of gold and shee had of yeerely reuenue halfe a million shee amongst other her workes attempted one most famous which was a conduit to conuey water for the vse of the Pilgrims betwixt Cairo and Mecca fortie dayes iourney and for the same intent procured the Sultan Selym her brother to write to the Venetians for a licence to extract out of Italy an hundred thousand pound of Steele only to make Chizzells Hammers and Mattocks for the cutting of certaine Rockes by which this water must passe Their Oathes especially of their Emperours are of many cuts and varietie of fashion And for Vowes in necessities and dangers they wil promise vnto God the sacrifices of beasts in some holy places not vpon Altars but hauing flaied off the skin they giue it with the head feet and forth part of the flesh to the Priest another part to the Poore the third to the Neighbours the fourth is for the Guests They are so addicted to the opinion of Fate that GOD is esteemed to blesse whatsoeuer hath successe as namely Selyms murthering his Father and to detest what wanteth good euent whatsoeuer ground it had They feare not the Plague accounting euerie mans time limited by Fate and therefore will wipe their faces with the cloathes of such as haue dyed thereof They hold it alike acceptable to God to offer almes to beasts and to bestow it on men when it is offered for the loue of God Some there are which will redeeme birds imprisoned in their cages or coopes and hauing payed their price let them flie Others for the loue of God cast bread into the water to feed the fishes esteeming it a worke greatly meritorious but Dogges are accounted vncleane in stead whereof they delight in Cats following they say their Prophet Mahomet who falling asleepe at table and awaking to goe to his deuotions rather cut off his sleeue whereon he found his Cat fast asleepe then he would disturbe her Master Simons told mee that he hath seene them at Cairo feed Dogges with baskets of bread one standing by with a club to keepe them from fighting and one gaue almes for a Bitch which had Whelps vnder a stall Heerein perhaps as in other things the Egyptians are more superstitious then the Turkes especially in this of Dogs which sauours of their old Anubis and dog-worshipping Yea and in Constantinople though they suffer them not as vncleane creatures to come into their houses yet they thinke it a deed of pietie to feed them and buy bread therefore prouiding them kennells also most of them haue no particular owner they repaire to the Sea-side nightly where they keepe a grieuous howling heard if the winde be Southward to Pera. They say Moses was the first great Prophet to whom was giuen the booke of Tefrit that is the Law and they which obserued it in those times were saued But when men grew corrupt God gaue Dauid the booke Czabur or the Psalter and when this preuailed not Iesus was sent with the booke Ingil or the Gospel whereby in that time men were saued They hold that Christ was borne of the Virgin Marie at her breasts hauing conceiued by the smell of a Rose which the Angell Gabrel presented her And preferring Christ before Moses they admit not a Iew to turne Turke but hee must first be a Christian and eate Swines-slesh and after two or three dayes abiuring Christ hee is made Musulman For so Mahomet came last in order of the Prophets with his Alcoran This Law and Law-giuer is so sacred to them that in all their prayers euen from their mothers breasts they obserue this forme La illah illelah Mehemmet irresullellah tanre rirpeghamber hace That is there is no God but one and Mahomet his Prophet one Creator and more Prophets This they sucke in with their milke and in their first learning to speake lispe out this deuotion The infants goe with the rest to their Mosquees or Meschits but are not tied to other ceremonies sauing washing till they are circumcised Euery man hath in their opinion from his birth to his death two Angels attending him the one at his right hand the other at his left At foure or fiue yeere old they send him to the Schoole to learne the Curaam and the first words which their Masters teach them are to this sense God is one and is not contained in any place but is through all and hath neither father nor mother nor children eateth not nor dinketh nor sleepeth and nothing is like to him The two Angels before said are called Chiramim and Chira tibin which write the good or euill that men doe against the day of Iudgement The Turkes abhorre blasphemie not onely against God and Mahumet but also against Christ and the Virgin Marie and other Saints and they punish blasphemers of whatsoeuer Sect they account it a sinne for a man to build a house which shall last longer then a mans life and therefore howsoeuer they are sumptuous and magnificent in there publike buildings yet are their priuate dwellings very homely and ill contriued They eate much Opium thinking it maketh them couragious in the warres They haue a remedie for paine in the head or elsewhere to burne the part affected with the touch-boxe which they alway carry with them or with some linnen cloth whereby they haue many markes on their foreheads and temples witnesses of their needlesse and heedlesse respect to Physicians As the Scripture containeth some Prophecies of the arising and proceedings of the Turkish Nation the rod of God whereby hee scourgeth his Christian people so haue they also prophecies amongst themselues of their end and ruine when God in his mercie to Christians shall execute iustice vpon the Turkes and cast the rod into the fire wherewith he had chastised his children Such an one is that which Georgiovitz translateth and expoundeth and such is that which Leunclavius hath transcribed out of their Booke called Messabili wherein is written that Constantinople shall be twice taken before Degnal Lain that is the cursed Antichrist shall come once by the Sword another time by the force of the praiers of the sonnes of Isahac Lain is an Epithete which they giue to Degnal signifying wicked or mischieuous Of this Degnal the Turks fable that before his comming shall Mechdi enioy the Empire This Mechdi they say was descended of their Prophet Mahumet and walketh inuisible one day he shall come into light and raigne for a time and after him shall Degnal their Anti-Prophet or Antichrist come A certain Deruise offered to assault murther Baiazet the Great Turk professing himselfe to be that Mechdi and was slain by one of the Bassas §. III. Of the Turkish Manners their Ciuill and Morall behauiour AS for the bloodie practises which each Emperor vseth in murthering his brethren to secure him in his Throne in rooting out of the Nobilitie of the Countries which they conquer in rasing the Wals
meddle withall The next Tribe is there tearmed a Committy and these are generally the Merchants of this place who by themselues or their Seruants trauell into the Countrey gathering vp Callicoes from the Weauers and other Commodities which they sell againe in greater parcels in the Part Townes to Merchant Strangers taking their Commodities in bartar or at a price Others are Money Changers wherein they haue exquisite iudgement and will from a superficiall view of a piece of Gold distinguish a penny worth of difference without whose view no man dares receiue Gold it hath beene so falsified The poorest sort are plaine Chandlers and sell only Rice Butter Oyle Sugar Honey and such like belly stuffe and these men for their generall iudgement in all sorts of Commodities subtiltie in their dealings and austerity of dyet I conceiue to be naturally Banians transplanted growne vp in this Country by another name they also not eating any thing that hath life nor at all vntill they haue fresh washed their bodies and this Ceremony is also common to the former Tribe The next they call Campo Waro and these in the Countrey manure the earth as husbandmen in the City attend vpon the richer sort as Seruing men in the Forts are Souldiers and are for number the greatest Tribe these spare no flesh but Beefe and that with such reuerence that torture cannot enforce them to kill and eate and their reason for this besides the custome of their Ancestors is that from the Cow their Countrey receiues its greatest sustenance as Milke and Butter immediately then al the fruits of the earth by their assistance in tilling it so that it were the greatest inhumanity to feed vpon that which giueth them so plentifully wheron to feed and vnto vs that would take liberty in this case they wil not sell an Oxe or Cow for any consideration but from one to another for six or 8. shillings the best Boga Waro is next in English the Whoores Tribe and of this there are two sorts one that will prostitute themselues to any better Tribe then themselues but to none worse the other meeteth none bad enough to refuse and these with their Predecessors and Of-spring haue and do still continue this course of iniquity for the daughters if handsome are brought vp to the trade if otherwise they are maried to the men of this Tribe and their children if hansomer then their mothers supply their Parents defects from whence there neuer wants a sinfull succession of impudent Harlots whom the Lawes of the Country doe both allow and protect but this is not alwayes Heathenish for in most Christian Common-wealths such creatures either by permission conniuencie or neglect find meanes to set vp and customers to deale with all Being children they are taught to dance and their bodies then tender and flexible skrewed into such strange postures that it is admirable to behold impossible to expresse in words as for a child of eight yeeres of age to stand vpon one legge raysing the other vpright as I can my arme then bringing it down and laying her heele vpon her head yet all this while standing looses the wonder in my imperfect Relation but to behold is truly strange the like for their dancing and tumbling which doth as farre in actiuity exceed our mercenary Skip-iacks as the Rope-dancing woman doth a Capring Curtezan or an Vsher of a Dancing Schoole a Country Plough-Iogger The homage they owe the King is once a yeere to repaire to Golchonda to the Court and there being met together to make proofe of their actiuities where the best deseruing is guerdoned with some particuler fauour all of them gratified with Bettelee and so returne home againe to their seuerall Mansions The Gouernour of the place where they dwel exacts nothing of them but their attendance as often as he sitteth in the publike place at which times they dance gratis but at all other meetings as Circumcision wedding ships arriuals or priuate Feasts they assist and are paid for their company They are many of them rich and in their habit cleane and costly vpon their bodies they weare a fine Callico or Silken cloth so bound about them as that one part beeing made fast about the waste couereth downwards another part comes ouer the head couering all that way wearing also a thinne Wastcoat that couereth their breasts and armes vnto the elbowes all the rest of their armes couered almost with Bracelets of Gold wherein are set small Diamonds Rubies and Emeralds In their eares they weare many Rings and Iewels and some of them one through the right nosthrill wherein a Pearle or Ruby is commonly set as also about their fingers and toes about their middles one or two broad plates of Gold for Girdles and about their neckes many chaines of small Pearle and Corall or worser beads according to their estate without other ornament on their head then their own haire which being smoothly combde is tied on a knot behind them And these also in their bestuall liberty forbeare to eate Cowes flesh all other meats and drinks are common to them and they themselues common to all The Carpenters Masons Turners Founders Gold-smiths Black-smiths are all one Tribe and match into each others Family all other Mechanike Trades are Tribes by themselues as Painters Weauers Sadlers Barbers Fishermen Heardsmen Porters Washers Sweepers diuers others the worst whereof are the abhorred Piriawes who are not permitted to dwell in any Towne by any Neighbours but in a place without by themselues liue together auoyded of al but their own Fraternity whom if any man should casually touch he would presently wash his bodie These flea all dead cattle for their skins and feed vpon the flesh the skins they dresse making thereof Sandals for the Gentiles and shooes for the Moores othersome they vse to embale Merchandise to defend it against wet to conclude they are in publike Iustice the hateful executioners and are the basest most stinking ill fauoured people that I haue seene the Inhabitants of Cape bona Esperanza excepted who are in these particulars vnparalleld and so I leaue them adding onely one word of the Porters who carry the Palamkeenes a Litter so contriued euery way as to carry a man his bed and pillowes which eight of these Porters will carry foure of those leagues in a day which are 36. of our miles supporting it on their bare shoulders and running vnder it by turnes foure at a time from which continuall toyle aggrauated by the extreme heate their shoulders are become as hard as their hoofes yet this their education makes easie to them for when their children can but goe alone they lay a small sticke on their shoulders afterwards a logge which they make them carry with proportionable increase vntill Roman Milo like they are able to run vnder a Palamkeene and in that sometimes perchance an Oxe But all these thus distinguished are in Religion one body and haue
Kingdome Kings and City of Marocco ibid. § II. Of the Kings of the Seriffian Family p. 695 § III. Of the ciuill Wars in Barbary and of some other parts of that Kingdome pag. 697 CHAP. XII OF the Arabians populations and depopulations in Afrike and of the Naturall Africans and of the beginnings and proceedings of the Mahumetan Superstition in Africa of the Portugals Forces and Exploits therein pag. 701 CHAP. XIII OF Biledulgerid and Sarra otherwise called Numidia and Libya pag. 706 CHAP. XIIII OF the Land of Negros pag. 709 § I. Of the Riuer Niger Gualata Senaga and Guinea ibid. § II. Obseruations of those parts out of Cadamosta and other ancient Nauigators pag. 712 § III. Other obseruations of later Times by Engglishmen and others pag. 715 § IIII. Of the Marriages Manners Religion Funerals Gouernment and other Rites of the Guineans collected out of a late Dutch Authour pag. 717 § V. Obseruations of the Coast and Inland Countries out of Barrerius and Leo and of the cause of the Negroes blacknesse pag. 721 THE SEVENTH BOOKE Of Aethiopia and the African Ilands and of their RELIGIONS CHAP. I. OF Aethiopia Superior and the Antiquities thereof pag. 725 § I. Of the name and diuision of Aethiopia ibid. § II. Of the Nations neere the falls of Nilus and of Meroe pag. 727 CHAP. II. A Continuation of the Aethiopian Antiquities and of the Queene of Saba p. 730 CHAP. III. OF Presbyter Iohn and of the Priest-Iohns in Asia whether that descended of these pag. 734 CHAP. IIII. RElations of the Aethiopian Empire collected out of Aluares Bermudesius and other Authors pag 738 CHAP. V. RElations of Aethiopian rarities collected out of Frier Luys a Spanish Authour pag. 743 § I. Of the Hill Amara ibid. § II. His liberall reports of the Library and incredible Treasures therein pag. 744 § III. Of the Princes of the bloud there kept and of the Election of the Emperour pag. 745 § IIII. Of their Schooles and Cities pag. 747 CHAP. VI. RElations of Aethiopia by Godignus and other Authors lately published seeming more credible pag. 749 § I. The seuerall Countries of Abassia their Scituation Inhabitants Riuers and Lakes ibid. § II. Of the Soile Fruits Creatures Seasons and Climate pag. 750 § III. Of their Customes in Priuate Life and Publike Gouernment and their late Miseries pag. 751 § IIII. Of the Sabaeans and their Queene which visited Salomon pag. 753 CHAP. VII OF other Countries betweene the Red Sea and Benomotapa pag. 754 § I. Of Adel Adea Zanzibar Melinde ibid. § II. The Portugals Exploits in Mombaza and of the Imbij pag. 755 § III. Of Quiloa Sofala and Ophir pag. 756 § IIII. Of Monoemugi the Moores Baduines Caphars in these parts pag. 757 CHAP. VIII OF Benomotapa and the parts adioyning pag. 759 § I. Of the Empire of Monomotapa ibid. § II. Of Caphraria the Cape of Good Hope and Soldania pag. 761 CHAP. IX OF the Kingdome of Congo and the other Kingdoms and Nations adioyning p. 765 § I. Of Angola ibid. § II. Of Congo pag. 766 § III. Of their Heathenish Rites also of their strange Trees and of the I le Loanda pag. 768 CHAP. X. OF Loango the Anzichi Giachi and the great Lakes in those parts of the World pag. 770 § I. Of Loango ibid. § II. Of the Anzigues pag. 772 § III. Of the Giacchi or Iagges ibid. § IIII. Of the Lakes and Riuers in these parts of Africa pag. 773 CHAP. XI OF the Seas and Ilands about Africa the ancient and moderne obseruations Nauigations and Discoueries pag. 775 § I. Of the Red Sea and why it is so called ibid. § II. Of the chiefe Townes and Ilands in the Red Sea pag. 777 § III. Of Socotora Madagascar and other Ilands on the Easterne Coast of Africa pag. 778 CHAP. XII OF the Ilands of Africa from the Cape hitherwards pag. 781 § I. Of Saint Helena Thomee Cape de Verd and diuers others betwixt them and of the Weeds and Calmes of those Seas ibid. § II. Of the Canaries Madera and Porto Santo pag. 783 § III. Extracts taken out of the obseruations of the Right Worshipfull Sir Edmund Scory Knight of the Pike of Tenariffe and other Rarities which he obserued there pag. 784 § IIII. Of Malta and the Nauigations about Africa pag. 788 AMERICA THE EIGHTH BOOKE Of New France Virginia Florida New Spaine with other Regions of America Mexicana and of their Religions CHAP. I. OF the New World and why it is named America and the West Indies with certaine generall Discourses of the Heauens Ayre Water and Earth in those parts pag. 791 § I. Of the names giuen to this part of the World and diuers opinions of the Ancients concerning the Torrid Zone ibid. § II. Of the nature of Metals in generall of Gold Siluer Quicksiluer and the plentie and Mines thereof in America pag. 795 CHAP. II. OF the first Knowledge Habitation and Discoueries of the New World and the rare Creatures therein found Beasts Birds Trees Herbs and Seeds pag. 798 § I. Whether the Ancients had any knowledge of America and whence the Inhabitants first came ibid. § II. Of Christopher Colon or Columbus his first Discouerie and three other Voyages pag. 801 § III. Of the Beasts Fowles and Plants in America pag. 804 CHAP. III. OF the Discoueries of the North parts of the New World and toward the Pole and of Greene Land or New Land Groen-Land Estotiland Meta incognita and other places vnto New France pag. 807 § I. Of the Discoueries made long since by Nicolo and Antonio Zeni ibid. § II. Discoueries made by Sebastian Cabot Cortregalis Gomes with some notes of Groenland pag. 809 § III. Discoueries by Sir Martin Frobisher pag 811 § IIII. Discoueries by Iohn Dauis George Weymouth and Iames Hall to the North-west pag. 813 § V. Of King IAMES his New-land alias Greene-land and of the Whale and Whale-fishing pag. 814 § VI. Of Hudsons Discoueries and death pag. 817 § VII Of Buttons and Baffins late Discoueries pag. 819 CHAP. IIII. OF New-found-land Noua Francia Arambec and other Countries of America extending to Virginia pag. 821 § I. English Discoueries and Plantations in New-found-land ibid. § II. The Voyages and obseruations of Iaques Cartier in Noua Francia pag. 823 § III. Late Plantations of New France and Relations of the Natiues pag. 825 CHAP. V. OF Virginia pag. 828 § I. The Preface Sir Walter Raleighs Plantation and the Northerne Colonie ibid. § II. Of the Southerne Plantation and Colonies and many causes alleaged of the ill successe thereof at the first pag. 831 § III. Of the Soyle People Beasts Commodities and other obseruations of Virginia pag. 834 § IIII. Of the present estate of Virginia and the English there residing pag 836 CHAP. VI. OF the Religion and Rites of the Virginians pag. 838 § I. Of the Virginian Rites related by Master Hariot pag. ibid. § II. Obseruations of their Rites by Captaine Smith and others pag. 839 §
and by the glorie and order of them learned the knowledge of GOD neuer ceasing that diuine search till GOD appeared to him Which opinion may reconcile both the former that first he was and after ceased to be an Idolater before God appeared in vision to him He alledgeth Philo for his Author that at fourteene yeeres Abraham reproued Thara for seducing men vnto Idolatrie moued by his priuate lucre with Images and seeing the Heauen sometime cleare sometime cloudie he gathered that that could not bee GOD. The like hee concluded of the Sunne and Moone by their Eclipses for his father had taught him Astronomie At last GOD appeared and bade him leaue his Countrey Whereupon hee tooke his Fathers Images who as before is said was an Image-maker and partly broke partly burnt them and then departed Suidas further thinketh him the first inuenter of Letters of the Hebrew tongue and of the interpretation of dreames which I leaue to the Authors credit But for the fault of Abraham before his calling and other blemishes after in him and the rest of the Patriarchs what doe they else but in abounding of mans sinne set out the superabounding grace of GOD and are profitable as learned Morton in his answere of this cauill hath out of one of their owne obserued against them what he had obserued out of Augustine to these foure purposes Faith Instruction Feare and Hope the Faith of the Historie which flattereth or concealeth the faults of none Instruction to vertue by seeing others faults taxed Feare for what shall Shrubs doe if Cedars fall and Hope that wee imitate their repentance by seeing their pardon But to returne to our Historie Many of the Ethnike histories mention him Berosus commendeth him for his iustice and skill in Astronomie Nic. Damascenus sayth that hee raigned at Damascus and that in his time his house continued in Damascus and was still called by his name Hecataeus wrote a booke of him and Alexander Polyhistor telleth that hee was borne in the tenth generation after the floud in Camarine or Vrien a Citie of Babylon Iosephus addeth that when famine draue him into Aegypt hee disputed with the Priests and most learned Aegyptians in questions of Diuinitie and in their diuided Sects hauing confuted one by another he communicated to them the truth both in this and in Arithmeticke and Astronomie whereof before the Aegyptians were ignorant Abram sayth Master Broughton in his Consent was borne sixtie yeeres later then the common account as appeareth by computation of Terahs age who died at two hundred and fiue yeeres and after his death Abram went from Charan into Canaan the threescore and fifteenth yeere of his owne life and therefore was borne in the hundred and thirtieth and not in the seuentieth yeere of his father in the three hundred fiftie and two yeere after the Floud whereas the common opinion reckoneth the two hundred ninetie and two To Abram GOD had giuen commandement saying Goe from thy Countrey and from thy Kindred and from thy Fathers house into the Land which I shall shew thee and I will make of thee a great Nation c. His Historie is fully related by Moses and his progenie also whereof Ismael his Sonne by Agar and other his sonnes which he had by Ketura his second wife he sent to inhabite the East Countrey Arabia in his life time but Isaac was made his Heire both temporall and spirituall to whom Iacob succeeded in the promised blessing who with his sonnes and familie went downe into Aegypt where his posteritie multiplied exceedingly and were called sometimes Ebrewes of their ancient pedegree sometime Israelites of the name Israel giuen to Iacob by the Angell Gen. 32.28 Their whole Historie so largely and plainely in holy Writ recorded I feare to make Mine by euill reciting Those Fountaines are more open to all then that any should neede ours or others Brookes mixed with some myrie earth at least in the passage and my intent is to bee largest in relation of those things which are not in the Scriptures onely touching those things briefly for order sake Their Religion meane while was the best amongst the best though stayned in some as Rachel which stale her father Labans Idols and Iacob was forced to reforme his Familie in this respect and after in Aegypt they were corrupted with the Aegyptian superstition as Ezechiel protests against them The manner of Diuine worship was not so straitly limited as afterwards to persons and places By Reuelation and Tradition they receiued the religious worship wherein they instructed their posteritie vntill that in their extremest thraldome GOD sent Moses and Aaron to deliuer them vnder whose conduct they passed through the Sea and Wildernesse to the brinkes of Iordan receiuing in the way that Law which as a Tutor or Schoole-master was in that their nonage to traine them vp vntill that full and ripe age when GOD sent his Sonne made of a woman made vnder the Law that hee might redeeme them that were vnder the Law that wee might receiue the adoption of Sonnes §. II. Of the Law of MOSES the twelue Tribes and of Proselytes OF this Law although Moses hath giuen vs an absolute relation in Scripture whereof he was the first Pen-man of that at least which remayneth vnto vs yet if wee shall out of him bring them into their order and ranke them vnder their seuerall heads as Sigonius and others haue done it shall not be I thinke ouer-tedious to the Reader The Law is diuided vsually into the Morall Ceremoniall and Iudiciall as parts of the same the first deliuered on the Mount Sinai by the dreadfull voice of the Almightie God and by the finger of God written after in Tables of stone called Ten words summarily abridged into two Commandements by the Law-giuer himselfe The first and great Commandement enioyning the loue of GOD the second of our NEIGHBOVRS that God who himselfe is Charitie imposing nothing but the louely yoke of Loue and Charitie vnto his seruants This Law is eternall written first in the hearts of our first Parents which being defaced it was written againe in the stonie Tables of the Law where it was but a killing letter till Grace and Truth by IESVS CHRIST indited and indented it in the fleshy Tables of the Gospell as Christs new Commandement written it renewed hearts and shall for euer be then grauen in those spirituall Tables when wee that here are Naturall men shall rise againe Spirituall men and shall be the Law of that holy Citie the new Ierusalem this being then perfected when Faith and Hope and this World shall bee finished The other parts Ceremoniall and Iudiciall were for the particulars proper vnto that Nation the one respecting the manner of Diuine seruice the other of ciuill Gouernment not giuen as the other immediatly to the Israelites by GOD himselfe but communicated in the Mount to Moses that hee might acquaint the
vnto the Ottoman Family herein disagreeing while some wil haue Magog others Tubal the Author of their Nation Leunclauius reciteth and refuteth the same He writeth the name Iurki alleaging Herodotus for his Author and citeth many Authors to proue that they descended of the Vnui or Vngri which were called Turkes of which there were two sorts one Westerly in Pannonia another Easterly neere Persia called by the Persians Magores he concludeth that the Vnni or Iurchi came from Iuchra or Iuchria whence the name Iurchi might easily be deflected to Iurchi beyond Tanais and first after they had forsaken their owne Countrie settled themselues neere Moeotis from whence they passed to Chazaria and some went Westward to Pannonia some Eastward to Armenia and thence into Persia Many probable Arguments might bee brought to proue that they descended of the Scythians whose wandering shepheardly-shepheardly-life both the name and their practice in old times and in some places still expresseth The first Expedition and militarie employment which I haue read of the Turkes except what the feare of them compelled the Persians vnto as in their Historie wee shall after see was vnder Varamus a rebellious Persian aboue a thousand yeeres since when Cosroes was King of Persia and Mauritius the Roman Emperour at what time many of them were slaine and many taken which confessed that famine had forced them to those warres for which cause they marked themselues with a blacke Crosse a Ceremonie which they said they had learned of the Christians thinking thereby to expell hunger This hungrie Nation hath since beene a greedie and insatiate deuourer of Nations Another expedition of theirs which some reckon the first was in the yeere 755. or after another account 844. at which time passing through the Georgian Countrie then called Iberia they first seized on a part of the greater Armenia which their posteritie holdeth at this day called of them Turcomania In this wide and spacious Countrie they romed vp and downe without certaine habitation a long time with their Families and Heards of cattell like the ancient Scythian Nomades and the Tartars and the same Turcoman Nation at this day Their language also as Megiserus in his Turkish Grammar sheweth hath great affinitie with the Tartarian as also with the Persian neere whom and sometimes as now will appeare amongst them they liued But from the Arabike it differeth altogether Yet in their holies they most vse the Arabike by reason of the Alcoran written in that language likewise they vse the Arabike Letters and Prickes The beginning of their greatnesse is thus by Christian Historians related §. II. Of the Turkish Kingdome in Persia and their other Conquests WHen as the Saracens Empire grew now vnweldie through her owne greatnesse and the Soldans which were wont to conquer for the Chaliph began now to share with him in his large Dominion Mahomet then Sultan or Soldan of Persia was for this cause hardly beset with the Chaliph of Babylon assailed also on the other side by the Indians He sought to strengthen himselfe against these enemies with the new friendship of these Turkes of whom hee obtained for his aide three thousand hardie Souldiers vnder the conduct of Togra Mucalet the sonne of Mikeil a valiant Captaine and chiefe of the Selzuccian Tribe or Familie whom the Greekes commonly call Tangrolipix and some Selduc or Sadoc By the helpe of this Tangrolipix Mahomet the Persian Sultan ouercame Pisasiris the Caliph The Turkes after this warre desiring leaue to passe ouer the Riuer Araxis to their Country-men were both denied and threatned if they againe should seeke to depart Whereupon they withdrew themselues into the Desart of Carauonitis liuing there and thence making roades into the Countries adioyning Mahumet sent against them twentie thousand men which by a sudden surprize in the night Tangrolipix defeated and furnished himselfe with their spoiles And now durst Tangrolipix shew his face in the field where his Armie was increased by the resort of lawlesse persons seeking after spoile Mahomet on the other side impatient of his losse put out the eyes of the Captaines which had the leading of the Armie and threatned to attire the Souldiers that had fled in womens apparell and raising another great Armie set forward against Tangrolipix who was now fiftie thousand strong and was presently made stronger by those threatned Souldiers who fled from their Lord vnto him They met at Ispahan a Citie of Persia and there Mahomet falling with his Horse brake his necke vpon which mischance both Armies comming to agreement by common consent proclaimed Tangrolipix Sultan in his stead and so made him King of Persia and the Dominion thereunto pertaining which was done Anno 1030. Tangrolipix opened the passages of Araxis to the rest of his Countrie-men whom hee exalted to the highest places of command so bridling the Persians and he and his receiuing in their new Conquests the yoke of the Mahumetan Religion Ambition inciting him to further exploits he warred also vpon Pisasiris the Chaliph and after diuers ouerthrowes slue him and seized on his state Hee sent Cutlu-Muses his Kinsman against the Arabians by whom hee was discomfited whereat aggrieued hee went against them himselfe but with like successe Hee sent Asan his brothers sonne to inuade Media who in that enterprise was slaine he sent againe Habraime Alim his brother with an Armie of an hundred thousand men who tooke prisoner Liparites Gouernour of Iberia who came to aide the Emperours Lieutenant in Media whom Tangrolipix frankely set free and sent his Embassadour to the Emperour proudly demanding him to become his subiect Such haps and such hopes had Tangrolipix the first Turke that euer was honoured with a Diademe His sonne and successour Axan tooke Diogenes the Emperour of Constantinople prisoner in the field But Cutlu-Muses with his Cousin Melech who in his Fathers dayes had fled into Arabia rebelling and taking armes against him as Axan was readie to ioyne battell with them the Caliph who retained the highest place still in their superstition although dispoyled of his Temporalities setting aside all his Pontificall formalitie whereby he was bound not to goe out of his owne house thrust himselfe betweene these Armies and with the reuerence of his place and person together with his perswasions moued them to desist and to stand to his arbitrement which was that Axan the Sultan should still enioy his Dominions entirely And that Cutlu-Muses and his sonnes aided by him should inuade the Constantinopolitan Empire and should be absolute and onely Lords of whatsoeuer they could gaine thereof There was neuer any thing to that impietie more commodious nor to our Religion more dangerous For by this meanes Cutlu-Muses with his sonnes in a short time conquered all Media with a great part of Armenia Cappadocia Pontus and Bithynia which their designes were much furthered by treasons and dissentions in the Greeke Empire Axan the Sultan also gaue to his Kinsman Ducat and Melech the
made them distastfull and this also which the Learned often obiect to these Sectaries that the King and Princes which first gaue way hereto died violently and miserably and fell into publike calamities Yet hath it euen to these times in diuers vicissitudes encreased and decreased and many Bookes haue beene thereof written which contayne many difficulties inextricable to themselues Their Temples are many and sumptuous in which huge monstrous Idols of Brasse Marble Wood and Earth are to be seene with Steeples adioyning of stone or timber and therein exceeding great Bells and other ornaments of great price Their Priests are called Osciami They continually shaue their heads and beards contrary to the Countrey custome Some of them goe on Pilgrimages others liue an austere life on Hills or in Caues and the most of them which amount to two or three millions liue in Cloysters of their reuenues and almes and somewhat also of their owne industrie These Priests are accounted the most vile and vicious in the Kingdome being of the baser raskalitie sold when they are children by their parents to the elder Priests of slaues made Disciples and succeeding their Masters in Sect and Stipend few voluntarily adioyning themselues to these Cloysterers Neither doe they affect more liberall learning nor abstayne but perforce from disauowed Luxurie Their Monasteries are diuided into diuers Stations according to their greatnesse in euery Station is one perpetuall Administrator with his slaue-Disciples which succeed him therein Superiour in the Monasterie they acknowledge none but euery one builds as many Cells or Chambers as he is able which they let out to strangers for great gaine that their Monasteries may be esteemed publike Innes wherein men may quietly lodge or follow their businesse without any explication of their Sects They are hired also by many to Funerall Solemnities and to other Rites in which wilde Beasts Birds or Fishes are made free and let loose the seuerer Sectaries buying them to this meritorious purpose In our times this Sect much flourisheth and hath many Temples erected and repaired many Eunuches women and of the rude vulgar embracing the same There are some Professors called Ciaicum that is Fasters which liue in their owne houses all their life abstayning from Fish and Flesh and with certaine set prayers worship a multitude of Idols at home but not hard to be hired to these deuotions at other mens houses In these Monasteries women also doe liue separated from men which shaue their heads and reiect Marriage These Nunnes are there called Nicu. But these are but few in comparison of the men One of the learned Sect famous in the Court relinquished his place in the Colledge and shaued his haire wrote many Bookes against the Confutians but being complayned of the King commanded hee should be punished which hee punished further on himselfe with cutting his owne throat Whereupon a Libell or Petition was put vp to the King against the Magistrates which relinquished Confutius and became of this Sect the King notwithstanding all the Queenes Eunuches and his Kindred are of this Sect made answere That such should goe into the Desarts and might bee ashamed of their Robes Hence followed orders That whosoeuer in his Writings mentioned an Idoll except by way of Confutation should be vncapable of degrees in Learning which caused much alteration in Religion for many of this Sect had preuayled much in Court and elsewhere Amongst the rest one Thacon was so honoured of the chiefe Queene that shee worshipped daily his garment because it was not lawfull for himselfe to enter the Palace but dealt by Eunuches One libelled to the King against him but had no answere which is the Kings fashion when he denies or disallowes it which made him more insolent But being suspected for a Libell made against the King and some writings in zeale of his Idols against the King being found he was beaten to death howling in his torments which before had vanted a Stoicall Apathie The other Sect-masters were banished the Court §. V. Of the third Sect Lauzu THeir third Sect is named Lauzu of a certaine Philosopher which liued in the same age with Confutius They fable that he was fourescore yeeres in his mothers wombe before his birth and therefore call him Lauzu that is old Philosopher He left no booke written of his Sect nor seemes to haue intended any such institution But his Sectaries called him after his death Tausa and haue fathered on him their opinions whereof they haue written many elegant bookes These also liue single in their Monasteries buying Disciples liuing as vile and vicious as the former They shaue not their haire but weare it like the Lay-men sauing that they haue a Hat or Cap of wood There are others married which at their owne houses professe greater austeritie and recite ouer set prayers They affirme That amongst other Idols they also worship the God of Heauen but corporeall and to whom their Legends tell that many indignities haue happened The King of Heauen which now raigneth they call Ciam he which raigned before was Leu who on a time came riding to the Earth on a white Dragon Him did Ciam who was a Diuinor giue entertainment and whiles Leu was at his good cheere mounted vp his Dragon which carried him to heauen there seized on the heauenly Royaltie and shut out Leu who yet at last was admitted to the Lordship of a certaine Mountaine in that Kingdom Thus they professe their god to bee a coozener and vsurper Besides this King of Heauen they faine another threefold Deitie one of which they say was the head of their Lauzu sect They promise to theirs Paradise which they shall enioy both in bodie and soule and in their Temples haue pictures of such as haue the Images of such Saints To obtaine this they prescribe certaine exercises which consist in diuers postures of sitting certaine prayers and medicines by which they promise to the obseruers through their gods fauour an immortall life in Heauen at least a longer mortall in the bodie The Priests of this Sect haue a peculiar Office of casting out Deuils which they do by two meanes one is to paint horrible shapes of Deuill in yellow paper with inke to be fastned on the walls and then fill the house with such sauage clamors that themselues might be thought to be Deuils the other is by certaine prayers or coniurations They professe also a power of faire weather and soule and other priuate and publike misfortunes : and some of them seeme to be Witches These Priests reside in the Kings Temples of Heauen and Earth and assist at the Kings sacrifices whether by himselfe performed or his Deputie Magistrates and thereby acquire great authoritie At these sacrifices they make musicke of all sorts which China yeeldeth harshed Europaean eares They are called likewise to Funeralls to which they come in precious Vestments playing on Musical Instruments They assist also at the consecrations of new Churches and
an Earth-quake changed his channell thereby a great part of the neighbour Region being turned into a desart For in this Indus is like vnto Nilus in that without it the Countrey would be a Wildernesse and therefore is also worshipped of the Inhabitants It receiueth fifteene other Riuers into it Hee mentioneth the Cathei not farre from thence which after happily gaue name vnto Cathay The Indians are of seuen sorts The first in estimation and sewest in number were their Philosophers These kept-publike Acts once a yeere before the King he which in his Obseruations was found three times false was condemned to perpetuall silence The second sort were Husband-men which payd the King the onely owner of all the Land a fourth part of the increase The third was of Shepheards and Huntsmen which wandred in Tents The fourth Artificers The fifth Souldiers The sixth Magistrates The seuenth Courtiers and those of his Priuie Councell If any woman killeth the King in his drunkennesse shee is rewarded with the marriage of his Sonne and Heire If any depriue another of a member besides like for like he loseth his hand and if hee bee an Artificer his life They strangle their sacrifice that it may be so offered whole to their Idols §. II. Of their Philosophicall or Religious Sects OF their Philosophers or men Learned and Religious the Brachmanes obtaine the first place as being neerest in Sects to the Greekes These are after their manner Nazarites from the wombe So soone as their Mother is conceiued of them there are learned men appointed which come to the Mother with Songs containing Precepts of Chastitie As they grow in yeeres they change their Masters They haue their places of Exercise in a Groue nigh to the Citie where they are busied in graue conferences They eare no liuing Creatures nor haue vse of women liue frugally and lye vpon skinnes They will instruct such as will heare them but their Hearers must neither Sneese nor Spit nor Speake When they haue in this strict course spent seuen and thirtie yeeres they may liue more at Pleasure and Libertie in Dyet Habit proper Habitation and the vse of Gold and Marriage They conceale their mysteries from their Wiues lest they should blab them abroad They esteeme this life as mans Conception but his Death day to bee his Birth-day vnto that true and happy life to him which hath beene rightly Religious They hold the World to bee Created Corruptible Round ruled by the high GOD. Water they imagine to haue beene the beginning of making the World and that besides the foure Elements there is a fifth Nature whereof the Heauen and Starres consist They intreate of the immortalitie of the Soule and of the torments in Hell and many such like matters The Germanes another Order of Religious or Learned men are honoured amongst them especially such of them as liue in the Woods and of the Woods both for their dyet of those wilde Fruits and their habit of the Barkes of Trees not acquainted with Bacchus or Venus any more then with Ceres They speake not to the Kings when they aske counsell of them but by messengers and doe pacifie the angrie gods as is supposed by their holinesse Next in honour to these are certaine Mendicants which liue of Rice and Barley which any man at the first asking giueth them together with entertainment into their houses These professe skill in Physicke and to remedie Diseases Wounds and Sterilitie very constant in labour and hardship Others there are Inchanters and Diuiners Masters of Ceremonies about the Dead which wander thorow Townes and Cities Some there are more Ciuil and Secular in their life professing like Pietie and Holinesse Women also are admitted vnto the fellowship of their studies in this Philosophie not to their beds Aristobulus writeth That hee saw two of these Brachmanes the one an old man shauen the other young with long haire which sometimes resorted to the Market-place and were honoured as Counsellors and freely tooke what they pleased of any thing there to be sold for their sustenance They were anointed with Sesumine oyle wherewith and with hony they tempered there bread They were admitted to Alexanders Table where they gaue lessons of patience and after going to a place not farre off the old Man lying downe with his face vpward sustained the Sun and showers terrible violence The yonger standing on one foot held in both his hands a piece of wood of three cubits lifted vp and shifted feet as the other was weary nd so they continued euery day The young man returned home afterward but the old man followed the King with whom he changed his Habit and Life for which when as he was by some reproued he answered That he had fulfilled the fortie yeeres exercise which he had vowed Onesicritus saith that Alexander hearing of some Religious Obseruants which went naked and exercised themselues to much hardship and would not come to others but would bid Men if they would haue any thing with them to come to them sent him vnto them who found fifteene of them twentie furlongs from the City each of them obseruing his own gesture of sitting standing or lying naked and not stirring til sun-setting in that vnsupportable heat at which time they returned into the Citie Calanus was one of them He afterward followed Alexander into Persia where beginning to be sicke hee caused a great Pile or Frame of wood to be made wherein he placed himselfe in a golden chayre and caused fire to be put to in which he was voluntarily consumed telling if they tell TRUE that he would meet Alexander at Babylon the place fatall to Alexanders death Aelianus saith That this was done in a suburbe of Babylon and that the fire was of Cedar Cypres Mirtle Laurell and other sweet woods and after he had performed his daily exercise of running hee placed himselfe in the middest crowned with the leaues of Reeds the Sunne shinning on him which he worshipped This adoration was the signe which hee gaue to the Macedonians to kindle the fire in which he abode without any stirring till hee was dead Alexander himselfe admiring and preferring this victorie of Calanus before all his owne This Calanus told Onesicritus of a golden World where Meale was as plentiful as dust and Fountaines streamed Milk Hony Wine and Oyle Which Country by men turned into wantonnesse Iupiter altered and detayned imposing a life of hardnesse and labour which while men followed they enioyed abundance but now that men begin to furfet and grow disobedient there is danger of vniuersall destruction When hee had thus spoken hee bad him if hee would heare further strip himselfe and lie naked vpon these stones But Mandanis another of them reproued Calanus for his harshnesse and commending Alexander for his loue to learning said that they inured their bodies to labour for the confirmation of their mindes against passions For his nakednesse he alledged that that was the
it selfe to the Portugall yoke And because we haue in this Chapter mentioned so many Wonders let this also haue place among if not aboue the rest which presently happened Whiles the Portugalls were busie in their Buildings a certaine Bengalan came to the Gouernour which had liued as hee affirmed three hundred thirtie fiue yeeres The old men of the Countrey testified That they had heard their Ancestors speake of his great age and himselfe had a sonne fourescore and tende yeeres old and not at all Booke-learned yet was a speaking Chronicle of those passed times His teeth had sometimes fallen out others growing in their places and his beard after it had beene very hoarie by degrees returned into his former blacknesse About an hundred yeeres before this time he had altered his Pagan Religion into the Arabian or Moorish For this his miraculous age the Sultans of Cambaya had allowed him a stipend to liue on the continuance of which he now sought and did obtaine of the Portugals Friar Ioano dos Santos cells a long story of one yet aliue Ann. 1605. of whom the Bishop of Cochin had sent men to inquire who by diligent search found that hee was then three hundred eightie yeeres old and had married eight times the father of many generations They say his teeth had thrice fallen out and thrice renewed his haire thrice hoary and as oft black againe Hee could tell of nineteene successiue Kings which reigned in Horan his Countrey in Bengala He was also borne a Gentile and after turned Moore and hoped he said to dye a Christian reioycing to see a picture of Saint Francis saying Such a man when he was twentie fiue yeeres old had foretold him this long life But to returne Mamudius successor to Badurius sought with all his forces to driue these new Lords out of Diu as Solyman had done before by a Nauie and Armie sent thither but both in vaine of which Wars Damianus à Goes hath written diuers Commentaries But this whole Countrey is now subiect to the Mogor It was in Alexanders time peopled by the Massani Sodrae or Sabracae Praestae and Sangadae as Ortelius hath placed them where Alexander as in diuers other places he had done erected a Citie of his owne name called Alexandria Daman another Key of this Bay and entrance of the Riuer Indus into the Sea fell to the Portugals share The Land of Cambaya is the fruitfullest in all India which causeth great traffique of Indians Portugals Persians Arabians Armenians c. The Guzarates or Cambayans are the subtillest Merchants in all those parts They haue amongst them many Histories of Darius and Alexander which sometime were Lords of this Indian Prouince The Portugals haue at diuers times conquered diuers of the chiefe Townes in this Kingdome some whereof they keepe still The women in Diu by Art dye their teeth black esteeming themselues so much the more beautifull and therefore go with their lips open to shew the blacknesse of their teeth drawing away the couer of their lips as if they were lip-lesse giuing the prize of Beautie to a double deformitie Blacknesse and a Mouth O Hellish wide When a Cambayan dyeth they burne his body and distribute the ashes vnto the foure Elements of which man consisteth part to the Fire part to the Ayre to the Water also and Earth their due portions as Balby hath obserued M. Patrike Copland Minister in the Dragon with Captaine Best writes that hee rode in this Countrey from Medhaphrabadh to Surat in a Coach drawne with Oxen which is the most ordinary though they haue goodly Horses He saw at once the goodliest Spring and Haruest that euer he had seene Fields joyning together whereof one was greene as a medow the other yellow as gold ready to be cut of Wheat and Rice All along goodly Villages full of trees yeelding Taddy the Palme of which after a new sweet Wine strengthning and fattening A Smith which loued his liquor said hee could wish no other wages but a pot of this Taddy alway at his girdle §. II. Of the Kingdomes of Decan OF the Decans we haue spoken before in the Mogol conquests Decan is the name of a Citie sixe leagues from which is a Hill out of which the Diamond is taken This Hill is kept with a Garrison and walled about Of the Decan Kingdomes Barros hath reported That about the yeere 1300. Sa Nosaradin reigned in Delly or Delin and inuaded the Kingdome of Canara which reacheth from the Riuer Bate North of Chaul vnto the Cape Comori and wonne much from the Ancestors of the King now termed of Bisnaga At his returne he left Habedsa his Lieutenant who added to the former Conquests gathering a Band of all mixtures Gentiles Moores Christians His sonne was confirmed in the Gouernment therefore called Decan and the people Decanins because of this confusion of so many Nations of which his Fathers and His forces consisted for Decanins signifies Bastards He shooke off alleageance to his Lord and acknowledged none Superiour Hee also much encreased his Dominions His name was Mamudsa Hee appointed eighteene Captaines or Commanders allotting to each seuerall Prouinces These Captaines hee made were but slaues that so hee might the easier hold them in subjection He commanded that each of them should build a Palace at Bedir his chiefe Citie and there reside certaine moneths in the yeere his sonne remayning there in perpetuall hostage These in processe of time grew fewer and therefore greater the King holding nothing but his Royall Citie all the Empire being in the hands of these slaues which when the Portugals came thither were no more but Sabay Niza-Malucco Madre Malucco Melic Verida Coge Mecadam the Abessine Eunuch and Cota Malucco The mightiest of them was Sabay Lord of Goa His sonne was Hidalcam Thus Barrius Garcias ab Horto writes That the Mogors had possessed the Kingdome of Delly but a certaine Bengalan rebelling against his Master slue him vsurped his State and by force of warre added this of Canara also to his Dominion he was called Xaholam This King made his sisters sonne his Successor who was much addicted to Forreiners He diuided his Kingdome into twelue parts or Prouinces ouer which he set so many Captaines Idalcam from Angidaua to Cifarda from thence to Negatona Nizamaluco Ouer Balaguate or the vp-hill Countrey for Bala in the Persian language signifieth The toppe and Guate a Hill Imadmaluco and Catalmaluco and Verido c. These all rebelled and captiued Daquem their King at Beder the chiefe Citie of Decan and shared his Kingdome amongst themselues and some Gentiles partners in the conspiracie They were all forreiners but Nizamaluco This and the other names before mentioned were Titles of Honour giuen them with their Offices by the King corrupted by the vulgar in pronouncing Idalcam is Adel-ham Adel in the Persian language signifieth Iustice Ham is the Tartarian appellation signifying a Prince or King which name might well
and two before him in order partly bearing and playing on many Instruments of Musicke partly bearing Wax-lights and Torches the men also and after them the women and Maids following in like order and the fairest Virgins were busied with games and dances being naked from the nauell vpwards beneath couered with smockes of diuers colours their armes and eares adorned with Gold and Iewels Any man that should see it saith our Author would thinke our Westerne Monkes had hence borrowed their Ceremonies Their Images are in euery corner of the way which they adorne with flowers In Candy the chiefe Citie of that Kingdome were Pagodes innumerable The houses or Temples were of stone like the Temples in these parts some Statues were as high as the mast of a ship The people heere if they haue once touched meate which for quantity or quality they cannot eate they cast it to the dogs neither will any man be he neuer so meane eate that which another hath touched The women goe naked from the waste vpwards They marry as many wiues as they can keepe The King makes vse of their Superstition For pretending to build Temples he after leaues them vnperfect excusing himselfe that they had not contributed sufficient summes of mony and therefore exacteth a new There is one Statue of great stature with a Sword in his hand which by illusion of the Deuill if it be not the delusion of fabulous reports made as though he would strike the King with his Sword as he was entring the Temple and put him in great feare whereas before he had made a mocke of it The Singales or Natiue Inhabitants say that the World shall not perish as long as that Image continueth safe When any one is sicke hee sacrificeth to the Deuill hauing a Box hanging in his house to that end therein to gather somewhat for his Offering Some pray vnto the Image of an Elephants head made of wood or stone that they may obtaine wisdome whereof this prayer argues their great want some eate no quicke creature They eat no Beefe nor drinke any Wine they worship whatsoeuer first meeteth them in the morning George Spilberge was bountifully entertained of the King of Candy but Sebald de Weert was with diuers of his companions slaine after he had receiued much kindnesse of the King his importunitie to get the King into his ship making him suspect some trechery The King of Motecalo had eares adorned with Iewels and hanging downe the lappets of them were so stretched to his shoulders He was kind to the Hollanders but they incensed him against them by killing certaine Kine for some of them said that the soules of Kine slaine after that manner were hurled forthwith into Hell He obserued one Pagode to whole Feast he went while the Hollanders were there the solemnity whereof was to continue ten dayes till a new Moone with great concourse of deuout persons Of the Superstitions of Perimal and the worship of the Apes tooth celebrated in this Iland we haue already shewed in the Chapter of Narsinga The Cingalan language which they speake in this Iland is thought to haue beene there left by the Chinois sometimes supposed I thinke falsely Lords of Zeilan In Marcus Paulus his dayes the Tartarians had not pierced thus farre For the King then raigning refused to sell to Cublai Can then the greatest Monarch in the World at a price a Rubie which hee had left him by his Ancestors esteemed the richest Iewell in the World being as he saith a span long and as bigge as a mans arme cleere and shining as if it had bin a fire In this Iland were reckoned nine Principalities or Kingdomes but not long since their chiefe King was murthered by a Barber who draue the other Kings out of the Countrey and vsurped the Monarchy to himselfe practising hostility against the Portugals The Cingulas are very cunning Artificers in all Metals One of them presented the Archbishop of Goa with a Crucifix so cunningly wrought as if he had giuen life to the Image of one dead He sent it to the King of Spaine as a rare Iewell not to be equalled in Europe The Inhabitants heere are actiue and expert in Iuggling both men and women trauelling through India with their strange Hobby-horses to get money by this vanity The Sea-coast as in other Indian Ilands is inhabited with Moores the Inland with Pagans The Portugals haue a Fortresse at Colombo The Ilanders are not warriours they giue themselues to pastime and pleasure they goe naked from the girdle vpward they make wide holes in their eares which they stretch out with the weight of their Iewels to their shoulders Monfart relates that Zeilan hath whole Forrests of Cinamon and Mountaynes of Chrystall and that out of their Riuers they draw Pearles Rubies Saphirs and Cats-eyes that they worship the first creature they meet eat nothing that hath bloud make no more bread then will be eaten at a meale their Religion prohibiting them to eat any two houres old The Hollanders found exceeding both good and bad entertainment with the King of Candy Now for that question whether Zeilan or Samatra be that Taprobane of the ancient is very doubtfull yet that report in Pliny of Taprobane seemes more to encline for Zeilan For hee sayth That in Claudius time a seruant of Annius Plocamus which was Customer for the Red Sea was carried from the Coast of Arabia besides Carmania in fifteene dayes which I thinke could not possibly bee done to Samatra Likewise the excellency of the Elephants beyond all the Indian agrees to Zeilan and had Samatra beene so knowne at that time the other parts of India it is like had beene better discouered then they were in those times This Taprobane was discouered to bee an Iland by Onesicritus Alexanders Admirall of his Fleet in these parts It was then accounted another World and therefore shall be the period of our Pilgrimage and Perambulation in this Asian part of the World : which by the gracious goodnesse of his Almighty Guide the Pilgrime hath now passed and hath led the industrious Reader along with him §. III. The Conclusion of this Asian Pilgrimage THe Popish Pilgrimes were wont to beguile their weary steps with Musicke or pleasant tales according to the delicate deuotion of those times easie was their pardon and penance at their iournies end And in these our times Madonna de Loretto must giue entertainment to many Pilgrimes which as if Venus were become her Chamberlaine haue their Curtezan-consolations to solace their Pilgrim-paines the deuout Friers and Nuns themselues that haue defied the Deuill and denyed the World by a new Vow deuoted to the flesh disguise themselues in Lay-habits trauelling thither and from thence as Man and Wife only at Loretto couering all with their Cowles And if Confession discouer it hideth againe as a double couering But to vs Vowes Cowles and such salace-solaces are wanting the end of this labour
Nation being the scumme and dregs of other Nations disguised by a deuised tongue and habit called in some Countries Cingari their life resembling much the Beduini or Rezuini roguish Arabians wandring in Syria and other parts Bellonius saith That these wander through all the Turkish Empire and are no lesse strangers in Egypt then other places They are cunning in Iron-worke and cheating Fortune-tellers some esteeme them Walachians But least I should also impose too cruell a taske on my more willing Readers I will proceed to other obseruations I haue heere in this Egyptian relation of their Rites Manners and Mysteries beene the larger both because Authors are herein plentifull and especially because Egypt hath beene an olde storer and treasurer of these mysticall Rites for that later vpstart the Mysticall Babylon in the West which as shee is spiritually called Sodome and Aegypt so like that Strumpet mentioned by Salomon hath not a little decked her bed with the Ornaments Carpets and Laces of Aegypt Wiser were the Romanes of olde which made diuers Lawes to expell the Aegyptian Rites out of their Citie which the later Popes entertaine CHAP. V. Of the manifold alterations of State and Religion in Aegypt by the Persians Grecians Romans Christians Saracens and Turkes §. I. Of the Persians and Graecians acts in Aegypt and the famous Vniuersitie and Librarie at Alexandria THe last Egyptian Pharao was Psammenitus vanquished by Cambyses sonne of Cyrus the Persian who quite extinguished that Egyptian Gouernment and much eclipsed their superstitious solemnities For Cambyses proclaimed defiance not to the persons onely of the Egyptians but to their Gods also yea hee set their sacred Beasts in the fore-front of his battell that being thus shielded by their owne deuotion hee might easily ruinate the Kingdome Such a disaduantage is Superstition to her followers being indeed but a life-lesse carkasse of true Religion which alway breedeth true Fortitude as Ptolomey and the Romanes vsed the like stratageme against the Iewes on their Sabbath which in it selfe a diuine Commandement they construed to a superstitious Rest a Sacrifice without Mercie wherein they might helpe their beasts but suffer themselues like beasts to be ledde to the slaughter Cambyses hauing pulled downe their Temples in Egypt intended as much to the Oracle of Iupiter Ammon in which exploit hee imployed fiftie thousand men which as the Ammonians report were ouer-whelmed with a tempest of Sand Other newes of them was neuer heard Himselfe meane-while meanely prouided of victuall for such an enterprise made an Expedition against the Ethiopians in which Famine making her selfe Purueyour for the Armie fedde them with the flesh of each other euery tenth man being allotted to this bloodie seruice Thus with a double discomfiture altogether discomforted hee retireth to Memphis where hee found them obseruing their festiuall solemnitie of the New-found Apis and interpreting this ioy to haue proceeded from his losse hee slew the Magistrate whipped the Priests commanded to kill the Citizens that were found feasting and wounded their Apis with his sword vnto death Hee practised no lesse hostilitie vpon their Obeliskes Sepulchres and Temples The Sepulchers they esteemed Sacred as their eternall Habitations and no greater securitie could any Egyptian giue vnto his Creditor then the dead bodies of their Parents The Temples euery where accounted holy heere were many and those magnificent At Memphis they had the Temples of Serapis Apis Venus and the most ancient of them all of Vulcan with the Pigmey-Image of Vulcan in it which Cambyses derided of Serapis at Canopus where Pilgrimes by dreames receiued Oracles at Heraclium Sai and Butis to Latona at Mendes to Pan at Momemphis to Venus a Necropolis Nicopolis and other places to other supposed Deities Cambyses also burned the Images of the Cabyrians and the Temple of Anubis at Heliopilis whose stately building and spacious circuit Strabo describeth as likewise at Thebes They write that after as hee was taking Horse his sword falling out of the Scabberd wounded him in the thigh where hee before had wounded Apis and slew him In the time while the Persians enioyed Egypt the Athenians by instigation of Inarus King of Libya inuaded Egypt wonne Nilus and Memphis but after sixe yeeres lost all againe Ochas one of his Successours called of the Aegyptians Asse killed their Apis and placed an Asse in his roome which kindled such indignation in Bagoas an Egyptian one of his Eunuches that hee murthered Ochus whom hee hurled to bee rent and torne of Cats that this Beast sacred to Isis might reuenge the indignitie offred to Apis. But this Eclipse of the Egyptian superstition caused by this Persian imposition had an end together with that Monarchie For Alexander did not only leaue them to their wonted Rites himselfe sacrificing to their Apis and solemnizing Games in his honor but added further glory to their Countrey by erection of that famous Citie named of himselfe Alexandria wheras some thinke the Citie No had before stood destroyed by Nabuchodonoser second in reputation to Rome the receptacle of Iewish Grecian and Egyptian Religions adorned with many Temples and Palaces his Successours Ptolomaeus Lagi of whom the following Kings were all called Ptolomaei and Lagidae Philadelphus Euergetes Philopator Epiphanes Philomator Euergetes the second Physcon Lathurus Auletes the Father of Cleopatra whom Iulius Caesar made Queene of Aegypt the price of her honestie and Anthonie his wife whom together with her selfe her ambition ouerthrew adding to the greatnesse of Alexandria Platoes Phylosophie was not onely first borrowed of the Egyptians but was publikely read at Alexandria as well as at Athens which continued many ages Sixe hundred yeeres after his death Ammonius surnamed of his former occupation being a Porter Saccus seemed to haue lighted on the bookes of Hermes and thence learned the Doctrine of the Trinitie of whom his Disciples Plotinus and Aurelius write and after them their Schollers Porphyrie and Theodorus Asinaeus and their Auditors Iamblichus and Syrianus to this last succeeded at Athens Proclus Lycius and after him the last of the greatest Platonikes Damascius which haue written many things of the three beginnings The same Ammonius with like Philosophicall happinesse are said to haue found the Oracles of Zoroaster which the two Iulians the Father and the Sonne Chaldaeans translated out of their tongue into Greeke in the time of M. Aurelius the Philosopher Pythagoras had before learned it of Zabratus in Assiria which it seemeth Plato heard of the younger Architas and dispersed closely the seedes thereof in his Bookes so that the elder Interpreters conceiued him not till the time of this Ammonius the Porter from whom heere as from Socrates a Statuarie in Athens flowed this Diuine wisedome Hee taught at Alexandria in the dayes of Clemens Alexandrinus about two hundred yeeres after Christ Origen was his hearer Iamblichus comprehended these Oracles of Zoroaster in thirtie Bookes or thereabouts for Damascius citeth the
Camels whose riches thereby acquired appeare in the Letters of Lawrence Madoc and wee before haue touched Gago is much frequented by Merchants and things are sold at excessiue rates In an hundred miles space you shall scarce find one in those parts that can reade or write and the King accordingly oppresseth them with taxations In Guber they sow their Corne on the waters which Niger with his ouerflowings brings vpon the Countrey and haue aboundant recompence Izchia King of Tombuto conquered the King of Guber of Agadez also and of Cano which haue great store of Merchants Likewise of Casena and Zegzeg and Zanfara in which I finde little worth the remembrance Cano hath some Relikes of Christianitie and they are named by the Apostles names Guangara was not onely oppressed by the said Izchia of Tombuto but by Abraham King of Borno Borno confineth with Guangara on the West and extendeth Eastwards fiue hundred miles The people haue no Religion neither Christian Iewish nor Mahumetane but like Beasts liue with their Wiues and Chrildren in common and as a Merchant which liued long amongst them and learned their Language told Leo they haue no proper names as in other Nations but as they giue him some name on distinction by his height fatnesse or other peculiar accidents The King warreth with his neighbours hee is descended of the Libyan people Bardoa For maintenance of his Warres he will giue great prices for Horses exchanging fifteene or twentie Slaues for one which Slaues he tooke from his enemies When I was in this Kingdome I found there many Merchants that were wearie of this Traffique because they stayed for their Slaues till the King returned from his Warres Yet the King Teemes to bee rich all his Horse-furniture Stirrops Spurres Bridles Bits were all of Gold and his Dishes Platters or whatsoeuer he did eate or drinke in yea his Chaines for his Dogges were for the most part or most fine Gold He hath many both white and blacke people subject to him Gaoga bordereth Westward on Borno and thence trendeth to Nubia betweene the Desarts of Serta on the North and another Desart confining on a winding crooke of Nilus about fiue hundred miles square It hath neither Ciuilitie Letters nor Gouernment The Inhabitants haue no vnderstanding especially they which dwell in the Mountaines who goe naked in the Summer-time their priuities excepted Their houses are made of boughes which easily take fire They haue store of Cattell A hundreth yeeres before Leo's time they were brought in subjection by a Negro slaue who first slew his Master and by helpe of his goods made preyes in the next Regions exchanging his Captiues for Horses of Aegypt and so became King of Gaoga His Nephewes Sonne Homara then raigned and was much respected by the Soldan of Cairo Leo was at his Court and found him a man passing liberall He much honoured all that were of the linage of Mahomet The Nubae in olde times were many Kingdomes as Strabo affirmeth not subject to the Aethiopians and were then Nomades or Wanderers and Robbers As it is now taken Iohn Leo being our Author Nubia stretcheth from Gaoga vnto Nilus hauing the Aegyptian Confines on the North and the Desarts of Goran on the South They cannot saile out of this Kingdome into Aegypt For the Riuer Nilus whiles it is couetous of largenesse loseth his deepnesse and couering certaine Plaines becommeth so shallow that both men and beasts may wade ouer Dangala is their chiefe Towne and hath ten thousand Families but ill built their houses being Chalke and Straw The Inhabitants with their traffique to Cairo become rich There is in this Kingdome great store of Corne and Sugar Ciuit Sandall and Iuorie They haue strong poyson one graine whereof giuen to ten persons will kill them all in a quarter of an houre and one man if he alone take it presently An ounce hereof is sold for an hundred Ducats It is not sold but to strangers which first take their oath that they will not vse it in their Countrey And if any sell thereof secretly it costs him his life for the King hath as much for Custome as the Merchant for price Some Portugals trauelling thorow Nubia saw many Churches ruined by the Arabians and some Images The Iewish and Mahumetan Superstition haue there almost preuailed In old time they had Bishops sent them from Rome which by meanes of the Arabians was after hindered The Nubian King warreth with the Inhabitants of Goran called Zingani who speake a Language that none else vnderstand and with others in the Desarts on the other side of Nilus towards the Red Sea whose Language seemes to be mixt with the Chaldaean and resembles the speech of Suachen in the Countrey of Prester Iohn They are called Bugiha and liue very miserably They had once a Towne on the Red Sea called Zibid whose Port answereth directly to that of Zidem which is forty miles from Mecca This Zibid for their robberies was destroyed by the Sultan Ortelius saith that in Nubia they were sometimes Christian and now are scarcely of any Religion at all They sent into Prester Iohns Countrey for Priests when Aluares d was there to repaire their almost ruined Christianitie but without effect Sanutus reckons here other Kingdomes Gothan Medra Dauma whereof because wee haue little but the names I can write nothing Now if any would looke that we should heere in our Discourse of the Negro's assigne some cause of that their Blacke colour I answere that I cannot well answere this question as being in it selfe difficult and made more by the varietie of answeres that others giue hereunto Some alleage the heate of this Torrid Region proceeding from the direct beames of the Sunne and why then should all the West Indies which stretch from the one Tropike to the other haue no blacke people except a few in Quareca which haply were not Naturals of the place And if this were the cause why should Africa yeeld white people in Melinde and neere the Line blacker at the Cape of Good Hope in fiue and thirtie then in Brasill vnder the Line Some leauing the hot impressions in the Aire attribute it to the drinesse of the Earth as though the Libyan Desarts are not more dry and yet the people no Negro's and as though Niger were heere dried vp Some to the hidden qualitie of the soyle and why then are the Portugals children and generations white or Mulatos at most that is tawnie in Saint Thomee and other places amongst them as also the Inhabitants of Melinde Madagascar and other places in the same height in and adioyning to Africa Some ascribe it as Herodotus to the blacknesse of the Parents Sperme or Seed and how made they the search to know the colour thereof which if it hath a thing by others denied by what reason should it imprint this colour on the skinne And how comes it that they are reddish at their birth yellowish in
Rials and with vs eight Shillings for that by him the furious spirit of Nilus is slacked and cooled being detayned in the way by many Sluces for that purpose made The great Turke denying this the Abassine caused those Dammes to be broken and by drowning Egypt in vncouth manner forced that great Monarch to composition Aluarez denies both the Mountaynes of Luna and the melting of Snow which is supposed the cause of this Riuers hastinesse and ascribeth the ouer-flowing of Nilus to the extreme raines in Ethiopia whose Fountaynes diuers Portugals haue seene hee saith in Goyame The Turke notwithstanding hath by warring vpon him erected a new Beglerbegship in his Dominions Aluarez liued there sixe yeeres and was once within thirtie miles of Nilus but in all his trauels neuer saw that Riuer So little accesse haue the Ethiopians barred out by vnpassable passages vsually to the same Andrea Corsali reporteth that the Prete Dauid was of oliue colour but shewed his face but once in the yeere hauing at other times his face couered for greater state and therefore also spake to none but by an Interpreter The Inhabitants are branded with fire which they vse not for Baptisme but in obseruation of a custome of Salomon who so marked his slaues as they affirme Friar Luys giueth another reason thereof saying that when the world groned vnder Arrianisme the Abassine Emperour caused his Subiects to brand themselues with a threefold marke or stampe in the forehead to testifie their faith of and in the Trinitie which now since their commerce with the Roman Christians is in manner wholly left except in the ruder and more vnciuill parts of Barnagasso the borders of the Empire The same Author saith that in Ethiopia are Elephants the Rhinoceros and besides other beasts the Vnicorne in the Kingdome of Goyame and in the Hills of the Moone but seldome seene onely the horne is found which he casteth in manner as the Hart. There are also he saith birds of Paradise and such store and varietie of flowers all the yeere long that their Eunuchs are alway decked with them There is one flower not any where else known called Ghoyahula much resembling a Mary-gold but exceeding faire in varietie and excellency of colours fragrant smell abundance of leaues in the flower and with a more rare qualitie beginning to open at noone and so by little and little opening more and more till midnight alway the sent encreasing with the opening after midnight it shuts by little and little till noone denying by the same degrees her pleasing offices to both senses of Sent and Sight He tells also of a little Bird to which Nature hath committed the tuition of this Flower which all the time that it is open flyes about it driues away things offensiue sings sweetly and spreads her selfe thereon with other things very strange I dare not affirme very true He mentioneth also a bird called the Rhinoceros of the ayre much bigger then an Eagle and hauing a bow-fashioned bill or beake foure foot long and a horne betweene the eyes with a black line alongst it It is a cruell fowle and attends on battells and camps The Portugalls had sight of one at the Red Sea when Soliman the Eunuch had his Nauie in the Red Sea The horne is of the same propertie with that of the Vnicorne and Rhinoceros There are fishes also called Rhinocerotes of the Sea many of which are paid the Prete for Tribute Many many other Ethiopian rarities wee might obserue out of this Authour but if it deserue credit the Hill Amara after his description may furnish you for and beyond all the rest of Ethiopia as a second earthly Paradise CHAP. V. Relations of Ethiopian rarities collected out of Friar LVYS a Spanish Author §. I. Of the Hill Amara THe hill Amara hath alreadie beene often mentioned and nothing indeed in all Ethiopia more deserueth mention whether wee respect the naturall site or the employment thereof Somewhat is written thereof by Geographers and Historians especially by Aluarez whom we haue chiefly followed in the former Relations of this Countrie as an eye-witnesse of the most things reported but neither they nor he haue any thing but by relation sauing that he passed two dayes iourney along by the said Hill and that also had almost cost him his life But Iohn de Baltasar saith our Friar liued in the same a long time and therein serued Alexander which was afterwards Emperor and was often by commandement of the same man when he was Emperor sent thither out of his Relations Friar * Luys saith hee hath borrowed that which here we offer you And here we offer you no small fauour to conduct you into and about this place where none may come but an Ethiopian and that by expresse licence vnder paine of leauing his hands feet and eyes behind in price for his curiositie and not much lesse is the danger of such as offer to escape from thence Aluarez himselfe being an eye-witnesse of some such cruell executions inflicted for that offence This Hill is situate as the Nauill of that Ethiopian Body and Centre of their Empire vnder the Equinoctiall Line where the Sunne may take his best view thereof as not encountring in all his long iourney with the like Theatre wherein the Graces and Muses are Actors no place more graced with Natures store or furnished with such a store-house of bookes the Sunne himselve so in loue with the sight that the first and last thing hee vieweth in all those parts is this Hill and where Antiquitie consecrated vnto him a stately Temple the gods if yee beleeue Homer that they feasted in Ethiopia could not there nor in the world find a fitter place for entertainment all of them contributing their best store if I may so speake to the banquet Bacchus Iuno Venus Pomona Ceres and the rest with store of fruits wholsome ayre pleasant aspect and prospect secured by Mars lest any sinister accident should interrupt their delights if his garrisons of Souldiers were needfull where Nature had so strongly fortified before onely Neptune with his ruder Sea-deities and Pluto with his black-guard of barking Cerberus and the rest of that dreadful traine whose vnwelcome presence would trouble all that are present are all saue Charon who attends on euery feast yea now hath ferried away those supposed deities with himselfe perpetually exiled from this place Once Heauen and Earth Nature and Industrie haue all beene Corriuals to it all presenting their best presents to make it of this so louely presence some taking this for the place of our Fore-fathers Paradise And yet though thus admired of others as a Paradise it is made a Prison to some on whom Nature had bestowed the greatest freedome if their freedome had not beene eclipsed with greatnesse and though goodly starres yet by the Sunnes brightnesse are forced to hide their light when grosse and earthly bodies are seene their noblenesse making
bigger and white which bite like Dogs they termed Margaulx Although it be 14. leagues from the Mayne yet Beares swim thither to feast with these Birds One they saw as great as a Kow saith Cartier and as white as a Swan which they did kill and eate and the flesh was as good as of a two yeere old Calfe About the Port of Brest they found so many Ilets as they were impossible to bee numbred continuing a great space The Iland of Assumption by the Sauages called Natiscotec standeth in 49. degrees The Sauages dwell in houses made of Fir-trees bound together in the top and set round like a Doue-house This as before is said is at the entry of the Riuer into the Gulfe of Saint Lawrence The bankes of this Riuer are inhabited of people that worship the Deuill and sometimes sacrifice to him their owne bloud Francis the first King of France sent thither Iames Breton and Henry his Sonne Nicolas Villaegagnon but the greatest riches they found were the Diamonds of Canada and those of small value for their brittlenesse Thus Boterus Iaques Cartier made three Voyages into these parts First in the yeere 1534. Then was hee gladly welcommed of the Sauages singing dancing and expressing other signes of ioy as rubbing his armes with their hands and then lifting him vp to Heauen giuing all to their naked skin though all were worse then nothing for the trifles hee gaue them They went naked sauing their priuities which were couered with a skin and certaine old skinnes they cast vpon them Some they saw whose heads were altogether shauen except one bush of haire which they suffer to grow vpon the top of their crowne as long as a Horse-tayle and tyed vp with leather strings in a knot They haue no dwelling but their Boats which they turne vpside downe and vnder them lay themselues along on the bare ground They eate their flesh and fish almost raw only a little heated on the coales The next yeere Captaine Cartier returned and carried backe two Sauages which hee before had carried into France to learne the language He then passed vp to Hochelaga They found Rats which liued in the water as bigge as Conies and were very good meate Hochelaga is a Citie round compassed about with timber with three course of Rampiers one within another framed sharpe about two rods high It hath but one gate which is shut with piles and barres There are in it about fifty great houses and in the midst of euery one a Court in the middle whereof they make their fire Before they came there they were forced to leaue their boats behind because of certaine fals and heard that there were three more higher vp the streame towards Sanguenay which in his third Voyage were discouered Concerning the Religion in these parts of Canada euen amongst the Sauages wee finde some tracts and foot-prints thereof which neither the dreadfull Winters haue quite frozen to death nor these great and deepe waters haue wholly drowned but that some shadow thereof appeareth in these shadowes of Men howsoeuer wild and sauage like to them which giue her entertainment This people beleeueth saith Iaques Cartier in one which they call Cudruaigni who say they often speakes to them and tels them what weather will follow whether good or bad Moreouer when hee is angry with them hee casts dust into their eyes They beleeue that when they die they goe into the Stars and thence by little and little descend downe into the Horizon euen as the Starres doe after which they goe into certaine greene fields full of goodly faire and precious trees flowres and fruits The Frenchmen told them Cudruaigni was a Deuill and acquainted them with some mysteries of the Christian Religion whereupon they condescended and desired Baptisme the French excused and promised after to bring Priests for that purpose They liue in common together and of such commodities as their Countrey yeeldeth they are well stored They wed two or three wiues a man which their husbands being dead neuer marrie againe but for their widowes liuery weare a blacke wood all the dayes of their life besmearing their faces with coale-dust and grease mingled together as thicke as the backe of a Knife They haue a filthy and detestable vse in marrying their Maydens first putting them being once of lawfull age to marry in a common place as Harlots free for euery man that will haue to doe with them vntill such time as they find a match I haue seene houses as full of such Prostitutes as the Schooles in France are full of children They there vse much misrule riot and wantonnesse They dig their ground with certaine pieces of wood as big as halfe a Sword where they sow their Maiz The men also doe much vse Tobacco The women labour more then the men in fishing and husbandry They are more hardy then the beasts and would come to our ships starke naked going vpon Snow and Ice in which season they take great store of beasts Stags Beares Marternes Hares and Foxes whose flesh they eate raw hauing first dryed it in the Sun or smoke and so they doe their fish They haue also Otters Weasils Beauers Badgers Conies Fowle and Fish great varietie and one fish called Adhothuis whose bodie and head is like to a Greyhound white as Snow Their greatest Iewel is Chains of Esurgnie which are shel-fishes exceeding white which they take on this manner When a captiue or other man is condemned to death they kill him and then cut slashes in his most fleshie parts and hurle him into the Riuer Cornibots whence after twelue houres they draw him finding in those cuts these Esurgnie whereof they make Beads and Chaines They are excellent for stanching of bloud Thus much out of Cartier In the yeere 1542. Monsieur Roberual was sent to inhabit those parts He saith that he built a Fort faire and strong the people haue no certayne dwelling place but goe from place to place as they may find best food carrying all their goods with them It is more cold in that then in other places of like height as Iohn Alphonse of Xanctoigne affirmeth because of the greatnesse of the Riuer which is fresh water and because the Land is vntilled and full of Woods We may adde the cold vapours which the Sunne exhaleth in that long passage ouer the Ocean the abundance of Ice that commeth out of the North-seas and the winds which blow from them and from the cold snowie hils in the way §. III. Late Plantations of New-France and Relations of the Natiues SAmuel Champlain made a Voyage to Canada 1603. and encountred with a banke of Ice eight leagues long in 45. degrees two third parts with infinite smaller The Streits mouth from Cape Ray to the Cape of Saint Laurence within the Gulfe of Canada is eighteene leagues He obserued a Feast made by Anadabijon the great Sagamo in his Cabin in which eight or ten
of Iucatan Their Houses Temples apparell and trade of Marchandize all one their houses somewhere couered with Reeds and where Quarries were with Slate many houses had Marble pillars They found Ancient Towres there and the ruines of such as had been broken downe and destroyed there was one whereto they ascended by eighteene steps or staires The Gouernour whom they supposed to be a Priest conducted them to the Towre in the top whereof they erected a Spanish Banner and called also the Island Santa Cruce In the Towre they found chambers wherein were marble Images and some of Earth in the similitude of Beares These they inuoked with loude singing all in one tune and sacrificed vnto them with fumes and sweet Odours worshipping them as their Houshold Gods There they performed their diuine ceremonies and adoration they were also circumcised Gomara saith That heere and at Xiculanco the Diuell vsed to appeare visibly and that these two were great in estimation for holinesse euery Citie had their Temple or Altar where they worshipped their Idols amongst which were many Crosses of Wood and Brasse whereby some conceiue that some Spaniards had recourse hither when Roderigo was defeated and Spaine ouer-runne by the Saracens In both these places they sacrificed men which Cortes perswaded them to cease The Temple in Cosumil or Acusamil was built like a square Towre broad at the foot with steps round about and from the middest vpward were strait the top was hollow and couered with straw it had foure windowes and Porches In the hollow place was their Chappell where stood their Idols In a Temple by the Sea-side was an vncouth Idoll great and hollow fastened in the wall with lime it was made of Earth Behinde this Idols back was the Vestry where the ornaments of the Temple were kept The Priests had a litle secret doore hard adioyning to the Image by which they crept into his hollow panch and thence answered the people that came thither with Prayers and Petitions making the simple people beleeue it was the voyce of the god which therefore they honoured more then any other with many perfumes and sweet smels They offered Bread Fruit Quailes bloud and of other Birds Dogs and sometimes Men. The fame of this Idoll and Oracle brought many Pilgrimes to Acusamil from many places At the foot of this Temple was a plot like a Church-yard well walled and garnished with Pinnacles in the middest whereof stood a Crosse of tenne foot long which they adored for the god of raine At all times when they wanted raine they would goe thither on Procession deuoutly and offered to the Crosse Quailes sacrificed no Sacrifice being so acceptable They burnt sweet Gumme to perfume him with besprinkling the same with water and by this meanes they thought to obtaine raine They could neuer know saith Gomara how that the God of the Crosse came amongst them for in all those parts of India there is no memory of any preaching of the Gospell that had beene at any time What others thinke and what some Indians answered concerning it is said before Benzo writeth That they did not eat the flesh of those men which they sacrificed and that they wre first subdued by Francis Montegius whose cruelties were such that Alquinotep a Cacique or Indian Lord aboue an hundred and ten yeeres old and a Christian told him That when he was a yong man there was a sicknesse of wormes that they thought all would haue dyed they were not onely eiected by vomite but did eate out themselues a passage thorow mens bodies and not long before the Spaniards arriuall they had two battels with the Mexicans in which an hundred and fiftie thousand men perished But all this was light in respect of that Spanish burthen Guatimala commeth next to our consideration a Prouince of pleasant Ayre and fertile soyle where groweth abundance of their Cacao which is a fruit that serueth the Indians for meat drinke and money The Citie which beareth the same name was first at the foot of a Vulcano or Hill which casteth fire but because in the yeere 1542. on the sixe and twentieth day of December a Lake hidden in the bowels of that Hill brake forth in many places and with a terrible violence ruined the most part of the Citie it was remoued two miles thence together with the Episcopall Sea and the Kings Councell But in the yeere 1581. there issued from another Vulcan two miles off or somewhat more such an eruption of fire as threatned to consume euery thing The day following followed such a showre of Ashes that is filled the Valley and almost buried the Citie And yet were not all the throwes passed of this Hils monstrous trauels but the yeere after for the space of foure twenty houres thence issued a streame of fire that dranke vp fiue streames of water burned the stones and Rockes rent the Ayre with thunders and made it a wauing and mouing Sea of fire Before that first eruption of waters some Indians came and told the Bishop that they had heard an vncredible noyse and murmuring at the foot of the Hill but he reproued them saying they should not trouble themselues with vaine and superstitious feares about two of the clocke in the night following happened that deluge which carried away many houses and whatsoeuer stood in the way in which 520. Spaniards perished and scarce any mention of the houses remained It is worthy recitall which Benzo and Gomara haue recorded that Peter Aluarado the Gouernour who by licence of the Pope had married two sisters the Ladie Frances and the Ladie Beatrice della Culna hauing perished by a mischance his wife not onely painted her house with Sorrowes blacke Liuerie and abstained from meat and sleeps but in a mad impietie said God could now doe her no greater euill Yet for all this her sorrow shee caused the Citizens to be sworne vnto her Gouernment a new thing in the Indies Soone after this inundation hapned which first of all assailed the Gouernours house and caused this impotent and impatient Ladie now to bethinke her of a deuotion and betake her to her Chappell with eleuen of her Maids where leaping on the Altar and clasping about an Image the force of the water ruined the Chappell whereas if she had stayed in her bed-chamber she had escaped death They tell of vncouth noysts and hideous apparition which then were seene Benzo obserued by his owne experience that this Country is much subiect to Earth-quakes The Guatimalans in manner of life resemble the Mexicans and Nicaraguans Fondura or Hondura is next to Guatimala wherein were saith Benzo at the Spaniards first comming thither foure hundred thousand Indians but when I was there scarcely eight thousand were left the rest being slaine or sold or consumed by the Mines and those which are left both heere and in other places place their habitation as farre as they can where the Spaniard shall be no eye-sore
put the rest to the Sword and hanged vp the Queene as they did also to Hiquanama the Queene of Hiquey Of all which cruelties our Author an eye-witnesse affirmeth that the Indians gaue no cause by any crime that had so deserued by any Law And for the rest that remayned after these Warres they shared them as slaues They which should haue instructed them in the Catholike Faith were ignorant cruell and couetous The men were spent in the Mines the women consumed in tillage and both by heauie burthens which they made them carry by famine by scourging and other miseries And thus they did in all other parts wheresoeuer they came In the Iles of Saint Iohn and Iamayca were sixe hundred thousand Inhabitants whereof then when the Authour wrote this there were scarcely left two hundred in eyther Iland Cuba extendeth furthest in length of any of these Ilands Here was a Cacique named Hathuey which called his Subiects about him and shewing them a Boxe of Gold said That was the Spaniards God and made them dance about it very solemnely and lest the Spaniards should haue it hee hurled it into the Riuer Being taken and condemned to the fire when he was bound to the stake a Frier came and preached Heauen to him and the terrors of Hell Hathuey asked if any Spaniards were in Heauen The Frier answered Yea such as were good Hathuey replyed hee would rather goe to Hell then goe where any of that cruell Nation were I was once present sayth Casas when the Inhabitants of one Towne brought vs forth victuall and met vs with great kindnesse and the Spaniards without any cause slue three thousand of them of euery Age and Sexe I by their counsell sent to other Townes to meet vs with promise of good dealing and two and twenty Caciques met vs which the Captaine against all faith caused to be burned This made the desperate Indians hang themselues which two hundred did by the occasion of one mans cruelty and one other Spaniard seeing them take this course made as though he would hang himselfe too and persecute them in the Regions of death which feare detayned some from that selfe-execution Sixe thousand children dyed sayth our former Author in three or foure moneths space while I was there for the want of their Parents which were sent to the Mynes they hunted out the rest in the Mountaynes and desolated the Iland Neyther did the other Ilands speed better The Lucaiae they brought to an vtter desolation and shipping multitudes of men for the Mynes in Hispaniola wanting food for them the third part commonly perished in the way so that an vnskilfull Pilot might haue learned this way by Sea by those floting markes of Indian carkasses This Spanish pestilence spred further to the Continent where they spoyled the shoares and the Inland Countries of people From Dariena to Nicaragua they slue foure hundred thousand people with Dogs Swords Fire and diuers tortures Their course of Preaching was to send vnder paine of confiscation of lands libertie wife life and all to acknowledge God and the Spanish King of whom they had neuer heard Yea they would steale to some place halfe a mile off the Citie by night and there publish the Kings Decree in this sort being alone by themselues Yee Caciques and Indians of this place or that place which they named Bee it knowne to you that there is one God one Pope and one King of Castile who is Lord of these lands Come quickly and doe your homage And then in the night while they were asleepe fired their houses and slue and tooke Captiues at their pleasure and after fell to search for Gold The first Bishop that came into these parts sent his men to be partakers of the spoyle A Cacique gaue the Spanish Gouernour the weight in Gold of nine thousand Crownes he in thankfulnes to extort more bound him to a post and put fire to his feet and forced him to send home for a further addition of 3000. They not satisfied persisted in their tormenting him till the marrow came forth at the soles of his feet whereof he dyed When any of the Indians employed by the Spaniards fayled vnder their heauy burthens or fainted for want of necessaries lest they should lose time in opening the Chaine wherein he was tyed they would cut off his head and so let the bodie fall out The Spaniard robbed the Nicaraguans of their Corne so that thirty thousand dyed of Famine and a Mother ate her owne childe fiue hundred thousand were carried away into bondage besides fiftie or sixtie thousand slaine in their Warres and now sayth Casas remayne foure or fiue thousand of one of the most populous Regions of the World Heere did Vaschus giue at one time foure Kings to be deuoured of Dogs In New Spaine from the yeere 1518. to 1530. in foure hundred and eighty miles about Mexico they destroyed aboue foure Millions of people in their Conquests by fire and sword not reckoning those which dyed in seruitude and oppression In the Prouince of Naco and Honduras from the yeere 1524. to 1535. two Millions of men perished and scarcely two thousand remayne In Guatimala from the yeere 1524. to 1540. they destroyed aboue foure or fiue Millions vnder that Aluarado who dying by the fall off his Horse as is before said complained when hee was asked where his paine was most of his Soule-torment and his Citie Guatimala was with a three-fold deluge of Earth of Water of Stones oppressed and ouer-whelmed He forced the Indians to follow him in his Expeditions in Armies of tenne or twentie thousand not allowing them other sustenance then the flesh of their slaine Enemies mayntayning in his Army Shambles of mans flesh In Panuco and Xalisco their state was much like one made eight thousand Indians wall about his Garden and let them all perish with Famine In Machuacan they tortured the King that came forth to meet them that they might extort Gold from him They put his feet in the Stockes and put fire thereto binding his hands to a Post behinde him and a Boy stood by basting his roasted feete with Oyle another with a Crosse-bow bent to his breast and on the other hand another with Dogges of these tortures he dyed They forced the Indians to deliuer their Idols hoping they had beene of Gold but their Golden hope failing they forced them againe to redeeme them Yea where the Fryers had in one place made the Indians to cast away their Images the Spaniards brought them some from other places to fell them In the Prouince of Saint Martha they had desolated foure hundred and fiftie miles of Land The Bishop wrote to the King that the people called the Spaniards Deuils or Yares for their Diabolicall practices and thought the Law God and King of the Christians had beene authors of this crueltie The like they did in the Kingdome of Venezuela destroying foure or fiue Millions and out of that firme Land carried
and established a new King or Emperour named Char Spinon Sonne to the Emperour of Cafan transferring on him his stile and Crowne with the authority incident but crowning him without any solemnitie or consent of Peeres Hee causeth his Subiects to addresse their persons sutes and affaires to him in his name all Priuiledges Charters and Writings to be called in and new to be granted in this Emperours Name and vnder his Seale in his name are all Court pleadings Coynes Customes Fines Reuenues for the maintenance of his House Officers and Seruants Hee sits in Maiesty and is lyable to all debts and matters concerning his Treasury The old Emperour and his Sonnes prostrate themselues and his Bishops Nobility and Officers are caused to do the like Embassadors also to resort to him which some refused and he further married him to the Daughter of a Prime Prince of the bloud Royall named Kneaz Misthisloskoie Now would the old Emperour take no notice of debts owing in his time Letters Patents and Priuiledges of Townes and Monasteries are made voyd States of Inheritance for want of confirmation and other things are at a stand His Clergy Nobility and Commons for remedy hereof after a yeeres discontinuance must petition Iuan Vassilewich that hee will bee pleased to resume the Crowne and Gouernment vpon many conditions and authenticall instruments confirmed by Act of Parliament in a very solemne new Inauguration Hee being content infinite Gifts and Presents of worth were sought to bestow on him his old debts and former incumbrances discharged Now he is againe inuested in statu quo prius regrants Priuiledges to Townes Monasteries Noblemen and Merchants vpon new compositions whence a portion is made for his Neece daughter to Knez Andrew his late Brother who in iealousie as was thought of the peoples loue to him was made away in pledging the Emperour in a Cup of Mead which he had drunke to him This his daughter was married to Hartique Magnus Brother to Frederike King of Denmarke borne before his Father Christianus Duke of Holst was elected King of that Countrey To pacifie dissention betwixt them King Frederike was content to exchange for the Dukedome of Holst all his Townes Castles and Lands during his life which hee had in Liesland This Emperour makes vp the Match and marries them in Mosco giues him in dowre with his Neece Elona all the interest he had in the Townes and Castles conquered by him in Liuonia establishing him therein and stiling him Corall that is King Magnus giues him a hundred good Horse well furnished 200000. Robles in Gold Siluer Plate Iewels and rich apparell with liberall gifts to all his Followers sends 2000. horse to see this King and Queene setled in their estates at the City of Dorp But in steed of expected amity wars follow from Denmarke and Swethia those two Kings ioyning with Stephanus that valiant King of Poland who not long after got from him the Narue and besieged Plescoue The Dane and Swethen are also competitors with him in certaine Territorites on the North Coast Wardhouse Cola Sollauersca Vâ—rsague c. Put him from his Customes and Trafficke there offering also to debarre the English Merchants in their passage for fishing on those Coasts and trading with them at Saint Nicholas and Colmogro The Emperour notwithstanding these incursions sends for all his Nobles and Gentlemens fairest daughters Virgins thorow his Kingdome out of whom hee chuseth a wife for himselfe and another for his eldest Sonne Charewich Iuane Her name was Nastacia daughter to Iuan Sherimitten a Viouod of a good Family The Emperour liueth in feare daily discouers Treasons and spends much time in torturing and execution One Knez Pheodor Curakin Gouernour of Wendon in Liuonia when King Stephanus came to besiege it and found drunke as was pretended was stripped naked layd in a Cart whipped thorow the Musco with sixe whips of Wire which cut his backe belly and bowels to death Iuan Chiglicone was hanged naked by the heeles on a Gibbet the skin and flesh of his body from top to toe cut off and minced with Kniues by small gobbets Foure Pallarinkes were Executioners one of which thrusting his Knife too farre it seemes purposing to dispatch him was presently had to a blocke and that hand cut off whereof not well seared he dyed the next day Many other were knocked on the head and cast into the Pooles and Lakes at Slobida their flesh fed on by ouer-growne Carpes Pikes other fish whose fat was such that hardly any thing else could be seene on them Knez Boris Telupa a great Fauourite was set on a long sharpe stake entring at his fundament and comming out at his necke on which he languished fifteene houres and spake vnto his Mother the Dutchesse which was brought to behold that wofull spectacle after which sight she was giuen to a hundred Gunners of his Guard which one after another defiled her to death Her body swolne and lying naked in the field open to the view of all which passed by hee commanded his Huntsmen to bring their hungry Hounds to deuoure her flesh and bones dragged vp and downe The Emperour at this fight said such as I fauour I haue honoured and to such as bee Traytors I will doe thus I could enumerate many more like Obiects but I forbeare his chiefe exercise being to deuise and execute new torture especially on his Nobility best beloued of his Subiects But his estate still growing daily more dangerous he enquired of Elizius Bomelius Doctor of Physicke a rare Mathematician or Magician and of others of Queene Elizabeths yeeres and what hopes there might be if he should be a Suter vnto her for himselfe notwithstanding that he had three wiues then liuing and many Kings could not preuaile in that Sute Presently he puts his last wife into a Nunnery and thinking to make England in case of extremitie his safest refuge built and prepared many goodly Barkes large Boats or Barges at Vologda and brought his richest Treasure thither to be embarked in the same to passe downe the Riuer Dwina and so into England by the English ships vpon a sudden leauing his eldest Sonne Charrewich Iuan to gouerne and pacifie his so troubled estate To this purpose hee experimented a rare proiect which increased his treasure and hatred together He cals for the principall Priors Abbats Archimandrites and Egomens of the richest Monasteries of his Kingdome which were very many and told them that what he had to say was best knowne vnto themselues He had spent the most part of his time wits vigor and youth in warfaring for their wealth and safetie who had receiued increase by that which had exhausted his treasure and safetie by his danger from forreine Enemies and disloyall practisers nor could hee or they longer subsist without assistance Their Prayers preuailed not whether for his their or his peoples sinnes supply out of their infinite abundance must bee the
where I with others saw him and he espying me called vpon Christ They threw him into a Dungeon where hee miserably ended his life He had liued in pompe and beene Authour of much mischiefe had conuayed much treasure out of the Countrey by way of England to Wesell in Westphalia where hee was borne though brought vp in Cambridge an Enemy alway to our Nation Hee had deluded the Emperour with tales of Queene Elizabeths youth and hopes by his Calculations of obtayning her But the Emperour out of hope hereof heard that there was a young Lady of the bloud Royall the Lady Mary Hastings daughter to the Earle of Huntington whom he now affected The Bishop of Nouogrod was condemned of coyning and sending money to Swethen and Poland of keeping Witches buggering Boyes and Beasts confederating with Bomelius c. All his goods were confiscated and himselfe throwne into a Dungeon with Irons on his head and legges where he made painted Images Combes and Beads liued with bread and water Eleuen of his confederate Seruants were hanged in his Palace gate at Mosco and his women Witches shamefully dismembred and burnt The Emperour passed ouer those which had beene accused and now consulted about marrying his second Sonne Chariwich Theodor being of great simplicitie the eldest hauing no issue But hauing his Prelates and Nobles together could not but euaporate some of his conceits from the former confessions of their Treasons being Ascension day on which before Musco had beene burned He spent some houres in Rhetoricall enlarging the dismalnesse of that day with great eloquence darting still with his eye at many Confederates in the late Conspiracie protesting to leaue them a naked disloyall and distressed people and a reproch to all Nations of the World The Enemies are at hand God and his prodigious creatures in the Heauens fight against vs Scarcity and Famine witnesse it and yet no Iudgements moue remorse in you The Originall is too long to recite Little was done but all prostrating themselues to his Maiesty and mercy desired God to blesse his holy purpose for the marriage of his Sonne for whom he chose Irenia daughter of Theodor Iuanowich Godonoue and after the solemnization of the marriage with great Feast dismissed the Nobles and Prelates with better words and countenance which was taken for a reconciliation But the Nuptials could not be performed by vsuall cohabitation which much distempered the King it is not decent to write the courses taken therein The Emperous Letters Instructions were ready himselfe his chiefe Secretarie Sauelly Frowlow whiles I was present closed them vp in one of the false sides of a woodden Bottle filled with Aquanitae to hang vnder my Horse-mayne not worth one penny appointed me foure hundred Hungarian Duckets in Gold to be sowed in my boots and quilted in some of my worst garments He said he forbare to tell me of some secrets of his peasure fearing left I passing thorow his Enemies Country might bee inforced to discouer what hee would not haue knowne The Bottle you carry with you shall declare what you shall say to Queene Elizabeth my louing Sister of which you must haue care as of your life vntill you come in safe place to open it In meane while and alway bee thou my sweet Sunshine Eremiska trusty and faithfull and thy reward shall be my goodnesse and grace from me hereafter I fell prostrate layd my head on his foot with a heauy heart to bee thus exposed to vnauoydable danger Doeafie Vlanon a Gentleman of good ranke and daily Wayter on the King attended me my Sled and Horse and twenty Seruants were ready at the posterne gate I posted that night to Otuer ninety miles where victuals and fresh Horses were prepared and so to Nouogrod and Plesco 600. miles in three dayes where entring into Liuonia my Gentleman and Seruants tooke their leaues and desired some token to the Emperour of my safe comming thither They left me with a poore guide only Within three houres after the Centinell tooke me vpon the borders and brought me to New house into the Castle before the State-holder or Lieutenant who straitly examined and searched me suspecting me as one comming from their enemies Country I said I was glad to come into their hands out of the vaile of misery the Moscouites Country not without losse On the third day vpon some mediation they appointed mee a Guide and suffered mee to passe The Guard expected gratuitie but I excused as pinched by the Russe I passed three dayes by Land and frozen Meares to Ossell in Liefland an Iland large and spacious vnder the King of Denmarke Raggamuffin Souldiers tooke me and vsed me roughly and carried me to Sowen Burgh and so to Orent Burgh the chiefe Townes and Castles in those parts and there deliuered me to the State-holders Lieutenant I attended his pleasure kept hardly as a Spie the Snakes creeping in my Lodging on Bed and board and Milke pans the soyle was such they did no harme I was called before the chiefe Gouernour a graue Gentleman in good fauour with the King many Halberds attending who examined me with many questions I answered I was a Subiect of the Queene of England who had peace with all Christian Kings specially with the King of Denmarke but was committed againe to custody whence hauing dismissed his company he sent for me againe by his Sonne and being priuate holding a Letter in his hand said I haue receiued sundry Letters from my friends and one of late from my daughter captiue in Mosco which sheweth of much friendship shee hath found at an English Gentlemans hand which negociates in that Court for the Queen of England My Lord said I is your daughter called Magdalen Vrkil yea Sir said he I answered I was the man that within these ten dayes she was well He sayd he could not procure her ransome and clasps me about the neck crying as did his Sonne likewise Gods Angell hath brought your goodnesse thus to me how euer disguised in this turbulent time that I might render you thankes and furtherance I desired free passe and safe conduct He feasted me ioyfully and made ready his Letters and Pasports to Captaines of Townes and Castles gaue mee a faire German striking Clocke offered his Sonne and Seruants armed to guard me out of danger which I could not accept of and commended his daughter to me I passed on to Pilton a strong Castle where King Magnus lay who vsed mee roughly because I could not drinke with him excessiuely Hee had riotously spent and giuen most of his Townes and Castles Iewels Plate c. to his followers and adopted daughters which hee receiued in Dowre with the Emperours Neece and not long after dyed miserably leauing his Queene and only daughter in very poore estate I roade thorow the Duke of Curlands Country and Prussia to Konninsburgh Meluin and Danzike in Polond Pomerania and Mickelburgh to Lubeck where I was
August September and October the raines are predominant which with their frequent violent and long cnntinuing showres cooles the Earth and reuiues the partcht Roots of the Sun burnt Plants of the Earth sometimes rayning so long together and with such fiercenesse that Houses loose their foundations in their currants and fall to the ground from whence also followes great Land-flouds to this Countrey no lesse commodious then the inundation of Nilus to the Egyptians by receiuing the Flouds into their Rice grounds and there retayning it vntill the Earth drinking it in becomes the better enabled to endure an eighth moneths abstinence for in eight moneths it neuer rayneth Nouember December Ianuary and February they account their cooler times and are so indeed compared to the former yet as hote as it is here in England in May. From which constant heate all Trees are heere continually greene and their Fruites ripe in their seuerall Seasons The Earth in some places affoords two Croppes of Rice in a yeere rarely three Croppes and in most places but one yet there with very great increase they so we other sorts of Pulse different from ours and farre vp into the Country they haue good Wheate but not much for it is little eaten of the Gentiles Rootes they haue of most sorts which we haue heere and good store of Potatoes yet but few Hearbs or Flowres which defect they supply in their Betele whose frequent vse amongst them many haue already discoursed In briefe it is a very fruitfull Countrey and occasioned by many of the Inhabitants abstinence from any thing that hath life all kind of victuall are very cheape and plentifull as eight Hens for twelue pence a Goate or Sheepe for ten pence and for eighteene pence or two shillings a very good Hogge the like of fish and all other prouisions in the Towne but in the Countrey much better cheape This Kingdome as most others in India receiueth its denomination from the chiefe City or Residence of the King called by the Natiues Golchonda by the Moores and Persians Hidraband distant from Musulipatnam eight and twentie Gentiue leagues euery such league contayning nine English miles and in the common course of trauel ten dayes iourney A Citie that for sweetnesse of ayre conueniencie of water and fertility of soyle is accounted the best situated in India not to speake of the Kings Palace which for bignesse and sumptuousnesse in the iudgement of such as haue trauelled India exceedeth all belonging to the Mogull or any other Prince it being twelue miles in circumference built all of stone and within the most eminent places garnished with massie Gold in such things as we commonly vse Iron as in barres of Windowes bolts and such like and in all other points fitted to the Maiesty of so great a King who in Elephants and Iewels is accounted one of the richest Princes of India He is by Religion a Mahumetan discended from Persian Ancestors and retayneth their opinions which differing in many points from the Turkes are distinguished in their Sects by tearmes of Seaw and Sunnes and hath beene at large and truly to my knowledge particularized in your Pilgrimage whereunto I onely adde in confirmation of their mutuall hatred what in conference I receiued from a Meene one of Mahomets owne Tribe if wee may beleeue his owne Heraldry who openly professed hee could not finde in his heart to pray for a Sunnee for in his Opinion a Christian might as easily bee saued a Charitie well befitting his Religion that would not pray for those hee might not pray with This King as all other his Predecessors retaines the title of Cotubsha the original whereof I remember to haue read in Linschoten He maried during my being in his Country the daugter of Adelsha King of Viziapore and hath besides her three other Wiues and at least 1000. Concubines a singular honour and state amongst them to haue many women and one of the strangest things to them I could relate and in their opinions lamentable that his excellent Maiesty our Gracious Souereigne should haue three Kingdomes and but one Wife The Cotubsha Adelsha and Negaim Sha oppose the Mogull in a perpetuall league of mutuall defence yet so as their yeerely Presents proue their best weapons chusing rather to buy peace then to hazard the euent of war against so mighty an Enemy His Reuenewes are reported to bee fiue and twenty Lackes of Pagodes a Lacke beeing an 100000. and a Pagoda equall in weight and alloy to a French Crowne and worth there seuen shillinge six pence sterling which huge Treasure ariseth from the large extent of his Dominions 〈◊〉 Subiects being all his Tenants and at a rackt Rent for this King as all others in India is the onely Free-holder of the whole Countrey which being deuided into great gouernments as our Shires those againe into lesser ones as our Hundreds and those into Villages the Gouernment is farmed immediately from the King by some eminent man who to other inferiours farmeth out the lesser ones and they againe to the Countrey people at such excessiue rates that it is most lamentable to consider what toyle and miserie the wretched soules endure For if they fall short of any part of their Rent what their Estates cannot satisfie their bodies must so it somtimes happens they are beaten to death or absenting themselues their Wiues Children Fathers Brothers and all their Kindred are engaged in the debt and must satisfie or suffer And sometimes it happeneth that the Principall fayling with the King receiues from him the like punishment as it befell to one Bashell Raw Gouernour at Musulipatnam since the English Traded thither who for defect of full payment was beaten with Canes vpon the backe feet and belly vntill hee dyed Yet hold they not these their Gouernments by Lease for yeerely in Iuly all are exposed in sale vnto him that bids most◠from whence it happeneth that euery Gouernour during his time exacts by Tolles taken in the way and other Oppressions whatsoeuer they can possibly extort from the poorer Inhabitants vsing what violence within their gouernments they shall thinke fit for in them during their time they reigne as petty Kings not much vnlike the Bashawes and ◠the Turkish Monarchy There are in the Confines and heart of this Kingdome sixtie six seuerall Forts or Castles all of them commanded by Naicks and guarded by Gentiles Souldiers of the Countrey vnto which Souldiery these is allowed but foure shillings the moneth and that also ill payd they are for the most part situated vpon very high Rockes or Hils vnaccessible but by one onely way three of which I haue seene viz. Cundapoly Cundauera and Bellum Cunda Cunda in that Language signifying a Hill and in the Towne of Cundapoley hauing occasion to visit the Gouernour it was so curious as to require the sight of the Castle who replyed that euen himselfe although the Gouernour of
to Africa 626. 671 704. to America 950. 951. seq Ilands del Moro and the commodities thereof 578 Ilium or Troye the situation and Founder thereof 332 Image of God 14. 15. How farre lost 22 Images how came to be worshipped 45. 46 Images in the Temple of Belus 49 Image erected by Nebuchadonoser 50. Of Senacherib 62 Images in the Temple at Hierapolis 68. 69. Of Apollo at Daphne 71 Image in Nebuchadnezars dreame 71. Of Victoria taken away with a scoffe 73. Of men mads Gods 75. Of Moloch 86 Iewish hatred of Images 213 Turkish hatred of them 301 Dreame of an Image at Rome 205. Of Venus 56. 59. Turkish nicety for Images 300. 301 Images of Mars and Saturne at Mecca 255. 268. Persian Images and the sacrificing to them 374. 375. 976 Images of the Tartars 423. In Tanguth 428. 429. In Cathay 405. 415. 416. 426. Of the Samoeds 432. 433. Chinois 470. 471. seq Siamites 490 491. In Pegu 505. 506. In Bengala 508. 509. In Salsette 545 Calicut 550. Negapatun 557 558. In Iapon 597. 598. Of Adam in Zellan 616. 617. In Aegypt 635. 636. In Mexico 870. 873. seq At Acusamil 885. In Guiana 901. seq In Peru 940. 941 Imbij a Barbarous Nation 755 Imemia a Sect imbraced of the Persians and others 275. 276 Impropriations Popish 119. How many and how wicked 119. 120 Incest of the Dogzijn fathers polluting their owne daughters c. 220. Mother with the sonne ibid. India what Countries so called 477 India Minor and Maior 735. The Name India how vsed 477 India how diuided 477. Indian Rites before and after Bacchus 481. 482 Indians of seuen sorts 478. Opinions and life of their Brachmanes 478. 479. Diuers orders of them ibid. Their Rites in burning themselues 480 Indian Gods Monsters Dances and other Rites 481. 482 Indian women 482. Fruits Plants Spices Beasts c 563. seq Portugall and Dutch trading in India 483. Of the English Trade there and many arguments in defence of it 484 485. seq Indian societie commended ibid Indico how and where it growes 570. 1003 Indus Riuer worshipped 478. 479 Described ibid Inguas title of the Kings of Peru 931 Intelligents a Sect of Moores 275 Inundations in China 458 Iobs Storie said to bee fayned 164 Ioghi Indian Votaries and Catharists 574. Their Opinions ibid. Furious zeale selfe-rigor 575 Iohn King of England his Embassage 702 Ionia how situate 336. Whence so called and the principall Cities thereof ibid. Ionithus a supposed sonne of Noah 36 Ionas sent to Niniue 66 Ionadab father of the Rechabites 125 Ionathas sonne of Vsiel 161 Ionathan Author of the Chaldee Paraphrase 165. The opinions of him and his Sect ibid. Ionike Letters 81 Ioppe when built 83 Ior a Kingdome 496 Iordan Riuer described 92 Iosephus not skilfull in Hebrew 94 Ben Gorion counterfeit 129. His testimonie of Christ 163 Irak a Kingdome 220 Isabella Iland 904 Is a Citie so called 50 Isis the Storie thereof 78. 80. 83. 635. 636 Isdigertes 353 Island and Iscaria 831 seq Isman a Drusian Prophet 220. 221 Ismael 92 Ismaelites a Sect 132 Ismael Sophi 381. 382. The Second 815 Israel who called 90. Their num 92. How gouerned before and in the time of Moses 68. How How after 98 99. Carried captiue 121. When they departed Aegypt 675. Some remnants in China 475 Isidones their Rites 397 Italie wherein happie and vnhappie 828 Iuan Vasiliwich Emperour of Russia his cruelties and historie at large by Sir Ierom Horsey 973 seq Iuba a King and Writer 678 Iubilee 112. The nine and fortieth yeere 113. The Popish Iubilee ibid. Iubilee of the Mexicans 881 Iucatan and the Rites there 885 Iuchri Iuchria Iurchi 341 Iudah 124 Iude his citing of a testimonie of Henoch 30 Iudaea 92. When first so called 93 vid. Ierusalem and Iewes Iudgement-Day Turkish opinions thereof 313 Iugures 404. The Sect and Rites of the Iugures 431 Iulian Apostata 72 Iulian the Spanish Traytor 229. Iuno Olympia 78. 81 Iupiter of the Plough 77. Of the Dunghill 80. Beelsamen and Olympius 77. 81. Triphylius 201. Bellipotens 311. Hercaeus and Fulminator 318. Descensor 319. Larisseus 321 Iupitur Sagus 328. Iupiter of the Persians 396 Iupiter Graecanicus 137. The Oracle of Iupiter Ammon 665 Isates King of Adiabena 63 K KAbala what it is 161 seq How differing from the Talmud 161. 162. Three kinds ibid. Kabala of the Mahumetans 276 277 Kain his Sacrifice 28. His punishment ibid. His remouing to Nod and his posteritie 29 Kain commended by the Caiani 135 Kalender of Iewish Fasts and Feasts 113. 114. Of the Samaritans 137. 138. Of the Saracens 229 230. Of the Peruans 945. 946 Kara Karraim or Koraim Scripture Iewes 125 129. Antient and moderne differ 129 Karda Mountaines 35 Karthada 82 Kedar a Countrie abounding with flocks of sheepe and goates 85 Kergis 405 Kiddish a Iewish prayer 186 Kine worshipped by the Indians and why 50. how King of the Iewes his prerogatiue 89 Kiou chiefe Citie of Russia 297 Kirgessen Tartars 421 Kithaya the situation and description thereof 404. Their Rites 405. Their faith and manner of writing ibid. vid Cathaya Kiugin a degree of the Chinois 449 Knights of Rhodes 584 Knighthood in Ciualoa 855. 856. in Mexico 866. 867. In Brasil 914. Goa 544. Master Kniuets most strange aduentures in Brasill and other parts 909 910. 911 Koptus a Citie that gaue name to Aegypt 626 Kumero Kumeri Kumeraes Kumeraeg 37 Kyrkes whence so called 120 Kitayans and their Religion 404 M LAbans Idols 98 Laborosoarchadus 62 Hee is that Baltasar mentioned by Daniel 63 Labyrinth in Aegypt 633. 634 Lac an Indian drugge 569 Ladrones Ilands the description thereof 950. The Rites and Customes there 951 Lake at Hierapolis 69. Ascalon 81. Sodome 84 85. Called Asphaltites 92. Thonitis 65 Genesareth and Samachonitis 92. Arethusa 318. At Hamceu in China 441. At Quinsay ibid. The Lake of Maeris 634. Gale Goiame Magnice and other Lakes in Africa 773 774. 775 Lamech Iewish Dreames of him 30 Lambe Paschall vide Paschall A Lambe the daily Sacrifice of the Hasidim 125. 126 Labor 413 Lampes nine hundred in the Temple of Fez and as many arches 683. A Lampe perpetually burning 147 Lampe a stone so called of strange effect 69 Languages confounded 38. 40 Restored ibid. Which was the first Language 38. 39. 264. Reckoned by some 40. 264 Languages which the most general 265. Strange Language vsed in holy things in Peru 938. 940 In Bisnagar 572. In Siam for other Sciences 491. 492 Last Chalifas in Bagdad and Aegypt 1044 Laodicea 70. seq Sixe of that name 71 Laos or Laios an Indian people their habitation and rites 489. 490 Lar and Cailon 580 Lausu a Philosopher of China 464 His Sect and the Rites thereof 465. 466 Law written in Mans heart 19 Differing from Ceremoniall ibid. Law diuided into Ceremoniall Morall Iudiciall 96. Their difference ibid. Written and vnwritten 121. Dreames of vnwritten 156. seq The
by some is ascribed to them but falsely Adam Caine Noah and others were in this before them Astronomie also is not their inuention but taught them by Abraham Geometrie is more like to bee theirs driuen to seeke out this Art by Nilus ouer-flowing Idolatrie to the Starres was first heere practised saith Lactantius for lying on the roofes of their houses as yet they doe without any other Canopie then the Azure skie first they beheld then studied lastly adored them Gaudentius Brixiensis applyeth the destroying of the Aegyptian first-borne to the perishing of Idolatrie through the light of the Gospell the Egyptians saith hee being the first which worshipped the Images of dead men Magicke is also ascribed to them of whose timely professours Iannes and Iambres are an instance Physicke is fetched also from hence and Writing both after the vulgar sort as also that of the Priests Hieroglyphicall whereof Horopollo an Egyptian Pierius Goropius Michael Mayerus Curio Schualenberg besides Mercerus and Hoeschelius with others haue written Aelianus accounteth Mercurie the first inuenter of their Lawes The Women in Egypt did performe the offices which belonged to the Men buying selling and other businesse abroad the men Spinning and performing houshold-taske Claud Duret hath expressed besides a Discourse of their Region and Learning two Egyptian Alphabets if any desire to see the forme of their Letters which some thinke that the Phenicians borrowed from Egypt and lent by Cadmus to the Graecians But I am not of their minde This Elogie or commendation is giuen them by Martial Niliacis primum puer hic nascatur in oris Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis From Aegypt sure the boyes birth may proceed For no Land else such knauerie can breed And Propertius Noxia Alexandria dolis aptissima tellus The place where Alexandria doth stand Is noysome and a Conie-catching land Wee may heere adde out of Flauius Vopiscus a testimonie of the qualities of the Aegyptians They are saith hee inconstant furious braggarts injurious also vaine licentious desirous of nouelties euen vnto common Songs and Ballads Verfifiers Epigrammatists Mathematicians Wizards Physicians both for Christians and Samaritanes and alway things present with an vnbridled libertie are distastefull to them Hee bringeth also for witnesse of this assertion Aelius Adrianus who in an Epistle to Seruianus affirmeth thus I haue learned all Aegypt to bee light wauering and turning with euery blast of fame They which worship Serapis are Christians and euen they which call themselues Bishops of Christ are deuoted to Serapis No Ruler is there of the Iewish Synagogue no Samaritan no Christian Priest which is not a Mathematician a Wizard a Chirurgion or anointer of Champions This kinde of men is most seditious most vaine most injurious the Citie Alexandria rich wealthie fruitfull in which none liues idle Goutie men haue somewhat to doe Blinde men haue somewhat to doe or haue somewhat which they may make nor are the goutie-fingred idle They haue One GOD him doe the Christians him doe the Iewes him doe they all worship I wish them nothing else but that they may bee fedde with their owne Pullen which how they make fruitfull I am ashamed to tell Thus much Adrianus The Pullen hee speaketh of it seemeth are such as euen to this day they vse to hatch not vnder the Henne but in Furnaces of dung and ashes wherein thousands of Egges are layd for that purpose That which hee speaketh of the Christians is either of some Heretickes or luke-warme Time-seruers to bee vnderstood or else remember that it was Adrian an Ethnike whose intelligence was from such as himselfe in those times hating the Christians of whom through blinde zeale of their Idolatry what did they What did they not faine and deuise Euen more odious then here is expressed as Ecclesiasticall Histories shew The Iewes had giuen Adrian cause by their Treasons to hate them and flatterers opportunitie to belie them Let him that loues mee tell my tale But a man would maruell to heare Adrian blame the Aegyptians so much for that for which himselfe in Authors is so much blamed namely Superstition and Sorcerie For hee made Images of Antinous which he erected almost in all the world saith Dion This Antinous was in high estimation with him some thinke his Minion Hee dyed in Aegypt either drowned in Nilus as Adrian writeth or which is the truth was sacrificed For whereas Adrian was exceeding curious and addicted to Diuinations and Magicall Arts of all kindes in the hellish rites whereof was required the soule of such a one as would die voluntarily Antinous refused it not and therefore was thus honoured and had a Citie in Aegypt newly repaired from the ruines and dedicated in his Name Yea hee reported he saw a new Starre which forsooth was the soule of this Antinous The Greekes made a God of him and a giuer of Oracles whereof Prudentius singeth Quid loquar Antinoum coelesti sede locatum c. Adrianique dei Ganimedem Cumque suo in Templis vota exaudire Marito And Iustin Martyr Antinoum qui modo extitit omnes metu coacti pro deo colere cum quis vnde esset scirent Hee caused money to bee coyned with the picture of the Temple of Antinous which Adrian had erected and a Crocodile vnder it Choul expresseth diuers formes of these Antinoan Coines and one with inscription of Marcellus the Priest of Antinous Ammianus Marcellinus ascribeth to the Egyptians a contentious humour addicted to lawing and quarrels Assuetudine perplexius litigandi semper laetissimum Their vanitie and superstition may further appeare by that which Diophantes recordeth of one Syrophanes a rich Egyptian who doting on his Sonne yet liuing dedicated an Image in his house vnto him to which the seruants at any time when they had displeased their Master betooke themselues adorning the same with Flowers and Garlands so recouering their Masters fauour Some make the Egyptians first inuenters of Wine which they say was first made in the Egyptian Citie Plinthis and of Beere to which end they first made Mault of Barley for such places as wanted Grapes When a man proued more in shew then in substance as hypocrites whom the Truth it selfe calleth Whited Tombes the Prouerbe termed him an Egyptian Temple because those buildings were sumptuous and magnificent for matter and forme to the view but the Deitie therein worshipped was a Cat Dogge or such other contemptible creature The naturall furie and crueltie vsed amongst the Egyptians hath made them infamous among Authors both Prophane and Diuine And Stephanus Bizantinus saith that they which practised close subtile craftie couzenages were said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to play the Aegyptians Aeschylus also the Greeke Poet makes them Mint-masters therein and perhaps those Rogues which wander ouer so many Countries and liue by their wits and thefts were therefore called Egyptians rather then for the