they haue a set Winde in some places for the day and another quite contrary bloweth in the night Also neere vnto the Coasts they are more subiect to calmes in this burning Zone than further off in the Sea the grosser vapours which arise out of the Earth and the diuers situation thereof being the cause of these differences Such is the force of this naturall situation that in some places it is strange what effects it produceth There is in Peru an high mountaine called Pariacaca whereupon Ioseph Acosta saith he ascended as well prouided as he could being fore-warned and fore-armed by men expert But in the ascent he and all the rest were surprised with so sudden pangs of straining and casting and some also of scowring that the Sea-sicknes is not comparable hereunto He cast vp Meat Flegme Choler and Blood and thought hee should haue cast out his heart too Some thinking to dye therewith demanded Confession and some are said to haue lost their liues with this accident The best is it lasteth but for a time neither leaueth any great harme behinde And thus it fareth in all the ridge of that Mountaine which runnes aboue a thousand and fiue hundred miles although not in all places alike In foure different passages thereof hee found the like difference and distemper but not so grieuous as at Pariacaca Hee ascribeth it to the subtiltie of the Aire in those high Hils which he thinketh are the highest in the world the Alpes and Pirenees being in respect hereof as ordinarie houses compared to high Towers It is Desart the grasse often burnt and blacke for the space of fiue hundred Leagues in length and fiue and twenty or thirty in breadth There are other Desarts in Peru called Punas where the Aire cutteth off mans life without feeling a small breath not violent and yet depriuing men sometimes of their liues or else of their feet and hands which fall off as a rotten Apple from a Tree without any paine This seemeth to be done by the force of cold which in the Northerne and Northeasterne parts of Europe worketh like effects some being found dead suddenly in those sleds in which they came to market sitting therein as if they were aliue and some losing their ioynts by the like cause But this maketh vp the strangenesse of these mortall accidents that this piercing cold Ayre both killeth and preserueth the same bodie depriuing it of life and yet freeing it from putrifaction A certaine Dominike passing that way fortified himselfe against the cold winds by heaping vp the dead bodies which here hee found and reposing himselfe vnder this shelter by these dead helpes saued his life The cause is Putrefaction cannot be procreated where her Parents Heate and moisture are confined and haue little or no force The Seas which compasse this Westerne India besides the Magellane Streits and the Northerne vnknowne for the knowledge whereof our Countrey-men Frobisher Dauis Hudson and others haue aduentured their liues and fortunes and at last haue giuen vs more hope then euer of the discouerie are the great and spacious Ocean which on this side is called the North Sea and on the other side of America is named the South Sea The qualities thereof will better appeare when we come to speake of the Ilands therein §. III. Of the nature of metals in generall of Gold Siluer Quick-siluer and the plenty and Mines thereof in America COncerning the Land of the New World Acosta diuideth it into three parts High Low and Meane which hold almost the same proportion that Master Lambert obserueth of Kent the first hauing some wealth by reason of the Hauens and Ports therein and of the Vines that grow there but are very vnholesome the Hils are healthfull but not fertile except in the Siluer bowels and Golden entralls thereof the third is the most commodious habitation where the soile yeeldeth Corne Cattle and Pasture and the Ayre health The principall thing that hath brought this Westerne India into such request is the Mines and Metals therein The Wisedome of God hath made Metals for Physicke for defence for ornament and specially for instruments in the worke which God hath imposed vpon man That in the sweat of his browes he should eate his bread The industry of man hath added another vse of Metals by weight or stampe conuerting it to money which the Philosopher calleth the measure of all things And a fit measure might it haue beene if the minde of man were not vnmeasurable and vnsatiable in measuring his measure Metals naturally grow as some obserue in land naturally most barren Nature recompensing the want of other things with these hidden treasures and the God of Nature enriching the Indians with this substance otherwise barren of Humane and Diuine knowledge that might as a rich Bride but withered and deformed make her finde many suters for loue of her Portion And would God they which reape heere these Temporall things would sowe Spirituall and giue them Gold tried in the fire and that which is as Siluer tried seuen times I meane the Word of God sincerely preached without the drosse of their owne superstitions And would they gaue them not Iron for Gold an Iron Age for a Golden imposing a heauy yoke of seruitude which hath consumed worlds of people in this New-World and made the Name of Christ and Christian to stinke amongst them yea they abhorre the Sea it selfe for bringing forth such monsters as they thinke the Spaniards whom for their execrable wickednesse they esteemed not to come of humane generation but of the froth of the Sea and therefore call them Viracochie or Sea-froth That which one saith of Religion I may apply to this American World Peperit diuitias filia deuorauit matrem Shee brought forth rich metals and the Daughter hath consumed the Mother her Gold that should haue beene a price in her hand to buy Wisedome hath to these importunate Chapmen sold her freedome It is i a Golden and Siluer Age indeed to the Spaniards for the condition and state which hereby accrueth to them not for the conditions and state of life which they obserue In the yeare 1587. when Acosta came to Peru eleuen millions were transported in the two Fleets of Peru and Mexico almost one halfe thereof for the King In the time when Pollo was Gouernour of Charcas in Peru from the Mines of Potozi alone were drawne and customed euery day thirty thousand Pezos of Siluer euery Pezo amounting to 13. Rials and a fourth part and yet it is thought the one halfe was not customed or as Ouiedo reckoneth one fourth part more then a Spanish Ducket Hee writeth that Anno 1535. three or foure ships came to Siuil laden with none other commodities but Gold and Siluer Miles Philips recordeth that when he returned out of the Indies 1581. there were seuen and thirty sayle and in euery of them one with another thirtie pipes of siluer
hath written of seuen Elders in each City and those things which in the Talmud are written of their Politie had now first as some thinke their beginning Concerning this because it is not so common let me haue leaue for a larger discourse out of the Talmudical Sanhedrin which thus recordeth Matters which concerne goods are determined by three criminall cases by a Councell of three and twenty But such things as belong to a whole Tribe a false Prophet or the high Priest by the great Councell at Ierusalem of seuenty and one The high Priest iudgeth and is iudged he sitteth at Funerals on a little Seare all the multitude sitting on the ground The king iudgeth not and is not iudged giueth testimony against none nor none against him Hee maketh Warres but not without consent of the Sanhedrin he may not haue aboue eighteene wiues he ought to haue the booke of the Law written and hanging about his necke In ciuill causes each of the Litigants chooseth a Iudge or Arbitrator and both these thus chosen choose a third Of this Office are vncapable Dicers Vsurers and such as practise dishonest courses for gaine They also which are of neere kindred to the parties may neither be Iudges nor Witnesses Their Companions or Aduersaries may giue testimony but not iudgement Women and Seruants might not be witnesses Ios. Antiq 4.7 Nor a Thiefe Robber Vsuret Publican Child or keeper of Doues Ph. Ferdinand This last Ricius doth not mention but addeth a Gentile Foolâ— Deafe Blinde The ancientest witnesse is first examined and that from his owne sight or the debters mouth or else it is nothing Thirtie daies after sentence giuen the Defendant may alleage what hee can for himselfe The odde number is the casting voice In criminall causes decided by three and twenty one odde voice absolueth but there must be aboue twelue of the three twenty to condemne and when sentence is giuen nothing may be alleaged further for accusation which for absolution is lawfull And he which hath spoken for the accused may not after speake against him Ciuill causes are examined in the day and sentenced in the night but criminall only by day and sentence of condemnation may not be pronounced the same day and therefore on holy-holy-dayes Eeuens examinations are forbidden Proselytes and Bastards may determine ciuill causes Priests and Leuits with other Israelites are required in criminall These Iudges sate in a semicircle hauing one Scribe or Register on the right hand another on the left In the Session-house were present besides three orders of Students which sate on the ground according to their degree out of which the number of the Senators were supplied when neede was so that one of the first order being made Senator another was chosen out of the second order into his place and out of the third in the roome of the second and out of the people into that third Order The witnesses must testifie only from their own sight and that exactly what seuenth yeere of the Iubilee what yeere of that seuenth what moneth what day of the moneth and weeke and in what houre and place hee saw it For to saue or lose an Israelite is asmuch as to preserue or destroy the frame of the World if one witnesse be ignorant of any of those circumstances or contradicteth another his testimony is vaine None of the Students which sit by may be suffered to accuse if they can say any thing in defence of the partie they may If they cannot finde sufficient to absolue him that day the Senators or Iudges scanne that matter seriously two or three together all night vsing a spare diet If twelue condemne and the rest cleere him they adde to the number of Iudges till they make vp seuenty and one to make further search When sentence is pronounced the condemned person is carried away and brought againe foure or fiue times to see whether hee or any other can say any thing for his purgation And if nothing bee alleaged sufficient to reuerse the sentence he is led to execution the Cryer going before him and proclayming the crime and sentence and accusers that if any can then say any thing in his behalfe he may speake When he commeth within ten cubits of the place of execution he is admonished to confesse his fault and so hee shall haue part in the life to come and if he know not the forme of confession it is enough for him to say Let death be vnto me the remission of all my sinnes Being within foure cubits he is stripped naked all but his priuities if it bee a woman shee is led forth in her cloathes The stoning place was built twice the height of a man from whence by one of the witnesses he was cast downe head-long the ground beneath being set with flints and if he died not with the fall another of the witnesses smote him neere the heart with a flint which if it did not finish his death the whole multitude cast stones at him They might not condemne aboue one in one day to death He which was stoned if he were a man was presently hanged on a Gibbet and after taken downe and buried with other persons which had before suffered in like manner When the flesh was there consumed his bare bones might bee laid in his owne or his fathers Sepulcher After this his friends and kinsemen went to the Iudges and witnesses and saluting them acknowledged the iustice of their fact Besides this punishment of stoning they punished with the fire sword or strangling The manner of burning was to put the condemned person in dung vp to the arme-holes and one executioner on one side and another on the other graned him with a linnen cloth about his neck pulling the same till they forced him to gape and then a bar or rod of burning metall was thrust downe into his body The sword was vsed in beheading Strangling was done with a course piece of linnen pulled close about his neck till he were dead It would be too long to shewe what faults were appropriated to each of these kindes of execution If a man had deserued two of them he was to be punished with the most seuere In some cases of homicide the guilty person was put in a little-ease prison where he was forced alway to stand and was fed onely with Barly till his belly rotted and his bowels fell out Any one might presently slay him which had stolne any of the holy Vessels or blasphemed the name Iehoua The Priest which exercised his function while he was polluted was not brought to iudgement but other Priests chosen to that purpose led him out of the holy place and knocked out his braines From the Sanhedrin was no appeale They were also called Mehokekim that is Scribes or Law-giuers because whatsoeuer they deliuered or writ was receiued for a Law Their Colledge saith Galatinus who from their fayling prooueth that the
the writing being cancelled should bee neglected and perhaps the Name of God cast with it on the dung-hil the wise-men abolished that order on the third of Tisri which they instituted a holy-day As for the name of Maccabees Iunius saith it came from the inscription of those foure letters M. C. B. I. in the banners of those Princes which deliuered the Iewes from the Macedonian thraldome Scaliger saith that Iudas onely and properly was so called but by abuse of speech was not onely giuen to all of that kindred but to all which suffered in those times persecution for Religion as the seuen brethren and others The name Hasmonaei began with that Hircanus Scaliger thinketh because in the sixty eight Psalme it is by the Iewes interpreted Prince Aristobulus sonne of Hircanus first after the captiuitie called himselfe king and raigned one yeere Ioannes Alexander his brother twentie seuen after him his wife Alexandra nine Hircanus her sonne three moneths Aristobulus his brother three yeeres Ierusalem was taken of Pompey and Hircanus recouered the Priest-hood which he held two and twentie yeeres Antigonus by aide of the Parthians possessed Iudae a fiue yeeres and in his second yeere Herod was proclaimed King by the Romans who tooke the Citie the fift yeere of Antigonus and raigned foure and thirtie Scaliger ascribeth to Herods kingdome the number after Eusebius account reckoning from the birth of Abram 1977. he died 2016. Archelaus his son was made by Augustus Tetrarch of Ierusalem 2016. was banished 2025. Agricola was made king by Caligula 2053. Agrippa his son by Claudius 2060. and died 2116. thirtie yeeres after the destruction of the Temple The Dynastie of the Herodians lasted 139. yeeres Thus Scaliger He attributeth the Natiuitie of Christ to the 3948. yeere of the world Here we must leaue the Chronologers contending of the yeere of the world in which this blessed Natiuitie happened some adding many more yeeres some not allowing so many It is certaine by the Scripture that he was borne in the one and fortieth or two and fortieth of Augustus baptized in the fifteenth of Tiberius then beginning to be about thirtie yeeres of age in the thirtie three yeere he was crucified In the seuentie two as Baronius and seuentie one yeere of Christ as Buntingus and Liuely account Ierusalem was destroyed by Titus in the second of Vespasian Arias Montanus reckoneth this the yeere of the World 3989. and saith that the Hebrewes reckon it the 3841. which must needes be false The fault ariseth from the false computation of the Persian and Graecian Monarchies Iosephus counteth from the time of Herod to the destruction of the Temple twentie eight high Priests and a hundred and seuen yeeres After Scaliger in his Can. Isag. l. 3. this yeere 1612. is the 1614. of Christ of the World 5461. after the Iewish account of Hillel 5372. of the Armenians 1061. of the Iulian Period 6325. of the Hegira 1021. Anno 4. Olymp. 597. The Dionysian account which wee vsually follow was not generally receiued till after the time of Charles the Great CHAP. XII Of the Iewish Talmud and the Composition and estimation thereof also of the Iewish Learned men their succession their Cabbalists Masorites their Rabbines Vniuersities Students Rabbinicall creations their Scriptures and the translations of them §. I. Of the Talmud RAbbi Mosche Mikkotzi in a worke of his set forth Anno 1236. as Buxdorfius citeth him saith that the Written Law which GOD gaue to Moses and Moses to the Israelites is obscure and hard because it speaketh some things contradictorie which hee seeketh to proue by some places mis-interpreted and because it is imperfect and contayneth not all things meete to be knowne For who shall teach vs saith he the notes of Birds and Beasts a Franciscan might answere him out of the Legend of Saint Francis the Patron of his Order who shall teach them the proprietie and nature of points accents of Letters Also what fatte might be eaten what not c. Many such things are defectiue in the Law and therefore there is neede of some other Exposition of the written Law whence these things might be learned This Exposition for-sooth must be their Talmud the generation of which Viper touched before we will here more fully declare They say that Moses on Mount Sinai was not with GOD fortie daies and fortie nights to keepe Geese And GOD could haue written those Tables of the Law in an houre and sent him away with them so to haue preuented that Idolatrie with the Golden Calfe But GOD brought Moses into a Schoole and there gaue him the Law in writing first and then in all that long time expounded the same shewing the cause manner measure foundation and intention thereof in the true sense This vnwritten and Verball Law did Moses teach Ioshua be the Elders from these it was deriued to the Prophets After Zacharie and Malachie the last of these it came to the great Sanhedrib and after them by Tradion from father to sonne And Rabbi Bechai saith That Moses learned the Law written in the day time and this Traditionall Law by night for then he could not see to write Rabbi Mosche Mikkotzi sheweth the cause why God would deliuer the same by mouth onely and not in writing lest I wisse the Gentiles should peruert this as they did the other which was written And in the day of Iudgement when GOD shall demand who are the Israelites the Gentiles shall make challenge because of the Law written but the Iewes onely shall be acceped as hauing this Simani this verball exposition GOD also say they gaue them Chachamim Wise-men authors of diuers ordinances amongst them as to blesse GOD at the Sunne-rising and Sunne-setting And of Schooles where children should be taught the Law of Moses in euery Citie and where the Law of Moses should be read weekely and that the Israelites should not eate or drinke with the Gentiles nor what they had dressed after the example of Daniel c. But when the Temple was destroyed and the Iewes carried away captiues then arose vp Rabbi Iuda Hannasi who is called for his humilitie and godlinesse our Great Master to whom GOD procured such fauour in the eyes of Antoninus the Emperour that hee had authoritie to assemble out of all places of the Empire the most learned Iewes to consult in this their almost desperate Estate what course to take for the preseruation of the Law amongst the people And although this Kabala or Law giuen by word of mouth might not bee committed to writing yet in consideration and commiseration of their miserie whatsoeuer thereof was remayning in memorie hee writ in a booke which hee called Mischna that is a Deutronomie or Law reiterated contayning sixe summes diuided into sixtie lesse parts or tractates and these into fiue hundred thirtie two Chapters Thus farre R. Mikkotzi The contents of the sixe summes and their seuerall Tractates
dye before the eight day he is circumcised at the graue without any prayers but a signe is erected in memorie of him that GOD may haue mercie vpon him and raise him at the day of the Resurrection In some places all the people stand except the God-father because it is written All the people stood in the Couenant But to pursue the rest of their niceties grounded vpon such interpretations would bee endlesse We will follow the childe home if you be not alreadie wearie and see what rout is there kept Ten must bee the number you haue heard of the inuited ghests and one or two of these learned Rabbins who must make a long prayer and Sermon at the table although others meane while are more busied in tossing the cups of Wine I was once present saith Buxdorsius at one of their Circumcision feasts and one of their Rabbins preached on Pro. 3.18 Wisedome is a tree of life but more woodden or ridiculous stuffe I neuer heard in all my life This feast they obserue by example of Abraham who made a great feast when the childe was weaned their Kabal peruerts it when hee was circumcised The Circumciser abideth sometime with the Mother lest the bloud should againe issue from the childe The mother keepeth within sixe weekes whether it bee a male or female all which time her husband must not so much as touch her or eate meate in the same dish with her If a female child bee borne there is small solemnitie onely at sixe weekes age some young wenches stand about the Cradle and lift it vp with the child in it and name it shee which stands at the head being God-mother and after this they iunket together §. V. Of the Iewish Purification Redemption and Education WHen the fortie dayes are accomplished before the wife may accompanie or haue any fellowship with her husband shee must bee purified in cold water and put on white and cleane garments Their washing is with great scrupulositie in a common watering or in priuate Cisternes or Fountaines which must bee so deepe that they must stand vp to the necke in water and if it bee muddie in the bottome they must haue a square stone to stand on that their whole feete may stand in cleere water and that the water may passe betwixt their toes for the least part not couered with water would frustrate the whole action and for this cause they lay aside all their haire-laces neck-laces rings they diue vnder the water so that no part may bee free from the same Some Iewesse must stand by for witnesse hereof which is twelue yeers old and a day at least They redeeme their first-borne in this sort when the child is one and thirtie dayes old his Father sendeth for the Priest with other friends and sets the child on a Table before him adding so much money or monies-worth as amounteth to two Florens of gold or two Dolars and a halfe My wife saith he hath brought me forth my first-borne and the Law bids me giue him to thee Doest thou then giue me him saith the Priest He answereth Yea. The Priest asketh the Mother if she euer before had a childe or abortion If shee answere No then the Priest asketh the Father Whether the childe or the money be dearer to him he answereth The childe then doth the Priest take the money and lay it on the head of the Infant saying This is a first begotten child which God commanded should be redeemed and now saith hee to the childe thou art in my power but thy parents desire to redeeme thee now this money shall be giuen to the Priest for thy redemption And if I haue redeemed thee as is right thou shalt bee redeemed If not yet thou being redeemed according to the Law and custome of the Iewes shalt grow vp to the feare of God to marriage and good workes Amen If the father dye before the childe be one and thirtie dayes old the mother hangeth a scroll about his necke wherein is written This is the first-borne and not redeemed and this child when he commeth of age must redeeme himselfe The Iewish Chachamim or Wise-men haue left no part of life vnprouided of their superstitious care as we haue seene concerning the birth and circumcision of their children with the Purification of the mother and Redemption of the first-borne To proceed with them they enioyne the mother while she giueth sucke to eate wholesome food of easie digestion that the Infant may sucke good milke so that the heart and stomacke be not stopped but may come so much more easily to obtaine wisedome and vertue For God hath great care of children and hath therefore giuen a woman two brests and placed them next her heart yea in the dangerous persecution vnder Pharaoh Exod. 1. hee caused the earth to open it selfe and receiue their Male children and created therein two stones from one of which the Infant sucked milke and from the other honie till they were growne and might goe to their Parents yea and if you beleeue their Gemara can you choose a poore Iew hauing buried his wife and not able to hire a nurse for his childe had his owne brests miraculously filled with milke and became nurse himselfe Yea Mardochaeus saith their Medrasch sucked the brests of Hester and for this cause did she after her exaltation so preferre him The conclusion is if she giue grosse food to her Infants she shall be cast into hell She must not go naked brested nor too long fasting in a morning nor carrie her Infants or suffer them to goe or be naked lest the Sunne hurt them if it bee in the day or the Moone in the night and that they may soone learne that the earth is filled with the Maiestie of diuine glory and for this cause must they beware that they neuer goe bare-headed for this were a signe of impudencie and ill disposition And as religiously they must prouide that they be alway girded with a girdle for the girdle distinguisheth betwixt the heart and the priuities and in his morning prayer he saith Blessed be thou O God which girdest Israel with the girdle of strength which if he should not haue a girdle on would be in vaine Their Mothers therefore sow their girdles to their coats with great care they auoid going bare-foot especially in Ianuary and February When they can speake they are taught sentences out of Scripture and to salute their Parents with good-morrow good-Sabbath c. and after seuen yeeres they adde the name of God God giue you good-morrow c. but they must not name the name of God but in a pure place These teach them the names of things in the vulgar and some Hebrew names among that so they may not commonly be vnderstood for pure Hebrew they cannot speake except their most learned Rabbines onely Their Children must not conuerse with children of Christians and their Parents make all things
the Feast in hope of like destruction to the Christians as befell Iericho and then renew the shaking of their boughes The seuenth day is most solemne called by them Hoschana rabba the great Hosanna as if one should say the great feast of saluation or helpe because then they pray for the saluation of all the people and for a prosperous new-yeere and all the prayers of this Feast haue in them the words of sauing as O God saue vs and O God of our saluation and as thou hast saued the Israelites and such like the prayers are therefore called Hosannoth Then they produce seuen bookes and in euery of their seuen compassings lay vp one againe This night they know their fortunes by the Moone for stretching out their armes if they see not the shadow of their head by Moone-light they must dye that yeere if a finger wanteth hee loseth a friend if the shadow yeeld him not a hand hee loseth a sonne the want of the left hand portendeth losse of a daughter if no shadow no life shall abide with him for it is written Their shadow is departed from them Some Iewes goe yeerely into Spaine to prouide Pome-citrons and other necessaries for the furnishing this feast which they sell in Germany other places to the Iewes at excessiue prices They keepe their Tabernacles in all weathers except a very vehement storme driue them with a heauie countenance into their houses Their wiues and seruants are not so strictly tyed hereto §. IIII. Of their New Moones and New-yeeres day THe New-Moones are at this day but halfe festiuall to the Iewes accounting themselues free to worke or not in them but the women keepe it intirely festiuall because they denyed their Eare-rings to the molten Calfe which after they bestowed willingly on their Tabernacle The deuouter Iewes fast the day before Their Mattins is with more prayers their dinner with more cheere then on other dayes and a great part of the day after they sit at Cardes or telling of Tales That day when the Moone is eclipsed they fast When they may first see the New-Moone they assemble and the chiefe Rabbi pronounceth a long Prayer the rest saying after him The Iewes beleeuing that GOD created the world in September or Tisri conceit also that at the reuolution of the same time yeerely hee sitteth in iugdement and out of the bookes taketh reckoning of euery mans life and pronounceth sentence accordingly That day which their great Sanhedrin ordayned the New-yeeres festiuall God receiuing thereof intelligence by his Angels sent thither to know the same causeth the same day a Senate of Angels to bee assembled as it is written Daniel 12. All things prouided in the solemnest manner the three bookes are opened one of the most Wicked who are presently registred into the Booke of Death the second of the Iust who are inrolled into the Booke of Life and the third of the meane sort whose Iudgement is demurred vntill the day of Reconciliation the tenth of Tisri that if in the meane time they seriously repent them so that their good may exceed their euill then are they entred into the Booke of Life if otherwise they are recorded into the Blacke Bill of Death Their Scripture is produced by R. Aben Let them bee blotted out of the Booke of the liuing and not bee written with the Iust Blotting points you to the Booke of Death Liuing that of Life and not writing with the Iust is the third Booke of Indifferents All the workes which a man hath done through the yeere are this day examined The good workes are put in one ballance the bad in the other what helpe a siluer Chalice or such heauie metall could affoord in this case you may finde by experience in Saint Francis Legend who when the bad deeds of a great man lately dead out-weighed the good at a dead lift cast in a siluer Chalice which the dead partie had sometime bestowed on Franciscan deuotion and weighed vp the other side and so the Diuels lost their prey GOD say they pronounceth sentence of punishment or reward sometime in this life to bee executed sometime in the other In respect hereof their Rabbines ordaine the moneth before to be spent in penance and morning and Eeuening to sound a Trumpet of a Rams-horne as Aue Marie Bell to warne them of this Iudgement that they may thinke of their sinnes and besides to befoole the Diuell that with this often sounding being perplexed hee may not know when this New-yeeres day shall bee to come into the Court to giue euidence against them The day before they rise sooner in the morning to mutter ouer their prayers for remission and when they haue done in the Synagogue they goe to the graues in the Church-yard testifying that if GOD doe not pardon them they are like to the dead and praying that for the good workes of the Saints the iust Iewes there buried hee will pitty them and there they giue large almes After noone they shaue adorne and bathe themselues that they may be pure the next day for some Angels soyled with impuritie heere below are faine to purge themselues in the fierie brooke Dinor before they can prayse GOD how much more they and in the water they make confession of their sins the confession containeth two and twentie words the number of their Alphabet and at the pronouncing of euery word giue a knocke on their brest and then diue wholly vnder water The Feast it selfe they begin with a cup of Wine and New-yeere Salutations and on their Table haue a Rammes head in remembrance of That Ramme which was offered in Isaacks stead and for this cause are their Trumpets of Rams-horne Fish they eate to signifie the multiplication of their good workes they eate sweet fruits of all sorts and make themselues merry as assured of forgiuenesse of their sinnes and after meat all of all sorts resort to some bridge to hurle their sinnes into the water as it is written Hee shall cast all our sinnes into the bottome of the Sea And if they there espie any fish they leape for ioy these seruing to them as the scape-goate to carrie away their sinnes At night they renew their cheere and end this feast §. V. Of their Lent Penance and Reconciliation Fast. FRom this day to the tenth day is a time of Penance or Lent wherein they fast and pray for the cause aforesaid and that if they haue beene written in the Booke of Death yet God seeing their good works may repent and write them in the Life-Booke Thrice a day very earely they confesse three houres before day and surcease suits at Law c. And on the ninth day very earely they resort to the Synagogue and at their returne euery male taketh a Cocke and euery female a Henne if she be with childe both and the housholder saying out of the hundred and fift Psalme verses 17 18 19
was there all the Towne and Neighbour-hood sending their Presents and comming to view the same and not the meanest but admitted to meate in the Kings presence I could from hence conduct you to the monstrous buildings raysed be Taicosama employed night and day one hundred thousand men at worke I could present you with the pompous entertainment of their great Solemnities this being a tyrannicall policy to cause Gentry and Nobility of this stirring Nation thus to impouerish themselues with all possible brauery that so their hands might bee too short for State practices But with remembring these things I should forget my principall scope Let vs therefore take view of their Religion §. IIII. Of their Sects and Bonzian Colledges THey haue many Sects some reckon them twelue all truely agreeing in disagreeing with truth some of them Epicure-like denying Gods Prouidence and the Soules Immortality They hold that a man hath three soules which one after another come into and depart out of the body Few of their Bonzij will openly teach this Doctrine but labour to hold the people in awe Amida and Xaca they preach as Sauiours and to bee worshipped Some of their Sects doe beleeue an eternall life and promise it to all such as call vpon these supposed Deities as Saints which sometime led so austere a life for the sins of Mankinde that for a man to vexe his minde or macerate his body for his owne sinnes or to doe good workes would not onely bee superstitious but offensiue and derogatorie to their merits And here the kind-hearted Iesuite is panged with a fit of Charity to yoke the Lutheranes with them as if the sufferings of Iesus were but the Superstitions of Amida as if eyther the sufferings of man imperfect borrowed dutie could bee or the sufferings of God could not bee meritorious or as if the Lutherans denyed Christian contrition whose affect is Indignation effect selfe reuenge as they doe Popish Confession and Satisfaction These Gods they call Fotoques Other Gods of a lesse mould they call Camis which haue their charges and peculiar Offices for Health Children Riches c. as among the elder that I trouble not the queasie stomackes of the later Romanes These were Kings and Noblemen or Inuenters of Artes of whom they they haue as true tales as Homer of the Legend yeeldeth Taicosama that dyed a few yeeres since the first in which these many later ages took the title of a King which together with the Crowne hee receiued of the King of China ordayned before his death that his body should not be burned after the wonted manner but closed in a Chest and in a sumptuous Temple for that purpose built his Image should be enshrined and worshipped with the title of Scinfaciman or new Faciman the name of their Mars or Warlike God which was also done Hee had appointed by Will the forme of that Temple which should bee built vnto him which by those Decem-viri was done Captayne Saris saw it hauing on each side fifty stone Pillars very stately for matter Arte and scite seated on a Hill The people called him the principall Cam of their Cams at the first erection his corps was there intombed and his Statue erected for their Superstitious worships Thus he which in his youth had vsed to cut wood and carry it into the Market to sell for his daily sustinance for his valour promoted in Military Honours at last became the greatest Monarch that Iapon had seene in eight hundred yeeres and not contented with humane greatnesse would aspire to that diuine whereof hee himselfe had beene a derider in others His name before was Faxiba called after Quabacondonus the highest title next to the Dairi and signifieth the chiefe of the Treasure next borrowing a Kingly stile from China would mad folly on his Death-bed bequeath God-head to a Man and Immortalitie to a carkasse when hee could no longer hold out his pride cruelty and other wicked courses which made his presence dreadfull his memory detestable Nabunanga was his predecessor in his State and Impiety arrogating diuine honour to himselfe but destroying the Temples of their Gods together with the Temple-keepers the Bonzij This appeared as Frenoiama a famous Vniuersitie of those Bonzij nine miles from Meaco wherein eight hundred yeeres past a Iaponian King had erected three thousand and eight hundred Temples with houses adioyning for the Bonzij allowing to their maintenance the third part of the Reuenue of the Kingdome of Vomen Hence proceeded their orders and gouernment in affaires both of State and Religion being a Seminary of Lawes and Superstitions But these Temples in time diminished to eight hundred and the Bonzian Discipline as much empayred and altered from Austeritie in some to Wantonnesse in others from Arts to Armes The Bonzij tooke part with Nechien enemy of Nabunanga who enraged hereat made truce with the one to destroy the other The Bonzij not preuayling by their suing for peace fortified themselues for warre in the Temple of Quanon their God of health and long life much frequented with Pilgrimes from all parts much solemnized with their pompous Processions like in all parts if yee beleeue the Iesuite to their Corpus Christi Solemnity which grew the more famous for that these were but the preamble to the like pompe in Gibon Festiuall at Meaco But all preuayled not with Nabunanga who destroyed both Temple and Priests with fire and sword burning foure hundred other Temples for company in the yeere 1572. At Meaco he burned twenty of these Bonzian Cloysters of the greater sort besides fourescore lesse and in one of them threescore Bonzian women or Nunnes whose Deuotion was employed in begging for the reparation of the Temple of Daibud Amongst the rest as the Grecians had their Mercury with his Caducaus so the Iaponians haue their Iizu with his Trident to conuey soules departed into their alloted eternall residences The Bonzij his Chaplaines by lots enquired whither they should remooue him hee commanded it and they with great solemnitie performed it but out of a place which then escaped to another wherein and wherewith he was burnt Facusangin was another Bonzian Academy adorned with many Colledges which he destroyed Xuanguen the King of Cainochun shaued his head and beard and professed himselfe a Bonzi and not only attyred himselfe in their Habit but thrice a day did performe their Superstitions hauing six hundred Bonzij to his followers He writ to Nabunanga intituling himselfe the Patron of those Religions the other in his answere stiled himselfe the Tamer of Deuils and Enemy of Sects But after that he would bee a God soone did he cease to be a man the immortall God hating Corriuals by his owne subiects destroyed his life riches and memory These Bonzij are for the most part Gentlemen whom their Parents hauing many children for want of mayntenance thrust into Cloysters Shauen as you haue heard and Shauers couetously pilling and polling the
and Elementary bodies the Stoicall Fate the Chaldean Iewish and Arabian Fancies are now disclaymed euen by those Learned which maintayne in our dayes Iudiciall Astrologie or commend the same Neither can it agree with Christian Religion to subiect the will of Man to any externall naturall force nor with reason in matters contingent and casuall to make them naturall Arbiters nor will I easily beleeue that particular euents can be fore-told from generall causes especially in the affaires and fortunes of men Where the numbers substances faculties actions of these stars are weakly or not at al known vnto vs as hath beene shewed it is like as to say how many and what kind of Chickens a Hen will hatch when wee see not all nor scarce know any of the Egges vnder her The swiftnesse of the Heauens Wheele which euen in the moment of obseruing is past obseruing the vanitie of our Oracle-Almanacks which commonly speake doubtfully or falsely of the weather the infinitenesse almost of causes concurring which are diuersly qualified the weakenesse of those foundations on which this Art is grounded the force of hereditarie qualities descended from Parents of custome and education in forming mens manners the disagreements of the Astrologers among themselues the new from the old and all from the Truth as Experience in all ages hath shewed And lastly the prohibition of the same by Scripture Fathers Councels Lawes yea the learnedest of the Chaldeans and other Astronomers themselues as Eusebius reciteth of Bardanes and Rob. Moses ben Maimon hauing read all the Arabians workes hereof answereth the Iewish Astrologers are strong arguments against the Starre-gazers predictions But let Picus Mirandula his twelue Bookes against Astrologie and Ioseph Scaligers Preface before Manilius be well weighed of such as dote on or doubt of this Genethliacall ridiculous vanitie if not impious villany as those Authors and others prooue it not by the errors of some Chiefetaines and Champions onely but of the Arte it selfe and the whole Senate of Iewish Saracenical and Christian Astrologers together hatching a lye The signes and constellations which Astronomers obserue in and on each side the Zodiakes would be too prolixe in this discourse already tedious as likewise those alterations which some haue obserued in some starres But those two great Lights the two eyes of the Heauens the greater light to rule the day and the lesse to rule the night which is called great not so much for the quantitie wherein it is lesse then many starres as for the operation and seeming to the sense doe command mine eyes to take more speciall view of their beauties How willing could I be like Phaton to mount the Chariot of the Sunne which commeth forth as a Bridegroome out of his Chamber and reioyceth like a mightie man to runne his race King of Starres enthronized in the mids of the Planets heart of the World eye of the Heauens brightest gemme of this goodly Ring father of dayes yeeres seasons meteors Lord of light fountaine of heate which seeth all things and by whom all things see which lendeth light to the starres and life to the World high Steward of Natures Kingdome and liueliest visible Image of the liuing inuisible God And dazled with this greater light I would reflect mine eyes to that reflexion of this light in the sober siluer countenance of the silent Moone which whether it haue any natiue shining though weake as Zanchius and Bartholinus hold or whether it bee an aethereall earth with Mountaines and Vallies and other not elementary Elements compact of the dregs of the aethereal parts or whatsoeuer else reason fancie or phrensie haue imagined thereof is Queene of the Night attended with the continuall dances of twinckling starres Mother of Moneths Lady of Seas and moysture constant image of the Worlds inconstancie which it neuer seeth twice with the same face and truest modell of humane frailtie shining with a borrowed light and eclipsed with euery interposition of the earth But I am not Endymion nor so much in Lunaes fauour as to be lulled asleepe in her lap there to learne these mysteries of Nature and the secrets of that happy marriage between these celestial twinnes And it is high time for me to descend from these measures of time the lampes of the World and to behold the neerer works of GOD before our feet in the ayre and waters which GOD on the fift day created But the principall rarities to be obserued in these creatures we shall disperse in our scattered discourses through this Worke as occasion shall bee offered as likewise touching the beasts both Wilde and Tame and the creeping things created the sixth day Thus was the Ayre Water and Earth furnished with their proper inhabitants Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae Deerat adhuc quod dominari in caetera posset Natus homo est After he had thus prouided his cheere he sought him out a guest and hauing built and furnished his house his next care was for a fit Inhabitant Of this Moses addeth Furthermore God said Let Vs make Man But this will aske a longer discourse In the meane time wee haue this testimonie of Moses of the Creation of the World whose sense if I haue missed or misted in these many words I craue pardon And although this testimonie might suffice a Christian which must liue by faith and not by sight yet to preuent cauillers we haue other witnesses both of reason and authority That this World had a Beginning and that the Builder and Maker thereof was GOD. For doth not Nature both within and without vs in the admirable frame of this lesse or that greater World in the Notions of the one and the Motions of the other in the wise and mighty order and ordering of both lead men vnto a higher and more excellent Nature which of his goodnesse we call GOD When we behold the whole World or any part of it in the Elements such agreement in such disagreement in the Heauenly motions such constancie in such varietie in these compound bodies Being Liuing Sense Reason as diuers degrees diuersly communicated to so many formes and rankes of Creatures We can no more ascribe these things to chance than a Printers Case of Letters could by chance fall into the right Composition of the Bible which he Printeth or of Homers Iliads to vse Tullies similitude neither can any ascribe the Creation to the Creature with better reason then if by some shipwracke being cast on a desolate Iland and finding houses but seeing no people therein he could esteeme the Birds or Beasts all the Ilanders he seeth to be the framers of these buildings But thou mayest thinke it eternall Thou mayest as well thinke it to be GOD Infinite Vnchangeable in the whole and in all the parts Doth not the Land by seasons the Sea by ebbing and flowing the Aire by succeeding changes the Heauens by motions all
a line thence drawne to the Caspian Sea and that Isthmus which is betwixt that and the Pontike Sea secondly the great Chams Countrey from thence to the Easterne Sea betwixt the frozen Sea and the Caspian thirdly That which is subiect to the Turke all from Sarmatia and Tartaria Southwards betweene Tygris and the Mediterranean Sea fourthly The Persian Kingdome betweene the Turke Tartar India and the Red Sea fiftly India within and beyond Ganges from Indus to Cantan sixtly The Kingdome of China seuenthly The Islands These diuisions are not so exact as may be wished because of that variety vncertainty in those Kingdomes Many things doth Asia yeeld not elsewhere to be had Myrrhe Frankincense Cinamon Cloues Nutmegs Mace Pepper Muske and other like besides the chiefest Iewels It hath also Minerals of all sorts It nourisheth Elephants Camels and many other Beasts Serpents Fowles wilde and tame as in the ensuing Discourse in their due places shall appeare yet doth it not nourish such monstrous shapes of men as fabulous Antiquitie fained It brought foorth that Monster of Irreligion Mahumet whose Sect in diuerse Sects it fostereth with long continuance of manifold Superstitions It hath now those great Empires of the Turke Persian Mogore Cathayan Chinois it had sometimes the Parthian and before that the Persian Median Assyrian Scythian and first as it seemeth before them all the Babylonian Empire vnder Nimrod which is therefore in the next place to be spoken of CHAP. X. Of Babylonia the originall of Idolatrie and the Chaldaeans Antiquities before the Floud as BEROSVS hath reported them COnfusion caused diuision of Nations Regions and Religions Of this Confusion whereof is alreadie spoken the Citie and thereof this Countrey tooke the name Plinie maketh it a part of Syria which hee extendeth from hence to Cilicia Strabo addeth as farre as the Pontike Sea But is vsually reckoned an entire Countrey of it selfe which Ptolomey doth thus bound On the North it hath Mesopotamia on the West Arabia Deserta Susiana on the East on the South part of Arabia and the Persian Gulfe Luke maketh Babylonia a part of Mesopotamia Ptolomey more strictly diuideth them whereunto also agreeth the interpretation of the Land of Shinar that it was the lower part of Mesopotamia containing Chaldaea and Babylon lying vnder the Mount Sangara In this Countrey was built the first City which we read of after the Floud by the vngratefull World mooued thereunto as some thinke by Nimrod the sonne of Cush nephew of Cham. For as Caines posteritie before the Floud were called the sonnes of Men as more sauouring the things of men then of God more industrious in humane inuentions then religious deuotions so by Noahs curse it may appeare and by the Nations that descended of him that Cham was the first Author after the Floud of irreligion Neither is it likely that he which derided his old Father whom Age Holinesse Fatherhood Benefits and thrice greatest Function of Monarchy Priesthood and Prophecie should haue taught him to reuerence That he I say which at once could breake all these bonds and chaines of Nature and Humanitie would be held with any bonds of Religion or could haue an eye of Faith to see him which is inuisible hauing put out his eyes of Reason and Ciuilitie Had hee feared God had he reuerenced man had hee made but profession of these things in some hypocriticall shew hee could not so easily haue sitten downe at ease in that Chaire of Scorning whence we read not that euer hee rose by repentance From this Cham came Nimrod The mightie hunter before the Lord not of innocent beasts but of men compelling them to his subiection although Noah and Sem were yet aliue with many other Patriarches As for Noah the fabling Heathen it is like deified him The Berosus of fabling Annius calleth him Father of the gods Heauen Chaos the Soule of the World Ianus his double face might seeme to haue arisen hence of Noahs experience of both Ages before and after the Floud The fable of Saturnus cutting off his Fathers priuities might take beginning of that act for which Cham was cursed Sem is supposed to be that Melchisedech King of Salem the figure of the Lord and the propagator of true Religion although euen in his posteritie it failed in which Abrahams Father as witnesseth Ioshua serued other gods Iaphets pietie causeth vs to perswade our selues good things of him Cham and his posteritie we see the authors of ruine Philo and Methodius so are the two bookes called but falsly tell That in these daies they began to diuine by Starres and to sacrifice their children by Fire which Element Nimrod compelled men to worship and that to leaue a name to posteritie they engraued their names in the brickes wherewith Babel was builded Abraham refusing to communicate with them and good cause for he was not yet borne was cast into their Brick-kill and came out long after from his Mothers wombe without harme Nahor Lot and other his fellowes nine in number saued themselues by flight Others adde that Aram Abrams brother was done to death for refusing to worship the Fire Qui Bauium non odit amet tua carmina Maeui To come to truer and more certaine reports Moses saith That the beginning of Kimrods Kingdome was Babel and Erech and Acad and Calne which three some interpret Edessa Nisibis Callinisum And whereas commonly it is translated in the next words Out of that Land came Ashur and built Niniueh Tremellius and Iunius read it Out of this Land hee Nimrod went into Ashur or Assyria and built Niniue and Rehoboth Calah and Resen But most vsually this is vnderstood of Ashur the sonne of Sem who disclayming Nimrods tyrannie built Niniue which after became the chiefe City of the Assyrian Empire to which Babylon it selfe was subiected not long after Xenophon de Aequiuocis if his authority be current saith That the eldest of the cheife families were called Saturni their Fathers had to name Coelum their wiues Rhea and out of a piller erected by Semiramis to Ninus alleageth this inscription My Father was Iupiter Belus my Grandfather Saturnus Babylonicus my great Grandfather Saturnus Aethiops who was sonne of Saturnus Aegyptius to whom Coelus Phoenix Ogyges was Father Ogyges is interpreted Noah therefore called Phoenix because of his habitation as is thought in Phoenicia not farre from whence in Ierusalem Sem raigned Saturnus Aegyptius may be the name of Cham of whose name Egypt is in Scripture tearmed the land of Cham. Saturnus Aethiops is Cush Nimrod Babylonicus the father of Belus who begat Ninus But this cannot be altogether true For Niniue hath greater antiquitie then Nimrods Nephew howsoeuer the Greeke Histories ascribe this to Ninus and Babylon to his wife Semiramis except we say that by them these two Cities formerly built were enlarged and erected to that magnificence which with the growth of the Assyrian Empire
Catholicke and vniuersall idolatrie thereunto which the three Saints Shadrach Meshach and Abednego refused and in a fierie triall were found both Martyrs and Confessors Lyranus Hugo Cardinalis Pererius Pintus Pellicanus thinke that Nabuchodonosor set vp this Image for himselfe requiring diuine honour to be giuen vnto it as Caligula since amongst the Romans but by his expostulation Will yee not serue my god and the like answere of those three men We will not serue thy gods it seemeth to haue beene consecrated to Bel or some other Babylonian Deitie Which because it was erected in the plaine of Dura this is thought to bee Dera in Susiana mentioned by Ptolomey Daniel might haue good occasion of absence from thence whose office was to sit in the gate of the King at Babylon Strabo out of Megasthenes whom Annius hath set out as truly as he hath done Berosus saue that he lisped in the name and called him Metasthenes sayth of this King whom hee nameth Nabacodrosor more esteemed of the Chaldaeans then Hercules that he came in his expeditions as farre as the Pillars of Hercules the straights of Gibraltar and as far as Tearcon the Aethiopian and that he conducted an army out of Iberia into Thracia and Pontus This Tearcon is he whom the Scripture calleth Tirhaka which warred against Senacherib But to returne to our pensile Gardens which Diodorus and Curtius attribute to a Syrian King which was no other but this Conquerour of Syria Nabuchodonosor and both they and Strabo doe at large describe and account among the worlds wonders as were also the Bridge and the Walls of the Citie And no lesse wonderfull was that Obeliske or Needle a square stone made spire-fashion cut by Semiramis out of the mountaines of Armenia one hundred and fiftie foot long and foure and twentie thicke on many Waines brought to the Riuer thence to Babylon and there erected Plinie testifieth that the Temple of Belus stil remaineth in his dayes and that Belus was inuentor of Astronomie This Temple was the same with the Sepulchre of Belus which Strabo sayth was rased by Xerxes yet not so but that Alexander would haue repaired it but in regard that it asked so much labour and time for onely the clensing of the earth required ten thousand men two moneths worke he was not able to finish that which he had begunne In the description he saith lesse then Herodotus that it was a Pyramis or spire-worke a furlong or six hundred foot in height and each of the fouresquares containing as much Arrianus affirmeth that Alexander had the same purpose of other Temples also The Temples sayth he which Xerxes had ouerthrowne he commanded to be repayred and among them the Temple of Belus whom the Babylonians with singular Religion worship At his returne homewards Belus in thankefulnesse it seemeth sent his Chaldaean Priests to meete him and forbid him to enter the Citie as he loued his life whose Oracle Alexander contemning there ended his dayes The cause why he listned not to them is thought a mistrust that he conceiued of the Chaldaeans For whereas Xerxes at his returne out of Greece had razed this and all other sacred places of the Babylonians Alexander minding the repaire hereof hauing already remoued the rubbish thought with his whole Armie to atchieue this enterprise But the reuenue which the Kings of Assyria had left for the maintenance of this Temple sacrifices after the ouerthrow thereof was shared among the Chaldaeans which they by this attempt were like to lose and therefore were willing to want his presence This Temple some suppose to be that Tower of Babel mentioned by Moses Gen. 11. and supposed still in part to remaine For about seuen or eight miles from Bagdat as men passe from Felugia a Towne on Euphrates whereon old Babylon stood to this new Citie on Tygris a worke of eighteene houres and about forty miles space there is seene a ruinous shape of a shapelesse heape and building in circuit lesse then a mile some say but a quarter of a mile about the height of the stone-worke of Pauls steeple in London the bricks being sixe inches thicke eight broad and a foot long as master Allen measured with Mats of Canes laied betwixt them yet remayning as sound as if they had beene laid within a yeeres space Thus master Eldred and master Fitch master Cartwright also and my friend master Allen by testimony of their owne eyes haue reported But I can scarce thinke it to be that Tower or Temple because Authors place it in the middest of old Babylon and neere Euphrates Whereas this is neerer Tygris Isidore affirmeth that first after rhe floud Nimrod the Giant founded Babylon which Semiramis the Assyrian Queene enlarged and made the wall with Bricke and Bitumen The height of the Tower was fiue thousand one hundred seuenty foure paces Verstegan addeth the passage to mount vp was verie wide and great winding about on the out-side the middle and inward part for the more strength being all massie and by Cart Camels Dromedaries Horses and Asses the carriages were borne and drawne vp and by the way were many Lodgings and Hosteries both for man and beast yea fields also for graine and pasture if yee can beleeue it But it is now as wee see come to confusion Also there are yet beyond Tygris some ruines of a Temple which is called the Temple of Bel with high yron gates as is reported Dominicus Niger hath these words Seleucia in processe of time hath changed her state and her site For it was on the westerne banke of Tygris which a Cut from Euphrates flowed into in which place are now seene the ruines thereof where the shepheards haue erected them cottages and on the Easterne banke haue the Barbarians built the Citie and called it Bachdad right ouer-against the old If this be true vaine is the conceit of credulous Trauellers which suppose those ruines to be the monuments of Babylons buriall and confound against this later world with the reports of Babels Tower The Bitumen of slimie pitch which they vsed in stead of Morter in their building is as Dominicus Niger out of Trogus reporteth common in those parts Herodotus telleth that eight dayes iourney from Babylon was another Citie named Is with a small rill of the same name which runneth into Euphrates carrying thither as tribute much of this slimie matter Niger mentioneth one place where out of a clift or opening of the earth proceedeth such a stinke that it killeth the Birds which flie ouer it And at this day two dayes iourney from Bagdat at a place called Ait is a mouth continually throwing forth boyling pitch therefore by the Moores called Hel-mouth which runneth into a great field almost full thereof and herewith they pitch their boates The water as my friend master Allen who liued in Bagdat diuers moneths told me is warme and accounted medicinable for which cause he hath
And of great goodnesse 7. And Truth 8. Which keepest Mercy for thousands 9. Which takest away the Iniquitie 10. Transgressions 11. And sinnes 12. Which absoluest not 13. But rendrest the Iniquitie of the Fathers vpon the Children to the third and fourth Generation then follow those thirteene Articles in forme of an Hymne with the Exposition of R. Moses which also you may reade in the Treatise of Philip Ferdinand a Polonian Christned Iew. And hee which thus beleeueth sayth Ferdinand is a Iew and as a Brother to bee loued and though hee commit all the sinnes of the World howsoeuer hee shall bee punished for his sinne yet shall he haue part in the Kingdome of Heauen though he be reckoned among the Sinners of Israel But he which shall ouerturne one of these Precepts shall bee blotted out of the number of the Saints and be reckoned an Heretike Apostata Epicure worthy to bee hated of all This is the Iewish Faith in which with much vexation doubting and lamentation they liue and dye vpon which their Religion hath beene alway founded but it was first put in writing and brought into this Order by R. Mosche bar Maimon who dyed in the yeere after their reckoning 4964. Anno Dom. 1104. and straite charge was giuen That the Iewes thenceforth for euer confessing it in this Order should according to the same liue and dye This their Creed howsoeuer Charity may construe much of it to a better sense yet according to their vnderstanding doth it principally ayme at the subuersion of Christian Religion as appeareth in a more strait Examination after their sense of the 2 3 4 and 5 the 7 8 9 10 11 12. Articles All which make against the person or the Office of the Sonne of GOD as they vnderstand them denying his God-head and disanulling his Office affirming as a Iew shamed not to professe and vtter vnto M. Buxdorfius That it needed not that any should satisfie for them for euery Fox must yeeld his owne skinne and haires to the flayer And the Iewish Faith saith R. Ioseph Albu is founded vpon three foundations vpon the vnitie of the Diuine Essence vpon the Law of Moses and vpon the eternall reward of good workes and punishment of euill contemning the Passion of Christ by whose stripes we are healed and on whom GOD hath laid the iniquities of vs all It is written also in their Talmud that all the Israelites haue their portion in the World to come not all alike but he shall haue a greater part that hath done more good workes and the wicked and Impenitent shall be punished twelue moneths in Hell or Purgatorie after which time they also and some sooner if they haue beene lesse sinners shall haue their part but a lesse then the former but to them which deny GOD which become Christians their fore-skinne groweth againe and as vncircumcised eternally are punished in Hell And the Sonne of a deceased Iew is bound to say for the space of one yeere a Prayer called Kiddisch thereby to redeeme him from Purgatorie in which respect the Father dyeth with ioy A good woman may doe the like for her Husband But R. Bechai who excludeth all other Nations from their part in the Resurrection preferring the Iewes in a foure-fold Priuiledge viz. the Land of Canaan the Law the Prophets and the Resurrection reciteth out of the great Talmud That three sorts of men shall rise againe at the Day of Iudgement one of the best Israelites a second sort of the wicked and worst the third of a meane who haue done as much good as euill The good shall presently goe into life eternall the wicked shall be cast into Hell as in the twelfth of Daniel and shall be for euer in torments of bodie and soule The third and meaner sort of sinners shall bee tormented for twelue moneths space for their sinnes in Hell at the end of which time their bodies shall be consumed and the wind shall scatter their ashes vnder the soles of the feet of the Iust c. and as worthily doe they proue it out of the Prophet And in that day two parts shall be cut off and dye and the third shall be left therein and I will bring that third part thorow the fire and will fine them as siluer is fined and will try them as Gold is tryed And in another place The Lord killeth and maketh aliue bringeth downe to Hell and raiseth vp Iust as fitly applyed as 1. Cor. 3. and such like places by our Purgatory Spirits R. Dauid Kimchi vpon the first Psalme and Esay 26. commenteth That the wicked shall not rise but in the day of death their soule shall dye together with their bodie And Aben Ezra in his Exposition of Dan. 12. writeth out of R. Higgaon That many shall rise and many not rise but suffer euerlasting reproch and expoundeth it thus That the good Iewes which dye in Exile shall rise againe when the Messias shall come and shall liue as long as the Patriarkes before the Floud and then they shall make merrie with the great Fish Leuiathan and the great Bird Ziz and the great Oxe Behemoth of which we shall speake after When this is done they shall dye and at the last Day shall be raysed vp againe and shall possesse eternall Life where shall bee no eating nor drinking but glory c. Iacob desired to be buried in Canaan not in Egypt for three causes saith R. Salomon Iarchi because he foresaw That of the Dust of Egypt shall bee made Lice Secondly because the Israelites which dye out of Canaan shall not rise againe without much paine of their rolling thorow the deepe and hidden Vaults of the Earth Thirdly left the Egyptians should make an Idoll of him For the better vnderstanding hereof let vs heare what is said out of the Booke Tanchum an Exposition of the Pentateuch concerning this subiect The Patriarkes sayth he desired to be buried in Canaan because they which are there buried shall first rise in the time of the Messias And R. Hananiah sayth That they which dye out of Canaan must endure two deaths and the same appeareth Ier. 20. where it is said Pashur should go into Babel and should there dye and there be buried What quoth R. Simon shall then all the Iust perish which dye out of Canaan No but God will make them Mechillos that is deepe Clifts and Caues vnder the Earth by which they may passe into the Land of Promise whither when they are come GOD shall inspire into them the breath of life that they may rise againe as it is written I will open your Graues and cause you to come out of your Sepulchres c. The like is written in their Targum or Chaldaean Interpretation of the Canticles When the dead shall rise Mount Oliuet shall cleaue asunder and the Israelites which haue beene dead shall come out of the same and they which haue dyed in
in his Image Male and Female created hee them And he called their name ADAM yet after this is mention of Adams solitarinesse and forming of Eue out of his side that is cutting the female part from the Male and so fitting them to generation Thus doth Leo Hebraus reconcile the Fable of Platoes Androgynus with Moses narration out of which he thinketh it borrowed For as hee telleth that Iupiter in the first forming of mankinde made them such Androgyni with two bodies of two sexes ioyned in the brest diuided for their pride the nauill still remaining as a skarre of the wound then made so with little difference is this their interpretation of Moses §. III. Of the Iewesses Conception and Trauell and of Lilith WHen a Iewish woman is great with Childe and neare her time her chamber is furnished with necessaries and then some holy and deuout man if any such may bee had with Chalke maketh a circular line round in the chamber vpon all the walls and writeth on the doore and within and without on euery wall and about the bed in Hebrew Letters Adam Chaua Chuts Lilith or after the Iewish pronuntiation Lilis that is Adam Eue away hence Lilis Hereby they signifie their desire that if a woman shall bee deliuered of a sonne GOD may one day giue him a wife like to Eue and not a shrew like Lilis This word Lilis is read in the Prophet interpreted a Skritch-Owle but the Iewes seeme to meane by it a diuellish Spectrum in womans shape that vseth to slay or carry away Children which are on the eight day to be Circumcised Elias Leuita writeth that hee hath read that a hundred and twentie yeeres Adam contained himselfe from his wife Eue and in that space there came to him Diuels which conceiued of him whence were ingendred Diuels and Spirits Fairies and Goblins and there were foure mothers or dammes of Diuels Lilith Naemah Ogereth and Machalath Thus is it read in Ben Sira when GOD had made Adam and saw it was not good for him to bee alone hee made him a woman of the earth like vnto him and called her Lilis These disagreed for superioritie not suffering Caesarue priorem Pompeiusue parem Lilis made of the same mould would not be vnderling and Adam would not endure her his equall Lilis seeing no hope of agreement vttered that sacred word IEHOVA with the Cabalisticall interpretation thereof and presently did flie into the Ayre Adam playning his case GOD sent three Angels after her viz. Senoi Sensenoi Sanmangeleph either to bring her backe or to denounce vnto her That a hundred of her Children should dye in a day These ouertooke her ouer the troublesome Sea where one day the Aegyptians should bee drowned and did their message to her shee refusing to obey they threatned her drowning but she besought them to let her alone because shee was created to vexe and kill children on the eight day if they were men if women children on the twentieth day They neuerthelesse forcing her to goe Lilis sware to them That whensoeuer she should finde the name or figure of those Angels written or painted on Schedule Parchment or any thing shee would doe Infants no harme and that she would not refuse that punishment to lose a hundred children in a day And accordingly a hundred of her children or young Diuels dyed in a day And for this cause doe they write these names on a Scroll of Parchment and hang them on their Infants neckes Thus farre Ben Sira In their Chambers alwayes is found such a scroll or painting and the names of the Angels of Health this office they ascribe to them are written ouer the chamber doore In their Booke Brandspiegel Printed at Cracouia 1597. is shewed the authoritie of this Historie collected by their Wise-men out of those words Male and Female created hee them compared with the forming of Eue of a Rib in the next Chapter saying That Lilis the former was diuorced from Adam for her pride which shee conceiued because she was made of earth as well as hee and GOD gaue him another Flesh of his flesh And concerning her R. Moses tels that Samael the Diuell came riding vpon a Serpent which was as bigge as a Camell and cast water vpon her and deceiued her When this Iewesse is in trauell shee must not send for a Christian Mid-wife except no Iewish can bee gotten and then the Iewish women must be very thick about her for feare of negligence or iniurie And if she be happily deliuered of a sonne there is exceeding ioy through all the house and the father presently makes festiuall prouision against the Circumcision on the eight day In the meane time ten persons are inuited neither more nor fewer which are all past thirteene yeeres of age The night after her deliuerie seuen of the inuited parties and some others sometimes meet at the Child-house and make there great cheere and sport all night Dicing Drinking Fabling so to solace the Mother that shee should not grieue too much for the childs Circumcision §. IIII. Of the Iewish manner of Circumcision THe Circumciser is called Mohel who must bee a Iew and a Man and well exercised in that facultie and hee that will performe this office at the beginning giueth money to some poore Iew to be admitted hereunto in his children that after his better experience hee may be vsed of the richer And this Mohel may thence-forwards bee knowne by his thumbes on which he weareth the nayles long and sharpe and narrow-pointed The circumcising Instruments is of stone glasse yron or any matter that will cut commonly sharpe kniues like Rasors amongst the rich Iewes closed in siluer and set with stones Before the Infant be Circumcised he must be washed and wrapped in clouts that in the time of the Circumcision hee may lie cleane for otherwise they might vse no prayers ouer him And if in the time of Circumcision for paine he defileth himselfe the Mohels must suspend his praying till he be washed laid cleane again This is performed commonly in the morning while the child is fasting to preuent much fluxe of bloud In the morning therefore of the eight day all things are made readie First are two seates placed or one so framed that two may sit in the same apart adorned costly with Carpets and that either in the Synagogue or some priuate Parlour If it bee in the Synagogue then the seat is placed neere the holy Arke or Chest where the Booke of the Law is kept Then comes the suretie or God-father for the child and placeth himselfe at the said seat and neere him the Mohel or Circumciser Other Iewes follow them one of which cryeth with a loud voyce That they should bring presently whatsoeuer is needfull for this businesse Then come other Children whereof one bringeth a great Torch in which are lighted twelue waxe Candles to represent the twelue Tribes of Israel after him two
in Christians odious to them that they may season them from their child-hood with hatred of them When they are seuen yeeres old they learne to write and reade and when they can reade they learne to construe the Text of Moses in their vulgar tongue When the Mother carrieth him first to the schoole to the Rabbi she maketh him cakes seasoned with honie and sugar and as this cake so saith she let the Law be sweet to thy heart Speake not vaine trifling words in the schoole but onely the words of God For if they so do then the glorious Maiestie of God dwelleth in them and delighteth it selfe with the ayre of their breath For their breathing is yet holy not yet polluted with sinne neither is hee Bar-mitzuah bound to obey the Commandements till he bee thirteene yeeres old When he is ten yeers old and hath now some smattering in Moses he proceedeth to learne the Talmud at thirteene yeeres his Father calleth ten Iewes and testifieth in their presence that this his sonne is now of iust age and hath beene brought vp in their manners and customes their daily manner of praying and blessing and hee will not further stand charged with the sinnes of his Sonne who is now Bar-mitzuah and must himselfe beare this burthen Then in their presence hee thanketh God that he hath discharged him from the punishment of his sonne desiring that his sonne by diuine grace may be long safe and endeuour to good workes At the fifteenth yeere of their life they are compelled to learne their Gemara or the complement of their Talmud Disputations and subtill Decisions about the Text of their Talmud And in these they spend the greatest part of their liues seldome reading any of the Prophets and some not in the whole space of a long life reading one Prophet through and therefore know so little of the Mossias At eighteene yeeres their male children Marrie according to their Talmud-constitution and sometimes sooner to auoyde fornication Their Maydens may marrie when are twelue yeeres old and a day At twentie yeeres they may traffike buy sell and circumuent all they can for their neighbour in the Law is in their sense such a Iew as you haue heard described But because these things are ioyned together in one of their sentences or Apophthemes of the R R. called Pirke Aboth I thought good to adde the same as containing a mappe of the Iewes life A sonne of fiue yeeres to the Bible a sonne of ten yeeres to the Mischna a sonne of thirteene yeeres to the Precepts a sonne of fifteene yeeres to the Thalmud a sonne of eighteene yeeres to marriage a sonne of twentie yeeres to follow the affaires of the world a sonne of thirtie yeeres to strength a sonne of fortie yeeres to wisedome a sonne of fiftie yeeres to counsell a sonne of sixâ—ie yeeres to old age a sonne of seuentie yeeres to gray haires a sonne of eightie to the height a sonne of ninetie to the graue a sonne of one hundred yeeres is as a dead man departed out of the world CHAP. XV. Of their Morning Prayer with their Fringes Phylacteries and other Ceremonies thereof §. I. Of their Behauiour before they goe to the Synagogue THe good-wife is to waken her Husband and the Parents to awaken their Children when after thirteene yeeres they are subiect to the Iewish Precepts before their Penticost they rise before it is light and after the nights being shorter when it is now day They are to awaken the day not to tarrie till it awaken them For their Morning-prayer must bee made whiles the Sunne is rising and not later for then is the time of hearing as they interpret Lamen 2.19 And hee which is deuout ought at that time to bee sad for Ierusalem and to pray euerie morning for the re-edifying of the Temple and Citie if in the night-time any sheddeth teares for their long captiuitie God will heare his prayer for then the Starres and Planets mourne with him and if he suffer the teares to trickle downe his cheekes God will arise and gather them into his bottle and if any decree be by their enemies enacted against them with those teares he will blot out the same Witnesse Dauid Put my teares in thy bottle are they not in thy booke And if any rub his fore-head with his teares it is good to blot out certaine sinnes that are there written In there beginning of the night God causeth all the gates of heauen to be shut and the Angels stay at them in silence and sendeth euill spirits into the world which hurt all they meet but after mid-night they are commanded to open the same This command and call is heard of the Cocks and therefore they clap their wings and crow to awaken men and then the euill spirits lose their power of hurting and in this respect the Wise-men haue ordained them a thanksgiuing to be said at Cock-crowing Blessed art thou O God Lord of the whole world who hast giuen vnderstanding to the Cocke They must not rise vp in their beds naked nor put on their shirts sitting but put their heads and armes into the same as they lye lest the walls and beames should see their nakednesse It is a brag of Rabbi Iose that in all his life hee had not herein faulted But to goe or stand naked in the chamber were more then piacular and much more to make water standing naked before his bed although it be night Hee must not put on his garments wrong nor his left shooe before the right and yet he must put off the left foot shooe first When he is clothed with his head inclined to the earth and a deuout minde in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple hee goeth out of the chamber with his head feete and all couered because of the holy Schechinam diuine glorie ouer his head Then hee goeth to stoole in some priuie place for so hath Amos commanded Prepare thy selfe O Israel to meete thy God and DAVID All that is within mee praise his holy name That is all within the body emptie and cleane For else must not God bee named and therefore his garments must not be spotted and fouled To restraine nature too long were a sinne and would cause the soule to stinke and sauing your reuerence hee must wipe with the left hand for with the right he writeth the name of God and the Angels And in this place and businesse hee must take heed he thinke not of God or his Word much lesse name him for God will shorten the dayes of such a one R. Sira told his Scholers that the cause of his long life was that in an impure place hee neuer though of the Word nor named the name of God Besides hee must turne his face and not his hinder-parts toward the Temple of Ierusalem Hee ought not to touch his body with vnwashen hands in regard of the euill spirits which rest thereon till they
make way for the Ianizaries and to wearie the Enemy with multitude Many voluntaries also attending the Campe in hope to succeed the slaine Spahi or Ianizaries When they march the Tartars scowre the Countrey two dayes iourney before then follow the Achingi and after them the Timariots next the Iemoglans after them the Ianizaries then the Chauses on horse-backe the Sultan followes with the Officers of his Court and Archers of his Guard foot-men the stipendary Spahi marching on either side of him His Coaches which carry the Pages and Eunuchs come after and then the carriages and Voluntaries The Royall Standard is a horse tayle tied to the end of a staffe The Ianizaries haue woodden modells of Elephants boots swords and the like borne before them Beglerbeg signifieth Lord of Lords of which were wont to be two one in Europe another in Asia but by Solyman increased that though Romania and Natolia haue still the chiefe titles yet in Europe are foure others in Asia before these Persian warres nine and twentie in Africa foure in all nine and thirtie which are as Vice-royes and haue their Begs or Sanzacks vnder them His Admiralls place is as great by Sea If these great ones doe iniustice the oppressed will sometimes in troupes attend the comming forth of the Emperour and by burning straw on their heads or holding vp torches prouoke his attention who being brought by his Mutes deliuer their Petition which often turnes to the ruine of the other Bribery is but lately knowne yet now the best Aduocate Euery Bassa keepes a Diuan or Court of Iustice in his Prouince the chiefe is at Constantinople foure dayes of the weeke in the Seraglio whence is no appeale but to the Musti The Great Visier Bassa is President of the rest in three dayes all causes are determined All they haue for assurances of purchases is a little schedule manifesting the possession of the Seller which vnder-written by the Cadi frustrates all after-claimes and as for law-querks they are vnknowne Rebellions rarely happen both because the greatest Commander submits his necke to the Executioners bow-string sent with Commission by the Tyrant enclosed in a boxe neither may any hope for partakers in resisting where one mans fall is anothers rising their kindred and alliance not so much as knowne to themselues to haue had eminent parents is argument of neglect of ruine to be beloued and for wealth they are but spunges all which a greedie life hath sucked being strained at their death except what the Grand Signior pleaseth to bestow on their posteritie Neither may any slaue promise much to himselfe where damnable policie strangleth the Imperiall bloud if males and the issue of the females by their slaues for so is the greatest Bassa giuen by the Sultan when made husband to his sister or daughter rarely attaine aboue the degree of a priuate Captaine This great Empire may be coniectured to grow neere a period in respect it hath lately decreased Eastward and in the Sea-forces their discipline is neglected and not exacted to ancient rigour their late Emperours effeminate the bowells of the State much infested with rebellions and it hath alreadie been a long-liued Tyrannie out-liuing the wonted period It may seeme the greatest Empire now in being yet is that of China farre exceeding in reuenues in naturall situation for defence in Prouinces better vnited and better peopled not inferiour in that kinde of policie which preuents alienations and rebellions but in Souldiery not to bee compared except we say herein he hath full recompence that hee is strong enough in that kinde which cares not to conquer nor need feare to be conquered The Persian hath not so vast Countries subiect but better subiection and himselfe a better Commander and his Souldiers better disciplined and experimented The Mogoll is great wealthy and mightie but Asia is not comparable to European valour But compare the Turkish greatnesse to that of some of the first Califas which stretched from India to Spaine France and Barbary or to the Tartarian which awed more in Asia then euer Turke possessed in the Vniuerse perhaps twice told for proofe read our Tartarian Relations and yet they pierced as farre as Austria in Europe ouer-running Russia Polonia Hungaria and making Italy to quake with the rumour of their armes or to the Roman which held almost all the Turke hath when it was better worth the holding besides this Westerne World which the Turke knowes not Herein I thinke the Turke ouer-matched beyond comparison nor any whit exceeding the power and possessions of Alexander no nor the Persian greatnesse before him except in martiall discipline wherein they now also degenerate Thus much of Turkish affaires of state if we adde also this Summa totalis for a conclusion that the Turke commands on the Sea-coast after some mens Arithmetike 11280. miles in Asia Afrike and Europe and the superficies of all his Dominions come to a million two hundred three thousand two hundred and nineteene miles euery way square Let the Author answer it if the summe be transcendent The Turkes reuenues besides his Timariots are esteemed but fifteene millions of Sultanies which may seeme strange in so huge an Empire But tyrannie in wasting and desolating Nations and Lording ouer euery mans estate none willing to toyle for that whereof he hath no certaintie nay which may procure him the greater danger hath caused thin habitations I except the Cities and poor inhabitants To this his reuenue may be added his taxes customes spoyles and extortions as the greater fish preying on the smaller and pray to the greatest so here the great ones spoyling others and themselues spoyled of all with their liues or else necessarily leauing him their heire at their deaths §. VI. An Appendix touching the succession of MVSTAPHA twice and of OSMANS murther and other ciuill vnciuill late Combustions ACHMET before he died to make all sure resolued to strangle his brother Mustapha and according to custome will leaue no Competitors in such an Empire For which purpose a Guard of Capagies attend at the Iron gates of the Seralio and the Mutes are placed in a roome accordingly Thus is Mustapha to be dispatched but see how the stronger arme puts out the strong men The same night Achmet had a dreame or fearefull vision which some of the Deruices would needs presume to rumor abroad in this manner that he thought as hee was entring into the seuen Towers the Princely prison of his predecessors his brother kneeled downe before him and cried out Oh when shall we leaue this horrible custome of shedding innocent bloud Looke among all the heathens and see how quickly they loathed and cast away that crying Sin of sacrificing of humane flesh But in stead of replyling he drew his Semiter to strike off his head had not one as hee conceited held it fast that hee could not strike whereupon hee demanded angerly What art thou I am the good Genius of Mustapha and will not
Commander those horses are sadled the contrary way and richly furnished hauing certaine things hanged at their noses which cause them to neigh as it were lamenting the losse of their Master They carry also the truncheons of their Lances with their Standards and Ensignes trailing along the ground There are planted also about their Sepulchres violets and other pleasant flowers The common sort haue their Tombes of Marble engrauen with letters When they are come to the place with those sheets they let the corps into the graue couering him on euery side with boords only on the face they lay a little earth and there leaue him and returne home where they finde store of cheere there make a prayer for his soule Georgiouitz saith that they make ouer the graue the forme of an Altar lest the beasts should goe ouer it and defile it They also often repaire thither with teares and set on the Monument flesh bread wheat egs milke c. which is done for the dead mans soule in almes to the poore or to the birds or ants which they also account an act of mercy no lesse meritorious then the other The Priests haue fiue aspers a piece giuen them for their paines And if the partie be poore they gather money to pay the Priests and to discharge the funeralls They weare blacks eight dayes in token of mourning and those that are of great account three dayes at which time the friends of the dead assemble and vsing some words of mutuall consolation from thenceforth resume their wonted habite Howbeit their kindred specially of the female sexe often repaire to the graues to lament there Bellonius in his Obseruat obserueth that they sew not the sheet at the head nor at the feet The reason is their dreame of certaine Angels sent in commission presently after the buriall to examine the deceased partie into whom they say GOD hath then put a new spirit These Angels Menauino cals Nechir Remonchir who come with dreadful countenances and burning fire-brands and examine him of his life which if they finde wicked they scourge him with fierie whips if good they become goodly Angels and comfort him Bellonius a little otherwise telleth that those Angels which hee calleth Guanequir and Mongir come the one with an yron hammer the other with a hooke which set the corps vpon his knees and put a new soule into it and then aske if he haue beleeued Mahomet and obserued his precepts if hee haue done good workes kept their Lent paied his Tithes giuen Almes Of which if hee can giue good account they depart from him and two other Angels come in their places white as snow and one of them puts his armes in stead of a pillow vnder his head the other sits at his feet and defends him vntill the day of Iudgement But if hee satisfie not the demands of those blacke Angels hee with the yron mallet strikes him at one blow there with nine fadome vnder the ground and neither of them ceaseth the one with his hammer the other with his hooke to torment the deceased partie vntill the day of Iudgement For this cause the Turkes write vpon the dead carkasses the name Croco and make their Sepulchres hollow that they may haue roome to kneele and some lay boords ouer that no earth fall in The feare hereof makes them in their morning praier to say Lord God from the questioning of the two Angels the torment of the graue and euill iourney deliuer me Amin. Yea hence are the praiers which the Turkes men and women say at the graues of the dead for deliuerie from these Angels Concerning the day of Iudgement they hold that there is an Angel standing in Heauen named Israphil holding alway a Trumpet in his hand prepared against Gods command to sound the consummation of the World For at the sound thereof all Men and Angels shall die for so they finde it written in their Curaam which Booke is of high authoritie with them The Turkish Doctors would dissent from that opinion of the Angels mortalitie if this Booke would giue them leaue for to contradict the authoritie thereof is punished with fire or else their tongues are pulled out of their heads They hold that after this dismall sound shall bee a great Earthquake which shall tumble the Mountaines and Rockes from their places and grinde them to meale After this God will returne to make anew the light and the Angels as before and will cause to fall a pleasant raine called Rehemet sui that is the raine of mercie and so shall the earth remaine fortie dayes although those dayes shall bee of a larger size then these Many also hold that from thenceforth there shall bee no darknesse of the night as now but that it shall be most cleere neither shall there need any more sleepe for the sustentation of our bodies After fortie dayes God will command Israphil to sound his Trumpet the second time at which found all the dead shall bee raised againe by the will of God the dead euen from Abel to the end of the world throughout all the earth hearing the sound thereof and rising in manner as they were buried Amongst them shall be seene diuers faces and countenances some shining as the Sunne many like the Moone many as the Starres Others shall bee obscure and darke and others with hogges faces with swolne tongues Then shall euerie one crie Nessi Nessi that is Woe is me wretch who haue suffered my selfe to be ouercome with my filthy lusts The Angels shall with their fingers point at the faces which shine which are they that haue wrought good workes and shall shew them to one another The wicked shall haue enuy thereat They say that those with faces like hogs are such as haue beene Vsurers and those with the swolne tongues Liers and Blasphemers There shall be other trodden vnder foot to wit the proud persons of this world God say they will then demand account of the Kings Princes Emperors and Tyrants which vse oppression and violence Then shal God diuide this raised company into seuentie parts all which shall be examined presenting their sins before their eyes and all that they haue in this world done well or ill whereto hee shall need no testimony euerie member bearing witnesse against it selfe of the deeds yea and very thoughts There shall be also Michael the Angel holding in his hand the ballance of diuine Iustice and shal weigh soules and distinguish the good from the bad There shal be Moses with his Standard vnder which shall all the obseruers of his law bee assembled Neere to him shall be Iesus Christ the Sonne of the Virgin Mary with another great Standard and all his Christians the obseruers of his Faith On the other side shall be Mahomet with his Standard and faithfull Mahumetans they which haue done good shall be all gathered vnder the said Standards where they shall haue a pleasant shaddow the rest
Nicolaus Damascenus calling it Baris with losse of the first syllable Iuuenal accuseth the Armenians of Sooth-saying and Fortune-telling by viewing the inwards of Pigeons Whelpes and Children His words are in Sat. 6. Spondet Amatorem tenerum vel diuitis orbi Testamentum ingens calidae pulmone columbae Tractato Armenius vel Commagenus Aruspex Pectora pulmonum rimabitur exta catelli Interdum pueri That is A tender Louer or rich Legacie Of child-lesse Rich man for your destinie Th' Armenian Wizard in hot Lungs doth spie Of Pigeons Or of Whelpes the inwards handling Or sometimes bloudie search of Children mangling The Mountaines of Armenia pay tribute vnto many Seas by Phasis and Lycus vnto the Pontike Sea Cyrus and Araxes vnto the Caspian Euphrates and Tygris vnto the Red or Persian Sea these two last are famous for their yeerely ouerflowings the former of them arising amidst three other Seas yet by the incroaching violence of the beetle-browed Hils enforced to a farre longer more intricate and tedious way before hee can repose his wearied waues the other for his swiftnesse bearing the name of Tygris which with the Medes signifieth an Arrow Solinus cap. 40. saith That it passeth through the Lake Arethusa neither mingling waters nor fishes quite of another colour from the Lake it diueth vnder Taurus and bringeth with it much drosse on the other side of the Mountaine and is againe hidden and againe restored and at last carrieth Euphrates into the Sea The Armenians besides their naturall Lords haue been subiect to the Persians after that to the Macedonians and againe to the Persian after to Antiochus Captaines then to the Romans and Parthians tossed betwixt the Grecians and Saracens subdued after successiuely to the Tartarians Persians and Turkes Of these present Armenians Master Cartwright reporteth That they are a people very industrious in all kinde of labour their women very skilfull and actiue in shooting and managing any sort of weapon like the ancient Amazons Their Families are great the father and all his posteritie dwelling together vnder one roofe hauing their substance in common and when the father dieth the eldest sonne doth gouerne the rest all submitting themselues vnder his Regiment after his death not his sonne but the next brother succeedeth and so after all the brethren are dead to the eldest sonne In diet and clothing they are all alike of their two Patriarches and their Christian profession wee are to speake in fitter place The Turcomanians later inhabitants are as other the Scythians or Tartarians from whence they are deriued theeuish wandring vp and downe in Tents without certaine habitations like as the Curds also their Southerly neighbours their cattell and their robberies being their greatest wealth Of their Religion except of such as after their manner bee Christians which wee must deferre till a fitter time wee can finde little to say more then is said alreadie in our Turkish Historie This wee may here deplore of the vnhappy sight of Armenia which though it repeopled the world yet is it least beholding to her viperous off-spring a Map of the worlds miseries through so many ages For being hemmed alway with mightie neighbours on both sides it selfe is made the bloudie Lists of their ambitious encounters alway losing whosoeuer wonne alway the Gauntlet of the Challenger the Crowne of the Conquerour This to let passe elder times the Romans and Parthians Greeke Emperours and Saracens Turkes and Tartarians Turkes and Mamulukes Turkes and Persians doe more then enough proue §. II. Of IBERIA PTOLOMBY placeth to the North of Armenia Colchis washed by the Pontike Sea Albania by the Caspian and betwixt these two Iberia now together with some part of Armenia called Georgia either for the honour of their Patron Saint George or haply because they descended of those Georgi which Plinie nameth among the Caspian Inhabitants Strabo recordeth foure kindes of people in this Iberia of the first sort are chosen two Kings the one precedent in age and nobilitie the others Leader in Warre and Law-giuer in Peace the second sort are the Priests the third Husbandmen and Souldiers the fourth the vulgar seruile people These haue all things common by Families but hee is Ruler with his eldest a thing obserued of the Armenian Christians as before is said euen at this day Constantinus Porphyrogenitus the Emperour writeth That the Iberians boast and glorie of their descent from the wife of Vriah which Dauid defiled and of the children gotten betweene them Thus would they seeme to bee of kin to Dauid and the Virgin Mary and for that cause they marry in their owne kindred They came say they from Ierusalem being warned by Vision to depart thence and seated themselues in these parts There departed from Ierusalem Dauid and his brother Spandiates who obtained say they such a fauour from GOD that no member of his could bee wounded in warre except his heart which hee therefore diligently armed whereby he became dreadfull to the Persians whom hee subdued and placed the Iberians in these their habitations In the time of Heraclius they ayded him against the Persians which after that became an easie prey to the Saracens Of the Roman conquests and exploits in Armenia Colchis Iberia Albania I lift not here to relate §. III. Of ALBANIA ALBANIA now Zuiria lyeth North and East betwixt Iberia and the Sea of which Strabo affirmeth that they need not the Sea who make no better vse of the Land for they bestow not the least labour in husbandrie and yet the earth voluntarily and liberally yeeldeth her store and where it is once sowen it may twice or thrice be reaped The men were so simple that they neither had vse of money nor did they number aboue an hundred ignorant of weights measures warre ciuilitie husbandrie there were in vse among them sixe and twentie languages They had Spiders which would procure death vpon men smiling and some also which did men to die weeping They worshipped the Sunne Iupiter and the Moone whose Temple was neere to Iberia The Priest which ruled it was next in honour to the King hee performeth the Holy Rites ruleth the Holy Region which is large and full of people of the sacred Seruants many being inspired doe Diuine or Prophecie Hee which is most rauished with the spirit wandreth alone through the Woods him the Priest taketh and bindeth with a sacred Chaine allowing him sumptuous nourishment the space of a yeere and after bringeth him to bee slaine with other sacrifices to the Goddesse The Rites are thus One which is skilfull of this businesse holding the sacred Speare wherewith they vse to slay the man stepping forth thrusteth it into his heart in his falling they obserue certaine tokens of diuination then doe they bring out the bodie into some place where they all goe ouer it The Albanians honoured olde-age in all men death in none accounting it vnlawfull to mention a dead man with whom they
the light compasseth the Tower of Susa and the religious Temple of Diana Daniel calls it Vlay it seemeth to be or to become the same with Choaspes and so doth Ptolomey confound them they dranke also onely Chalybonian wine made at Damascus in Syria and their bread was made of the wheat of Assos in Phrygia Their sumptuous feasting appeareth in the Scripture beyond what is read in any storie of any King in which was somewhat of euery Nation subiect to him set before him his Salt was brought out of Egypt Amongst the baggage and stuffe of Darius which Parmenio tooke at Damascus were found two hundred seuentie seuen Cookes nine and twentie Scullians thirteene which had charge of white-meates seuenteene which were to minister water seuentie which belonged to the wine-celler fortie which looked to the oyntments and sixtie sixe which made Crownes How many may we thinke were there in his setled Court His dining-roome was full of musicall women whereof one began the song the rest followed three hundred of these creatures singing playing dancing spent the night in his bed-chamber Hee which could deuise any new pleasure was highly rewarded for which purpose Xerxes promised largely to such Epicurean-Masters by an open Proclamation The King vsually sate alone sometimes his mother and wife were admitted other guests sate where hee might see but not be seene of them yea they had slauish sauce to their sweet meates being narrowly watched by the Eunuches whether they cast any liberall lookes towards any of the Kings women Yet the Parthian guests had more seruile entertainment as euen now wee shewed Concerning the multitudes of their women and curiositie of their lusts the booke of Ester yeelds ample testimonie Cicero addeth that they bestowed for the maintenance of their wiues robes and dresses one Citie for their haire another for their necke yea the reuenues of whole countries on such excesse Socrates in Platoes Alcibiades telleth of an Embassador into Persia which was almost a whole day in trauelling through a Region called the Queenes Girdle another called the Queenes Head-tire and so for euery other part of her Wardrobe The Kings children especially the eldest sonne were presently after their birth committed to Eunuches which beside education did compose and order their lims at seuen yeeres of age they learned to ride and hunt hauing skilfull instructers for that purpose at foureteene yeeres they were committed to the discipline of the Royall Masters which were foure choisely learned the first in Prudence which taught the Magia of Zoroastres and the institution of a King the second in Iustice who taught to speake and deale truly the third in Temperance wherein hee instructed his new disciple as the fourth in Fortitude The Persian King had one whose office was to salute the King with these words Arise O King and thinke on such things as Mesoromasdes would haue thee Almost euery day hee performed his holy Rites for which cause were slaine euery day one thousand sacrifices amongst which were Oxen Asses Harts the Magi being present Before their sacrifices they discoursed of pietie and when they went to this their deuotion there were men on both sides the way set in rankes with officers called Mastigophori who suffered none but great personages to enter First were led Bulls foure and foure together which were sacrificed to Iupiter After them were led Horses to bee offered to the Sunne Then followed a Chariot drawne with white Horses hauing a golden beame and crowned sacred to Iupiter after that the Chariot of the Sunne like the former Then a third Chariot the Horses couered with Scarlet after which followed men carrying fire and next the King in his Chariot before which went foure thousand Target men and two thousand Speare-men about it There followed three hundred with Darts on horse-backe two hundred horses with golden bridles and after them three thousand Persians and in the last place the Medes Armenians Hireans Xenophon indeed which writes this in his Institution of Cyrus intends rather the frame of a iust Empire then the truth of History yet professeth to relate no other Rites and Customes then which the Persians embraced neither doth hee in these things disagree from Herodotus and Curtius The Kings Chariot was drawne with white horses the drowning of one of which was the cause of drying the Riuer Gyndes For Cyrus enraged for the losse of his white Palfrey diuided the riuer by force of men into three hundred and twentie rills so that it wilderd and lost it selfe in those many by-wayes an argument what Diuision can doe These horses were of the Nisaean race in Media When the King descended from his Chariot a golden stoole was set him to step on one alway attending his Chariot with such a stoole While hee rode in his Chariot hee spent the time in whitling with a knife not in reading or any graue meditation and therefore was vnlearned When hee went on progresse into Media he enioyned the Countrey to spend three dayes before to hunt Scorpions which there abounded allowing rewards therefore They vsed by themselues or their Legats to visite their officers in the Prouinces and to punish or preferre them according to their merits In iudgements they not onely considered the crimes and accusations but the counterpoise also of their vertues and the clemencie of Artaxerxes in their irreuocable law appeared in cutting off the Tyarae of condemned persons in stead of their heads As often as the King entred into Persepolis euery Matron was to haue a piece of gold giuen her the men also were rewarded which multiplied children but especiall rewards were bestowed on them which were called Orosange which had deserued well of the King whose names and facts were therefore recorded as we reade of Mordecai and his recompence Themistocles receiued of the Kings bountie the Citie Magnesia to finde him bread which Region was worth fiftie Talents yeerely Lampsacum for wine Myus for cates The chiefe gift giuen to any was a mill of gold The Kings birth-day was a solemne feast called Tycta that is perfect for the magnificence thereof in which hee gaue gifts to the people yea hee might not denie any petition then made to him The King nourished so many Indian dogs for hunting that foure great villages in the plaine of Babylon were assigned to their sustenance Artaxerxes caused Megabyzus as Ctesias writeth to bee beheaded for striking a Lyon with his dart which was readie to assault the King because he therein transgressed the Law and preuented the Kings triall of his valour The reuenues of the tributes were 14560. Euboike Talents the siluer and gold were melted and kept in earthen vessels which were broken when they came to vse the same Besides this the subiect prouinces yeelded to the maintenance of the King other things as Armenia horses Babylonia foure moneths victuals and the rest of Asia the other eight and other Regions their peculiar commodities The
Ismael was Sultan in Tauris the Sultan in Bagadet Murat Can son of Iacob with an army of 30000. marched against him and in a plaine meeting with Ismael was there ouerthrown not seuentie persons escaping to Bagadet with Murat Can the place bearing witnes of the slaughter buried vnder many new hils of bones All these things were done An. 1499. And while I was in Tauris many came from Natolia Caramania and Turkie to serue him of whom they were graciously entertained An. 1507. our Author being then in Malacia saw with his eyes the Sultan Alumut conueyed prisoner by Amirbec who with foure thousand men going from Mosull neere to the sometime-Niniue to Amit where the Sultan kept with promise and profession of his succour being admitted the Citie tooke him and cast a chaine about his necke whose head Ismael smote off with his owne hands He was presented to him by Amirbec in the Country of Aladuli against whom Ismael was now warring where taking the Citie Cartibirt he cut off the head of Becarbec sonne of Aladuli Lord thereof with his owne hands From thence returning to Tauris hee had almost done as much to his two brethren whom hee had left Gouernours in his absence for transgressing their Commission but with much intreatie of his Lords spared their liues yet confined them to Ardouill not to depart from thence The next yeere hee pursued Murat Can who was come to Syras a Citie not inferiour to Cairo in Egypt with thirtie sixe thousand men but male-content and therefore many of them flying vnto Ismael Whereupon Murat Can sent two Embassadours with fiue hundred followers with offer of Vassallage vnto him Ismael cut them all in pieces saying That if Murat Can would be his Vassall hee should come in person not by Embassage Murat Can had closely sent Spies to obserue the sequell of his businesse and being hereof by them aduertised fled For many of his Nobles had alreadie put on the red Turbant of whom he feared to bee taken as Alumut had beene and therefore with three thousand of his most faithful he fled vnto Aleppo but the Soldan of Cairo not admitting him he went to Aladuli who entertained him honourably and gaue him his daughter to wife Ismael after great slaughter in Siras and Bagadet was forced to returne to Spaan with his Armie For Ieselbas the Tartar had taken all the Countrie of Corasan and the great Citie of Eri which is in compasse betwixt fortie and fiftie miles well peopled and full of Merchandize He had taken also Straua Amixandaran and Sari on the Caspian shoare and with intent to beguile Ismael desired leaue to passe thorow his Countrey to Mecca on Pilgrimage Ismael with deniall and other sharpe words repelled his suit and abode a yeere in Spaan to withstand his enterprises After he returned to Tauris where were great triumphs solemnized in his honour This Sophi is so loued and feared saith this Merchant that they hold him as a God especially his Souldiers of which some goe into the warres without Armour holding it sufficient that Ismael will succour them others because they content themselues to die for Ismael goe into battaile with naked breast crying Schiak Schiak that is God God And they forget the name of God alway naming Ismael they hold That hee shall not die but liue euer And where other Mosulmans say La ylla yllala Mahamet resullalla the Persians say La ylla yllala Ismael vellilalla reputing him a God and a Prophet I haue learned that Ismael is not contented to be called or worshipped as god Their custome is to weare red Bonnets with a certaine thing like a girdle large below and straighter vpwards made with twelue folds a finger thick signifying the twelue Sacraments of their sect or those twelue brethren nephewes of Ali. Ismael was of faire countenance of reasonable stature thicke and large in the shoulders shauen all but the mustachees left-handed stronger then any of his Nobles but giuen to Sodomie At his second comming to Tauris hee caused to take twelue of the fairest boyes in the City to serue his lust and after gaue to each of his Nobles one for the like purpose before tooke ten of the best mens sonnes for the same intent Thus farre haue wee had commerce with this namelesse Persian Merchant in Ramusius his shop who sometime attended on his Court and Campe Others adde hereutto that he sent Embassadours to all the Mahumetan Princes of the East to receiue that Red-hat Ensigne together with his Sect as did his sonne Tammas after him when Nizzamulucco onely accepted thereof But it is the common opinion that the greatest part of the Mahumetans in Soria and of Asia Minor are secretly of that Sect Ismael after this warred and wonne vpon the Zagatai Tartars and other adiacent Nations that hee left vnto his successours a verie great estate reaching from the Caspian Sea to the Persian and betweene the Lake Iocco and Tygris the Riuer Abbiam and the Kingdome of Cambaya more then twentie Degrees from East to West and eighteene from North to South Hee ordained a new Lyturgie and forme of Praier differing from the ancient Such was his authoritie that they would sweare By the Head of Ismael and blesse his name saying Ismael grant thee thy desire Vpon his Coyne on the one side was written La illahe illalahu Muhamedun resulalallahe And on the other Ismaill halife lullahe that is Ismael the Vicar of GOD. The Iewes at the first had this Ismael in such admiration that they foolishly reckoned Ismael to be their promised Messias gratulating themselues in this conceit thorowout the most part of Europe celebrating festiuall Solemnities with mutuall Presents in testimonie of their ioy which yet was soone dashed none hating the Iewes more then Ismael He lieth buried at Ardouil in a faire Meskit with a sumptuous Sepulchre made by himselfe in his life time where is a faire Stone Hospitall erected by him for strangers allowing to all trauellers three daies reliefe for horse and man freely Ardouil is in latitude thirtie eight degrees The life of Ismael had beene answerable to the bloudie presages in his ominous birth for he came forth of his mothers wombe with both his hands shut and full of bloud for which cause his father would not haue brought him vp but commanded him to be slaine but they which carried him away moued with compassion secretly nourished him three yeeres and after presented him to his father who then acknowledged and receiued him with loue and kindnesse for this his bloudie and warre-like spirit dwelt in a louely and amiable bodie adorned with all the Ensignes of beautie Hee died Anno 1524. HONGIVS his Map of PERSIA PERSICUM REGNUM §. IIII. Of SHAVGH TAMAS the Persian troubles after his death SCHIACH THECMES or Shaugh Tamas succeeded and reigned aboue fiftie yeeres Hee liued deuoutly and yet for their Law reconcileth both verie voluptuously
to Cialis gouerned by the King of Cascars base sonne with whom at first he had some difference about Religion which with a gift was pacified And in a disputation with the Mahumetan Doctors before him the Viceroy tooke part with Goes affirming that the Christians were the true Misermans and that their Ancesters professed that law a thing worthy by the way to bee obserued Here hee met with some Merchants returning from Cathay which could tell him of Ricci and the other Iesuites at Paquin as before you heard out of Pantogia And here first did he learne that China was Cathay At his departing from Cialis the Viceroy gaue him his letters of passe and inscribed him a Christian according to his desire whereat a Mahumetan Priest much wondered affirming that theirs with the Region shifted also their Religion In twenty dayes they came to Pucian thence to Turphan a fortified Citie thence to Aramuth and so to Camul the last City of this Kingdome of Cialis In nine dayes they passed from Camul to the Northerne walles of China where they stayed twenty fiue dayes expecting the Viceroyes answere for their admission at a place called Chiaicuon And then being entred the walles they came in one dayes iourney to the Citie Socieù All the space betweene Cialis and the borders of China is subiect to the out-rodes of the Tartars the cause that Merchants trauell in great feare in the day time looking not whether the coast be cleare and trauelling the night with great silence and secresie They found many Saracens slaine in the way The countrey people they seldome kill but rob of their cattell as for corne and rice they hold it food for beasts and not for men feeding on flesh and liuing aboue an hundred yeeres The Saracens in these parts are effeminate and might easily bee subdued by the Chinois if they would On the West parts of China is that Wall before mentioned to exclude the Tartars and two fortified Cities with strong Garrisons hauing their proper Viceroy and other Magistrates Canceu the head City of the Prouince Scensi and Soceù which is diuided into two parts one of which is inhabited by Saracens which trade here for Merchandize the other by Chinois whom the Saracens heere call Cathayans Euery night the Saracens are enclosed in their owne Citie in other things as the Chinois subiect to the same Lawes and Magistrates Neyther may any forreyner returne into his countrey which hath stayed there nine yeeres Euerie sixth yeere seuenty two Legates come after an olde custome to pay a kind of tribute to the King this but a shew the intent being to inrich themselues as is sayd with Marchandize being maintained in respect of that pretence at the Kings Charge Into Soceù Goes came at the end of the yeere 1605. and here met with other Saracens returning from Paquin which told him of the Iesuites there residing adding that the King did not tell but powred out of a measure a dayly allowance of money to them which I mention to shew that a man must bee sparing of credite to Saracen Trauellers and Merchants But Goes could not a long time certifie these his fellowes of his arriuall being ignorant of their China names and it was foure monethes iourney to Paquin from Soceu the force of Winter is there very great yet did they send in that vnseasonable season one of their Conuerts a Chinois called Ioannes Ferdinandus who after a tedious iourney found Goes then lying on his death-bed when hee brought him the letters from the Society Eleuen dayes after he dyed not without suspition of poyson giuen him by the Saracens who had also before deuised by the way many shifts to make themselues Masters of his goods they haue likewise a custome that if any dye by the way his goods are shared amongst the rest Here did the Saracens offer to seize all into their hands but Ferdinandus professed himselfe his Nephew borne of a China Mother and with much a doe eating Swines flesh together with the Armenian in token they were not Saracens obtayned that little which was left of Goes his substance scarcely enough to pay charges yet this and all the other tedious circumstances of this long Narration I haue thus largely related for the instruction of Geographers and Merchants of these parts desirous to know or trade those Countryes the knowledge whereof I thinke no Europaean else hath learned by experience in some hundreths of yeeres last past His Companion the Armenian was sent from Paquin to Macao and thence to India and being taken by Hollanders in the way at Sincapura was redeemed by the Portugals and returned to Ciaul where he yet liues as Trigautius our Authour affirmeth But it is high time for vs to take view of our Tartarian Religion CHAP. XIII Of the Religion of the Tartars and Cathayans IOANNES DE PLANO CARPINI thus writeth of their Religion They beleeue that there is one GOD the maker of all things visible and inuisible the Authour of good things and punishments yet do they not worship him with prayers prayses or any certaine rites They haue also Idols of Felt in the fashion of a man and the same they set on both sides of their Tent-doores and vnder them they put a thing of Felt fashioned like a Dugge These they account the keepers of their Cattell Authors of their Milke and young store Others they make of Silke and doe them much honour Some place them in a faire Chariot couered before the doore of their station and whosoeuer stealeth any thing out of that Chariot is slaine without all pitty Their Captaines haue one alway in the middest of their Tent. To these Idols they offer the first fruits of their Milke and the first morsels of their meate and first draught of their drinke at meales And when they kill a beast they offer the heart to their Idoll leauing it before him till the morning and then they take and eate it They make an Idoll also to their chiefe Emperour and offer thereunto with great solemnitie as well other creatures as horses which none after dare ride on till death They breake not a bone of the beasts which they kill for meate but burne them with fire They bend themselues to this Idoll towards the South as to a God They worship the Sunne Lights and Fire Water also and the Earth offering thereunto the first of their meates and drinkes and in the morning before they eate or drinke They haue no set rites prescribed by Law nor doe they compell any to deny their Religion simply although in some of their customes they are very rigorous Thus they martyred Michael Duke of Russia because he refused to doe reuerence to the Image of Cingis Can which had beene their first Emperour and compelled the younger brother of Andrew Duke of Saruogle in Russia to marrie his said brothers wife according to their custome after that they had slaine her former Husband They haue certaine traditions
neighbour Nations obserue this and by diuers of them it is diuersly named Those of Siam and Cochin call it Cin whence the Portugals call it China the Iaponites Than the Tartars Han the Westerne Saracens as hath beene obserued Cathay and the Chinois themselues haue one name common to all ages Ciumquo as also Chium hoa which signifie the former a Kingdome the other a Garden in the middest they conceiuing the Earth square and their Countrey in the midst thereof which made them offended with our Maps that placed them in the furthest East and Ricius so disposed his Maps after that hee placed them in the middle of the same The King is entituled Lord of the Vniuerse which how boysterous soeuer is more excusable then in many other inferiour Potentates the Chinois thinking according to their Geographie that the World contained but few other Nations and those for the most part so contemptible that they willingly relinquished them or thought them not worth the conquering Neither was euer any one Kingdome so worthy the name of GREAT beginning at the Ile Hainam which signifies the South Sea in the 19. degree and extendeth Northwards to 42. and from the 112. degree in Longitude reckoning from the Canaries in the Prouince Yunan to the 132. Eastwards This hath been obserued by Mathematicall Instruments and obseruations of Eclipses in their Kalenders and especially for the Northerne computation it is out of doubt But for illustration hereof we will adde out of one of their own bookes entituled A description of that Kingdome printed 1579. thus interpreted In this Kingdome are two Royall or Parliament Prouinces Nanquin and Pequin the one signifying the South Court the other the North and besides these thirteene others In these fifteene Prouinces or Kingdomes are numbred by another diuision 158. Regions or Shires they call them Fu the most of which haue twelue or fifteene Cities besides Townes Villages Castles and Hamlets In these are two hundred seuen and fortie great Cities which they call CHEV rather in dignitie then greatnesse or otherwise exceeding the inferiour Cities called Hien of which are 1152. The persons of such as are growne to mans estate all which pay tribute to the King are 58. millions 550. thousands 801 not reckoning the feminine Sexe Boyes Striplings or Youths Eunuches Souldiors Magistrates the Kings kindred Students and many others And yet of Souldiors notwithstanding their long peace are maintained in perpetuall pay and seruice aboue one million the three Northerne Prouinces being almost halfe of them in militarie stipend The bordering Kingdomes tributarie are to the East three to the West fiftie three numbred in that Booke though this tribute bee of no great value The Kingdome is also fortified by Nature and Art the Sea on the South and East and steepe Precipices ioyned together with a strong wall the space of foure hundred and fiue leagues to the North and a sandie Wildernesse on the North-west all conspiring to the strength thereof and for the South-west it is full of Hills and Desarts with a few small Seignories vnworthy their feare or desire It is diuided into fifteene Prouinces six whereof border on the Sea Cantan Foquien Chequiam Nanquin Xantum Paquin the other nine be in land Quiamsi Huquam Honan Xiensi Xansi Suchion Quoicheu Iunan Coansi Some sound these names some what otherwise The Kings residence is at Paquin though Paquin enioyeth also a Court Royall as being the Royall Seat of the ancient Kings which some place in Quinsay but of that afterwards II. Of the Commodities of China and commodious Riuers and shipping with two Maps one made by HONDIVS the other h taken out of a China Map made there by the Chinois BY reason of this large extent both East and West and North and South it comes to passe that no Countrey yeelds such varietie of things growing in such varietie of Clime and Soyle making others indebted to it but it selfe not indebted to any Countrey either for necessitie or delicacie of diet Neither haue wee scarcely any thing in Europe which is not there found and what is missing is more then recompenced in other things exceeding There is store of Wheat Barley Miller Panike and other kindes of graine In Rice their chiefe food it farre excelleth Europe Of Beanes and Pease wherewith they feed their Beasts in some Prouinces they haue two or three Haruests in a yeere None of our principall fruits but Oliues and Almonds are wanting others they haue vnknowne to vs as those which they call Longanes Coco-nuts and other Indian fruits Their Oranges Limons Pome Cittons farre excell the Europaean in varietie and delicacie The like we may say of their Garden heathes which Religion to some to others Pouertie haue made their only food Great is their varietie of Flowers many heare vnknowne but there the colour more respected then the sent As for distillations they neuer till of late by vs had heard of such an Art Bettele and Arecca2growes in the foure Southerne Prouinces Their Wine is THE MAP OF CHINA 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 MATHAEUS RICIUS A picture of a Chinese man Picture of a China woman HONDIVS his Map of China CHINA farre inferior to ours for their Grapes are fewer and lesse pleasant nor doe they make Wine of them but of Rice and other things which is both well tasting and not so burning as ours They commonly feed on Porke they haue store also of Beefe Mutton Goats flesh Hennes Duckes Geese they feed also on Horses Mules Asses Dogs which are sold in the Shambles as well as other flesh But in some places either for Superstition or Husbandry they spare their Beeues and Buffalls Venison especially of red Deere is plentifull Hares and other things all verie cheape Their Horses are not so comely as in these parts but in number cheapenesse and vse for burthen excelling Yet is there lesse need of such carriages by reason of plentie of Riuers which Nature or Art hath prouided through all the Countrey Hence is there such store of shipping that a moderne Author hath written that there liue as many on the Waters as on the Land which to such as sayle in those Streames will not seeme too excessiue an hyperbole And I dare affirme this as a thing credible that there is as much shipping in this Kingdome as in all the world besides vnderstanding this assertion of fresh-water vessels for their sea-vessels are fewer and worse than ours Pantogia1 reporteth his owne iourney from Macao to Paquin the space of six hundred Spanish leagues which the next way by land is reckoned 1450. in all that space trauelling but one day by land for shortening his way otherwise all the way by water carried in a Riuer called of the Chinians a little Sea for the greatnesse being the greatest which euer he saw in some places two or three myles broad often tempestuous and cause of many shipwrackes The Chinois dare not sayle in it by night and they say That if one fall
terrible crueltie that a few blowes may either lame or kill the partie And therefore no King is more feared then these Mandarines or Magistrates In the middest of their Cities are Palaces of the Kings for these Officers to reside in In Paquin and Nanquin the multitude of these Magistrates is incredible one of these Cities contayning more then two thousand and fiue hundred as many as somewhere are of Citizens These all twice a day heare causes and execute iustice These Magistrates are no way comparable in wealth to the Nobles in Europe Their sentence against guiltie persons is without solemne furniture of words as Let him haue twentie strokes more or lesse which by those Canine Cane-men is suddenly executed the partie lying grouelling on the ground These Canes are cleft in the midst three or foure fingers broad twentie or thirtie blowes will spoyle the flesh fiftie or threescore will aske long time to be healed an hundred are vncurable They vse also the Strappado hoysing them vp and downe by the armes with a cord They bee aboue measure patient in hearing causes and their examinations are publique Condemned persons haue a pillory-boord fastned about their necke and hanging downe before them to the knees in which his Fellony or Treason is expressed which boord neither suffereth them well to sit or lye to eate or sleepe and in fine killeth them There be in euery Metropolitane Citie foure principall houses for those chiefe Officers before mentioned the fourth for the Taissu wherein is the principall Gaole or Prison walled about high and strong with a gate of no lesse force within the same are three other gates before you come where the prisoners lye in the meane space are such as watch and ward day and night The prison within is so great that in it are streets and market-places and neuer void of seuen or eight hundred men that goe at liberty In Canton alone are said to bee 15000. prisoners and in this and euery other Metropolitane Citie thirteene prisons sixe of which are alwayes possessed or doe possesse rather those which are condemned to death In euery of them are a hundred Souldiers with their Captayne to keepe them The offendors are allowed to worke in the day-time for their liuing for little almes are giuen in China and but a little Rice allowed them by the King Such prisoners as are in for debt haue a (null) appointed for payment at which if they fayle they are whipped and a new time assigned and so they proceed till the debt bee paid or the debtor dead If any man remoue his dwelling from one place to another the Neighbours cause a Cryer to proclaime it with ringing of a Bason that his creditors if hee haue any may come to demand their debts which the Neighbours if they neglect this dutie are charged with Executions of deadly sentence are seldome and that with many ceremonies Thus it comes to passe that of whippings and imprisonment there die thousands yeerely Theeues are slightly punished the first time The second they are burned with two characters on the arme the third receiueth the same punishment on the face If he steale oftner hee is whipped more or lesse or condemned for a certayne time to the Gallies This makes pilfries common for they are neuer done to death for the euery Many extraordinary crimes haue new deuised extraordinary punishments as after in this history followeth One had so freely libelled against the Kings tyrannies that many were cruelly tormented being thereof suspected and one by torments confessed the fact and was therefore a diudged to haue 1600. pieces of his flesh cut from him his head vntouched that his eyes might see this mangling and lastly his head cut off which amongst them is a great abomination Others accused of treason at Nanquin were forced to stand in those pillory boords till they rotted some continuing fifteene dayes in torment Those which our-liue their beatings must passe vnder the Surgeons hands for cure which ordinarily proue new tormentors except money make them propitious and this the Iesuites report of their owne fauours amongst them in all difficulties money hath bin their best friend without which is no friendship in China no Faith no Loue no Hope of them But by following Perera sometime a prisoner there into his prison others I find my selfe almost imprisoned and therfore will flee hence into their Temples there take Sanctuary Here they deale as madly with their gods as there with their men Yet first let vs take view of some rare workes of diuine Prouidence in this Countrey Ludouicus Georgius in his Map of China describeth a huge Lake in the Prouince of Sancij made by inundation in the yeere of our Lord 1557 . wherein were swallowed seuen Cities besides Townes and Villages and innumerable multitudes of people one only Child in a hollow tree escaping so great a destruction Such as escaped drowning were as Boterus addeth destroyed with fire from heauen Gasper de Cruz reciteth a Letter of the Mandarines to the King 1556. containing newes of a terrible Earth-quake in the Prouinces of Sanxi and Santon wherein the day waxed darke The earth opened the yeere before in many places vnder which was heard the noise as it were of bells there followed winde and raine The winde which they call Tufan is so violent that it driueth ships on the land ouerthroweth men and houses it commeth almost euery yeere once lasteth foure and twentie houres in which space it compasseth the Compasse In Vinyanfu the Earth-quake caused a fire to breake out which consumed all the Citie and innumerable people The like happened to another Citie neere it where none escaped It caused the Riuer at Leuchimen to encrease and drowne multitudes At Hien the fall of the houses slue eight thousand In Puchio the house of the Kings kinsmen fell and slue all therein but a child Cochu with fire from aboue and waters from beneath was left desolate At Enchinoen almost an hundred thousand perished At Inchumen the Riuer ebbed and flowed ten times in a day and night This perhaps was the same with that which Georgius and Boterus mention Boterus ascribeth vnto China seuentie millions of people whereas hee alloweth to Italy scarce nine and to Spaine lesse to England three to all Germany with the Switzers and Low-Countries but fifteene and as many to all France Lamentable it is that the Deuill should haue so great a tribute in this one Kingdome Gonsales in his Discourse of China translated by Parkes reckoneth I know not how truely almost seuen millions of Souldiers in continuall pay Dalmeida numbreth seuentie millions and two hundred and fiftie thousand Inhabitants besides Souldiers and reckoning but the principall in each Family often-times not aboue three of ten as their Bookes testifie I thought it not impertinent here to adde the Catalogue of the Kings of this countrey according to their owne stories which although it be in part fabulous as what ancient prophane
be the Reliques of the Tartarian conquests in those parts so Adelham is King of Iustice Neza in the Persian which Scaliger saith is of like extent in the East as Latine in the West is a Lance Maluco signifieth the Kingdome Neza or Nizamaluco the Speare or Lance of the kingdom So Cotamaluco the Tower of the kingdom Imadmaluco the Throne of the Kingdome c Nizamaluco is also called Nizamoxa which Xa or Scha is a Persian title signifying as Monsieur in France Don in Spaine and giuen by Ismael the Sophi and Tamas his sonne to all those Kings that would communicate in their Sect which Nizamoxa only yeelded to Other of them made shew but soone recanted Thus farre Garcias The Decan Kings being now ten or twelue make joynt warre against the Mogoll hauing one Lieutenant Generall which is Amber Chapu an Abassen slaue before mentioned out of Captaine Hawkins who hath many Lecks of Rupias in ready money and is Protector of the Kingdome of Amdanagar the titular King being a childe One Robert Iohnson an Englishman turned Moore and was entertained with much respect of one of the Decan Kings but died eight dayes after his Circumcision So were Robert Claxon and Robert Trally voluntarily robbed of that which they neuer had Faith and Religion and turned Moores The Decans dominians reach from the West Sea to that of Choromandel or very neere thereto The chiefe reason of their Mahumetan Religion was that Conquest by Nosaradin and his successors Moores that there are so many Kingdomes proceed from that diuision before mentioned §. III. Of the Banian and Cambayan superstitions THe Religion in Cambaya is partly Moorish partly Heathenish The Banians are many in Sinda and other Countries of the Mogol There are some thirty Casts of them in Sinda this is the Countrey which Indus last forsaketh inhabited by Boloches and Rasbooches and Banians the great Townes and Cities gouerned by Mogols These are of thirty different Sects which may not eate with each other They must also marry in their owne Cast Tribe and Sect and which is more in the same trade as the Sonne of a Barber with a Barbers Daughter These marriages are made when they be yong sometime almost before they be For when two women are pregnant the Parents will make a match betweene their Children if death or the sexe disappoint not When they are three or foure yeeres old the Parents which haue agreed on a match betweene their Children make a great feast and set this young couple on horsebacke a man behind each of them to hold them in their best clothes accompanied with the Bramenes or Priests and many others according to their state and so leade them vp and downe the Citie where they dwell and then to the Pagode or Temple After Ceremonies there done they come home and make festiuall cheere certaine dayes as they are able At ten yeeres of age they lie together The burning their dead is common to all their Sects They are of the Pythagorean or he was rather of their fancy which he learned of the Indians When the husband dies the wife shaues her head and weares her jewels no more so continuing till death Thus farre Master Withington M. Couert relateth that they haue God in pictures of stone hanging their Beades on the heads of the pictures and then with their faces towards the Sunne doe worship it saying all their comforts proceed from it I saw a Kow adorned with Iewels and a Vest of gold her head bedecked with garlands flowers and then being brought to a burial place where they vse to make Sermons they kisse her feet and teats and worship her I asking why they did so they answered that she was the mother of beasts brought them milke butter cheese and the Oxe to till the ground and lastly her Hide did make leather to make them shooes Moreouer they say she is blest by the Mother of God to be honored aboue all beasts Another writes that these Banians are the wisest Merchants in the East exceeding the Iewes very rich some worth 2. or 300000li. He addes that they pay a great summe to the Mogol to preuent killing of Oxen and when our men had shot a Turtle-doue through the wings they will giue a Riall of eight to redeeme and preserue it Generall Downton in his last Iournall writes that when they would haue obtained a Bazar or Market by the shoare answere was made that they might but not for Bullocks For the Mogol had granted his Firma to the Banians for a mighty summe yeerly to saue their liues For Souldiery these are but shadowes of men all their Fortitude smoking out in these superstitious speculations and therefore an easie prey to any Inuader So true a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haue they sustained being metamorphosed and transanimated from men to blockes and liuing statues or to ghosts Beniamin Day nameth one of their Sects called Ash-men whose bodies being most part naked are couered with ashes whereby they looke like ghosts or dead men They liue idlely on reliefe not so much as begging One of these was in great account with haire hanging to his feet platted together his nailes fiue or sixe inches long Vertomannus is Author that they worship not Idols or Pagodes Others report That this way aad others they are exceeding religiously deuoted They obserue a strict kind of fasting which lasteth with some eight dayes with others fifteene twenty or thirty dayes in all which space they eate not a bit onely when they thirst drinke water One could not see when to make an end of this his penance till his left eye fell out of his head as both had done before out of his heart In Cambaia they had one Bramene in such reputation of holinesse and honour that they would salute him before they meddled with their worldly affaires One affirmed to this Iesuite That if his Bramene should command him to distribute all his goods to the poore he would doe it yea he would lay downe his life at his command On the eight day of Ianuarie i in that Citie were giuen in almes twenty thousand Pardawes which is in value about a Flemish Dollar one man had giuen fiue thousand thereof another three thousand another fifteene hundred The cause was because that day as their Bramenes affirmed the Sunne departed from Sur to Horte Of their Pilgrimages is spoken before some Eastward to Ganges some Westward to Mecca to wit the Moores not men alone but women also and because Mahomet hath forbidden all vnmarried women this holy Iourney they will marrie before they set forth and dissolue the same marriage againe after their returne Hereby they thinke to purchase merit with God I went one day sayth Pinnerus to the publike Hospitall which the Citizens of Cambaia had founded for all kindes of Birds to cure them in their sicknesse Some Peacockes were there incurable and therefore might haue
then they goe out of the Citie passing by the Riuers side to the burning-place where is prepared a great square Caue full of Wood. Here is made a great Banquet the woman eating with ioy as if it were her wedding-day and after they sing and daunce till the woman bid to kindle the fire in the Caue then she leaueth the Feast and taketh her husbands neerest kinsman by the hand and goeth with him to the banke of the Riuer where she strippeth her of her cloathes and iewels bestowing them at her pleasure and couering herselfe with a cloth throweth herselfe into the Riuer saying O wretches wash away your sinnes Comming out of the Water shee rowleth herselfe into a yellow cloth and againe taking her husbands kinsman by the hand goeth to the said Caue by which is erected a little Pinnacle on which she mounteth and there recommendeth her children and kindred to the people After this another woman taketh a pot with oyle and sprinkleth it ouer her head and therewith annoynteth all her bodie and then throweth it into the Furnace the woman going together with the same Presently after the woman the people throw great pieces of Wood into the Caue so that with those blowes and the fire she is quickly dead and their great mirth is on a suddaine turned into great lamentation and howling When a Great man dyeth all the women of his house both his wife and slaues with whom hee hath had carnall copulation burne themselues together with him Amongst the baser sort I haue seene saith Master Frederike the dead man carried to the place of buriall and there set vpright the woman comming before him on her knees casteth her armes about his necke while a Mason maketh a wall round about them and when the wall is as high as their neckes one comming behind the woman strangleth her the workeman presently finishing the wall ouer them and this is their buriall Ludouicus Vertomannus relateth the same Funerall Rites of Tarnasseri as in other parts of India sauing that there fifteene or twentie men in their idolatrous habit like Diuels doe attend on the fire wherein the husband is burned all the Musicians of the Citie solemnizing the Funerall pompe and fifteene dayes after they haue the like solemnitie at the burning of the woman those diuellish fellowes holding fire in their mouthes and sacrificing to Deumo and are her intercessors to that Diuell for her good entertainment The cause of burning their wiues is by some ascribed to their wonted poysonings of their husbands before this Law by others that the husband might haue her helpe and comfort in the other world Odoricus telleth of a strange and vncouth Idoll as bigge as Saint Christopher of pure Gold with a new band about the necke full of precious stones some one whereof was of value if he valued iustly more then a whole Kingdome The roofe pauement and seeling of the walls within and without the Temple was all Gold The Indians went thither on pilgrimage some with halters about their neckes some with their hands bound behind them some with kniues sticking on their armes and legges and if after their pilgrimage the wounded flesh festered they esteemed that limbe holy and a signe of their Gods fauour Neere to the Temple was a Lake where-into the Pilgrims cast Gold Siluer and Gemmes for honour of the Idoll and reparation of his Temple At euery yearely Feast the King and Queene with the Pilgrims and People assembling placed the said Idoll in a rich Chariot and with a solemne procession of Virgins two and two in a ranke singing before him and with Musicall Instruments carrie him forth Many Pilgrims put themselues vnder the Chariot wheeles where they are crushed in pieces More then fiue hundred persons vsed thus to doe whose carkasses were burned and ashes kept for holy Reliques Otherwise also they will deuote themselues to such a martyrdome in this manner The parents and friends assemble and make a Feast to this Votarie and after that hang fiue sharpe kniues about his necke and so carrie him before the Idoll where he taketh one of his kniues and cryeth For the worship of my God I cut this my flesh and cutting a piece casteth it at the face of the Idoll and so proceeding at the last sayth Now doe I yeeld my selfe to death in the behalfe of my God and being dead is burned as before Our Country-man Sir Iohn Mandeuile reporteth the same Historie of their Idoll-Procession and the ashes of those voluntary Martyrs which they keepe to defend them against tempests and misfortunes He also sayth That some Pilgrims in all their peregrinations not once lifted vp their eye-lids some at euery third or fourth pace fell downe on their knees to worship some whipped others wounded themselues yea killed themselues as is before said Nicolo di Conti reporteth the same in his time Neither is this bloudy custome yet left as Linschoten affirmeth by report of one of his chamber-fellowes that had seene it They haue sayth he a Waggon or Cart so heauie that three or foure Elephants can hardly draw it which is brought forth at Faires Feasts and Processions At this Cart hang many Cables or Ropes whereat all the people hale and pull of deuotion In the vpper part of the Cart standeth a Tabernacle and therein the Idoll vnder it sit the Kings wiues playing on Instruments And while the Procession passeth some cut pieces of their flesh and throwe at the Pagode some lay themselues vnder the wheeles of the Cart with such euent as you haue heard Gasparo Balby relateth the same and addeth That the Priests which haue care of this Idoll and certaine women are consecrated to these deuotions from their Cradles by their Zeale-blind parents And the women prostitute their bodies to gaine for the Idoll whatsoeuer they can get ouer and aboue their owne maintenance This filleth the Citie with Strumpets there being of this Sacred you may interpret it Cursed crue foure hundred in one place of the Citie These haue their place in the Idoll-procession some of them in the Chariot which is drawne by men euery one accounting himselfe happy that can touch or draw the same This he sayth was at Negapaton He further affirmeth That not farre from the Citie of Saint Thomas is the Towne Casta where the the Wife is not burned as at Negapatan but a great Graue being made for the deceased Husband they place the liuing Wife by the dead corps and their neerest kindred cast earth vpon them both and stampe thereon They which marry wed in their owne degree as a Smith to a Smiths daughter and they powre out their prayers at the Image of some Kow or a Serpent called Bittia di Capella Their Bramenes burne Kowes dung and if they intend any warres with other Nations they anoint their Nose and Forehead with those ashes not washing themselues till the euening They which sacrifice themselues to the Pagode
exceed the due and iust proportion of her owne Globositie and thereby no lesse to excell the highest eleuation as wee may tearme it of the Sea then the Cliffes and Shores doe those Waters which approach them And what needs a conceit of miracle in the very ordinary constitution and conseruation of Nature though all Nature if wee regard it as a Creation by supernall power bee nothing else but miracle Some indeed dreame of I know not what proportion of the Elements wherby they would haue the Water to exceed the Earth as before is said and it is true that the vpper face and vtter superficies of the Waters for ought that is knowne to the contrary is as great as that of the Earth But if wee compare the depth of the Waters with the Diameter of the Earth we shall find that in most places the one is not so many Fathoms as the other is Miles Yea whoeuer soundeth at such depth And whereas the Diameter of the Earth is by some reckoned 8 11. Miles and by some more who euer cast Line and Lead into the Sea to measure a thousand Fathom Yea in Scaligers opinion the Earth is so much greater then the Water that if the Mountaines were cast downe into these watry receptacles and the Earth brought into a perfect roundnesse there would no place in it be left for the Water Record recordeth not so much as he yet holds the Earth almost ten thousand times as great as the Sea and all other waters And if wee receiue the Iewish Tradition mentioned by our Apocrypha Esdras this may bee more probable for hee saith that euen in the vtter face of the Globe the Waters were gathered into a seuenth part and sixe parts of the Earth kept drie Some imagine a bottomlesse depth passing quite thorow the Earth through which the Moone being in the other Hemisphere causeth the heightning of the Tides no lesse then when she is present in ours Which gaue no small helpe also in their conceit in the generall Deluge which if it be true addes a greater proportion to the Sea then wee haue obserued But because little reason and no experience can be shewed for this Assertion I will not insist in refutation But that Deluge being caused by breaking vp the Fountaines below and violent Stormes from aboue confute that opinion that the Sea should be higher then the Earth which then might haue effected the Floud without either of those former causes But why doe I drowne my innocent Reader with my selfe in these Depths of the Sea which some measure by the height of Hills others resemble those extraordinarie Land-heights to extraordinarie Whirle-Pooles but seeing the Sea is Tenant to the Earth which hath as before we haue said remoued it selfe in some sort to make way and roome for it the more ordinarie height and eleuation of the one may seeme to answere the more ordinary depth and descending of the other These bottomes of the Sea haue also their diuersified shape and forme as it were of Hillockes Mountaynes Valleyes with the Accliuities and Decliuities of Places as in the Shelues Shallowes Rockes Ilands appeareth And as the Land is not onely higher then the Sea at the shore so is it apparant that in remote places from the Sea the Land doth besides the exorbitant swellings of Mountaynes in the ordinary leuell exceed the height of Maritine regions which thence receiue those Riuers which require descent all the way of their passage which in some is one thousand in some two thousand miles And therefore is it likely also that the Sea answers in like proportion it being obserued to grow shallower neere the shoare and differently deeper in the farther recesse of the Maine §. II. Of the Saltnesse and Motions of the Sea THe saltnesse of the Sea some ascribe to the first Creation some to the sweat of the Earth roasted with the Sunne some to the saltnesse of the Earth especially in Minerals of that nature some to adust vapours parly let fall on the Sea partly raysed from it to the brinks and face thereof some to the motion of the Sea some to vnder-earth or vnder-sea fires of bituminous nature causing both this saltnesse and the motion also of the Sea and some to the working of the Sunne which draweth out the purer and finer parts leauing the grosser and baser behind as in this little world of our bodies the purest parts of our nourishment being employed in and on the body the vrine and other excrements remaining doe detaine a saltnesse I will not determine this question as neither that of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea which some say is the breath of the world some the fires aforesaid boyling in and vnder the water some the waters in holes of the earth forced out by Spirits some the meeting of the East and West Ocean some ascribe it to the Moone naturally drawing water as the Load-stone Iron some to the variable light of the Moone a variable light they all giue vs They that send vs to God and his Decree in Nature haue said what is the true cause but not how it is by Naturall meanes effected Certaine it is that the Ocean and the Moone are companions in their motion vncertaine whether the Ocean hath a naturall power in it selfe or from the Moone so to moue which is made so much the more doubtfull by reason that they follow not the Moone in all places of the word alike Vertomanum writeth that in Cambaia the Tides are contrarie to the course they hold in these parts for they encrease not with the full but with the wane of the Moone and so the Sea-crabs doe likewise In the Iland of Socotora Don Iohn of Castro obserued many dayes and found contrary both to the Indian and our wont that when the Moone riseth it is high Sea and as the Moone ascends the Tide descends and ebbeth being dead-low water when the Moone is in the Meridian and this operation hee found continuall With vs also our highest Tides are two dayes after and not at the very Full and Change About Vaygats Stephen Borrough found it to flow by fits very vncertaine Scaliger saith that the full-Moones at Calicut cause the encrease of the water and at the mouth of Indus not farre thence in the same Sea the new-Moones But what exceeding difference of the Tides doe wee find in the Downes and other places on our owne Coasts both for time and quantitie that at once in the compasse of ones sight there should bee both floud ebbe and these differing in degrees and that on some places of our Coast it should rise one fathom in some two in the Thames three at or neere Bristoll ten and on some part of the French coast neere Saint Malos fifteene whereas our shoare ouer against it riseth but two The like differences may bee obserued betweene the Tyrrhene Sea and that on the opposite coast
of Barbary the one swelling the other not at all heightned in the East and West Indies I could instance the like not mentioning those currents which hinder all courses of Tides Further the Floud continueth in some places seuen houres in some foure in most sixe In the Straits of Sunda some haue obserued that it flowes twelue houres and ebbes twelue In Negropont it is said to ebbe and flow seuen times a day and Patritius affirmeth that himselfe obserued at Ausser in Liburnia in a hand-made Strait of Sea-water the same to happen twentie times in a day Againe wee see these Tide-motions differ according to their daily weekely monethly and as some adde halfe yearely and yearely alterations All which varieties cannot be attributed to one simple cause neither to any vniuersall whether Sunne Moone or Natiue heat of the Sea or any the like although wee must needs acknowledge which we cannot know one principall cause hindred or altred by manifold accidents and therefore producing effects thus diuersified Other motions also may be obserued in the Sea as that namely which is continuall and if wee call the Tides the breathing this may be tearmed the pulse of the Sea whereby the waters alway wash the shore falling on and off couering and presently vncouering the feet of such as stand by which hath force to expell all Heterogenean or differing natures as drowned carkasses wrackes and the like This as that of the Tides Patritius Peucorus Lydiate and others attribute to a kinde of boyling which as in a vessell of seething water causeth it thus to rise and fall and to expell the drosse and things contrary But the heate which causeth this boyling one ascribes to the Sunne another to fires in the Sea another to the naturall heate of the Sea engendring spirits and causing rarefaction and motion Patritius doth not onely auerre this but that the Sea is as a sublunarie Planet mouing it selfe and moued by the superiour bodies to effect the generation of things for which cause Orpheus calls the Ocean Father of Gods Men and other things The saltnesse thereof is in his opinion the instrument of this motion and the neerest inward and most proper cause of marine mouings as in the two Mexican Lakes appeareth the one whereof is salt and ebbes and flowes which the other being fresh doth not This saltnes saith he with greater heat ingendreth more spirits in moysture the cause of greater Tides he thinketh to be the shallownesse and narrower shores the force of the Ocean thrusting the same most forwards where it findes interruptions and indraughts the certaintie of the motions hee ascribes according to his Philosophie to the soule of the world mouing this as other Planets For my censure it shall bee rather on my selfe then these opinions where silence rather then boldnesse becommeth Euen a foole whiles hee holdeth his peace is accounted wise And to borrow the words of a subtill Disputer Quod vbique clamare soleo nos nihil scire maximè conuenit huic disquisitions quae maris tracta motum Let this also bee arranged amongst the wonders of the Lord in the deepe rather to be admired then comprehended I might heere speake of other Sea-motions either particular or accidentall as that in the open Seas betweene the Tropikes vncertaine whether it may bee termed an Easterly winde or some impetuous violence caused by the superiour motions which draw together with them the inferiour Elements likewise those currents in diuers coasts as at Madagascar on the African and in the great Bay on the American shores From other accidents arise other motions caused by the windes in the ayre which somewhere haue their set seasons by whirle-pooles or rather contrarie currents meeting in the Sea by Capes Indraughts Riuers Ilands of the land by the conceptions and trauelling throwes in the waters in bringing forth some imminent tempest and the like I might speake of strange Currents in many Seas vpon the coast of Africke neere to Saint Laurence and Iohn de Noua and Mayella Captaine Saris hath related that the currents detayned him a long time euen almost to desperation of getting out and one of them so dreadfull that it made a noise like that at London Bridge with a fearefull rippling of the water the more the further from land and there where they founded an hundred fathom depth as it were proclaiming open defiance to winde and sayle notwithstanding their puffing threats and most swelling lookes in foure and twentie houres carrying them a whole Degree and nine Minutes from the course which vnder full sayle with the windes assistance they intended §. III. Of the Originall of Fountaines and other Commodities of the Sea I Might adde touching the Originall of Fountaines which both Scripture and reason finding no other store sufficient deriue from the Sea how they are from thence conueyed by secret Channels and concauities vnder the earth and by what workmen of Nature thus wrought into new fresh waters Scaligers experiment to proue the Sea-water at the bottome fresh by bottles filled there by cunning Diuers or otherwise is by Patritius his experience as hee saith found false And this freshnesse of the springs not withstanding their salt originall from the Sea may rather be ascribed to percolation and straining thorough the narrow spungie passage of the earth which makes them leaue behind as an exacted toll their colour thicknesse and saltnesse Now how it should come to passe that they should spring out of the earth being higher then the Sea yea out of the highest Mountaynes hath exercised the wits of Phylosophers some ascribing it to a sucking qualitie of the thirstie or spungie earth some to the weight of the earth pressing and forcing the waters vpwards some to the motion of the Sea continually as in a Pumpe thrusting forwards the water which expelleth the weaker ayre and followeth it till it finde an out-let whereof both by the continuall protrusion of the Sea and for auoyding a vacuum or emptinesse which Nature abhorreth it holdeth continuall possession some finde out other causes And Master Ladyate in a Treatise of the Originall of Springs attributeth the same to vnder-earth fires which no lesse by a naturall distillation worketh these waters vnder the earth into this freshnesse and other qualities then the Sunne and heauenly fires doe by exhalations aboue Yea such are his speculations of these hidden fires that hee maketh them the causes of Windes Earth-quakes Minerals Gemmes fertilitie and sterilitie of the earth and of the saltnesse and motion as is before said of the Sea But loath were I to burne or drowne my Readers in these fierie and watrie Disputes let vs from these speculations retire our selues to the experimentall profits and commodities which this Element yeeldeth Concerning the commodities of the Sea as the world generally so the little models of the world the Ilands whereof this of Great Britaine is iustly acknowledged the most excellent of
square The soyle is not very fertile subiect to much Snow the ayre wholsome The bowels of the earth are stored with diuers Mettals the Trees are fruitfull and one wonderfull in that it abhorreth moysture and if happely it bee moystened it shrinketh and becommeth withered which they remedie by plucking it vp by the rootes and after it is dryed in the Sunne to set it in drie sand if a bough bee broken off and nayled on againe it groweth They haue two high Mountaynes one of which casteth foorth flames and in the toppe thereof the Diuell vseth to shew himselfe in a bright Cloud to some that by long fasting haue prepared themselues to this sight the other called Figeniana is by some leagues higher then the Cloudes They much esteeme a tall personablenesse they plucke off the haires on their head Children before the common people halfe way the Nobilitie almost all leauing but a little growing behind which growes long and is tyed vp on knots to touch which were to offer great indignitie to a man They can endure much hardship an Infant new-borne in the coldest of Winter is presently carried to the Riuer to bee washed their education is hard yet are they neate they vse forkes as the Chinois or stickes not touching the meat with their fingers and therefore need no Naperie they sit on Carpets and enter the roomes vnshod their Tables are a hand high some eighteene inches square curiously wrought to each Guest one and changed at euery new seruice or change of meat Frois saith speaking of Feasts they haue three of them at the beginning of the Feast set before each guest with diuers gilded Dishes in each of them and as many at the end And in greater solemnities more They vse much the powder of a certaine Herbe called Chia of which they put as much as a Walnut-shell may containe into a dish of Porcelane and drinke it with hot water At the departure of Friends they will shew all their most precious Houshold furniture the best whereof they employ about the heating water or other vses for this Herbe which is of precious account with them The women in Iapon which wanted meanes to bring vp their Children with inhumaine butcherie did depriue them being new-borne of that life which not long before they had communicated to them Their Houses are most of wood because of often Earthquakes and some of stone Temples and Monasteries they haue for both Sexes and more had till Nubunanga destroyed them Their Language is one and yet exceedingly diuersified according as they differ in State or Sexe or as they speake in praise or dispraise vsing a diuers Idiom They vse Characters in writing and Printing as in China Their Swords are of a most excellent temper Their Customes differ in many things from other men Blacke is a festiuall colour White a funerall their meates drinkes perfumes are as dissonant to ours Their Teeth are coloured with blacke as beauties liuery borrowed of Art which wee by Art would auoyd They mount on the right side of the Horse They sit as we rise to entertaine a friend They giue to the sicke persons salt things sharpe and raw they vse Pills neuer let blood we contrary as in other rites either to other ridiculous All their Nobles are called Toni amongst whom are diuers degrees all of them holding their all in capite to finde so many Souldiers to the warres at their owne costs Generally the whole Nation is wittie pouertie is a disgrace to no man Reproches Thefts Periuries Dice-play are hatefull very ambitious they are in all things respectiue to their credite full of courtesie each to other neuer brawling no not at home with their housholds The inconstancie of that State learneth them by vse to prepare for and to welcome euery State They are exceedingly subtill hypocriticall and double-dealing they are also of cruell disposition not to their enemies alone but sometimes will assay the goodnesse of their blade and strength of their arme on some innocent body and in case of distresse they esteeme it a credit to preuent the sentence of Law by bloody execution done on themselues which they vsually doe in ripping vp their brests a-crosse a seruant or friend attending to smite off his head and if it bee a Man of any sort his friends and followers in like manner with their owne hands plucke out their bowels to testifie their loue The Gouernours haue absolute rule ouer their inferiours yea in euery priuate Family the authoritie extendeth to life or death The people saith Adams are exceeding courteous and valiant they are gouerned in great Ciuilitie no Land better with seueritie of Iustice They are very superstitious and of diuers opinions HONDIVS his Map of Iapan IAPAN I. §. II. The Voyages of some English to Iapan and their abode there THis our Countryman went chiefe Pilot of a Fleet of Hollanders of fiue Saile 1599. and wintred in the Magellan Straits from Aprill to September Neere to the I le of Saint Mary in seuen and thirtie degrees in the South-sea the ship wherein hee was and another of the Fleet lost their men in fight with the Indians They sayled thence to Iapan and sought the North-Cape which is false placed in Maps in thirtie degrees but found it in 35½ In this voyage from Saint Mary hither they were foure moneths and two and twenty dayes and then there were but sixe besides himselfe that could stand vpon their legs They anchored neere Bomage and two or three dayes after a Iesuit from Langasack came aboord them The King of Bungo befriended them with house-roome and refreshing for their sicke but three of their company dyed the next day and three after onely eighteene were left The Emperour sent fiue Gallies or Frigats for them about fourescore leagues distance and demanded of them many questions touching our Countrey and the termes of Warre and Peace in which it stood with others Then was he commanded to prison and two dayes after conuented againe and demanded the cause of his Voyage The Iesuits and Portugals informed against them as robbers of all Nations and vsed their best friends to their worst designements so that euery day they looked to bee crossed or crucified which is there the vsuall death of malefactors But the Emperour answered they had not hurt him and after long imprisonment he was suffered to returne to his Ship and restitution of the goods before seized on commanded but without effect because they were dispersed They had fiftie thousand Rials giuen them This Citie was called Saca two leagues and a halfe from Ozaca From thence they were remoued to Quanto an hundred and twentie leagues Eastward neere to Eddo where the Emperour resided They could not obtaine leaue to goe where the Hollanders traded but were allowed each man two pound of Rice a day and eleuen or twelue Ducats a yeere In processe of three or foure yeeres the Emperour employed Adams in making him
was at Heliopolis in honour of the Sunne A fift at Butus of Latona wherein onely sacrificing was vsed At Papremus was obserued the solemnitie of Mars with sacrifices but till Sunne-set onely a few Priests were busied about the Image a greater number of them stood before the doores of the Temple with woodden clubs and ouer-against them aboue a thousand men that payed their vowes each with clubs in their hands who the day before carried the Image out of a gilded Chappell of Timber into another sacred Roome those few which were chosen for the Idoll-seruice drawing a waggon with foure wheeles on which the Chappell and Image were carried Those that stood at the Porch forbade these to enter but the Votaries to helpe their god beate and draue them backe Here began a great club-fray in which many were wounded and many although the Egyptians concealed it dyed of the wounds The cause forsooth was because here was shrined the mother of Mars to whom her sonne at ripe age resorted to haue lyen with but was repelled by her seruants whereupon hee procuring helpe elsewhere was reuenged of them Hence grew that solemnitie On the seuenth day of the moneth Tybi which answereth to our Ianuarie and December was solemnized the comming of Isis out of Phoenicia in which many things were done in despight of Typhon The Coptites then hurled downe an Asse from a steepe place and abused ruddie men for this cause They had also in their Bacchanall solemnities most filthy Rites in which being drunken they carried Images of a cubit length with the priuie Member of a monstrous size with musicke accompanied with the elder Matrons This Yard which they called Phallus was vsually made of fig-tree Herodotus saith That besides their Swine-feast they obserued another to Bacchus without Swine in like sort as the Grecians in which they had such cubitall Images made of sinewes or as Coelius readeth it made to bee drawne to and fro with sinewes or strings carried by women In the moneth Thoth which most-what agreeth to September the nineteenth day was holy to Mercurie in which they did eate honey and figs saying withall Truth is sweet On the ninth day of this moneth they obserued another feast wherein euery man before his doore did eate rosted fish the Priests did not eate but burne the same Before is mentioned the seeking of Osiris This was an Egyptian feast obserued in the moneth Athyr which answereth somewhat to Nouember from the seuenteenth day in which they imagined that Osiris perished foure dayes were spent in mourning the causes were foure Nilus slaking the Windes then blowing the Dayes shortening the Winter approching Here is the mysterie vnfolded On the nineteenth day they went by night to the Sea and brought forth a sacred Chist in which was a golden Boxe into which they powred water and made a showt That Osiris was found Then they mingled the Earth with Water adding spices and costly perfumes and made an Image of the Moone applying these mysticall Rites to the nature of the Earth and Water About the winter Solstice they carried a Cow seuen times about the Temple in remembrance of the Sunnes circuit which in the seuenth moneth would be in the Summer Solstice The originall of Isis seeking Osiris is before shewed Some make Typhon the husband of Isis which slue Osiris her sonne or brother as diuers diuersly esteeme him for incest committed with her and cut him in pieces Anubis her Huntsman by helpe of his dogs found out the pieces againe This saith Minutius Foelix is resembled euery yeere Nec desinunt annis omnibus vel perdere quod inueniunt vel inuenire quod perdunt Haec Aegyptia quondam nunc sacra Romana sunt Truly the Playes of Christ his Crucifying and Resurrection which are obserued in all Churches of the Roman Religion yeerly might seeme to haue had this Egyptian originall Once Index expurgatorius hath cut out Viues tongue where he speaketh against them as before vpon like occasion is noted This feast is also mentioned by Iulius Firmicus and others They had another feast called Pamylia of Pamyle the Nurse of Osiris who going to fetch water heard a voyce bidding her proclaime That a great King and Benefactor was borne On this holy day was carried in procession an Image with three stones or as Plutarch saith with a three-fold yard in which beastly Rite hee findeth a foolish mysterie not worth the telling But I thinke this Feast of Feasts hath glutted euery man The Egyptians had many Oracles of Hercules Apollo Minerua Diana Mars Iupiter and others The Oracle of Latona at Butys told Cambyses That hee should die at Ecbatana whereby he secured himselfe for Syria and yet there dyed in an obscure village of that name whereas he had interpreted it of the great Citie in Media Their Apis and Serapis were also esteemed Oracles Annibal was deceiued by the Oracle of Serapis telling him of his death which he construed of Libya and fell out in a place of the same name in Bithynia At Pelusium if we may beleeue Achilles Statius was the Temple Image and Oracle of Iupiter Caessius and by an Oracle he maketh Leucippe a Virgin to be appointed for sacrifice At Memphis a Cow at Heliopolis the Bull Mneuis at Arsinoe the Crocodiles were their Oracles But it were too tedious to relate the rest §. IIII. Of the inuentions and disposition of the Aegyptians THe first amongst their Inuentions wee may reckon the deriuation of their superstitions to others That the elder Romans entertayned these damnable Egyptian holies appeareth by the Temples Chappels Streets Coynes dedicated vnto Isis Serapis c. mentioned by Onuphrius Rosinus Victor Fabricius Apianus Amantius Gruterus Golizius Occo and other writers of Roman Antiquities Of Isis and Serapis were certayne publike places in Rome named Iseum and Serapeum Iosephus relateth of one Paulina a noble woman of Rome married to Saturninus deuoted to the superstition of Isis whom Decius Mundus had sollicited in vaine to dishonestie notwithstanding the offer of two hundred thousand Drachme which comes to fiue thousand sixe hundred and twentie fiue pound for one night but with a quarter of that summe hee corrupted the Priests of Isis one of which told Paulina That the god Anubis inflamed with her loue had sent for her which message was welcome to her and to her husband not distastefull Thus Mundus vnder pretext of Anubis obtayning a nights lodging meeting her three dayes after merrily iested at her for sauing his money but not her honestie Whereupon Tiberius banished him crucified the Priests and razed the Temple commanding the Image of Isis to bee cast into Tiber. But these superstitions were reuiued soone after Vitellius the Emperour not refusing to weare a Linnen religious garment openly in her solemnitie Vespasian also honoured them and Domitian in the religious habite of Isis conueyed himselfe vnknowne from Vitellius and his persecutors Husbandrie
gouerned at the same time in seuerall parts of Egypt as in so small a Region as Canaan Ioshua destroyed 31. Kings This Scaliger coniectureth Lydiat affirmeth Neither yet is Scaliger to be blamed for acquainting the World with these fragments of Manetho considering that the middle part therof holdeth not onely likelihood in it selfe but in great part correspondence with the Scriptures If the Egyptians deuised otherwise to Herodotus and Diodorus it was easie for them to deceiue strangers or bee deceiued themselues The like History of prodigious Antiquities Augustine relateth of an Egyptian Priest that told Alexander of the continuance of the Macedonian Kingdome eight thousand yeeres whereas the Grecians accounted but foure hundred and fourescore Yea the Scriptures themselues haue not escaped that mis-reckoning of Times almost all Antiquitie being carried downe the streame of the seuenty Interpreters which adde many hundred yeeres to the Hebrew Text either of purpose as some suppose or as Augustine thinketh by errour of him that first copied the Scriptures out of Ptolemeys Library Sir Walter Raleigh in that his laborious and learned Worke called The History of the World supposeth That Egypt first tooke that name at such time as Aegyptus or Ramesses chased thence his brother Danaus into Peloponnesus which some reckon 877. yeeres after the Floud some more As for the prodigious Antiquities which they challenge hauing refuted Mercator and Pererius he enclineth to this opinion touching their ancient Dynasties that they are not altogether fabulous but that Egypt being peopled before the Floud two hundred yeeres after Adam there might remayne to the sonnes of Mizraim some Monuments in Pillars or Altars of stone or metall of their former Kings or Gouernours which the Egyptians hauing added to the List and Roll of their King after the Floud in succeeding time out of the vanitie of glory or by some corruption in their Priests something beyond the truth might be inserted Petrus Alexandrinus lately set forth in Greeke and Latine by Raderus writes That Mizraim hauing giuen beginning to the Egyptian Nation did after goe into the East to the Persians and Bactrians and is the same that was called Zoroastres by the Greekes Inuenter of Iudiciall Astrologie and Magicke He hauing giuen order for the keeping of the ashes of his burned body as the pledge of the Empire so long to continue with them called vpon Orion which he saith was Nimrod by the Persian Superstition beleeued thus honoured after his death and was consumed with Lightning the Persians reseruing his ashes to this day the cause saith the Note on that place why the Persians worship the fire . Yet the Author mentions another cause from Perseus which kindled fire by Lightning and preseruing the same built a Temple to it Hee saith also That Picus or Iupitar his father taught Perseus to diuine by a Cup like to that which is mentioned of Ioseph in Egypt and the same Picus was father to Hermes or Mercurie King of Egypt with other Legends too long for this place This Mercurie he maketh the same with Faunus the first finder he saith of Gold and that in a golden Vesture he foretold diuers things and that the Egyptians worshipped him hauing before made him their King which place he held thirty nine yeeres After him reigned Vulcan 1680. dayes for at that time the Egyptians knew not to number by yeeres He first made a Law against Adulterie and that the Egyptian women should haue but one husband He was Inuentor of Iron and Armour Stones and Clubs being before that time the only Weapons His sonne Sol succeeded a great Philosopher after him Sosis and next Osiris then Orus Thules Conqueror of Africa and after that Sesostris of the race of Cham the same as he supposeth with Trismegistus Thus much I haue thought here to adde out of him where the Reader may further satisfie himselfe if that can satisfie any which can nothing certifie or make certaine in these Antiquities wherein we may find many opinions scarcly any truth but in the Word of Truth the Scriptures That which we read of the Dynasties of Shepherds Scaliger interpreteth of that baser seruile sort which Moses saith were abominable to the Egyptians and seeme to haue beene strangers that inhabited some fenny places which Nature had fortified if we beleeue Heliodorus and thence made forrages into the Countrey the custome of Borderers and were called therefore Robbers These it seemeth driuen to their shifts by the hard and tyrannous vsage of the Egyptians procured as wee reade of the Tartars their owne Freedome and thraldome of their Lords The Romanes in their times were forced to mayntaine a Garrison against them therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ierome mentioneth the Bucolia where no Christians dwelled but onely a fierce Nation Iosephus and Eusebius thinke them to bee the Israelites which is vnlikely because they liued in seruitude and neuer raigned there Lydiat supposeth the Philistims vnder Abimelech and Phicol to be the men Nothing is more obscure in the Egyptian Chronologie then the time of the departure of Israelites thence vnder Moses whom Iustin Martyr affirmeth out of Diodorus to haue bin the first that wrote the Egyptian Lawes Tatianus Assyrus who after became an Heretike saith and alledgeth Ptolemey Mendesius a Priest for his Author That this departure was in the dayes of Amasis King of Egypt who liued in the time of Inachus Theophilus and Iosephus out of Manetho in the Reigne of Tethmoses Eusebius in the reigne of Cenchres Cedrenus saith Petisonius Others otherwise according to the diuers interpretation of Manetho The Scripture sheweth it was foure hundred and thirty yeeres from the promise first made to Abraham as all that I know both elder and later Greeke and Latine Chronographers except Genebrard and Adriehomius reckon it Lydiat thinketh That the drowning of the Egyptian Pharo was the cause of those tumults in Egypt about Succession which are ascribed to Egyptus and Danaus Orosius reporteth That the prints of the Chariot-wheeles of the Egyptians then pursuing the Israelites through the Sea did yet in his time remayne in the Sands on the shore and vnder-water which no curiositie or casualtie can so disorder but that Diuine Prouidence doth re-imprint them in their wonted forme Hard it is to apply the yeeres of the Egyptian Chronologie to the true account of the Worlds generation by reason of the disagreement of Authors touching the Egyptian Kings vntill Sesacs time which after Lydiat was in the yeere of the World 3029. although euen from hence we haue but slippery footing Augustus after the same Author made Egypt a Prouince in the yeere 3975. Vnder which Roman gouernment it continued vntill the Saracens conquered it in the time of Omar the third Chalipha who began his reigne after Scaligers computation in his Catalogue of the Chaliphaes in the yeere of Christ 643. The names of the Caesars
was sometime sacred famous for the Garden of the Hesperides neere to which is that Riuer of Lethe so much chaunted by the Poets Nigh to this place also are the Psylli a people terrible to Serpents and medicinable against their poysons both by touching the wounded partie and by sucking out the poyson and by enchanting the Serpent The Oracle of Iupiter Ammon is famous among the Ancient The place where this Temple was hath on euery side vast and sandie Desarts in which they which trauelled as wee finde in Arrianus and Curtius seemed to warre with Nature for the Earth was couered with sand which yeelded an vnstable footing and sometime was blowne about with the windie motions of the Aire Water was hence banished neither Cloudes nor Springs ordinarily affoording it A fierie heate did possesse and tyrannize ouer the place which the Sands and Sunne much encreased Neither was here Tree or Hill or other marke for Trauellers to discerne their way but the Starres In the middle of this Desart was that sacred Groue which Silius Italicus calleth Lucus fatidicus not aboue fiftie furlongs in circuit full of fruit-bearing Trees watred with wholsome Springs seasoned with temperate Aire and a continuall Spring The Inhabitants called Ammonians are dispersed in cottages and haue the middest of the Groue fortified with a triple wall The first Munition contayneth the Kings Palace the second the Serail or lodgings for his women where is also the Oracle the third the Courtiers inhabite Before the Oracle is a Fountayne in which the Offerings were washed before they were offered The forme of this God was deformed with Rams-hornes crooked as some paint him according to Curtius without forme of any creature but like a round Bosse beset with jewels This when they consult with the Oracles is carried by the Priests in a gilded ship with many siluer Bells on both sides of the ship The Matrons follow and the Virgins singing their dis-tuned Procession by which they prouoke their god to manifest what they seeke These Priests were about fourscore in number Alexanders ambitious pilgrimage to this Oracle is sufficiently knowne by the Relations of Curtius and Arrianus This we may adde out of Scaliger That after that the Cyrenaeans to sooth this prowd King which would needes bee taken for the sonne of Ammon stamped his shape in their coynes with two hornes of a Ramme and without a beard whereas before they had vsed the forme of Iupiter with a beard and hornes wherein the other Easterne people followed them The Syrians vsed the like stampe with the name of King Lysimachus which Scaliger who hath giuen vs the pictures of these Coynes thinketh to be Alexander Rammes-hornes are said to bee ascribed to him because Bacchus wandering in these Desarts with his Armie was guided to this place by a silly Ramme Likewise Pausanias in his Messenica saith that one Ammon which built the Temple a Shepheard was authour of this name to their God Plutarchs reason of Amus we haue before shewed Others deriue this name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sand which may well agree with all Idoll deuotion as being a sandie foundation although it is here intended to the situation But that which I haue before noted of Ham the sonne of Noah soundeth more probable as being Progenitor of all these Nations and of this minde also is Peucerus This Strabo in his time saith was not in request as no other Oracle besides For the Romanes contented themselues with their Sybils and other diuinations This Oracle was not giuen by word but by signes This defect of Oracles in generall and especially of this occasioned that Treatise of Plutarch of this subiect enquiring the cause of the Oracles fayling Neuer had he read that the Gods which had not made heauen and earth should perish out of the earth nor had he eyes to see that Sunne of Righteousnesse the Light of the world whose pure beames chased and dispersed these mists of darknesse And therefore are his coniectures so farre from the marke as not able with a naturall eye to see the things of God The antiquitie of this Oracle appeareth in that Semiramis came to it and inquired of her death after which the Oracle promised to her diuine honours Perseus also and Hercules are reported to haue consulted the same in their aduentures against Gorgon and Busiris Besides this Groue there is another of Ammon which hath in the middest a Well they call it the Fountayne of the Sunne whose water at Sunne-rising is luke-warme and cooleth more and more till noone at which time it is very cold and from thence till mid-night by degrees exchangeth that coldnesse with heate holding a kinde of naturall Antipathy with the Sonne hottest in his furthest absence coldest in his neerest presence Plinie and Solinus place this Fountayne in Debris a Towne not very farre from those parts amongst the Garamants Lucretius mentions it and Philosophically disputeth the cause thereof nimirum terra magis quod Raratenet circum hunc fontem quà m caetera tellus Multaque sunt ignis prope semina corpus aquai c. The substance whereof is that the fire vnder that subtile earth by cold vapours of the night is pressed and forced to that waterie refuge but by the Sunne beames receiuing new encouragement forsaketh those holds and holes and for a little while takes repossession of his challenged lands The Ammonian women haue such great brests that they suckle their children ouer their shoulder their brest not lesse if Iunenal be beleeued then the childe In Meroe crasso maiorem infante mamillam In Meroe the monstrous Pappe Is bigger then the childe in lappe Pausanias reckoneth an Ammonian Iuno among the Libyan Cities as well as this Iupiter He addeth the Lacedemonians had this Ammon in much request and built to him diuers Temples as at Gytheum one which had no roofe and the Aphytaeans did him 40 lesse worship then the Libyans Ortelius who hath bestowed a Description of this Temple supposeth that his Image was painted with hornes but that Vmbilicus was accounted the Deitie it selfe or the signe of his presence which shapelesse shape he sampleth by many like in other Nations The ship he coniectureth to signifie that the Religion was brought from some other place But if Ammon be that sonne of Noah it might rather bee a memoriall of the Arke wherein Noah and his sonnes were preserued as that also of Ianus who is imagined to be Noah may more fitly be interpreted then according to the Poets glosse Sic bona posteritas puppim formauit in aere Hospitis aduentum testificata Dei So well-dispos'd Posteritie did frame A ship to shew which way their strange God came The ancient frugalitie of the Cyrenians is commended in Authors Sulpitius bringeth in Postumianus in his Dialogues telling That landing there by force of weather hee went with the
Priest vnto the Church which was very homely couered with base twigs or boughs not much better then the Priest their hoste his Tent in which a man might not stand vpright Enquiring after the disposition of the people they learned that they were vtterly ignorant of buying and selling of fraude and stealing They neither had nor cared to haue gold or siluer and when he offered ten pieces of gold to the Priest hee refused it onely was content to accept a little rayment The Hammientes are not much distant in place or differing in name from the Ammonians which built their houses of Salt digging the salt-stones out of the Mountaynes which they with morter apply to their buildings Mela ioyneth to these aforesaid the Atlantes which curse the Sunne at the setting and rising as bringing damage to them and their fields A practice not vnlike to the women of Angola at this day who as Andrew Battle which liued there testifieth salute the New Moone when they first see her by holding vp their hinder parts naked against her as the cause of their troublesome menstruous purgation These Atlantes haue no proper names nor feede of such things as haue life He affirmeth of the Garamantes that they had no wiues but liued in a beastly communitie The Augila acknowledge no other Gods but Ghosts or Soules departed by which they sweare with which they consult as Oracles to which they pray at their Tombes receiuing answeres by dreames The women the first night of marriage are prostituted to all that will see them the more the greater honour but after must obserue their owne husbands The Trogleditae dwell in Caues and feede on Serpents and rather make a sound or noyse then humane voyce they vsed Circumcision they named not their Children by their Parents names but by the names of sheepe or other beasts which yeeld them nourishment Their wiues and children saith Agatharchides are common onely the Kings wife is proper yet if any had lyen with her his punishment was but the losse of a sheepe In their Winter they liue on bloud and milke which are mixed and heated together at the fire In their Summer they kill the scabbed and diseased of their Cattell They entitle none with the name of Parents but the Bull and Cow the Ram and Ewe and the Male and Female of the Goates because of these they receiue their nourishment and not from their Parents They goe naked all but the buttocks Such as want that skin which others circumcise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they depriue of the whole flesh so farre as the circumcision should haue extended Their funerall Rites were to tye the necks of the dead to their legs and couer them with heapes of stones setting a goates horne on the top with laughter rather then mourning Their old men which can follow the flockes no longer they strangle with an Oxe-taile which medicine they minister likewise to those that haue grieuous diseases or maymes And vnto these doth Plinie adde the Blemmyae with faces in their brests the Satyres Aegypanes Himantopodes and other monsters scarce worthy Relation or credit These parts I haue thus ioyned in one Discourse as liuing for the most part a wilde life as the Arabians and Tartars doe at this day and for Religion hauing nothing notable that I finde but as you haue heard Procopius writeth of the Blemyes and Nobatae that Iustinian placed them in Egypt about Elephantina that they before obserued the Greekes deuotions Isis also and Osiris and Priapus and sacrificed to the Sunne which Rites the Emperour prohibited But hee mentions no such Monsters The Arabians which vnder Elcain about the foure hundred yeere of their Hegeira gaue a Ducat a man to passe into Africke are Lords and Inhabitants of the Desarts to this day liuing as wee say a dogs life in hunger and ease professing Mahumets sect The Adrimachidae liued neere to the Egyptians both in situation and custome The Nasamones had many wiues with which they had companie publikely The first night of the marriage all the guests had dealing with the Bride and rewarded her with some gift The Guidanes had a more beastly custome whose women glorying in their shame ware so many frindges of leather as they had found Louers The Malchyes ware the haire on the hinder part of their head as the Iaponians now doe The Auses vsed the contrarie whose Virgins in the yeerly feast of Minerua diuided themselues into two companies and skirmished with staues and stones If any Virgins dyed of the wounds they accounted them false Maides The most martiall Virago of the companie they arme and crowne and place in a Chariot with great solemnitie They vsed not marriage but had women in common the childe being reckoned his with whom shee chooseth to liue To adde a word of the Cyrenians they held it vnlawfull to smite a Cow in honour of Isis whose Fasts and Feasts they solemnely obserued and in Barca they abstayned both from Beefe and Hogs flesh They seared the crownes or temples of their children to preuent the distilling of the rheume In their sacrificing they first cut off the eare of the beast as first fruits and hurled it ouer the house Their gods were the Sunne and Moone The Maxes shaue the left side of their heads leauing the haire on the right side The Zigantes feede on Apes whereof they haue plentie The Megauares make no account of Sepulchres in stead whereof they couer the corps with stones and set vp a Goates horne on the stone heape They haue many skirmishes for their pastures which are ended by the mediation of old Women who may safely interpose themselues and end the fray or battell if you will so call it When men are so old that they can no longer follow the herds they strangle him with a Cowes taile if he will not preuent them by doing it himselfe The like medicine they administer to such as are dangerously sicke Of the Macae Caelius thinkes the Roman Priests borrowed their shauen crownes Other things which our Authors adde of these people and others adioyning as seeming too fabulous I list not to expresse Silius Italicus in his Poems and Aldrete in his Antiquities of Spaine and Afrike expresse diuers of their ancient Rites and Names and that which seemes to vs most fitting shall in this Historie be inserted This part of the World as least knowne to the Ancients yeelded both Poets and Historians most matter of their Fables in explayning whereof Aldrete hath written in Spanish very learnedly as also of the later times when the Romans Vandals and since the Arabians haue preuayled CHAP. VIII Of that part of Barbarie now called the Kingdome of Tunis and Tripolis §. I. The name Barbarie the Kingdome of Tunis and Antiquitie of Carthage ALl the Tract of Land betweene Atlas and the Sea stretching in length from Egypt to the Straits is called Barbaria either of Barbar which signifieth to murmure because such seemed the
and Ieuiza Ferdinando therefore prouided an Armada against them and built a Fort within shot of the Towne whereupon they requested peace and promised Tribute But Barbarussa when Ferdinando was dead was sent for by the Citizens and made Captaine ouer all their Forces Hee soone after murthered Selum Etteumi an Arabian Prince which had beene created Gouernour of Algier when Bugia was taken by the Spaniards and possessed himselfe of the gouernment and there coyned money calling himselfe King the neighbouring people yeelding him obedience and tribute This was the beginning of Barbarussas greatnesse and at the most part hereof Leo was present and lodged in his house which had beene Embassadour from Algier to Spaine from whence he had brought three thousand books written in Arabike And whiles I was at Tunis I heard that Barbarussa was slaine at Telensin and his brother Cairadin succeeded It was told me also that the Emperour Charles the fift had sent two armies to surprise Algier the first whereof was destroyed in the Playne the second slaine and made slaues by Babarussa in the yeere of the Hegira 922. Thus farre Leo In the yeere 1541. Charles himselfe with his Imperiall Nauie passed the Seas to like both purpose and effect more ouer-comming himselfe in the patient bearing his losses then his enemies whom he sought to assaile He was mooued to this Expedition by the complaints of his Subiects against the Turkish Pirats which vnder Asanaga Barbarussa's Lieutenant infested all those Seas But the tempestuous weather both at Land and Sea disappointed him and after the losse of many both men and ships was forced to returne and to make roome for his Souldiers caused his Horses their gallant breede notwithstanding to bee cast ouer-boord Thus doth Algier still continue a sinke of Pirats and now saith Maginus there are in it not many lesse then fiue and twentie thousand Christian slaues which in likelyhood at this time are increased Tripoli is also a seate of a Turkish Viceroy or Beglerbeg and of Turkish Rouers In the Kingdome of Telensin is the Desart of Angad wherein are store of Roes Deere and Ostriches Arabian Theeues and Lions The Castle of Izli was sometime stored with Inhabitants and stately walled Since it was inhabited with Religious persons much reuerenced by the Kings of Telensin and the Arabians which giue free entertainment for three dayes vnto all Trauellers A little off runneth a Riuer out of which they water their fields which else would yeeld them no fruit Guagida betwixt two stooles had vnquiet sitting paying tribute both to the Kings of Telensin and the Arabians Ned Roma was built by the Romanes as the name testifieth for Ned signifieth Like and like it was if Historiographers faile not vnto Rome Here and at Tebecrit dwelt great store of weauers Haresgōl was sometime famous but being destroyed by a King and Patriarch of Cairaoan it bequeathed as it seemeth the greatnesse thereof to Telensin which after grew in renowme This Towne giues name to this Kingdome When Abu Tesfin raigned it had in it sixteene thousand Families Ioseph King of Fez besieged it seuen yeeres together and almost famished them but he being slaine by treason they found victuals enough in their enemies campe which they assailed and spoiled for their reliefe Fortie yeeres after Abulhesen King of Fez after thirtie moneths siege tooke it and beheaded their King Here are many and beautifull Temples hauing their Mahumetan Priests and Preachers Likewise here are fiue Colledges most sumptuously built by the Kings of Telensin and Fez curiously wrought with musaike worke for the Arabian Muses and Students which haue their maintenance there Their Bathes and Innes I omit A great part of this Citie is inhabited with Iewes distinguished by their yellow Turbants from the other Citizens which being very rich in the yeere of the Hegira 923. were robbed and brought to beggerie The Turkes are now Lords thereof betweene whom and Charles the fift who had vndertaken their protection the Citie is much impayred as also by the warres betwixt the Seriffe and the Turke Barbarussa subiected it Batha is a great Citie or rather was such now ruined by warres Not farre hence in Leo's time kept a famous Heremit much esteemed for his holinesse who in short time grew so rich in Horses and other Cattell that none in that Region were comparable to him He payd nothing nor any of his to the King or to the Arabians because they supposed him a Saint I was told by his Disciples saith Leo that the tenth of his Corne is eight thousand bushells a yeere He hath fiue hundred Horses and Mares ten thousand small Cattell and two thousand Oxen besides that he hath yeerly sent him from diuers parts of the world of almes and offering betweene foure and fiue thousand duckats His fame is spred ouer Asia and Africa his disciples are fiue hundred which dwell with him and liue at his charge to whom hee enioyneth neither penance nor labour but to reade ordinarie prayers and giues them some names of God to obserue in their prayers which they are to mumble so many times a day for which cause multitudes resort to him to be his disciples which after such instruction he sends home againe He hath an hundred Tents some for Strangers some for Shepheards and others for his Familie This good and lustie Hermit hath foure wiues and many slaues and by them many sonnes and daughters gallantly attyred His children also haue wiues and children in so much that the whole Familie of this Heremit and his sonnes exceeded fiue hundred Hee is honored of the Arabians and the King of Telensin is afraid of him I being desirous to know him was entertayned of him three dayes and supped with him euery night in secret roomes where hee shewed me among other things bookes of Magicke and Alchymie and would haue proued to me that Magicke was a true Science whereby I thought him to be a Magician because I saw him so much honored and yet vsed neither sayings nor doings but those Inuocations of God by certayne names Thus farre Leo lib. 4. Oran is subiect to Spaine taken by Peter Nauarre 1509. It hath ten thousand Families The Turkes in vaine assaulted it An. 2563. Their Piracies procured this Spanish thraldome vnto which Mersalcabir a most famous Hauen is also subiect Tegdemt is as the Arabian name signifieth Ancient It sometime was famous and abounded with men of learning and Poets But hee which would further bee informed of the Cities of this Kingdome let him reade Leo. The people of Bresch vse to paint a blacke crosse on their cheeke and another vpon the palme of their hand The same is obserued of diuers others which yet know not the reason thereof being Mahumetans The storie saith that the Gothes inuading and ruling these parts proclaymed freedom from tribute to all such as would become Christians a badge of which Christianitie was this crosse still kept now
doores But here is no prouision of Bed or Boord for Strangers The Inne-keepers of Fez in Leo's dayes were all of one Family called Elchena attyred like women shaue their beards become womanish in their speech yea degenerate euen to the Wheele and Spindle They are so odious except to base villaines that resort thither that the better sort of people will not speake to them and may not enter the Temple Burse or Bath nor into those Innes next the great Temple where Merchants are entertained There are thousands of Mills all almost pertaining to the Temples and Colledges reuenew Each Trade in Fez hath a peculiar place allotted thereto the principall whereof are next the great Temple as Scriueners Booke-sellers c. euery Trade by themselues The Christian captiues rest only vpon Fridayes and eight other dayes in the yeere Festiual to the Moores There are six hundred Fountaines walled about the waters whereof are conueyed by Conduits to the Temples or other places because the Riuer is sometimes dry They haue in Fez a Iudge for Criminal Causes and another for Questions of Religion a third that deales in Matrimoniall Cases From these there lyeth an Appeale to the high Aduocate The Iudges of Mahomets Law in matters of conscience haue no allowance for the same Their Marriages are thus When the Father of the Maide hath espoused her to her Louer they goe with their friends to Church and haue with them two Notaries which draw the Couenants agreed betwixt them into writing The Father bestowes a Dowrie or Portion of Money Apparell and such like seldome of Land When the Bridegroome fetcheth her home she is set in a Cabinet couered with silke and carried by Porters accompanied with her kinsfolkes and much Minstrelsie and the Bridegroomes friends goe before with Torches and her kinsmen after toward the great Church Then hee hasteth home expecting his Bride in his Chamber whom her Father Brother and Vncle bring and deliuer to his Mother and he setting his foot on hers shues the Chamber doore at which a woman standeth and receiueth of him a Napkin stayned which she sheweth to the Assembly as a testimony of the Brides Virginitie But if shee bee not found a Maide shee is returned to hee Friends with shame and the guests goe home without their Feast They hold great feasting also at the Circumcision of their male-children which is the seuenth day after they are borne The Barber or Circumciser is presented with gifts of all the inuited guests Then followeth mirth and iollity They vse dancings but the women apart by themselues without men There is a remaynder of Holidayes instituted by the Christians which themselues vnderstand not On Christmas Euen they eat a Sallet made of diuers herbes and seethe all kinds of Pulse which they feed vpon On New-yeeres day the children goe with Maskes on their faces to the houses of Gentlemen and haue Fruits giuen them for singing certaine Songs On the Feast of Saint Iohn Baptist they vse to make Bone-fires They make a Feast called Dentista when their childrens teeth begin to grow vnto other children When a man dyes the women put on Sack-cloth and defile their faces with dirt They call to them those wicked men in womens attire which haue foure-square Drummes to the sound whereof they sing mournfull Ditties in prayse of the dead party At the end of euery Verse the women vtter most hideous shrikes and out-cries tearing their haire and beating their brests and cheekes till they be all embrued with bloud And thus they continue seuen dayes and then intermit their mourning forty dayes after which space they resume the same for three dayes as before But the better sort behaue themselues more modestly At this time all the Widdowes friends come about her to comfort her and send her diuers kindes of meats for in the mourning-house they may dresse no meate at all till the dead be carried out The woman which loseth her Father Brother or Husband neuer goes forth with the Funerall At some Festiuals the Youths of one Street will fight with Clubs against the Boyes of another Street and sometimes betake them to other Weapons and kill one another Sometimes they vse these bloudy Frayes without the City the Officers forcing them to better order There are many Poets which pen amorous Sonets and on Mahomets Birth-day make Verses in his commendation resorting early to the Palace and there ascending the Tribunall reade their Verses to the people and he whose Verses are best is pronounced that yeere Prince of Poets The Marin King on that day vsed to entertaine the learned men and to reward the best Poet with a hundred Ducats a Horse a Woman-slaue and the Kings Robes which hee wore that day In Fez are two hundred Grammar Schooles built like great Hals Euery day they learne one lesson of the Alcoran They reade and write not in Bookes but in great Tables In seuen yeeres they learne the whole Alcoran by heart And then the Father inuiteth his sonnes Schoole-fellowes to a Banquet and his Sonne rides through the street in costly apparell both which are lent by the Gouernour The other Boyes ride and sing Songs in prayse of God and Mahumet On Mahumets Birth-day euery Boy must carry a Torch to Schoole curiously wrought some weighing thirty pound which they light before day and let them burne till Sun-rising singing all the while the prayses of Mahumet The Schoolemasters haue the remnant of the Waxe which sometimes they sell for a hundred Ducats They are free Schooles anciently built In the Schooles and also in the Colledges they haue two dayes of recreation euery weeke wherein they neither teach nor studie §. III. Of their Diuiners and Sects and other parts of the Fezan Territorie THere be three kinds of Fortune-tellers or Diuiners One of which vseth Geomanticall figures others powre a drop of Oyle into a glasse of water which becommeth cleere as a Seeing-glasse in which they say they see strange sights rankes of Deuils like Armies some trauelling some passing ouer a Riuer c. When the Diuiner seeth them quiet he demandeth such questions of them as he will and the Deuils with gestures returne answere The third sort are Women-witches which make the people beleeue that they are acquainted with Deuils of diuers sorts red white blacke and when they will tell any mans fortune they perfume themselues with certaine Odours whereby as they say the Deuill entreth into them and their voyce is presently altered as if the Deuill spake within them And then they that come to enquire aske their questions and so hauing left their present for the Deuill depart These women vse vnlawfull lusts betweene themselues in mutuall filthinesse if faire women come to them they wil demand the Deuils fee that they may haue such dealing with them Yea some addicting themselues to these abominable practices will faine themselues sicke and send to one of these Witches which will affirme That shee
They haue no Fleas a small priuiledge for they haue infinite store of Scorpions Fighig hath industrious and wittie people whereof some become Merchants others Students and goe to Fez where hauing obtayned the degree of Doctors they returne into Numidia and are made Priests and Preachers and so become rich Tegorarin hath Traffique with the Negros They water their Corne-fields with Well-water and therefore are forced to lay on much soyle In which respect they will let Strangers haue their houses Rent-free onely the Dung of Themselues and their Beasts excepted They will expostulate with that stranger which shall in some nicer humour goe out or doores to that businesse and aske him if hee know not the place appointed thereunto Heere were many rich Iewes which by meanes of a Preacher of Telensin were spoyled and most of them slaine at the same time that Ferdinand chased them out of Spaine Techort is a Numidian Towne exceeding courteous to Strangers whom they entertaine at free-cost and marrie their Daughters to them rather then to the Natiues Pescara is exceedingly infested with Scorpions whose sting is present death wherefore the Inhabitants in Summer time forsake their Citie and stay in their Countrey-possessions till Nouember Libya extendeth it selfe from the Confines of Eloachat vnto the Atlantike betwixt the Numidians and Negros It is one other of the Seuen parts into which wee haue diuided Africa the Arabians call it Sarra that is a Desart Plinie in the beginning of his fift Booke sayth That all Africa by the Graecians was called Libya Taken in a more proper sence it is diuersly bounded by the Ancients and therefore wee will heere hold vs to Leo's description The name Libya is deriued from Libs a Mauritanian King as some affirme Herodotus saith of a woman named Libya Among the Libyans are reckoned the Libyarcha Libiophaenices Libyaegyptij and diuers other Nations euen of the Ancients accused for want of inward and outward good things cunning onely in Spoyle and Robberie The Libyans worshipped one Psaphon for their God induced thereunto by his subtiltie For he had taught Birds to sing PSAPHON is a great God which being set at libertie chaunted this note in the Woods and easily perswaded the wilde people to this deuotion which Aelian saith Annon had endeuoured in vaine It was the custome of Women to howle in their Temples whence some of the Bacchanall Rites were borrowed by the Graecians Vnto the Libyans are reckoned those Nations whose barbarous Rites are before related in the seuenth Chapter of this Booke Wee will now come to later Obseruations Men may trauell eight dayes or more in the Libyan Desarts ordinarily without finding any water The Desarts are of diuers shapes some couered with grauell others with sand both without water heere and there is a lake sometime a shrub or a little grasse Their water is drawne out of deepe pits and is brackish and sometimes the sands couer those pits and then the Trauellers perish for thirst The Merchants that trauell to Tombuto or other places this way carrie water with them on Camels and if water faile them they kill their Camels and drinke water which they wring out of their guts Their Camels are of great abilitie to sustaine thirst sometimes trauelling without drinke twelue dayes or more Otherwise they were neuer able to trauell thorow those Desarts In the Desart of Azaoad there are two Sepulchres of Stone wherein certaine letters engrauen testifie that Two Men were there buried one a very rich Merchant who tormented with thirst bought of the other which was a Carrier or transporter of wares a cup of Water for ten thousand Duckats and dyed neuerthelesse both buyer and seller with thirst Their liues for lewdnesse resemble the Numidians before mentioned but for length come much short of them few attayning to threescore yeeres They are as little need as they haue thereof often plagued with those clouds of Grashoppers which couer the ayre and destroy the earth The Libyan Desart of Zanhaga beginning at the Westerne Ocean extendeth it selfe farre and wide betweene the Negros and the Numidians to the Salt-pits of Tegaza From the Well of Azaoad to the Well of Araoan an hundred and fiftie miles space is no water for lacke whereof many both men and beasts there perish Likewise in the Desart Gogdem for nine dayes iourney no drop of water is found In the Desart of Targa is Manna found which the Inhabitants gather in little vessels and carrie to Agadez to sell They mingle it with their drinke and with their pottage It is very wholsome Tegaza is an inhabited place where are many veynes of Salt which resemble Marble they digge it out of pits and sell it to Merchants of Tombuto who bring them victuals For they are twenty dayes iourney from any habitation the cause that sometimes they all die of famine They are much molested with the South-east winde which maketh many of them to lose their sight Bardeoa was found out lately by one Hamar a guide vnto a Carauan of Merchants who lost his way by reason of a maladie that fell into his eyes yet blind as hee was hee rode on a Camell none else being able to guide them and at euery miles end caused some sand to bee giuen vnto him whereon hee smelled and thereby at last told them of an inhabited place forty miles before he came at it where when they came they were denied water and were forced by force to obtaine it The Riuers that arise out of Atlas and by the vnkindnesse of their Kinde fall this way finding these thirsty Wildernesses to yeeld them the readiest channels are trained alongst by the allurements of the sands stouping and crouching to them till being further from witnesses they are either swallowed vp on great Lakes or else whiles they hold on their pursuit for the Ocean lose themselues in the search and whiles they are liberall to the thirstie sands in the way at last dye themselues I cannot say diue themselues as else where in the World for thirst in the Desarts And yet through these waylesse wayes doth couetousnesse carry both the Arabians in their rouings and Merchants with their Carauans to the Negros for wealth whither I thinke at last you expect the comming of this our Carauan also CHAP. XIIII Of the Land of Negros §. I. Of the Riuer NIGER Gualata Senaga and Guinea NIgratarum terra or the Land of Negros either is so called of the Riuer Niger or of the blacke colour of the Inhabitants some thinke the Riuer is named Niger of the people it hath on the North those Desarts which we last left on the South the Aethiopike Ocean and the Kingdome of Congo on the East Nilus on the West the Atlantike Leo makes Gaogo in the East and Gualata in the West the limits thereof On the side of the Riuer Canaga it is sandie and desart beyond it is plentifull being watered with Niger
diuers places His Nobles about him neuer looke him in the face but sit cowring vpon their buttockes with their elbowes vpon their knees and their hands before their faces not looking vp till the King command them And when they depart out of his presence they turne not their backes vpon him Such reuerend regard doth that Negro King receiue of them The next yeere Master Iohn Lock went for Captaine into those parts to trade for Gold Graines and Elephants teeth And after that diuers Voyages were thither made by William Towerson who obserued at the Riuer of Saint Vincent strange trees with great leaues like great Dockes longer then that a man could reach the top of them and a kind of Pease by the Sea-side growing on the Sands like trees with stalkes seuen and twentie paces long Diuers of the women had brests exeeding long At the Cape Tres puntas they made him sweare by the water of the Sea that hee would not hurt them before they would trade with him King Abaan a Negro entertained our men kindly hee caused to bee brought a pot of Wine of Palme or Coco which they draw forth of trees as we haue elsewhere obserued but their Ceremonies in drinking are thus First they bring forth their pot of drinke and then make a hole in the ground and put some of the drinke into it and after that cast in the Earth againe and thereon set their pot and with a little thing made of a Gourd take out of the same drinke and put it vpon the ground in three places and in diuers places they haue certaine bunches of the pils of Palme-trees set in the ground before them and there they put in some drinke doing great reuerence in all places to the same Palme-trees All these Ceremonies done the King tooke a cup of Gold in which they put Wine and whiles hee dranke all the people cryed Abaan Abaan with certaine other words and then they gaue drinke to euery one The like Ceremonies they vse in all the Countrey In Benin the people goe naked till they be married and then are clothed from the waste to the knees Their bread is a kind of Rootes called Inamia which when it is well sodden may be preferred before ours They haue here great spouts of water falling out of the Aire which if they light on a ship doe endanger the same They fall like the pillars of Churches As for those Voyages to those parts made by Rutter Fenner Ingram or others I referre them to Master Hackluyts Collections One writeth That the King of Benin hath sixe hundred Wiues with all which twice a yeere he goeth in pompe the Gentlemen haue some of them fourescore some fourescore and ten the meanest ten or twelue At Cape de Lope Gonsalues some pray to the Sunne others to the Moone or to certaine trees or to the Earth esteeming it a great sinne to spit vpon it from whence they receiue their food Men and women inke their bodies putting thereon grease mixed with colour They will not drinke before they put out some and drinke not when they eate They offer their wiues to strangers The King keepeth his Daughters when they are growne for Wiues and the Queenes with like incestuous abomination vse their Sonnes They paint their bodies red vse Bananas dried in stead of bread and lay all their meates in a dish together About the Castle of Mina they are subiect to such Wormes as Master Ienkinson hath obserued to grow vpon men at Bognar in Bactria by drinking the water of the Riuer there which are an Ell long and must be pulled out by degrees euery day a little if they breake by the way it is very dangerous The torture they cause is vnspeakeable they breed in the armes and legges yea sometimes in the yard and cod one man hath had ten of them at one time The Inhabitants of Benin obserue Circumcision and some other Superstitions which may seeme Mahumetan but are more likely to bee ancient Ethnike Rites For many Countreyes of Africa admit Circumcision and yet know not or acknowlege not Mahumetisme but are either Christians as the Cophti Abassines or Gentiles they cut or rase the skinne with three lines drawne to their Nauell esteeming it necessary to saluation They will not easily doe iniury to any especially a stranger They haue Birds in such respect that it is deadly to any that shall hurt them And some are appointed to haue a peculiar care of them and to prouide them food which they doe in high Mountaynes where they lay meate for them which they come and eate Arthus writes That the Inhabitants of Guinea giue Religious respect vnto certaine trees And in the yeere one thousand fiue hundred ninetie eight certaine Hollanders cutting them and not ceasing at the perswasion of Negro's whose Superstitions in that case they derided it passed from words to blowes betwixt them the Dutchmen were forced to get them to their ships one of their company being slaine in the chase But the Murtherer was offered to the Hollanders to be punished which they refusing his Countrimen cut off his head and quartered his bodie bestowing the one as a monument of reuenge ouer the slaine parties graue the other on the Fowles vnburied Their trees are alway greene some haue leaues twice a yeere They seldome see the Sunne either rising or going downe by the space of halfe of an houre Their Winter beginneth in Aprill which yet is their time of Haruest Mays was brought thither out of America In Aprill May and Iune they haue much raine and the same very dangerous to the bodie and rotting the clothes if it bee not presently dryed It is often as warme as if it were sodden They haue some Snakes thirty foot long as much as sixe men can carrie they haue also a beast like a Crocodile called Lanhadi we haue spoken of the like about Pegu and Bengala which neuer goeth into the water Spiders as bigge as the Palme of ones hand which doe not spinne store of Cameleons Dogges woolly with sharpe snouts of diuers colours which cannot barke driuen to the Market as sheepe tied one to another blue Parrets many sorts of Apes blacke Flyes which seeme to burne In Senega some Snakes haue mouthes so wide that they swallo a whole sheepe without tearing they haue winged Dragons with tayles and long mouthes with many teeth being blue and greene which some Negros worship They boare a hole in the Palme-wine tree whence issueth a white iuyce first sweete and after by standing it becomes sowre and after by standing it becomes sowre It is somewhat like the Coco-tree The Palmita is without branches the fruit growes on the top which within is like Pomegranates full of graines without of a golden colour They buy Gentilitie with gifts a Dog a Sheepe a Cow in their creation is obserued much solemnitie They know not how to number their yeeres but seeme
It flyeth so swift saith Ouiedo that the wings cannot be seene It hath a nest proportionable I haue seene saith he one of those birds together with her nest put into the scales wherein they vse to weigh Gold and both weighed but two Tomins that is foure and twenty graines Haply it is therefore called Tomineios as weighing one Tomin The feathers are beautified with yellow greene and other colours the mouth like the eye of an Needle It liueth on dew and the juice of herbs but sitteth not on the Rose The feathers specially of the necke and brests are in great request for those feather-pictures or portraitures which the Indians make cunningly and artificially with these natural feathers placing the same in place and proportion beyond all admiration The Indian Bats should not flee your light and are for their rarity worthy consideration but that wee haue spoken before somewhat of them They haue Birds called Condores of exceeding greatnesse and force that will open a sheepe and a whole Calfe and eate the same They haue abundance of Birds in beautie of their feathers farre surpassing all in Europe wherewith the skilfull Indians will perfectly represent in feathers whatsoeuer they see drawne with the Pensill A figure of Saint Francis made of feathers was presented to Pope Sixtus Quintus whose eye could not discerne them to be naturall colours but thought them pensill-worke till he made tryall with with his fingers The Indians vsed them for the ornaments of their Kings and Temples Some Birds there are of rich commoditie onely by their dung In some Islands ioyning to Peru the Mountaines are all white like Snow which is nothing but heapes of dung of certaine Sea-fowle which frequent those places It riseth many Ells yea many Launces in height and is fetched thence in Boats to hearten the Earth which hereby is exceeding fertile To adde somewhat of the Indian Plants and Trees Mangle is the name of a Tree which multiplyeth it selfe into a wood as before we haue obserued of it the branches descending and taking root in the Earth The Plane-tree of India hath leaues sufficient to couer a man from the foot to the head but these the Coco and other Indian Trees are in the East-Indies also and there we haue mentioned them Cacao is a fruit little lesse then Almonds which the Indians vse for money and make thereof a drinke holden amongst them in high regard They haue a kinde of Apples called Ananas exceeding pleasant in colour and taste and very wholesome which yet haue force to eate iron like Aqua fortis The Mamayes Guayauos and Paltos be the Indian Peaches Apples and Peares But it would bee a weary wildernesse to the Reader to bring him into such an Indian Orchard where he might reade of such varietie of fruits but like Tantalus can taste none or to present you with a Garden of their Trees which beare flowres with other fruit as the Floripondio which all the yeere long beareth flowres sweet like a Lilly but greater the Volusuchil which beareth a flowre like to the forme of the heart and others which I omit The flowre of the Sunne is is now no longer the Marigold of Peru but groweth in many places with vs in England The flowre of the Granadille they say if they say truely hath the markes of the Passion Nayles Pillar Whips Thornes Wounds exceeding stigmaticall Francis For their Seeds and Craines Mays is principall of which they make their bread which our English ground brings forth but hardly will ripene it growes as it were on a Reed and multiplyeth beyond comparison they gather three hundred measures for one It yeeldeth more blood but more grosse then our Wheat They make drinke thereof also wherewith they will be exceedingly drunke They first steepe and after boyle it to that end In some places they first cause it to be champed with Maids in some places with old women and then make a leauen thereof which they boyle and make this inebriating drinke The Canes and leaues serue for their Mules to eate They boyle and drinke it also for paine in the back The buds of Mays serue in stead of Butter and Oyle In some parts they make bread of a great root called Yuca which they name Caçaui They first cut and straine it in a Presse for the iuyce is deadly poison the Cakes dryed are steeped in water before they can eate them Another kinde there is of this Yuca or Iucca the iuice whereof is not poison It will keepe long like Bisket They vse this bread most in Hisponiola Cuba and Iamaica where Wheat and Mays will not grow but so vnequally that at one instant some is in the grasse other in the graine They vse in some places another root called Papas like to ground Nuts for bread which they call Chuno Of other their roots and fruits I am loth to write lest I weary the Reader with tedious officiousnesse Spices grow not there naturally Ginger thriueth well brought and planted by the Spaniards They haue a good kinde of Balme though not the same which grew in Palestina Of their Amber Oiles Gums and Drugs I list not to relate further Out of Spaine they haue caried great varietie of Plants herein Americo exceeding Spaine that it receiueth and fructifieth in all Spanish Plants that are brought thither whereas the Indian thriue not in Spaine as Vines Oliues Mulberies Figs Almonds Limons Quinces and such like And to end this Chapter with a comparison of our World with this of America Our aduantages and preferments are many Our Heauen hath more Stars and greater as Acosta by his owne sight hath obserued challenging those Authors which haue written otherwise of fabling Our Heauen hath the North-Starre within three degrees and a third of the Pole their Crosier or foure Stars set a-crosse which they obserue for the Antarticke is thirtie degrees off The Sunne commucateth his partiall presence longer to our Tropike then that of Capricorne remaining in the Southerne Signes 178. dayes one and twenty houres and twelue minutes in the Northerne 186. dayes eight houres and twelue minutes B. Keckerman System Astron L. 1. Tycho Brahe L. 1. reckoneth these a hundred fourescore and sixe dayes houres eighteene and a halfe dayes eight and one third part fere plus quam in Australi c. This want of the Sunne and Stars is one cause of greater cold in those parts then in these Our Earth exceeds theirs for the situation extending it selfe more between East and West fittest for humane life whereas theirs trends most towards the two Poles Our Sea is more fauourable in more Gulfes and Bayes especially such as goe farre within Land besides the Mid-Land-Sea equally communicating her selfe to Asia Africa and Europa This conuenience of traffique America wanteth Our beasts wilde and tame are farre the more noble as the former discourse sheweth For what haue they to oppose to our Elephants Rhinocerotes Camels Horses
a farre Countrey and their King returned againe and said he would send such as should rule them And he hath now sent these Spaniards saith he Hereupon he counselled them to yeeld themselues Vassals to the Emperour which they did at his command though with many teares on his part and theirs at this farewell of their libertie Mutezuma presently gaue to Cortes in the name of tribute a great quantitie of Gold and other Iewels which amounted to sixteene hundred thousand Castlins of Gold besides Siluer §. III. The conquest of Mexico CORTES had hitherto a continuall victory in Mexico without any fight but newes was brought him of Pamphilo de Naruaes who was sent yywith eighty horse and some hundreths of Spaniards by Velasques to interrupt the proceedings of Cortes who leauing two hundred men in Mexico with 250. other came suddenly in the night and took Neruaes prisoner and returned to Mexico with Naruaes his company now his followers also where he found his men exceedingly distressed by the Citizens for a murther committed in the great Temple at a solemn Feast where in a religious dance they were slaine for the rich garments and Iewels they ware by the Spaniards Cortes came in good time for the reliefe of his men and Mutezuma caused the Mexicans to bridle their rage which presently was renued and when Mutezuma was againe by his Guardians the Spaniards caused to speake to the people a blow of a stone on his temple wounded him whereof three dayes after he died Cortes had some thousands of the Tlaxoltecas to help him but was driuen to fly from Mexico with all his Spaniards and Indians which he did closely in the night but yet an all-arme was raised and the bridges being broken much slaughter of his people was made by the Mexicans and all his treasure in manner lost They pursued after him also and had two hundred thousand in the field when it was Cortes his good hap to slay the Standard-bearer whereupon the Indians forsooke the field This battell was fought at Otumpan At Tlazcallan he and his were kindly entertained they had prepared before 50000. men to goe to Mexico for his helpe and now they promised him all offices of loyaltie and seruice With their helpe he subdued Tepeacac and built certaine Brigandines and Frigats which were carried many leagues on the backs of those Indians and there fastned and finished without which he could neuer haue wonne Mexico In Tezcuco certaine Spaniards had been taken sacrificed and eaten which Cortes now reuenged on them Eight thousand men had carried the loose pieces and Timber of this Nauie guarded with twenty thousand Tlaxcalans and a thousand Tamemez or Porters which carried victuals attending They calked them with Towe and for want of Tallow and Oyle they vsed Mans Grease of such as had been slaine in the Warres For so the Indians vsed to take out the Grease of their Sacrifices Cortes had here nine hundred Spaniards of which fourescore and sixe were horsemen three cast Pieces of iron fifteene small Peeces of Brasse and a thousand weight of Powder and 100000 Indian Souldiers on his side Hee made a fluce or trench aboue twelue foot broad and two fathome deepe halfe a league long in which forty thousand men wrought fifty dayes He lanched his Vessels and soone ouercame all the Canoas of the Lake or which were reckoned in all fiue thousand The Spaniards brake the Conduits of sweet water wherewith the Citie was wont to be serued Quabutimoc now the new King of Mexico receiuing incouragement from the diuellish Oracle caused to breake downe the Bridges and to exercise whatsoeuer wit or strength could doe in defence of his City somtimes conquering sometimes as is the doubtfull chance of warre conquered Cortes had in Tezcuco ordained a new King a Christian Indian of the royall bloud who much assisted him in this siege The Spaniards being Lords of the Lake and of the Causeys by helpe of their Galliots and Ordnance they fiered a great part of the Citie One day the Mexicans had gotten some aduantage and thereupon celebrated a Feast of Victory The Priests went vp into the Towers of Tlalelulco their chiefe Temple and made there perfumes of sweet Gummes in token of victory and sacrificed forty Spaniards which they had taken captiues opening their breasts and plucking out their hearts sprinkling their bloud in the Aire their fellowes looking on and not able to reuenge it They slew likewise many Indians and foure Spaniards of Aluarado's company whom they are in the open sight of the Armie The Mexicans danced dranke themselues drunke made bonefires strucke vp their Drummes and made all solemne expressings of ioy Dread Disdaine and all the Furies that Passion or Compassion could coniure vp had now filled the Spaniards hearts and their Indian partakers and Cortes that hitherto had hoped to reserue some part of the Citie now did the vtmost that Rage and Reuenge could effect helped no lesse within with Famine and Pestilence then with Sword and Fire without At last Mexico is razed the Earth and Water sharing betwixt them what Fire had left and all which had sometime challenged a lofty inheritance in the Ayre Their King also was taken all that mighty State subuerted And as the Mexicans before had prophecied That the Tlaxantleca's should againe build the Citie if conquered for them if conquerors for the Spaniards It was re-builded with a hundred thousand houses fairer and stronger then before The siege lasted three moneths and had therein two hundred thousand Indians nine hundred Spaniards fourescore Horses seuenteene Peeces of Ordinance thirteene Galliots and sixe thousand Canoas Fifty Spaniards were slaine and sixe Horses Of the Mexicans a hundred thousand besides those which died of hunger and Pestilence This was effected Anno 1521. on the thirteenth day of August which for that cause is kept festiuall euery yeere For the Description of the Country wherein Mexico is situate Cortes in his second Narration to the Emperour saith it is enuironed with hils He telleth of some hils also in his iourney wherein diuers of his people died with cold in the middest is a plaine of 70. leagues compasse and therein two lakes which extend the circuit of fifty leagues the one salt which ebbeth and floweth an argument for Patritius his opinion that saltnesse is a chiefe cause of that vicissitude of ebbing and flowing in the Ocean the other fresh When the Water of the salt Lake increaseth it runneth like a violent streame into the fresh Lake which when it increaseth is repaired againe by the like issue of this into the former Nunno di Gusman hath written his expedition into Mechoacan and other Countries of New-Spaine 1530. subduing and taking possession for the Emperour Hee found some of them Sodomites others Sacrificers of mens flesh and some closely practising this butcherie after they had professed themselues Christians none of them which durst looke a Horse in the face but were afraid that that Beast
Voyages relateth It is time for vs to passe beyond the Darien Straits vnto that other great Chersonesus or Peruvian AMERICA RELATIONS OF THE DISCOVERIES REGIONS AND RELIGIONS OF THE NEW WORLD OF CVMANA GVIANA BRASILL CHICA CHILI PERV AND OTHER REGIONS OF AMERICA PERWIANA AND OF their Religions THE NINTH BOOKE CHAP. I. Of the Southerne America and of the Countries on the Sea-coast betwixt Dariene and Cumana §. I. Of the great Riuers in these parts and of Dariene THis Peninsula of the New World extending it selfe into the South is in forme somewhat like to Africa and both to some huge Pyramis In this the Basis or ground is the Northerly part called Terra Fuma from whence it lesseneth it selfe by degrees as it draweth neerer the Magellan Straits where the top of this Spire may fitly bee placed On the East side it is washed with the North Ocean as it is termed On the West with that of the South called also the Peaceable It is supposed to haue sixteene thousand miles in compasse foure thousand in length the breadth is vnequall The Easterne part thereof betweene the Riuers Maragnon and Plata is challenged by the Portugals the rest by the Spaniard From the North to the South are ledges of Mountaines the tops whereof are said to be higher then that Birds will visit the bottomes yeeld the greatest Riuers in the World and which most enrich the Oceans store-house Orenoque Maragnon and Plata seeme to be the Indian Triumuiri Generals of those Riuer-Armies and Neptunes great Collectors of his watery tributes Orenoque for ships is nauigable a thousand miles for lesse Vessels two thousand in some places twentie miles broad in some thirtie Berreo affirmed to Sir Walter Raleigh That a hundred Riuers fell into it marching vnder his name and colours the least as bigge as Rio Grande one of the greatest Riuers or America It extendeth two thousand miles East and West and commandeth eight hundred miles North and South Plata taking vp all the streames in his way is so full swolne with his increased store that he seemeth rather with bigge lookes to bid defiance to the Ocean then to acknowledge homage opening his mouth fortie leagues wide as if he would deuoure the same and with his vomited abundance maketh the salt waters to recoyle following fresh in this pursuit till in salt sweates at last he melteth himselfe in the Combate Maragnon is farre greater whose water hauing furrowed a Channell of sixe thousand miles in the length of his winding passage couereth threescore and ten leagues in breadth and hideth his Bankes on both sides from him which sayleth in the middest of his proud Current making simple eyes beleeue that the Heauens alway descend to kisse and embrace his waues And sure our more-straitned world would so far be accessary to his aspiring as to style him with the royall title of Sea and not debase his greatnesse with the meaner name of a Riuer Giraua some what otherwise writeth of these Riuers that Plata called by the Indians Paranaguaeu as one should say a Riuer like a Sea is twenty fiue leagues in the mouth placed by him in thirty three degrees of Southerly latitude encreasing in the same time and manner as Nilus Maragnon hee saith is in the entrance fiue leagues and is not the same with Orellana so called of Francis Orella the the first Spaniard that sayled in it and Amazones of the fabulous reports as Giraua termeth them of such women there seene which hee sayth hath aboue fifty leagues of breadth in the mouth and is the greatest Riuer of the World called by some the fresh Sea running aboue fifteene hundred leagues vnder the Aequinoctiall Thus much Hee though lesse then others yet more then can bee paraleld in any other streames This Southerne halfe of America hath also at the Magellane Straits contracted and as it were shrunke in it selfe refusing to be extended further in so cold a Climate The manifold riches of Metals Beasts and other things in the beginning of the former Booke haue been declared and in this as occasion moueth shall bee further manifested The Men are the worst part as being in the greatest parts thereof inhumane and brutish The Spanish Townes in this great tract and their Founders are set downe by Pedro de Cieza Herera and others I rather intend Indian Superstitions then Spanish plantations in this part of my Pilgrimage Of the Townes of Nombre de Dios seuenteene leagues from Panama the one on the North Sea the other on the South and of Dariene wee last tooke our leaues as vncertaine whether to make them Mexican or Peruvian being borderers and set in the Confines betwixt both The moorish soyle muddie water and grosse Ayre conspire with the heauenly Bodies to make Dariene vnwholesome the myrie streame runneth or creepeth rather very slowly the water but sprinkled on the house-floore engendreth Toades and Wormes They haue in this Prouince of Dariene store of Crocodiles one of which kinde Cieza saith was found fine and twentie foot long Swine without tailes Cats with great tailes Beasts clouen-footed like Kine otherwise resembling Mules sauing their spacious eares and a trunke or snowt like an Elephant there are Leopards Lyons Tygres On the right and left hand of Dariene are found twenty Riuers which yeeld Gold The Men are of good stature thinne haired the Women weare Rings on their eares and noses with quaint ornaments on their lips The Lords marry as many Wiues as them listeth other men one or two They forsake change and sell their Wiues at pleasure They haue publike Stewes of women and of men also in many places without any discredit yea this priuiledgeth them from following the warres The yong Girles hauing conceiued eate certain herbs to cause abortion Their Lords and Priests consult of warres after they haue drunke the smoke of a certaine herbe The Women follow their husbands to the warres and know how to vse a Bow They all paint themselues in the warres They neede no Head-pieces for their heads are so hard that they will breake a Sword being smitten thereon Wounds receiued in warre are the badges of honour whereof they glory much and thereby enioy some Franchises They brand their prisoners and pull out one of their teeth before They will sell their children are excellent Swimmers both Men and Women accustoming themselues twice or thrice a day thereunto Their Priests are their Physicians and Masters of Ceremonies for which cause and because they haue conference with the Deuill they are much esteemed They haue no Temples nor Houses of deuotion The Deuill they honour much which in terrible shapes doth sometimes appeare vnto them as I saith Cieza haue heard some of them say They beleeue that there is one God in heauen to wit the Sunne and that the Moone is his wife and therefore worship these two Planets They worship the Deuill also and paint him in such
forme as he appeareth to them which is of diuers sorts They offer Bread Smoke Fruits and Flowres with great deuotion Any one may cut off his arme which stealeth Mais Enciso with his Armie of Spaniards seeking to subdue these parts vsed a Spanish tricke telling the Indians That hee sought their conuersion to the Faith and therefore discoursed of One God Creator of all things and of Baptisme and after other things of this nature lesse to his purpose he told them That the Pope is the Vicar of Christ in all the world with absolues power ouer mens Soules and Religions and that hee had giuen those Countries to the most mightie King of Spaine his Master and hee was now come to take possession and to demand gold for tribute The Indians answered That they liked well what he had spoken of one God but for their Religion they would not dispute of it or leaue it And for the Pope he should be liberall of his owne neither seemed it that their King was mightie but poore that sent thus a begging But what words could not their Swords effected with the destruction of the Indians §. II. Of Vraba Carthagena and the Superstitions of Dabaiba THe soyle of Vraba is so fatned with a streame therein that in eight and twentie dayes the seeds of Cucumbers Melons and Gourds will ripen their Fruits There is a Tree in those Countries whose leaues with the bare touch cause great blisters the sauour of the wood is poyson and cannot be carried without danger of lift except by the helpe of another herbe which is an Antidote to this venomous Tree King Abibeiba had Palace in a Tree by reason of the moorish situation and often inundation of his Land Vasques could not get him downe till he began to cut the Tree and then the poore King came downe and bought his freedome at the Spaniards price Carthagena was so called for some resemblance in the situation to a Citie in Spaine of that name Sir Francis Drake tooke it The Indians thereabout vsed poisoned Arrowes the women warre as well as the men Enciso took one who with her owne hands had killed eight and twenty Christians They did eate the Enemies which they killed They vsed to put in their Sepulchres gold feathers and other riches Betweene Carthagena and Martha runneth a swift Riuer which maketh the Sea-water to giue place and they which passe by may in the Sea take in of this water fresh It is called of the Inhabitants Dabaiba the Spaniards haue named it Pio Grande and the Riuer of Saint Iohn it passeth with a Northerne discouerie into the Gulfe of Viaba before mentioned They which dwell on this Riuer obserue an Idoll of great note called by the name of the Riuer Dabaiba whereto the King at certaine times of the yeere sends slaues to be sacrificed from remote Countries from whence also is great resort of Pilgrims They kill the slaues before their God and after burne them supposing that odour acceptable to their Idoll as Taper-lights and Frankincense saith Martyr is to our Saints Through the displeasure of that angry God they said that all the Riuers and Fountaines had once failed and the greatest part of men perished with famine Their Kings in remembrance hereof haue their Priests at home and Chappels which are swept euery day and kept with a religious neatnesse When the King thinketh to obtaine of the Idoll Sunne-shine or Raine or the like he with his Priests gets vp into a Pulpit standing in the Chappell purposing not to depart thence till his suit be granted They vrge their God therefore with vehement prayers and cruell fasting the people meane-while macerating themselues also with fasting in foure dayes space not eating nor drinking except on the fourth day onely a little broth The Spaniards asking what God they worshipped thus they answered The Creator of the Heauens Sunne Moone and all inuisible things from whom all good things proceed And they say Dabaiba was the Mother of that Creator They call them to their Deuotions with certaine Trumpets and Bels of gold The Bels had clappers like in forme to ours made of the bones of Fishes and yeelding a pleasing sound as they reported which no doubt was a pleasing sound and musicke to the Spaniards couetous hearts howsoeuer it agreeth with the nature of that metall to ring in the eares One of them say they weighed sixe hundred Pensa Their Priests were enioyned chastitie which vow if they violated they were either stoned or burned Other men also in the time of that fast likewise contained themselues from those carnall pleasures They haue an imagination of the soule but know not what substance or name to ascribe vnto it to which yet they beleeued was assigned futured ioyes or woes according to their demerits pointing vp to Heauen and downe to the Center when they spake thereof Many of their Wiues for they might haue many followed the Sepulchres of their husbands They allow not marriage with the Sister of which they haue a riduculous conceit of the Spot which they account a Man in the Moone that for this Incest was thither confined to the torments of cold and moysture in that Moons-prison They leaue trenches on their Sepulchres in which they yeerely powre Mays and some of their Wine to the profit as they thinke of the Ghosts If a Mother die while she giueth sucke the poore nursling must not bee Orphan but bee interred with her being put there to her brest and buried aliue They imagined that the Soules of their great men and their familiars were immortall but not others and therefore such of their seruants and friends as would not be buried with them they thought should lose that priuiuiledge of Immortalitie and the delights of those pleasant places where was eating drinking dancing and the former delicacies of their former liues They renue the funerall pomps of these great men yeerely assembling thither with plentie of Wine and meats and there watch all night especially the women singing drerie lamentations with Inuectiues against his Enemies if he dyed in the warres yea cutting the Image of his Enemy in pieces in reuenge of their slaine Lord This done they fall to drinking of Mays Wine till they be weary if not drunken Yet after this they resume their Songs to his commendation with many dances and adorations When day appeareth they put the Image of the deceased into a great Canoa a Boat of one Tree capcable of threescore Oares filled with drinkes herbes and such things as in his life he had loued which some carrie vpon their shoulders in Procession about the Court and set it downe there againe and burne it with all the contents After which the women filled with Wine and emptied of all modestie with loose haire secrets not secret and varietie of Bacchanal gestures sometimes goe somtimes fall somtimes shake the weapons of the men and conclude with beastly sleeping on the ground The young men
Abdurrahman and his Army was a 100000. Hiagi and he made 81. fights in 100. dayes Abdurrahman fled and was taken at Sahan which Zentil hearing besieged Sahan and freed him Hee assembled sixty thousand men against whom went Iezid and ouercame them Abdulmelic Anno 86. made Walid partner of the league and dyed after hee had raigned one and twentie yeeres and fifteene dayes Walid his Sonne prayed for him He was very couetous and called Sweat-stone Hee dreamed that he had pissed foure times in the chiefe Temple consulting with Said Sonne of Musabbib he told him that foure of his children should reigne which came to passe in Walid Suleiman Iezid and Hisiam His Seale was inscribed I beleeue in God our Sauiour In his time Simon Syrus was the Iacobite Patriarke of Alexandria to whom the Indians sent to ordaine them a Bishop and Priests which he refused till the Gouernour of Egypt commanded him and then the Legate went to another which did it whence arose great stirres After him was Alexander which endured hard times Abdulaziz brother of Abdulmelic the Gouernour of Egypt exacted tribute of the Monkes of each a piece of Gold This was the first tribute exacted of them After his time Asama was more cruell killing and spoyling the people and branding the Monkes with an Iron Ring in their hands which round marke they which wanted had their hand cut off of whom was a number innumerable And whosoeuer trauelled without a Passe should pay ten pieces of Gold or be slaine which was exacted of a woman whose Passe was in her Sonnes hand whom as hee drunke of the Riuer a Crocodile carried away and she neuerthelesse was forced to sell her clothes and begge that payment But Asama was taken and died by torment of his iron coller and woodden fetters in the way at the command of Omar the Chalif But the persecution of Christians continued till the Raigne of Hisiam He writ for their liberty in their Rites and Priuiledges Iezid his Predecessor had razed their Crosses and Temples and commended them to Abdalla whom he sent Gouernour But he when he came into Egypt exceedeed his Predecessors doubled the tribute and caused their persons and beasts to bee numbred and branded the Christians with the figure of a Lion cutting off euery mans hand which was found without it Hisiam therefore deposed him and sent him into Africa where he did likewise whereupon the people rebelled and slue his Sonne whose heart and inwards they threw at the fathers head Walid was the thirteenth Chalifa sixth of the house of Ommia Sonne of Abdulmelic Sonne of Merwan Hee was surnamed Abulabbas Hee was created Chalifa on the day of his Fathers death In his time were atchieued great victories His brother Muslimas inuaded the Romans and tooke many captiues Catibas Sonne of Muslimas oppugned the Land of Baikend and Mauranahar besieged Bochara wonne Sogda Fargan and Bagras And when the Turkes were assembled the Muslims assaulted and tooke their chiefe City and got great wealth Catibas Sonne of Muslima made peace with the King of Chouarazma and hee built therein a Cathedrall Temple and set a Pulpit therein thence preaching on the Friday and prayed with the Muslims he burned also his Idols they were fastned with nailes of Gold weighing fifty thousand drammes Their tribute imposed was two thousand pieces of Gold yeerely After this hee went to Samarcand and Tooke it Muhammed Sonne of Casim conquered India and the Land of Sind or Indus and slue the King Daehar The same yeere Walid commanded the Temple of Damascus to bee builded and the Church of the Christians consecrated to Saint Iohn to be pulled downe He offered for the same forty thousand pieces of Gold which they refused and therefore hee destroyed it and gaue them nothing Twelue thousand Masons were employed in that building but Walid died before it was finished Foure hundred Chists each contayning fourteene thousand pieces of gold were bestowed thereon In it were sixe hundred golden chaines of Lampes the brightnesse whereof hindred men from praying which after were coloured with smoke and remayned to the time of Omar Sonne of Abdulaziz who put them in the Treasury and hanged iron chaines in their steed Corrah Sonne of Sieric was made Gouernour of Egypt in the ninetieth yeere a man manifestly impious which entred the Cathedrall Temple of Mithra with Ruffians and Gamesters and with them sate in the Chancell in time of Prayers Anno 93. Taric conquered Spaine and Toledo and brought to Walid the Table of Salomon Sonne of Dauid made of Gold and Siluer hauing three borders or rowes of Pearles Anno 94. a great Earthquake lasted forty dayes at Antiochia and ruined the Citie The same yeere dyed Zainulabidin Sonne of Husein Sonne of Ali Sonne of Abutalib which was Religious and Deuout and performed a taske of a thousand kneelings euery day for which cause he was called the Prayer He left children Zeid and Muhammed Abugiafar of happy memory Anno 95. dyed Hagiagi which is said to haue slaine 120000. men besides those which hee slue in warres and fifty thousand dyed in his Prisons besides thirty thousand women Eightie thousand he slue when he was full But his Dominion passed as if it had not beene and happy is he which doth good The same yeere Walid cast out of Damascus Ali Sonne of Abdalla Sonne of Abbas and commanded him to reside at Homaim where hee got aboue twenty Sonnes Anno 93. dyed Corrah Sonne of Sieric Gouernour of Egypt which builded at Misra the olde Temple Walid also dyed hauing raigned nine yeeres and eight moneths He married and put away many wiues hee is said to haue had sixty three and spent much on women and buildings He built the Temple of the Prophet and the Mansions adioyning and Omar the Gouernour of Medina was set ouer it Hee first built a Hospitall for sicke and strangers His Seale O Walid thou shalt dye and giue an account A.M. 6206. and seuenty nine dayes past Suleiman his brother was made Chalif the same day Catibas Gouernour of Chorasan inuited the Chorasans to depose him which refused and slue him Suleiman placed Iezid Sonne of Mahleb which obtained many victories tooke Taberistan and Giorgian slaying and spoyling innumerable Infidels and imposing tribute on the rest Suleiman sent his brother Muslima against the Romans which lay before Constantinople a Seed time and Haruest Asamas writ that the measure of Nilus at Hulwan was falne whereupon hee commanded that measure to be builded in the Iland betwixt the Riuers of Fustata and Gijza Anno 97. which still remayneth Anno 98. Muslima conquered the City Sacaliba and made himselfe Gouernour of it Suleiman builded Ramla and made Iob his Sonne partner of the league and he dying Omar Sonne of Abdulaziz Suleiman died Anno 99. and Omar prayed for him He was tall leane slender halting many-wiued and a Glutton euery day eating about a hundred pounds Hee was poysoned by procurement
extant yea still obserued for antiquities sake in the great Church of Toledo This Musa or Muza is reckoned the first Arabian Gouernour in Spaine who beeing reuoked by Walid Abdulazis Sonne of Musa was by his Father left to gouerne Spaine who married the wife of Rodericus the Spanish King and by her perswasion crowned himselfe King whereupon the Arabs killed him at his Prayers and Ayub succeeded in the Gouernment who remoued the Courts from Siuill to Corduba But the Chalipha eiected him and placed Alabor who seuerely exacted on the first conquerours of Spaine Musa hauing by Tarrics complaints incurred disgrace and dying of griefe that what spoyles those spunges had sucked he squeised out of them made them to vomit again their sweet morsels Zama succeeded three yeeres in the Spanish Gouernment who made a Booke of the Reuenues of Spaine and of Gallia Narbonensis also For hee passed into France placed a Garrison at Narbona besieged Tolouse but by Eudo was slaine and his Arabs chased which chose Abderramen for their Leader Whiles they had feasted themselues with hopes of Gotike Gaule and conquered it in manner from the Pirenaean hils to the Alpes Pelagius Ximenes and others laid hold of such places as fitted their purposes in Spaine and beganne pettie Kingdomes therein since vnited into one Souereigntie after many ages Asam Son of Melic succeeded in Spaine who imposed the fifts on all conquered places for the Chalifas treasury and the tenths of such as yeelded He being slaine Ambiza succeeded Anno Hegira 103. and made many inrodes into France imposing to that purpose double tributes on the Christians Iahya ruled two yeeres and halfe and after him Odoyfa who did little worthy memory Next was sent Yemen Anno Heg. 111. which ruled but fiue moneths and Autuman succeeded foure moneths and then followed Alhaytam tenne moneths who after many tortures and derisions dyed in Prison and Mahomet Abenabdalla ruled two moneths to whom succeeded Abderramen He entred France as farre as Rhodanus at Arles slue many committed great spoyles in Poitiers and Xantonge Eudo Duke of Aquitaine which some say had brought in the Saracen and on the day of battell forsooke them ioyning with Charles Martell against them assisted with the Germans ouerthrew them some say aboue three hundred thousand of them were slaine with that their Generall An. H. 116. Abdelmelic succeeded foure yeeres and then Ocha or Ancupa An. 119. and after him Abdelmelic againe was replenished Spaine out of Africa after much depopulations but hee being slaine in ciuill combustions Abulcatar was sent Gouernour An. 125. who was slaine by Zimael and Toban was placed in his roome Eudo being dead his Sonnes dispossessed by the French of their Inheritance called the Saracens againe into Gaule who spoyled the whole Countrey betwixt the Pyrenees and the Riuer Loire Languedoc and Prouence seised also on Auignon but were againe chased by Charles Martell An. H. 128. Thoaba ruled Spaine one yeere Iuseph succeeded At this time the Ommian Race was dispossessed of the Chalifate and that of Abbas succeeded Abderramen of the Ommian Family possessed himselfe of Spaine after which it was separated from the Asian Chalifate and became a Kingdome and these Ommians called themselues Emirelmumenim This was An. H. 142. In the yeere 149. he began the Mezquit at Corduba the chiefe of all others in his Dominion An. 171. hee dyed and was buried at Corduba He left eleuen Sons and nine Daughters Isen the eldest succeeded and warred on his brother Zulema whom he put to flight He tooke Toledo Zulema sold all his challenge in Spaine and passed the Sea to Barbary as did Abdalla also another brother Isen An. 177. sent Abdelmelic with a great Army into France which spoyled and subdued Narbone with so great a part of the Countrey that Isen perfected with the fifths of those spoyles the Temple of Corduba which his Father had begun The Christians also of Narbone carried earth thither from their owne Countrey He built the bridge at Corduba He was munificent and iust He prospered in France warred with Alfonsus King of Gallicia and hauing reigned seuen yeeres seuen moneths and seuen dayes dyed leauing his Kingdome to his Sonne Alhacam A. 179. He was wise and fortunate had seuen thousand Slaues for his Guard three thousand Renegadoes and two thousand Eunuchs he personally iudged poore mens causes and was liberall in almes He ouercame in battell Zulema and Abdalla his Vncles slue one and subiected the other He dyed An. 206. leauing nineteene Sons and one and twenty Daughters Abderramen his Sonne succeeded He recouered the Townes which in late Schismes the Christians had gotten An. 229. fifty ships and fifty foure Gallies arriued at Lisbone The next yeere a greater number of ships came and besieged Siuill and often fought with the Arabs and spoyled their Dominions with fire and sword carrying away euery thing of value and killing very many Abderramen had a great battell with them but neither part preuayled An. 236. Corduba was paued and water brought thither in pipes of lead Abderramen dyed An. 238. leauing fiue and forty Sonnes and two and forty Daughters Mahomet his Sonne succeeded who much preuayled against the Christians slue many and An. 245. tooke Toledo by composition Sixty Norman ships that yeere burned Gelzirat Alhadia and the Mezquits and thence proceeded into Africa and there committed many spoyles after which they returned and wintred in Spaine and in the Spring wen home An. 273. Mahomet dyed and left thirty foure Sonnes and twenty Daughters of which Almundir succeeded and dying two yeeres after Abdalla his brother reigned fiue and twenty yeeres After his death Abderramen Sonne of Mahomet Sonne of Abdalla succeeded An. 300. and reigned fifty yeeres He called himselfe Almunacer Ledinella that is Defender of the Law of God and Amiramomeni or King of the beleuers Hee was mightie tooke Septa in Africa adorned the Mezquit of Corduba and many others His Sonne Alhacam succeeded An. 350. whom they surnamed Almuztacarbille that is Defending himselfe with God An. 366. Isen his Sonne succeeded He entituled himselfe Almuhayatbille Labouring with God He being vnder eleuen yeeres of age Mahomet Ibne Abenhamir was made Protector or Regent in their stile Alhagib or Viceroy which ruled all and of his fortunate victories was called Almanzor two and fiftie times he led armies against the Christians His Sonne Abdelmelic succeded in his Office An. 393. and held it six yeeres and nine moneths The King was little more then titular After him Abderramen his brother who forced Isen to nominate him his Successor and was soone after slaine Then followed diuisions in the State Isen being shut vp and reported dead by Mahomet Almahadi which domineered The Earle Sancius helped the aduerse faction of Zuleman and slue of Almahadis part 36000. Neither could Isen bee accepted whom Almahadi now brought forth but Zuleman entred Corduba and
to Metius going from the Tirrhene to Egypt Quostibi currenâ— praeceps ferat Adriamores a See Panciroll to 2. c. 1. ad eum Salmath Causaub ad Athen . l. 3. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 figura est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Brerewoods Enquiry C. 14. c Doctor Hils Reason 5. d Cairo , Fesie Marocco e Lib. 9. c. vlt. f See the Preface to Brerewoods Booke Luke 16.36 * Mare Pacificum del Sur. Ortel Theat a Nomen quasi nouimen Fest b Ioseph Acosta de procuranda Indoram salute hist Indiae lib 1. 2. Boter Relationi part 1. lib 4. Gomara hist gen c c Hak. tom 3. Epist. Dedicat. Maginus Ger. Mer. de fabrica mundi b Munst Cosm lib. 5. c Am. Vesp Nau. Maff. hist Ind. lib. 2. d Hakl tom 3. pag. 7. e Acost. histor Ind. lib. 1. c. 14. f Pet. Mart. Dec. 1. lib 1. g Hakluyt vbi sup. h Arist. de coelo mundo i Maginus saith it was called India because it was discouered at the same time that India was found by the Portugals or else for the likenes of manners in the Indians k Ptol. Strabo Plutarch and some others mention the Ethiopians beyond the Tropike of Cancer and Taprobana Agisimba c. It seemeth that their meaning was it was very scarcely inhabited of few and small Nations Experience hath found no place more peopled l Virg. Cui Aras statuit in suo Hypercritico Scalig. Georg. lib. 1. m Cicer. somn Scipionis Macrob. insom n Vid. Plutar. de plac Ph los o Arist. 2. Meta. cap. 5. Plin l 2 c. 68. p Chrysost hom 14. 17. in Heb. Theod. q Theophilact in cap. 8. ad Heb. f Lact. l. 3. c. 24. Institutionum g Christianorum omnium facundiss. est Lactant. Viues de trad dis. lib. 3. a Aug to 1 decem Categoriae b Aug. de Ciuit. Dei l. 16. c. 11. c Viues in eundem d Lib. 7. c. vlt. e Aventinus Annal. Boi l. 3. f Acost Sixt. Senens Bibliot lib. 5. annot 3. g Perioeci are those which dwell in the same paralels but contrarie Meridians Anticthones which dwell in the opposite Zone or plage of the world The Perioeci haue Summer and Winter but not day and night alike The Antaeci haue day and night alike but not the seasons of the yeere The Antipodes differ in both h That all the world is habitable see the Discourse of George Best in a Preface to the Northwest Discoueries of M. Frobisher and inserted Hak. Voyag to 3. page 48. Raines fall about and afternoone euery day when the Sun is ouer their heads Causes of temperature betwixt the Tropikes Similitudes a Quodque die Solis violento inanduit aestu Humida Nox reficit paribusque refrigerathoris Honterus b D. Fletcher Description of Russia c Acosta l. 3. c. 6. d Pet. Martyr Dec. 3. lib. 6. Sir Humf Gilbert Discou Master George Best e Linschot lib. 1. f Ios. Acostae Natur. and Moral History of the Indies lib. 3. cap. 6. a This Master George Barkley a Merchant which liued long in Liuonia told me of his owne sight b See infra c. 3. c Lambert Peramb of Kent Wealth without health . Health without wealth Health and wealth d Acosta l. 4. c. 2. Arist. . Eth. l. 5. e Phil. de Gen. Mundi lib. 5. Euseb de Praep. Euang. l. 8. c 9. f Apoc. 3.18 Psal. 12.6 g Bart. de las Casas Hispan Crudesit Vrban Calueto Hier. Benzo lib. 3. cap. 21. h Aurea sunt vere nunc secula c. Ouid. First was an Age of Gold then golden goodnesse abounded Last is an Age for gold and now gold only triumpheth Abr. France Amintes h Ouiedo lib. 6. cay. 8. i Acosta l. 4 c. 7. Ga c de la Vâ—ga speakes of 25. millions of Pezos only out of Peru in one Fleet and that Paulo de Laguna President of the Councell of the Indies affirmed that all the Kings of Spaine from Pelagius hitherto had not so much money as Philip the second alone And de solo vn cerro de los del Peru bantraydo a Espanna hasta Anno 1602. 200. millions of Pezos registered aboue a hundred not registred lib. 1. cap. 7. part 2. k Plin l. 23. c. 6. l Pretiosa pericula fodit Boet. de Consol Speciosa supplicia Cipr. m Acosta Ouiedo Herrera c. n Pet. Mart. Dec. 1. lib. 10. o Abac. 2.6 p 1. Tim. 6.3 q Hist Gen. Ind. l. 6. c. 8. a Ouid. l. 5. c. 3. b See hereof Ouiedo vbi sup. c Pliny sayth but not truly that siluer is neuer found pure d I haue seene some in al proportion resembling Plants with leaues spread and diuided a stalk descending as if it promised a flowre much like the Ribwort The like reporteth Munst Cosmog l. 1. c. 9. e See of these labours Plin. l. 33. c. 6. more in Acosta l. 4. f A Stade is the height of a man g Acosta l. 4. c. 10. h Plin. vbi sup. i Lemnius de occult is naturae miraculis lib. 3. cap. vlt. k Acosta saith that if it meete with no solid body where it may congeale it ascends till the Ayre by cooling the fume causeth it to fall in Quick-siluer . l Rom. 3.13 Psal. 140 3. m Some thinke that Quick-siluer cannot quite be ki led n De saliue hominis mirabili effectu vide Lemmium de occult Nat. l. 2. c. 44. o Acost l. 4. c. 12. 13. p Vid. Ian. Dous praecid ad Arbit l. 3. c. 9. Plin l. 36 c 26 Isid b. 16 c 15. Policrat l. 4 c. 5. Pancirol de perdit q Dio. hist l. 57. in relating this storie giues another reason of his death See of the late peopling America my Pilgri l. 1. c 1. 2. a Humf. Gilbert Discou Ortei Theat in Charta N Orbis Hak in Epist Ded â—â— 1. Io. 3 Sen. Medea Act. 2. Pancirol. Sal de Inuent b Thule is by Mercator and others interpreted Iland by Ortelius Tile marke in Norway c Botero part 1. lib. 4. d Plato's Discourse hereof in his Timaeus is englished by R. Eden in the Preamble of the Decads Vid. Ram. praef ad vol. 3. e Tertul. de Pal. in Apologet. Aoost. l. 1. c. 22. Plut. de facie in orbe Lunae f Ouied. Gen. hist l. 2. c. 3. g Ortel in Chartar. 6. h Antonius Panorm i Amalphis in Lucania in the Kingdome of Naples k F. Gom. hist gen cap. 9. l Acts 27.20 . Virg. Aeneid 1. Seneca vbi sup. m Of the supposed former Discoueries of the new world read Ortel Theaâ— Charta 6. n D. Powell history of Cambria p. 127 A. D 1170. o Dau. Ingram Hak cadit. 1. to 3 . Meredithan Rise Guiynâ— Owen make mention of 〈◊〉 this Owens nauigation See Hak. tom 3. p. 1. p A. S. Andrews Eâ—â—nâ—enr Cumana which Herera denieth A Crosse ten foot long to which