to haue a diuining facultie and obserued the voyces of children playing in the Temples and speaking at aduenture as Oracles because Isis seeking after Osiris had enquired of children They interpret Astronomically the Dog-starre to belong to Isis the Beare to Typhon Orion to Horus The Inhabitants of Thebais acknowledged nothing for God which was mortall but worshipped Gneph which they said had neither beginning nor ending So many are the interpretations in their mysticall Theologie that Truth must needes bee absent which is but One and these may rather seeme subtile fetches of their Priests to gull the people then the true intents of their first authors of Idolatrie Because Typhon was of red colour they consecrated red Bulls in which yet there might not be one haire blacke or white They esteemed it not a sacrifice acceptable to the gods but contrarie as which had receiued the soules of wicked men and therefore they cursed the head of the sacrifice which they hurled into the Riuer and since haue vsed to sell to strangers The Deuill happily would teach them an apish imitation of that sacrifice of the red Cow Num. 19. The Priests abhorre the Sea as wherein Nilus dyeth and salt is forbidden them which they call Typhons spittle In Sai in the Porch of Mineruaes Temple was pictured an Infant an old Man a Hawke a Fish and a Sea-horse The mysterie was O yee that are borne and dye God hateth shamelesse persons The Hawke signified God the Fish Hatred the Sea-horse Impudencie By their Osiris and Typhon they signified the good and euill whereof wee haue not onely vicissitudes but mixtures in all these earthly things And heere Plutarch is large in shewing the opinion of these wise-men which when they saw so much euill and knew withall that good could not bee the cause of euill they imagined two beginnings one whereof they called God the other Diuell the good Orimazes the bad Arimanius This opinion is fathered on Zoroastres Betwixt those two was Mithres whom the Persians called a Mediator So the Chadaeans had among the Planets two good two bad three of middle disposition The Grecians their Iupiter and Dis and Harmonia begotten of Venus and Mercurie Empedocles called the one Friendship the other Discord the Pythagoreans call the Good One bounded abiding right square c. The other Duplicitie infinite moued crooked long c. Anaxagoras the Minde and Infinitenesse Aristotle Forme and Priuation Plato the Same and Another Hence appeareth how true it is that the Naturall men perceiue not the things of God nor can know them and hence grew the Manichaean Heresie All the deformitie and defect of things Plutarch ascribeth to Typhon whom they also called Seth Bebon and Smy saith Pignorius that which is good to Osiris and Isis to this the matter to him the forme In the Towne of Idithya they burned liuing Men whom they called Typhonians scattering their ashes and bringing them to nothing This was openly done in Dog-dayes But when they sacrificed any of their sacred Beasts it was done closely and at vncertaine times According to which custome Achilles Statius frameth his Historie of Leucippe sacrificed by Aegyptian Robbers and Pirats for expiation of their villanies and protection against their enemies the Rites whereof were after some Hymnes sung by the Priest to kill and rippe her and hauing viewed and tasted the liuer to burie her He that would furthor be acquainted with these Mysteries let him resort to Eusebius and Plutarch Iamblichus hath written a large Treatise De Mysterijs where the more curious Reader may further satisfie himselfe He mustereth in their rankes and order first the Gods then Arch-angels next Angels then Daemones after them Heroes Principalities and Soules in their subordinate Orders Marcilius Ficinus doth thus dispose his Egyptian Mysteries or Mysticall opinions of God The first in order is Vnum Super Eus. The second Vnum Ens or Vâ—itas Entis The third Intellectus Intelligibilis Prima Icthon The fourth Emoph the Captayne of the heauenly Deities The fift Captayne of the workmen of the World the vnderstanding of the soule of the World called Amun Phtha Vulcan Osiris But these wayes are too rough cragged and thornie for a dainty Traueller they that will I may reade Iamblichus Proclus Porphyrius translated by Marsilius Eicinus Caelius Calcagninia hath also written a large Treatise of these Egyptian Mysteries Much may the Reader gather also out of Doctor Rainolds his learned Treatise De Romanae Ecclesiae Idolatria §. II. Of HERMES TRISMEGISTVS MErcurius Trismegistus so called because hee was thrice greatest King Priest and Philosopher was saith Lactantius called Thoth or Thoyth of whom they named their first moneth acknowledging to haue receiued their Lawes and Letters from him He built the Citie Hermopolis and of the Saits was honored for a God Of him also Augustine de Ciuitate Dei lib. 8. cap. 26. illustrated by the Annotations of Viues will further acquaint you Goropius from a speech of Iamblichus That all sacred Writings were ascribed to Mercury Trismegistus coniectureth after his farre fetched fashion that Trismegistus signifieth God in Trinity and Vnity which hee gathereth also out of the word Got or God and that no mortall man was intended by Mercury but God himselfe called Thoyt or Theut as the head of all things and that the eternall Wisdome of God first taught men Letters That the Egyptians were subdued by the Cymmerians who came thither out of Phrygia and changed their Religion leauing them both their Hieroglyphicall Characters wherein also were included Mysteries of holy things and their Language both which the Priests obserued in their Lyturgies and Deuotions Diuine things were not meet to be ascribed to men and therfore all the Books of their Diuinity were ascribed to Mercury whose Image was a head ending in a square Statue a resemblance of that Diuine Wisdome and constancie They vse to set vp these Images in the high-wayes therein engrauing some good morall admonitions for which cause they were called Mercuries and Hermes as his Dutch Etymologies declare Herman signifying nothing but a publike admonishing and Merkman that which men ought to marke and most diligently to attend The like hee doth in the names of Harpocrates and other their Deities some of them through ignorance from Hieroglyphikes as the Emblemes of George Christopher and Margaret amongst the Romists becomming Gods Whether these things be true or doctae nugae for which Scaliger censureth Goropius I list not to determine nor to fill these pages with store of matter of this nature from him with whom the desirous Reader may himselfe find entertainment where hee will shew the Mysteries of their Pyramides to signifie the fierie soule of the World and Obeliskes the Sunne and other things more then euer the Egyptians themselues conceiued For how could they without helpe of Goropius his Dutch Franciscus Patricius as he hath taken great paines out of Psellus
speech of the Inhabitants to the Arabians or of the word Bar which signifieth a Desart doubled It comprehendeth both Mauritania's Africa minor Libya exterior besides Cyreniaca and Marmarica whereof wee haue spoken The Inhabitants some fetch from Palestina some from Arabia It was conquered by the Romans and taken from the Greeke Emperors by the Vandals and from them againe by the Saracens and Arabians and is now partly subiect to the Turke partly to the Xeriffe It is vsually diuided into foure Kingdomes Marocco Fesse Tremisen and Tunis for of Barca is said alreadie The Cities of Barbarie it is Ios. Scaliger his testimonie speake Arabike but not pure nor yet so degenerate as the Italian is from the Latine but the Countrie people vse the old African tongue nothing like the other HONDIVS his Map of Barbarie BARBARIA The Kingdome of Tunis contayneth all that which the Ancients called Africa Propria or Minor and Numidia Antiqua the Romanes perhaps vaine-gloriously vaunting or ambitiously ayming at the Empire of the Vniuerse stiling their first footing and possession in Asia and Africa by the name of the whole which others haue beene forced to distinguish by adding Propria or Minor So they called Attalus his Legacie Asia and this Prouince yea Carthage it selfe had that name Africa The soyle is fertile especially the West-part The Inhabitants are sound and healthfull seldome vexed with any sicknesse Hereof are reckoned fiue parts Bugia Constantina Tunis Tripolis and Ezzab This Ezzab is the most Easterly part hauing many Townes and Regions amongst which some account Mesrata From these parts vnto Capes is the Tripolitan Region The chiefe Towne is Tripolis wherein the great Turke hath his Bassa or Vice-roy a receptacle of the Pyrats which roue and rob in those Seas in the yeere 1551. wonne from the Knights of Malta by Sinan Bassa From Capes to Guadilbarbar is the Tunetan Territorie From thence vnto the Mountayne of Constantina is that Region hereof bearing name and from thence to the Riuer Maior about an hundred and fiftie miles space doth Bugia extend it selfe so called of Bugia the principall Citie sometime adorned with Temples Hospitals Monasteries and Colledges of Students in the Mahumetane Law Here is also Necaus a very pleasant Citie and Chollo very rich Constantina is an ancient Citie contayning eight thousand Families many sumptuous buildings a great Temple two Colledges and three or foure Monasteries much resorted to by Merchants Euery trade hath their peculiar streetes A little from the Citie is a hote Bath hauing in it abundance of Crabfishes or little Tortoyses which the women take for euill spirits and ascribe vnto them the cause of their sicknesse or ague if any befall and therefore kill white Hens and set them on an earthen vessell with their feathers enuironing the same with little Wax-candles and so leaue them neere to this Bath or Fountayne How euer it fare with their Feuer their meat shall not stay long but some or other that see the womens deuotion will enuy the euill spirits so good cheere and for that time will be the spirits themselues to dresse and eate their prouision Not farre hence is a Marble building with Images grauen therein the people haue a conceit that it was sometime a Schoole and those Statues the Schollers by Diuine judgement so transformed for their wickednesse In this Region is situated Bona sometime called Hippo famous through our Christian World for the most famous of the Fathers that since the Apostles dayes haue left vs their writings Aurelius Augustinus a name fitting to him which indeed was Aureus Augustissimus Bishop of the See while hee liued and yet liuing in his Workes a Bishop not of Hippo but of the Westerne Church Wittie Learned Wise and Holy Father that hast with Thee carryed these Titles from Hippo where after Thee the Arrian Vandals and since the Saracens haue liued and Lorded and at this day is possessed of such as haue no possession of Wit Learning Wisedome or Holinesse but haue testified their banishment of all these by ascribing them to Fooles and Mad men whom they honour and admire as Saints This Bona then brooking this name better contayneth now three hundred Herthes and a sumptuous Mosque to which is adjoyned the house of the Cadi Tunis is now a great Citie since the ruines of Carthage neere vnto which it standeth Carthage as the more ancient deserueth first Relation of which wee may yet say with Salust Silere melius puto quà m parum dicere wee may not say much and a little will bee too little for such Greatnesse It was built threescore and twelue yeeres before Rome as the common account goeth by Dido and her Phoenicians an emulous competitor with Rome for the Empire of the World It contayned saith Orosius in the circuit of the walles twentie miles Linier Epitome sayth foure and twentie all engirt with the Sea except three miles space which had a wall of squared Stone thirtie foot broad and fortie cubites high The Tower Byrsa enuironed aboue two miles and had in it the Temples of Iuno Aesculapius and Belus Of the greatnesse of their name and power those three Punike warres are witnesses in the second of which Anniball whom his father Hamilcar then Generall in Spaine had caused to sweare at the Altar of Iupiter neuer to hold friendship with the Romans he then being but nine yeeres old as Aemilius Probus or as other will haue it Cornelius Nepos reporteth he I say passed ouer the Pyrenaean Mountaynes through France and ouer the Alpes into Italy with an Armie of an hundred thousand foot-men and thirtie thousand Horse The Riuers Ticinus and Trebia the Lake Trasimenus running with Roman blood by three ouerthrowes of Scipio Sempronius and Flaminius the Romane Consuls witnessed the Punike might But the victory at Cannae against Varro did pierce the brest and had rent the heart of Rome had Anniball known to haue vsed the victory as well as to haue gotten it There did Rome seeme to breath her last the Sunne the Wind the Dust helping the Carthaginian with Natures forces yea the Riuer Gellus against Nature stayed it selfe as congealed indeed whether with wonder feare of necessitie accepting a Bridge or Damme rather of Roman bodies for a passage to the African Armie These were golden dayes to Carthage when three bushels of Gold-Rings taken from the fingers of the slaine enemies were sent hither as a present A swoune meane-while did Rome sustaine and easily in fiue dayes might Hanniball haue dined in the Capitoll and poore helpe could shee finde when she reuiued had not Capua with feasting the Conquerour detayned Rome from Conquest when they despoyled the Temples for Armour armed their slaues and bestowed their priuate state on the publike Treasurie all which could not make Fabius fight with Annibal but by not fighting he learned to ouercome knowing that a shield was better
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
vanitie they gathering that good could not bee either cause or effect of euill found out this remedy worse then the disease to hold two Authors of all things calling Orimazes a God and Arimanius the fountaine of euill a deuill the one cause of light the other of darkenesse Betwixt these two they placed Mithres as Mediator or Intercessor Zoroastres was author of this opinion To the first of these was praise and vowes offered to the later mournfull deuotions For rubbing a certaine hearbe called Omomi they call on Dis Pater Orcus then they wash it with the bloud of a slaine Wolfe and carry it into a shadowie place where they powre it out They assigne plants partly to the good partly to the bad God as they doe also quicke creatures the earthly creatures to the good the watery to the bad and therfore esteem him happy that hath killed most of them Oromazes say they begotten of pure light and Arimanius the childe of darknesse warre one against another Tho first created six Gods Beneuolence Truth Politie Wisdome Riches Honest delight the later as many contrarie When Oromazes had thrice enlarged himselfe he was as farre beyond the Sunne as the Sunne is from the Earth and formed the Starres Of which one he fixed as a Gardian and Watch-man the Dogge-starre hee made other twentie foure Gods which hee closed in an Egge Arimanius did as much but his twentie foure brake their shell and so became good things and euill mingled But a fatall time shall come when Arimanius the Author of plague and famine shall perish and then shall bee one societie of all mankinde in happinesse vsing but one language Theopompus saith according to their opinion that one of these Gods shall raigne three thousand yeeres the other being discomfited and other three thousand they shall fight and labour to destroy one another at last Dis Pater shall be destroyed and men shall bee happy This opinion of the Magi the Chaldeans haue applied to their Astronomy in the seuen Planets making two good two bad three indifferent The Grecians to their Iupiter Dis Pater and Harmonia Empedocles to his Friendship and Discord Aristotle to his Forma Priuatio Pythagoras to his One and Two Plato to his Idem Alterum Manes to his deuilish heresie as before is said The Persians in this respect as some expound their mysteries called Mithra triplex as a third person and reconciler of the other two And there haue not wanted which ascribe this threefold Mithra to that threefold day as they interprete that Signe of the Sunnes going backe ten degrees in the dayes of Hezekiah which if there were houres made the day twice ten beside the ordinarie twelue houres But as in Hercules his generation a threefold night attends these mistie mysteries which I could as willingly construe of some misconstrued notice of the blessed Trinitie Dio Chrysostomus telleth of Zoroaster the Author of this science that enflamed with the loue of vertue hee forsooke the world and went apart into a mountaine And afterwards leauing that habitation he seemed to those to whom hee would shew himselfe which was onely to the Magi to shine with a fire which came downe from heauen vpon him This perhaps was borrowed and peruerted from the shining face of Moses Onely Persians saith Gramay were chosen into their number The name Magi is among Authors applied also to the Chaldeans which in Babylon professed the same Arts and superstitions the Disciples saith Lucian of Zoroastres of whose cunning in charmes you may reade in his Necromantia a pleasant discourse Mithrobarzanes a Chaldean Magus and Menippus whom hee washed twentie nine dayes in Euphrates by the Moone and in the morning sets him against the rising Sunne with long charmes after that spitting three times in his face hee brings him backe againe not once looking aside Their meate was Acornes their drinke Milke Mulse and the water of Choaspi their lodging on the wide field on the grasse After all this he brought him about midnight to Tygris where washing him hee purifieth him with a Torch and the herbe Squilla and other things c. which howsoeuer Lucian suteth to his scoffing humour yet I haue inserted as somewhat expressing their superstitions obserued in charming and diuinations CHAP. VII Of the religious and other rites of the ancient Persians §. I. Of their Gods and superstitions out of HERODOTVS LEauing these Magi let vs take a view of the Persian religious rites which Herodotus thus describeth The Persians neither erect Images nor Altars nor Temples and impute it to madnesse in such as doe therefore as I thinke because they are not of the Greekes opinion that the Gods haue risen from men Their custome is ascending vp the highest Hils to offer sacrifice to Iupiter calling the whole circle of heauen Iupiter They sacrifice to the Sunne and Moone and Earth to the Fire and Water and Winds to these onely they haue accustomed to sacrifice from the beginning They sacrifice also to Vrania which they haue learned of the Assyrians and Arabians The Assyrians call Venus Militta the Arabians Alitta the Persians Metra Their rites in sacrificing are these Being to sacrifice they neither set vp Altar nor kindle fire nor vse vestments pipes cakes or libaments but he which intendeth to sacrifice placing the sacrifice in a cleane place calleth vpon that God wearing their Tiara girded about with myrtle The sacrificer prayeth not for himselfe alone but generally for all Persians and especially for the King And after that the sacrifice is cut into small pieces he streweth vnder the sudden flesh small herbes chiefly Trisoly and setting the flesh in order thereon the Magus standing by singeth some hymnes of the generation of the Gods which they hold to be a most effectuall inchantment Without one of their Magi no sacrifice is accounted lawfull After all this the sacrificer vseth the flesh at his pleasure Of all daies euery man accounteth his owne birth-day to be most solemnly obserued and then maketh greatest cheare The richer sort then set whole Beeues Camels Horses Asses baked in an ouen or furnace on the Table the poorer smaller beasts The Persians are small eaters but in their drinking consult of the weightiest affaires Of which they deliberate fasting but pronounce sentence after they are well in drinke To vomit or make water openly is vnlawfull to them Those that are equall salute when they meete each other with a mutuall kisse which is fastened on the cheeke only if they be of vnequall degree They hold themselues the best of all men their neighbors so much better how much neerer them they dwell They are much addicted to Venerie with both sexes Next vnto Martiall valour they repute excellent the procreation of many Children the King allowing annuall presents to him who hath begotten most Children and therefore they vse many women The childe commeth not in his fathers sight till hee be fiue yeeres old
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
our inheritance for actuall sinnes are our owne purchase and improuement and yet bought with that stocke which our Parents left vs Our first Parents are to bee considered not as singular persons onely whereby they defiled themselues but as the roote of Mankind which had receiued Originall Righteousnesse to keepe or to lose to them and theirs as a perpetuall inheritance As in the Bodie Politike the Act of the Prince is reputed the Act of the whole the consent of a Burgesse in Parliament bindeth the whole Citie which he representeth and as in the naturall Bodie the whole bodie is lyable to the guilt of that fact which the head or hand hath committed as a root to his branches a Fountaine to his streames doth conuey the goodnesse or badnesse which it selfe hath receiued So stands it betwixt vs and Adam our naturall Prince the Burgesse of the World the Head of this humane Bodie and Generation the Root and Fountaine of our Humanitie When hee sinned hee lost to himselfe and vs that Image of GOD or that part of the Image of GOD which he had receiued for himselfe and vs not the substance nor the faculties of bodie or soule but the conformitie in that substance and faculties to the will of GOD in righteousnesse and holinesse of truth Not so much therefore are wee here to consider the ordinary course of Nature wherein the soule that sinneth it shall dye as the Ordinance of GOD who appointed the first Adam the Wel-spring of Nature which he receiued incorrupted the second of Grace that as men we all by Generation are of the first and with the first one old man in whom we all sinned of and with the second Adam we are all one new man in the Lord euen one bodie one Spirit one Seed one Christ in whom and with whom wee as members of that Head obeyed the Precepts and suffered the curse of the Law Other sinnes of Adam are not our naturall but his personall because he could be no longer a publike person then while he had somewhat to saue or lose for vs all being alreadie forfeited in this first sinne The Authour then of Originall Sinne is the Propagator of our Nature his actuall sinne is originally ours the Guilt being deriued by imputation the Corruption by naturall generation First that Person corrupted Nature after Nature infected our Persons The matter of this Originall corruption in regard of the subiect is All and euery man and All and euery part of all and euery man subiect to all sinne that if all be not as bad as any and the best as the worst it must be ascribed to GODS restrayning or renewing not vnto vnequall degrees in this originall staine In regard of the Obiect the matter of it is the want of originall Righteousnesse and a contrary inclination to Euill The imaginations of our hearts being onely euill continually No Grapes can grow on these Thornes The forme of this corruption is the deformitie of our corrupted Nature not by infusion or imitation but by default of that first instrument by which this Nature descendeth It is the roote of actuall sinnes and whereas they as fruits are transient this still remayneth vntill Christ by his death destroyeth this death in vs But here ariseth another difficulty How this sinne can bee deriued by Generation seeing it is truely beleeued that God is Father of Spirits the For men of our Soules which doth by infusion create and by Creation infuse theme corruptible Elements beeing vnable to procreate an incorruptible substance or generation to produce in corruption Neither standeth it with reason that he which communicateth not the substance should communicate the accidents or with Iustice that an innocent Soule should necessarily be stayned by inuoluntary infusion into a polluted bodie I answere hereunto That although the Soule be not traducted as they terme it and by Generation conferred yet is it coupled to the body in that manner and order which GOD had appointed for the coniunction thereof though man had not sinned Neither was it the Soule alone in Adam or the body alone but the Person consisting of both which sinned Neither can we be partakers of Natures sinne till we be partakers of humane Nature which is not till the Soule and Body bee vnited Wee are not so much therefore to looke to the concupiscence and lust of the Parents in generation as Lumbard teacheth vs but to the Person which Scotus saith is filia Adae debitrix iustitiae originalis And although the Soule be not in the seed yet it is communicated to the Body saith Aquinas by a dispositiue preparatiue power of the Seed which disposeth and prepareth the Body to the receiuing of the Soule where it is receiued after the generall rule according to the measure and nature of that which receiueth The Father is then a perfect Father not because he begetteth the Soule but because he begetteth the Person or at least all whatsoeuer in the Person is begotten and though he doth not beget the substance thereof yet as it is such a subsistence he may be said to procreate it because his generation worketh towards the Vnion of the Soule and Body which Vnion is made by the Spirits Animall and Vitall And these Spirits are procreated by the Seed and consist of a middle nature as it were betwixt bodily and spirituall so that the production of the Soule and incorporating thereof may be counted in the middle way betweene Creation and Generation And therefore this originall corruption did not reach to Christ Iesus although hee were true Man because hee was the Seed of the Woman and did not descend of Adam by generation per seminatem rationem tanquam à principio actiuo saith Aquinas but was miraculously framed in the wombe and of the substance of the Virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost Thus haue I presumed to offer my crude and rude Meditations to the wiser World about the deriuation of Originall sinne which it selfe is the cause why we can no better see it as darkenesse hideth it selfe But the whole Citie of Mankind being here with set on fire it behoueth euery one to be more carefull to quench it then ouer-curiously to enquire how it came It is sufficient that nothing descended hereby to vs by corruption or was made ours by imputation which is not fully cured by Christ who is made vnto vs both by imputation of his actiue and passiue obedience and by reall infusion of his Spirit Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption if wee haue faith to receiue it and Charitie to expresse it an absolute renewer and perfecter of the Image of God beyond what wee had in our first Parents lost CHAP. VI. Of the Reliques of the Diuine Image after the Fall whereby naturally men addict themselues vnto some Religion and what was the Religion of the World before the Floud THis sinne of our first
some to call the name of the Lord that is after Rabbi Salomo to apply the name of God to Images Stars and Men But the more likely opinion is that when Adam had obtained a more holy posteritie which was now multiplyed in diuers families Religion which before had been a priuate In-mate in Adams houshold was now brought into publike exercise whereof Prayer hath alwaies been accounted a principall part and God himselfe in both Testaments calleth his house a house of Prayer the calues of the lips and the ejaculations of the heart being the body and soule of Diuine worship whereof Sacrifices were in a manner but the apparel fashioned to that infancy of the Church Of the names of the posteritie of Adam and his hundred yeeres mourning for Abel of Seth his remoouing after Adams death to a mountaine neere Paradise and such other things more sauouring of fabulous vanity in the false-named Methodius Philo and others that follow them I list not to write And wel might Genebrard haue spared his paines in searching for the antiquitie of Popery in this first Age of the World Easily may we grant a Church then truely Catholike in the Posteritie of Seth instructed partly by Reuelations partly by Traditions concerning the Creation the fall the good and euill Angels the promised Seed the Vnitie and Trinitie punishments and repentance for sinne publike and priuate Deuotions and other like Articles gathered out of Moses but for the Rabble of Rabbinicall Dreames which hee addeth herevnto we had need of the implicite faith of some simple credulous Catholike to receiue them as namely Purgatory resembled in the fiery Sword at the entrance of Paradise Free-will grounded on that which GOD speaketh to CAINE Thou shalt rule ouer him the prerogatiue of the elder Brother ouer the yonger falsly applyed to the rule of the minde ouer sinfull lusts the choice of meates in the first Fathers abstinence from flesh fish and wine as hee saith which had not beene permitted to them as it is to vs Traditions when as yet they had no Scripture Superstitious Obsequies to the dead because the Iewes in their office for the dead call vpon the Fathers which lye buried at Hebron namely Adam Eue and the rest to open the gates of Paradise Deuotion to Saints because the Cherubins were set betweene Paradise and Sinners as if their Saints were honoured to keepe them out of Heauen and not the bloudie Sacrifices onely in Abels offering but that vnbloudie Sacrifice so they stile their Masse in the offering of Caine wee enuie them not their Founder yea he finds their Sacrifice of Orders in Gods executing the Priestly function of Matrimony in Adam and Eue of Baptisme in the Breeches which they ware of Penance because GOD said Thou art dust and to dust thou shalt returne of Confirmation in those words Shee shall breake thy head the Truth will breake their heads for so reading it of Vnction in that Seth went to the Cherub which kept Paradise and receiued of him three graines of the Tree of Life whereof we reade in the Apocalyps the leaues shall heale the Nations with those graines was an Oyle made wherewith Adam was anoyed and the stones put into his mouth whence sprang the Tree whereof the Crosse of our Lord was made hidden by Salomon in the Temple and after in the Poole of Bethesda Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Did not Genebrard deserue an Archbishopicke or if the obseruation be his did not Petrus Victor Palma which set him forth with such Comments deserue the Palme and Victory for Peters pretended Successors which could find such antiquitie for proofe of their Catholicisme Much good may it doe their Catholike mawes with such Dainties Iust art thou O Lord and iust are thy iudgements which because they will not beleeue thy Truth giuest them ouer to such strong delusions to beleeue so grosse and palpable Lyes CHAP. VII Of the cause and comming of the Floud THus wee haue seene in part the fulfilling of the Prophesie of the Seed of the Woman and of that other of the Serpent in the Posteritie of Caine and Seth. The Family of Caine is first reckoned and their forwardnesse in humane Arts as the children of this World are wiser in their generation in the things of this life which they almost onely attend then the children of light As for the Iewish Dreames that Lamech was blind and by the direction of Tubalcaine his sonne guiding his hand slew Caine supposing it had beene a wilde beast which when he knew so inraged him that he killed his sonne also they that list may follow Moses reckoneth the Generations according to the first-borne in the Posteritie of Seth as enioying the Principalitie and Priest-hood that so the promised Seed of the Woman after such a World of yeares comming into the World might iustifie the stablenesse of GODS promises his Lineall Descent from Adam with a due Chronologie beeing declared After Seth Enosh Kenan Mehalaleel Iared was Henoch the seuenth from ADAM who walked with God whom God tooke away that he should not see death This before the Law and Helias in the Law are Witnesses of the Resurrection being miraculously taken from the Earth into Heauen not by death but by supernaturall changing of their bodies That hee should bee still in an Earthly Paradise and that hee and Elias should come and preach against Antichrist and of him be slaine is a Popish Dreame the Scripture saying that HENOCH was taken away that he should not see death of Elias that he is alreadie come in the person of Iohn Baptist the Spirit and power or spirituall power of walking with GOD reforming Religion and conuerting soules beeing communicated to many of those Ministers which haue lien slaine in the streets of that great Citie This his Assumption is supposed to be visibly done Hee was a Prophet and Iude doth in his Epistle cite a testimonie of his which eyther by Tradition went from hand to hand as it seemeth the whole Word of GOD was deliuered before the dayes of Moses GOD by Visions and Dreames appearing vnto the Patriarkes or else it was written and since is lost Some hold it was penned by some Iew vnder the name of Enoch Augustine thinketh that the Booke entituled Enoch was forged in his name as other Writings vnder the names of Prophets and Apostles and therefore calleth it Apocrypha as Hierome doth also Chrysostome and Theophilact account Moses the first Pen-man of Holy Scripture Although it seemes that Letters were in vse before the floud if Iosephus his testimonie be true who affirmeth that Adam hauing prohpecied two vniuersall destructions one by fire another by water his Posteritie erected two Pillars one of bricke another of stone in both which they writ their inuentions of Astronomie that of stone was reported to remaine in his time Some ascribe this to Seth as
his voice maketh the beasts to tremble Hereunto the Lord addeth the Raine-bow a newe Sacrament to seale his mercifull Couenant with the Earth not to drowne the same any more which yet at last shall be burnt with fire so to purge the Heauens and Earth of that vanitie whereto mans sinne hath subiected them And thus much doe some reade in the colours of the Rainebow of a waterish and fiery mixture as a continued signe of the double destruction of the World the first outward as alreadie past the other inward as yet to come Well indeed may this Bow be called the Child of Wonder both for the naturall constitution and diuine ordinance not that there was before no such Creature but that then this vse of the creature was ordained The reflexion or refraction of the Sunne-beames in a watery cloud the brightnesse from the Sunne and the cloud meeting together the varietie of colours proceeding from the varietie of matter the fumish and dryer part of the cloud yeelding a purplish the waterie a greenish Sea-colour c. borrowing the roundnesse from th Sunne halfe Eclipsed by the shadow of the Earth are accounted the naturall causes of this wonder of Nature sometime also by reason of abundance of matter the same being doubled one Bow within the other their colours placed contrary for that the one is the Image by reflection of the other Neither is it to be thought that there was no Raine-bow before the floud any more then that there was no water bread or wine before the institution of our Christian Sacraments which name and dignitie not Nature but Vse by the appointment of the God of Nature and Grace doth giue vnto them For not in the cloudes alone is this Bow to be seen but as further witnesse of the naturall causes and constitution thereof the same effect may bee shewed by concurrence of like causes in the Waters and Rockes where Riuers haue their fals yea on the buildings of men as I my selfe haue seen a perfect Raine-bow by the reflection of the Sun-beames on a boorded wall of a Water-mil the boordes thereof being very wet with the fall of the water and opposite to the Sunne The sonnes of Noah were Sem which because of Diuine priuiledge from whose loynes Christ was to come according to the flesh is first named Ham or Cham and Iapheth who seemeth as learned men gather by the Text to be the eldest Fabulous Methodius contrary to Moses speaketh of another Sonne Ionithus after the Floud whereas the Scripture saith That of those three all the Earth was replenished To shew directly which Nations descended of each of these three were a hard taske and now after this confusion of Nations by warres leagues and otherwise impossible But for the first beginnings of Nations before that Colonies were by violence of Conquerours or by themselues in their exceeding multiplying voluntarily translated from one place to another they are by Moses faithfully related although the confusion of Languages and of Peoples do make the matter hard and harsh to vs Yet the Names of Nations in the Greeke stories do in great part agree with the names of these first Patriarkes as M. Broughton hath shewed by laying downe the names of Noahs house which vnvowelled may admit sundry pronouncings setting against them such names as Heathen Authors haue mentioned Out of him and Arias Montanus his Phaleg and others what I thought likeliest I haue here inserted Iapeth Iapetus Gomer or after the Septuagint Gamer Camaritae Cammerij and Cimbri Iosephus saith That the Inhabitants of Galatia were of Gomer sometimes called Gomarae Master Camden deriueth the ancient Gaules and Britans from this Gomer the name which they giue to themselues to this day implying the same which is Kumero Cymro and Kumeri a Brittish or Welsh-woman Kumeraes and their Language Kumeraeg Magog is supposed the Father of the Scythians before saith Iosephus called Magoges Ezek. 38.2 and 39.6 who after inuading those parts left the name Magog to Hierapolis in Syria Plin. lib. 5. c. 23. Of Madai came the Medes of Iauan the Iones or Grecians Of Thubal the Iberians called sometime saith Iosephus Theobeli The Iberians saith Montanus dwelt neere to Meotis certaine Colonies of them inhabited Spaine and called it Hiberia and themselues Hiberians whence the Spaniards haue a report that Thubal was the first people of their Countrie The Cappadocians were called Meschini of Meshech whose Citie Mazaca was named of Meshech since by Tiberius named Caesarea where Basil was Bishop Hence was named Moschius mons and Moschos and the Moscouites From Thiras came the Thracians The name Tros may cause men to ascribe the Troians to this beginning Of the Sonnes of Gomer Aschenaz was Authour of the Nations in Asia Pontus and Bithynia where was the Lake and Riuer Ascanius a proper name also of men in those pares the Axine or Euxine Sea the Ascanian Iland and Ascania in Phrygia Of Riphath came the Paphlagonians sometimes called the Riphathaei saith Iosephus and the Riphaean Hils in the North the Amazonians were also called Aeorpatae The Arimphei also neere to the Riphean Hils Thogarma gaue name to the Inhabitants of Armenia Minor whose Kings called Tygranes and Townes Tygranokartae witnesse it some also attribute the Turkes or Turkeman Nation to this name and Authour These peopled Asia first and from thence by degrees these parts of Europe of Togarma Africanus deriueth the Armenians Of Iauans childrens Elisha founded the Aeoles called also Aelisei of Tarshish came the Cilicians whose Mother-citie was Tarsus Pauls birth-place Montanus thinketh that Tharsis was Carthage in Africa which the Poeni after possessed some referre the Venetians to Tharsis also Cittim was another part of Cilicia The Cretans after Montanus were called Chetim and of others Cortini of whom the Italian Coast called Magna Graecia was inhabited and the Citie Caieta builded Of Dodanim came the Dorians and Rhodians These peopled the North and West parts of the World in Asia and Europe Chams Posteritie was Cush Mizraim Put and Canaan These possessed the South of Asia and Africa Of Cham is the name Chemmis in Aegypt and Ammon the Idoll and Oracle so notorious Cush gaue name to the Aethiopians and Arabians knowne in Scripture by that name Mizraim to the Aegyptians euen at this day so called in their owne and the Arabian Tongues Put to the Libyans sometime called Phuthaei the Riuer Fut is mentioned by Plinie not farre from Atlas The Canaanites I need not mention Moses planly describeth them Of the Sonnes of Cush Seba Author of the Inhabitants of Arabia deserta Psal. 72.10 or after Montanius Sabaea regio thurifera Chauila is a name more forgotten supposed to bee Author of a People neere the Persian Gulfe Sabbetha left the name to the Inhabitants of Arabia Foelix where was the Citie Sabbatha with threescore Temples therein Other People Arabia Foelix came of Raamah where
fore-staller of the fish to her owne delicate tooth Mopsus a Lydian after drowned her in the lake of Ascalon where this fish-deuourer was of fishes deuoured They yet esteemed her a goddesse and offered vnto her fishes of gold and siluer and the Priests all day long set before her true Fishes rosted and sodden which after themselues did eate and it is not to be doubted but the metall-mawes of those Ostriges could also digest the other Diodorus Sieulus That hard by a lake full of fish neere vnto Ascalon was a Temple dedicated to this Fish-woman her Storie followeth That shee yeelding to the lust of a young man had by that copulation Semiramis whom now too late repenting of her follie shee exposed on the rockes where shee was nourished by Birds of which Birds called in their language Semiramis shee receiued that name The Shepheards after espying this hospitalitie of the Birds found the childe and presented her to Simma the Kings Shepheard who brought her vp as his owne daughter The mother not able to swallow her shame and griefe cast her selfe into the lake to bee swallowed of the water but there by a new Metamorphosis was turned into a Fish and hallowed for a goddesse and for company the fishes of that lake and the Birds of that Rocke were canonized also in this deifying deuotion In Ascalon was a Temple of Apollo and Herod Father of Antipater Grandfather to Herod the Great hence called Ascalonita was seruant to Apollo's Priest At Accaron was worshipped Ballzebub that is the Lord of Flies either of contempt of his idolatrie so called or rather of the multitude of Flies which attended the multitude of his sacrifices where from the sacrifices of the Temple at Ierusalem as some say were wholly free or for that hee was their Larder-god as the Romane Hercules to driue away flies or for that forme of a Flie in which he was worshipped as Nazianzene against Iulian reporteth He was called Swinthius and as some say Myiodes and Myiagrus howsoeuer one of these names commeth from Mice and the other from Flies such mouse-eaten flie-blowne diuinity did they professe Nec Muscam quarent deum Accaron saith Nazianzene of this Baal or Beelzebub The Arcadians sacrificed and prayed to Myiagrus and by that meanes were freed from danger by Flies Plinie reporteth that at the Olympian games they sacrificed a Bull to Myiodes which done clouds of Flies departed out of that territorie And in another place he sheweth that the Cyrenians sacrificed to the god Achor haply the god Accaron here mentioned when the multitude of Flies caused a pestilence all which Flies thereupon presently dyed The Iewes in detestation of this Idoll tearmed him Beelzebul that is dung-hill or dung-Iupiter Yea Scaliger saith the name Beelzebub was in disgrace also and that the Tyrians and Sydonians did not so call him Baal or Belus being a common surname to their gods which they distinguished with some addition as Iupiter was named Beelsamen Lord of Heauen but the Hebrewes and not the Phoenicians in contempt called him Beelzebub or fly-Lord This was Iupiter Olympius So Iuno was intituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Heauenly Shee was painted at Carthage sitting on a Lyon with a Thunderbolt in her right hand in her left a Scepter But for Beelzebub he was there Aesculapius or Physicke-god as appeareth by Ahaziah k who sent to consult with him in his sicknesse And perhaps for this cause the blaspheming Pharisies rather applyed the name of this then any other Idoll to our blessed Sauiour whom they saw indeed to performe miraculous cures which superstition had conceiued of Baalzebub and if any thing were done by that Idoll it could by no other cause bee effected but by the Deuill as tending like the popish miracles to the confirmation of Idolatrie What the deuill had at Beelzebubs shrine to this end performed blinded with rage and malice they imputed to the miracles of Christ which in regard of the Efficient were more excellent then could be Satans impostures as countermaunding him and all his proiects for the matter were meerely supernaturall in the Forme were acted by his will signified by his naked word and for the end which is the onely touch-stone for vs to trie all miracles were to seale no other truth then was contained for substance in the Law and the Prophets which hee came not to destroy but to fulfill If an Angell from heauen yea with heauenly miracles if it were possible should preach vnto vs otherwise Paul biddeth vs to hold him accursed and cursed be that deuill of Hell that vnder colour of miracles one of Antichrists ensignes hath taught the Wolrd to worship the Lipsian Lauretan and I know not what other Ladies not that Virgin on Earth holy in Heauen glorious but their Idol-conceits and idol-blockes of her Our Lord hath taught vs plainly in Matthew to serue God only without sophisticall distinctions As for the Heathenish and Popish and all those other packets of miracles which we receiue by the Iesuits annuall relations from the East and West Indies I esteeme them with Doctor Hall a hall of Elegance That they are either falsly reported or falsely done or falsely miraculous or falsely ascribed to Heauen But I know not how pardon it Reader I am transported to Hale Zichem and Loretto from our Phoenician ports The name of Beelzebub hath beene occasion of this parenthesis But the power of Beelzebub I feare hath induced Bellarmine to fall downe and thus to worship him for his purple aduancement For amongst the Notes of the Church he hath reckoned for one this of miracles maius ipse miraculum a greater miracle hee that now will not beleeue without miracles that Gospel which at first was thereby sufficiently proued We reade that the Iewes seeke for signes and are therefore called an euill and adulterous generation and not onely false Christs and false prophets and Antichrist himselfe but the heathens had their Legends of miracles as the whole course of our Historie will shew Goe now and reckon a Catalogue of miracles through all Ages euen to the time of blessed Ignatius and his Societie and aske of vs miracles for proofe of our doctrine Our doctrine hath alreadie by the Apostles and Prophets Pen-men of holy Scriptures beene prooued that way and we leaue to you the stile of Mirabiliarij Miracle-mongers which Augustine for like bragges of things miraculously wrought by them giueth the Donatists With vs Miracles must be prooued by the Truth and the Church and not they by miracles But let vs come backe to Phoenicia The Phoenicians are accounted first Authors of Arithmeticke and Astronomie as also of the Art of Nauigation Prima ratem ventis credere docta Tyrus saith Tibullus and obserued the North-starre to that Sea-skill The Sydonians are reputed first authors of Weights and Measures Herodotus affirmeth that the Phoenicians which
Esay speake to the Princes of Sodome in his time and the people of Gomorrha in respect of that their wickednesse which suruiued them and hath fructified vnto vs among whom yet the Lord of Hoasts as with them hath reserued a small remnant from this worse plague then Sodoms brimstone a Reprobate sense The difference betwixt ours and them is that they were more open ours more close both in like height but not in like weight of wickednesse our darkenesse excelling theirs both in the sinne and in the punishment in as much as a greater light hath shined which we with hold in vnrighteousnesse And if you will haue the maine character of difference betwixt these and those the one are beastly Men the other are Deuils in the flesh First from a sparke of Hell Concupiscence guided by Sensuall Lust attended by Ease and Prosperitie and further inflamed and blowne by the Deuill an vnnaturall fire which stil beareth the name of Sodomie was kindled which gaue coales to a supernaturall flame rained by the LORD in Brimstone and fire from the LORD out of Heauen and burning euen to Hell againe the Alpha and Omega of wickednesse where they suffer saith Iude the vengeance of eternall fire This is written for our learning on whom the ends of the world are come their ashes being made an example vnto them that should after liue vngodly Let not any obiect the Preacher here and require the Historian seeing that Historie builds no castles in the ayre but preacheth both ciuill and diuine knowledge by examples of the passed vnto the present Ages And why should not I preach this which not my calling alone but the very place it selfe exacteth Discite iustitiam moniti is the quintessence of all Historie They being dead yet speake and the place of their buriall is a place to our memorie being turned into a Sea but a Dead Sea which couereth their sinnes that it may discouer ours which as astonished at their vnnaturalnesse hath forgotten her owne nature It drowneth the Earth which it should haue made as whilome it did fertile it staies it selfe with wonder and indignation and falling in a dead swowne sincketh downe with horrour not wakened not mooued with the windes blustering refusing the light of the Sunne the lappe of the Ocean the Commerce of strangers or familiarity of her owne and as it happeneth in deepe passions the colour goeth and commeth changing three times euery day it gaspeth foorth from her dying entrailes a stincking and noysome ayre to the neere dwellers pestiferous sometimes voyding as it were excrements both lighter ashes and grosse Asphaltum The neighbour fruits participate of this death promising to the eye toothsome and wholesome foode performing only smoake and ashes And thus hath out GOD shewed himselfe a consuming fire the LORD of anger to whom vengeance belongeth all Creatures mustering themselues in his sight and saying at his first call to execution Loe we are heere That which I haue said of these miracles still liuing in this dead-Sea is confirmed by testimonie of many h Authors Brocard telleth of those Trees with ashes growing vnder Engaddi by this Sea and a vapour rising out of the Sea which blasteth the neighbour-fruits and the slimie pits on the brinkes of the Sea which hee saw Neither strangers nor her owne haue accesse there where Fishes the naturall inhabitants of the Waters and Water-fowles the most vsuall ghests haue no entertainment and men or other heauie bodies cannot sinke Vespasian prooued this experiment by casting in some bound vnskilfull of swimming whom the waters surfetted with swallowing her owne spewed vp againe This is mentioned by Aristotle also who saith that the saltnesse there of is the cause why neyther man nor beast though bound can sinke in it nor any fish liue therein which yet in the salt-sea wee see no otherwise The Philosopher could see no further then reason nor all that neither but Moses guideth vs beyond Philosophie to diuine vengeance which thus subuerted Nature when men became vnnaturall The Lake Iosephus saith is fiue hundred and fourescore furlongs in length Plinie hath an hundred myles the breadth betweene sixe and fiue and twentie myles Strabo telleth of thirteene Cities still whereof Sodome was chiefe of threescore furlongs compasse wherof some were consumed by fire or swallowed by Earth-quakes and sulphurous Waters the rest forsaken some Remainders as bones of those carkasses then in his time continuing Vertomannus saith That there are the ruines of three Cities on the tops of three Hils and that the Earth is without water and barren and a greater miracle hath a kinde of bloody mixture somewhat like red waxe the depth of three or foure cubites The ruines of the Cities are there seene still Georgius Cedrenus in his Greeke History written aboue fiue hundred and fiftie yeeres since writeth that hee had seene this dead-Sea and reckoneth thereof these maruells That it produceth no quicke Creature that dead carkasses sinke therein a liuing man can scarcely diue vnder water lamps burning swimme but being put out they sinke there are fountaines of Bitumen allume also and salt but bitter and shining Where any fruit is found nothing is found but smoake The water thereof is holesome to such as vse it but differing from other waters in contrarie accidents Not long after his time Fulcherius Carnotensis in the beginning of the Westerne kingdome in these parts testifieth the vntolerable saltnesse of this sea from his owne taste And that neere the same is a hill which in diuers places thereof is likewise salt shining therewith like ice and hard as stone and ghesseth that the saltnesse of this sea proceedeth partly from that cause partly from the intercourse which vnder the earth it holdeth with the greater sea Compassing this lake on the South side we came to a Village which they say is Segor abounding with Dates where the Inhabitants were blacke And there saith he did I see apples on the trees which when I opened I found blacke and dustie within * The like is read Sap. 10.7 Of whose wickednesse euen to this day the waste Land that smoketh is a testimony and plants bearing fruits that neuer came to ripenesse and a standing pillar of Salt is a monument of an vnbeleeuing soule They left behind them to the World a memoriall of their foolishnesse c. And Moses Deut. 32.32 their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the vine of Gomorrah their grapes are grapes of gall their clusters are bitter c. Which allegorie must haue his foundation in the naturall disposition of those places and fruits Later Trauellers as William Lithgow and I haue heard the like of Master Eldred which haue seene these parts say there are now no such fruits which may come to passe by that alteration which so long space may cause or else because they visited not those parts which Fulcherius mentions Lithgow addes that the water of this dead Sea contrarie
should finde that and bee forced to burne it That which they finde they curiously couer lest some Mouse by carrying it should make them haue new worke and for this cause suppe also in a corner with great care that nothing fall to the ground When hee hath ended his search Whatsoeuer Leauen saith hee is vnder mine hands which I haue not seene let it bee tossed too and fro like the dust of the earth In the morning they make their vnleauened Cakes of meale grownd three dayes at least The kneading-trough must bee lined with Linnen lest some of the leauened Meale should cleaue thereto the goodman himselfe must draw the liquor that it is kneaded with and that at Sunne-setting The Cakes are made with as much scruple round and pricked full of holes in a cold place c. to keepe them from leauening They eate little and the first-borne nothing till night that then they may haue the better Paschall-stomacke At the Eeuen-song they obserue much-what the same ceremonies as at the Sabbath They make at home the fairest shew of their plate and riches and seate themselues on Chaires as it were of State and account now of themselues as great Lords triumphing ouer their late Aegyptian seruitude at their returne from the Synagogue they haue a Dish with three Cakes set before them representing the high Priest the Tribe of Leui and the people of Israel another Dish hath in it a loine of Lambe or Kidde with a hard Egge another containeth a Gallimawfrey of Apples Nuts Figges Almonds c. dressed with Wine in Bricke-fashion with Cinamon strewed on it in remembrance of the Aegyptian Fornace They haue also a Sallet of hearbs and a Sawcer of Vineger set on the Table Then sit they downe and euery one to the child in the Cradle hath his cup filled with wine And here with a carowse after a blessing begins the feast with a scrupulous vse of these things mentioned then followeth the supper it selfe with much riot till midnight with such cheere as they haue with diuers ceremonies cursing their enemies calling for Elias praying for the reedifying of the Temple vsing many Diuine Attributes as Mercifull God Great God Bountifull God High God Faire God Sweet God Mightie God and God of the Iewes now build thy Temple shortly very soone very soone in our dayes very soone very soone Now build now build now build now build now build thy Temple quickly Strong God liuing God c. ouer and ouer with such bartologies This night they thinke themselus secure against men and Diuels they leaue their doores open all night to entertaine Elias and one to their solace playeth Elias in a white linnen garment Each man drinketh foure cups full of the blessed wine in regard of foure deliuerances which the Rabbins finde in Exod. 6. ver 6 7. The ceremonies of Moses they are not yet tyed to forsooth because they are not in Canaan In the morning they visit the Synagogue with their Sabbath-rites They bring two Bookes out of the Arke and call forth fiue men and if this feast be on the Sabbath seuen to reade out of the same Nice are their determinations what workes they may doe on this day and what not they may dresse no more meat then is this day eaten If they beate spice the morter must lie side-wise for distinctions sake of the day c. fasting and weeping must be auoided if any farse a Hen the needle must be threeded the day before and the threed must be burned not bitten or broken asunder In such trifles the Schoole of Schammai licenseth to eate the same day an Egge laide on a festiuall day Hillel denies it and betwixt them they haue set the Rabbins by the eares in this such profane questions Their Eeuen-song hath a short dispatch and then the next day they reiterate the same ceremonies and that for certaintie because they doubt of the first day of the moneth and therefore obserue two The foure daies following are halfe-holy daies Some workes may be done in them not some what they do to make a difference must be done otherwise as writing crooked c. that which cannot without losse be deferred may now be done The seuenth day they obserue in more complete holinesse and the eight too for the reason before alledged to be more secure of the true day After the feast ended they satisfie with fasting their feasting-riots and that on two Mundaies and one Thursday vnto the three and thirtieth day after they are sad heauy in remembrance of R. Akiba of whose Disciples foure twenty thousand died in that space and were buried by women in the night and therefore after Sunne-set all this while the women lay aside their worke on the three and thirtie day the men bath them and shaue their beards and are merrie because then his Disciples ceased dying §. II. Of Pentecost FRom the second night of their Pisach they number to their Pentecost fifty dayes inclusiuely and say Blessed be thou c. which hast sanctified vs by thy precepts and commanded vs to number the dayes before haruest of which this is the first or second c. they number the same standing praying withall for the restitution of Ierusalem They let not bloud on the Eeuen of the Pentecost because of a supposed winde Tabbach which should haue slaine all the Israelites if they had refused next day to accept of the Law They keepe it two dayes for the former doubt They take the Booke twice out of the Arke and reade there-out the precepts concerning this Feasts sacrifices now that they cannot performe the things In remembrance of receiuing the Law they strew the pauement of their houses streets and Synagogues with grasse They eate meates made of milke and cakes One Cake they make seuen times folded in thicknesse in remembrance of the seuen Heauens by which GOD descended to Mount Sinai Now they must haue good cheere because at this time the King married his daughter that is the Law vnto them §. III. Of the Feast of Tabernacles THe Feast of Tabernacles is obserued eight dayes the two first and two last more solemnely the middle foure are halfe holy They mutter ouer their prayers with such haste that hee is the perfectest who speakes most with a breath They make them Tabernacles with boughes of foure kinds of Trees more scrupulous then the Law in which they sup but doe not lodge The Praecentor in the Synagogue taketh a bundle of boughes and blesseth and shaketh them for it is written The trees shall clap their hands and mooueth them three times to the East and as often to the West and to the North and South and then vp and downe like a Fencer and then shaketh them againe as hauing now put the Diuell to flight Then one taketh out the booke and layeth it on the Pulpit which they all with their boughes compasse seuen times a day during
side as many on the South and one on the East in euery of the corners were Oratories or Chappels erected In the middle hereof was the Temple raised of eight-square forme crusted within and without with Marble and Musaike worke hauing a sphericall roofe artificially couered with Lead Both the inner and outward square was paued with white stone whereby the raine water descended into many cisternes for that cause prouided In the midst of this Temple within the inner row of pillars there was a Rocke of prettie height with a Caue vnder it of the same stone vpon which they say Dauid saw the Angell standing which smote the people with pestilence after he had numbred them where also he then built an Altar This remained open to the view till the Westerne Christians winning the place couered it with Marble and erected thereon an Altar and Quire Baumgarten who was at Ierusalem a hundred and nine yeeres since and was thrust downe the staires by the Saracens saith this Temple is not now very large and that it is twelue-cornered with a round steeple in the midst thereon as on their steeple vsually a halfe Moone within were reported to burne continually two thousand Lampes The floore of the Church-yard being white Marble occupying a bow-shot about the Temple maketh such a reflexion of the Sun-beames that a man is not able to endure it This Temple the Saracens haue in such reuerence that the Soldan did then entitle himselfe the high Priest and defender of it They call it the Holy Rocke If any Iew or Christian enter therein they compell him to deny his Religion and turne Turke or else they cut him asunder in the middle which hapned to a Christian Maronite about sixe moneths before who in a Turkish habite had entred but being knowne for feare denied his Faith but with reluctation of his conscience reuoked this act soone after and liued after such a dismembring three houres Neere this Temple is another sometimes called Salomons porch by the Christians dedicate to our Ladie larger then is now that of Salomons in which eight hundred Lampes were said to burne continually Vnder both these wee are told that there is a large Vault with admirable rowes of pillars able to receiue many thousands Breidenbachius Chancellor and Deane of Mentz who visited those places aboue twentie yeeres before him writes almost the same things saue that hee placeth but seuen hundred Lampes in this Temple of Salomon or as the Saracens called it the Holy Rocke The Soldan then liuing had built another neere it with eightie eight Lampes continually burning Hee with his companions had like to haue beene slaine by the Saracens for offering to enter another Temple in Mount Sion wherein was said to bee the sepulchers of the Kings of Iuda The Saracens come farre in pilgrimage to the Holy Rocke so they call it of the Rocke aforesaid which is grated about with iron which they dare not touch for the reputed sanctitie and reported rarities thereof Melchisedechs offering Iacobs dreame of the Ladder which yet some haue ascribed to the stone now at Westminster Ieremies enclosing the Arke by some supposed to be still therein and a world of wonders told thereof Ludolphus Suthenensis relateth of that bloudie dissection of such as entred therein But it is high time for vs to bee gone out of it lest some wish vs cut asunder in the midst and this prolixe Historie made shorter by the halfe Thus Palestina continued wholly subiect to the Saracens who after being diuided into sects the Egyptian called Siha preuailed against the Persian or Easterne called Sunni and obtained all as farre as Antioch and the Christians of those parts were in some tolerable condition till the dayes of Hequen the Calipha who rased to the ground the Temple of the Resurrection built in the time of Constantine and repaired by Heraclius hee forbade them the keeping of holy solemnities and afflicted them with manifold other oppressions forcing many to Apostacie In the time of Daher sonne of Hequen the Church was re-builded Ann. Dom. 1048. But the greedie gouernours cruelly exacted on the Christians still threatning if their purposes were not effected to demolish their Temple Yet these full flies were farre more gentle then those their meagre and hungry successours the Turkes which hauing conquered these parts tyrannized most cruelly both here and in the parts of the lesser Asia Belpheth the Turke hauing ouerthrowne taken Diogenes the Christian Emperour in battell whom hee vsed at a Settle ascending or descending his Throne Thus Tyrius Raimond de Agiles testifieth that the Surians or Christians of those parts of whom remained about Libanus sixtie thousand at that time of the Franks inuasion so called as hee supposeth of Sur the name of Tyrus till this day endured such miserie both in this Turkish and that former Saracenicall slauerie that many were compelled to forsake their Religion and be circumcised some others for feare deliuered their young children to Circumcision and some were violently taken to this purpose out of their mothers bosomes the father being slaine and the mother violated Churches were subuerted Altars ouerthrowne and superstitious Images by a contrary superstition were done away and if any mans deuotion desired them in priuate they were forced by a monethly or yeerely price to redeeme them They prostituted in Stewes their sonnes and daughters and yet the mother durst not weepe at the sight §. III. Of the exploits of the Frankes and other Westerne Christians in Palestina THirtie eight yeeres they groaned vnder this Turkish yoke from which they were freed by the Franks and other Westerne Nations vnder the conduct of Godfrey of Buillon Robert of Normandie sonne to the Conquerour and other who by the instigation of Peter the Eremite first whom they so admired that his words and deeds were acounted diuine and the very hayre plucked off his Mule for Reliques and after of Pope Vrban calling a Councell at Claremont to this purpose crossed themselues to warre in and for the Holy land against the Infidels GOD blessed their designes and gaue into their hands all the three Palestina's for so they were diuided according to the three chiefe Cities Ierusalem the first the second vnder Caesarea the third adiacent to Scythopolis and subiected by the Christians to Nazareth From Antiochia to Aegypt and as farre as Edessa was subdued to the Christian Faith and Scepter farre more then Dauid or Salomon possessed They had saith Vitriaco foure principalities that of Edessa chiefe Citie after his account of Media the second of Antiochia the third of Tripoli the fourth of Ierusalem But of their happie atchieuements another place is fitter They which list to be acquainted with these warres besides Tyrensis Vitriacus Sanutus and others of later times may out of the writings of diuers eye-witnesses which were in that first expedition satisfie themselues as Robertus Monachus Raimundus de Agiles Fulcherius Carnotensis and diuers others
stones which they binde in an handkerchiefe and carry to that place of Mina where they stay fiue dayes because at that time there is a Fayre free and franke of all custome And in this place are other three Pillars not together but set in diuers places Monuments of those three Apparitions which the Deuill made to Abraham an to Ismael his sonne for they now a dayes make no mention of Isaac as if he had neuer beene borne They say that when as Abraham at Gods command went to offer his sonne Ismael the deuill dehorted him from the same but seeing his labour lost he went to Ismael and bid him pittie himselfe But Ismael tooke vp stones and threw at him saying I defend me with God from the Deuill the offender These words the Pilgrimes repeate in their visitation of these Pillars hurling away the stones they had gathered From hence halfe a mile is a Mountaine whither Abraham went to sacrifice his sonne In the same is a great den whither the Pilgrimes resort to make their prayers and there is a great stone separated in the middest by the knife of Ismael they say at the time of this sacrifice Barthema reporteth that heere at Mecca he saw two Vnicornes which I mention because since that time I haue not found any Author which hath testified the like sight They were sent to the Seriffo for a present by an Aethiopian King The Carouan departing for Medina as soone as they come in sight thereof they call the place The Mountaine of Health they alight and going vp the hill shout with loud voyces and say Prayer and health be vnto thee O Prophet of God Prayer and health be vpon thee O beloued of GOD. They proceed on their iourney and lodge that night within three miles of Medina and the next morning are receiued with solemnitie of the Gouernour Medina is a Citie two miles in circuit with faire houses of lime and stone and a square Mosquita in the middest lesse but more sumptuous then that of Mecca This is called Medina Tal Nabi that is the Citie of the Prophet in Barthemaes time it contained about three hundred houses and was very barren one garden of Dates excepted but now they haue store of fruits This Temple is square an hundred paces in length fourescore in breadth It hath in it an I le made Arch-wise supported with foure hundred Pillars and supporting as he saith three thousand Lampes In one part of this Mosquita was a Librarie of fortie fiue Mahumeticall bookes Also within the same in a corner thereof is a Tombe built vpon foure Pillars with a Vault exceeding in height the Mosquita being couered with Lead and the top all inameld with gold and an halfe Moone vpon the top wrought within verie artificially with gold Below there are round about great yron staires ascending vp to the middest of the Pillars and in the middest lyeth buried the bodie of Mahumet not in an yron chest attracted by Adamant at Mecca as some affirme Or to say the truth neither here nor at Mecca can they shew this Seducers bodie For the Captaine of that Carouan of Damasco in which Barthema went on this Pilgrimage offered to the chiefe Priest of that Mosquita three thousand Saraffi of gold to shew him the bodie of the Nabi or Prophet that saith he being the onely cause of my comming The Priest answered proudly How can those eyes wherewith thou hast committed so much euill in the world see him by whom GOD hath created Heauen and Earth The Captaine replied True Sir but doe me that fauour to let me see his bodie and I will presently plucke out mine eyes The Priest answered O Sir I will tell you the truth It is true that our Prophet would die heere to giue vs good example for hee might haue died at Mecca but such was his humilitie for our instruction and presently after hee was dead he was carried by the Angels into heauen And where saith the Captaine is Iesus Christ the Sonne of Marie The Priest answered At the feet of Mahomet In the night time by some fire-workes in the steeple they would haue gulled the credulous people with opinion of miracle vsing out-cryes in the night saying Mahomet would rise againe and when the Mamalukes could see no such light shine forth of Mahomets Tombe as they rumoured they said It was because they were slaues and weake in the faith and could not see heauenly sights To returne to the discouery of this supposed Sepulchre Ouer the bodie they haue built a Tombe of speckled stone a brace and halfe high and ouer the same another of Legmame foure-square in manner of a Piramis Round about the Sepulchre there hangeth a curtaine of silke which hideth the Sepulture from their sight that stand without Beyond this in the same Mosquita are other two Sepulchres of Fatma and Hali who yet as some say was buried at Massadalli neere Cusa others say hee neuer died but his comming is still expected The attendants on these Sepulchres are fiftie Eunuches white and tawnie of which three onely of the eldest and best esteemed white Eunuches may enter within the Tombe which they doe twice a day to light the Lampes and for other seruices The other attend on the Mosquita and those two other Sepulchres Where euery one may goe and touch at his pleasure and take of the earth for deuotion as many doe The Captaine with great pompe presenteth that Pyramid-like Vestment whereof you haue heard for the Tombe the Eunuches taking away the old and laying on the new and after this other vestures for the ornament of the Mosquita And the people without deliuer vnto the Eunuches each man somewhat to touch the Tombe therewith which they keepe as a Relique with great deuotion Here is a stately Hospitall built by Cassachi or Rosa the wife of great Soliman richly tented and nourishing many poore people A mile from the Citie are certaine houses in one of which they say Mahomet dwelt hauing on euery side many Date-trees amongst which there are two growing out of one stocke exceeding high which their Prophet forsooth grafted with his owne hands The fruit thereof is alway sent to Constantinople for a Present to the Grand-Signior and is said to be the Blessed fruit of the Prophet Also there is a little Mosquita wherein three places are counted holy The first they affirme their Prophet made his first prayer in after hee knew God The second is that whither he went when he would see the house of Abraham Where when he sate downe to that intent the Mountaines opened from the top to the bottome to shew him the house and after closed againe as before The third is the middest of the Mosquita where is a Tombe made of Lime and Stone fouresquare and full of sand wherein they say was buried that blessed Camell which Mahomet was alway wont to ride vpon Euen still as one Mr. Simons a Merchant and beholder thereof
suffer him to perish therefore leaue and very shortly shall strange things happen in the Empire Achmet contrary to all expectation the next morning after his Dreame sent for him into the roome of State where he lay on a stately Pallet with all his Vice-Roys and Bashaws groueling on the ground and the principall Mustie kneeling before him reading on a booke It should seeme that glad tidings came first to the Citie For he was taken out of the prison with great respect and obseruation he was admitted to his galley with high Ceremonies and yet solemne countenances hee was accompanied on the Sea with thousands of boats and ten thousand of weeping eyes hee landed at the Emperours owne Caska with great respect and modest stilnesse hee walking through the Garden of Cypres trees and at last came to an Iron gate where his owne company left him except two Bashawes who led him by the armes the gate opens and he must through a Guard of Cupogies they bend to the ground and yet looke cheerefully they brought him into the roome where the Mutes stood whose presence did more appale him then the rest but that hee saw the crueltie confirmed and their very sight was worse then an vnreuersable iudgement but when he perceiued no violent hands laid vpon him and that he must yet goe further he was the more astonished and the more vexed to endure such a procrastination At last he came where the Emperour lay sicke on his Pallet before whom his prostitution was as the ordinary slaues but contrary to all expectation he bad him rise and commanded certaine Persian Carpets to be spread and rich Cushions to be laid on which according to their manner hee sate crosse legged by him and when the Muftie had raised the Emperour vp a little with a faint voyce he discouered an vnlooke for louing heart and bequeathed to him the succession He had no sooner done but he began to faint and so read them all a lesson of mortalitie by opening a booke wherein they saw death writ in Capitall letters and himselfe sinking past recouery which made them recouer new Spirits and presently bring his brother out into the Sophia where the principall Muftie proclaimed Mustapha Emperour intimating to the Ianizaries the charge of Achmat to the discharging their duties and the pleasure of Mustapha to giue them a larges which equalling the bountie of other Princes ouerswayed nicer exceptions and so with great acclamations they ratified the Election and cried out Liue and raigne great Mustapha Thus is Mustapha Emperour and they had two yeeres triall of his disposition whereby they found him harmelesse if innocent in both senses Encomions of no great and stirring Spirit Scander and Mehemet Bashaw take the young Osman after this out of the Seralio and present him to the Ianizaries a comely sweet young youth of nine or ten yeere old demanding withall if such an heire of the Othoman Family were to bee reiected without cause or why they should bring an harmelesse Prince as they reputed Mustapha into the danger of vsurpation and differing no further from a Traytor but that it was not imputed to him as for Achmats Will Empires are not so translated and what could they tell but priuate men for their owne ends had wrought vpon his weaknesse making a diseased tongue speake that which a healthfull heart and perfect sense would not consent to For it was probable that a Father would disinherit his children for any brother in the world Besides there was no triall or cause either of insufficiencie or disabilitie and therefore they could not beleeue it Last of all for any thing they saw Mustapha himselfe was not stirring or strong enough to play the Steeres-man in such an high built Ship considering the Seas were tempestuous and many dangerous shores and rockes were to be passed by These speeches to the turbulent Ianizaries were like fewell to fire and the presence of the louely youth made them amazed at their inconstancie so that by way of penitencie and satisfaction they quickely altered the acclamation of Liue Mustapha into the cries of God saue young Osman and so without further disputing hee was aduanced into the Throne and brought into the Seralio when Mustapha least thought of the alteration But now there is no remedie hee must needs bee deposed and sent prisoner once againe into the seuen Towers Now doth Osman begin his Phaetons flourish and runneth the course of pleasures with his youth spending foure or fiue yeeres in wantonnesse and iollitie while his Bashawes spent the time in couetousnesse and ambitious ouer-ruling others yet not without carefull ouer-looking the Ianizaries and prouident preuenting their discontents turbulent disposition but all doth helpe for they ouer-accustomed to actiue imployment and liuing vpon the spoile of forraine Nations as much as the Emperours entertainment cried out to the warre and when answer was made that the Persians had contracted a new league and the Emperours of Germanies old couenants were not yet determined or ended They presently replyed the indignities which the Russians had offered vnto their neighbors the Tartarians were not to be endured for they need goe no further then the piracies of the blacke Sea and the iniuries of the Cossacks and Polonians Nay why should they not march to the expugnation of Loepolis and the foraging of the Countries of Moldauia and Bogdonia and so forward to teach Poland a better lesson then to displease the Othoman Family and mightinesse The Bashawes knew there was no replying nor now the fire was kindled no other quenching it then letting it consume to cinders whereupon they presently answered they were glad that the Souldiers were so memorable of the glory of the Empire and so readie to imploy themselues for the dignitie of the Nation and therefore they would not by any meanes hinder them or the cause But they should finde the Emperour as carefull to satisfie their demands as they were willing to augment his Greatnesse so that if they would giue way vnto time for the preparing of all things fit for the Armie and the sending for the Tartarians to accompany them in the iourney the Emperour should goe in person into the field and Poland soone finde what it was to exasperate such a Maiestie The King of Poland sent to the Emperour to the French King to the Pope for assistance as also to his Maiestie of England with intimation of the terrour and his well deliuered discourse made such impression on his Maiesties Princely heart that he had a present supply In a word his Armie was soone readie and his Cossacks prepared by the end of Iuly hee was encamped in the fields of Bogdonia and within eight dayes entrenched with twentie Peeces of Ordnance mounted but the Cossacks quartered by themselues and after their accustomed manner lying between two Riuers were the more emboldened to make their daily excursions vpon the Tartars For hauing a bridge in the reare of their Campe with
the Persians Naturall Magicke is by Delrio diuided into that which worketh wonders not miracles and that which diuineth But I am weary of this Magicall search Leaue wee them in their Mazes Circles Labyrinth of Errour and let vs take view of the Persian Magi from whence Plinie deriueth the first originals of Magicall Vanities which are saith hee compounded of three Arts that exercise most imperious power ouer the mindes of men Physicke and that offering her selfe more sublimate and pure in the sacred name and rites of Religion beautified also with the addition of Mathematicall Sciences a threefold cord not easily broken like a three-headed Cerberus or trible crowned Prelate holding the world in feare or loue thereof Xoroastres who liued at Eudoxus testifieth sixe thousand yeeres before Plato first inuented it in Persia Hermippus affirmeth that Agonax taught him Apusorus and Zarates among the Medes Marmaridius the Babylonian Hippocus the Arabian and Zarmocenidas the Assyrian haue been famous for their practise and writings of this Art Pythagoras Empedocles Domocritus Plato sailed farre to learne it vndertaking long exiles rather the pilgrimages or peregrinations to that end He impiously addeth Moses and Iochabel it may be he meaneth Ioshua to this impious number The Scripture tels of Iannes and Iambres and Simon Magus famous in this infamie Hierom saith they were the Philosophers of the Chaldaeans and that the Kings did all things after the direction of their Art which they are Plinies words in the East ruleth the King of Kings Porphirius affirmeth that they which were wise in diuine mysteries and performed them were called of the Persians Magi the same saith Picus that Philosophers were amongst the Greekes The like hath Philo and Proclus and Arnobius of Hosthanes Magus They were studious in prayers instituted sacrifices and mysteries as the Indian Brachmanes and Graecian Theologie acknowledged Angels Paradise the soules immortalitie Patricius also addeth to this their Philosophie and Theologie Astronomie and Physicke and all knowledge of Nature It is like that in the Persian Magi concurred both a certaine stocke or kindred which were also so called as is said and the Philosophicall Inquisition of Nature and the Priestly function and also some either implicite or explicite societie with Deuils The same they were at least in profession and reputation that the Philosophers with the Greekes the Priests in Egypt Gymnosophistes in India Chaldaeans in Babylon Druydes in Gallia and in this our Ile the Italian Aruspices and other religious persons the Treasurers of their Theologie and Philosophie in other places As for those Magi mentioned in the Gospell some suppose them to come from Aethiopia some from Arabia some from Mesopotamie some from Chaldaea and some from Persia and some from diuers of those Regions Whencesoeuer they came they had a brighter Starre to guide them with diuiner light then those Magicall brans of hellish fire could yeeld Plato commends this Magia and cals it Machagistia and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worship of the Gods and saith that the Kings of Persia learned it as a knowledge of Diuine Mysteries wherein by the worlds Common-wealth they were instructed to gouerne their owne Others as they were led by differing affection doe as much discommend them And truely as in the Chaldaean and Aegyptian Priests their searching out the mysteries of Nature cannot but deserue commendation but their abusing this naturall Philosophie to vnnaturall conspiracie with deuils cannot but be detested of those which are not themselues detested of GOD. And either from this deuillish conspiracie or ouer-curious vanitie did arise their predictions of future euents in which respect the Ethnikes had them in high reputation Ammianus Marcellinus saith that Zoroastres added much to this Art from the Chaldaean mysteries and Hystaspes the Father of Darius from the Brahmanes which hee in his Indian trauels had found in a woodie solitarinesse and learned of them the motions of the Starres and pure rites of sacrifices which he taught the Magi and they together with the skill of diuination deliuered to their posteritie by Tradition and that progenie is alway consecrated to Diuine Seruices and keepe continually burning certaine fire which first came from heauen a small portion whereof was wont to bee carried before the King of Asia There were but a few of them at the first and it was vnlawfull to touch the sacrifice or approach to the Altar before the Magus with a certaine set speech had powred on his sacred preparatiue liquors Afterwards being increased in number they grew into an entire Nation and inhabited vnwalled Townes being gouerned by their owne lawes and honoured for Religion Cicero writeth that the Magi did assemble together in Fana into certaine Temples or consecrated places to consult about their diuinations They presaged to Cyrus thirtie yeeres reigne They dranke the herbe Theangelis and vsed also the herbe Aglaophon or Marmaritis when they would diuine They diuined by the notes and markes of the bodie they foretold the euents of prodigies They might not teach any but Persians the mysteries of their science without the Kings leaue And yet Plinie saith that Plato Democritus Empedocles and Pythagoras vndertooke exiles as is said before rather then trauels to learne the same which after their returne they taught Apollonius also for the same cause went into Persia and India whose Philosophie plainly appeareth by the history of his life to bee soyled with Magicall impuritie And although some commend one sort of Magia as being their Theologie and Philosophie yet seeing their Philosophie was corrupted with curiositie and their Theologie with superstitious Idolatrie it could not be free from some kinde of at least implicite sorcerie as the examples of those which were most eminent herein do shew Such as one Pases was who by enchantments would make shewes and resemblances of sumptuous feasts with many attendants and had a Magicall or enchanted halfe-peny which would returne to him againe when he had bought any thing therewith Yea howsoeuer Patricius would not excuse only but highly commend the Oracles as he termeth them of Zoroaster yet doth he cite out of him that Barbarous names must not bee changed For all things haue their names of God which haue an vnspeakeable power in holy things which words seeme to incline to Charmes which are commonly in barbarous vnsignificant termes Other things which he with great paines hath gathered out of the Platonikes stamped with Zoroasters name are many of them diuine being interpreted in the best sense For they are for the most part obscure and many exceeding the sense of such weake Readers as I confesse my selfe Some I haue here expressed In all the world shineth the Trinitie of which the beginning is Vnitie The Father perfected all things and deliuered them to the second Minde which all mankinde calleth the First He remaineth in the paternall profunditie It is the minde of the Minde which is framer of the fierie
Hunting and Hawking If one hath buried a Male-child and another a Female the Parents contract a marriage betwixt those two and painting in papers Seruants Horses Clothes and Houshold and making writings for the confirmation of the Dower burne these things in the fire by the smoake whereof they in their smokie conceits imagine all these things to be carried and confirmed to their children in the other world and the Parents of the two dead parties claime kindred each of other as if they indeed had married their children while they liued In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall wherein are fertile Meddowes pleasant Springs delightfull Streames and all sorts of beasts of chase and game and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure which may be remoued from place to place Here hee doth abide in the moneths of Iune Iuly and August on the eight and twentieth day whereof hee departeth thence to another place to doe sacrifice on this manner He hath a Heard or Droue of Horses and Mares about ten thousand as white as snow of the milke whereof none may taste except hee bee of the bloud of Cingis Can. Yea the Tartars doe these beasts great reuerence nor dare any crosse their way or goe before them According to the direction of his Astrologers or Magicians he on the eight and twentieth of August aforesaid spendeth and poureth forth with his owne hands the milke of these Mares in the ayre and on the earth to giue drinke to the Spirits and Idols which they worship that they may preserue the men women beasts birds corne and other things growing on the earth These Astrologers or Necromancers are in their Art maruellous When the skie is cloudy and threatneth raine they will ascend the roofe of the Palace of the Grand Can and cause the raine and tempests to fall round about without touching the said Palace These which thus doe are called Tebeth and Chesmir two sorts of Idolaters which delude the people with opinion of their sanctitie imputing these workes to their dissembled holinesse and for this cause they goe in filthy and beastly manner not caring who seeth them with dirt on their faces neuer washing nor combing themselues And if any bee condemned to death they take dresse and eate him which they doe not if any die naturally They are also called Bachsi that is of such a Religion or Order as if one should say a Frier-Preacher or Minor and are exceedingly expert in their diuellish Art They cause that the Bottles in the Hall of the Great Can doe fill the Bowles of their owne accord which also without mans helpe passe ten paces through the ayre into the hands of the said Can and when hee hath drunke in like sort returne to their place These Bachsi sometimes resort vnto the Officers and threaten plagues or other misfortune from their Idols which to preuent they desire so many Muttons with black heads and so many pounds of Incense and Lignum Aloei to performe their due sacrifices Which they accordingly receiue and offer on their Feast-day sprinkling Broth before their Idols There be of these great Monasteries which seeme like a small Citie in some whereof are two thousand Monkes which shaue their heads and beards and weare a religious habite and hallow their Idols Feasts with great solemnitie of Hymnes and Lights Some of these may bee married Other there are called Sensim an Order which obserueth great abstinence and strictnesse of life in all their life eating nothing but Bran which they put in hot water and let it stand till all the white of the meale bee taken away and then eate it being thus washed These worship the Fire and are condemned of the other for Heretikes because they worship not their Idols and will not marry in any case They are shauen and weare hempen-garments of black or bright yellow and although they were Silke yet would they not alter the colour They sleepe on great Mats and liue the austerest life in the world Of their Astrologers in Cambalu were not fewer then fiue thousand Christians Catayans and Saracens maintained with food and rayment at the Great Cans charge These by their Astrolabe foretell of the change of weather mortalitie warres diseases c. And if any enterprise any great worke he resorteth vnto them and telling the houre of his Natiuitie by their Art is informed of the successe They hold the soule to be immortall and according to euery mans merits in his life to passe into a more noble creature till it be deified or ignoble as to a Pesant and then to a Dogge and so by degrees to the vilest They shew much reuerence to their Parents to whom if any bee vngratefull in their necessitie there is an Office and Officers appointed to trie and punish the offence In the Emperours hall none dare spit but for that purpose carrieth a little vessell to spit in nor dare any there make any noyse or loud talking The Tartars were at first very vncharitable to the poore and would curse them saying That if God had loued them he would haue prouided for them but after the Idolatrous Bachsi had commended Almes for a good worke there was great prouision made for them and euery day at least twentie thousand dishes of Rice Mill and Panike by certaine Officers distributed amongst them And for this liberalitie they adore him as a God Cingis amongst his first Lawes enacted as saith Vincentius the punishment of death to bee inflicted vpon offenders in those three vices which before time had beene most rife amongst them namely lying adulterie and theft of which yet towards other men that were not Tartars they made no conscience They are great Vsurers taking ten in the hundreth for a moneth besides vse vpon vse insomuch that a Souldier in Georgia which had borrowed fiue hundred pieces of coyne called Yperpera retaining the same fiue yeeres was constrained to repay seuen thousand And a Tartarian Lady for seuen yeeres vse of fiftie sheepe demanded seuen thousand Yperpera They are so couetous that though they abound in cattell they will scarce allow any to their owne expence while it is sound and good but if it die or be sicke They are addicted to Sodomie or Buggerie They eate sometimes for necessitie mans flesh sometimes to delight themselues and sometimes to terrifie others reckoning it a great glorie to haue slaine many and that by varietie of crueltie Their heads they shaue from eare to eare in manner of a Horse-shooe wearing long lockes at their eares and neckes There bee some of the Tartars which when they see their fathers grow old and diseased they giue them fat meates which may choake them And when they are thus dead they burne their bodies reseruing the ashes as a precious jewell sprinkling their meates with that powder But if any thinke not this enough which I am
and by their weight leaue so deepe impression in the sand that hereby men knowing their haunt doe vnder set this their Tract with sharpe stakes headed with yron couering the same againe with sand by this meanes preying on the spoyler and deuouring the deuourer esteeming nothing more sauorie then the flesh nor more medicinable then the gall of this Serpent More Serpentine then this diet was that custome which they vsed when any proper and personable Gentleman of valourous Spirit and goodly presence lodged in any house amongst them in the night they killed him not for the spoyle but that his soule furnished with such parts of body and mind might remaine in that house Much hope of future happinesse to that house did they repose in so vnhappy attempts But the great Can killed this Serpent also ouerthrowing this custome in the conquest of that Prouince CARDANDAN confineth on the Westerne limits of Carazan They make blacke lists in their flesh razing the skinne and put therein some blacke tincture which euer remayneth accounting it a great ornament When a woman is deliuered of a child the man lyeth in and keepeth his bed with visitation of Gossips the space of fortie dayes They worship the ancientest person of the house ascribing to him all their good In this prouince and in Caindu Vocian and Iaci they haue no Phisicians but when any be sicke they send for their Witches or Sorcerers and acquaint them with their maladie They cause Minstrels to play while they dance and sing in honour of their Idols not ceasing till the Diuell entereth into one of them of whom those Sorcerers demand the cause of the parties sickenesse and meanes of recouerie The Demoniake answereth for some offence to such or such a god They pray that God of pardon vowing that when he is whole he shall offer him a sacrifice of his owne bloud If the Diuell see him vnlikely to recouer he answereth that his offences are so grieuous that no sacrifice can expiate but if there be likelihood of recouery he enioyneth them a sacrifice of so many Rams with blacke heads to be offered by these Sorcerers assembled together with their wiues then will that god be reconciled This is presently done by the kinsemen of the sicke the sheepe killed their bloud hurled vp towards Heauen The Sorcerers and Sorceresses make great lights and incense all this visited house making a smoke of Lignum Aloes and casting into the ayre the water wherein the sacrificed flesh was sodden with some spiced drinkes laughing singing dancing in honour of that God After all this reuel-rout they demand againe of the Demoniake if the God be appeased : if so they fall to those spiced drinkes and sacrificed flesh with great mirth and being well apayed returne home if not they at his bidding renue their superstition ascribing the recouerie if it happen to that Idoll and if he dyeth notwithstanding they shift it off to the want of their full due fleecing or tasting the same before to the Idols defrauding Thus doe they in all Cathay and Mangi Thus much out of the large reports of Paulus that renowmed Venetian to whom our Relations are so much indebted Rubruquius telleth the like of CAILAR and CARACORAM where hee had beene in these Catayan Prouinces concerning their Christopher or Giant-like Idols and Idol Temples in one of which he saw a man with a crosse drawne with inke on his hand who seemed by his answers to bee a Christian with Images like to that of Saint Michael and other Saints They haue a Sect called Iugures whose Priests are shauen and clad in Saffron-coloured garments vnmarried an hundred or two hundred in a Cloyster On their holy-dayes they place in their Temples two long formes one ouer against another whereon they sit with bookes in their hands reading softly to themselues Nor could our Author entring amongst them by any meanes breake this their silence They haue wheresoeuer they goe a string about them full of nut-shels like the Popish beadrols alway they are vttering these words Ou â—am hactani God thou knowest expecting so many rewards as they make such memorials of God They haue a Church-yard and a Church-porch with a long pole on it as it were a steeple adioyning to their Temples In those porches they vse to sit and conferre They weare certaine ornaments of paper on their heads Their writing is downewards and so from the left hand to the right which the Tartars receiued from them They vse Magicall Characters hanging their Temples full of them They burne their dead and lay vp the ashes in the top of a Pyramis They beleeue there is one God that he is a Spirit and their Images they make not to represent God but in memoriall of the rich after their death as they professed to Rubruquius The Priests besides their Saffron-iackets buttoned close before weare on their left shoulder a cloake descending before and behind vnder their right arme like to a Deacon carrying the Housel-boxe in Lent They worship towards the North clapping their hands together and prostrating themselues on their knees vpon the Earth holding also their foreheads in their hands They extend their Temples East and West in length vpon the North side they build as it were a Vestrie on the South a Porch The doores of their Temples are alwayes opened to the South A certaine Nestorian Priest told him of so huge an Idoll that it might be seene two dayes before a man came at it Within the Quier which is on the North side of the Temple they place a chest long and broad like a Table and behind that chest stands their principall Idoll towards the South round about which they place the other lesse Idols and vpon that chest they set candles and oblations They haue great Bels like vnto ours The Nestorians of those parts pray with hands displayed before their breasts so to differ from that Iugurian Rite of ioyning hands in prayer Thus farre William de Rubruquius who was there Anno 1253. In Thebet sayth Odoricus resideth the Abassi or Pope of the Idolaters distributing Religious preferments to those Easterne Idolaters as the Roman Pope doth in the West CHAP. XVII Of other Northerne people adioyning to the Tartars and their Religions THE Permians and Samoits that lye from Russia North and North-east are thought to haue taken their beginning from the Tartar-kind whom they somewhat resemble in countenance The Permians are subiect to the Russe they liue by hunting and trading with their furres as doe the Samoits which dwell more toward the North-Sea The Samoit or Samoed hath his name as the Russe sayth of eating himselfe as if they had sometime beene Canibals and at this time they will eate raw flesh whatsoeuer it be euen the very carrion that lyeth in the ditch They say themselues that they were called Samoie that is of themselues as if they were Indigenae there â—â—ad and not transplanted from
more vnhappy tense when they were there was a Citie great strong and very faire with walls of Stone and great Ditches round about it with many Crocodiles in them There are two Townes the old in which the Merchants abide and the houses are made of Canes called Bambos and the new for the King and his Nobilitie the Citie is so subiect to fire that euery day Proclamation is made to take heed to their fire The Citie is square with faire walls hauing in each Square fiue Gates besides many Turrets for Centinels to watch made of wood and gilded very faire The Streets are strait as a line from one Gate to another and so broad that ten or twelue men may ride a-front through them On both sides at euery mans doore is set a Coco-tree yeelding a faire shew and comfortable shaddow that a man might walke in the shade all day The houses are made of Wood and couered with Tiles The Kings house is in the midst walled and ditched about and the houses within of Wood sumptuously wrought and guilded And the house wherein his Pagode or Idoll standeth is couered with Tiles of Siluer and all the walls are guilded with Gold Within the first gate of the Kings house was a large roome on both sides whereof were houses made for the Kings Elephants Among the rest hee had foure white Elephants a thing rare in Nature but more precious in his estimation For this is part of his Royall Title The King of the white Elephants And if any other hath any he will seeke by fauour or force to haue the same which some say was the cause of the quarrell betwixt him and the King of Siam Great seruice was done vnto them Euery one of these white Elephants stood in an house guilded with Gold and were fed in vessels of Siluer gilt One of them as hee went euery day to the Riuer to bee washed passed vnder a Canopie of Cloth of Gold or Silke carried by sixe or eight men as many going before playing on Drums or other Instruments At his comming out of the Riuer a Gentleman washed his feet in a Siluer Bason There were of blacke Elephants nine Cubits high The King was said to haue aboue fiue thousand Elephants of Warre There was about a mile from Pegu a place builded with a faire Court in it to take wilde Elephants in a Groue which they doe by the female Elephants trained to this purpose and anointed with a certaine Oyle which causeth the wilde Elephant to follow her When the Hunts-men haue brought the Elephant neere to the Citie they send word thereof and many Horse-men and Foot-men come out and cause the female to take a streight way which leadeth to the place where shee entereth and hee after her for it is like a Wood. When they are in the gate is shut and they get out the female The wilde one seeing himselfe alone weepeth and runneth against the walles which are made of strong trees some of them breake their teeth therewith Then they pricke him with sharpe Canes and cause him to goe into a strait house and there fasten him with a rope and let him fast three or foure dayes and then bring a femall to him with meat and drinke within few dayes taming him When they goe into the Warres they set a frame of wood vpon their backes bound with great Cordes wherein sit foure or six men which fight with Guns Darts Arrowes and other weapons All Authors agree that no beast commeth so neere the reason of a man as the Elephant yea they seeme to goe before some men in conceit haughtinesse desire of glory thankefulnesse c. The Peguans are beardlesse and carrie pinsers about them to plucke out the hayres if any grow They blacke their teeth for they say a Dogge hath white teeth The men of Pegu Aua Iangoma and Brama weare balls in their yards which they put in the skinne being cut and weare for euery childe one till they haue three and may take them out at pleasure the least as bigge as any Wall-nut the biggest as bigge as a little Hennes Egge They were inuented to preuent Sodomie which they vse more then any people in the world Abusing the Male-Sexe causeth the women also to weare scant clothes that as they goe their thigh is seene bare to prouoke men to lust Both these were ordained by a certaine Queene for those causes and are still obserued If the King giue any one of his Balles it is a great Iewell accounted they heale the place in sixe or eight dayes The Bramans that are of the Kings bloud pricke some part of their skinne and put therein a blacke colour which lasteth alway If any Merchant resort thither hee shall haue many maydes saith Linschoten offered him by their parents to take his choyse and hauing agreed with their parents hee may for the time of his abode vse her as his slaue or his Concubine without any discredit to her Yea if hee come againe after shee is marryed hee may for the time hee stayeth there demaund her in like sort to his vse And when a man marrieth hee will request some of his friends to lye the first night with his Bride There are also among them that sow vp the priuie part of their Daughters leauing onely passage for Vrine which when they marry passe vnder the Surgeons hand for remedie Gasper Balby and Got. Arthus tell of another custome of their Virgins if that name may bee giuen them For saith hee Virgines in hoc regno omnino nullas reperire licet Puellae enim omnes statim à pueritia sua medicamentum quoddam vsurpant quo muliebria distenduntur aperta continentur idque propter globulos quos in virgis viri gestant illis enim admittendis virgines arctiores nullo modo sufficerunt Their money is called Ganza and is made of Copper and Leade which euery man may stampe that will Gold and Siluer is merchandise and not money The tides of the Sea betweene Martauan and Pegu by Caesor Fredricke are reputed the greatest wonder which hee saw in his trauels being so violent that the ayre is filled with noyse and the earth quaketh at the approach of this watery element shooting the Boats that passe therewith as arrowes which at a high water they suffer not to anchor in the Channell which would betray them to the deuouring iawes of the returning tide but draw them toward some Banke where they rest in the ebbe on dry land as high vpon the Channels bottome as any house top And if they arriue not at their certaine stations they must backe againe whence they came no place else being able to secure them And when it encreaseth againe it giueth them their calls or salutations the first waue washeth ouer the Barke from stemme to sterne the second is not so furious the third raiseth the Anchor In Negrais in Pegu diuers people dwell in Boates which they call
beene expelled the Hospitall But alacke for pitie of so rufull an accident a Hawke had beene admitted thither for the cure of his lame legge which being whole hee inhospitally slue many of these co-hospitall weaker Fowles and was therefore expelled this Bird-Colledge by the Master thereof For Men they had not an Hospitall that were thus hospitall to Fowles They haue certaine Religious persons called Verteas which liue in a Colledge together and when I went to their House they were about fiftie in number They ware white cloth were bare-headed and shauen if that word might bee applied to them who pull off their haire on their heads and faces leauing onely a little on their crowne They liue on almes nor receiue they but the surplusage of the daily food of him that giueth them They are wiuelesse The Orders of their Sect are written in a booke of the Guzarates writing They drinke their water hot not for Physike but deuotion supposing that the water hath a Soule which they should slay if they dranke the same vnsodden For the same cause they beare in their hands certaine little brushes with which they sweepe the floore before they sit downe or walke lest they should kill the soule of some Worme or other small creature I saw their Prior thus doing The Generall of this Order is said to haue an hundred thousand men vnder his canonicall obedience and is newly chosen euery yeere I saw amongst them little boyes of eight or nine yeere old resembling the countenances of Europe rather then of India by their parents consecrated to this Order They had all in their mouth a cloth foure fingers broad let thorow both their eares in a hole and brought backe againe thorow their cares They would not shew me the cause but I perceiued it was lest some Gnat or Flie should enter thither and so bee slaine They teach that the world was made many hundred thousand yeeres agoe and that God did then send three and twentie Apostles and how hath sent the foure and twentieth in this third age two thousand yeeres since from which time they haue had writing which before they had not The same Author in another Epistle saith That the most of the Inhabitants of Cambaia are Banians They eat no flesh nor â—ill any thing yea they redeem the beasts and birds maymed or ficke and carry them to their Hospitals to be cured In Guzarat he had seene many Gioghi a religious Order of Monks which yeeld to none in Penance and Pouertie They go naked in cold weather they sleep on the dung-hils vpon an heape of ashes with which they couer their head and face I saw the place where one of these Gioghi kept in the middest of the Citie Amadeba to whom in conceit of holinesse resorted more numbers of people then to the shoares of Lisbon at the returne of the Indian Fleet. This Gioghi was sent for by the Prince Sultan Morad sonne of the Mogor and refused to come bidding that the Prince should come to him It is enough that I am holy or a Saint to this end Whereupon the Prince caused him to be apprehended and being soundly whipped to bee banished This people killeth not their Kine but nourisheth them as their mothers I saw at Amadeba when a Kow was ready to die they offered her fresh grasse and draue he Flies from her and some of them gaue this attendance two or three dayes after till shee was dead A league and a halfe from this Citie I saw a certaine Coemiterium or burying-place then which I had neuer seene a fairer sight wherein had beene buried one Cazis the Master of a King of Guzarat who had erected this fabrike and three other were buried in another Chappell The whole worke and pauement was of Marble contayning three Iles in one whereof I told foure hundred and fortie pillars with their chapiters and bases of Corinthian worke very royall and admirable On one side was a Lake greater then the Rozzio at Lisbon and that building was curiously framed with faire windowes to looke into the Lake Balbi telleth of a certaine Temple at Cape Bombain not farre from Chaul which is cut out of a Rocke ouer the said Temple growe many Tamarinds and vnder it is a Spring of running water whereof they can finde no bottome It is called Alefante is adorned with many Images a receptacle of Bats and supposed the worke of Alexander the Great as the period of his Peregrination And hereto agreeth the report of Arrianus in his Periplus of many memorials and monuments of Alexanders Expedition to these Parts as old Chappels Altars Camping-places and great Pits These hee mentioneth about Minnagara which Ortelius in his Map placeth here-away Linschoten affirmeth the same things of their Pythagorean errour and addeth that they sometimes buy Fowles or other beasts of the Portugals which meant to haue dressed them and let them flie or runne away In the High-wayes also and Woods they set pots with water and cast Corne or other graine vpon the ground to feed the Birds and Beasts and to omit their charitable Hospitals before mentioned if they take a Flea or a Louse they will not kill it but put it in some hole or corner in the wall and so let it goe and you can doe them no greater iniurie then to kill it in their presence which with all intreatie they will resist as being a hainous sin to take away the life of that to which God hath imparted both soule and body and where words will not preuaile they will offer money They eate no Radishes Onyons Garlike or any kind of Herbe that hath red colour in it nor Egges for they thinke there is bloud in them They drinke not Wine nor vse Vinegar but only Water They would rather starue then eat with any but their countrey-men as it happened when I sailed from Goa to Cochin with them in a Portugall Ship when they had spent all their store the timefalling out longer then they made account of they would not once touch our meat They wash themselues euery time they eate or ease themselues or make water Vnder their haire they haue a star vpon their foreheads which they rub euery morning with a little white Sanders tempered with water and three or foure graines of Rice among it which the Bramenes also do as a superstitious ceremony of their law They sit on the ground in their houses vpon Mats or Carpets and so they eate leauing their shooes which are piked and hooked at the doore for the which cause the heeles of their shooes are seldome pulled vp to saue labour of vndoing them The Moores amongst them will sometimes abuse the superstition of these Cambayans to their owne couetousnesse bringing some Worme Rat or Sparrow and threatning to kill the same so to prouoke them to redeeme the life thereof at some high price And likewise if a malefactor be condemned to death they will purchase his life
any haire except on the browes and eye-lids euen on the least child and for the space of thirteene dayes cease to eate Botels his lips are out that doth it and all that time is an Inter-regnum wherein they obserue if any will come in to obiect any thing against the new future King After this hee is sworne to the Lawes of his Predecessor to pay his debts to recouer whatsoeuer belonged to his Kingdome being lost which Oath he taketh hauing his Sword in his left hand and in the right a Candle burning which hath a Ring of Gold vpon it which he toucheth with two of his fingers and taketh his Oath This being done they throw or powre vpon him a few graines of Rice with many other Ceremonies and Prayers and he worshippeth the Sunne three times after which all the Caymailes or principall Nobles sweare their fealtie to him handling also the same Candle The thirteene dayes ended they eate their Betele againe and Flesh and Fish as before the King except who then taketh thought for his Predecessor and for the space of one whole yeere as is before obserued in part out of Barbosa eates no Betele nor shaueth his beard nor cutteth his nailes eateth but once a day and before hee doth it washeth all his bodie and obserueth certaine houres of Prayer daily The yeere being ended he obserueth a kind of Dirige for his Predecessors soule whereat are assembled 100000. persons at which time hee giueth great Almes and then it confirmed All these Malabar Kings haue one speciall Man which is the chiefe Administrator of Iustice who in matters of gouernment is obeyed no lesse then the King himselfe The Souldiers are Nayros none of which can be imprisoned or put to death by ordinarie Iustice but if one of them kill another or else kill a Cow or sleepe with a Countriewoman or speake euill of the King the King after information giues his Warrant to another Nayro who with his Associates kill him wheresoeuer they find him hewing him with their Swords and then hang on him his Warrant to testifie the cause of his death These Nayros may not weare their Weapons nor enter into combate till they be armed Knights although that from the Age of seuen yeeres they are trayned vp in Feates and practice of Armes He is dubbed or created by the King who commandeth to gird him with a Sword and laying his right hand vpon his head muttereth certaine words softly and afterward dubbeth him saying Haue a regard to keepe these Bramenes and their Kine These are the two Great Commandements of the Bramene Law The King sometimes commits this Ceremonie to their Panicall or Master in the Feats of Armes whom they euer honour as their Father and next to the King most reuerence They teach them to Run Leape Fencing and managing of Weapons and anoint them with Oyle of Gergelin to make their sinewes pliant for all winding and tumbling gestures They begin to goe to Schoole at seuen yeeres olde In fight they are valorous and account it no shame to flee but will doe it in policie and yet when they yeeld themselues to any mans seruice they bind themselues to die with him and for him which they faithfully performe fighting till they bee killed They are great South-sayers haue their good and bad Dayes worship the Sun the Moone the Fire and the Kine and the first they meet in the morning The Deuill is often in them they say it is one of their Pagodes which causeth them to vtter terrible wordes and then hee goeth before the King with a naked Sword quaking and cutting his flesh saying with great cries I am such a god and I am come to tell thee such a thing and if the King doubteth he roreth lowder and cutteth himselfe deeper till he be credited The Fortugals haue much eclipsed the greatnesse of the King of Calicut and caused many other alterations in all the East in this last Age of the World Of whose exploits Castaneda Barrius Maffaeus Oserius and others haue written at large Our English-Indian Societie haue setled a Factory at Calicut touching the conditions and condition whereof you may reade at large in Roger Hawes his Iournall deliuered amongst other our Pilgrimes He telleth of the perfidiousnesse of this people how hardly they could get in debts they chusing rather to spend much in bribes then to pay debts Ours made vse of ther Superstition to Iustice for vnderstanding that they would neither eate nor wash whiles the English were in their houses they would threaten not to depart till they were payd hauing meane while Nayros for their Guard Thus Iniustice made them iust and vncharitablenes charitable For rather then be long troubled with their company most of them would pay part of their debts so that they got fifty Fanos kind of Coine of one 100. of another but one notwithstanding their three dayes abode would pay nothing it seemes equally prophane superstitious and vniust §. III. Of their differing Sects BArbosa reckoneth eighteene Sects that haue no mutuall conuersation nor may marrie but in their owne rankes or order Next to the King and Bramenes he placeth the Nayros which are Gentlemen and Souldiers and are not professed Nayros notwithstanding their bloud till they be by their Lords or by the King made Knights or Souldiers And then hee must neuer from that time goe without his Weapons which commonly are a Rapier and a Target and sometimes Peeces or Bowes They neuer marry but lye with such of the Nayros Women or Daughters as like them leauing his Weapons meane while at the doore which forbid any man else although it be the goodman himselfe to enter till he hath ended his businesse and be gone And if one of the common people once touch a Nayro it is lawfull for the Nayro to kill him and he is also vncleane and must be purified by certaine washings And for this cause they cry as they goe in the streets Po Po that the baser Raskality may giue place They haue a Pit of standing Water at their doores hallowed by the Bramenes wherein euery morning they wash themselues although it bee greene slimie and stinking imagining thus to be clensed of their sinnes They are brought vp altogether to Feats of Armes and Actiuitie from their Child-hood admirably able to wind and turne themselues and are very resolute and desperate binding themselues by oath to liue and die with their King or Lord. No Nayro's women may enter into Calicut but one night in the yeere when the Citie is full of Lights and then they goe with the Nayros to behold and gaze their fill They intend nothing but their lust and thinke that if they die Virgins they shall neuer enter into Paradise The Biabari are another sort and are Merchants Gentiles and enioy great priuiledges The King cannot put them to death but by sentence of the principall of themselues They were the only Merchants before the
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
euery one hath a peece of a leafe of the Bonanas Tree then is set before each a peece of Sagu bread after that a dish made of the leafe of another Tree with a little sodden Rice and Flesh-pottage which they hurle by handfuls into their mouthes deuouring rather then eating the same In the meanewhile the Gentlemen arise with their weapons and exercise themselues in Martiall games with Daunces The quarrell betwixt these Ilanders grew about the cutting of certayne Trees from whence it is come to cut and kill one another with cruell butcheries They exercise Sea-fights in their Caracorae or Galeots with great dexteritie with great showts and cryes the Gentlemen dancing on the hatches very actiuely They are very bloudie and barbarous yet bury the heads of their enemies with sweet odours If any of their friends die the women make a shrill and lowd crie to call him againe which not effected they prouide a great feast whereunto all the kindred and friends are inuited They burie them almost after our fashion in a white sheet the corps being carried on mens shoulders the men first and women after following A Censer is there left fuming all the day and might and in the night they keepe a light burning in a little house which they haue set ouer the graue In the morning and euening all of all sorts come and say their prayers a long while together at the graue and being asked wherefore they said that the dead should not arise againe They haue a play with the Ball exercised by many of them not as amongst vs with the hand but with their feete tossing the same vp into the ayre and taking it one of another with admirable sleight Thus haue we related from Dutch testimonies In Banda the Hollanders are reported to haue foure Factories and three Castles They are farre more feared of the Natiues then loued They raysed a Fort neere to one of their Mesgids or Temples to the prophanation as they thought of their holy ground and of the Sepulchres of their dead which for this cause they spared not Hence did the Bandeses burne with indignation which yet they concealed and with goodly protestations desired the Dutch Generall Verhauf which was there at that time with many ships to come into their House or place of Councell This was compassed with Trees and Bushes in the midst hauing a faire round place where they sate vpon Mats their chiefe Magistrate being the Sabandare Verhauf promised to come and when hee was by one of his Countrey-men that had long continued there admonished of the trecherie of this people Hee yet scorned to feare and with some three hundred followers at the appointed houre marched thither The Xeriff one of Mahomets kindred wearing as note hereof greene in his Turbant which had before inuited him to this assembly with all lowly semblance meetes him tells that in such armed troupes they shall not dare to speake their mindes He presently commands his Souldiers to stay tooke with him some two and fortie chiefe men entred and sate downe with the Bandese Senate crosse-legged a Bandese and a Hollander together and so through all the companie At the watchword each Bandese stabbed his neighbour Dutch and presently the Generals head was smitten off and carried out to his Souldiers now busie in playing or altogether idle their peeces lying on the ground and in this case they were suddenly assaulted by an ambush hidden there in the Thickets and were in great danger to haue lost their Fort. The English in their ships might see the fight In another place the Hollanders turned one of their Mesgids into a Fort. The offended Bandeses offered their slaues libertie to dispossesse them they refused till a Iauan Merchant then there with his Iunke offered his ten slaues aboard his Iunke to giue the onset Thus they went about three hundred each man with a fire-brand in one hand and a creese in the other aduentured on the shot and soone fired the Fort ouer their heads slaying euery man These Ilands of Banda are subiect as some but vntruely report to the King of Botone with whom one M. Richard Welding an Englishman was in great fauour The king had a sonne which was mad whom a certaine Italian vndertaking to cure was sent to attend him in the other World his patient dying vnder his hand M. Welding had serued him in his warres and gotten victories for him and honour for himselfe and his Nation It is reported that lately neere to the Hollanders Fort in Banda there issued a great fire out of the Sea which continued a good space and was likely to haue fired the Hollanders Fort the Natiues wayting for such oportunity but by shifting of the winde it escaped The Sea in that fired place was many many fathomes deeper then it had beene before But our English haue since this was published enioyed not only commerce but Forts and Dominion by voluntary subiection of the Bandaneses themselues the cause of great warres twixt the Dutch and ours the particulars whereof you may see at large in my Booke of Voyages The Hollanders and the Spaniards are in continuall warres for these Molucca Ilands They droue out the Portugals by force about ten yeeres since but the Spaniards haue succeeded in the quarrell which yet is managed on both parts so as the Natiues haue the worst For they both weare out the Country people in warres which betweene Tidore and Ternate are ancient by these bellowes kindled into continuall flames that there are scarsly sufficient to gather their Cloues Machian yeelds the most store in the third yeere which is most plentifull about 1800. Bahars on other yeeres almost eleuen hundred The Spaniards haue a Castle on Ternate another on Tidore in Gelolo also and Battachina two others but the Hollanders haue three in Terenate and as many in Tidore one in Amboyna one in Battachina in Batchame one in Botoone two Bulwarkes in Mechame three in Moutter one besides their other Indian Forts and all their Factories They haue their wiues also to helpe man if that name may bee giuen to women their Fortresses in some places Their Sea-force and Land-vices being added make them dreadfull to the Spaniard hatefull to the Indians and for their insolence distastefull to the English vnder pretence of I know not what conquest stiffely denying terribly threatning disgracefully deprauing the English vnder whose name they haue yet borne themselues in many places of the Indies and with mayne force and violence binding the Natiues to their owne trade and that at lower prices and harder conditions which makes them loue the more liberall though imperious and proud spirit of the Spaniard more then that accounted fordid dealing of the Flemming in the Moluccas and Banda Ilands Before we leaue these Moluccas and their dependant Ilands we may conclude with a Tragedy wherein blind superstition and beastly cruelty were principall Actors When Menesius was Gouernour of
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
Hia falling and many of his followers vpon him till a certaine Alcayde knowing him cryed that Bomobali that is the King of clouts or rags was slaine whereupon all forsooke him and fled his other troupes now also comming to the flight which before his indiscretion and impatience would not suffer him to vse in the fight Thus died this glorious vainglorious Saint a man of great valour which hee had tryed in thirty seuerall Battailes and skirmishes in which he obtained the better both against Sidan and the Mountayners whose Corne-fields he burnt destroyed their Vineyards and in two or three daies had cut down sixty thousand Oliue-trees The place of this battle betwixt Hamet and Hia was in or neere the Gardens which are said to extend foure miles from Marocco the time in October 1613. Alcuid Azus was then in Marocco with the Sonne of Hamet both which vpon this disaster fled with abundance of Treasure but by the Larbies were taken and Azus his head presently smitten off as the supposed contriuer of many policies to their detriment Hamets Sonne was carried to Marocco and presented to Sidan where after diuers contumelies opprobriously carried on an Asse diuers dayes he was at last slaine When Side Hia had slaine Hamet hee grew suspected to Sidan because hee did not then presently proclaime him nor durst he aduenture to the City till Hia had remooued his forces further The City meane while sustayned diuers abuses by the Souldiers as before by the Vsurper in so much that Sidan wept when hee entred and saw the beauty of his Palace defaced which some say is comparable in greatnesse and statelinesse to the best in Christendome and kept within doores three moneths or more After this comming forth hee brake his Couenant with Hia and those which before he had pardoned were now put to death and some also grieuously tortured Whereupon Hia tooke armes againe and came neere to Marocco with a great Power which suddenly he was forced to disperse and to returne home for feare of Treason by Side Lassan a great man in his Armie which was reported to hold intelligence with Sidan and to haue written to him Thus barbarous and miserable is the present State of Barbary Sidan the only Suruiuer of the Brethren possessing Marocco Fez acknowledging no Souereigne but the City gouerned by the Magistrates thereof and in the Countrey each Cast or Tribe by it selfe Mully Abdela the Sonne of Mully Shek liues sometimes at Micanes sometimes at Alcasar little respected maintayning himselfe by spoyle and robbery and Side Hia enioying the Royall profits of the Kingdome of Sus. He liues commonly at Taradant holds the Countrey subiect but arrogates not the title of King His word is Lanserel hoc layenore Side Hia that is Let the Truth liue and Side Hia flourish A late Letter from thence signifies the feare that Sidan had of Hia's third approch to Marocco in which respect he sent two thousand Souldiers into the Countrey of Draa thence to enter into Sus if such inuasion happened But we haue beene too tedious Actors of this Barbarian Tragedie Wee must forward on our Pilgrimage and now hauing glutted our eyes with bloud let vs take more quiet view of the other parts of this Kingdome Agmet was sometimes called a second Marocco from whence it standeth foure and twenty miles The Hils and Valley about it adorned with Gardens and Vineyards a faire Riuer and fertile fields yeelding fiftie fold encrease haue assembled Natures Forces to ioyne with Arte if Magicke may be so termed and the Histories write true for the common good of Agmet and Marocco The Riuer runneth as is thought to Marocco vnder the ground which secret passage is attributed to the Wizards of Ioseph Founder of Marocco lest the water course should be cut off from the City This fruitfull Agmet in Leo's time was peopled onely with Foxes and wild beasts sauing that a certaine Heremite held the Castle with a hundred of his Disciples The Mountaynes are very rude according to their rough and cold places of habitation many of them couered continually with Snow In Nififa they gaze and wonder at strangers in Semede they forced Leo to play the Iudge and Notarie accepting no excuse eight dayes and then set him in a Church-porch and after a certaine Prayer presented themselues with their presents before him Cockes Hens Nuts Garlike and some of the better sort a Goat which all he gaue his Host money they had none for him In Secsina there is at all times of the yeere Snow There are many great Caues wherein they winter their beasts in Nouember Ianuary and February They weare no shooes but certaine Sandals and are lustie men at ninety or a hundred yeeres old Temnella is an Hereticall Hill and Towne which hath a faire Temple They are of Elmaheli his Sect and challenge any stranger which comes amongst them to dispute In Hantera are many Iewes of the Carraim Sect The fourth Region of this Kingdom is Guzzula confining with the Hill Ilda on the West Atlas on the North Hea on the East They haue no walled Townes but great Villages neither haue they King or Gouernour the cause of Ciuill Warres amongst them yet doe they obserue three dayes in a Weeke truce when euery man may trauell or batter safely A certaine Heremite who was reputed a Saint was Authour of this three dayes truce in each weeke Hee had but one eye I my selfe sayth Leo saw him and found him to bee trustie courteous and liberall Duccala the fifth Region lyeth betweene Tensift and the Ocean Habib and Omirabih At Azaphi the Prince was in Leo's time murthered at Church while he was in his deuotions by a subiect who was chosen Gouernour but the Portugals obtayned the place Azamur a Citie exceedingly addicted to Sodomie was also punished with Portugall slauerie and most of the Countrey thereabouts In the Hill called Greene-hill liue many Heremites of the fruits onely there growing Here are many Altars and Saints after the Mahumetan fashion Mahumet King of Fez in the yeere of our Lord 1512. passed this way with his Armie and at euery Altar made a stand and there kneeling would thus say My God thou knowest that my intent of comming to this wilde place is onely to helpe and free the people of Duccala from the wicked and rebellious Arabians and from our cruell enemies the Christians and if thou doest not approue it let thy scourge light onely on my person for these people that follow me deserue not to be punished Hence he sent me Ambassadour to Marocco Hascora the sixt Region of Marocco is situate betweene the Riuer Tensift and Quadelhabid . Alemdio in Hascora was conquered to the King of Fez by a Merchant whose Paramour the Prince had taken away for which adulterie he was by the Iudges condemned to be stoned The Prince of Temcenes was so addicted to Arabian poetrie that hee gaue Leo then a youth of sixteene yeeres old
Rials and with vs eight Shillings for that by him the furious spirit of Nilus is slacked and cooled being detayned in the way by many Sluces for that purpose made The great Turke denying this the Abassine caused those Dammes to be broken and by drowning Egypt in vncouth manner forced that great Monarch to composition Aluarez denies both the Mountaynes of Luna and the melting of Snow which is supposed the cause of this Riuers hastinesse and ascribeth the ouer-flowing of Nilus to the extreme raines in Ethiopia whose Fountaynes diuers Portugals haue seene hee saith in Goyame The Turke notwithstanding hath by warring vpon him erected a new Beglerbegship in his Dominions Aluarez liued there sixe yeeres and was once within thirtie miles of Nilus but in all his trauels neuer saw that Riuer So little accesse haue the Ethiopians barred out by vnpassable passages vsually to the same Andrea Corsali reporteth that the Prete Dauid was of oliue colour but shewed his face but once in the yeere hauing at other times his face couered for greater state and therefore also spake to none but by an Interpreter The Inhabitants are branded with fire which they vse not for Baptisme but in obseruation of a custome of Salomon who so marked his slaues as they affirme Friar Luys giueth another reason thereof saying that when the world groned vnder Arrianisme the Abassine Emperour caused his Subiects to brand themselues with a threefold marke or stampe in the forehead to testifie their faith of and in the Trinitie which now since their commerce with the Roman Christians is in manner wholly left except in the ruder and more vnciuill parts of Barnagasso the borders of the Empire The same Author saith that in Ethiopia are Elephants the Rhinoceros and besides other beasts the Vnicorne in the Kingdome of Goyame and in the Hills of the Moone but seldome seene onely the horne is found which he casteth in manner as the Hart. There are also he saith birds of Paradise and such store and varietie of flowers all the yeere long that their Eunuchs are alway decked with them There is one flower not any where else known called Ghoyahula much resembling a Mary-gold but exceeding faire in varietie and excellency of colours fragrant smell abundance of leaues in the flower and with a more rare qualitie beginning to open at noone and so by little and little opening more and more till midnight alway the sent encreasing with the opening after midnight it shuts by little and little till noone denying by the same degrees her pleasing offices to both senses of Sent and Sight He tells also of a little Bird to which Nature hath committed the tuition of this Flower which all the time that it is open flyes about it driues away things offensiue sings sweetly and spreads her selfe thereon with other things very strange I dare not affirme very true He mentioneth also a bird called the Rhinoceros of the ayre much bigger then an Eagle and hauing a bow-fashioned bill or beake foure foot long and a horne betweene the eyes with a black line alongst it It is a cruell fowle and attends on battells and camps The Portugalls had sight of one at the Red Sea when Soliman the Eunuch had his Nauie in the Red Sea The horne is of the same propertie with that of the Vnicorne and Rhinoceros There are fishes also called Rhinocerotes of the Sea many of which are paid the Prete for Tribute Many many other Ethiopian rarities wee might obserue out of this Authour but if it deserue credit the Hill Amara after his description may furnish you for and beyond all the rest of Ethiopia as a second earthly Paradise CHAP. V. Relations of Ethiopian rarities collected out of Friar LVYS a Spanish Author §. I. Of the Hill Amara THe hill Amara hath alreadie beene often mentioned and nothing indeed in all Ethiopia more deserueth mention whether wee respect the naturall site or the employment thereof Somewhat is written thereof by Geographers and Historians especially by Aluarez whom we haue chiefly followed in the former Relations of this Countrie as an eye-witnesse of the most things reported but neither they nor he haue any thing but by relation sauing that he passed two dayes iourney along by the said Hill and that also had almost cost him his life But Iohn de Baltasar saith our Friar liued in the same a long time and therein serued Alexander which was afterwards Emperor and was often by commandement of the same man when he was Emperor sent thither out of his Relations Friar * Luys saith hee hath borrowed that which here we offer you And here we offer you no small fauour to conduct you into and about this place where none may come but an Ethiopian and that by expresse licence vnder paine of leauing his hands feet and eyes behind in price for his curiositie and not much lesse is the danger of such as offer to escape from thence Aluarez himselfe being an eye-witnesse of some such cruell executions inflicted for that offence This Hill is situate as the Nauill of that Ethiopian Body and Centre of their Empire vnder the Equinoctiall Line where the Sunne may take his best view thereof as not encountring in all his long iourney with the like Theatre wherein the Graces and Muses are Actors no place more graced with Natures store or furnished with such a store-house of bookes the Sunne himselve so in loue with the sight that the first and last thing hee vieweth in all those parts is this Hill and where Antiquitie consecrated vnto him a stately Temple the gods if yee beleeue Homer that they feasted in Ethiopia could not there nor in the world find a fitter place for entertainment all of them contributing their best store if I may so speake to the banquet Bacchus Iuno Venus Pomona Ceres and the rest with store of fruits wholsome ayre pleasant aspect and prospect secured by Mars lest any sinister accident should interrupt their delights if his garrisons of Souldiers were needfull where Nature had so strongly fortified before onely Neptune with his ruder Sea-deities and Pluto with his black-guard of barking Cerberus and the rest of that dreadful traine whose vnwelcome presence would trouble all that are present are all saue Charon who attends on euery feast yea now hath ferried away those supposed deities with himselfe perpetually exiled from this place Once Heauen and Earth Nature and Industrie haue all beene Corriuals to it all presenting their best presents to make it of this so louely presence some taking this for the place of our Fore-fathers Paradise And yet though thus admired of others as a Paradise it is made a Prison to some on whom Nature had bestowed the greatest freedome if their freedome had not beene eclipsed with greatnesse and though goodly starres yet by the Sunnes brightnesse are forced to hide their light when grosse and earthly bodies are seene their noblenesse making
witnesses in her wel-pâ—opled Regions can auerre that the parts betwixt the Tropikes are both habitable and inhabited and for the Perioeci Antoeci Anticthones and Antipodes the worlds roundnesse and other things of like nature this America yeelds and is sufficient proofe and the yeerely compassing the world which the Spaniards and Portugals diuide betwixt them makes more then euident And let those two English Ships the onely two of one Nation which euer haue sailed and that with admirable successe and fortune about the Globe of the earth tell Lactantius ghost whether they dropped into the clouds as hee feared there to become new constellations which Antiquitie would easily haue attributed to them The Golden Hinde which trauersed the world round and returned a Golden Hind indeed with her belly full of Gold and Siluer is yet at Debtford there resting after her long iourney offering vp her selfe to Time her deeds to eternitie The causes of the Temperature and habitablenesse of those parts That which beguiled the Ancients was the neerenesse of the Sunne his direct beames and the swift motion of the heauens which they coniectured did chase away cold and moisture out of all those parts And hardly could reason otherwise ghesse till experience shewed the contrary For neuer is it moister in those parts betweene the Tropikes then when the Sunne is neerest causing terrible stormes and showers euery day as if hauing drunken too much in his long and hote iourney ouer the Ocean hee did there vomit it vp againe Once the people of those parts reckon it Winter when the Astronomer would call it Summer because of this tedious weather which euery day happening cannot but coole the Ayre and Earth with a maruellous temper and on the other side they call the time of the Sunnes absence Summer because of the perpetuall clearenesse which continueth those sixe moneths the Sunne then exhaling no more vapours then his hote stomacke can digest which with his directer beames being drawne vp surcharge him with abundance and in the middle Region of the Aire by the then stronger Antiperistasis are thickened into raines and attended with Thunder and Lightnings proclaime dayly defiance to the earth threatning harme but doing good cooling the same after the morning Sun hath heated it the showres then falling when the Sunne threatens his hottest fury and violence These Raines make the like inundations and ouerflowings of Riuers in America as before wee haue obserued in Nilus Niger and Zaire in Africa which breaking their bounds and driuing the Inhabitants sometimes to dwell on trees growing sometimes in their carkasses framed into Boats or Canoes therein to retire themselues till the waters are retired cause a cooling and refreshing to the Earth which they couer and shield by their inundations from the Sunnes angry arrowes As in a Limbeck a strong fire causeth abundance of vapours to be extracted out of herbes or other matter which being pressed and finding no issue turn into water and if the fire be smal it exhausteth the vapors as fast as it raiseth them So the Sun in his greatest strength exhaleth these plentifull vapours and distilleth them in showers which in lesse heat are of lesse quantitie and more easily consumed Without the Tropikes it is contrary for the Summer is dry the Winter moist the cause being the Suns weaknesse not able to concoct and disperse the vapours by the moist earth then easily yeelded which in his greater force in the Summer season wee see effected the like wee see in greene wood and dry on the fire It is no lesse worthy note that no part of the World hath so many so great Lakes and Riuers the vapours and exhalations whereof cannot but coole and moisten the neighbouring Elements of the Ayre and the Earth Againe the equall length of the Dayes and Nights perpetually sharing the time in equall portions causeth that the heat is not so vnequall as the Ancients dreamed The great Dewes also in the night which are greater them wee would thinke and comparable for wetting to pretty showers encrease the freshnesse and coolenesse Wee may adde hereunto the neighbour-hood of so huge an Ocean the proprietie of the Windes which in most places betweene the Tropikes are set and certaine no lesse then the Sunne and Tides and bring with them much refreshing Further the situation of the Land doth further the cold not a little in those hot Regions Contrariwise neere the Poles the continuance of the Sunne and long dayes make it hotter then in parts neerer the Sunne as in Russia then in England Yea the high ridges and tops of some Mountaines in the burning Zone are vnsufferable for cold alwayes hauing on them snow hayle and frozen waters the grasse withered and the men and beasts which do passe along that way for heere is no conuenient dwelling benummed with the extremity of cold Paries cùm proximus alget When the Mountaines are subiect to this degree of cold it cannot but temper the Neighbour Regions with some coolenesse at least Now to all these Reasons of the Temperature vnder the Line and betweene the Tropikes some adde the influence of some vnknowne Constellations Onely let this be remembred that the former hold not equally in all parts of the Torride Zone seeing that Nature hath diuersified her selfe in diuers places and by naturall exceptions hath bounded and limited those generall Rules In some places vnder the Line it raineth not at all in other some those cooling Windes are wanting neither hath euery Region Lakes Riuers or Mountaines to refresh them But of these particulars we shall take better view in their peculiar places In the same space the Windes are most-what Easterly and without the Tropikes Westerly so that the Mariners vse not to goe and returne the same way but obseruing the generall Windes seeke to make vse thereof accordingly The reason of this Easterly Winde vnder the Zodiake is ascribed to the motion of the Heauens the first Moueable drawing saith Acosta with his owne motion the inferiour Orbes yea euen those Elementarie of the Fire Ayre and where it findes no other obstacle of the Water also as some suppose But for the Ayre whereof wee now speciall speake the motion of the Comets circularly carried in the Ayre where also their motion is diuers as is obserued in the Planets doth sufficiently prooue Without the Tropikes from seuen and twentie to seuen and thirtie Degrees the Windes are said to be for the most part Westerly mooued as some thinke by the repercussion of the Ayre heere preuailing against that force of the Heauens which mastereth it within the Tropikes euen as wee see Waters being encountered with more force returne with an Eddie in a manner backe This of the Easterly Winds is to be vnderstood of the Sea for at Land though winds bee as before is said certaine and set yet that which is the generall Winde of one Country is not generall to all yea in the same Countrey
charmes were the cause that made the earth bring forth her fruit and that he might the easier perswade them he retired himselfe once or twice a yeere to a certain house accompanied with two or three of his friends where he vsed inchantments If any man offered to see what he did it cost him his life Euery yeere he offereth a man in the time of Haruest which was kept for that purpose and taken of such Spaniards as had suffered shipwrack on that Coast They which further desire to know the riches and commodities of these Countries may resort to the Authors in this Chapter mentioned Sir Francis Drake in the yeere 1586. besides his worthy exploits in other places tooke the Forts of S. Iohn and Saint Augustine whence he brought Pedro Morales and Nicholas Burgoignon whose relations concerning that Countrey Master Hackluit hath inserted among other his painfull labours Dauid Ingram reported many strange things which he saith he saw in these parts Elephants Horses and beasts twice as big as Horses their hinder parts resembling Greyhounds Buls with eares like Hounds beasts bigger then Beares without head or necke but hauing their eyes and mouthes in their brests and another beast Cerberus he cals him Colluchio which is saith he the Deuill in likenesse of a Dogge and sometimes of a Calfe with many other matters wherein he must pardon me if I be not too prodigall of my Faith He tels also of punishment of adultery by death the woman cutting the adulterers throat and the neerest kinsman hers after many prayers to the Colluchio and a further punishment in that they haue no quicke bodie buried with them to attend them into the other world as all others haue But they that list to beleeue may consult with the Author Anthony Goddard another of Ingrams company left by Sir Iohn Hawkins going another way at Panuco yeelded himselfe to the Spaniards with whom was Miles Philips and Iob Hortop whose discourses of their disaduentures with the Spaniards and Indians Master Hakluit hath published and hath Goddards also written CHAP. VIII Of the Countreys situate Westward from Florida and Virginia towards the South-Sea §. I. Of Cibola Tigues Quiuira and Noua Albion WE haue hitherto discouered those parts of this Northerne America which trend along the North Sea which the English and French Nations haue most made knowne vnto vs further Westward the mid-land countreys are not so well knowne yet following our Spanish guides wee here present them from their relations to your view When as Cortez had conquered Mexico as after followeth to be related he was made Admirall of the South-Seas but the gouernment of Mexico and New Spaine was with the title of Vice-roy giuen to Antonio de Mendoza These two partly in emulation of each others glory partly in hope of enriching themselues sought to discouer vnknowne Lands the one by Sea the later both by Sea Land The Viceroy sent as he himselfe testifieth Francis Vasquez de Coronado and Frier Marco de Nisa with Stephen a Negro by land out of whose relations we haue inserted that which concerneth our purpose Marke the Frier and Stephen set forth with certaine Indians in this Discouerie and Stephen going before came to Ceuola as Marke related where hee was slaine the Frier followed with his Indian guides and passed thorow one place where was small store of Victuall because it had not there rained as the Inhabitants affirmed in three yeares space The Indians call him Hayota that is a man come from Heauen Hee passed on further led by the same of Ceuola which with other sixe Cities were reported to be vnder the gouernment of one Lord and to haue houses of stone consisting of diuers stories where were many Turqueses with many other strange reports of their Markets multitudes and wealth But because the Frier came not there for feare of the Negros entertainment let vs listen to Francis Vasquez who came saw and ouercame An 1540. He went with his Army from Culiacan which is 200. leagues from Mexico and after a long and tedious iourney he at last arriued in this Prouince and conquered almost with the losse of himselfe the first Citie of the seuen which he called Granado Twice he was striken downe with stones from the wall as he offered to scale the same He saith that their houses were of foure or fiue stories or lofts to which they ascended on ladders and that they had Cellers vnder the ground good and paued But those seuen Cities were small Townes all standing in the compasse of foure leagues all called by that generall name of Ceuola or Cibola and none of them particularly so called but hauing other peculiar names they were of like building In this Towne which he conquered stood 200. houses walled about and 300. others not walled The Inhabitants had remoued their wiues and wealth to the Hill Hee reporteth of beasts there Beares Tygres Lions and Sheepe as bigge as horses with great hornes and little tayles Ounces also and Stagges That which the Indians worshipped as farre as they could learne was the Water which said they caused the Corne to grow and maintained their life Hee found there a garment excellently embroidered with needle-worke Vasquez went hence to Tiguez to Cieuic and to Quiuira as Lopez de Gomara reporteth This way is full of crooke-backed Oxen. Quiuira is in 40. degrees and the Countrey is temperate They saw Ships in the Sea which bare Alcatoazes or Pelicans of Gold and Siluer in their Prowes laden with Merchandise which they tooke to be of China or Cathay The men in these parts cloath and shoo themselues with leather they haue no bread of any kind of graine their chiefe food is flesh which they often eate raw either for custome or for lacke of wood They eate the fat as they take it out of the Oxe and drinke the bloud hot which of our buls is counted poison and the flesh they warme for they seethe it not at a fire of Oxe-dung They rather may be said to rauin then to eate it holding the flesh with their teeth cut it with rasors of stone They goe in companies as the Scythian Nomades Tartarian floords and many other Nations following the seasons and best pasturings for their oxen These Oxen are of the bignesse and colour of our Buls but their hornes are not so great They haue a great bunch vpon their shoulders and more haire on their fore-part then on the hinder and it is like wooll They haue as it were a horse-mane on their backe bone and much haire and very long from their knees downwards They haue great tufts of haire on their foreheads and haue a kinde of beard vnder their chins and throats the males haue very long tayles with a great knob or flocke at the end so that in some respect they resemble a Lyon in other the Camels Horses Oxen Sheepe or Goats They push with their hornes and in their rage
like vnto Kine or Mules which diue and goe but swimme not vnder the water Bores of two sorts Conies Pigs Ounces Foxes with bags to carry their yong vnder the belly The Tatu or Armadilla which digs as much as many men with Mattocks the Conduacu or Porcupine of three sorts the Hirara like Ciuet Cats which eate honey the Aquiqui bearded Apes blacke and sometimes one yellow which they say is their King hauing an Instrument from his gullet as bigge as a Duck-egge wherewith he maketh a loud sound so actiue that they sometimes are said to catch an arrow with the hand and redart it at the shooter and so cunning that they seeke a leafe chew it and put the same into their wounds There are of them many kindes The Cuati are like Badgers they climbe trees no snake egge or bird escapes him There are others greater as great Dogs with Tusks which deuoure men and beasts There are wilde Cats which yeeld good Furre and are very fierce the lagoarucu are Dogs of Brasile the Tapati also barke like Dogs The Iaguacinia is a kind of Foxe which feedeth on Sea-crabs and Sugar-canes The Birataca a kinde of Ferret of such stinking sauour that some Indians haue died thereof yea Dogges which come neere escape not the sent endureth fifteene or twenty dayes in those things which he hath come neere to and causeth some towne sometimes to bee disinhabited This commeth of a ventositie which it voideth and couereth in the earth or casteth it out being in danger to be taken it feedeth on birds Eggs and Amber Ten or twelue kinds of Rats all good meat Other beasts are before mentioned Of Snakes without venome hee numbreth the Giboya some of which are twenty foot long and wil swallow a Deere whole crushing it with the winding of his taile and bruising it with licking to that purpose The Guiaranpiaquana eateth eggs goeth faster on the trees then any man can runne on the ground with a motion like swimming The Camoiama is all greene and liueth on like food The Boytiapua eate Frogs the Indians strike this Serpent on womens hips as remedy to barrennesse The Gaitiaepia smelleth so that none can abide it such is also the Boyuma the Bam so termed of his crie is great and harmelesse the Baicupeganga hath venemous prickles on his backe There are other venomous Snakes as the Iararaca of which are foure kinds of musky sent one ten spannes long with great tuskes which they hide and stretch out at pleasure The Curucucu fifteene spannes long which lyeth on a tree to hunt his prey The Boycimiaga which hath a bell in his tayle so swift that they call it the flying Snake there are two kinds thereof The Ibiracua causeth by his biting the bloud to issue thorow all parts of the body eyes mouth nose eares c. The Ibiboca is the fairest but of foulest venome amongst them all The fields woods houses beds bootes are subiect to the plenty of Snakes which without helpe kill in foure and twenty houres There are also many Scorpions which ordinarily kill not but cause extreme paine for foure and twenty houres space Lizards couer the wals of houses and holes are full of them Their fundament-worms are very dangerous which Sir Richard Hawkins saith he saw like a long Magot greene with a red head creeping in and glewing himselfe to the gut where it groweth so great that it stoppeth the passage and killeth with cruell Colicke torments Master Kniuet speakes of one Serpent which he killed thirteene spans long with foure and twenty teeth great shels about the necke blacke and russet like a collar lesse on her bodie and darke greene vnder her belly all speckled with blacke and white with foure sharpe feet no longer then a mans finger and a tongue like a harping iron Her tayle like a strait bull-horne blacke and white listed If they finde fire they beat themselues in it till either the fire or themselues be extinguished They vse from a tree to fall on their prey passing by thrusting their tayle into the fundament The Indians will not goe vnder fiue or sixe to set vpon one of them this yet he killed with the helue of an axe Of Birds there are Parrots innumerable more then Starlings or Sparrows in Spaine the Guaminbig like Bees which sleepe sixe moneths the Tangara which haue the falling-sicknesse the rest dancing about that which is fallen with a noise from which they will not bee skarred till they haue done c. Of Fruits hee reckons the Iacapucaya like a pot as bigge as a great bowle two fingers thicke with a couer in it within full of Chesnuts being much eaten greene it causeth all haire to fall off Balsam trees pricked excellent for cure and sent Oyle-trees many one as a Well or Riuer growing in dry places where no water is it hath holes in the branches as long as ones arme full of water Winter and Summer neuer running ouer but alwayes at like stay fiue hundred persons may come to the foot of it and drinke and wash their fill without want the water is sauoury and cleere There are hearbs which seeme to sleepe all night and others which make shew of sence as wee haue before obserued from Master Harcourt in Guiana Of strange fishes in Brasil he nameth the Oxe-fish with eyes and eye-lids two armes a cubit long with two hands fiue fingers and nayles as in a man and vnder the armes the female had two paps inwards like an Oxe it cannot bee long vnder water it hath no fins but the tayle which is round and close two stones neere the braine of great esteeme the inwards of an Oxe and taste like Porke The Cucurijuba is a fresh-water Snake fiue and twenty or thirty foot long the Mamma is a greater kinde toothed like a dogge with a chaine striped along the backe very faire It catcheth a Man Cow Stag or any other prey winding it with the tayle and so swalloweth it whole after which she lyes and rots the Rauens and Crowes eating her all but the bones to which after groweth new-flesh by life deriued from the head which is hidden all this while in the mire which therefore they that finde seeke and kill They will sleepe so being full that they may cut off pieces he tels an instance from the tayle and they not awaken They found one which was fifty spans or twelue yards and a halfe long hauing two wilde Bores in the belly Thus much of the creatures in Brasile Let vs now take better view of their Warres Religion and other their Rites CHAP. V. Of the Customes and Rites of the Brasilians §. I. Of their warres and man-eating and of the Diuel torturing them THe Brasilians for the most part as you haue seene exercise irreconciliable hostilitie not to enlarge their dominions but onely to be reuenged for the death of their friends and Ancestors slaine by their enemies The Elder men as they sit or
could but touch and away we may aduenture notwithstanding the wonted danger vpon Bermuda Danger hath made it now not so dangerous nocuments haue beene documents For while some haue beene wracked there they haue made vertue of Necessitie and so well obserued the Coast that skill hath almost secured that which Nature had seemed to set there in defiance both of Habitation and Nauigation to both which it is now subiected by our Nation It was called Bermuda as Ouiedo sayth of Iobn Bermudez which first discouered it and Garza of the ships name wherein hee then sayled Ouiedo writeth that hee was iust by it and had thought to haue sent some Hogs on shore there to haue multiplyed but by force of tempest was driuen thence and others eyther of like purpose or by force of shipwracke haue since done it It is also called the Iland of Deuils which they suppose inhabit there and the Inchanted Iland but these are inchanted conceits Iob Hortop relateth That in the height of Bermuda they had sight of a Sea-monster which three times shewed himselfe from the middle vpwards in shape like a man of the complexion of a Mulato or tawny Indian But this name was giuen it not of such Monsters but of the monstrous tempests which here they haue often sustayned Sir G. Sommers hath deserued that it should beare his name by his indeuours thereabouts testified in life and death Hee with Sir Thomas Gates as before is said were wrackt on the Iland which losse turned to some gaine as if God would giue them this into the Virginia-bargaine Before Anno 1593. Henry May an Englishman in a French ship was wracked thereon and hath giuen vs some Discourse thereof more fully hath Syluester Iourdan one of that Virginian Company one of the company of those worthy Knights in a Treatise of that shipwracke and the Discouerie of Bermuda The Commodities whereof he reckoneth varietie of fishes plentie of Hogges which it seemeth haue escaped out of some wrackes diuers Fruits Mulberries Silke-wormes Palmitos Cedars Pearles Ambergrise But the most strange thing seemes the varietie of Fowle of which they tooke a thousand of one sort in two or three houres being as bigge as a Pidgeon and laying speckled Egges as bigge as Hens Egges on the sand where they come and lay them daily although men sit downe amongst them When Sir Thomas Gates his men haue taken a thousand of them Sir George Sommers men haue stayed a while by them and brought away as many more Another Fowle there is that liueth in holes like Cony-holes their Egges like in quantity and qualitie to Hen-egges Other Birds were so gentle that whistling to them they would come and gaze on you while with your sticke you might kill them Other Egges they had of Tortoyses a bushell in the belly of one very sweet they tooke forty of them in a day and one would serue fiftie men at a meale Two were there borne and other two married to make the most naturall possession thereof for our Nation which now in hope of good successe hath there planted an habitation That wracked Company built there a Ship and a Pinnasse and set saile for Virginia William Strachie in a large Discourse with his fluent and copious pen hath described that tempest which brought them to this Iland affirming that there was not an houre in foure dayes in which they freed not out of their almost captiued Ship twelue hundred Barricoes of water each contayning sixe gallons and some eight besides three Pumps continually going euery foure houres they bestowed an hundred tuns of water on the cruell Sea which seemed the more hungry after their bodies or thirstie for their bloud from Tuesday noone till Friday noone they bayled and pumped two thousand tunnes and were ten foot deepe nor could haue holden out one day longer when they first had fight of the Bermudas These he sayth are an Archipelagus of broken Ilands not fewer then fiue hundred if all may be so called which lye by themselues the greatest which lyeth like an halfe moone is in 32. degrees 20. minutes At their first landing they killed with Bats seuen hundred Fowles like to Guls at one time The Ilands seeme rent with tempests of Thunder Lightning and Raine which threaten in time to deuoure them all the stormes in the full and change keepe their vnchangeable round Winter and Summer rather thundring then blowing from euery corner sometimes 48. houres together especially when the Halo or circle about the Moone appeareth which is often and there foure times as large as with vs The North and Northwest winds cause Winter in December Ianuary and February yet not such but then young Birds to be seene Without knowledge a Boat of ten tuns cannot be brought in and yet within is safe harbour for the greatest Ships They found there for their sustenance wild Palmitos the tops of which trees rosted did eate like fried Melons sodden like Cabbages with the leaues they couered their Cabins Berries blacke and round as bigge as a Damson ripe in December and very luscious in the Winter they shed their leaues No Iland in the World had more or better Fish Of Fowles was great varietie They killed a wild Swan Some there are which breed in high Ilands in holes to secure them from the Swine They haue their seasons one kind succeeding another Besides this reliefe of Fowles they had plenty of Tortoise Egges which they lay as bigge as Goose Egges and commit to the Sun and Sands hatching nurserie They had sometimes fiue hundred in one of them Euen heere lest the Iland should lose that former name of Deuils some entred into Deuillish conspiracie three seuerall time Some were banished and after reconciled Henry Paine was shot to death Some fled to the Woods but all reduced except Christopher Carter and Robert Waters But these Ilands haue now beene possessed diuers yeeres by an English Colonie and my friend Master Barkley which hath beene there and is now onwards on a second Voyage thither seemeth rauished with the naturall endowments both for health and wealth of these Ilands which now are to be shared amongst the Aduenturers and fortified against all inuasions Nature it selfe being herein readie to further their securitie against the greatest forren force mustering winds which some say are violent further off but calmer neere the Ilands and Rockes many leagues into the Sea for their defence which now yet they are gone to strengthen both with men and munition The Colonie that is there haue not onely sent verball but reall commendations of the place as may appeare by a Treatise thereof lately set forth by one which in the Shippe called the Plough sayled thither Anno 1612. wherein is declared the Commodities there found as Mullets Breames Lobstars and Angel-fish Hog-fish Rock-fish c. as before is said The Ayre is very healthfull as their experience the best argument hath found and agreeing well
King of Delly all Indostan is his patrimony and his countrey diuided by three famous high wayes Porrab Pachan Dekan W. Clarke f Allahoban g Sultan Peruis h M. Clarke which diuers yeeres serued the Mogol in his warres and was one of these Haddies saith 30000. i Others say 2. s. 6. d. others 2. s. 3. d. k 150. millions of crownes l M. Withington which liued a Factor diuers yeeres in the Countrey receiued of the Iesuites which reside there this same story of the Mogols treasures m See Chap. 7. n M. Clarke saith 50000. Selims Religion and Customes o The Kings of India sit daily in Iustice themselues and on the Tuesdayes doe execution Feasts Mogols Sepulcher Couert saith the matter is fine Marble the forme nine square the compasse two English miles about nine stories high and that the King protested he would bestow thereon one hundred millions Iarric Thes. rer Indic l. 5. c. 23. An. 1612. n Nic Bangam They had money of these Ships some 32000. rials of eight wherof the Rehemee payd 15000. M. Downton saith They had goods for goods to a halfe-penny Nic. Withington M T. Best M. Patrick Copland M. Nathaniel Salmon M. Withington Nunno d' Ancuna M. Withington o M. Copland p Ant. Starky Ex Relat. M.S. Gen. Nic. Downton Martin Pring Beniamin Day Iohn Leman William Masham c. Master Downton both buried his sonne and died himselfe in this Voyage which since we haue published with other our Pilgrims continued by M. Elkington and M. Dodsworth his successiue successour q N. Withington r Goga is a rich towne on the other side of the Bay Some say that there was not so much harme done Masham Inuention of Ordnance first vsed by the Venetians against the Genuous An. Dom. 1378. who besieged Fossa-Clodia a town of theirs inuented by a German Alchymist a Monke called Bertholdus Swartus Others say Constantinus Anklitzen Printing was also first inuented by a German the first Printed booke being Tullies Offices at Mentz by one Iohn Fust which some thinke to be the same with Gutemberg who had made triall of this Art before without any perfection This Booke is still at Augsburg printed 1466. Ram. P. Verg. Pancirol Salmuth c. d So doth another namelesse Copy which I haue seene I omit the names of the Captaines e Ben Day Another hath Sanedo Nic. Withington f See M. Terris Booke and Childs Iournal Sir Tho. Roe in my voyages g See Swans Iournall and letters of Blithe Browne c. h Let. of T. Wilson and also of Robert Smith i One Philips in the Richard was principall cause of that victory by his Manhood k Of Dutch and English vnkind quarrells see Relations of M. Cocke Tho. Spurway Captaine Courthop Rob. Haies Captaine Pring Iohn Hatch William Hord letters of Cas Dauid George Iackeson Ia. Lane G. Ball M. Willes Kellum Throgmorton Ric. Nash S. T. Dale Io. Iordan A. Spaldwin G. Muschamp W. Anthon. H. Fitzherbert Th. Knollos B. Church-man G. Pettys c. Rob. Couert Agra a Fatipore a Citie as bigge as London Ios. Salbank Indico b 12000. or 15000. within the Citie Still R. Still or Stell and I. Crowther March 17. T. Cor. his letter to M. L. W. c Vers Hosk d Flauius Iustinianus Alemanicus Gothicus Francicus Germanicus Anticus Alanicus Vandalicus Africanus for that which followes Pius Foelix Inclytus Victor ac Triumphator , semper Augustus I hope his friends in the Verses before his booke haue giuen him more prodigious and himselfe before he comes home must needs multiply further hauing such huge bundles of papers abreeding in so many places at Aleppo Spahan Asmere c. e R. Still Lahore Chatcha 3 Fort. m Still Couerts Trauels are extant in his Booke n Hee saith that he hath put to death his own sonne and done 1000 other tyrannies Iohn Crowther W. Nichols Iohn Mildnall Mic. Withington 88. Courses . 1601. Calwalla a Towne of filthy Women Desart Reisbuti S.R. Sherly M. Withington robbed Sinda Wormes dangerous to ships o Fitch to the South-East and to the East from Agra Nicols S.E. by Land Goes N. E. to China Couert N. and S. quite through Still to Lahor N. E. and to Persia N.N.W. Withington the Westerle parts to Sinda c. p W. Clarke q W. Payton r 20000. horse 50000. foot and a mountainous Countrey hardly inuaded and conquered M. Clarke b M. Withington R. Couert R. Couert M. Payton M. Withington c Narratio Reg. Mogor Lahor is 300 miles from Agra Å¿ R. Fitch T. Coryat a Maginus b Maff. lib. 40 c Ioseph Ind. Linsch l. 1. c. 270 d Pat. Copland e L. Vertom l. 4 f Od. Barbosa g Coel. Rhodig lib. 11. cap. 13. h Maff. lib. 11. i Cic. Offic. k Maff. Histor Ind. lib. 11. l This same man appeared before Solyman the Turkish General at the siege of Diu. Viag di vn Comite Venetiano Nic. di Conti saith hee saw a Bramane three hundred yeers old m Morison part 3. c. 3. saith the same of the Irish Countesse of Desmond mentioned also by S. W. Ral. and that she liued 140. yeeres n Io. Santos l. 4. deuan. hist de India orientali o Dam. Ã Goes op Di. Bell. Camb. p Linschot q Od. Barbos r Gotardus Arthus Hist. Ind. Orient cap 23. Bally cap. 18. k Xaholam that is Lord of the World a Title and not a proper name l Daquem m Ios. Scal. de Emana temp lib. 7. n Ios. Scal. Can. Isag. lib. 7. o Clarke Banians M. Withington Marriages solemnized betwixt infants R. Couert Anominus p N. Downton Ben. Day q L. verb. lib. 4. r Eman. Pinner Balby saith at other times they eate but one meale a day cap. 10. Å¿ An. Dom. 1595. k The Religious in Cambaia Pinner l Em. Pinner Banians m Onesicritus reporteth the like of the Gymnosophists n Arrian Perip Mar. Eryth u Linsch c. 37. Andrea Corsuli x Od. Barbosa y The like lowsie trick is reported in the Legend of S. Francis and in the life of Ignatius of one of the first Iesuitical pillars by Mâ—ffâ—eus z N. di Cont. a Gi. Bot. Ben. Maff. lib. 1. Linschot lib. 1. cap. 34. Iarric l. 3. c. 1. b Gio. Bot. Ben. Garcias ab Horto l. 2. c. 28. Linschot c. c Lins l. 1. c. 27. Iarric Thes. rerum Indic l. 3. No exact order can bee vsed in relating so confused Rites o Of Goa reade Arthus hist Ind. c. 15. Linschot Al. Valignan p Tizzuarin signifies thirtie villages for so many it seemes were then there q Dec. 1. l. 8. c. vlt. Dec. 2. l. 5. c. 1. r Lins l. 1. c. 28.29 30 31 32. Balb c. 23. Balb. c. 22. Å¿ Lact. l. 1. c. 20. Aug. de C. D l. 6. c. 9. Rosianus Antiq. 1. 2. t R. Fitch u Linschot Don Duart de Menezes He summeth the publike ordinary expences of the Port in India at 134 199. li. 5.