Ziden and we followed our tract for the Happy Arabia and reached a Town called Gaza and thence to Zibit Thus we left the desert to enter the Happy Arabia which is a Peninsula between the red and the Persick Sea scituate under the Tropick Cancer her length is from the Soltania of Sanna towards the red Sea unto Agior towards the Persick gulf or the Elcatif Sea so called by the Arabians I have often travelled there for trade sake and have visited most of her Towns this Arabia is of large extent divided into fair Provinces and Kingdoms We arrived at Zibit a Town of Soltania in the Company of a Jewish Merchant native of Alibenali a great Province of Arabia and married at Zibit he lodg'd us in his own house finding he could make a gain of us accompanying us where ever we would go carrying with him on horse-back things to refresh us being a man versed in the customs of the Countrey and some reason he had to be kind to us for I am sure my camarade was so to his wife she advised her husband to be thus familiarly assistant to us and he offered me a Daughter of his in marriage beleeving my Camarade to be my Father Zibit is five leagues from the red sea there is a Haven where ships are laden and unladen and from this place commodities are transported from the India's to Ziden Suez and other places From Ziden we went to Aden from thence thorough all the Provinces of Arabia trading and visiting the chiefest and fairest Townes and Kingdomes Although there be but one great Prince named Sequemir or Sechemir chief Commander of the fairest Provinces of the Happy Arabia yet there are severall Lords that acknowledge some the Persian others the Turke The King of Bacharin or Bescharin the nearest to Persia was not many yeares since subdued by the Sophy and was likely to have given Lawes unto Elcatif had not the Inhabitants of Erit and other Neighbours opposed him with a considerable Army composed of the people of Massa or Maffa Fartac Mascalat Amazarit Jurmalamam Gubelaemam Machyra or Macyra Suza and others This army had for their General the Sultan of Sanna that commanded the Van the Sultan of Elcatif the rear and gave a notable blow to the Persian with whom since they have made a peace and have thus preserved themselves The Soltania of Tabubari is not now governed by the Sechemir but by the Turk that subdued it in the last warre against the Persian this countries sand is very different from that I have seen in other places being as black as a coale and not so troublesome to travellers being something heavier and firmer upon this countries hills you find great store of Frankincense of Storax and Beniamin growing upon trees and other sweet gummes and persons are purposely appointed to gather them all this country is properly called Sabaea so famous in ancient times There growes great store of Olive trees Myrrhe Aloes Cinnamon and Cassia trees in abundance Falcons Sparhawkes and other birds feede thereupon and an innumerable company of flies bred out of the corruption of the Cassia causes so great an inconvenience as the Arabians are forced to burne part of it and in some other places they gather it not because being remote from the sea the Portage would stand them in more then the value of the Commodity though in many great Towns they use much of it where by reason of their greate heats they distill or melt the juice out of the canes and drink it I observed that the inhabitants of Arcora Ara Teza Samacara and of other Townes and places delighted much in this kinde of drinke which not only refreshed them but loosened them also and in the Townes of Andrivara Lagi and Dante it is the ordinary drinke used the summer time The fruite of this tree being ripe hath an unsavory sweet tast Apes and Squirells flock to it to feed and another beast called Masari those of Fez call it Chicali not much unlike a Fox a beast that unburies the dead to feed upon their carcasses they creepe up the trees shake down the fruit and make a great spoyle it is that sweetnesse that engenders those flyes we have already mentioned which were no small trouble to us passing by This Arabia is full of faire great Townes whether by reason of Traffick Merchants come from all parts as are Taesa Cana Asigni and Kada where is kept the Sequemirs principall Magazine or store house The chiefest haven and the nearest to this side of the Countrey is Pecher in the Soltania of Fartac whither those of Bangale Baticala Dabul Cambaye and Malabar bring their commodities to Bartar for Aromatick Drugges which in that Countrey are most excellent but the Jewes that inhabit those places are such cheates they sophisticate all that comes thorough their hands it is a particular trade to gather the Frankinsence Storax Benjamin and Mastick that harvest is got in July during the dog-dayes for then the trees are in their perfect ripenesse they gather some in other seasons but by a different manner making an incision in the tree towards spring from those holes runs forth a licquor or gumme which thickens of it selfe and is of a reddish colour but not so strong nor good as the other nor of so great a value the gumme that issues from the young trees is whiter then that is gathered from the old ones they have Myrrhe trees too but what of that is brought in to our parts is compounded and falsified all the Myrrhe that the Kingdom of Ciussimi or Elcatif affords is for the Sequemirs own use being the most perfect and the purest what the Prince uses not he sells and is therefore called Sequemir Pure and is sold at Naban Quesibi Naziri Carmon Liva-Orba Lanua-Orba Costague Manabon Batan Caybir Jague Aloron and in other places in the furthest parts of Arabia in the kingdom of Anna through which runs the river Cosan or Cosara very swift and loses her self in the Persick sea near the mouth of Euphrates CHAP. VII Of the state of Sequemir Prince of the Happy Arabia of his Salsidas and of the Califf of Bagdet SEquemir whom we have spoken of is supreme Lord of almost the whole Arabia Felix and is called
is there the best of the world This Island was discovered by Fernand Bereyta a Portuguese and Aristotle sayes that Alexander conquered this Isle in his return from the India's and peopled it with Grecians purposely to plant aloes Before Portugall had here any Interest the Indians trade both of spices and other precious commodities came from Malaca by Ormus and Aden and from thence by Caravanes to the Leuante some by the Persick Sea Balsera and the mouth of Euphrates thence through Armenia into Trebisonde by the Majorka sea into Tartaria or by Damas Barut or Aleppo where the Venetians the Genovais and the Catalonians fetched them others by the red Sea the Grand Caire and Alexandria as we have already said others by the rivers Indus and Oxus from thence thorough Caspia into our Western regions but they have taken another road round Africa which is kept to this very day CHAP. X. Of the Island and Kingdom of Ormus of the King and his Government of the trade there and of his severall Conquests HAving sayled thorough the Arabick Gulfe and those Coasts we returned to Aden where we spent some dayes trading and exchanging our commodies then we embarked our selves for Ormus to pay custome for some Persian horses we had shipt with us because they pay no tax thorough the cheifest part of the Indies taking a Cartaco or passe which the severall Governors upon demand are bound to give Thus sayling from Aden by the Coast of Arabia and the Cape Taratque Rosolgate and Moncadon or Moalandaon unto the mouth of the Persick Gulfe or the Streight of Bazora at length we arrived at Ormus The name of a Town an Island and Kingdome winding to and fro into the Continent of Persia and Arabia In Ormus we lodged with a Portuguais who took state upon him his man still carrying after him a guilt sword and a dagger with a silver cup to drink in scorning to touch anothers yet nevertheless he kept an Inn common to all passengers The Town of Ormus is scituate in an Isle in the 26 or 27 th degree 9 miles distant from Persia thirty from Arabia the Isle is between 35 and 40 miles compass wholly barren the Town is faire and hath a strong Fort begirt with high walls and eight turrets in the forme of Castles one halfe of the Town is incompast with the sea and hath foure large cisterns or conduits of fresh water brought in pipes from the Continent The Inhabitants are some Christians some Mahometans and others Idolaters There Reigned a Potent King here for 300 yeares since this state was established 'T was in the Raigne of Ceyfadin that Alphonsus Albuquerque reduced both the King and Country to the obedience of the King of Portugall and ever since the Kings of Ormus were tributary to that King who yet meddles not with his Lawes and Rights the native King hath vast Revenues both in the Island and in the Continent of Persia and Arabia He is onely sworne to keepe league and fidelity with Portugall and the Vice-Roy acknowledges him honours him and visits him frequently in his Palace The Isle onely at this day payes tribute to the Portugais The King lives most splendidly and magnificently amongst his Subjects The confines of his State towards the north are the Kingdom of Dori toward Persia and reaches unto the Cape of Rosolgate at the very Gulph from thence unto the Cape Moncadon containing the Isles called Gedri from a great river that runs into another named Dale that separates Persia from Carmania or Chirmania In the Gulph is Baharen an Isle famous for the fishing of the rarest and most pretious Oriental pearls where the Portugais have a Factor the Inhabitants of Ormus are very voluptuous walking the streets they have carryed after them a Cuppe or Box full of Araca a dainty very delicious and much used amongst the Indians They have little Cabans in the Sea covered with boughs and leaves where they refresh and shelter themselves against the wind Abrazador so named by the Portugais which blowes in the afternoon This wind is so subtle and stirres up so small a dust that it choaks people and if a stranger be ignorant of the custom of the countrey he is in very great danger the people are courteous and ready to advertize strangers Their greatest inconvenience is the scarcity of fresh water which they fetch nine or ten mile out of the firm land They have two or three wells nearer at hand five or six miles from the town in a place called Terrabaguen The Isle hath two good Havens one in the East the other in the West the others are not secure There is near the Town a sulpher Myne and a little salt-hill of the like goodnesse to that of Cardonne in Catalonia from which they draw great profit it is used in many places and the Prince receives a Gabel out of it in the town of Ormus there is a Mart of all commodities from the Indies Persia Arabia and Aethiopia in which places the Indians trade as well as Persians Levantins Turkes Abyssins Venetians Portugais and others the Caravane or Casile arrives here twice a year by land from Aleppo the first in April the second in September From Aleppo they travell through Babylon to Balsora guarded by the Janissaries from thence to Ormus They travel seven or eight thousand in a company at Aleppo there are English French and Venetian Consuls From hence they trade in spices perfumes pearles precious stones Carpets Silks Chamlets horses conserves and several sorts of sweet meats We came hither opportunely to see the Creation or Election of their new King which is performed with many ceremonies to which the Viceroy of Portugal contributes great summes for the Honour and State of his Master A Prince of the Royal Mahometan Blood is elected and sworne to maintain his kingdom under the King of Portugals obedience and although all his Lands and Lordships are scituate in the Continent of Persia and Arabia where no Christian can reach them yet neverthelesse the King is sworne to this Fealty and obedience by the Viceroy that delivers him his Scepter in the Fort and accompanies him with a great train and magnificence into his Royal Palace where having made his submission and obeysance takes his leave and returns unto his Citadell This King amongst other things is sworne never to hold a great Assembly without giving notice to the Viceroy and thus they live peacefully and keep a good correspondence some yeares since the King of Persia by the help of the English and Hollander hath regained Ormus and reduced it to his obedience as formerly CHAP. XI Of Persia her confines and provinces Of Babylon and the Lake of Pitch LEaving Ormus we resolved to travel through all Persia before we begun our East-Indian voyage as we first had designed 'T was occasioned by a Merchant I have already spoken of having travelled to and
stone called Besouart which they say goats breed in their stomacks The Turky-stone mine is not far from thence 't is a very amorous Town both men and women thinking of nothing but their pleasures and coolness during the heats fruit is there very plentiful most excellent of all sorts Casbin is another big and Royal Town well inhabited then there is Siras the most delicious and most pleasing of all Persia which affords you fair gardens fountains and other refreshments during the great heats there are many stately and good horses some imagine this Town to be built upon the ruines of old Persepolis the City-royal of the ancient Persian Monarchs scituate near the Araxes now called Bradamir and not far from thence are to this day seen the admirable ruines of that famous pallace of the Persian Kings which Alexander caused to be burnt to please his Thais of Siras more hereafter Going on our Journey we went from place to place without keeping a streight rode to put off our commodities at a better rate drawing right upon the Cusistan of that side we found all the keyes or passages of Persia bad and difficult for which reason the Turk effected not his design in those parts we found it a strange Countrey and all that part of Persia but a vaste solitude unpeopled and very dangerous travelling The Mountains were inhabited by harbarous or insolent persons then we met with great fens or bogs very deep and forrests impenetrable which renders the passages so uncertain and arduous that the merchants have much ado to find them although they are well guided and have often travelled them when you have met with the guide that undertakes to conduct from one kingdom to another he must give account to the Belierbeit or Governour what persons he carries out of his dominions for you may not return into the same country without producing good license and discharge with a certificate or note of the places you have travelled which is a laudable order of the Princes for having such a care both of strangers and of his own Subjects that he wills and endeavours their free and secure trading in all his Territories We went towards Vacharin to enter upon Tartary and raught unto the Province of Samarcant where is a Town bears the same name famous for having been the seat of Tamberland the Great so much mentioned in our Histories these two or three hundered yeares We being sensible of the hardship and inconveniencies in travelling further this way besides the best experienced Merchants disswaded us from it for we discovered that that Countrey coyne was not of any value being neither gold nor silver but of some other base metall and some of the barke of trees as Marke Pole remarkes of Tartarye Li. 2. Cap. 18. we turned back again into Persia from thence by great dayes journey to the happy Arabia and Ormus we now had associated our selves to a jolly company of Merchants and my companion privately acquainted me he had resolved to see the east Indies and that if I were unwilling to take so long a journey he would recommend me to some French Merchant at Ormus that should safely reconduct me into Europe I willingly resolved to go along with him or whither else he would but not to leave him this resolution taken we came back thorough many Towns of Persia as Sorismell twelve leagues thence Sinderate upon the river Adalout where we were lodged at a Renegades that gave us good entertainment his house was built halfe upon the water the Armenian Merchant that desired to go thorough Pegu to buy rubies resolved Cassis to passe thorough Indostan we advised together to regain our way and to escape the excises or payments are paid towards Samarcant and Corozan we had much recreation in this voyage CHAP. XIII Of the Kings of Persia their Power pleasures of the Sophy Hali and of some Sects of Religious Pericans of the antient Mages and other Officers of the Kingdome THe King of Persia is one of the greatest and most Powerfull Princes of the World as well in the extent of Territory treasure and riches as in number of men of warr he can ordinarily set forth a hundered thousand Cavalry and of infantry foure score thousand The state of his Court is most ample and Magnificant his people warlike with a great number of generous Nobility the King is served and attended by the greatest Lords of the Land He is Cheif or Head of the Religion or his Church throughout his whole Empire and leades a very lascivious and voluptuous life keepes many women Royally clad he uses the most exquisite perfumes not in his apparrell and furniture only but also in his meate he weares Jewells of an inestimable value and he hath leave to marry as many wives as he pleases as the Grand Seignior hath He keepes Seleris persons well qualified whose duties are to travell thorough the whole Empire to see and chuse the fairest and rarest women having leave to enter all places nay their very bed-chambers to view them in what postures they please but chiefely to know whether they snore or stir much in their sleepe or whether they sleepe quietly and having made choice of them as they ought to be qualified they carry them in a littar to the Princes service and their parents are much honoured and esteemed When the King hath seen them and hath chosen which please him most he presents the others to the greatest Lords and favourites of his Court which are much happier then those remain with the Prince for so great store he hath of them that few of them have the Honour to enjoy his Person they are kept or guarded by Eunuches as they are in Turky Those are most in his favour the King takes often a hunting with him they are not seen of any although they can see others he goes a hunting as to the Wars his men carry severall sorts of Armes as bowes and arrowes cymiters axes marching in rank carefully guarding their Kings Person whom they adore as a God Their Military discipline is very exact and they suffer much in their exercises they eate nothing untill their chase be ended then they drive heards of savage beasts before the Concubines litters to recreate and delight them killing those the Ladies have most minde unto sometimes they cause of them to be taken alive and restore liberty to the rest this Countrey is fuller of great and pleasant Forrests then all the rest of the east The Prince is called Sophy rather for his Religion then for any other reason he maintains the Law of Hali son in Law to Mahomet and therefore weares a woolen cap and a red turban flock't with white from whence he is called Sophy which signifies a red flock't cap and Caselbas signifies read head although some would have it an Arabick word and to signifie a man purer in Religion then the rest They
sincerity and integrity is such that the Justices esteem their words and writings to equal sacred things and when a Merchant happens to die leaving his goods in one of these persons hands they are very faithfully restored to his heir or next of kindred From Diu and Cambaye unto the Cape Comorin by the Coast of Malabar it is some 300 leagues sayle and neer to Cambaye is the Kingdome of Jogues CHAP. XVI Of Deli Malabar of Goa the capitall Town of India NEer to Cambaye we fell into the Kingdom of Deli and Decan they say that 300. yeares since Sanosaradin King of Deli conquered Decan Canary Bellagatte Concam Goa and all the Countreyes reaching unto Comori but since under his severall Successors those Countreys were divided and allotted to severall Captains that have possessed themselves thereof acknowledging for forme sake only the King of Deli Idalcan was at Goa since Nysamaluco and the Negatana and many neighbouring Countreys are subjected to the Great Mogull who this last age hath conquered the chiefest part of the east Indies and threatens hard to the rest Malabar lies upon the Westerne Coaste from Goa to Comori as eastward on the other side lies Coromandell where are the Kingdomes of Bisnagar or Narsingue Orixa Menduo and severall others from Ormus to Goa it is 500. leagues or thereabouts We sailed all along this Coaste and we arrived at Goa an Isle and Towne of Malabar as faire rich and stately a Town as is this day in the east being as a key to the India's in the sixteenth degree of elevation devided from the Continent by a large River called Mandova as big as the Euphrates and by another little River named Guari from whence the Towne took her name formerly belonging to the Kingdom of Narsingue since unto Decan or Dealcan and since 't was conquered by the Portugall under Alphonsus Albukerke of the Moore Sabaco Generall unto the King of Decan in the yeare 1500. she hath eastward and northward the Countrey of Decan westward the great sea and southward the Kingdom of Mangalor subject to the King of Narsingue The Insularies or Inhabitants having ever been well addicted to trading they are people stout and haughty There is a great concourse of all the Indians a Haven at the village called Bonastariu with a block house that commands the entrance of it though it be strong of it selfe They have severall other good Ports as at Danda Alinga Banda Amolapole and Puntadasall then old Goa Rama Guisantole and Amadina each having her particular river on the continent side there are many Towns and Plantations most of them Mahometans and Idolaters kept in by the Portugais they have stately ship-timber They are pretty well awed for the present since they were punisht for a treacherous conspiracy which by the assistance of some neighbouring Countries they intended to have put in execution but was by Gods permission discovered by the Barbarians inhabitants of Paleacate and although they were 100 Gentills for one Christian and had almost gained the Fort yet they were gallantly repulsed by Don Garcias Acugna Governour of the Fort he very liberally rewarded those that gave him so timely advice distributing the Kings Treasure amongst them and since those freindly neighbours of Paleacate injoyed the same freedomes and Priviledges with the Portugais they were made subsidy and customes-free and so strict an alliance and unity contracted between them that many of them since are baptized turned Christians and do frequently enter-marry the Plotters were most of them put to death the rest banish't and their goods confiscated The Isle of Goa is some 15 or 16 miles about the Inhabitants are strong and able bodyed almost of an olive colour The Town is infinitely rich and the great street very full of goldsmiths that have their shops well stored with gold silver and Jewells The Gentills had a most magnificent Temple built of stone in a little Island neere to Goa called Dinary where they adored the Devill that appeared to them in diverse most terrible and horrid shapes The Portugais seeing this diabolicall profanation demolish't the Temple and the Idols without leaving the least marke behind them and with the stones they fortified the Town and built many fair houses which bred a great malice and hatred amongst the Idolaters The Temple was built of a black stone and their Pagodes or Idolls were most horribly shaped When the Portugais managed that great Warr against Samorin of Calicut it was then in their power to demolish this Temple But the respect they bore to an Image of our blessed Lady Mother of God made them spare it for that time They call the Blessed Virgin Sannacarin which signifies a bird and hold she is the spirit of God they give great honour to the holy Crosse and say that at the founding of the Town a perfect one was found in the ground The Inhabitants live very deliciously feed much upon Areca and are carried in rich Sedans by their slaves and the inhabitants have liberty of conscience Having been often at Goa amongst other things I admired the great commerce the richest good order and administration of Justice and above all a most admirable government in an Hospital which is very rich where notwithstanding are great number of sick and maim'd from the Armies The Viceroy and Archbishop contribute liberally thereunto the Portugais prove themselves of an affable and compassionate nature although the Indians hold them rough and uncharitable because they possesse much of their land This Hospital is the fairest and the most accomplisht in all necessaries I know in the world and I dare affirm that neither that of the Holy Ghost at Rome nor the infirmary of Malta although they are served in plate in both those places do equall her in riches good orders and services that are farre better observed and tended then you can expect to be in your own house as I often was a witnesse of visiting the French that were there sick the Fathers of the society have the keeping of it and are very charitable therein It is built upon a River founded by the Kings of Portugal besides the charity and gifts of the Nobility which are great they have for the most part a Factor at Cambaye a Country plentiful in all sorts of grain who makes their provision at the cheapest rates there a great number of slaves that are employed in all inferiour offices and are also made use of in the other Indian Hospitals and other Monasteries Perfumes are daily burnt to prevent infection and to lessen the unwholesome sents that would otherwise very much offend they use very fine linnen and wine of Dates is their onely drinke and is full as delicious as that of Grapes the Portugais are very voluptuous and great sensualists and are served in Purcelain which will not hold poyson This Country is much infected with the great pox and with another infection called
of a league distant for the most part full of vessels that yield great commerce The Inhabitants are partly Gentiles partly Mahometans but much civilized of complection between fair and brown of good statures and dispositions both Sexes The town is invironed with many good Barroughs that reach unto Decan some five leagues off the town is strongly wall'd and frequented by Jewes who drive a great trade and inhabited by all nations she is tributary to the King of Marsingue they are carried in littars by Cammels of horses they have very few we served our selves sometimes with oxen which they harnise and ride they eat bread made of Rice which is more savory then wheaten there grows no grain but the Country beares most excellent fruit their drink is wine of dates About 3. Musket shot from the town there is an Isle named Amadiva which hath a large haven on the continent side inhabited by Moores and abounding in pastures and cattle The inhabitants are the Portugaises mortal and irreconcilable enemies but their Island being small not above 8. leagues about they are not capable to trouble them The town is rich and is called Centacola subject to the King of Baticola there are some Jews amongst them that may easily be distinguisht by the complexion the Moores be tawny the Jews clearer women use waters and other washes that make them very beautiful and they are held the prettiest of all the East the fairest are Jews and they very chaste and strangers can only obtain to visit them in certain assemblies of fair girles but they go meanly clad contrary to the customes of all other towns they sing certain songs like K. Davids Psalms gracefully pronouncing their words and mingling instrumental musick with their vocal and thus they entertain their gallants They refuse no present is made them but if you offer none they are never a whit displeased The doores of those places of Assemblies are alwayes open there they keep their Synagogues every one professes his Religion at liberty in the middle of this Isle is a Lake called Vecharin which breeds good store of fish of severall sorts but causes the ayre to be a little unwholesome to those are not accustomed to the Clymate from thence fish is transported into diverse places for a sort of good lasting fish They have great store of poultry which they feed with grosse rice called Jeracoly Baticola hath lost much of her trade since the Portuguais took Goa for according to the Chafa's or the Clark of the Customes account the Revenew is half diminished which keeps the Princes far in the Continent for fear of being surprised by the Portugais who wage open warr with them exacting great ransomes for the liberty of the prisoners they take neverthelesse the Portugais trade much amongst them endeavouring to draw them to an alliance but they are not so soon driven out of their fears and jealousies those of Baticola say they formerly inhabited Sian in this Kingdome is the Town of Onor that furnishes all the Countrey with rice From Baticola we came to Cananor Mosiri a great Town unwalled under the subjection of a particular King where the Portugais have two Forts and is inhabited by many new Christians who observe the rules and precepts of our Religion stricter then the old ones the Portugais have built about their Fort many dwellings for Merchants and others which make up a Burrough called Cananon where they trade securely and when the Indians have a mind to trade with them they must have the Vice-Roy of Goa's Cartaco yet the Portuguais never kept so good intelligence with the Natives as to prevent many dissentions and disorders as is often seen in other places as at Pegu and Calicut which occasioned the ruine of the Castle and the death of many Christians which the Portugais have since sufficiently revenged for they are of a very cruell nature and revengefull for which reason they maintain a fleet well armed at sea to resist those of Portugall who wage a warr against the Indians not alwayes to their success It happened on a time to Don Alanso De Comera to pursue with two men of warr a Mahometan Frigate richly laden and bound from some part of the India's for Gaza a sea Town in Arabia There were many families with the goods they had gathered in many years abode there making homewards accidentally falling into the hands of this Portugais they hoised saile and thinking themselves too weak offered a composition to the value of two hundred duckats Don Alonso eager and covetous of the prey which he held himself sure of gave her a broad side with many great shots and boarded her she reduced to desperation put her self in a posture of defence and resolved to sell both life and liberty at a deare rate and the very women spared them not so their Alonso got nothing but blowes but lost an eye and many of his men and thus was forced to retreate and the Frigat by a favourable wind got away without any losse this shewes the damage presumption brings with it and that the Portugais are not unjustly accused of vanity and folly which often costs them deare and makes them hated by the Indians as it hapned to them at Calicut where the peoples rage was so raised against them that in an instant they demolished them a fair Castle not leaving one stone upon another and whoever could present the King with any of the ruines was rewarded which hath caused the spilling of much blood amongst them The King of Coulan hath often besieged their Forts but after long Warres they now enjoy a peace The King of Cananor is very potent and elected out of the Princes of the blood as at Ormus He can send 100000. men into the field armed with targets and swords they wear red bonnets turned up on one side and go almost naked the third part of them are Naires or Gentlemen very resolute and valiant they weare red hats and are not niggards of their lives in their Princes service The Portugais have a strong Castle on the side of the Town and another on the sea side both well provided with Amunition and Artillery and have done them good service having often been assaulted by the Naires very gallant Persons Many of them are since Baptized and grown so devout that if they hear the Ave Maria bell though they are in their Coaches or Litters they are set on ground and say certain prayers on both their knees At Cananor they have a quarry of a stone called Azazimit which is much esteemed amongst the Indians and hath many vertues it cures feavers stops fluxes and causes digestion and is a preservative against poyson they use it in their cures against the pox and it is very neere as Soveraigne as that famous Eastern wine that if a man be so rotten as to fall in peeces yet bathed therein for one month he will infallibly be cured This Countrey produces
the River the town is ill built The ayr is good on Coromandel side and is divided but by a little streight not much longer then Gibraltar but more dangerous because the waves raise banks of sand which make it the more dangerous for vessels of great burthen forced to enter the Isle on the other side called Betala or the pearl-fishing Zeilan is held to be the ancient Taprobane and others with more reason say she was anciently called Sumatra however this Isle hath ever been potent formerly governed by one King of the race of the Sun or at least from thence he pretended himself descended This King was dethroned by one of Jafanapatan and since the country hath been divided into several kingdomes The Portuguais warred with the King of Jafanapatan who overthrown was constrained to deliver up the Isle of Manar which they fortified and inhabit to this day the Christians were grievously oppressed by the Badages their neighbours barbarous people great thieves but the Portuguese subdued them at last In this invasion the Portuguese amongst other things took that famous Idol made of the tooth of a Monkey adored by all the Indians of those parts and enriched with Jewels The King of Pegu so highly esteemed it that he sent yearly Ambassadours thither to take the print of it upon Amber Musk and other perfumes which he had great reverence unto and since it was taken he offered to redeem it at a great rate but they christian-like chose rather to destroy that Idolatry then to reap a profit thereby and so they burnt it and from it there came a most stinking and black smoak They relate many fables of that white Monky named Hanimam that he had been a God expelled heaven for some fault committed and Metamorphosed into a Monkey coming from the land of Badages or thence into Ceitan where after his death he was adored and his tooth kept as a relique The sea between the Cape Comori the lower Chilao and the Isle Zelan was called Pescaria Delle Perse a place of pearl-fishing which lasts about 50. days and at the point where they begin to fish upon a sudden many Cabbins and Booths are erected to last during the fishing onely then they that can dyne and fill their bagges with oysters and by a rope tyed about their middle are pulled up again and every fisher makes his own heap The seasons are not alwayes favourable alike some more some lesse and some seasons very dangerous by reason of several fishes that devour the fishers and other fishes will crop off a thigh or arme of a man as close and even as a hangar and those the Portugais call Poccaspada this fish hath two rowes of teeth very sharp and long and therefore to prevent the danger they have Magicians that charme the fishes upon a time a fisher-man ready to be devoured by a fish had his mouth open and within two fingers of reaching him suddenly the Wisard who was present cryed out Veruas which signifies come out or charm and the fish left him and the man having a sword in his hand struck a blow or two and the fish swam away leaving the Sea dy'd with his blood At night when they go to rest they dissolve their charmes because no one should venture to fish There are certain Commissioners to set a rate upon the pearle according to the season and there are of fine sorts of pearls some like stars others half stars others called Pedrati which are much esteemed and divided into five parts The Merchants stand in order to buy them The Portugese have those of greatest price which they call Quercos the Bengalians the seconds the Canaranians the thirds the Cambayans have the smallest and the last which are of little worth fall to the Jewes there which they polish for deceit It is a gallant sight to see so many Merchants together and so many heaps of pearles before every Cabbin which within few dayes are all pull'd down The best pearl is fished in the Channel of Setin near to Zeilan where they use flat-bottome boats called Tune because they have little bottome some are gotten at the other side of Chilao between Manar and the Continent There is no pearl to be found in all the East except in this place and at Baharem in the Persick gulph and the Isle Aynan near China those taken at Baharem are bigger but they are taken here in greater number The whole Coast of Malabar from Comori fifty leagues in length or thereabouts inhabited by people called Paravians is much frequented for this fishing where fifty or three score thousand Merchants resort to that purpose The Paravians are Christians and were instructed by St. Francis Ilaverius and live under the protection of the Portuguesse who have protected them from the Tyranny of the Mahometans their neighbours South-west of the Isle of Zeilan are the Maldives many in number dangerous to Saylers for the shelves of sand and rocks I will say no more of them because my knowledge is but small besides they have amply and exactly been described by others but I will say something of a wonderfull Isle on the Coast of Malduce Southward some ten degrees remote from the Line and called Patovi or Polovis now deserte though formerly inhabited and flourishing which as I learnt since at Pegu was Governed by a Prince called Argiac a Potent King of many Ilands and Kingdomes he having many children by severall wives gave this Island to one of the gallantest amongst them called Abdenac for his portion with several Treasures this Abdenac was possest of it peaceably for five yeares space his elder brother called Argiac after their Father and King of Achez in Sumatra refused him the share of Treasure his father had left him the other enraged craved the assistance of the King of Bengala who furnished him with ships with which he invaded his brother burnt his Townes and put to death most part of his followers but received a mortall wound himself and returning into his Island with the Treasures he had regained of his brother and finding himself near death distributed his wealth and bequeathed his Island to be inherited by his Duma or evill spirit intreating him to preserve it till the day of Judgement and that he then hoped to return into the World This Will made he dyed and had no other sepulchre then the bowells of his Alliance and Friends according to the Custome of that Countrey where in many places they eat the dead flesh of their Kindered and near Relations perswading themselves the Soule to be sooner at rest then if they permitted the corpes to putrifie and to be consumed by the wormes and that there could be no Sepulchre so Honourable as the bowells of a deare friend This Island falling to the devils share he became so turbulent that from the very time he took possession the Island was not
habitable and all the Inhabitants forced to retire into the adjacent Isles ever since this place remained desert yet there are great store of birds and beasts sometimes the Maldivians have landed there by chance but have been forced immediately to retreate the evill spirits do so perplex them they raise great tempests on that sea Being at Pegu I heard a Magitian had promised the King to bring him some birds and the Treasures of Abdena out of the Country but the Demons did so perturb him he could not effect his promise for as he was taking footing in the Isle and beginning his conjurations he had writ upon a leafe and put into the hands of one of his boldest disciples they were by the illusions of the devill so suddenly terrified that the miserable disciple fell dead upon the place and the Master Magician was so horridly beaten and dragged by the devills to the ship side that his companions had onely time to reembarke him and hoist sayles for Pegu. All the rest were strangely tormented and beaten except the Masters Mate and the Seamen that were wiser for knowing the condition of the place they would not put foot on land which afterwards they were very glad of Thus was the Magitian soundly beaten and 't was almost past his skill to recover himselfe but more of him another time CHAP. XXI Of the Kingdom of Bisnegar or Narsingue of the King his Bramins or Priests of Melia-par where they say reposes the body of St. Thomas the Apostle with a strange History of a Beare UPon the Coast of Coromandell in the East of Malabar are the Kingdomes of Bisnegar Orixa Mandao and others Besnaga or Marsingue hath a King formerly the most puissant of the India's amongst the Gentills and was esteemed their Emperour and gave his Lawes from Gemora to Orixa and Bengale to Goa Onoe and Baticola and many other places were under his Dominion but at this time he is much weakned yet he esteemes himself very potent and assumes very superbous and high Titles as God of the great Provinces King of Kings and Lord of the whole Universe 'T is reported that in an expedition against Italca he Mustered seven hundered thousand of Infantry forty thousand Cavalry horse-armed and seven hundered Elephants Bisnegar is the name of the Kingdom and cheife Town Negapatan her Haven the Towne of Bisnegar is faire and large lying in the 17. degree 10. dayes journey from Narsingue and eight from Goa we came for trade and to put off our commodities that paid 4. per cent viz. those that came from the West as cloaths scarlets paper saffron all sorts of Iron and Lary ware except horse-bits that pay but two per cent in the India's Horses are very small here as in Swethland but very high prized the Persian horses are the dearest because they are the biggest and strongest The Prince of Bisnegar is stiled Benganera or Vente cupati which signifies great King and most magnificent in his State potent in Elephants and Horses which he maintaines with the Gabells of the Countrey and the easier to procure horse to strengthen himself against his enemies the toles are abated Some few years before we came to this Town of Bisnegar it was assaulted and sack't by four Kings of the Mores all very potent and united to ruine this Prince These Kings were Idalcan Nisamulaco Cotamulaco and a Brother-in-law of his called Sultan Jordas Prince of the Kingdom of Viridi or Var Their hatred was that this King of Bisnegar was an Idolater and they Mahometans Two Moorish Captains were corrupted to betray their Masters and the day the battle was fought they turned about and proved the destruction of the Town that was that day sack't and taken by the confederate Kings and the King thereof put to flight into another strong Town called Panigont or Panicota where there stood a strong Castle surrounded with a great River and deep trenches ten dayes journey off Bisnegar The enemies pursued him thither and gave him a second battle where this Prince met with better successe and defeated them and had utterly dispersed them without the auxiliaries lent them by the King of Transiane a mortall enemy of this Prince There he took prisoner one of the perfidious Captains made him an example causing him to be nailed on a Crosse and to be shot to death with arrows having rallied a puissant Army to recover his Town of Besnegar he boldly resolved to fall upon Transiane and to seize of Timeragi's Countrey who had given his enemies their greatest assistance there he made great spoyle sacking and burning all before him before Timeragi could resist him He destroyed 22. Towns being advanced unto Gondariane Capitall of that Kingdom he put all to fire and sword and burnt Timeragi's sumptuous pallace his wife and children before Timeragi could stop his cruelties passing thorough Lazaray leaving all places desolate where ever he past untill he returned to Panigoni having spent but three months in this expedition He returned not soon enough to recover Bisnegar for his enemies had strongly fortified it and every one had their post assigned them Dealcan on Panigont side the others at other places the mean time these four Kings enjoyed this Countrey which they plundered and to strengthen themselves against the Inhabitants most affectionate and faithfull to their Prince they commanded all Merchants and other persons of estate in that Isle to bring in horse and Elephants promising payment They were brought in in great numbers but when they had possession of them they turned back the right owners without any satisfaction which was no small losse to them The Town of Bisnegar otherwise called Chandegry is eight leagues about and is so populous and powerfull that she finds her Prince a hundred thousand horse Narsingue the Capitall of the Country is of the compass of Florence stately built but their covering takes much from their beauty being not permitted to use tyle which otherwise they have great store of This Town is partly scituate upon a hill pretty eminent 3. leagues round There is a most sumptuous pallace covered with tyle where symmetry and uniformity is exactly observed the Town is bounded on one side with the Sea the other side with a great River the Town is well peopled and thatched with a course straw reed or rush The King maintaines a numerous Militia that makes him formidable to all the East No man can inhabit there without expresse leave from the King and no person is admitted that appears not an honest and candid person Merchants strangers and passengers have commodious habitations allotted them paying the ordinary duties They live quietly for justice is impartially dispensed and the lawes are so well observed that none breaks them for fear of punishment The Citizens are obliged by oath to serve the king when ere he commands upon pain of life or amputation
and Tapacura under the obedience of Bengale Westward is Orixae where is the Diamond mine and the deserts of the Kingdom of Deli Southward the maine Indian sea The Kings of Bengale were able to conquer the Kingdom of Deli were not the great deserts of Damida and the Inpenetrable Forrests of Sacara interposed the two limits Southward on the one side is the Cape Sogora or Sagagora and of the other that of Castigan or Catigan at the third mouth of the Ganges over against the Kingdom of Verma where are the mines of Chrysolites Sardonix and Topases Verma hath formerly belonged unto the Kingdom of Bengale the people are very civill and given to trade And all Nations have free traffick as Persians Greekes Abyssins Chineses Guserates Malabares Turkes Moores Jewes Ruffes or Georgians and many others There is great commerce of Jewells and other Merchandises brought by the Mouth of Ganges streight to Bengale going up six miles by land but above twenty by water by reason of the ebb and flow which as I have already said is different from other seas the smallest tides falling out at the full of the Moone but when the water is at the lowest 't is three fadome deepe round the Walls of the Town so that ships safely enter the Haven and are there very numerous 'T is thought there are fourty thousand families in the Town and the King dwells in a stately Pallace built of brick with faire gardens unto it The Town is pleasantly seated The King keepes a great Court followed by a gallant Nobility and his chiefest guard consists of women as the custom is in Jave Sumatra and Fransiane they put more trust in them then in men they march very gravely are very valiant and expert horseriders and vaulters use the Cimitere and buckler and battle axes very dexterously you must take a care to come neer them in their March for they will abuse you calling you Gueriaer which signifies bold villain the King maintains a great many of them in his Pallace and the handsommest are richly attired The Sun once set 't is forbidden to any man to come neere the quarter the Seraglio is kept in it lookes upon a faire garden on the side of a pleasant river where the Ladies walke at night and 't is death for any man to be found there The Captain of the guard carries in his hand a poysoned nosegay which as it were by chance he puts to the nose of any person he hath a mind to kill and he dies within two houres or thereabouts or else he causes his hands and feet to be cut off This customary law is with more rigour executed upon the inhabitants then upon strangers If the women are surprized in their amours they run no danger and men are very seldom exempt from punishments One of those women being caught with a slave was brought before the King weeping to excuse her fault she said that had she not consented to that act the strangling of her matrix had killed her which the King took for an excuse and sentenc'd the slave to death who was a Knight of Malta and married his wife richly to a Lord of his Court. The King of Bengale is an Idolater as generally all the Eastern are he is valiant of Person and can draw into the field a great Army both of horse and foot wanting not wherewithall to maintain them for his Countrey is rich in gold silver and jewels he can draw forth two thousand Elephants caparison'd their teeth are shodd with steele and they will carry as many men as those of Narsingue they use hand-guns muskets swords javelins hallebards and pikes The Bengalians are the gallantest Persons of the East both men and women both sexes go richly apparel'd and perfumed All other Nations of the Indies flock thither to spend their money and chiefly to buy young slaves to attend and guard their women and manage their businesse they are bought and sold as horses are here they buy them young the safer to geld them the Parents being poore do not scruple to sell their children to strangers for three score four score and a hundred Ducates more or lesse for they are sure their children run no hazardous fortune they being instructed in all manner of Vertues The Law is that if a slave return to his father they are both enslaved to the master untill redemption The King of Bengale hath many Kings tributary to him as the King of Apura who payes him fifty Elephants yearly twelve pearls of the weight of a Miticale he yields this for the ransome of six Towns this King had taken of him in open war he made the King of Dimali tributary to him also for assisting his enemy King Apura and makes him pay 50. horses with 50000. cherats or crowns yearly The King of Orixa payes him tribute too and many more Gentiles and Mahometans although he himself in some manner acknowledges the great Mogull he hath an Army ever ready to draw into the field upon an instant the Nobility being generally tributary and released from that duty are obliged to serve their Prince upon his first summons with a certain number of horse and other necessaries And when they are engaged and obliged to it the war once ended the King rewards them with money and favour imbracing them as his children and after a solemn feast prepared for them dismisses them home to repose The Kings benign and gratefull entertninment so highly obliges them that they spare nothing for their Princes service The Climate is very temperate and well air'd that makes them live long witnesse the Moor of Bangale aged three hundred and thirty years in 1537. the oldest of the Countrey never knew him but old and of the same growth and remembred Cambaye without a Mahometan his hair chang'd colour four times from black to white and he lost his teeth as often and still they came again he had about 700. wives in his life time he was an Idolater for a 100. years together and was the rest of his time a Mahometan he was maintained by the Soldan of Cambaye since by the Governour of Diu although the Bengaliens lye under the Torrid Zone they are cooled with much rain that falls from May to mid August it rains from mid-day to mid-night the other twelve hours there falls none and that 's the time they have to travell and trade in Such is the disposition of the air under the Torrid Zone otherwise she would be dis-inhabitable for the great heats as the Ancients believed being not acquainted with the Countrey nor the rains besides many other reasons as the nights being of the same length with the dayes the winds and other causes daily observed The Bengalians are curious and delicious in their diet they feed much upon preserves and sweet-meats for having all sorts of spices green they confect of all sorts the husk of the nutmegs makes an excellent conserve so doth the long
Island assured us those Insularies eat the dead bodies but we have found the contrary for we have seen them buried they believe that the soules of the deceased enter into other bodies as Pythagoras held and therefore they welcome strangers they raise them brave monuments and tombes of stone and in honour to their bodies accompany them with winde-musick to their graves Parents exceedingly lament and abstain for a time from Areca and Betell They use a pretty recreative manner of fowling Their country abounding in many sorts of fruit which near unto their full ripenesse are easily corrupted by the raines they gather such as are rotten as they may not spoyle the rest and cast them into rivers or into the Sea These fruits being of many sorts as Melons Pumpions Pomegranates and others they are not sooner throwne into the water but great number of birds flock to them and feed upon the fruit the fowler stripping himself and hidden behind a tree with his head in a hollow Pumpion that covers his very shoulders they throw themselves thus into the water with a bagge under their arm the silly birds not discovering the men perch upon those fruits and come so neare to them that with ease they catch them by the legges and ring off their necks and put them in their bagge in this manner they take great store which makes fowl little worth There are birds sometimes too bigge and strong for a man to master and they get away not without a hideous noise thaâ— alarms the rest for that day that they are hard to be caught but the next day hunger banishes their fear and thus they are taken again The Kings of this Isle live in a most miserable condition being daily in danger of being slaine by the first person shall have courage and resolution to undertake it for such a person shall be esteemed a God and by all acknowledged their King crying God save our lawfull prince and naturall Lord. He that raigned at Pedir during our travels was called Arioufar and had been a poor fisherman overcharged with children who used to carry fish to the Kings Pallace and being known had free entrance He having on a time lost his nets came straight to the Pallace towards the King who had reigned many yeares and was very good to his people and finding him alone the guards not mistrusting him because he was beloved of the King and finding free egresse murthered the King and assisted by one of his sons he seized of all the treasure and the people received him for their King saying 't was the will of God The Assassin by force of money having raised a potent Army conquered the whole kingdom of Pedir and most of the other States of this Isle Thus the Kings establish themselves then and to such misfortunes are subject From Sumatra we went to Java the great CHAP. XXIV Of the Isle of Java of the Inhabitants their conditions and of the riches of the Countrey JAva the Great lies Eastward from Sumatra and is distant from her five and fourty miles only and the streight between them is called Sunde whence all those Isles in general take name the Isle is of good compass and unknown containing many Dominions or Kingdomes whereof the chiefest is Bentan or Bantan the Clymate sweet and temperate They say it is 150 l. long the breadth is undiscovered and some think it reaches the Continent Southward runs from East to West and South the Inhabitants are Idolaters grosse and brutish and some are Anthropophager it containes severall Kingdomes as Drasima Dragoyan Lembri Falec Sumara Balambua Bavarucam Passeruan Andrageda Auri Sandacanda Bacani Javara and others The Javanians say they came from China being oppressed with slavery they left that place and planted here they were for a time Tributary to the great Cham of Tartarye the Kingdom of Falec abounds in gold silver spices and all sorts of cattell the capitall Town is Bismari two dayes journey from an Island called Cambahar where is Basma a Town scituate upon the Sea towards the East where are bred Elephants Monkeys and Unicorns Dragoyen produces the Camphire as Borneo the Brasill and all Groceries neer this place are the Isles of Bombe Bacheli and Java the lesse The King of Passeruan is a Mahometan he demanded the daughter of the King of Balambua in Marriage and obtained her and having enjoyed her murthered her and all her train because she was not of his Religion Sandacanda and Bacani afford good store of spices their Kings are Mahometans they were infected with that imposture by a famous Pyrate named Mahomet Chap who left them two of his ships full of men to instruct them there are still some Idolaters amongst them who have not left their old error of strangling their neerest kindred when they think them taken with incurable diseases I was told of one named Basaram being sick and ready to be thus dispatched desired a slave of his to bear him company to death which he durst not deny and being tyed together were both cast into the Sea and the slave a lusty strong fellow striving for his own life drag'd his Master to shore untied him and put him to bed and conspired with another slave to save themselves from the Alerir or Magicians when they should come as the custom was to devour them and indeed as they came to strangle the poore men they cudgelled them so lustily that they left the sport and the man recovering his health lived many years after and thus was discovered the roguerie of those Magitians who thorough an insatiate thirst of blood when a man was the least indisposed made him believe he could not live advising him to hast to their fathers God Then the poore patient with teares in his eyes desired them to cleanse their bones when they should have consumed their flesh believing that their soules would not be at rest til their flesh were wholly consumed that then they would reunite to the body and to remain in peace for all eternity Meanwhile the King understanding what had happened to Basaram and his slave caused him to be brought before him and laughing told him that if he would not devour the Magitian he would put him to death The other most willing replyed he was ready to obey his Prince and that if the Magitian were brought him he would eat him up raw in his very sight The Judges had already condemned him and others for their deceipts and villanies to be banished and he others were fled into the I le of Camorre for safety but was taken brought to Basaram who with his slaves made a plenteous feast of him Thus for the most part live those brutish Islanders and although they have Rubarbe Scammone Agric and many other very Soveraine Medicinall druggs at command yet they seldome use them for when they are sick they wholly pin themselves upon the advice of those Magitians who tyrannize over them and
with a prodigious History of Serpents LEaving all those Isles to return into the Continent over against Sumatra Northward stands the Town and Kingdom of Malaca where is that so famous a spot of land with her Cape and Streight called Sicapura at one degree northward Malaca is a potent kingdom formerly the golden Chersonese as some yet hold and the Ophir of Salomon because much gold is found in many places of Sumatra contiguous to the other the Ancients believed her joyned to the Continent as you have heard already This Country obeyed the King of Siam untill a Lord of Java subjected her and by the assistance of some fishermen and Pyrates built the Town of Malaca Since the Malacans became Mahometans trading with the Persians and Guzerates and at last Alphonsus Albukerke surprized the Town for the King of Portugall it is the center of the East for trade and the mart for all Merchandizes of the East-Indies which improves her in grandeur treasure and power The language is esteemed the smoothest most elegant and copious of the Indies as the mother of all their other tongues which they diligently study they are much addicted to Poetry Amours and other Gallantries Malaca is scituate upon a pleasant river called Crisorant alluding to Chrise or land of gold which others rather believe to be China and Japan this river is not altogether so big as the Thames and divides the Town in two parts coupled by fair bridges stately built as is the rest of the Town The people are very civill of a good stature but a little tann'd the Country abounds in fruit subject to the King Siam though the Town belongs to the Portuguese where they have a strong Fort and a Haven that brings in great Revenues by reason of the customes imposed upon the infinite number of Merchandizes are imported from forreign parts Those imposts or customes were formerly paid to the King of Siam The Captain hath two good ships well rigged and man'd with which he scowres those seas and sailes into China loaden with wedges of gold and silver cloves pepper cinamon linnen and woollen cloth scarlets saffron corrall mercury vermillion and all other exquisite commodities of the Indies and brings back from thence silks purcelaines satins damask harts-horn musk rubarbe pearles salt-peter iron ivory boxes and fanns These two places are eight hundred l. distant and a great river upon which they say ships are drawn by Elephants to Quinsay capitall of Tabin or China where the ships arriving salute the King with three peeces of Canon and the Town with one if they think good then the Captain setting foot on land is sworn upon the Kings Picture that he comes Bona Fide to negotiate and then he is admitted The ayre of Malaca is not very wholesom to strangers nor natives From Malaca we went to the Kingdom of Siam very potent formerly containing many Kingdomes Their neighbour the King of Pegu got many of them in a Warr he maintained against Siam for a white Elephant which the Peguans adore and ever since the Kingdom of Siam hath been weak and divided into many Provinces or Dominions where the King is hardly acknowledged formerly it contained sixteen or seventeen Kingdomes or Principalityes and did reach from Tanansterin or Tarnatsery unto Champaa above 700. leagues from Coast to Coast between Malaca the Isles Pacanes Passiloco Capimper Chiammay the Lahos and Guttâ—s 'T is called the Empire of Sornao the King Prechau Saleu who kept his Court at the great Town of Odiva whither the Kings were tied to come yearly to acknowledge the Princes and pay their tribute kissing the Cimiter at his side Then by reason of the great distance and the many Rivers which lengthen their journeys and render them difficult he remitted this kind of acknowledgment to be made to a Lieutenant or Vice-Roy in the Town of Lugor neerer and more commodious This Country confines upon Pegu westward northward upon Chiammay southward towards the Province of Caburi and the main sea and eastward upon the Gulfe of Cambaye 't is one of the plentifullest and best Isles in the world abounding in all fruits victualls silver mines iron lead pewter salt-peter sulphure silkes honey wax sugars sweet-woods benjamin cottons rubies saphyres ivory and great plenty of all spices and other commodities imported from other parts The inhabitants are not warlike The women are very lovely and well disposed they are richly adorned with Jewells their coates tuck 't up to their knees their feet and legs bare to shew how they are decked and loaded with gemms they weare jewells upon their armes also their haire is platted and covered therewith in imitation of the Peguans They are carried in chariots richly covered their gownes open before discover their naked breasts their smocks being likewise slit when they walke they hold both their hands before them to hide their nakedness and yet so as t is plainly seen They say that custom was first brought up by Queen Tirada the wisest of her time and her bones are to this day kept with great reverence perceiving her Subjects to be besotted or violently addicted to Sodomie she thought by such charming allurements to withdraw them from that bestiality as indeed they are since wholly taken off from that abominahle sensuality and in truth that Countrey women are very faire and well shaped they play upon certain Musicall instruments which they are diligently instructed in from their infancy the men may marry two wives but they pay double customes for the second and most of them therefore are contented with one the women are very tractable humble and discreet their greatest care is to be beloved of their husbands They cruelly sacrifice Virgins and their manner of burying the dead is as inhumane for as soone as one of their alliance is deceased they erect him a Monument in the fields according to their conditions and abilities then they shave their whole body in signe of mourning Women cast off their jewels and are cloathed in white the doleful colour there all the deceased's friends and alliance are invited solemnly to attend the Corps to the Interment The Corps is clothed in a rich habit exposed upon a Chariot in a bed of state and drawn by six of his nearest kindred of the best of his family and six more of his best friends covered with an ash-colour canopy and of the same colour his Relations are cloathed before the Corpes go six flutes who with two kettle drums or tabors make so lamentable a noise that it drawes teares from the Assistants The slutes are hired and discharged by the Publick drawing neer to the buriall place they throw perfumes upon the Chariot This done they all retire the parents and kindred only excepted who strip the body and make it clean multiplying their cries and lamentations then roast it with their sweet woods gather round about it and with many sad groanes
they make of it a most mournfull repast This done they scrape the bones clean and perfume them with much ceremony and lap them up in linnen cloaths made of Arbeste which wil never consume by fire but grow whiter and cleaner nor rot under ground but will keep for ever I have got of the cloath in my Travels which I have shown to curious persons These Ceremonies ended and the bones laid in the Tombe every one drawes homeward Such is their strange manner of sepulture The Town of Siam stands upon the fair and large river of Mecan that springs from the famous Lake of Chiamay Sian is stately walled and conteines thirty thousand houses with a Castle strongly fortified built upon the water as Penivitan and Venice The Country breeds Elephants Rinocerots Giraffs Tygers Lions Leopards and all sorts of savage beasts the fairest Hermines of the East Camels Dromodaries and some say Unicornes which being very timerous beasts seldom appear in sight Some of them are found about Chyamay lake I will speak of them in another place This Lake is 200. miles about whence many great and famous rivers arise as Ava Caypumo Menan Cosmin and others they overflow like the Nilus This Lake is bounded Eastward with vast forrests and impassible Marshes and Fens and very dangerous prodigious Serpents are bread there with wings like bats which bear them from the ground and carry them with a strange swiftness flying they rest themselves upon the end of their tailes which are sharp they did once so swarm that they made a whole Province desert and desolate and without the juice of fig-leaves which was an antidote against their poison not one had escaped The Prince of those parts having armed his subjects made vast trenches and ditches in that Province and with the help of dogs tigers lions and other savage beasts trained up to hunting young and disguised in other skins he armed many other beasts against them he destroyed an innumerable number of those Serpents that cast themselves headlong into those ditches then he set a prize to be given to those that should kill any of them and by these meanes that breed was soon destroyed Notwithstanding there are some seen still in the forrest and I have seen of them of incredible length they prey upon sheep and other cattell There is another beast in the same Country faced like a man but all wricnkled which appeares by night only and is called Espaulouco This beast gets up upon the top of trees and makes a bewailing noise a purpose to catch something when she lights of no prey she feedes upon earth 'T is a very slow beast and there are of that kind in many places The Kingdom of Siam hath formerly suffered many changes some few yeares before we were there The King a most renowned and victorious Prince was by his own Queen poisoned who after married one of the stewards of her household with whom she had lived in adultery and made him King having likewise put to death her own son that succeeded his father since they were by conjurations both murthered at a feast and the Kingdom subject to continuall revolutions till Bramaa King of Pegu took occasion to besiege Odiaa but leaving his life in the siege hâ—r successor utterly demolished the Town and obtained the white Elephant I spoke of since that Siam hath revenged her self upon Pegu. Thus the Kingdomes of the Indies are very various never remaining long under the same condition or Government CHAP. XXVI Of the Kingdom of Martaban marvellous strength of Macaraou or the flowing of the sea Particularities of Pegu. FRom Siam we came to the Kingdom and Town of Martaban sometime subject to Pegu but since to the King of Syam It buts Westward upon the Gulfe of Bengale Northward upon Pegu Eastward upon Siam and Southward upon Tanasserim and Jangome The Fathers of St. Francis and those of the Society have built them Churches there The soyle is very fertile yielding ordinarily three crops the year there is plenty of Rice and other sorts of grain fruit trees sweet and medicinall hearbes of all sorts mines of all mettalls rubies and other stones and the aire is very wholesom The Capitall Town is Martaban sixteen degrees towards the North hath a good harbor and scituate upon the river Gaypoumo or rather upon an arme of the sea where the tide runs strangely toward Pegu for whereas ordinarily it flowes by degrees with an easie motion without violence here it fills that arme of the Sea or River on a sudden and flowes with such fury and impetuosity as it were mountains rolled up in water and the most rapid torrent in the world doth not parallel this in swiftnesse and by three passages fills the harbor and other receptacles with a most fearefull force and rapidity This arme is by the Indians called Macaroou which signifies beware the Tyger for the vehemence of the waves which I will more amply speak of in another place Martaban joynes to the Territories of Dougon the remotest Town of Pegu. The Inhabitants are given very much to trading and especially in Lacca a kind of gumm they draw out of trees very fine and better then that is made in Dalascia in Aethiopia which I have already spoken of They have many more Droggues as Galingall Turbith or Camomell Rubarb found upon the mountains of Pegu and is called Jubara The leafe is broad and bitter as gall they gather it in May which is the latter end of their winter the root is of a tan'd collour some is yellow purple and red according to the land that bears it Some season their meat therewith and 't is a preservative against many infirmities 't is sold very cheap and is mingled with perfumes there growes wood of Aloes red Sendal and Cittern upon the hills Women burn of all these to make concoctions and use them in their labours and delivered they seek for a black-headed lamb and carry the child to the Temple covered with flowers drugges and perfumes Then they begin their sacrifice delivering their child and lamb into the hands of the Banean or Priest called Satalico the skin head feet and entrals fals to his share this is done in honour of Castigay their Idol All those Flamins are great Magicians They cast the childrens nativities new-borne and set down what shall befall them during their lives This writing is carefully kept by the parents for to prevent the bad accidents For they esteem whatever those Baneans say infallible and when any person is sick they are consulted whether the party will dye or recover and when they have given their opinion 't is believed as Gospel One being once as I may say condemned or sentenced to death by a Wizard and left off was undertaken by one of our company and recovered in nine dayes which made them believe the Christians were more knowing then their Magicians the like
feed on in the Indies mean while our Geographers are mistaken who say that the river that runs through Tangus is the same that waters Pegu although they be different countries and remote This River rises at the Lake Chiammay passes through Brema or Brama washing in with her waves refined gold which she drawes from several mynes the country is full of She runs through the kingdom of Prom where are the famous towns of Milintay Calamba and Amirandou Those territories joyn to Alva then to Boldia called by the high Indians Siami where they are very courteous and it passes for a Proverb courteous as a Siamite Siami is a vast kingdom called the Empire of Siammon Then to Berma or Verma whereof the capital is Carpa and butts upon Tazatay and the kingdomes of Pandior and Muantay The King of Pegu subjugated the kingdom of Berma two years after he conquered Siam then there are Vilet Abdiar and Caypuma whereof the chief is Canarane of which more hereafter The King by his Talcada or Lieutenant hath conquered many other countries who subdued all the Provinces of Siam Berma Javay Manar and others unto the kingdom of Perperi Tarnasseri Maragoura Guertale Langoura Nigrane and Joncolan that touches Malaca Winning Siam he got Ban Ploan Odian Macaon and others conquered before by the King of Siam This Prince is a great lover of strange beasts and hath of divers sorts brought him from all parts of the world and land at several places as at Dagon two dayes journey from Pegu Martaban which is four at Guzan two dayes journey from Caponin where beginnes the great Gulph of Saharic at the mouth of Caypumo This River with that of Ava and Siam overflows like the Nile from Mid May to Mid August which improves the Country very much she draws refined gold by wyres wherewith the King enriches his Temples and Idols for gold and silver in those parts are but merchandizes their coin of brasse lead and pewter called Ganze or Ganza and any man coins with the Lieutenants leave who is Generall That coin is currant thorough the kingdom of Tauay the last of the territories of Pegu in the middle of the Province of Manar watered by that famous River of Marsina or Menan Pegu is so temperate that 't is green all the year long the people are rather whites than blacks and well shap'd women amiable gay and neatly dressed There are many hermaphrodites as at Sumatra There is plenty of pepper vermillion mercury cloves They make Chamlets hangings of feathers silk stuffs have store of rice and beasts for chase They want nothing but good horses which the Prince is curious to procure from other parts bating merchants their imposts to bring of them in The Kings Palace stands at the farther end of new Pegu sheltered from the Northwind by a little hill there grow all sorts of trees five sorts of palm trees inclosed with a wall like a park where they keep all sorts of beasts you can meet with in any part of the world which the King carefully seeks after never regarding each price as it appeared by that long war made by him and the King of Siam who refused him the white Elephant to put into his Calachar or park 'T was Aleager or Chaumigrem King of Pegu begun this cruell war with an Army of a million of martiall men two hundred thousand horse five thousand Elephants and three thousand Camels The Vaunt-guard was composed but of 50000. horse he sack't and ruined his principall Town Lagi or Siam which was reputed to be twice as big as Paris and thrice as Fez. The siege lasted 22. months From Pegu to Siam 't is sixty five dayes journey by camels he took all his treasure wife and children and brought them prisoners into Pegu with the white Elephant This deplorable King reduced to extremities cast himself down from the highest turret in his Palace and broke himself in pieces some of his daughters and Princesses made themselves away with a hoop or circle of iron edg'd about that closed it self when they thrust their necks therein with their feet in a noose hung thereunto which strangles them immediately and if Adigola and the other Ladies had had time they would never have been brought away alive there was but one Lady saved wife to the Grand Mogull's Son This Prince followed the Peguan Army to recover his wife was taken prisoner and by his frequent prayers and desires he obtained leave to visit his wife and mother-in-law The King himself gives them much comfort by his visits representing unro them the change and revolution of affairs he gave them freedom and remitted them ransomlesse sent them all back again with many and rich presents and married the young Prince to his Lady who were before but affianced conducted them to his confines with great honour and magnificence whence grew the greatnesse of the Mogor Mogoz or Mogull tributary to the King of Pegu who hath since broke his faith making himself a Soveraign You hear for what reasons the King of Pegu waged this war that bred so much ruine and desolation for a white Elephant onely a fatal and unhappy beast as Sejans horse hath proved to all that ever possessed him and hath cost five Kings their lives and whole Estates as it happened to the last King of Pegu who had it lately taken from him by the King of Aracan by the treachery of the King of Tangus his Brother-in-law White Elephants are very rare yet they are so besotted as to adore them at Siam festivals were kept in his honour called Quinday Pileu which is to say honest mens delight The King of Pegu drew four in his coach and I believe that in the rest of the East there were not more to be found The Kings Palace called Chalousbemba was built square with a Dosme at every corner stands the statue of a Gyant of polisht marble who Atlas-like upheld this goodly fabrick and are represented with such tortions of face you would think they complain of their load The stone 't is built with is smooth and resplendent as glasse for the adjacent forrests and gardens are therein perfectly discovered 'T is inviron'd in with a deep trench you enter over a draw bridge thorough a gate of excessive heighth and strength where are the figures of a Gyant and his wife each of a piece and of a mixt coloured marble the pavement is of the same and represents like the Sea this massy structure They spare neither gold nor azure and in Galleries you shall see carved the Histories of all the wars those Kings have made against their enemies From thence you descend some steps of marble into a lower Court encompassed with ballisters or railes where there is a pleasant fountain whence the water is conducted into severall gardens by pipes the gardens fenced with strong walls one of them is three miles long where grow various sorts of trees
sometimes served in golden vessells and with great respect otherwise they will kill their Keeper for the least offence They are capable both of hearing and understanding and learn whatever is taught them CHAP. XXVIII Continuation of Pegu of the Government and Policy of Superstitions and Magicians PEgu is innumerably peopled with very good subjects ready upon the least command to give obedience and execute and they say that to serve their Prince is to serve God and hold their companions most happy who dye in the Kings service when the King will raise an Army he enrolls the number he requires with their names their qualities by certain itinerant Heralds or Calfenes who publish the war abroad with flaming Torches in their hands as I have already said They ride on Dromadaries and change often and they are kept in most towns for the Princes service as are our Post-horses When the people are acquainted with the Kings will they generally leave home wife and children and follow the King every town and village hath a treasurer who duely pay the pensions allotted by the King and every one is sure of a livelyhood according to his merit in the Kings service which is faithfully discharged The Governours of all towns have triennial commissions and are promoted according to their birth to the kings favour and the peoples free consent They behave themselves with great integrity and discretion and take care the Kings treasure should be distributed to them that serve best to their wives and children and implore them in honourable occupations according to quality capacity and the occasion of service there being publick work-houses purposely maintained where the third part of the people are continually imployed as Mynes Paper-mils Silk-works Sugar engines and other trades and works belonging to the King If a soldier returned from war complains to the King that his General had not distributed to his family what the King had commanded The General is presently sent for laid flat upon the ground or table where some Courtier takes a cudgel with three whip-cords at the end and a ball of ciment fastned thereto striking upon the ground without touching the man and the King asks why he had not payd the Zimbou or allowance to the soldiers family the other must confesse the truth and if he doth alledge any reasonable excuse he hath not so many stripes but he hath three at least given him however The executioner strikes upon the ground untill the King commands otherwise The criminal is next helped up by his friends and makes the King a low reverence giving thanks for the mercy he had shewed in not stripping him Then the King either invites him to dinner himself or some other Noble-man and the punishment he suffered is not held disgraceful nor ignominious The trumpets sound gives the King notice of his coming and at his going it sounds twice and the multitude cry out that the General or Governour of such a place was retiring The General casts himself at the Kings feet and kisses the ground the King imbraces him and presents him with some rich Carcanet or chain of Gold or Jewels so dismisses him as content as if he had got a kingdom and this is a credit to them Suits in Law are soon decided for if a man be at difference with his neighbour the first Danubir or Justice they appeale to decides it upon the place The King once a week sits in his seat of Justice and decides differences of the greatest importance by and with the assistance of a Naire or Gentleman that holds him a golden cup to spit in 'T is held shameful to spit on the ground in the Kings sight but they spit in handkerchers The King before he rises drinks Areca and Betel brought him by one of his women and another of his favourites annoints his body with a certain oyle or sweet balsome to preserve his health Most of those nations eat on the ground and use leaves instead of cloathes they eat in curious woodden vessels artificially painted in various manners others are served in Purcelain which will not endure poyson no more then the wood Avate At his rising from his seat of justice a Merchant presents him with some delicate drink he hath a guard of a hundred Naires armed with short swords hanging by their sides in scarses richly embroydered with gold and jewels There are many Gold-smiths as are in most parts of the East He hath other Gentlemen of his guard armed with steele bowes gilt and neatly enamel'd they are expert bowmen and are trained up from their infancy the guard of 100. Naires besides their swords bear quivers and arrows gilt with a marvellous strong Cane that never breaks with a Pike or Fork at one end azured at both ends like a walking staffe They march in order A Noble-man bears the Kings sword before him another his buckler made of Tortoise shels garnished with Diamonds and Rubies as bright as the Sun The King weares the Tiara richly adorned with gemmes at one side of him a Lord carries a Parasoll before him walk two jesters with ridiculous motions and gestures relating how they had like to have killed one another the King is very much pleased with such Fictions and Drolleries One of these Bouffoones known in many languages frequented very much Father Joseph of the societies company by whom he was instructed and satisfied of the truth of our religon and resolved to be baptized The Father advertised the King he consented and the man was presently baptized and entertained for a time amongst those good fathers mean while his wife not willing to follow her husbands example assembled her friends and celebrated her husbands funeral as for a dead man and built him a tombe where they made pitiful moanes with many seperstitions bringing the women thither to weep and lament and they all dined together upon his Tomb. They do this that the wife of a newly baptized Christian may marry otherwise they hold her consenting to her husbands Christianity This new Convert was named James he came fourty days after his Baptisme to salute the King who desired to know whether he would perform his office as before and that his pension should be still continued he replyed Sir I served you in the stead of a dead man but now I will serve you alive and retyring with the Fathers he was not seen of two moneths in which time his wife married another of meaner quality But as I have heard she would have returned to her first husband and become a Christian being satisfied and perswaded thereunto by a Portuguais but her husband would not consent thereunto knowing it could not availe him much Then she married a Rope-maker which is a great trade there for they have great need of Lines Ropes Reeds and Canes which they cleave besides the Cables and other tackling for ships The biggest of those Canes they make Pikes or
lay and are very fruitfull They have a custom every evening to stay an houre in the water then to call them out to seat they have an usual signe which they readily observe They are very good meat and delicious The nature of them is that turn them into a ground sowed with Mil or Rice they will most strangely pull up all the weedes by the root without touching the grain The grain they call Taffin is like our Millet and hath a leaf like a reed which these birds will in no sort meddle with whether for aversion or other cause They are very cheap we had two for a halfe fanon which is no more then two pence with us and are as big as a hen and very fat We found them to be excellent meat we bought more of them my Companion and I for our recreation walking by the river side to turn them into such grounds to see them cull and pluck up the no cent hearbs We were considering how to transport of the eggs into France and specially to Arlids a corn Countrey where they are at so great charge in weeding but making tryall of them in a ground sowed with Chiza which in other places is called Moussa a sort of round beanes but twice as big as ours and of the same taste only the skin more thick and hard of chesnut colour the leaf flat but we found they eat the corn and let the weeds stand so we learnt of the Indians these birds are not weeders for all grains For two Fanons which in our money amounts not to eight pence one may sometimes buy a hundred they take paines from morning till night without intermission and cost little the keeping In other parts of India we saw another sort of a different colour drawing towards green and gray called Artipan serving for that use and others For in November they Mue and cast all their feathers with which the Inhabitants stuffe cushions and pillowes of Coco mats to sit and sleep upon to cover their Country houses for lattices and diverse other things they are so large they eat all sorts of vermin flesh and fish In this Town of Mandranella an Indian of good quality frequented our company and often eat with us bringing of his Countrey fruits with him of whom I demanded one day if he made no scruple we being Ramata so they call the Portugues and all Christians on this side to eat with us since the greater part of the Indians esteem themselves polluted by it But he told us no and that their three headed God Fotoco was esteemed a friend to the Franques Ramata and that one of them had brought a Sanacarin or image of the Virgin as they terme it which their great Oysima had honoured with such high vertues and attributes that it had the priviledg to make the third head of their Fotoco for which reason this God hath ever since been the most accomplished the greatest and highest of all to whose excelsitude none can attain and that the day will come when he shall judge all the other Gods for abusing his faithful people but for being cruell to the wicked that they shall be quit of In Cambaya likewise they adore a triple headed God and say the God the first cause of all things had three children on whom he conferred his Divinity and that they had all but one will In Tazatay likewise they have the same God with three heads which they say is three Gods united in one In other places they adore a fowle which they hold to be the Holy Spirit of God and many things of like sort by which may be seen these poore Indians have heretofore had some Doctrine of the blessed Trinity and other Mysteries of our Religion but they have confounded all with fables and imaginations The Bramins themselves to signify this weare three cords tyed on one knot and a cross on others CHAP. XXXIV Of the Kingdom of Casubi their Religion FRom Mandranella we went to Casubi both a Kingdom and a Town sometime subject to the King of Bengala where we first discovered a most high mountain and then the Town and drawing nearer we perceived abundance of lighted torches and a multitude of people We stayed to observe the matter and saw some bring the body of a Tree which immediately was laid in the ground with lime and ciment attended with women clothed in red jackets as low as the girdle and a cotton skiâ—t thence to the foot in which colour they likewise were cloathed that carried the Tree in which was enclosed a Corps wrapt in linnen and aromatically imbalmed with mastick and other drugs that prevent corruption then laid in this Coffin and covered with the same timber and fastned with pins of the same all pargetted over within and without with mastick frankincense and bitumen Forty dayes they spend in feasting over the sepulchre near to which there is a booth built of purpose to dress and season the Viands with Aromaticks that they say the soule of the deceased may sent the prefume They go then before their Pagode or Idol without weeping because they think the dead all go streight to heaven These fourty dayes terminated they employ fourty more in erecting a Piramis made sillily enough of earth and water but as high as a Tower proportionable to the elevation of the person This done the wife of the deceased all alone retires to her house for fourty dayes more incessantly weeping for her husband her kindred mean while supplying her with all necessaries for she would sooner be her own death then go forth to demande any thing During these six score dayes there is continual treaty of a new marriage for the widow who is led forth in a delicate virgin garment accompanied with other delicate young dames that make a set to play at tennis or ball made of a spungy Ciment that bounds higher then one filled with wind The women affect it much more then men and use this game to get them husbands by their agility and addresse While we were in this Country there was one who after she had ended her widow Ceremonies was found dead in her bed by having slept upon an hearb called Sapony absolutely mortall to such as lie on it The Town of Casubi is faire great and of good traffick The men are of good stature something tawny the women very beautiful and kind well apparelled of blith and jolly humour their garments are something lascivious for being cut and open their skin is seen and discovered the aire there is likewise temperare enough The Town is environed with high mountains garnished with pure fountains and fruit of all sorts chiefly quinces of the largest size and the most kindly of any other part of the east they call them Goncha here grew likewise excellent grapes the same as at Aleppo which they bag up in sacks made of Coco cloth and load and
say the earth were higher then the heavens which notwithstanding must needs be if we allow Antipodes That the Poles held immovable are not so but that these two starres turn within two degrees round the Pole That 't is an errour the Sun should by night go hide himself under us that the two Poles are not diametrically opposite since as they say they may be seen at the same time upon sea and land though very low neverthelesse That if there were Antipodes that must be the bottom of the earth and all rivers would naturally run thither contrary to experience and a thousand other opinions as strange as absurd for want of knowledge in the spheare and Astronomy So they laugh as at a thing childish and fabulous at the opinion of the Ancients and Moderns on this side of the rotundity of the earth in the middle of the world and the Ubiquitary habitation and that the Sun turns quite round from East to West They hold for certain that the Sunne rises in all other points as they observe in Tazatay where they imagine it to rise as 't were North and North-West They think to prove their phantastical imaginations when they describe the Iliaca a bright starre in the West and opposite to that Biliaca which appears beyond the Line and is that the shepheards fear so much by the Persians called Zobona so mortiferous to cattle for which cause they house them while that starre raignes and the better to preserve them they make them turn tayle to the starre for if they face it it makes them languish and dye in the end They say that these two opposite starres may be seen in a Line at the same time through a trunck and that each moves about his Pole in twenty four houres but that these are not the same as the North and the Crusero The North being no more distant from the Pole then two degrees and a quarter and one of the other two a degree and a half onely And whereas the ancients observed onely two Poles each in his Hemisphere they make six Poles in the same Hemispheare which are Casara the pole of the World that of the Zodiack the Artick and Antartick and these two starrs and a thousand other fancies as incomprehensible as they are farr from the sence of reason and experience And that which confirmes them in their errors is that they can discerne the two polar starrs from the same place as in Japaca seven degrees beyond the Line in Java and the like in Sumatra and other parts and accordingly in travell they make a strange calculation of the distances of places They jeer likewise at the frame of our spheare and the division of the Zodiack into twelve signes some to the North some to the South and understand not this but after their own way They call the Zodiack Cazatoni that is Significator The signes they call Ant Ronia Amiessem Emisen Courpsa Cheoser Irat Metrias Escorgat Tamasee Besir Bizihir Azourac Persan the highest spheare Birquen Emine the Ecliptick Zoberna that is obscurity because Ecclipses proceed thence That the Zodiack is an oblike circle and that from thence and the Region of fire the Sun takes his course and thence makes generation of all inferiour things Like some of the ancients likewise they hold that the Heaven stands like a vault over the earth and floates and swimmes upon the waters In breife I shewed them the work of Paul Rao the Italian who speakes of all this Astronomy of the Ancients which supposes the Equinoctiall divides the Zodiack in two parts South and North at which they scoffed and grew cholerick saying so base a book was fit for the fire that held nothing but errors and wondered our Prince would suffer such frauds and impostures as they called them to be published in his Dominions they believing as well the lands inhabited from East to West as from South to North are in view of the pole Artick and that it is false there should be any part of India under the Antartick since as they think they have the North as much elevated as we in Europe and many extravagancies hereupon which I leave to be argued and confuted by the learned in Astronomy and Cosmography Hearkning to these Indian opinions I have been told that the Chineses that speculative Nation hold the Heavens to be round but the Earth square and the Empire of China stands punctually in the middle as being the excellence and Principality of the World other parts being but as the skirts and accessaries so as they were a little cholerick when they saw our cards designe their Countrey in the extremity of the East as an indignity to the Grandeur and Majesty of their Country and King whom they call the sonne of the sun And truly these poore Indians wanting the knowledg of sciences and experience are not so much to be blamed for their opinions since in the middle of sage and learned Greece there were of the ancient Philosophers that maintained almost the same that the earth was not round but some as Lucipus that it was like a drum others that it was hollow like a barke as Heraelitus others like a Cilinder or Roler as Anaximandrus and Democritus others that it was absolutely flat as Empodocles and Anaximines some have wandered as far as this Paradox to release it from the center and make it run in the heavens about the immovable sun which with no less extravagancy hath been renewed in our times But for the Antipodes they who held the rotundity of the earth allowed them not for all that holding those parts inhabitable either for being covered with innavigable seas or for the insupportable heats of the Torrid Zone even some of the ancient fathers have for other considerations been taken with this opinion as Lactantius St. Augustine and others and they say a learned Germane Bishop was accused of Heresie for maintaining there was Antipodes But besides the reasons of science experience of Navigation and modern voyages shewes sufficiently the truth of this matter whereof I leave the large discourse to the more learned CHAP. XXXVII Of Tartary Frightfull deserts fierce dogs a strange History of two lovers the Empire of the Tartars and their Religion OF Grand Tartary which lies on the North of all the Provinces I have spoken of I know nothing but by the relation I received in these parts and by the Memorialls of a certain Hollander who was at Pegu. The Inhabitants of these Countreys then tould me that beyond the Kingdom of Tazatay Mandranella Transiana and Casubi towards the North are vast solitudes and sandy deserts which you must travell for many dayes before you can arrive at a Kingdom called Sinabo which at one end towards the East confines with Cochinchina subject to the great King of Tabin or China To passe these vast sands there must be made good provision of victualls water and beast for as
a Merchant of Drogomania told me a Country confining Eastward upon these Kingdomes the deserts of Arabia are little in comparison to them and when I told him the fourty tedious days it cost us betwixt Suria and Medina through the deserts of Arabia he answered this was nothing in respect since by the help of guides they might here and there find a well whereas in the deserts of Asia in two and twenty dayes journey together nothing was to be found but sand and that one day as he travailed along with the convoy by misfortune one of the jarrs of water broke which was a great mischiefe to them and a very important losse being forced for want of it to kill one of their Camells to drink the loathsome water within him and eat his flesh He told me then for more commodious passage above all things it was necessary to provide good beasts and chiefly Persian Asses the best beast the world affords for carriage and the most proper for those wayes and are worth as much as a good horse That after these sands they came to huge Mountains absolutely barren which in my opinion must needs be mineralls but they try them not they are so far distant and the way so troublesom I observed in my East and Western voyages that where the Mines of gold silver and precious stones where the Mountains were ordinarily barren having nothing growing about them as they observe of the Calanfour or clove which suffers no plant near it The Merchant observed likewise that in these Mountains which must be those the Ancients called Juac dividing high and low Asia there are abundance of serpents of prodigious bignesse but are more advantage then damage to them for being free from venom and of an excellent substance and nourishment they eat there nothing else As I remember I saw in the Mountains of Syr in Africa For passing these Mountains and lodging with the Arabians under their tents 't was our admiration to see huge serpents play with children who would give them morsells of bread But to return to our Tartarian Merchant he told me that having passed this Mountainous Country they came to another desert of twenty dayes over void of all food where he was constrained to stray a good dayes journey to hunt for water and other commodities and this too with weapon in hand because there lives a certain Horde or nation of Shepherds or Tartars Nomades who keep huge Mastifes the most fierce and bloody in the world which indeed have more of the wolf then the dog they keep these dogs to destroy passengers on the way to which they train them for diet for themselves He told me that about three yeares before this breed of Rascals were almost all devoured by their own dogs after their cruell usage of certain Merchants who passed that way these to revenge themselves made an Ambush and having taken them served them as they had done others He told me many other curiosities of this country and amongst others that about twenty years before he passed by the Isle of Volmous or Ayman near to Cauchinchina and the country of the Meores that the people are haughty great souldiers well clothed and very civil lovers of honour and vertue and of complexion rather white then black that the land is full of impenitrable Forests but well stor'd with Venison and betwixt the Mountains good pasturadge that they had there a potent King by the title of Emperour on the day of his birth wearing on his head three Crowns in form of a Tiara for the three kingdomes he possessed that this Prince was King of Sinabo the Magers and Patanes Amongst other particulars of this country he related to me a strange History if it be true Thus that in a mountanous country vulgarly called Ismanca very fertile where there are clownes very wealthy in cattell whereof they drive a great trade as also in skins of divers beasts there was a rich shepherd called Ismahan who amongst other children had a daughter of excellent beauty who according to the custome of the country kept her fathers flocks This maid of twenty yeares of age loved a young shepherd her neighbour and kinsman but poor and to whose Father the rich shepherd had sent some corn who seeing he could not be paid and being aware of his daughters affection he told his debtor that on condition he would send his son to live in some remote parts he would forgive the debt which the other did the young man being thus banished by force the maid was extremely afflicted and as one day she walked alone in the fields lamenting the absence of her beloved Liza so he was called a Fiend in the same shape appeared to her and demanded for whom she was so much tormented since she had him assuredly present and that he loved her more then the world besides Some say this poor young man being banished the presence of his dear Mistresse sought out a Magician who promised he should see and enjoy her but bringing into a room to him a spirit in the form of the maid as the spirits of joy and love made him fly to embrace her the Demon strangled him afterwards taking the shape or rather the body of the dead youth continued his visits a long time to the maid whereof her Father and Brothers having notice resolved to surprize him and in effect breaking up her chamber door they found a stinking carcasse in bed by her at which both she and the rest were extremely frighted and the King of the country having notice of it sent for the maid to know the truth which she related as it was The King sent her to live with an Aunt of his where they say the Devil still frequented her and would visit her publickly in the shape of her friend wherein she took extreme content nor could she be disswaded from his conversation How I know not but they say she conceived and was delivered of two children who grown up became the most valiant and strong in the country so as since spirits are incapable of generation as the best Divines conclude we may suppose this was the youth himself who by the Magicians means enjoyed the maid and was afterwards killed by the devil that abused him and indeed some authentick authours mention such another History of one Phillinnion and Machetus and others But let us come back to Tartary where I learnt many other things of one Amador Baliora a Limner with whom I met coming back from Pegu and saw good part of his Memorials He had been in the Indies twelve or thirteen years and had drawn the plots of several Towns excellently well insomuch as having escaped shipwrack and arrived in health at Diu when all his company was hanged for his qualification the Governour saved his life and he drew him many exquisite pictures for which he gave him five hundred Croysades He had about fifty
draughts of the principal townes in the Indies Persia and Tartary and had leave of the Vice-roy to draw the plots of as many more as he would his design being to compile them in a large volume and present it to the King of Spain but I understood afterwards that returning for Europe he died upon the sea of Scarbut and for that his Comerade had disgusted him he would not give him his memorials and draughts but by Testament bequeathed them to the Captain of the ship he was in Joseph Grogne a Portuguese esteemed a Jew though he dissembled the Christian The Memorials was a great losse for besides the draughts there was abundance of remarkable singularities he had noted in his travailes whereof the Captain made small account for that he had written them in French which he understood not and withall in an imperfect and bad character But the plots and draughts were excellently done and besides the deliniation of the towns he had drawn the inhabitants and their garments to the life I drew some my self though rudely which is not hard to compasse THE SECOND PART OF THE TRAVAILES OF VINCENT le BLANC IN AFRICA CHAP. I. A generall Description of AFRICA HAving left the East Indies as I said in the former part of this work towards the end and having taken the road of Africa Westward the first land we came on was the Isle of S. Laurence Before I relate the particulars either of this Isle or other places I have seen in Africa I conceive it not improper to draw a general Description of this third part of the Universe as well for that I have traversed it from one end to the other in three severall voyages as to shew the errour of modern Geographers who in their Maps of Africa have left out more then fifty kingdoms or Provinces of note as I sometime made appear to the late Mr. du Vair then chief President of the Province and afterwards Keeper of the Great Seale of France And first to take it from the streight of Gibraltar or rather from Porto Farina towards Tunes to the Cape Bona Esperanza the greatest extent from North to South there is found to be seventy degrees which are above two thousand leagues And from Cape-Verd to Cape de Guardafu or Guardafy from East to West there is near upon eighty Degrees which are about two thousand five hundred leagues of Teritory comprehending a space most prodigious such as our Europe is a very small matter in comparison of the greatest part lying betwixt the two Tropicks the rest on this side and beyond For from the kingdom of Budonell passing through the Negres lyes Eastward the Empire of Tombut or Tombotu by the Arabians called Iza containing thirteen large kingdomes watered by the famous River Nigrite or Niger with Senega a part of Guinee Melli and many other Countreyes as far as the Cape Verdi The people here so savage they scarce know how to speak so sordid they eat beast-entrailes uncleansed and so brutish they are more like ravenous dogs then men of reason The people toward the Western Coast are better civilized in the Provinces of Gavaga Azemay Galata by the Arabians called Abugazai or Zenaga and Azanaga and on the Coast of Cape-blanc where they drive a great trade in white salt Senega where the River Niger waters large territories abounds in Crocodills and fish with which it furnishes Budonel Meli Gago Guber Agades Cano Gazena or Cassena Zegzog Zanfara Burneo or Borno Gangara Gaoga and others where it reaches The kingdome of Gangara contains seven others as that of Borneo nine who to gain a single dominion have often come to Battell but in the end satiated with blood were constrained to agree again Then have you the kingdomes or Temian Daouma Medra Benin Gorbani Giafiar or Biafar Amas or Amasen which towards the South fronts Damula and Vangue lying towards the Zaire From Senega towards the North we find Scombaya Musmuda Zenera or Havia Gumea Guzula Hea Sus with others called the Whites of Africa who speak not Arabian but use the tongue of Songay as they term it Likewise the usuall Language in Nueâ—edia through the kingdomes of Terga Gaziga Lemta and Berdoa These people have a black or gray cloth hanging from their Turbith over their face that while they eat their mouth may not be seen which were a great incivility There are moreover the Countries of Guzulan Belu Benin Belbee Toga Afar Alates Crin Beni Gumi Muzali Abubenam Zuir Cazai Dura Zinzaler and others The vast kingdome of Fezor Morocco contains Agar or Agal Elebat Eris Geres Elcanus Elegazar or Elgezair with the kingdomes of Tâ—nes Bugie Constantine â—ipoli Telensin Tremesen Telche Teâ—esâ—e c. There is here a River which issuing from the bowels of Africa passes through many countries and threads Fesse where it seâ— three hundred and threescore mill-wheels of extraordinary compasse at work and gliding from thence under Miquinâ— and Elcassour throwes it self in sea at Mamocre under Arache little distant from Arzille Towards Tombut and Meli on the other side Senega lyes the wide-stretcht kingdome of Gago the King whereof is highly potent compelling in a manner adoration from his people who how great soever speak not to him but on knees holding in their hand a cup of sand which they cast on their head while they prostrate before him and retire without tergiversation He affords not audience to his subjects but at certain houres morning and evening and when they are found guilty in any crime he chastises them with confiscation of goods and sale of their wives and children for slaves to strangers The two great Rivers Niger or Gambra and Senega Wash a very great part of the country overflowing in the same sort and times as Nile doth Budomel which is in like manner a River of the same denomination as the country it travailes through unites it self with Gambra and the kingdome of Melli is upon a branch of Senega environed with dismal deserts and impenetrable Forests This river on the North and South is banked with the Deserts of Gilolef and Jalofel on the West it hath the vast Forest of Abacara and Gago on the West Next you come to Guber Mount Chigi or Gigi or Sierra de Meleguete then Guinga or Guinee or Guinoy These people are all black like quenched coles Salt in the kingdome of Gago is more precious then gold which there abounds as likewise Fruit and Cattle Guber abutts Northward on Cano Eastward on Zeger or Zegzeg a woody and desert country peopled with an infinite heard of beasts In these Deserts you meet with Cassena then drawing towards the Cape of bona Esperonza You enter upon the kingdomes of Benin and Zanfara under the Equatour well inhabited containing in length two hundred and forty leagues where from mid May to the middle of August it rains for the most part and almost constantly from noon till mid-night as I have
Rhinoceros which they call Couzan and a certain sort of Asses which are like the usual Asses being almost all dapled gray and white or black and bay they will suffer you to come close to them but if you touch them though never so gently they spring away with most stupendious leaps There are in this Island six kingdoms the Kings whereof delight much in field-sports as Hawks for the Hare and for the Partridge which with them are called Gits and others for fishing Here are likewise the birds of Paradise which live on Muschroms and fragrant flowers some call them Lapi others Mie The Rivers feed Tortoises to a wonderful bignesse excellent meat and very fat but are so laxative they cause even Disenterias as it happened to the Sieur Amador and his company of whom we made mention in the first part We finde there likewise Crocodils in the world again none so cruell and bloody which come sometimes above a mile on land to feed on beasts which they devoure at a morsell They are tataken with hooks fasten'd to a strong twisted cord made of canes by them called Restant laying some raschal sheep or goat for a bait which the Crocodile swallows at a bit and so is caught 'T is almost incredible what hideous cries groans and tears this creature sends forth finding himself taken as if foreseeing he were now to be the fishers diet who feast it merrily the flesh being white in taste like Capon and of an excellent favour but in Lent 't is not to be eaten For which reason some have thought Amber gris to come from this creature though there is more likelihood that it comes from the bottome of the Sea and not from a fish as we said elsewhere To conclude the Island is so plentiful of cattle that they have often given a fat sheep for a Counter or a leafe of paper and a Marriner told me for truth that being at the point of Cape Salido to take in fresh water an inhabitant of the Town of Antipara gave him four Cowes for a scurvie piece of leather he was about to throw into the Sea with his dead Master I remember Sieur Amador told me how that passing through this Island Alitadir King of Janiharou sent for him to have a piece of Scarlet and that being upon a River imbarked with a Mahometan they sayled two dayes compleat from the mouth of the River then landed where were ready for them two Chariots drawn by four bufflers a piece which brought them to the King This River is called Janiharou from the name of the chiefe Town where they have extream heats in the month of February which is their Summer It takes name from a fair fountain called Maraca Jenehar that is the fountain of Janiharon then joyning with another called Marouca it divides into two large streames the one whereof presents it self directly face to face with Natal on the Ethiopian Coast the other swelled with that of Macarahou falls down to twenty two degrees near the coast of S. Augustine which is in twenty three There we suffered such violent heat that each moment we were forced to go into the river or sea for refreshment These people are of Olive hue their humour docile enough The women are kind and courteous handsomely clad in Mantles of amiable complexion and take much delight in dancing to the musick of certain Cimbals which as they say they learnt from the Isles of Comore or the Isles of Theives not far from thence Ethiopia lying betwixt them in twelve degrees and a halfe and 200. miles from Mozombique Of these Isles of Cemore there are five principal which are of reasonable greatnesse besides many small ones almost all inhabited whereof the most considerable is Malaquil As for the Edifice in the Isles of S. Laurence their houses are covered with the leaves of Coco tree whence they produce their principal sustenance as the people of the Maladines doe and have great store because this tree furnishes them with all necessaries though here they are not so good as with the Maladines They have moreover another root called Joguia which being dried yields flower whereof they make a very delicate pudding mingling it with milk with sugar or honey and with the yelks of egs They eat also as likewise throughout all India bats of extraordinary greatness and very good taste They who dwell along the Sea coast apply themselves chiefly to fishing making their houses of turfs dried at the Sun or of Date leaves aptly tempered with stone and morter and some again for coverings use the shells of large Tortoises which live both on land and water like Crocodiles CHAP. III. The Customes of the Inhabitants of Belugara or Monopotapa Salubrious windes venting from a Cave AT our departure from the Isle of S. Laurence we steer'd our course towards the Cape of bona Esperanza and in a short space arrived at the Arme del Spiritu Sancto a renowned river which descends from high Ethiopia and thence in two dayes we reacht to Belugara a Town scituated upon the river of S. Lucie in the kingdome of Monopotapa below Cephala in five degrees beyond the Tropick Capricorne upon the side of the Mountain Bezula which stands in the middle Winter is there in the months of June July August The country is fertile and abounding with game for Chase As we stay'd by the way to refresh our selves at a fountain and make some repast The Sieur de la Courbe of whom I made mention in the first part went on hunting where he took some Hares and many white Partridges which did us much courtesy A league or thereabouts from the Town is a Cave where during the violence of the heat the windes are very frequent as in the Monsons of the East and the Tournacaui of Potozzi or Peron And to make free passage for this anniversary gale the inhabitants have slit the Mountain through which it blowes to the very Town refreshing it exceedingly and purifies bodies in such sort that it renders them in a manner incorruptible For which reason the Belugarians and they of Zenzana and Albigara burying their dead in this Cavern the winde dries them and preserves them from corruption as I noted in another place of another Mountain and like windes blowing in the East Indies The People are either Idolaters or Mahometans The greatest part at the rising of the Sun prostrate themselves many times on the ground muttering between their teeth I know not what prayers and all as well Moores as Gentiles are given to these ceremonies You have there men both white and black well civilized and courteous of handsome carriage and addresse there are amongst them some who have received documents of Christianity for one of them observing one of ours reading in a Primmer had a curiosity to see what it was where perceiving a Crosse he kissed it with tears requiring of Captain Inart if there were a
Priest in our company and being brought to one called Chaousandre who afterwards became a Capchin he confessed to him and told us that he had formerly travailed three hundred leagues to finde one to confesse to but at that time he was not in capacity for voyages of that length being guide of a family that he had but one single wife though fully as perverse as she was faire and deprived of the light of Religion as the rest of his houshold were He feasted us at his home with great kindenesse and we presented him with a Roman Primmer which he held in high esteem for the pictures onely for our characters were unknown to him nor did he understand our language He bestowed upon us a Girafe and a sheep all white but the head which was black as they are all in that countrey For Girafes they are docile beasts white and spotted with red their fore-feet very short in proportion to the hinder with a Deers head and very short horns there is great store of them in the land of Cefala CHAP. IV. The Country of Monbaze Melinde and Quiloa the nature of the Inhabitants and the respect they bear their PRINCE HAving left Bulgara we run all along that stretched forth coast of Ethiope where we visited Melindo Monbaze Quiloa Mozambique Cefala and other Townes for truck of our commodities The country of Monbaze takes name from a Town and Island so called which on the East hath the vast Indian sea on the North Melinde on the South Quiloa and Westward the spacious lake of Zaflan and the kingdome of Xoa belonging to the King of Abyssins Heretofore this kingdome was subject to a great Prince styled the King of Monemuge neighbouring to Ethiope Monatapa and Mozambique As for Monbaze 't is a Town about the rate of Monpellier built almost after the Italian model the people are of Olive colour affable courteous and well apparelled specially the women who delight in rich apparel There is a good Sea-port strong and much frequented by the Indians who drive a great trade in spices drugges and precious stones which much enriches the place and brings a great conflux of people from Zanzbar Penda Agair and other parts of Africa There is gold silver precious stones and Ivory in great quantity The country abounds in good fruit of all sorts particularly in Citrons and Oranges of prodigious bignesse and of excellent taste whereof the rind is sweet and good to eat There are likewise Peaches without stones but of little savour Pomegranates exceeding large and above all excellent waters fresh and light herein surpassing Quiloa which is defective The People are of a sweet disposition contrary to other Maritime places where the natives are ordinarily mutinous and litigious We had there an Host called Francesco Cosmel of complexion between black and white as he were born of a Father black and a Mother white he gave us testimonies of a generous soule and seemed to be of good extraction He lodged us in the chief chamber of the house hanged with Matte both walls and floore with abundance of well-wrought cushions with an artificial fountain on one side which water'd little trees where was a whole flight of birds of Paradise male and female which contrary to the common opinion had feet as I said elsewhere whereupon I shall relate a pleasant passage which befell us My companion resolving to go to a jolly town not far thence to put off some Safron which he had was taken with an extreme cholick which made him go to stool oftner then he would in our chamber there was a little Cistern full of pure water he finding himself pressed and conceiving this Cistern to be a place of purpose for discharge seats himself on it By misfortune there was a young maid washing clothes who finding this nasty showre fall upon her began to cry out and I that knew what the matter was immediately went out pretending I had something to buy so as my companion who suspected nothing was amazed when he saw two slaves fall upon him with cudgels who cured his disease with a new sort of Cataplasme Returning up again I saw this lucky adventure and my companion as well as he could defending himself In fine after many excuses the matter was taken up by mediation of twenty seven Miticales each being in value four French Livers which my companion was forced to pay for mundifying the Cistern True it is he was cured of his cholick but so ashamed of the accident he had not confidence to suppe with us The Territory of Monbaze is of no great extent confining on one side on the Town of Orgaba or Orgabea seated on the river Onchir which runs to powre it self into Nile near Mount Amara where the kingdome of Melinde begins having Amara on the North and Monbaze on the East The common diet of the country is honey and rice their drink Areta Fatigar and Belinganze which they keep in great Oxe hornes cut in severall figures that they may be the more useful This sort of vessel is much used in the Ethiopian Court as well for their capacity as their not being liable to break especially with the Monbazians who neverthelesse will make no use of any but of a beast that had his throat cut deriving this custome from the Jews In their traffick with Merchants they apply charms to force them to their intent a thing I never observed in any other nation When notice comes that some neighbour Prince hath sent Embassadours to their King upon affaires of importance they doe then much more They take a wilde goat by them called Machorati and having laid some charmes upon it mounted upon his Elephant the Prince passes three times over him with most horrible cries and imprecations which their Labis or Priests pronounce against their Singiscan or Demon Then having made three cries more in manner of prayer they require to know if this Embassadour comes for Peace or Warre if it be answered for Peace they march before him with abundance of perfumes and signes of joy and being arrived at the Town the perfumes are cast into the water to shew that all this was only to do him honour and to endear him But if it be for Warre they testify the plain contrary I have heard since my return that the town and Port of Monbaze is by the Portugals taken and demolished For a draught of Melinde which is a kingdom lying above Monbaze and subject to the same King the Capitall Town of the same name is scituate on the sea in two degrees and a halfe beyond the Line the Port is at some distance by reason that on the water side 't is pester'd with many craggy rocks which render the landing dangerous The country abounds in all sorts of Fruits and Viands bread excepted instead whereof they make use of Parates which are both good and wholesom They have likewise variety of flesh which they roast and
dresse in several manners the fruits excell and chiefly the Melons called there Dormous admirable in taste which they eat not but in Summer because they are excessive cooling and as it were freeze the stomack being neverthelesse not ill of digestion or causing chollicks what quantity soever one eats They are for the most part Idolaters except some Mahometans who dissemble their Religion for which cause the Prince hath but a sinister look for them This Prince hath a high veneration from his people who subjugate their shoulders for his support burn perfumes to him when he appeares in publick as they do likewise for all Princes or Potentates who come to visit them But indeed this Prince is most laudable in this particular that he himself will take cognizance of whatsoever is acted by his Governours and Magistrates and if any one impleads other before him it behoves him on the price of his head to be assured of the fact When a complaint is made to him immediately he sends for the party accused If he be a Noble man when he arrives at the Palace gate he gives notice to the Officers of his presencce by the sound of a Cornet who cause him to ascend single before the Prince who with great patience hears hoth parties in presence of his Council If â—oth are found culpable the inferiour is remitted to the ordinary Justice who punisheth him with stripes of cudgell the Grandee is punished by fine But if the Noble-man prove only guilty the King leads him to his chamber where being disrobed prostrate on the ground craving pardon he receives from the Kings own hand certain stripes with a cudgell more or fewer in proportion to the crime and services he hath done Which done he revests kisses the Kings feet and with all humility thanks him for the favour received Then without further shew of any thing attends the King to his Hall who in presence of all the Court gives him a dismission and recommends â—o him administration of Justice to his people causes him to be accompanied out of town with ordinary ceremony so as what hath passed is not perceived by any and this Grandee returns as well content as if he had received a rich treasure The charges of suit are defrayed out of the Kings Coffers or if he please by the criminall without the knowledge of any one When as this King who by his subjects is esteemed a Saint makes a progresse into the Country he is mounted on a horse richly trapp'd and going out of his Palace passes over a new kill'd heifer where the people raise a loud outcry and instantly go view the entrails of the beast to judge by sorcery if this voyage shall be successeful or no. When he makes entrance into any town all the fairest Ladies walk before him with censers of perfumes burning in their hands some singing his encomiums others melodiously playing on Basons with fine nods endeavouring to render themselves as complaisant as possibly they can To conclude their territories confine upon the country of Zangueliac and Ethiopia Aquiloa is a Kingdome with an Isle and a Town of the same appellation where the Portugals have a Fort the Governour whereof drives a main trade by means of the vessels he sends for the Indies The King of Quiloa was Lord heretofore of Mozambique All these are countries of Zanguebar or Zanzibar which comprehends that large extent of ground which lyes between the Oriental and Occidental seas of the people called Cafres Zanzibar properly speaking is an Island which faces directly Monbaze but the country I intend to speak of is Zanguebar named so by the Arabians because in their language this word Zangue signifies black and this country for the greatest part is inhabited by Blacks Mark Pol esteems it an Island of above a thousand leagues in circuit being water'd with many rivers making as it were an Island Concerning the Town of Quiloa 't was built as Tradition sayes above six hundred years past by one Hali son of Hocen King of Siras in Persia who came to live there Women here go exceeding well arrayed richly adorned with Jewels and Ivory bracelets quaintly wrought which upon death of husband and allies they break in signe of sorrow as the men forbear to eat and shave their hair as I before recounted of the East Indies CHAP. V. Of Mozambique the nature of the Inhabitants Cefala Mines of gold in Ophir Belugara HAving passed by Viada where the people for the best part dwell upon the river Dumes or Humes since the vast inundation of this and other rivers in the country upon the day of Saint Abiblicane we entered the kingdome of Mozambique this River runs towards the East passing by the foot of the Mountain Zet out of which issues one of the heads of Nile the other from the Mount Betzoan which ancients called the Mountains of the Moon streaming towards the points Maestro and Tramontanus The branch which runs Southward is divided not far from the head by a rock into two streams the one watering the land of Sefala the other running to disgorge it self in the sea right over against the Isle of Saint Laurence Mozambique is a small Island hard upon the firm land with a Haven and a Fort of the Portugals within fifteen degrees of the Line 'T was subject to the King of Quiloa till the Portugals became Masters where now in their voyages from Portugal to the Indies is one of their securest harbours to rest and refresh themselves The greatest part of the Inhabitants who are all Blacks professe Mahometisme the rest Idolatry They upon the firm land are absolute brutes going stark naked their privities only covered with a cotten cloth Adorers of the Sun like them of Sephala speaking the same language as they their traffick is Gold Ivory and Ebony their chief food the flesh of Elephants They delight much to parget their bodies with a reddish earth perswading themselves that so dawb'd the world shewes not finer men The better sort paint themselves with a certain Folliage which to make azure they use Indico and other compounds There are amongst them who bore their lips like the Americans enchasing some delicate stone Some say this countâ—y in times past depended upon Ethiopia and and 't was hither Salomon sent his Fleets for gold and that the Queen of Saba stil'd her self likewise Queen of Mozambique and Melindo moreover that their speech resembles in some sort that of Senega Though to speak truth 't is more likelihood Salomon fetched his gold from the mines of Sefala which are not farre thence or may be from the East Indies Touching the country of Cefala or Sefala and Zinguebar which takes up in a sort the whole breadth of that end of Africa even to the Cape of Bona Esperanza which coast is inhabited with Blacks called Cafares or Cafres they appertain to the great Empire of Monomotapa of which we are to speak presently In particular
from a mountain of sand of excessive height I saw since near the Town of Lima or of Rois in Poru which exalting to an extraordinary height amongst many other hills never alters or diminishes for any wind or storm that can assault it a thing much admired by all men and for this the Indians adore it as divine but of this we shall with Gods leave speak in another tract of a voyage to the West-Indies But returning to the sands of Egypt 't is thence the greatest part of Mummy or flesh buried and rosted in the sand is gotten which the wind uncovering the next passenger brings to town for trade it being very medicinable Here you see a dead man is often more serviceable to the living then the living themselves yet some approve not of the physick But howsoever embalmed flesh is prefer'd before it for the Aromatick drugs the Egyptians used for preservation of dead bodies wherein they were at great charge and study whether for their hope of resurrection or for the opinion of some Philosophers that soules should so long live after departure as the bodies remain intire and incorrupt for which cause they seasoned and embalmed them with Bitumen Salt Frankincense Myrrhe and other Aromaticks and bodies thus embalmed and preserved for many ages by the Arabians are called Mummies To proceed the land of Egypt is highly renowned for a very potent and wealthy kingdom where some say heretofore have been reckoned 20. thousand wall'd towns to entertain the infinite multitude of Inhabitants she had in those dayes but now there remaines but little of all this The first Kings of the world were their Rulers from whom they derive their lines of so many thousand fabulous years Their first and kings were called in the Scripture by the generall name of Pharoes then the Persians became their Masters afterwards the Greeks then at last the Romans till the Saracins got them under their Califes and Soudans and the Turks for this last age The ayre is good and temperate the soyle fertile and abounding in all commodities but so plentiful of corn that 't was held the Granary of Rome in her chiefest glory in medals of antiquity Egypt was still figur'd with ears of corn The country about Caire they call Sabida heretofore Sais and Egypt taken together Chibib in Heibrew Mitfraim by the name of the son of Chus who first possessed it thence the Arabians at this day call it Mesre The region called Delta from the triangular form is the fertile part of it because 't is water'd and cut through by seven branches or armes of Nile This country is exceeding fertile throughout but the rest from Caire to Ethiopia is not so but only along the Nile for three or four leagues on each side where the river flows the rest is sandy parched and waste except some places where the river comes in channels which they say were heretofore the work of Joseph son of Jacob. CHAP. XXI Of the Town of Alexandria the Isle of Malta and the Authours return to Marseils WE staid some dayes at Grand Caire where in the advance of my voyage I staid many moneths but before I go away I will tell you how we met there with a brother of my companion Guillen Cassis whom he had so basely abused at our coming from Meca as I said in another place when he cheated him of seven Cammels under colour to go to traffick in the red sea and Ethiopia and we passed into Arabia the happy to Persia the East Indies and Affrica where in all we were forth in our travailes six years and a halfe But as soon as he perceived at a distance his brother Marat he got slily into a company that his brother might not take notice of him at length he passed by us with a fixed eye but said nothing no one thinking of him for my part I knew him not yet me thought I had seen him before till at last I called him to mind and told the whole story to our company who condemned it for an unworthy action In fine the good fellow by this means scap'd a bad encounter Being departed from Grand Caire we went to embarke in our Almadies which staid for us at Boulac which is the Rendezvous of all Merchants Christians and others who are bound for Alexandria Thence we came in a day and a half to Auas where we met with my friend who had made all speed for fear of his brother From Auas we came in a day and a half to Rousette called by the natives Raschill a town by the ancients called Metilis or Canapus upon an arm of Nile called Heraclettick which Historians call Rexi At Roussetta we sold our Almadies and imbarked by night in a Germe and the next day were in Alexandria Alexandria is a town half ruinate of little pleasure a most remarkable example of the inconstancy of worldly things that this town should now be brought to so lacerate a condition that was for many ages one of the most ample fair populous rich and flourishing towns of the world chiefly renowned for excellent and commodious scituation for her Founder Alexander the great for having been the Seat-royall of the Ptolomiâ—s for her so famous and frequented Haven for her proud buildings amongst the rest Pharoes tower one of the wonders of the world for her Academy renowned for all Sciences for being the mother of so many famous Philosophers great Doctors and holy Patriarcks who kept the christian faith so long flourishing in those parts briefly for so many ornaments of art and nature from which glory she fell after she was taken with the rest of the country by the Sarasins and their third Calife Homar so as after this consternation she never recovered any thing of her pristine splendour But she remains a good Haven and a good landing place for all Merchandizes of the Levant and Indies where all Levantine Merchants Africans and Europians come to traffick Heretofore the Romans afterwards the Ptolemies made it the greatest Mart in the world by the means of the sea and Nile drawing thither all sorts of drugs spices and other Arabian commodities from India by the red sea then by land to Nile and so to Alexandria Since again under the Soudans this course was continued where the Venetians and all Europians fetched their spices till the Portuguese found out another way as we said in another place I will say no more either of this town or Caire as places sufficiently understood in these parts by the ample relations of divers accurate travailers only I shall observe that in this town when the Nile flowes they preserve sweet water in their Cesterns and make Channels to water their gardens There is resident a Consul for the French Nation Le sieur de Rhode was then the person who shewed us much kindnesse and much admired our tedious and painful peregrination He had his wife there with him by whom he had two twin daughters
whence I was and telling him I was a Marsellian the sonne of one Raphael Blanc he was amazed and troubled and calling my mother told her a son of his was come from Sicily to visit him my father having had a former wife in Sicily by whom he had two children who lived there upon their mothers means whereupon they both afforded me great indulgements but at length I declared my self to them and then there was amongst us such a tyde of tendernesses there was not room for words nor could we contain our tears of joy Afterwards I related to them at leasure the strange and various adventures of my voyage shewing them divers curiosities I had brought along with me amongst others Asbeste linnen which is made clean with firing being incombustible linnen used by Indian Princes and Lords and are wrapt in it when their bodies are committed to the pile as the bodies of Roman Emperours were in ancient time I have often shewed the experience of it to persons of quality in Provence I shewed them the herb Falacit having this property that laying it under a bed all those loathsome Chemisses worms stock to it and so are killed I brought it in a box but I was ill advised I brought not the seed to plant in these parts I shewed them divers other things of singularity admired by many both of knowledge and quality But before I conclude I shall tell you in order to this re-acknowledgement of my Father and Mother Brothers and Sisters what long after happened to me at Palerma in Sicily after my Father was dead For calling to mind he had often told me he had a Son and Daughter there I made diligent enquiry for them at first no one could tell any thing of them for that they were called by their Mothers name whose heirs they were and my Brother who was called Nazaro Bianco was called onely de Nazara but at length I enquired by so many tokens that I found out his house and going thither I was told he was sick which hindered me not but I went confidently up into the Chamber meeting a young maid upon the stairs blood which cannot lye told me that must needs be my Sister neverthelesse without further notice desiring to see her Brother she led me to his Chamber and seating me near the bed where he lay I observed in him the very pattern of my Father and asking if he had not Brothers at Marseills he told me yea and asked if I knew them whereupon many discourseâ— passed telling him divers news and recommendations During our discourse this Sister of mine looked stedfastly upon me as she were ravished to see and hear me and I presenting my hand to her she kissed hers and took mine a thing not usuall in Italy and lesse in Sicily Hereupon my Brother having caused a little daughter of his to be brought in I kissed her hand as I did my Sisters and taking a ring off my finger of an orientall fauset emerald one of the best I ever saw I presented it to her wherewith she was quite confounded and in doubt whether she should take it or no but telling her her Uncle sent it her by me with leave of her Mother who was present she accepted it and at the same instant I gave a fair table Rubie to my Sister But as we were in the middle of these complements and discourse of our friends who should come into the chamber with a French garb and alacrity but the Governour of the Bastide nephew to the grand Prior of St. Giles and other Cavaliers my friends who knowing I was there came to seek me and by their calling upon my name my Brother and Sister knew me and confessed they had some suspicion of me when I gave the rings my Sister told me at the instant she met me on the stairs she felt something extraordinary which made the colour rise in her face Then we fell to embraces and rejoyces like the American women who when they will bid their friends welcom sit on the ground and weep and entertain them embrace and feast them weeping So I staid there some six weeks in jollity and congratulation with my friends I was willing to relate this passage as well to shew the various encounters of mans life as the instinct of bloud which will discover it self be it never so concealed and unknown CHAP. XXII The Authours voyage to the kingdom of Morocca he is taken by the Spaniards an accident befell the Authour at Arache The battel of Sebastian King of Portugall BUt let us come back to my return to Marseills where I felt the custom of change to be of no small force which was so prevalent with me that I had scarce rested six moneths there but I grew weary finding neither the air customs nor manner of living agreeable I was so moulded to change and variety As this inquietude possessed me it happened fortunately that one Don Guillerm passed by Marseills sent by Henry the 3. Embassadour or Agent to Fez and Marocco and being very much a friend to my Father dining one day at our house he heard me speaking of my travails and was pleased with my conversation he asked me if I would go along in his company And I was in a humour so well disposed that I accepted very willingly so he entertained me This Don Guillerm was a Chirurgion born at Nice who travailing to Marocca was so happy as to cure the King of a pestilence with which he was visited at Constantinople which brought him in great esteem with the Prince Insomuch that he sent him to treat of an alliance with King Henry the third who returned him with presents to Molouco and Abdelmelech Being thus agreed we parted from Marseills about sixty in company and imbarked upon a well-arm'd vessel within six dayes we came by night near upon the streight of Gibraltar but the stream was so violent it held us back till day and well-nigh cast us on shore near the Tower called the Devils mansion where no body ever lives for they have a tradition that the master Mason which built it being not paid his price by him that set him on work gave it to fiends who have kept it ever since Being thus driven on shore against the mount of Gibraltar as we endeavoured with strength to shove her off the vessel overturned and the mast and sails lay in the water which much amazed us but by happy fortune a Pilot of Marseills John Saffoulo being aboard with us for his private affairs seeing our danger and that every one was fled to the other side the deck fell to work and with an ax opening the side of the ship let in the water so as the weight set her upright and by Gods assistance we scaped this imminent danger being driven by a gentle gale to a point where we cast anchor But notice hereof coming to the Spanish Gallies which lay at anchor not far thence they sent out presently
to take us and bring us to the Town of Gibraltar while they were towing us along we cast into the Sea above two thousand cannon bullets and a great quantity of powder The Spaniards hereupon accused us of treason for carrying ammunition to their enemies for they had found some barrels of powder which were left behind Then coming aboard us like right ravenous wolves they ransack'd every where seizing all the merchandizes and opening the chests eat all that was good amongst the rest searching a Physicians chest they found some purging lozanges whereof some of them eat in great quantity and found so sudden an effect they had scarce time to untie their breeches whereof two or three died saying we had poysoned them Mean while they put Irons on our legs and removed us into the Galley with rude treatment and rough menaces till at last sentence passed upon us by which the Embassadour and ten of the chief Gentlemen were to loose their heads all the rest to the Gallies for ever The Embassadour hearing this sad sentence appealed to the King of Spain who confirmed the sentence saying no more than Loque es hecho es hecho But by good fortune the Marseillian Pilot that was with us when he first saw the Galleys coming upon us cast himself privately into the Sea with some moneys and so gaining the land went to Madrid and this in consideration of one amongst us to whom he had promised his daughter in marriage Being there and understanding the King had ratified this sentence of death he addressed himself presently to the most Serene Infanta Donna Isabella and so handsomly laid before her the inconveniences would ensue upon this execution which was sufficient to break the peace between the two kings that she moved with these reasons went immediately to the King her Father to petition for grace which was granted and we released to the discontent of them who thought to make a good booty of us and our goods Being now again Masters of our lives goods and vessel after two months time which was spent in these proceedings we put to sea again upon our course to Arache a fort of importance in the kingdom of Fez about 70. or 80. miles from Gibraltar where there is a Port made by a River as at Goa in the Indies which is crossed with a bar of sand so as there is no coming in but at high water which is here every day but at Goa you may expect a month Coming on shore there we were very well entertained and the Embassadour provided of horses and other necessaries to go to the King of Fez Abdelmelech who was then in great vexation for that Mahomet his nephew who disputed with him for the kingdom and whom he had defeated in many battails by the assistance of the Turk was newly scaped towards Don Sebastian King of Portugal to crave his aid Being come from Arache to Miguine ten leagues from Fez seeing the Embassadour was to hold on his way to Morocca to the King we resolved four or five of us to go see Fez the capital Town of the Countrey Having walked through Meguine beyond the Town we came to a Church-yard of the Mahometans where two of us making water it happened to be near the Sepulcher of one of their Marabons or Santons and being perceived by some of the Moores they would have stopt us but we defending our selves stoutly with fists and feet I got out of their hands but my heart failed when I saw fifty Archers of the Town-guard about us who paid me well for the blows I had given their fellows for they beat me most outrageously as they did the rest of us the very Children crying after me Tarasti Nazarani that is kill him at every word calling me Quichequet dog At last I was brought before the Cadi or Judge to whom I kneeled but he made me lye along on the ground and gave me thirty lashes on the back with a whip of oâ—-sinews and as many bangs on the belly with an Indian cane so that I was almost dead with the blowes which had quite benum'd me yet again for these threescore bangs I must pay as many miticales in gold which are worth four franks a piece after all they laid me in prison with another bath'd in blood at the same time Then they used all art possible to perswade me to renounce my faith Amongst others came in one in scarlet and under pretense of some compassion on my youth spoke softly in the Spanish tongue I should be advised and have a care how I lost my soul Not content with this they sent a young Spanish damsell to me cloathed in white with a Huke which covered her all over who after salutation expressed her resentment of my misfortune and with some words of consolation told me she was come to instruct me how to save my self from death and to set her at liberty immediately I bent my thoughts upon the woman not as yet comprehending what she meant till she explained further that I should marry her and renounce my faith for a time and when the King of Portugal who was upon point to give battaile to the Marocco should be victorious we should have means to escape amongst the Christians I must confesse ingenuously the words of this young maid made a strong assault upon me and made me take the matter into consideration but God gave me the grace to hold firme to my self and at last to satisfie her that neither for her beauty nor enjoyment of all the world would I ever renounce the faith of Jesus Christ my God so she took her leave But after this the Judges themselves attended with the Executioner with his heading-knife at his side came to me and speaking to me told me I had committed a hainous crime but that there might be some remedy found that we had all one God the Creatour of all things and the benign common Father of all men who had sent divers Prophets for our instruction and to shew us the way of salvation but they having one more excellent than the rest they were obliged in all they could to augment the number of his Disciples so as to save my life there was no other way then by deniall of Jesus Christ not that they esteemed his law nefarious for they knew he was likewise a great Prophet the breath of the Almighty and a great friend of Mahomet but because their law was the best and the most perfect To this God assisting me with his extraordinary grace I with courage answered that rather then deviate voluntarily in the least from my Religion I would sacrifice a thousand lives if I were master of so many Perceiving my constancy they told me I was ill advised neverthelesse to testifie their affection and consideration of my youth they would make me another offer which might conduce to the securing of my life whereupon there was a sumptuous tapestry spread upon the floor with rich
Straight conquered by the Portuguese as Arzile and others and joynes to the Province of Errif which beginnes at the Straight and Eastward stretches as farre as the River Necor Northward to the Mediterranean The principall town of it is Targa or Terga upon the said sea who traffick with the People of Tunnis and Bisette There are besides the Townes of Jelles Gebba and others Garet joynes to this Province which reaches as farre as the Deserts of Numidia and the Cities there are Mazelle Megger and others where there are many Mines of Iron This Countrey joynes upon the Region of Chaus which Westward runnes to the River Barnagara that goes to the borders of Lybia with her townes of Teurere Besornin c. It extends as farre as the Kingdome of Telesin exceeding rich which on the West bounds upon the Rivers Moluia and La South upon the deserts of Numidia comprehending from West to East near four hundred miles environed with many great deserts confining on the blacks and hath two remarkable Havens Marzalquibir and Oran besides the townes of Gualdida Hauan the great City of Nodroma and Telesin the capitall where the King resides who keeps a magnificent Court There is also Constantina the Walls whereof are black stone polished scituate upon a Mountain at the foot whereof the River Sufamar runnes About it are other Provinces whereof some joyn to the desert of Barqua which borders upon Tenez a City of Numidia and on the North embraces the Province of Daro which joynes upon Sequelme or Segelmesse taking name from the capitall towne and extends to the River of Zez which confines on the Deserts of Lybia All these countries are inhabited by severall barbarous people as Zonetes Azonagia Zabara Egilefe and runnes to the Province of Chenega which joyns to the Mountaine of Atlas This Mountaine reaches to the Deserts of Numidia amongst which there is one countrey terminates upon the kingdom of Bugia called Zeb on the North having Biledulgerib or Numidia Lybia is of great extent and Numidia larger In Lybia are the vast Deserts of Zonzaga and Zuenziga almost all inhabited on the skirts with Arabians who have the blacks on the West and South called Galata confining upon Tombur In the middle is the Desert of Zarat which is two hundred miles over without any habitation but the desert of Aroboan affords some comfort and it joynes upon Tombur Then next are the deserts of Hair over which lyes the passage from Tombur to Telensin We leave the Desert of Gosde on the right hand for the numbers of fierce beasts that resort thither then to the desert of Gir which on the North confines on Tuas Tegerin and Damesab which hath the kingdome of Agades on the South a countrey plentifull of Herbage Fountaines and Manna which they use much in their Diet and Pottages they have such abundance of it it renders them exceeding strong and agile they likewise boyled with water make drink of it They are subjects to the King of Tombur and border upon Cano another kingdome tributary to Tombur The people are all black as pitch Near the Town of of Masar in Arabia Salban there was once a Gulph of the Sea There was formerly a Temple dedicated to Venus where maids did prostitute themselves for pleasure or profit they report but a famous Courtisan beautiful and rich by name Ameliga being courted by divers Princes and great persons would accept of nothing from them only obliging them to give something to the poor using these words Honour the Goddesse Ameliza to whom you offer this which made her famous through all Africa so as they came from very forrain parts to see her and the King of Bodumal sued to have her to wife which she refused amongst others there was a Maraban who visiting her erected a magnificent Temple to her which was immediately frequented with a concourse of people and everyone repair'd thither to obtain their desire provided they were able of member otherwise 't was not to be looked for The People of Guiner Tombur and others were of this devotion The Priests of the Temple received the word and render'd them at certain houres For the kingdome of Melli 't is very wealthy by reason 't is cut through with the black river or Senega or a branch of it or rather a channell made by hand so as 't is very fruitfull in Dates Raisins Cotton and other commodities for 't is said this River flowes as Nile does and at the same houres They have abundance of Canoes or boats of one piece in which they travaile upon their little negotiations passing from kingdome to kingdome moved out of the History of Jonas who they say came on shore there They make great benefit of Whales and believe no Whale can passe that way without bursting An ancient Gentleman of Siban told me that in the yeare one thousand five hundred seventy one walking on the shore he saw three great Whales which being entered the Gulph made a most horrid noyse and on the morrow one of them was cast up with his belly slit as it had been done with a knife the other two were carried away with the streame of the water Whether this be a miracle or magick I will not judge Melli borders upon Gago and Gago is the better countrey of the two and though Melli have the better townes yet the other is of much more esteem for many things but chiefly for the quantity of gold brought thither by the Moores from all parts and this gold is very exquisite whereof they make most part of their pieces of a crown and halfe which they call Miticales But Melly hath the glory from all her neighbours for a fair Colledge of their Prophet Haly where all the other kingdomes come to study the Sciences there being many learned Doctors of their kind Thither for this purpose repaires the youth of Cambre the chief town of Tambur as also from Gago and other place Gago is a Town of great traffick where there is a great Mart for pepper and slaves of all parts of Christendom whom they employ in Mines there being some who for avarice bring their own children for this purpose Gago borders Eastward on Cober and the capital towns of these two countries are 200. leagues distant They are also under the inundation of Niger which manures the countrey and makes it plentifull in cattle and provisions the reason the people apply themselves more to husbandry then study and so are grosse and rustick Westward from thence lyes the great Cape Serrelyonne on the East the kingdome of Agades then Cano Zegeg which breeds such store of horse then Zanfara and Guangara Northward whose King hath a Guard of 7000. men foot and horse with bowes and Cimeterres Then comes Borro which runs above five hundred miles Eastward having on the South the Deserts of Get and on the North those of Barea They are a brutish people and entertain their wives in common Towards the Piroc are the
of valour and rewarded them very amply by which means they were so well served in their wars and got so many victories Their weapons were clubs with keen stones lances pikes a sort of javelins at the throwing whereof they were exceeding dextrous bows arrows little targets and a head-piece with a plume of feathers coats of Lions Bears Tigers and other beasts-skins great runners and wrastlers The King of Montezuma in his Militia had an order of Knights that from the Crown had their hair tyed with carnation ribbons rich feathers and a scarf of the same colour who for every gallant atchievement they have done have so many waves fastened and hanging over their shoulders This King was of that order as he is to be seen represented in his statue at Chapultapes This habit was very stately enriched with plumes of all colours and makes the Spaniards deck themselves with feathers in imitation and adorn their horses with them another order of Knights there was called Agourlas clad in another manner and with other differences then there were the Ataroncos the Tigers the Blacks armed from head to foot in fight the others half armed Their cloaths of Combi cotton and other things these had license to eat in gold and silver vessels a thing not allowed to others who were apparelled with courser cloathes called Nequen These first Knights lodge in the Kings Palace and have their apartments amply accommodated whom I cannot compare better than to the Mayl'd Knights at Malta distinguished in divers companies by the Titles of Princes Eagles Tigers and Blacks The rest of his Valiant Militia lodged in other divisions apart assigned them by the Council and upon pain of death could not change their lodging This Militia was so well ordered and disciplined that they stroke terrour in the neighbouring people And what was most to be admired that they could keep so many different Nations in concord for the perfection of the Country drew people from all parts thither There is one sort of people amongst them called Chalcas that is men of the streight which argues them to be a people come from the streight others called Souchimilcos that is field men others Tapaneras men of the bridge others Alcapousalcas Couluas crookback'd Tsaluicas mountain-men All these Nations are come to inhabit and feed on Mexica to build Towns and Burroughs and that as their Characters shew above seven or eight hundred years since The Tlascaltecaes never agreed with the Mexicans but assisted the Spaniards against them and in compensation are eased of tributes and have many priviledges and possesse the room the Chichimeras who fled from their homes at the approach of the Spaniards so much they were astonished with that new way of war esteeming them children of the Sun The Tsalcaltecaes used a stragatem to dispossesse the Chichimecaes who made good resistance at first for under colour of a feast of amity while these were drinking the others stole away their arms and so got their ends The History whereof stands at this day painted in the Countrey The original people were Gyants as appears by bones of dead men and teeth as big as pullets eggs They who remained by little and little conformed themselves to the others The Mexicans had a most truculent custom to sacrifice their prisoners of war and enemies to their gods and in want of them their own natural children The Priests or Papas performed the sacrifice opening the breast of the miserable victim and with the heart sprinkled the Idol to appease it and watered the stairs and the temple with his blood In Peru they made the like sacrifice of children from four to ten years old with such madnesse that they would slaughter 200. at a time and this for the health and prosperity of their Ingas or Kings and the like of maids drawn out of their Monasteries To gain their Childrens consent they tell them they shall be immediately made Saints and go straight to heaven amongst the gods At Peru at decease of their Kings they slaughter a number of his servants to attend and wait upon him in the other world This custom of bloody sacrifices was common through all the parts and Islands of the new world What is admirable in Coluacane as also in Jacatan Vraba and Dariena there are many circumcised whence arises a question whether they came from the ten Tribes sent to Tarty and Arsarach The Mexicans chief god or wooden Idol was Vitzilipatzli whom the Toucouacans or Teâ—calhuacans the first civilizers of Mexico brought with them in a Tabernacle of Sea-reeds who promised to make them Lords of this vaste Countrey shewed them the way to it and how to keep it which at this day is to be seen in historical paintings as I have often my self observed In prosecution they built lofty Temples and instituted their Feasts and bloudy Sacrifices whereof I spoke before The Devil that Ape of the Almighty would imitate what we read of the Ark in the old Testament conducting the children of Israel and other mysteries the stile this Seducer uses to gain credit and adoration from these abused people And the Indians in memory of this Ark to this day place a case of reeds upon the Altar Being in the Kingdome of Tabin and passing on to the Countrey of Sâ—iton we visited the Lord of the Territories Palace where amongst divers figures of Princes there was one of a King with an emerald hanging in his nose whom we were informed was King of Mexico and how after the decease of Montezuma one Tlacaeler a person of high valour was elected King or Lord of the Countrey who neverthelesse waved the offer saying he had charge enough in the ordering his own dominions The Mexicans perceiving his resolution requested he would name them a King and then he elected Ticociâ— son of the King deceased who being young was constantly assisted with the counsel of Tlacaeler This King had his nose pierced and an Emerald hang'd in it and hence in their books and monuments this King is figured with his nose pierced In the Temples of Peru they set the Image of Pachacamas with a Monde under his Feet who they said had a Spirit that he sent upon earth to execute his will that being a potent crowned King he went naked for their example and that in his hand he bore a dart to exterminate those of bad lives and called him Chinnequil that is the Ghost of the Great Creatour Letters they had none onely a sort of significant Characters figures and draughts like Hieroglyphicks which they continue still to expresse the mysteries of Christianisme They will form all their words and discourses in these figures and paintings as when they would say I confesse me to Almighty God they draw a Priest sitting a man at his feet upon his knees and over them three faces in one signifying the Trinity and something lower the image of the Virgin with her infant c. and pictures of
relieve Grizalua but he returned without advancing further Cortez undertook the invasion with five hundred souldiers his Captains Auilla Porto Carrecco Orda Escalente Salsedo Olid Escouar Aluarada and others He gain'd the Kingdom with great toyle and industry defeated and took the King Montezuma afterwards being driven out by the Mexicans with a neighbouring people their enemies he returned and brought them absolutely under the yoke The Indians called him Malnixa as a God descended from heaven Amongst the Spaniards themselves he had great enemies as Garary Estrada Olid and Navez whom he routed and compleated his conquest The Emperour made him Marquesse del Valla. He was indued with all the qualities of a Spaniard vertuous and vitious He was bold valiant suddain in execution clear spirited subtle patient and resolute but ambitious out of measure cruell and libidinous He dyed in Spain at the age of 63. in the year 1546. He conquered in Mexica from 12. to 15. degrees The town of Mexica is in 19. degrees about the 8. of May and the 16. of July the Sun is perpendicular The countrey is temperate but rather hot then cold clothes there not being tedious or troublesome nor nakednesse importune or broyling The Mines are not so wealthy as in Peru but more profitable by reason of the lesse charge and danger Besides gold silver iron and brasse they bring from thence sugar cochenell cotton plumage honey wax balm amber salt medicinable drugges c. and few vessels return light which is not in Peru Spain being enriched as well from one as the other For though there is so much treasure to be exhausted yet there is not so much danger The faith hath made a farther progresse the countrey is better peopled the natives better ordered more regular better Markets of cattle horses sugars and meat wherein Peru cannot compare which doubtlesse would be better if it had more rain The natives wondring why the Spaniards were inquisitive of gold and silver at first they made them believe 't was to cure them of a pain at their heart whereto they were subject but in time they found it did hold them there indeed Cortez to bring these people in obedience to his King told them he was Emperour of all the Christians the greatest Lord on earth who had under him more Kingdomes and Provinces then other Kings had subjects That his government was founded on Justice and proceeded immediately from God that he was accomplished with all vertues and that the Monarchy of the whole Universe was by right his inheritance and other Spanish boasts and vanities Concerning the particulars of this great country besides what I have said already In the Province of Mechoacan there is an excellent root of the same name with the countrey by others called Jeheurais of the same vertue to purge as Rhubarb but more light and white and purges with lesse violence which is a great traffick in Spain where 't is worth three or four realls the pound and there almost nothing 'T is taken by the weight of a Crown pulveriz'd in an egge wine or broth I have seen greater effects of it then Rhubarb It may be kept four or five years or longer with care but there is such abundance they matter it not By information of the natives some of the Spaniards were cured of diseases by this root and so it became famous 'T is called Indian Rhubarb Amongst other trees in Mexico or the land of Caperous there is the famous tree of Muguey whereof they tell as many wonders and several uses as of the Eastern Cocos for it yields water wine vinegar oyle honey wax thread and needles so as this is sufficient to keep a man After drawing fresh water the fruit will be like sweet small nuts The water a little boyled becomes good wine more boyled like burnt wine which coagulate again excellent honey whereof they make Syrupes The first water set in the Sun makes good vinegar From the leaves issues sweet milk and out of the leaves you may draw thread strong enough to make cloth I brought with me two shirts of it and some of the fruit as perfect into Europe as it grew on the tree for the rind is very thick and that preserves it cloth made of this yarne will ever have some dark gray streaks in it About the leaves grow little prickles so strong and hard they use them for needles and sew with no other There are many who live on this tree alone which puts forth leaves upon leaves continually and in such abundance that the tree is covered over from the root to the top which makes it unshapely To make it pregnant they lay cindars to the root the wood is of such quality it endures twice as long in the fire as any other and when they will keep fire a long time they use a piece of this wood Balm comes from a tree something like a Pomegranate tree and it produces several sorts of several vertues The first is Opobalsamo excellent for wounds and the plague of gold colour like Ambar another sort is something white another sort is press'd out the leaves and sprigges burnt of such vertue 't will draw any iron out of the flesh I brought some into France wherewith I did most admirable cures of wounds and old ulcers which had eaten to the very bone In a word 't is most soveraigne for wounds paines in the sides contagions and holding a little in the mouth preserves from bad ayrs They much esteeme another tree called Cacao as the fruit is of great use and traffick which passes with them as money to buy all commodities The fruit is like an Almond a little lesse They are never without Cacoas in their pockets to buy what they want for alms or to eat and 't will keep a long time The Province of Guatima produces them in abundance where they make a precious drink of it that accordingly mixt cools or heats it makes good wine They make Cakes of it good for the stomack and ptisick 't is like an Almond tree the leaves a little broader and of a thicker body To make it prosper they plant another by the side of it 't is very tender and suffers equally by cold and heat This latter tree they call Cacaos mother because it preserves it from the injuries of the weather Whosoever hath this tree they esteem him happy and pious in opinion if he were not such their God would not have sent him this tree and when such a tree dyes they believe the Master hath committed some heinous crime In like manner they have their Coca in high esteem at Peru which being chewed and held in the mouth marvellously revives the spirit 'T is of very delicate taste whereof they make great traffick to Potossi Of the Gold and Silver Mines in Mexico I will speak jointly with those of Peru. CHAP. XI Of new Spain the Provinces thereof and of Peru. NEw Spain is the greatest
East Page 162 A female guard for a King The flowing of Nile whence it proceeds Page 217 Fidelity in subjects Page 243 Flesh eaten raw for a dainty Page 255 Fougira an odoriferous town Page 257 The fountain where the Virgin Mary rested when she fled into Egypt Page 276 Figs of particular quality Page 305 A gallant fight at Sea Page 318 Del Fuego an Isle Page 321 A mystical fruit Page 344 Florida discovered and described Page 352 Florida why so called ibid. Floridans their nature and customes ibid. Floridans wealthy Page 353 The miraculous Fountain of youth ibid. French hanged in Florida Page 356 A fountain of hot oyle Page 377 A fountain congealing immediatly Page 378 Fountains medicinable with accommodation for the sick Page 358 Fish in Mexico both useful and dangerous Page 381 French naturalized amongst the Brasilians Page 398 G. GRots of persecuted Christians Page 5 Ginger Page 26 Gedri Page 30 Gezempee Goa Page 50 Ganges a River Page 83.88 The Gulph Bengala Page 84 Giraffe a beast Page 105 Gaypoumo a strange River Page 106 Gunnes Page 110 Geographers mistaken Griffins Page 115.152 Grages extraordinary Page 155 Guber how bounded Page 179 Goragues wild and sanguinary people Page 227 A Garden at Casima most pleasant Page 261 Guinea how bounded Page 321 Gambra a famous River Page 322 Guinalla a Kingdom a River and a Haven The king of Guinalla 's State ibid. Gutulea a pleasant country the riches thereof Page 324 Gold for things inconsiderable Goulmaran the name of a River and countrey Page 351 Goulmarans their nature housing habit diet religion warre and innocence ibid. Goulmarans their armies of dogges H. HUnting Page 38 Hali. Page 38 Hamar Page 38 A History of a Bear Page 78 A history of a Spanish woman and a Monkey Page 79 Hunting of Elephants Page 92 Hermophrodites Page 92 A history of Serpents Page 105 Horses Page 110 Holy ashes and holy water Page 121 Hens black of flesh Page 127 A deplorable history of two Princes Page 144 Horses and their breeding Page 166 A Royall hunting ibid. A history of an Incubus Page 175 Horses sucked by Cowes Page 202 Dexterous horsemen ibid. A history of Prince Aranubi Page 220 Hereticks condemned to fire with the Ethiopians Page 246 A prodigious history of Prince Joel Page 261 A history of the Popes Almne Page 314 An accidental destruction of Idolaters Page 325 Hispaniola by whom discovered and when Page 337 In Hispaniola the people how governed their Laws and Nature ibid. A history of a slave Page 406 I. Jurabi a guide uses the Compasse Page 10 Jewes thieves Page 12 Jesrab a town Page 13 Jubara Abrahams mountain Page 15 Saint John Baptist Page 21 Ibram Page 25 Ismael Sophy Page 39 Icorma Page 39 Inhabitans of Genoa Page 41 Ivory Page 47 Idolatry Page 50 A miraculous discovery of innocence Page 53 Idoll of a Monkeys tooth Page 69 Indian earthen ware Page 78 Idolaters fear of Christianisme Page 88 Idolaters superstitious ibid. Java an Island Page 96 Infirme eaten ibid. Inhabitants of Sapara Page 98 Idolatrous and Mahometan Martyrs Page 125 Idolls of Pegu. Page 125 Idolls destroyed by the Portugals Page 123 The Image of the Virgin Mary in the Indies respected Page 154 Interrement ibid. Interrements Page 168 Igname a delicate root Page 182 Janiharou a Town and River Page 185 Joguia a root Page 186 Justice betwixt Creditor and Debtor severe Page 244 Joconomites an austere order Page 245 Kingdome of the Jalofes Page 321 Jalofes have person'd and qualified their ornaments and nature Page 322 Jalofes in their dealings lawlesse Page 323 An Island seen and not known Page 331 The Isbane of Iron Page 332 Jagares famous for swiftnesse Page 353 Jucatan described Page 370 Incas Kings of Peru. Page 387 The Isle of Saint Thomas described Page 404 K. A Kingdome left for heaven Page 88 Kingdomes conquered by Pegu. Page 112 Kingdomes tributary to the Emperour of the Abyssins Page 213 Knights of Malta and their institution Page 283 L. LIbanus Page 4 Ladamum Page 19 Lacca Page 26 Lawes in Narsingue Page 74 Lagi a town Page 113 Largaray a Kingdom Page 177 The Isle of Saint Laurence or Madagascar Page 182 In the Isle of Saint Laurence how they employ the Inhabitants Page 184 Lacque for painting Page 260 Lions their nature Page 271 Saint Laurence a river in the East-Indies Page 327 An unfortunate love Page 355 A prodigious lightning ibid. M. MAnna Page 4 Morets entertainment Page 8 A description of Medina Page 13 Mahomets tombe ibid. Mahomets birth Page 14 Mahomets law ibid. Medina taken by Mahomet ibid. Marabuts sacrificators Page 15 Mahometan ceremonies Page 15 Mazara a beast Page 19 Mirrhe Page 20 Mezua Page 25 Machif Page 35 The Virgin Mary honoured by the Indians Page 50. A most admirable medicine Page 56 Maladives Isles Page 72 A history of the Magicians of Pegu. ibid. Merchants deceived Page 74 Musk and from whence Page 81 Metempsicosis Page 94.97 Malaca and the traffick Page 102 Martaban Page 106 A miraculous delivery of a Christian exposed to beasts to be devoured Page 116 Meat perfumed Page 137 Mandronella a town Page 152 A Monkey armed Page 160 Militia of Transiana Page 165 Mountains remarkable Page 168 Mummy Page 169 Mountain of the Sun ibid. Mastiffes for prey Page 175 Magicians Page 180 Madrogan the chief towns of Monopotapa Page 200 The Monopotapian Kings habit ibid. The King of Monopotapa's Pallace service officers and magnificence Page 201 The King of Monopotapa's accoutrement for the warre ibid. The order of his Militia Page 202 Military Mastiffes ibid. The Monopotapian Eunuchs how clothed and their office ibid. The Monopotapian punishments Page 203 Monopotapian Princes are distinguished by a Lyons skin ibid. Manica a gold Mine Page 194 Mount Manica and the ruines of stupendous structures ibid. Magnificence of the Negus Page 203 Three mysticall dishes Page 226 The Mongibir Kings resignation Page 230 Mongibir a Kingdom Page 233 Mongibirians low-spirited and timerous ibid. Mongibirians Idolaters worship the Sun ibid. Mongibirians opinion of the Christians ibid. Magnificence in Mongibir Page 234 A mountain never free from snow Page 337 Moucall an uniforme town ibid. A passionate mourning Page 240 The march of the grand Negus Page 241 Monkes married Page 245 Men turned into Wolves Page 269 A man turned into an Asse by Magick ibid. A magical relation Page 270 A famous Mosquee Page 273 Mummi Page 279 Morocca Page 297 Melli a kingdome very wealthy Page 299 Magicians of divers kinds Page 302 A cruell murther Page 317 The Crick S. Michael Page 331 Marriage in Domingo Page 334 Mexico and the coasts Page 341.345 Mexico how called and described Page 356 Mexicans ingenious and Idolaters Page 357 Of the temperature of Mexico ib. The ancient Mexicans Page 358 The Mexicans armes Page 359 The King Montezuma ibid. Mexicans divided into several nations Page 360 Mexicans Religion Page 361 The Mexican year and month Page 362 The
Trade of Tauris ibid. Principall towns of Persia Page 35 Thais Alexanders Curtisan Page 36 A miraculous tyde Page 45 Toumacant a Western wind Page 63 Treason punished Page 73 Saint Thomas his shrine Page 76 Ternassery Page 80 Tydes from North to South meet in the strait of Magellan Page 109 Tahaba Page 111 Trienniall governments Page 120 The martyrdom of S. Thomas Page 126 A tempest calm'd by charms Page 124 Testimonies of love Page 142 Tygars hunted Page 159 The King of Transiana his curiosity and affability Page 161 Transiana a town and the valour of the women there Page 163 Tazatay a kingdom Page 169 Tartary Page 163 The Tartars conquests Page 180 The King of Tombut 's majesty Page 179 Trees that yield drink and thread Page 184 The Isle of thieves Page 186 The Talmassaca a garment of difference for nobility in Monopotapa Page 202 Land Tortoyses Page 211 Tributes to the Emperour of the Abyssins Page 213 A magnificent triumph Page 228 Titles of Preste John Page 246 Tortoises useful for travel Page 256 Tamatans pillagers Page 251 Triumphs at the inundation of Nile Thebaida and the deserts Page 279 Turkish proceedings against the Authour Page 290 Temesne and the people thereof Page 300 The Turks Religion Page 307 Turks have religious of several orders Page 307 Turkish Obsequies Page 308 Turkish Justice Page 309 Taboucaton the chief town in the kingdom of the Jalofes Page 321 A miraculous tree that continually distills water Page 332 A terrible tempest called an Aroucane and remarkable passages in it Page 335 Temistican the capital town in New-Spain Page 356 A tree yielding linnen and all necessaries Page 368 Balsom from a tree of soveraign vertue Page 369 Fruit used for money ibid. Temper of Peru. Page 374 V. UNicorns horns Page 15 The Virgin Peru. Page 199 Virginia by whom discover'd Page 352 Description of Virginia ibid. Vnknown lands Page 357 A remarkable vision foreshewing the arrivall of the Spaniards in Peru. Page 389 Vanity of the Portugals Page 405 W. WIne sold by Apothecaries Page 9 A draw-well at Outor Page 18 Spanish Wax Page 26 Women chosen Page 38 Women bought and sold Page 47 Wives in common Page 62 A war for a white Elephant Page 103 113 White Elephants adored Page 114 Winds called Monsouns cold in extremity Page 150 Widows married Page 155 Wood to strike fire Page 158 Women swimmers ibid. A furious wind called Tafon Page 182 Winds that preserve bodies incorruptible Page 187 Wine in Oxe horns Page 230 Walking mountains Page 280 A Whale Page 283 A remarkable accident of Whales Page 299 Singular windes Page 342 A wind of the use of rain Page 373 Water boyling hot by nature Page 377 Winglesse Birds Page 394 Z. ZAcharies tombe Page 6 Zibit Page 13 Zagathy Page 34 King of Zeilan Zinguebar Page 192 Zunam an Island Page 293 Zaflan a Lake ibid. Zaire and Zambre two rivers ib. Zuama a river by the Portugals called Rio del spiritu santo Page 218 Zio Marina Christos a Monastary Page 239 The torrid zone and the quality of the climat Page 342 FINIS Alexandria Caire His return and shipwrack in Candia Turluru Isle Canee A maâ—icious shipwrack Just punishment of the persidious The Author preserved Antioche Libanus Manna Chrysorrhoas Aman. Aleppo Damas. A Fâ—ench Cutler Amon and Sahanir Mounains Grots of persecuted Christians Aman and Pharphar Rivers Silkes Zacharies Tomb St. Pauls Imprisonment A fatall Execution A Dervis Armin. Dan Caesarea Benin Macharib foâ— Misor The Torrent Arnor Morets entertainment Wine sold by Apothecaries Provisions for the deserts Caravane Burning sands Want of water Dead sea of Sodome Jurabi a Guide uses the Compass Sad accidents in the deserts Apparitions in the deserts Arabian Robbers Montsina called Lurle or Tur. Oreb called Saint Cather-mount The three Arabia's the desert the stony and the happy Mâ—ka Medina Metar Alcoran Zidem a Haven Jâ—soreh Jewes â—hieves A cheat Medinat al. Nabi Jesrab Cassis deceived his brother Zibit Aden Ormus Description of Medina Mahomets tombe Caravan of Aleppo Dumas and Grand-Cair Books of the lives and Sects of Mahomets successours Surazins Saraca or Elfarabk Mahomets birth Mahomets law Alcoran Medina taken by Mahomet Iubara Abrahams Mountains Marabouts sacrificators Mahometan ceremonies Cassis his treachery Ferragous Outor A draw well at Outor Arabia the happy Zibit Alibenali Black sand Frankinsence Storax Benjamin Sabea Aloes Ladanum Cinamon Cassia Mazari Chicali Pecher a Haven Myrrhe Cosan or Cosara River His state Salsidas devotes Romadan S. John Baptist Dalata Debir Trade in Arabia Cameran Isle Red sea King Erithreus Sabeans Homerites Aden Abacoure or Bacoure The trade of Aden Spices and the trade from time to time Aden how fortified Cameran Dalascia Mezua Ibrani Camera Suachan Camelots Lacca Spanish wax Ginger Santall Dalascia Asses Caymans or Crocodile A strange dispute and a tempest ensuing Duma the Peguans false god Lucifer Strange tempest Amorous dames Socotora Ormus Ceyfadin Albuquerque King of Ormus Gedri Baharen Areca Abrazador Alep Trade from Oâ—mus King of Ormus Ormus regained by the Persian Persia and her bounds Cymits of Persia The Provinces of Persia Rivers Towns of Persia Benmir Babylon Bagded Pitch or Bitume Balsora Bagded Tauris or Tabris formerly Terva or Gerva Zagathy Xabas or Abas and Mirza Trade of Tauris Principall Towns of Persia Derbent Sumachia Bacchat Gezempee Machif Marseilian Curtizan Bezap or Bezouart casbin and Siras Thais Alexanders Cuâ—tizan Samarcant Sorismell Sinderate The Powerful state of the Kings of Persia Delicacies Seleris Women chosen Hunting Forrests Sophy signifies wise Hali. Hamar Cufa Ismael Sophy Sorts of religious orders amongst the Turks Sacar Icorma Calender Deruis cut-throats Nicotiane Some say that Amurath was killed by a Tribullian soldier guised inhabit of a Deruis Durmisar Erade Pluviander Barcas Salsidas Amicabir Nabassan Ostader Amirachor Caidsidibir Cassanderâ— Ageleps Archilep in Pegu. Inhabitants of Genua Places in the Indies The Portugais conquests in the East Christianisâ—e in the Indies Batinisir and her Carpets Diu assaulted by the Tuâ—k Areca a fruit common in the Indies Cambaye Town A miraculous tide The King at this time is tributary to the Grand Mogull Prodigious food Women bought and sold Ivory Children sold by Parents An accident Deli-Decan Sano sararadin Malabar Mandova Goa Guari Rivers Bâ—nactaru Isle of Goa Idolatry Dinary The Virgin Mary Honoured by the Indians Purcelains Mordesin diseases Scorbus Churches at Goa A sad fate of Pirats Provence a Province in France Aubaynea town in France A miraculous discovery of innocence Barcelor Baticola Presumption of the Portugais The strength of Cananor Naires are Gentlemen A most admirable medicine Ebony Areca Calicut Samorin Jonque Gondola Cochin Pepper of all sorts Miticale weight of a crown and a half Cochins scituation severall Christians at Cochin Women are common Toumacaui a western wind in force towards Potereau and Peru. Jenibaronâ— Portuguais go from Cohin into Portugall Aâ— strange History of a Portuguais Captain and certain
sought for by the Great Ones studded and garnished with gold and silver jewells ivory and hart's-horn which they hold to be an antidote against poyson which I have experienced in many other diseases as the green sicknesse in women taken in the juyce of a reddish cich pea boyled with harts-horn poudred mingled with steel the weight of half a Crown with the double quantity of sugar taken every morning for twelve or fifteen dayes together This is an approved and infallible remedy against the green-sickness and jaundize yellow or black they have a beastly custome to betray the virginity of their young daughters to any strangers that are not tawny be they Christians or Mahometans but not to Gentiles nor Idolaters the women burn themselves after the decease of their husbands From Fernassery we passed to Ausly a Town upon the North of Narsingue on the east of Bengale and lyes southward to the main sea Governed by a Mahometan Prince Potent by sea and Land and sworn enemy to the Portuguese with whom they make Warr. The Town is provided with all necessaries for Warr and hath a large Harbor of capacity to contain a good Fleet the mouth thereof Southward which is chained in in case of necessity He is Master of another Town called Quelba since Maturane strong and well furnished with shipping and small Frigates wherewith they scowr that sea to the damage of the Portuguese they often fight on both sides reduced to streights This Kings Treasure chiefly consists in three Diamond Rubies and Jacynth mines besides all sorts of Groceries and Spices Their frigats or Busses are caulked with a certain hearb and Mastick is used in stead of Pitch They are built in such a manner they can hardly sink and saile with much security The Vice-Roy of Indies being upon a time informed of that Kings intentions to send his fleet to the Grand Jave to wait for the Spice fleet he set forth two great men of warr with two more St. Maloes men who drawing towards that Haven feigned an escape from shipwrack and the better to play their game tore all their sayles in peeces hiding their Canon and Soldiers under Deck They met with those Busses loaden and returning home desired their assistance to hale and tow them along unto Maturane that there they might mend their sayles and they promis'd a reward for their service the Mahometans enemies to the Christians resolved to conduct them thither and there to use them at will and having tow'd them two nights and a day to that Haven suddenly the others plaid with their Canon and seizing unawares of the place made great slaughter amongst those miserable creatures burnt their fleet sack't the Town and full fraught with rich plunder they retired The two French ships not satisfied with the pillage let the Town all on fire which was easie to effect as I have said of other places the houses were all thatched with palme returning homeward not victualled sufficiently for so much company their thoughts having been wholly taken up with Treasure they cast the men over Decks and landed the women in an Isle The mean time two Portuguais ships sayling by and seeing the Town a fire the Inhabitants fled seized of the Haven plundered the rest of the Town at leisure and loaden with rich prises they found in a Magazine untouched They retired with their booty ignorant of the cause and manner of the destruction of the Town such are the good and bad fortunes of sea-faring men Leaving the Coast of Coromandell we came to the Kingdom of Bengale the chiefe Town whereof beares the name or at least so called by the Portuguese and other Nations by the Natives Batacouta one of the greatest antiquity in the Indies Some would have it to be old Ganges a Royall Town upon the River Ganges This Kingdom of Bengale was 300 years since subdued by the great Cham of Tartary freed her selfe since and after that conquerred by the Parthians or Patates and is at last and remains stil subjected to the great Mogull Prince of Tartary and Supreme Lord of all Indostan and yet there remaine some Lords in that Countrey that are Soveraignes and obey the Mogull in a Noble manner This Kingdom reaches 200. leagues upon the sea side and containes the Kingdomes of Sirapu Chandecan Bacal Aracan or Mogor and others The Inhabitants of Bengale are Idolaters Mahometans and some Christians for there are Portuguaises and Fathers of the Society The Town is scituate upon one of the mouthes of Ganges whereof there are two Principall in regard that river as some persons believe with what reason judge ye is one of the four rivers of the Terrestriall Paradice called Whiton or Giho The opinions of the Antient and modern Authors do not agree whether 't is the true Ganges of the Antients or whether old Ganges be not rather a Canton in China or some more Eastern then this is I leave to be decided by the most curious and shall only say that the Portuguese take this for the true one relying chiefly upon the name Guenga or Gangen which she retaines to this day and 't is confirmed by many relations from the great Kingdom of Tebet or Tibet and Cathay and the Fathers of the Society say they have followed that River a great way since their leaving of Lahir The Moors and Gentills hold there is much holiness and vertue in that River-water and wash themselves therein thorough Ceremony and Superstition as you shall hear hereafter They say 't is the best and the wholesomest water in the World and sent for 500. leagues off Forty or fifty thousand persons bathe themselves therein at a time and many Kings come disguised thither her head springs out of the great hill Inde not far from Indus the Natives think she springs out of the Terrestriall Paradise at the mouth of the River is the Gulfe Gangetick or Bengale 500. leagues in circumference containing the Coasts of the Kingdomes of Narsingue Orixa Ternessari Bengale Pegu Sian and others unto Malaca I have been told that a Frenchman named Malherbe Breton a great traveller had taken a particular view of this River and had gone 400. leagues up the River and that she hath three Mouths or places she disgorges her self into the sea the one toward Pegu the second in the middle that makes some Islands and the third in the Country of Chingara and each eight or ten leagues over That at Labas a Royall Town of Mogor and fourty dayes journey from Bengale towards the North This River is a league over her mouth towards Bengale is in the three and twentieth degree The Kingdom of Bengale borders Northward upon Tartary or Mogor and is bounded by the River Hieropec sometime Hyphasis that looses her self in the Indus the bounds of Alexander the great 's Conquest 's in the East Eastward is the Province Edaspa that joynes to the Kingdom of Aracan on an other side is the Province of Mien
happened to another whose wife was by a Christian perswaded to shut out the Magician that had given his opinion of her husband he recovering was satisfied of the abuses and falsehoods of their Magicians Pagodes and Castigais and of their false Priests and was also instructed in the truth and purity of our Religion that he might leave his own Idolatries but Alas the poor creatures heart being hardened replyed I believe said he that thy God is great and more powerful then ours and that being so great and Majestical he will not vouchsafe to make himself known to such miserable simple creatures as we are and it would be very unfit to believe a God were not willing to command us Ours said he makes his will known to us which we all submit unto and obey but I shall never more trust the Baneans for they are false Prophets and upon these accidents many of them remove their habitations It were easie to perswade them to the truth they being simple and very credulous and besides they bear a great respect to the memorie of Saint Thomas but opportunities to destroy their Idols are wanting that they might see they have neither force nor motion 'T were dangerous to attempt it without a considerable strength Those deceitful Baneans do so enslave the people that they believe things strange and absurd beyond relation In their festivals when their Idols are carried in state upon chariots some of them through zeal throw themselves under the wheels and are broken in pieces Others thrust their heads into steel hoops keen as razers and cut their own throats putting their feet in a rope fastened thereunto and such are afterwards esteemed Saints and registred in their Temples others cut a hole in their sides and fasten a rope thereto and are dragged by the Chariot after their Idol then their friends say to them remember that I have ever been thy friend and believe he hath power to save them Parents are reverenced and if poor they are assisted upon the publick account They have a solemn feast wherein they reckon up the twelve moons or moneths with the twelve signes and make great jollity when they draw their Idols upon Chariots another of Virgins is drawn off one hand to incense and perfume it At Martaban there growes a fruit which opened represents the perfect figure of a Crosse At Martaban some years before we made our travels there a rich and potent King as the Portuguais relate named Chaubaina was besieged by Bramaa of Pegu and reduced to extremity he implored the assistance of Portugal offering great treasures which for some considerations was denied and the distressed Prince forced to deliver up himself wife and children to that inhumane Tyrant of Pegu who contrary to his promise put them all to cruel deaths and sack't that flourishing town and the Portuguais were much blamed for refusing their assistance There was a vast treasure and they say six and thirty thousand Merchants all strangers that repaired thither from fourty several nations of the Indies and other remoter places as Portuguais Greeks Venetians French English Abyssins Turks Jewes Arabians Armenians Tartars Mogors Corozans Persians Malabarians Javans and many others This Town had 24. gates We went from Martaban to Pegu four small dayes journey distant by land and no more by sea although 't is much further but their Frigates fleet sayling bring all to one and putting forth with the tyde if your ship strikes upon a Rock and is able to bear the shock it glides over like a Balon for no arrow flyes fleeter I have shot seven or eight times through the streight of Gibraltar against tyde but with full sayles and so you may stop in those seas without casting Anchor in expectation of better weather but in Macaraou the road to Pegu 't is impossible with the strongest winds against tyde to make a stand for the waves there over-powre the winds I have not seen the like fury of the seas in any place of the world as in Martaban and Pegu for there is a gulph of water and the tyde taking her course meets with those waters the one roling against the main body of the sea there is a terrible conflict they withstand each other for a time at length the weakest must yield the two bodies separate with such swiftnesse and vehemency that it seems a great hill overturned nor is there a courage so great it daunts not and where before a hollow was seen empty and dry covered over with ships on a suddain the Surges are so violent you would believe the infernal powers were all united to tosse those ships I never yet heard a reason given for it a search worthy the labour of the greatest wits in the world I remember that some yeares after meeting with a most famous Sea-Captain at Calis or Cales I related him this wonder of Macaraou saying that I should not be credited if I made any such relation in print he answered me that the words or little faith of ignorant persons could not prejudice the experience of knowing men and that he himself had he not seen could not have believed the impetuous and most violent encounter of two seas from the North and South in the streight of Magellan from the North the water entred 60. leagues within the streight from the South forty where meeting with an unconceivable fury they strike horrour and amazement into all beholders which made him believe the discourses and opinions of all natural Philosophers to be uncertain since his own experience so often contradicted them He told me he was very desirous to go witnesse what I related of Macaraou at Cambay and Pegu but since I have discovered that there is nothing liker to what I have said of Macaraou then the Mascaret of Bourdeaux That is well known to be a mountain of water gathered together in the River of Dourdonne while the waters are all quiet that mountain is framed on a sudden and rolles down the river overturning what boats soever are in the way which every man endeavours to avoyd making with all haste to the shoare I have asked the reason of the Inhabitants who have told me it proceeded from the height of the Seas meeting with the ebbe of the River and by that encounter this water gathers together but others agree not to this for if so the like would happen in the Garonne and in other places which I never heard of so that with more reason they attribute the cause to some ayre inclosed in some channel or spring under ground running from Garonne to Dourdonne which raises this mountain of water when the Sea flows but I know not whether the same reason might be given for Macaraou The Kingdom of Pegu is one of the largest richest and most potent of the Indies next to Mogor and China but to the two last are lately happened strange revolutions they are extremely fallen off from their state
and have been dismembred by the Kings of Tangu and Aracan who had in my time the possession of the white Elephant that bred so much contention in Siam This kingdom in my days contained many others viz. two Empires containing 26. crowned States Southward Pegu confines upon Martaban and Siam Eastward upon Brama Cambay and Cochin China Northward upon Ava Tazatay Aracan Westward upon Bengale and the gulf The Town of Pegu is very large and square 5. gates at every square or side encompassed with a deep work or trench full of Water-Crocodils and other dangerous Serpents The walls are built of wood with Watch-towers of rich work and gilt repaired every tenth year The houses are stately edifice At new Pegu the King keeps his Court the streets are exactly streight and large about the heart of the town you discover almost all the streets which is a gallant curiosity old Pegu is built after the same model and there the Merchants inhabit In new Pegu the streets are set with Palm-trees and Cocos loaden with fruit the new was framed and built by the line near a forest of Palmes towards the North in a large field in the trenches filled with water by the river that washes that coast there are certain baths accommodated purposely and very safe from Crocodils otherwise swimming were very dangerous The Town is as bigge as Fez whereof there is the old and new as Pegu. The King of Pegu is so potent that he never goes to war without a million and a half of men well armed with Arquebuses and other Guns they are the best Gunners in the world but not many of them and their Guns are far better then ours being made of better iron better temper'd and better wrought They have a 100000. good souldiers they live of little and for need upon leaves and roots and are gallant and resolute men His guard consists of 30000. horse either Turk or Persian and to have them plenty at a pinch there is an edict or law that what Merchant soever brings 20. horses to be sold shall have the rest of his commodities free which make them furnisht from all parts of the Indies Persia and Soltania in Arabia where are the best of the world the souldiers exercise themselves much at marks and often the King gives rewards to the best marks-men He may have 5000. Elephants and many other beasts Merchants follow the Armies upon bulls and oxen The country is rich in Mynes of Gold and Silver Rubies Saphyrs Garnets and other stones These daily augment the Kings treasures his Magazines may passe for the treasure of the East In one Court of his Pallace at new Pegu there is such store that 't is little esteemed not one man to guard it nor the dores kept shut There stands the figure or statue of a proper tall man all of beaten gold a crown upon his head of the same enriched with rubies of inestimable value and round it four statues more of youths all of gold which seem to be Idols yet they say they were made for delight In another Court is represented a Gyant sitting of silver with a Crown of the same but far richer set with Jewels in â—ther Courts stand statues made of Ganze a mixture of many mettals whereof their Byzes are made a sort of coyn but not royal The Crowns of these latter are richer then the others with rubies and Saphyrs the biggest I ever saw The Peguans go all cloathed alike in Cottons linnens and silks the best and all are barefoot ever whether walking or riding the country abounds in Sugars which they make great and many uses of they cover their houses with it and mingle it with ciment Their buildings are costly carved and wrought sparing neither Gold nor Azure When the King or any Noble-man builds a Pallace he provides himself with the purest gold to guild it For there as in many other places of the Indies Gold is not coyned but is merchandize at Tahaba or old Pegu are many refyners and gold and silver beaters they work it into leaves as we do for the ease and benefit of the Gilders without committing much waste for they gild as I have said the very walls and towers and their houses after the Persian fashion New Pegu is almost all so built and nothing spared to make up a sumptuous splendid structure they cover them with tortoise shell which they place and joyn very neatly There is a certain place where Coaches Litters Trunks Boxes Saddles Harness for Elephants and horses are only made covered with gold and silver I saw there a saddle and furniture for an Elephant bought at a very high rate for their King What is most remarkable of their buldings is that those that live of their own rents or estates are contented with the meanest and poorest houses they are convenient but like country houses and thatch'd with straw and only able to preserve them from the injuries of the weather The Merchants and other tradesmen and shop-keepers who have something to lose out of their shops or warehouses they live in strong houses well built of stone brick close shut with strong gates and locks and call those houses Godons Throughout all the Towns of Pegu there are the Taregha or persons sworn to see good measure and weight made of commodities to the Merchants they have charge of and if a bad bargain be made the fault is laid on them with discredit and reproaches which they escape sometimes very narrowly so you take much pleasure to trade with them they are so faithful and sincere and a most excellent order is observed both in buying and selling and whatever is either bought or sold is put in a lump into the Sensals who gives notice of the number and sets a price upon them and sets a rate of what they ought freely to get over and above all charges whatever if the price be liked the mony is payed and the Sensal keeps an exact account for they are able chosen men There is no danger of any deceit besides they do all to the advantage of those that refer themselves unto them and in case the price doth not please buyer and seller they have the whole day to confirm or avoyd it although 't is to the Sensals discredit and infamy CHAP. XXVII Of the Kingdome of Pegu of a bloody war for a white Elephant of Crocodiles and the nature of Elephants THe Empire of Pegu is provided with all things necessary and commodious to life and vyes with others as rich and good as her self as Cochinchine Siam Tangu Marsin Jangoma Bengale Ava Aragan and others It is cut through in many places by that great river called by the higher Indies Amoucherat and the natives the river of Pegu or Caipumo or Martaban that runs by several branches through the level and fertilizes the soyle This River abounds in Fish and Crocodiles which they
Abdalami in his hands to carry into his own country whereof though spight shame of his defeat had made him their Bedfellow and he had not stirr'd forth of twenty dayes he was so satisised he came immediately to the King who remitting the matter to Councell 't was concluded that the Mother and daughter should be brought to Court to answer what should be demanded of them At the same time the King made a personall visit to Abdalami who upon this vouchsafed descent to come thus alone to his house conceived some hopes of his businesse and casting himself at his feet said he held himself over happy in the favour his Prince had done him and for ever after he should esteem it an honour to lay down his life for his service The King causing him to rise embraced him assuring him of pardon for what was pass'd for which he and his Lady rendring humble thanks attended him to his Pallace Three dayes after the Mother and her daughter arrived in their Pelanquins born on their slaves shoulders then the Councell being sate three Calsena or Officers were sent for Abdalami as who understood not the matter looking on him as a lost person and Isman for his part conceiving he durst not appear but rather trust to flight had laid souldiers to wait and intercept him on the way But they were strangely amazed when they saw him appear at the Palace in his Talia Massara or Persian mantle down to the foot under a Cassock a figur'd cloth of gold covered with a white Cipresse in testimony of his innocence and about his head a cord made of small reeds according to custome in testimony of self-punishment if he were found guilty The Judges then examined both parties and finding they could produce no sufficient evidence they took the Mother and daughter apart and learning from their mouthes the pure and reall truth they thought fit to have Princesse Abiasinda to be brought and since 't was through her charity this affair was consented to and contrived 't was but reason she should speak her opinion Then placing her on the Bench with the Judges Abdalami was called forth who being asked if he would stand to what sentence his Lady should pronounce answered Yea most willingly then raising her voyce she pronounced that since Alberane had so firm an affection to her husband and had born for him two lovely children by the good favour and permission of his Majesty she condemned him to espouse her presently and she would receive her for her faithful companion The judgment was admired by the whole Assembly and the Father being asked if he held this Award sufficient reparation of his honour was so confounded with the unfolding of what he was before kept ignorant he knew not what to say but the King pressing his resolution in testimony of submission he cast himself on the earth saying If Abdalami would honour him with marrying his daughter he would give with her the Province of Assen with the mines and threescore carriages of fine gold which he had gotten that present year The businesse so well accommomodated the King gave order for great rejoycings with solemn feastings and open court for fifteen dayes for all Princes and Lords of his Train The Councell would have had the moity of this treasure dispensed for satisfaction to the complaining province of Zuamin but the King opposed content only to abridge him of the Crown rights for five yeares which amounted to much more then all that treasure which was done accordingly to the content of all and these two Ladies with sincere affection lived dear companions in peace and unity CHAP. VIII The Authours voyage into Ethiope A description of Preste Johns Dominions with the Quality of his People HAving staid some dayes in the Court of Tahachi and learnt what is here before rehearsed we took our way back to our company whom we left at Chesicoure who were something troubled for us having spent two and twenty dayes in this short voyage for passing by Aruama a beautifull town the Sieur de la Courbe for some occasion would needs stay then upon a streame from Zuama we came to Gazira Sequesma Boagiara Salera Aimaca or Armeta and many other Townes and Villages At length being come to Gustigoari we understood there had happened a difference in our company whereby some were wounded and being come to Sigara three dayes journey thence we took the other part of the River which bears name with the Town of Zuama crossing the Province of Almadrega which with the country-men is called Calhouras because the capitall Town bears the same name 't is but small governed by the King of Tigrai Vassail to the grand Zeguz facing Westward the Province of Bagamidri we made it four dayes from Calhouras to the town of Bagamidri and it happened well we covered our Almadies for the rain much inconvenienced us travelling these four dayes through a waste country where land-Tortoises abound of exceeding bignesse which were very commodious for our diet and within them there were great numbers of egges which purged us strangely this being very laxative meat Our fellows lying at Chasicours had intelligence that we were on the other side the River and enquiring found us at Carboran a Village three leagues distant from Bagamidri where you may imagine the joy this review diffused through all of us In the first place we considered and reconciled their discord on the morrow together went we all to dine at Bagamidri where we rested some dayes to truck and put off our commodities as well in Town as the adjacent Villages We had all the same desire to behold the Court and person of the grand Negus who ever resides in field under Tents and Pavillions ranged about like a formall City To which we were rather induced for the meeting with a Portugal Lord who came from the Indies expressely to visit the grand Negus in the name of the Spanish King his Master who went aboard on the coast of the red Sea and landed on the territories of Barnabas who accompanied him to the place we found him at and brought us together as far as Barra upon Moraba where we expected to finde the Prince To be short I set not down the wayes and distances betwixt Bagamidri and Barra another town of Ethiope because for our negotiation we made diversions to both hands as we did through Arabia Persia and India But from Barra to our compleat return we observed as near as might be Before we discourse of Bagamidri it seems not improper to tell you that 't is the beginning of the vast Empire of Ethiope or the grand Negus whom commonly we stile the Preste John of Ethiopia in distinction from another who was sometimes in high India He is also titled Kibir Negus and Senab and King of the Abissins They report him to have in possession above thirty five kingdomes or Provinces which containes a strange scope of a populous countrey
of more then three moneths travell True it is he is not at instant of such power as heretofore by reason the neighbouring Mahometans and amongst others the King of Adel with the Zeilan by a continual war have deprived him of many territories even of the best part of the towns and havens he held about the red Sea the chief whereof are Zuachim Manzua anâ— Ercoco So as at present this Empire is much diminished both in extent strength and dominion only that by the assistance of the Portugues of the East he hath regained some places of late years And though at this day he is very ample so must we not give credit to many things of Grandeur and Magnificence we finde in Spanish Authours tasting somewhat of the fable published in a Romantick way which are sufficiently refuted by the Fathers of the society in their more authentick works extracted from the very notes of those who were and are constantly in person there from whom we have exact information both for the spiritual and for the temporal The countrey of the Abissins was known to our Ancestours by the name of Ethiope under Egypt afterwards the lesser India This Ethiopia is divided into the Eastern the Western and the middle The bounds at this day are the red Sea on the East Egypt on the North the Mountains along Nile Maniconge the Black River and Nubia on the West and Southward the Mountains of the Moone and the Lakes where the Nile rises or rather the borders of the Empire of Monopotapa Some afford it fifty kingdomes and more others are satisfied with five and thirty or lesse For absurdly some would make this Empire greater then all our Europe and that it should hold out from Egypt to the Promontory of Guardasu and to Babelmandel and Mogadoxo and of another side to the Southern or Ethiopian Ocean the Cape of Good Hope allowing for Tributaries many Moorish Kings to Monomotapa it selfe with the S. Laurence Islanders though at this day he hath his hands full to defend himself against the Mahometans the Gales or Galois and the Agays a people that are Blacks by whom for these threescore years he hath been rudely jostled till the Prince was constrained to supplicate the aid of the Portugals who brought effectuall assistance and by degrees have restored him to a recovering condition As you go from the red Sea Westward lye these Kingdomes Tigrai Dancaly Angote Xoa Amara Leca Baga Midai Dambea Datali Fatigar Ambra Anogotera Bernagas Belinganza Damure Edear Guiame there are the Cataracts of Nile Vangui Masmude Cafates Gilama and others some whereof Christians inhabit the rest Mahometans and Gentiles The people of these kingdomes when they bring their Gibre or tribute to the Prince They have wound a rope about their head and proclaim with a loud voice The Revenue of such a Province My Lord I am here present Then doth the Negar distribute this Gibre or revenue to three uses the first to relieve the poor of the Nation and support the Church a second for pay and maintenance of his army and the third to his Coffers for the exhibition of his houshold Now is the Revenue small for they have trees of which we finde many growing upon the high ways loaded with silk not by the work of art but nature whereof the gatherers pay a fift to the Prince as they do of their gold and silver mines where they employ their slaves as sometimes they do the children of them who have not paid the King dues for their harvest of silk Of Benjamin Storax and other Aromaticks 't is the same thing for the gathering whereof they make choyce of young lads as concerning their smell to be more exquisit and more firm and indeed the Merchants have a speciall regard for these gatherers and the younger the more they give them They who get Safron pay the same rates but they observe not the like niceness in the gathering The Farmers of these customes have a set day to bring it in to the Prince himself who receives it in person who so much delights in odours that whatsoever used in Court even to the Flambeaus is perfumed But when these are brought in they are attended with Drums Hoboyes with other instruments and consorts of musick which the towns are by duty to provide The same Prince hath likewise his fift out of the souldiers booty in time of warre as the Spanish King hath out of the Merchants mines but that he exacts an impost from thieves or Curtizans is a mistake This State was known to all Antiquity but upon uncertainty enough till about 120. years since the Portuguese gave us a better information of it and specially since these last threescore years that the Fathers of the society came thither The soyle in some part is exceeding fertile in others not It abounds in mines of gold silver brasse lead sulphure fruits of all sorts as citrons oranges but vines are scarce The air is temperate enough though under the torrid Zone the people there are black for the greater part and of long life Their principall traffick is salt which they carry very deep into the Provinces and sell dear making it serve as 't were for their money trucking it for all sorts of commodities whereof they have square pieces of severall proper weights as we have gold and silver In the sacred History the land of Ethiope is called Chuz or Phut from the two sons of Cham. who lived there 'T is said the name of Abassie or Abissine came from the Arabians who called them Elbabassi and Abex Others say 't was given by the Egyptians who by this name understand all such as inhabit a Countrey encircled with deserts as we find this is But the Ancients made ordinarily two Ethiopes the one East on the other side the red sea in Sabia or Arabia the happy the other west on this side or under Egypt And indeed the Homerists a people of Arabia along the coast of the red sea are called Ethiopians and there is some evidence that heretofore Kings of Ethiopia reigned on both sides the Gulph also some do opinion the Queen of Saba came from Arabia others from the true Ethiopia The west Ethiopia was either the lower from Egypt to Meroe or the high from Meroe to the Mountains of the Moon Some there are again who confound the Eastern with the Abissins place the Western towards the Atlantique sea then will have tho interiour towards Zanzibar Some hold the Ethiopians to have been the first Idolaters as descending from Chus the son of Cham and that they first received Judaisme and circumcision upon the Queen of Saba's voyage to Salomon and after Chritianisme by the Queen Candace's Ennuch Times past the Ethiopian Kings were very potent and brought under yoke Egypt it self and being by Semiramis and Cambyses assaulted defeated their armies nor durst Hercules and Bacchus those famous Victors invade them The Poets had this land