by mans industrie forced to yeeld to the match as Plinie sayth for that purpose emptied Babylon of her Inhabitants and inherited her name also with her people It was from Babylon ninetie miles or as some reade it fortie inhabited with sixe hundred thousand Citizens To spoile the spoiler the Parthians built Ctesiphon three miles from thence and failing of their purpose Vologesus built another Towne by called Vologesocerta Yet did Babylon it selfe remaine but not it selfe in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus and after Ortelius thinketh that Bagdat was called Babylon as Seleucia before had beene because it stood neere to the place where Babylon had stood For that old Babylon in Pausanias time had nothing left standing but the Temple of Bel and the walls sometimes sayth he the greatest Citie that euer the Sunne saw In Ieromes time within those walls were kept beasts for the Kings game It was after inhabited with many thousands of Iewes and was laid euen with the ground as Ios. Scaliger affirmeth in the yeere after the Iewish account 4797. and after the Christian 1037. Master Fox hath a little lengthned the date and fate thereof shewing that Almaricus King of Ierusalem rased and ruined it and that it was neuer after inhabited Ann. 1170. But in Beniamin Tudelensis his dayes which seemeth to be somewhat before Almaricus this Citie was vtterly subuerted as in his Itinerarie is related in these words One dayes iourney from Gehiagan anciently called Resen is old Babel containing thritie miles space now vtterly ruined in which the ruines of Nabuchodonosors palace are yet seene not accessible for diuers hurtfull kinds of Serpents and Dragons there breeding There now remaineth nothing but the small part of that great Tower either of ornament or of greatnesse or of place inhabited Before that time was Bagdet built by Bugiafar as Barrius calleth him or after Scaliger Abugephar Elmantzur who beganne to reigne in the one hundred thirtie and sixe and died in the one hundred fiftie and eight yeere of their Aegeira Scaliger and Lydyate agree of this place which in their Emendations of Time disagree so eagerly that it was Seleucia or built in the place and of the ruines thereof an opinion not so improbable as theirs altogether which thinke the present Bagded to be the old Babylon The storie of this Bagded or Baldach and her Chalifs ye may reade in our Saracenicall Historie Authors agree that Haalon the Tartar sacked it about the yeere one thousand two hundred and threescore Mustratzem being then Chalipha the foure and fiftieth and last of those Saracenicall Popes Hee found a miserable death where others with miserablenesse seeke a blessed life being shut vp and starued amidst those Treasures whereof he had store which niggardise forbade him to disburse in his owne defence There is yet a bone left of this Calipha's carkasse or some ghost and shadow of that great and mightie bodie I meane that ancient name and power of the Calipha's which magnificent Solyman the Turkish Emperour in his conquest 1534. would seeme to acknowledge in accepting the royall ensignes of that new conquered state at the hands of their Calipha a ceremonie which the Soldans in Egypt and Persia vsed more for forme then necessitie this Assyrian and that Egyptian Caliph hauing but gesture and vesture the Soldans themselues enioying both bodie and soule of this authoritie In the yeere one thousand one hundred fiftie nine the Riuer Tygris ouer-flowed Bagded and desolated many Cities Barrius affirmeth out of the Arabian and Persian Tarigh which he saith he had seene that Bagded was built by the counsell of an Astrologer a Gentile named Nobach and hath for ascendent Sagittarius was finished in foure yeeres and cost eighteene millions of gold These studies of Astrologie did there flourish One Richardus a Frier Preacher sayth That here was a Vniuersitie the Students whereof were maintained at publique charge of which number himselfe was one That Caliph that founded it for the preuenting of sects banished Philosophie out of these Schooles and accounted him a bad Saracen which was a good Philosopher The reason whereof grew from some which in reading Aristotle and Plato relinquished Mahomet Marco Palo or Paulus the Venetian saith that they studied here in his time the Law of Mahomet Necromancie Geomancie Phisiognomie Physicke and Astronomie And that it was then a great Staple of the Indian Commodities This was within few yeeres after the Tartar had wonne it He addeth that there were many Christians in these parts and that in the yeere one thousand two hundred twentie and fiue in derision of the Gospell the Caliph commanding by a day that the Christians should remoue a mountaine in testimonie of their faith according to the words of Christ or else to abide the perill this was effected by a Shoomaker and the day in remembrance thereof yeerely solemnized with fasting the Euen The Iewes goe still to visite the Denne which is there shewed as the place of Daniels imprisonment with his terrible Gaolers or fellow-prisoners as Master Allen told me A certaine Merchant the Discourse of whose voyage Ramusius hath published speaketh of Orpha a towne in the way from Byr to Babylon wherein the people foolishly suppose that Abraham offered Isaac at which time say they there sprang a fountaine which watereth their Countrey and driueth their Mils Here was a Christian Temple called Saint Abraham after turned into a Mahumetane Moschee and now called Abrahams Well into which if any enter so many times they haue a set number with deuotion hee is freed of any feuer The fishes which are many haue taken Sanctuarie in these waters and none dare take them but hold them holy Sixe miles from hence is a Well holden in like sacred account which cureth Leprosies Nisibis Carrae and Edessa were chiefe Cities of Mesopotamia at Edessa reigned Abagarus betwixt whom and our Sauiour passed if we may beleeue it those Epistles yet extant At Carrhae there was a Temple of the Moone in which they which sacrificed to the goddesse Luna were subiect to the gouernment of their wiues they which sacrificed to the god Lunus were accounted their wiues Masters As for this difference of sexe ancient Idolatrie scarce obserued it For wee reade of the god Venus which the Cyprians sayth Macrobius accounted both male and female and so doth Trismegistus mystically say of God himselfe So is Baal in the Scripture sometimes masculine sometimes feminine Hee sayth that the Babylonians allowed marriages of parents and children Cafe is two dayes iourney from Bagdet religious for the buriall of Hali and his sonnes Hassan and Ossain whereunto is resort of Pilgrims from Persia whose Kings were wont here to bee crowned But this Citie Curio calleth Cufa assigneth it to Arabia and sayth that of this accident it was called Massadale or the house of Ali slaine here by Muani his Competitor Mesopotamia is now called
he in hope of the Resurrection For they would not interre their dead bodies because of the Wormes nor burne them because they esteemed fire a liuing creature which feeding thereon must together with it perish They therefore with Nitre and Cedar or with compositions of Myrrhe Cassia and other Odours thus preserue them Scaliger sayth they set these bodies in their dining Roomes that their Children and Nephewes might behold them whiles they were eating Some also report That the poorer sort vsed hereunto the slimy Bitumen of the Dead Sea which had preserued an infinite number of Carcasses in a dreadfull Caue not farre from these Pyramides yet to bee seene with their flesh and members whole after so many thousand yeeres and some with their haire and teeth Of these is the true Mummia The Mores and Indians violate the Sepulchres and either burne them as is reported they somtimes doe in stead of fire-wood which is scarce in those parts or else sell them at Cairo a body for a Dolor the Citie being nigh twenty miles from thence For these Mummes are neere the place where Memphis sometimes stood In that place are some indifferent great and a number of little Pyramides with Tombes of seuerall fashions many ruinated and many violated the ancient Egyptians coueting there to bee buried as the place supposed to conteine the body of Osiris Vnder euery one or wheresoeuer lye stones not naturall to the place by remouing the same descents are discouered like the narrow mouthes of Wels hauing holes in each side of the walls to descend by but with troublesome passage some well-nigh ten fadome deepe leading into long Vaults belonging it should seeme to particular Families hewen out of the Rock with pillars of the same Betweene euery arch the corpses lye ranckt one by another shrowded in a number of folds of linnen swathled in bands of the same the brests of some being stayned with hieroglyphicall Characters Within their bellies are painted papers and their gods inclosed in little models of stone or metall some of the shape of menin coat-armours with the heads of Sheepe Hawkes Dogs c. others of Cats Beetles Monkies and such like They wrapt the dead bodies in manifold folds of linnen besmeared with gumme and after other ceremonies laid the corps in a boat to be wafted ouer Acherusia a Lake on the South side of the Citie by Charon so they called the Ferry-man and there the body was brought before certayne Iudges who if conuinced of euill life depriued it of buriall the most terrible of punishments to the Egyptians About this Lake stood the Temple of Hecate with the Ports of Cocitus and Lethe or Obliuion Styx and other Poeticall fables had hence their deriuation But let vs returne to the Pyramides and view them as they now stand with Master Sandys his eyes hauing first told a miracle or imposture rather of the Moores with pieces of Mummes stucke in the sands many thousands on Good Friday resorting to see the armes and legs of dead men appearing on the other side of Nilus to the gayne of the Ferry-men for this cause perhaps deluding the superstitious vulgar Baumgarten mentions it in his time and thought it an illusion of the Deuill whether Hee or His wee will not now examine Full west from Cairo close vpon the Libyan Desarts hauing crossed Nilus and a Playne twelue miles ouer they came to the three Pyramides the greatest of them is ascended by two hundred and fiftie fiue steps each step aboue three feet high of a breadth proportionable No stone so little through the whole as to bee drawne by our carriages brought out of the Mountaynes of Arabia with a double wonder of the conueyance and mounting The North side is most worne by reason of the humiditie of the Northerne winde in these parts From the top is discerned the Countrey with her beloued Nile the Mummes and many huge Pyramides afarre off each of which were this away might be reputed wonderfull Descending on the East side below from each corner equally distant they approched the entrance into which they went with a light in euery mans hand a narrow and dreadfull passage stooping or creeping as downe the steepe of an hill an hundred foote the descent still continuing but few daring to venter further Plinie writes that at the bottome is a spacious pit eightie and sixe cubits deepe filled at the ouerflow by concealed Conduits others adde that there is in the middest a little Iland on that the Tombe of Cheops the Founder Master Sandys saith That climbing ouer the mouth of this dungeon they ascended by like vneasie passage about an hundred and twentie feete and thence passing through a long irkesome entrie direct forward they came to a little roome with a compast roofe of polished marble From hence they climbed an hundred and twentie feete higher at the top entring a goodly roome twentie foote wide and fortie foote long the roofe of a maruailous height the stones so great that eight floores it eight roofes it eight flagge the ends and sixteene the sides all of well wrought Theban marble At the vpper end is a Tombe of one stone vncouered and emptie brest high seuen foote in length and almost foure in breadth sounding like a bell more probably supposed the Builders sepulchre If any desire a more exact suruey let him resort to our Authour and other eye and pen-witnesses Not farre hence is that Sphynx a huge Colosse with the head of a Maide and body of a Lion supposed by Bellonius to be the monument of some sepulchre by Plinie of Amasis It yet continueth all of one stone and is a huge face looking toward Cairo The compasse of the head saith P. Martyr an eye-witnesse is fiftie eight paces Plinie numbreth eight Pyramides and saith That the compasse of this Sphynx about the head was an hundred and two feete the length an hundred and fortie three Master Sandys affirmeth that vnto the mouth it consists of the naturall Rocke thus aduanced the rest of huge flat stones laid thereon wrought altogether into the forme of an Aethiopian woman heretofore adored by the people not so huge as before reported the whole being but sixtie foote high the face disfigured by Time or the Moores supersticion detesting Images Plinie writes That three hundred and sixtie thousand men were twentie yeeres in making one of the Pyramides and three were made in seuentie eight yeeres and foure moneths The greatest saith he couereth eight Acres of ground and Bellonius affirmeth That the Pyramides rather exceed then fall short of the reports of the Ancient and that a strong and cunning Archer on the top is not able to shoot beyond the fabrick of one which Villamont being there caused to bee tried and found true William Lithgow writeth that the height of one is 1092. foote as their Dragoman told him the top thereof is all one stone which he measured seuenteene foote in euery square yet on
that it was an inuiolable law amongst them that if their Souldiers did in any place publicke or priuate offer any licentious or iniurious behauiour to a woman he was assuredly put to death The people of this countrie were of a goodly stature well formed and of a good complexion There were among them Giants of an incredible greatnesse the skull of one of them is remaining in which there are eightie teeth and his bodie which was found buried in the Sepulchre of the Kings of Guymur of which race he was measured fifteene foot The people that dwell on the South-side of the Iland were of the colour of an Oliue but those that dwelt on the North-side were faire especially their women hauing bright and smooth haire Their common apparell was a certaine garment made of Lambes skins like a short coate without pleate or collor or sleeues fastned together with straps of the same leather The ordinarie garment for men and women of the common sort was called Tomarco onely the women for modesties sake had another couering vnder their Tomarco which was a side coate downe to the knees made of skins which reached downe to the ground for they held it an vnseemely thing in a woman to haue her breasts or her feete vncouered In this garment they liued and in this they dyed and in this they were commonly buried For their dyet they sowed Barly and Beanes Wheate was vtterly vnknowne to them They toasted their Barly by the fire then did grinde it in certaine hand mils such as are now in Spaine The floure so made they called Giffio wetting it with water milk or butter It serued instead of bread also and was their greatest and most Generall sustenance They eat the flesh of Sheepe of Goats and Pork but not commonly for they haue certaine assemblies like our festiuall Wake-dayes in England at which times the King in person with his owne hands did giue to euery twentie of them three Goates and a proportion of their Giffio After which Feast euery companie came before the King shewing their agilitie in leaping running wrastling darting dancing and other sports They haue a certaine kind of hony out of a fruit called Mozan of the greatnesse and bignesse of a pease Before they are ripe they are very greene when they beginne to ripe they are red and when they are ripe are blacke nothing vnlike our blackberries saue in their taste which is exceeding pleasant They eat no more but the iuyce of them which they call Yoya and the Hony which they make of them they call Chacerquem They gather these Mozans very ripe and do put them into the Sun for a weeke then they breake them in pieces and put them into water to bee boyled vntil they come to a sirrope and this is their Physick for the fluxe and the grieuings in the backe and for both these diseases they did also let bloud in the armes head and forehead with a flintstone At their time of sowing the King hauing appointed to euery man his portion of ground that was to bee sowne they digged vp the earth with Goats hornes and with certaine words threw their seed into the ground All other works appertained vnto and were performed by their women The King did make his habitation in naturall caues or hollow rocks of which there are infinite store remayning to this day When there was any Feast made in any Kingdome their Feasts had the priuiledge that men might with immunity passe to and fro through the enemies Countrey yea many times the enemies would feast one with another In their Marriages the men vsed to aske the consent of the Widdowes or Maids parents if there were any which being granted they were married with little or no ceremony that I could learne And the marriage was not so soone made but it might be as quickly broken for if the husband or wife were disposed to be separated they might be so and both of them marry again with others at their pleasures Notwithstanding all the children of the separated begotten afterwards were esteemed as bastards the King only for successions sake exempted from this custome to whom for that respect it was lawfull to marry with his own sister For many yeeres this Iland was subiect to one only King whom they called Adexe who being growne old his Sons which were nine in number conspiring against him parted the Iland into nine seuerall Kingdomes All their war was to steale cattle one from another and especially the spotted Goats which amongst them are in great and religious estimation there is very little difference betwixt the body colour and smothnesse of our English fallow Deere and their Goat The ancient Guanches of this Iland had an appointed Officer or Embalmer answerable to the sex man or woman who washing the dead corps did put into its body certaine Confections made of Goats Butter melted the powder of Furzes and of a kind of ruffe stones the rindes of Pine-trees and other herbs and did stuffe the body with this euery day for 15. dayes together putting the body against the Sun now on the one side now on the other vntill it were stiffe and dry All this space their friends bewayled their death At the end of 15. dayes they wrapped their body in Goats skins so cunningly sowed together that it was maruellous and so they carried the body to a deepe caue where none might haue accesse There are of these bodies remayning yet which haue been buried these 1000. yeeres The neerest port towne to the City called Cidade de Laguna is Santa Cruz from thence you ascend vp the steepe Mountaynes to the City which you shall finde to bee most miraculously seated in the midst of a flat of ten miles in compasse as if nature had prepared that place for man to build a City vpon being walled about with hils of wonderful height on al sides sauing to the Northwest from whence there being a leuel tract of land euen to the Seaside which is seuen leagues distant there doth continually arise from the Sea a vapour which being circulated among so many and intricate Mountaines groweth to be a wind and taketh his passage through those channels of Mountaynes to the City to its great refreshing and in this great Plaine like Enuy for want of opposition dieth And let the wind blow full Southeast at Sea yet shall you alwayes haue the wind full Northwest at the City like a true friend when you must need him from twelue a clocke in the day vntill night The extreame dew which falleth doth sufficiently coole the night Their buildings are all of an open rough stone nothing faire they are very plaine in their buildings two or three stories high and no more and commonly but one story high in the remoter parts of the City It is not walled they haue no chimneyes no not so much as in their kitchins They make only a
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
about and leapeth from one place to another Then doth the chiefe of the Priests make supplication and request for all things which if it misliketh it goeth backwards if it approueth it carrieth them forwards and without these Oracles they enterprise nothing neither priuate nor sacred and Lucian saith he saw it leauing the Priests the supporters and mouing it selfe aboue in the ayre Here are also the statues of Atlas Mercurie and Lucina and without a great brazen Altar and many brazen Images of Kings and Priests and many others recorded in Poets and Histories Among others standeth the Image of Semiramis pointing to the Temple with her finger which they say is the signe of her repentance who hauing giuen commandement to the Syrians to worship no other god but her selfe was by plagues sent from heauen driuen to reuoke that former Edict and thus seemeth to acknowledge and point out another Deitie There were also places inclosed wherein were kept and fed sacred Oxen Horses Eagles Beares Lyons The Priests were in number aboue three hundred some for killing Sacrifices some for offerings some ministring fire to others at the Altar their garment all white their head couered and euery yeere was chosen a new High-Priest which alone was clothed with purple and a golden head-tire A great multitude there was besides of Musicians Galli and Propheticall women they sacrificed twice a day whereat they all assembled To Iupiter they vse neyther song nor instrument in sacrifice as they doe to Iuno Not farre hence was a Lake of two hundreth fadome depth wherein were preserued sacred Fishes and in the middest thereof an Altar of stone crowned alwaies with Garlands and burning with odours They haue a great feast which they call the going downe to the Lake when all their Idols descend thither Their greatest and most solemne Feast was obserued in the Spring which they called the fire they solemnized it in this sort They felled great trees and laide them in the Church-yard as you may terme it and bringeth thither the Goates Sheepe and other beasts they hanged them on these trees together with them fowles and garments and workes of gold and siluer which being set in due order they carrie the Images of the gods about the trees and then fet all on fire They resort to this Feast out of Syria and the coasts adioyning and bring hither their Idols with them and great multitudes resorting to the sacrifices the Galli and those other sacred wights beate and wound each other Others play on instruments and others rauished by diuine furie prophesie and then doe the Galli enter into their orders for the furie rauisheth many of the beholders Whatsoeuer young man commeth prepared to this purpose hurling off his garments with a great voyce he goeth into the middest and drawing his sword geldeth himselfe and runneth thorow the Citie carrying in his hands that which he would no longer carry on his body And into whatsoeuer house he casteth the same he receiueth from thence his womanish habite and attire When any of them die his fellowes carrying him in to the uburbes couer him and his horse with stones and may not enter into the Temple in seuen dayes after nor after the sight of any other carkasse in one day but none of that family where one hath died in thirty dayes and then also with a shauen head Swine they hold for vncleane beasts And the Doue they esteeme so sacred that if one touch one against his will hee is that day vncleane This causeth Doues in those parts to multiply exceedingly neyther doe they touch Fishes This because of Derceto halfe a woman halfe a fish that for Semiramis which was metamorphosed into a Doue Iulius Hyginus hath this fable that an egge of maruellous greatnesse fell out of heauen into Euphrates which the fishes rolled to land on the same did Doues sit and hatched thereout Venus who was after called the Syrian goddesse at whose request Iupiter granted the Fishes their heauenly constellation and the Syrians for that cause eate not their Fish nor Doues but number them amongst their gods Their superstition concerning Herrings and Daces was ridiculous esteeming that the Syrian goddesse did fill the bodies of such as had eaten them with biles an vlcers causing also the fore-part of the leg and the liuer to consume Many are the ceremonies also to be performed of the religious Pilgrims or Votaries that visit this holy City for before hee setteth forth hee cutteth off the hayre of his head and browes he sacrificeth a sheepe and spreading the fleece on the ground hee kneeleth downe on it and layeth vpon his head the head and feet of the beast and prayeth to bee accepted the rest hee spendeth in the banquet Then doth he crowne himselfe and his fellow Pilgrims and after sets forward on his pilgrimage vsing for his drinke and washing cold water and sleepeth alwayes on the ground till his returne home In this Citie were appointed publike Hostes for diuers Cities diuers called Doctors because they expounded these mysteries They haue also one manner of sacrificing to hurle downe the beasts destined herevnto from the top of the porch which die of the fall They haue a like rite to put their children in a Sacke and carrie them downe branded first on the necke or palme of the hand and hence it was that all the Assyrians were branded The young men also consecrated their haire from their Natiuitie which being cut in the Temple was there preserued in some boxe of gold or siluer with the inscription of the owners name thereon And this did I saith Lucian in my youth and my hayre and name remaine in the Temple still Of Atergatis see more in the Chapter of Phoenicea Suetonius tels of Nero that hee contemned all Religions but this of the Syrian goddesse of which also he grew weary and defiled her with Vrine After which hee obserued a little Needle supposed to haue a power of fore-signifying danger and because soone after he had it he found out a conspiracie intended against him he sacrificed thereto three times a day Plutarch calleth the Syrians an effeminate Nation prone to teares and saith that some of them after the death of their friends haue hidden themselues in Caues from the sight of the Sunne many dayes Rimmon the Idoll of the Syrians and his Temple is mentioned 2. King 5.18 Bur I haue litle certainetie to say of him Some reckon among the Syrian Deities Fortune conceyuing the mention thereof Gen. 30.11 by Leah at Zilpa's trauel the word bagad which shee vseth is vsually in our translations and Tremellius a troupe commeth but in the vulgar Latine foeliciter in Vatablus auspicato in Pagnine Montanus venit prosperitas The Ebrew and Greeke Interpreters vnderstand it of an ominous and well-wishing presage yea some Comments I know not whether Planet-like expresse the Planet Iupiter called Mazal tob whose influence helpeth in the opinion of Astrologers
due place The Turkes displaced those Saracens the Christians of the West by warre made those parts Christian but were expelled againe by the Turkes and they by the Tartars The Mamaluke slaues and their Aegyptian Soldan after held the Syrian Dominion vntill Selim the great Turke subdued it to the Ottoman Empire vnder which it still groneth Of these things this our History will acquaint you in the proper reports of these Nations Aleppo is now chiefe Citie of Syria but Damascus both in elder and later times hath born the greatest name being the head of Aram as Esay affirmeth called of Iulian the Citie of Iupiter and eye of the whole East Holy and Great called also the Trophee of Iupiter because he there had conquered the Titans It is interpreted drinking bloud by Hierom who telleth from the Hebrewes tradition that in this field Kain slew his brother Chytreus expoundeth it saccus sanguinis Wolphius deriueth it of two words signifying bloud and to spoyle which in the times of Hazael and Benhadad and of Resin it performed but neuer so much as when the Saracens made it the sinke of bloud and spoyle which they executed on the Christians and Noradine Saladine and the Turkes fitting themselues and this Citie to the name before the Aegyptian Sultans and Ottoman Turkes were Lords of it Stephanus ascribeth the name to one Ascus a Giant which cast Dionysius there into the Riuer Or because Damascus the sonne of Mercury comming hither out of Arcadia built it or because Dionysius there fleid off the skin of Damascus which had cut vp his Vines The Turkes now call it Leunclauius and Chytreus testifie Scham and so is the whole Region called in the Arabian Chronicle whose extract you may find in our Saracenicall history The Armies of Dauid Ahab Teglath Phalasar preuayled much against it The Babylonians subuerted it After that the Ptolomeys repayred it Pompei wanne it Paul hallowed it The Saracens as is sayd polluted it The Christians in vaine besieged it in the yeere one thousand one hundred forty and seuen r Haalon the Tartar one thousand two hundred threescore and two obtayned it and about one thousand foure hundred Tamerlane besieged it and as he had done at Aleppo filling the ditch with the bodies of captiues and slain carkasses cast wood and earth vpon them and at last forced it and the Castle Hee spared the Citie for the Temples sake which had fortie Porches in the circuite and within nine thousand Lampes of Gold and Siluer But the Aegyptians by a wile possessing it he againe engirt it and recouered it Hee commanded Mahomet the Pope or Chalife and his priests which came to meete him to repayre to the Temple which they did with thirteene thousand Citizens where he burnt them all and for monument of his victory left three Towers erected of skuls of dead men The Aegyptians regained and held it till Selim the Turke dispossessed them 1517. Now in thus many alterations of State who doubteth of diuersity in Religions in Syria First the true Religion in the times of Noah and the first Patriarkes Next those superstitions of Rimmon and the rest before related in the Assyrian Babylonian Persian Macedonian and Roman gouernments After which long night the Sunne of Righteousnesse shone vnto the Syrians and made a more absolute Conquest then all the former not by Legions and Armies but by a handfull of Fishermen manifesting his Power in their weakenesse the Reason of Men and Malice of Deuils not being able to withstand their Euangelicall weapons which s were mighty through GOD to cast downe holdes and bring into captiuity euery thought to the obedience of CHRIST insomuch that hence the t Christian World receyued first that name And how sweet would thy name remaine O Syrian Antiochia euen now in thy latest fates which first was christned with the name Christian haddest thou not out-liued thy Christianity or rather after the soule departed remained the carkasse of thy selfe which ceasing to be Christian hast long since ceased to bee had not the Diuine hand reserued a few bones of thy carkasse to testifie this his iustice to the world And what harmonie could haue beene more gratefull to the Gentiles eares then thy memorie Damascus where the Doctor of the Gentiles was first taught himselfe and made a Teacher of others But in thee was the Chayre of Pestilence the Throne of Sathan the sincke of Mahumetan impietie to the rest of the world infecting with thy contagion and subduing with thy force more Nations then euer Paul by preaching conuerted Syria first in the first and principall Priuiledges of Mankind embracing in her rich armes if some bee right Surueiours the promised Possession the Seale of a further and better inheritance was with the first subdued to Saracene seruitude vnder their Caliph vnder the Turkes vnder the Christians from the West vnder the Tartars from the East vnder the Mamalukes from the South and from the North the Ottoman by new successions and vicissitudes of miseries and mischiefes become a common Stage of bloud and slaughter And in all these later changes of State and chaunces of Warre Religion was the life that quickned those deathes and whetted those murdering swords no crueltie or sacriledge against GOD or man so irreligious and inhumane but Religion was pretended to be the cause and bare the Standard to destruction a new Religion alway erected with a new Conqueror For the Readers delight wee haue here added out of Hondius which hee had contracted out of Ortelius the Map of Pauls Peregrination for the plantation of the Gospell PEREGRINATIO PAULI In qua omnia loca quorum fit mentis in actis et epistolis Apostolorum et Apocalypsi describuntur CHAP. XVII Of Phoenicia and of the Theologie and Religion of the ancient Phoenicians of their Arts and Inuentions PHoenicia is the Sea coast of Syria after Plinie or that coast or tract bordering on the Sea from Orthosa now Tortosa to Pelusium This Sea coast saith Andreas Masius was of the Greekes called Phoenicia and of the Hebrewes peculiarly stiled Chanaan and the Inhabitants Chananites So the Spies tell Moses the Chanaanites dwell by the Sea The woman in the Gospell which Matthew calleth a Canaanite is by Marke named a Syrophoenicean and the Septuagint in this place for the Kings of Chanaan read the Kings of Phoenicea And in the Scripture it is appellatiuely vsed for a Merchant because the Phoenicians or Chanaanites were famous for Merchandize as appeareth both by diuine and prophane testimonie Most properly the Northerly part is Chanaan Phoenicia the Southern Palestina although it is sometime extended as wee haue said euen to Egypt Dionysius which maketh the Phoenicians the first Mariners Merchants and Astronomers placeth Gaza and Ioppe in Phoenicia Sachoniatho a Phoenician supposed to haue liued before the Troian warre wrote in his owne language the History of his Nation which Philo Biblius
Ierusalem was entred on the twelfth of Iuly 1099. being Friday and after much bloud and slaughter in the Citie they set vpon those which had betaken themselues to Salomons Temple so was that called which Homar built where saith Robertus Monachus was so much bloud shed that the slaine bodies were rolled by the force thereof and armes or dismembred hands swamme vpon the bloud and were ioyned to strange bodies the killing souldiers were scarce able to endure the hot vapours of the bloud of the slaine Guibertus Abbas saith the bloud reached to the ancles Baldricus to the calfe of the legge Raimond de Agiles that they rode in bloud vp to the knees and to the brydles of the Horses and Fulcherius that there were slaine in this Temple about ten thousand and many of them were ripped vp by the Frankes to finde gold which they had swallowed and the bodies after burned in heaps to finde the mettall in the ashes Albertus Aquensis addeth that the third day after the victorie for feare of the remained captiued Saracens lest they might ioyne with the enemie against them and in furious zeale they made a fresh massacre slaying those which for pittie or couetousnesse of ransome they had in hotter bloud spared not the honour of Noble Matrons not the delicacie of tender Maydens not the children yet in the wombes of their pregnant mothers not the Infants now sucking at the brest not the hopes of innocent yonglings playing or crying by the mothers hands not sighes teares promises prayers lamentable cryes twyning embraces of the legges bodyes hands of the bloudie Souldier could stay the hand euen then giuing the fatall blow but Ierusalem was now againe filled with slaine carkasses Generally it is agreed that they found much wealth in the Citie to pay them for their paines Soone after they encountred an Armie of three hundred thousand Saracens which they ouerthrew being but twentie thousand Christians where Robert Duke or Earle for I finde both Titles often giuen him but in ancient Stories of those times both hee and King William his father are oftenest called Earles of Normandie tooke with his owne hand the chiefe standerd of the Enemie being a long speare couered with siluer with a golden Globe or Apple on the top hauing slaine the bearer and thereby terrifying the enemie and putting them to rout which was long after reserued as a monument in the Temple of the Sepulchre Many other victories being obtained the Saracens were either expelled Palestina or subiected to the Franks and the Christians which were poorer few recouered freedom Yet as few as they were in the Cities Raimond tells of threescore thousand Surians or Christians of that Countrey which in this long Saracenicall night continued their habitations in the Mountaines of Libanus But of this is no maruell for euen till these dayes notwithstanding the manifold changes and chances of those Regions and peoples there haue in the Mountaines and Desarts of Palestina and Syria liued some Nations neither acknowledging the Saracenicall Law nor Empire §. IIII. Of the Azopart and Assysine SVch were the Azopart which liued in Caues in the Desarts of Ascalon which King Baldwin the successour of Godfrey sought to smoake and fire out of their dens and by cunning Stratagems destroyed as many as hee could and iustly For these being blacke in hue blacker in conditions vsed to rob and slay such as they could lay hold on Such were the Assysines which liued in the Prouince of Tyre as Tyrius reports of them not farre from Antaradus which had ten strong holds with the Countrey adiacent and were thought to bee in number sixtie thousand Their gouernment went not by inheritance but by Election the chiefe or Grand Master of them being called The Old Man who was obeyed in whatsoeuer hee commanded were the attempt neuer so dangerous If he gaue to one or more of them a weapon and enioyned the killing of such an Enemie Prince or priuate man they gladly vndertooke it with the death of that partie or themselues in attempt Both Saracens and Christians called them the reason of the name vnknowne Assysines For the space of foure hundred yeeres they were zealous followers in a preciser course of the Mahumetan Sect But about the time when our Author the Archbishop of Tyre wrote this their OLD MAN grew into distaste of his Religion and by reading the Scriptures became desirous of Christianitie Hee perswaded his Subiects also to forsake Mahumetisme prohibiting their Fasts demolishing their Moschees allowing Swines flesh He sent also to Almaricus King of Ierusalem offering to turne Christian if hee might hue peaceably and bee released of two thousand Byzantines which he yeerely payd for quietnesse to the Knights Templers who had certaine Castles bordering on him The King was content to pay this money himselfe but by the treacherie of the Templers the Legat was slaine and foule scandall inflicted on the Christian name the Assysines neuer after returning to their old Mahometrie or turning anew to Christianitie Mathew Paris relateth that these Assysines thus closely and treacherously murthered Raimund Earle of Tripolis Anno Dom. 1150. Paulus Aemylius affirmeth that these Assysines came out of Persia that they were taught from their child-hood diuers Languages and to conceiue it meritorious of heauenly reward to kill the enemies of their Faith that their OLD MAN was called also Arsacida Two of them saith hee slew Raimund two of them after slew Conrad Ferratensis walking in the Market-place of Tyre which Citie hee had defended against the enemies who being executed therefore seemed very cheerefull And Saint Lewis himselfe hardly escaped the like treacherie Marcus Paulus reporteth of one in the North-East parts of Persia called The Old Man of the Mountaine by proper name Aloadin which had built a strong Castle and therein an imaginarie Paradise who vsed that Assasine mysterie promising to reward these murtherers with the pleasures of Paradise a taste of which in all fleshly delights he had before giuen them In the Tartarian conquest sayth Odoricus he had so slaine diuers Tartars which therefore besieged his Castle and after three yeeres siege forced it for want of victuall So Paulus but Haithonus hath seuen and twentie yeeres and that then it was yeelded for want of cloathes and not of meates hee calls this Castle Tigado and the inhabitants by the former names of Assasines This was done by Haalon the Tartar Anno 1262. About a hundred yeeres since they tell of the ike Paradise of Aladeules in those parts destroyed by Selym the Turke but I thinke it was rather the memorie of Aloadin then any truth of Aladeules It is most remarkeable that Marcus Paulus testifieth of two Deputies or Lieutenants vnder him the one in Curdistan where the like generation of irreligious and robbing Curdi do yet remaine the other neere to Damasco of whom we haue spoken The place where this OLD MAN liued was called Mulchet that
Companions the first Abdollah or Abu-Bacr his sincerest and most inward friend a man very rich and releeuer of Mohameds necessities his successour after his death He dyed the thirteenth yeere of the Hegira and sixtie three of his age and was buried in the same graue with Mohamed The second was Homar the sonne of Chattab surnamed Faruq who succeeded Abi-Bacr and ruled ten yeeres and six moneths Hee was the first which was called King of the faithfull and writ the Annalls of the Moslemans and brought the Alcoran into a Volume and caused the Ramadam Fast to be obserued He was slaine the twentie three of the Hegira and buried by Abi-Bacr The third was Othman who in his twelue yeeres raigne subdued Cyprus Naisabur Maru Sarchas and Maritania and dyed A. H. 35. and was buried in the buriall place of the Citie Aali is the fourth who is called also Emir Elmumenin that is King of the faithfull Hee was slaine A. H. 40. in the sixtie three of his age and was buried in the Citie Kerbelai Hee was Vncles sonne or Cosin-German to Mohamed and his sonne-in-law and deare familiar from his youth and receiued the Mosleman law together with Mohamed whereupon hee was wont to say I am the first Mosleman And therefore the Persians detest the other three Chalifas as heretikes burne their writings wheresoeuer they finde them and persecute their followers because forsooth they were so impudent to prefer themselues before Aali and spoiled him of the right-due by Testament Hence are wars hostile cruelties betwxit them the Turks and Arabs Mohamed the false prophet in the eleuenth yeere after his Hegira or flight and the sixtie three of his age dyed at Medina and was buried there in the graue of Aaisee his wife Here is a stately Temple and huge erected with elegant and munificent structure daily increased and adorned by the costs of the Othomans and gifts of other Princes Within this building is a Chappell not perfectly square couered with a goodly roofe vnder which is the Vrne of stone called Hagiar Monaüar sometimes belonging to Aaisce aforesaid This is all couered with gold and silke and compassed about with yron grates guilded Within this which shineth with gold and gems Mohameds carcasse c833208arcasse was placed and not lifted vp by force of Load-stone or other Art but that stone-Vrne lieth on the ground The Mosleman Pilgrims after their returne from Mecca visit this Temple because Mohamed yet liuing was wont to say That hee would for him which should visit his Tombe as well as if he had visited him liuing intercede with God for a life full of pleasures Therefore do they throng hither with great veneration kisse and embrace the grates for none haue accesse to the Vrne of stone and many for loue of this place leaue their Countrey yea some madly put out their eyes to see no worldly thing after and there spend the rest of their dayes The compasse of Medina is two miles and is the circuit of the wall which Aadhd Addaule King of Baghdad built A. H. 364. The territorie is barren scorched Sands bringing forth nothing but a few Dates and Herbes CHAP. IIII. Of the Alcoran or Alfurcan containing the Mahumetan Law the summe and contents thereof §. I. Of the Composition of the Alcoran THe Booke of Mahomets Law is called by the name of ALCORAN which signifieth a collection of Precepts and Alfurcan as it is expressed and expounded in a Booke called The Exposition or Doctrine of the Alcoran because the sentences and figures thereof are seuered and distinguished for Al is the Article and phurcan signifieth a distinction or as some say Redemption Claude Duret citeth an opinion that of the Hebrew word Kara which signifieth the Law or Scripture commeth this word Koran which with the Article Al signifieth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scripture as with them it is esteemed The like hath Soranzo Master Bedwel in his Arabian Trudg-man saith that the Thema is not KARANA coniunxit colligit as before is deliuered but KARA which signifies to read so that Alkoran in Arabike is iust as much as Hammikra is in Hebrew that is the Text Corpus iuris the authenticall bodie of their Law It is called in that language the Koran without the Article Al and Korran so Cantacuzenus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if one should say their Bible Scripture or Booke of the Law The Word of GOD saith Mahomet in that Booke came not to mee all at once as the Law vnto Moses the Psalmes to Dauid and the Gospell to Christ The Sentences or Chapters thereof are called Azoaras which is interpreted a Face as wee call them Capita Heads So saith one which hath written Notes vpon the Alcoran but Master Bedwel who hath published an Index or Table of all these Azoara's or Chapiters with their Arabike Titles as they are named and cited by the Mahumetans saith That they call the name of the Chapiter Sura and with their Article Assura or Suraton Assurato And hee deriues of the Hebrew word Zobar that Azoara but this Arabike Sura is expressed not by Zain He but by Sin Wau and Resh differing letters being no other then the Syrian Suriya which signifieth principium initium For as the Bookes of Moses in the Hebrew and the Sections of the Ciuill and Canon Law so these Chapiters for the most part are denominated of some notable word in the beginning of the same and are so cited by Mahumetans and learned Christians Yet these sometime name it by the interpretation as the chap. Albacara the chap. of the Cow because the word so signifies The stile is not in Meter as some haue imagined for Iosephus Scaliger a great Criticke and reputed one of the greatest Linguists in the world affirmeth That that Language is not capable of metricall measures by quantities of Syllables as neither the Hebrew Abyssine or Syrian Hee saith yet That the Alcoran is composed in Rime but such as is not in any tunable proportion but that word which maketh vp the Rime being sometimes neerer and sometimes farre beyond all harmony distant from that word whereto it answereth A hobbling kinde of Rime saith Master Bedwel in his Index Alcorani and rude Poeme without all care for it is Postellus his testimony you shall haue a period of two hundred Syllables to rime and hold like cadence to as other very short Scaliger addes that at the end of such Rimes are set the figures of Flowers or some such matter which if it be so the Turkish nicetie of making no likenesse of any thing in their Carpets or other workes is stricter then these Alcoran bookes themselues and indeed is not common with them vnto other Mahumetans who vse their libertie in this point For the words and phrase no man euer writ any thing in Arabian more rudely saith an Arabian Christian in confutation hereof and much better might Muzeilenia Helcasi and Alabazbi
deliuered by him in two Chapiters too foolish and filthy to be related Adde the prohibition of Images painted or carued Thefts Homicides Robberies Adulteries Swines-flesh Wine strangled bloud and things dying of themselues and all vncleane creatures He also instructs at large of their Testaments and Funerals The Moslemans being sicke presently send for an Abed Religious man or Santone to strengthen them in the Faith and propound heauenly things to him reciting somewhat out of the Alcoran And if the Disease be very dangerous they wash and make their Testament and are bound to restore all ill-gotten goods giuing the creditors a bill of their hand And if they know not to whom to restore they must bequeath a summe of money to publike vses Hospitals Mescuits Bathes the poore and Religious persons yea for that respect they set Captiues at libertie as is read that Auicenna did some giue Bookes to publike vses some other things Ben-Sidi Aali saith it is Mohameds precept that the third part of mens goods bee bestowed on publike vses And if a man die intestate they say other dead men will chide him When they are dead the bodie is washed the Nose Eyes Mouth and Eares stopped with cotton better apparell is put on white shirts and Tulipants Then is the bodie carried to the buriall place without the Citie with a great troupe the Santones or Religious going before then the men promiscuously after the Corps followed by women howling lamenting shricking till they come to the Graue There are those Garments taken away and the Corps shrowded in a white sheet and put into the Graue with the face to the South After the couering with Earth many Prayers are made and much Almes is giuen to the poore to doe the same Touching the Easterne Customes Ben-Sidi Aali hath written of the structure of Mescuites Before them is a large floore paued with Marble in the midst is a square Lauer where they which come to pray vse to wash themselues After this is a great Hall without Images or Pictures the Walls bare not shining with Gold or Gems the Pauement matted on which the vulgar sit the Rich vse Carpets spread for them by their Slaues From the Roofe hang many Lampes which are lighted in Prayer time and that being ended are put out These Churches are for the most part round couered with Lead and haue adioyned high Towers which serue for Steeples with foure Windowes open to the foure Windes whereon the Priests at set-times ascend and with a strong voyce call men to Prayers Which being ended and their Legall washing being done all of them leauing their Shooes on a rew at the threshold of the Gate or Porch they enter with great silence The Priest beginneth the Prayer and all follow and whiles hee kneeleth they doe so and rise when hee stands vp and imitate him in the eleuation or depression of the voyce None yauneth cougheth walketh or talketh but in great silence after Prayers they resume their Shooes and depart No woman may come to the Mescuites at these set houres if there bee any men nor may haue any societie of men except the Priest which directeth and goeth before them with his voyce in their manner of praying as saith the said Author They are permitted not to enter the Mescuites but to stand at the doore and must bee gone quickly before the men haue done their Prayers He addes that the womens Church is the inner part of their owne house Such is their dis-respect of women notwithstanding Mohameds promises in his Alcoran that many say they enter not Paradise but may stand at the doore with Christians and see the glorie of the men The Garments of the East are commonly long some flit on the right and left hand some whole The vpper Garment hath wide sleeues Their head-tire is a Tulipant but differing of Princes white and fine artificially wreathen rather long then round of their Cadies and Mufeis very large of fiftie or sixtie Els of Calico round and wreathed of Citizens lesse of Serifs or Mohameds posteritie greene of Souldiers and Seruants long and white Christians vse not white nor round ones the Maronite Patriarke and his Suffragan Bishops we are a huge Tulipant round and blue with a blacke hood vnder it other Priests lesse and no hood The women are pompous but cōming abroad we are a couering made of Horse-haire before their face that they may see and not be knowne not if their owne Husbands meet them neither if they did know would they salute it being a shame for a woman to bee seene speaking with a man Their Chaines Brooches and other Ornaments and Paintings of their Eyes Browes and Fingers ends I omit Both men and women are so addicted to neatnesse that they are very carefull lest any drop of vrine spot their clothes in making water or going to stoole and would then thinke themselues vncleane They therefore then sit downe like women and wash or if no water may bee had wipe with three stones or a three cornered stone as Ben-Sidi Aali in his Chapiter of washing warneth They thinke it vnlawfull to spit or pisse on a brute creature In food they abstaine from strangled and bloud and Moslemans from Swines-flesh They loue Iunkets they breake bread and cut it not Their Table is a round piece of Leather to which they come with washing and Prayers promised They vse not Forkes but Spoones of Wood of diuers colours and where they need not them three Fingers as Ben-Sidi Aali warneth Pewter and Porcelane is in much vse but other Vessels of Plate or Gold saith hee Mohamed forbade saying The Deuill vsed such the common drinke is water the better sort adde Sugar sometimes Amber and Muske c. CHAP. VI. Of the Pilgrimage to MECCA WE haue heard of the antiquitie of this Pilgrimage in the former Chapter deriued from Adam who was shauen and circumcised for that purpose and the Alcoran nameth Abraham the founder of the Temple c. Pittie it were that the last of the Prophets should not honour that which was first instituted by the first of men If wee will rather beleeue that Arabian before mentioned we shall finde another originall namely That whereas two Nations of the Indians called Zechian and Albarachuma had vsed to goe about their Idols naked and shauen with great howlings kissing the corners and casting stones vpon an heape which was heaped vp in honour of their gods and that twice euery yeere in the Spring and in Autumne the Arabians had learned the same of the Indians and practised the same at Mecca in honour of Venus casting stones backe betweene their legs the parts of Venus in the time of Mahomet Neither did Mahomet abrogate this as he did other Idolatrous Rites onely for modesties sake they were enioyned to gird a piece of linnen about their Reines Petrus Alphonsi an ancient Author who of a Iew had become a Christian thus relateth this Historie The Ammonites
goat skins the haire thereof being dried in the Sunne one before and the other behinde embracing the bodie in forme of a girdle otherwise naked Winter and Summer They dwell without the Cities in Suburbs and Villages Thus vnder the colour of Religion they roame vp and downe and make no conscience to rob kill and murther if they finde themselues the stronger with a small Hatchet which they beare vnder their girdle all men of whatsoeuer Law or Nation They are fornicators and most detestable in that most detestable sinne of Sodomie For shew of holinesse they eate of a certaine herb called Matslach the violent operation whereof maketh them to become madde so as through a certaine furie they with a certaine knife or razor doe cut their necks stomacks and thighes vntill they be full of most horrible wounds which to heale they lay vpon them a certaine herbe letting it lie vpon their hurt vntill it be altogether consumed into ashes suffering in the meane time extreme paine with maruellous patience Thus do they imitate their Prophet Mahomet who through abstinence in his den fell into such a furie say they that hee would haue throwne himselfe from the top of it And therefore fooles and madde men are in great reuerence yea they account such for Saints and if such madde men strike or rob them they take it in good part and say they shall haue good lucke after it They erect stately Monuments ouer such mad mens graues as at Aleppo one Sheh Boubac who being mad went alwayes naked being dead they built a house ouer his graue where to this day saith our Author there are Lampes burning day and night and many of these Daruises there remained to looke to his Sepulchre and to receiue the offerings of such as come as many do euery weeke out of Aleppo If any be sicke or in danger they vow to offer money or other things to Sheh Boubac if they recouer The same account they make of one Sheh Mahammet a mad man yet liuing in Aleppo going naked with a spit on his shoulder Men and women will come and kisse his hand or some other part of his body and aske him counsell for they hold that mad mens soules are in heauen talking with GOD and that he reuealeth secrets to them And euen the Bassaes themselues wil kisse and consult with this Oracle Hard I deeme it to say whether is the mad man In a late victorie against the Christians they affirme that this Sheh Mahammet was seene in the field many thousand miles distant fighting against their enemies whom by his helpe they ouercame But to returne to our Daruises this our Author saith that oftentimes great Bassaes in displeasure with the Emperor will retire themselues into this Order as the Hospital and Sanctuarie of their diseased and dangerous state Their witnesse is of better account then any other mans although he were an Emir or of the kindred of Mahomet They liue of Almes as the other Religious doe which they begge in the name of Haly. They haue in Natolia a Sepulchre of a Saint called by them Scidibattal who say they conquered the most part of Turkie and about the place of the Sepulchre is an habitation and couent where aboue fiue hundred of these Deruises dwell and there once in the yeere they keepe a generall assembly in which their Superiour whom they call Assambaba is present and President their Counsell or Chapter consisting saith Menauinus of aboue eight thousand of their Order One of these Deruislars drawing neere vnto Baiazet the second as if he would haue receiued an Almes of him desperately assailed him with a short Scimatar which he closely hid vnder his hypocriticall habite But Baiazet by the starting of his horse afraid of this Hobgoblin auoided the deadly blow but not vnwounded neither had he so escaped had not Ishender Bassa with his Hors-mans Mace presently strucke downe the desperate villaine as he was redoubling his blow who was forthwith rent in pieces by the Souldiers Baiazet thereupon proscribed all them of that superstitious Order and banished them out of his Empire The like as Steptemcastrensis saith they had attempted against Mahomet his father in his youth while Amurath was yet liuing And in our daies Mehemet or Muhemet the great Visier Bassa who swayed almost wholly and onely their mightie Empire as appeareth in the Historie of that State in the dayes of Soliman Selym and Amurath and as Master Harborne relateth was esteemed to possesse two and twentie millions of gold was not assaulted only but murthered by one of these Deruislers For whereas it is a custome of the great men that at ordinarie houres all their Chaplaines or Priests assemble themselues in the Diuano there together mumbling their superstitions and this Deruisler ordinarily thither admitted vpon an old grudge for that Mahomet had before depriued him of a Souldiers place and pension when the Visier sate there to giue publike audience sitting right against him after his Mumpsimus finished the Visier reaching vnto him his wonted Almes he with a dagger closely before prouided stabs him into the breast and was therefore of Mehemets slaues with exquisite torments done to death In their great Counsell before mentioned there are young men clothed in white which tell the most memorable obseruations in their trauells which they present to the Assambaba in writing subscribed with their names On the Friday they vse after praier and eating the herbe Asseral to read the same with dances and after their dance which is about a huge fire made of as much wood as an hundred beasts can carrie they cut the skin of their armes legs or breasts engrauing some figure thereon whereto they after apply ashes and vrine In the doing hereof they vtter this speech This I cut for the loue of such a woman Vpon the last day of their Feast they take leaue of their Gouernor and depart in troupes like Souldiers with Banners and Drums and so returne vnto their owne Monasteries The Torlaquis by others called Durmislurs cloath themselues with sheeps and goats skins like vnto the Deruis aboue the same they wrap about them in manner of a cloake the skinne of a great Beare with the haire made fast vpon their stomacke with the legs vpon their heads they weare a white Bonnet of Felt folded with small plaits hauing the rest of their bodies altogether naked They also burne their Temples as the former A beastly generation For they know not nor will not learne to read write or doe any ciuill profitable act but liue idlely vpon almes roaguing thorow the Countrey alone and in troupes thorow the Desarts robbing such as they meet handsomely apparelled causing them to goe as they doe naked They professe palmistry and fortune-telling the people feeing and feeding them for such vanities And sometimes they carry with them an old man whom they worship as a God lodging themselues neere the best house of the
the people and haue a certaine stipend allowed them by the Emperour which yet is so small that many of them are driuen to vse either writing of Bookes or Handicrafts and Trades for their liuing and are clothed like Lay-men They haue no great learning it is sufficient if they can read the Alcoran which being written in Arabike they are as loth to haue translated into the vulgar as the Papists are to haue the Scripture Hee which can interprete and make some Exposition of the Text is of profund learning Yet are they reuerenced and if a Turke doe strike or offer outrage to them he loseth his hand and if he be a Christian his life being sure to be burned Some say that now of late some of them are more studious of Astronomie and other Arts As for those superiour rankes no doubt may be made of their high account The Chadilescher is clothed in Chamlet Satten Silke Damaske or Veluet of seemely colour as Russet or Tawny and in Purple-coloured cloth with long sleeues Their Tulipan on their head is of maruellous greatnesse sharpe in the middest of Purple Russet colour deeper and thicker then others their beards great They ride on Geldings with Purple foot-cloths fringed and when they goe on foot they goe slowly representing a stately and sacred grauitie There is another order of sacred persons which yet are neither regular nor secular by any vow or ordination but had in that account for their birth being supposed to descend of the line of Mahumet The Turkes and Tartarians call them Seiti or Sithi the Moores Seriffi These we are greene Tulipans which colour none else may weare and that onely on their head Some Christians ignorant hereof haue had their apparell cut from their backes for wearing somewhat greene about them These they call Hemir They enioy many priuiledges especially in giuing testimony wherein one of these is as much as two other which they abuse to iniury and wrong The most of them are Moores which goe ten or fifteene in a company with a banner on a staffe hauing a Moone on the top and that which is giuen for Gods sake they sit and eate in the street where also they make their praiers and are poorly clad Like to these in priuiledge and prauiledge are the Chagi or Fagi which liue on almes like Fryers They attend on the publike prayers on the holy Reliques on the Corpses and Funerals of the dead and to prey on the liuing by false oathes A digression touching the Hierarchie and Miseries of Christians vnder the Turke c. ANd thus we haue taken a leisurely view of the Turkish Hierarchy from the poore Softi to the courtly Cadilescher and pontificall Mufti flourishing and triumphing together with that Monarchy which is exalted and hath exalted them with the power not of the Word of GOD but of the Sword of Man But with what words meane whiles shall wee deplore the lamentable and miserable estate of that Christian Hierarchy and Ecclesiasticall Politie which sometimes flourished there with no fewer nor lesse titles of dignitie and eminence Where are now those Reuerend Names of Bishops Archbishops Metropolitans Patriarkes and the swelling stile of Oecumenicall Nay where are the things the life and liuing for the stile names titles still continue continue indeed but as Epitaphs and Inscriptions on the Monuments of their deceased and buried power as the ghosts and wandring shadowes of those sometimes quicke and quickning bodies of rule and gouernment Great Citie of great CONSTANTINE seated in the Throne of the World the fittest situation to command both Sea and Land through Europe Asia and Africa at thy first Natiuitie honored with a double Diadem of Christianitie Soueraigntie to which the Sea prostrateth it selfe with innumerable multitudes of Fish the Land payeth continuall tribute of rare fertilitie for which old Rome disrobed her selfe to decke this her New-Rome Daughter and Imperiall heire with her choisest Iewels and Monuments a Compendium of the World Eye of Cities Heart of the habitable earth Academie of learning Senate of gouernement Mother of Churches Nurse of Religion and to speake in the language of thine owne A new Eden an earthly Heauen modell of Paradise shining with the varietie of thy sacred and magnificent buildings as the Firmament with the Sunne Moone and Starres This was thy ancient greatnesse great now onely in miserie and mischiefe which as chiefe seat of Turkish Greatnesse is hence inflicted on the Christian Name And thou the Soule of this Bodie the goodliest Iewell in this Ring of Perfection which so many wonders of Nature conspired to make the Miracle of Art the TEMPLE of that WISDOME of GOD which is GOD called by him which saw thee both Christian and Mahumetan A terrestriall Heauen a Cherubicall Chariot another Firmament beyond all names of elegance which I thinke saith another the very Seraphins doe admire with veneration and which hath here moued thy mention high Seat and Throne of that Patriarchiall and Oecumenicall Highnesse which hence swayed all the East and contended with Westerne Rome for Soueraigntie now excludest rule rites yea persons Christian wholly hallowed to the damnable holies of ridiculous and blasphemous Mahometisme the multitudes of other Churches as silly captiued Damsels attending and following thee into this Mechiticall slauerie O CITIE which hast beene woe worth that word that hastie hast-beene which hast been but who can say what thou hast beene let one word the sum of all earthly excellence expresse what flouds of words and seas of Rhetorick cannot expresse which hast beene CONSTANTINOPLE which art that one name may declare thy bottomlesse hellish downefall indeed though not in name Mahometople the Seat of Mahomets power the settling of Mahumetan dregs What words can serue to preach thy funerall Sermon and ring thy knell to succeeding ages Sometimes the Theatre of worldly pompe but then on that dismal day of thy captiuitie the stage of earthly and hellish Furies the sinke of bloud and slaughter-house of Death What sense would not become senselesse to see the breaches of the walls filled vp with the slaine the gate by death shutting out death closed vp to the arch with confused bodies of Turks and Christians the shouts of men fighting the cries grones gaspes of men dying the manifold spectacles and varietie of death and yet the worse estate and more multiplied deaths of the liuing women rauished maidens forced persons vowed to sanctitie deuoted to lust slaughter slauerie reuerend age no whit reuerenced greene youth perishing in the bloome and rotten before it had time to ripen the father seeing the hopes of his yeeres deare pledges of Nature slaine or sold before his face the children beholding the parents passe into another captiuitie all taking an euerlasting fare well of all wel-fare as well as of each other Well may we in compassion weepe for those miseries the bitter passion whereof like a violent whirlewinde did to them drie
Nannacus which was exceeding old Many antiquities are told of their gods whose Theologie thus is recited by Eusebius The Phrygians tell that Meon was the most ancient King of Phrygia the Father of Cybele who inuented the pipe called Syrinx and was named the Mountaine mother beloued of Marsyas But when as Attis had raised her belly her father slaying him and his fellowes shee enraged with madnesse ranne vp and downe the countrey Marsyas roamed with her who after being ouercome in a Musicall contention of Apollo was slayed quicke After these things did Apollo loue Cybele with whom she wandred to the Hyperboreans and by his command the bodie of Attis was buried and Cybele obtained diuine Honours Hence it is that euen to this day the Phrygians bewayle the young mans death In Pessinus a City of Phrygia after reckoned to Galatia they erected a Temple to Attis and Cybele After the death of Hyperion the children of Coelus parted the Kingdome amongst them the most famous of which were Atlas and Saturne to the first of which befell the parts adioyning to the Ocean He had great skill in Astronomy Of his seuen daughters were procreated many of the Gods and Heroes and of Maia the eldest and Iupiter was Mercury begotten Saturne the sonne of Atlas being couetous and wicked married Cybele his sister and had by her Iupiter They tell of another Iupiter brother of Coelus and King of Crete but there and here they are so intangled with Fables that the least inquirie hath most ease and no lesse certaintie This Cretan held the Empire of the World and had ten Sonnes whom they call Curetes his Sepulchre they shew to this day Saturne the Brother of Atlas reigned in Italy and Sicilia till Iupiter his Sonne dispossessed him who proued a seuere Prince to the wicked and bountifull to the good Thus much Eusebius of the Phrygian Diuinitie out of their owne Legends the Mysteries whereof he after vnfoldeth Other Tales they had as that Minerua killed there a fire breathing beast of Philemon and Baucis and such like mentioned by the Poets Meander making Warres with the Pessinuntians vowed for Sacrifice whatsoeuer he first met after hee returned with Conquest which he performed on Archelaus his Sonne ouercomming saith one Pietie with Pietie Impious is that Pietie which destroyeth Humanitie and Deuillish crueltie both in the Idoll and Idolater as appeared also in the euent if our Story bee true the father rewarding such Pietie with greater Impietie on himselfe and casting himselfe into the riuer left his name therunto The like is told of the Riuers Sagaris and Scamander Hercules when he went with the Argonautes to Colchos came on shoare on Phrygia to amend his Oare and being thirstie sent his sweeting Hylas to the riuer for water who falling therein was drowned whereupon he leauing his cōpanions wandred in the woods bemoning his Hylas About these times Tantalus liued in these parts a man besides other vices exceedingly couetous not sparing the Temples of the Gods Hence arose the Fable that he was punished in Hell with perpetuall hunger and thirst whiles pleasant waters and dainty fruits did offer themselues to his mouth but when he would haue tasted them fled from him So indeed doth Mammon torment his followers making them to want as well that which they haue as that which they haue not the Medicine being the increaser of the Disease as when fire is quenched with Oile like Gardners Asses laden with good herbs a burthen to them food for others themselues glad to feed on Thistles And how many Tantali do we daily see enduring a hunger and thirst in the midst of their abundance a monstrous and vnnaturall sicknesse to hunger after that which they haue yet cannot yet will not feed on a Dropsie-thirst saue that they dare not drinke that which they haue and thirst Vnworthy of that life which he sacrificeth to that which neuer had the dignitie to be mortall vnworthy that body which he pineth with plenty or that soule which he damneth for a fancie of hauing or that nature of man which he confineth to the Gallies to the Mynes in the seruice of a piece of earth vnworthy of the name of Christian whose Christ was to one of his Fore-fathers worth thirty pence but now this will sell him for three halfe pence for a piece of bread yea like Aesops Dog for the shadow of a piece of Bread vnworthy of any thing saue that his couetise to be his Tempter his Tormentor his Fury his Deuill Once pitty it is that hee prizeth a Halter so deare else would he rid the World of a burthen and himselfe of his worthlesse life But whither hath Tantalus carried me Take heed Reader he doe not carry thee further or thou him beyond words They say he would haue sacrificed his Sonne Pephilops had not Diuine power releeued him thou art like to find him Tantalus still What the Poets tell of Ganymedes euery one knowes of Niobe famous for her sonnes daughters which she lost all in one day of Midas another Tantalus whose couetousnesse became a new Alchymie to turne all into Gold And how doth this two-fold Alchymie gull the world the one making with vaine hopes a rich estate become poore the other with ful haps making all Gold but the Man onely the Romane Alchymist is Master of that Art which the former professe that turnes so easily a little Lead into so much good Gold onely the wiseman wise in the latter to be Master of himselfe his wealth not a slaue to passion or pelfe And yet Midas in a publike calamity hapning by an Earthquake which swallowed vp Houses warned by an Oracle to cast into those gaping jawes of the earth that which was most precious hurled therein much treasure what could hee thinke more precious and how much more easily would many a Mydas haue hurled in himselfe But the Earth not yet satisfied would not close vp her mouth till his sonne Anchurus esteeming man to be most precious leaped in and the reconciled Element receiued an Altar in witnesse of his haughty courage There were many Phrygian Kings named Midas The Phrygians sacrificed to the riuers Meander and Marsius they placed their Priests after death vpon a stone ten cubits high They did not sweare or force others to an oath they were much addicted to diuination by Birds Macrobius applyeth their Tales of Cybele and Atis to the Sunne Silenus is reckoned among the Phrygian Deities whom Goropius fercheth out of Scythia and maketh him Midas his Master in Geography and Philosophy The diligent attendance of the Scholer was occasion to that Fable of his long eares the learning of the Master gaue him diuine Honours In Phrygia on the riuer Sangarius stood Gordie or as Arrianus calleth it Gordion of which he reporteth that when Alexander came thither he had a great desire to see the Tower in which was the palace of Gordius Midas
hand Fifthly To weare any base attire and to patch their clothes whether there bee any need or not Sixthly to take or steale from any stranger whatsoeuer they can get Seuenthly Towards their owne to bee true in word and deede Eightly To suffer no stranger to come within their Dominion but the same to bee slaue to the first taker except they haue a Pasport But by this time I thinke the Reader will wish mee their pasport to bee gone from them who haue shewed my selfe no Tartarian whilest I dwell so long on this Tartarian discourse happily herein as tedious to him as staying in one place would be to the Tartar a thing so abominable as in anger he wisheth it as a Curse Would GOD thou mayest abide in one place as the Christian till thou smell thine owne dung Indeed this Historie not throughly handled before by any one drew me along and I hope will purchase pardon to this prolixitie CHAP. XVI Of the Nations which liued in or neere to those parts now possessed by the Tartars and their Religions and Customes FRom those Countries inhabited by the Persians and Zagathayan Tartars Eastward we cannot see with M. Paulus his eyes the best guides wee can get for this way any Religion but the Saracen till we come to Bascia a Prouince somewhat bending to the South the people whereof are Idolaters and Magicians cruell and deceitfull liuing on Flesh and Rice Seuen dayes iourney from hence is Chesmur wickedly cunning in their deuillish Art by which they cause the dumbe Idols to speake the day to growe darke and other maruellous things being the wel-spring of Idols and Idolatrie in those parts They haue Heremites after their Law which abide in their Monasteries are very abstinent in eating and drinking containe their bodies in straight chastitie and are very carefull to abstaine from such sinnes wherewith they thinke their Idols offended and liue long There are of them many Monasteries They are obserued of the people with great reuerence The people of that Nation shed no bloud nor kill any flesh but if they will eate any they get the Saracens which liue amongst them to kill it for them North-eastward from hence is Vochan a Saracenicall Nation and after many dayes iourney ouer mountaines so high that no kind of birds are seene thereon is Beloro inhabited with Idolaters Cascar the next Countrey is Mahumetan beyond which are many Nestorian Christians in Carchan There are also Moores or Mahumetanes which haue defiled with like superstition the Countâ—ies of Cotam and Peym where the women may marrie new husbands if the former be absent aboue twenty dayes and the men likewise and of Ciarcian and Lop. From Lop they crosse a Desart which asketh thirtie dayes and must carrie their victuals with them Here they say spirits call men by their names and cause them to stray from their companie and perish with famine When they are passed this Desart they enter into Sachion the first Citie of Tanguth an Idolatrous Prouince subiect to the Great Can there are also some Nestorians and Saracens where they haue had the Art of Printing these thousand yeeres They haue Monasteries replenished with Idols of diuers sorts to which they sacrifice and when they haue a male child borne they commend it to some Idoll in whose honour they nourish a Ramme in their house that yeere and after on their Idols festiuall they bring it together with their Sonne before the Idoll and sacrifice the Ramme and dressing the flesh let it stand till they haue finished their prayers for their childs health in which space they say their Idoll hath sucked out the principall substance of the meate which they then carrie home to their house and assembling their kinsfolke eate it with great reuerence and reioycing sauing the bones in goodly vessels The Priests haue for their fee the head feet inwards skinne and some part of the flesh When any of great place dieth they assemble the Astrologers and tell the houre of his natiuitie that they may by their Art finde a Planet fitting to the burning of the corps which sometime in this respect attendeth this fiery constellation a weeke a moneth or halfe a yeere in all which time they set before the corps a Table furnished with bread wine and other viands leauing them there so long as one might conueniently eate them the Spirit there present in their opinion refreshing himselfe with the odour of this prouision If any euill happen to any of the house the Astrologers ascribe it to the angry soule for neglect of his due houre agreeing to that of his Natiuitie They make many stayes by the way wherein they present this departed soule with such cates to hearten it against the bodies burning They paint many papers made of the barkes of trees with pictures of Men Women Horsâ—s Camels Money and Rayment which they burne together with the Body that the Dead may haue to serue him in the next World And all this while of burning is the Musike of the Citie present playing CHAMVL the next Prouince is Idolatrous or Heathenish for so we distinguish them from Saracens Iewes and Christians which I would were not as guilty of Idolatrie as the former in so many their forbidden Rites although these haue all and the other part of the Scriptures whereof those Heathens and Idolaters are vtterly ignorant Here they not onely permit but account it a great honour to haue their wiues and sisters at the pleasure of such strangers as they entertaine themselues departing the while and suffering all things to be at their guests will for so are their Idols serued who therefore for this hospitalitie they thinke will prosper all that they haue And when as Mangu Can forbad them this beastly practice they abstained three yeeres but then sent a pitifull Embassage to him with request That they might continue their former custome for since they left it they could not thrine who ouercome by their fond importunitie granted their request which they with ioy accepted and doe still obserue In the same Prouince of Tanguth is Succuir whose Mountaines are clothed with Rheubarbe from whence it is by Merchants conueyed through the World Campion is the mother Citie of the Countrey inhabited by Idolaters with some of the Arabian and Christian Nations The Christians had there in the time of M. Paulo three faire Churches The Idolaters had many Monasteries abounding with Idols of wood earth and stone couered with gold and artificially made some great ten paces in length lying along with other little ones about them which seeme as their Disciples to doe them reuerence Their religions persons liue in their opinion more honestly then other Idolaters although their honestie is such as that they thinke it no sinne to lie with a woman which shall seeke it at their hands but if the man first make loue it is sinfull They haue also their Fasting-dayes three foure or fiue in a moneeh in
neighbour Nations obserue this and by diuers of them it is diuersly named Those of Siam and Cochin call it Cin whence the Portugals call it China the Iaponites Than the Tartars Han the Westerne Saracens as hath beene obserued Cathay and the Chinois themselues haue one name common to all ages Ciumquo as also Chium hoa which signifie the former a Kingdome the other a Garden in the middest they conceiuing the Earth square and their Countrey in the midst thereof which made them offended with our Maps that placed them in the furthest East and Ricius so disposed his Maps after that hee placed them in the middle of the same The King is entituled Lord of the Vniuerse which how boysterous soeuer is more excusable then in many other inferiour Potentates the Chinois thinking according to their Geographie that the World contained but few other Nations and those for the most part so contemptible that they willingly relinquished them or thought them not worth the conquering Neither was euer any one Kingdome so worthy the name of GREAT beginning at the Ile Hainam which signifies the South Sea in the 19. degree and extendeth Northwards to 42. and from the 112. degree in Longitude reckoning from the Canaries in the Prouince Yunan to the 132. Eastwards This hath been obserued by Mathematicall Instruments and obseruations of Eclipses in their Kalenders and especially for the Northerne computation it is out of doubt But for illustration hereof we will adde out of one of their own bookes entituled A description of that Kingdome printed 1579. thus interpreted In this Kingdome are two Royall or Parliament Prouinces Nanquin and Pequin the one signifying the South Court the other the North and besides these thirteene others In these fifteene Prouinces or Kingdomes are numbred by another diuision 158. Regions or Shires they call them Fu the most of which haue twelue or fifteene Cities besides Townes Villages Castles and Hamlets In these are two hundred seuen and fortie great Cities which they call CHEV rather in dignitie then greatnesse or otherwise exceeding the inferiour Cities called Hien of which are 1152. The persons of such as are growne to mans estate all which pay tribute to the King are 58. millions 550. thousands 801 not reckoning the feminine Sexe Boyes Striplings or Youths Eunuches Souldiors Magistrates the Kings kindred Students and many others And yet of Souldiors notwithstanding their long peace are maintained in perpetuall pay and seruice aboue one million the three Northerne Prouinces being almost halfe of them in militarie stipend The bordering Kingdomes tributarie are to the East three to the West fiftie three numbred in that Booke though this tribute bee of no great value The Kingdome is also fortified by Nature and Art the Sea on the South and East and steepe Precipices ioyned together with a strong wall the space of foure hundred and fiue leagues to the North and a sandie Wildernesse on the North-west all conspiring to the strength thereof and for the South-west it is full of Hills and Desarts with a few small Seignories vnworthy their feare or desire It is diuided into fifteene Prouinces six whereof border on the Sea Cantan Foquien Chequiam Nanquin Xantum Paquin the other nine be in land Quiamsi Huquam Honan Xiensi Xansi Suchion Quoicheu Iunan Coansi Some sound these names some what otherwise The Kings residence is at Paquin though Paquin enioyeth also a Court Royall as being the Royall Seat of the ancient Kings which some place in Quinsay but of that afterwards II. Of the Commodities of China and commodious Riuers and shipping with two Maps one made by HONDIVS the other h taken out of a China Map made there by the Chinois BY reason of this large extent both East and West and North and South it comes to passe that no Countrey yeelds such varietie of things growing in such varietie of Clime and Soyle making others indebted to it but it selfe not indebted to any Countrey either for necessitie or delicacie of diet Neither haue wee scarcely any thing in Europe which is not there found and what is missing is more then recompenced in other things exceeding There is store of Wheat Barley Miller Panike and other kindes of graine In Rice their chiefe food it farre excelleth Europe Of Beanes and Pease wherewith they feed their Beasts in some Prouinces they haue two or three Haruests in a yeere None of our principall fruits but Oliues and Almonds are wanting others they haue vnknowne to vs as those which they call Longanes Coco-nuts and other Indian fruits Their Oranges Limons Pome Cittons farre excell the Europaean in varietie and delicacie The like we may say of their Garden heathes which Religion to some to others Pouertie haue made their only food Great is their varietie of Flowers many heare vnknowne but there the colour more respected then the sent As for distillations they neuer till of late by vs had heard of such an Art Bettele and Arecca2growes in the foure Southerne Prouinces Their Wine is THE MAP OF CHINA 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 MATHAEUS RICIUS A picture of a Chinese man Picture of a China woman HONDIVS his Map of China CHINA farre inferior to ours for their Grapes are fewer and lesse pleasant nor doe they make Wine of them but of Rice and other things which is both well tasting and not so burning as ours They commonly feed on Porke they haue store also of Beefe Mutton Goats flesh Hennes Duckes Geese they feed also on Horses Mules Asses Dogs which are sold in the Shambles as well as other flesh But in some places either for Superstition or Husbandry they spare their Beeues and Buffalls Venison especially of red Deere is plentifull Hares and other things all verie cheape Their Horses are not so comely as in these parts but in number cheapenesse and vse for burthen excelling Yet is there lesse need of such carriages by reason of plentie of Riuers which Nature or Art hath prouided through all the Countrey Hence is there such store of shipping that a moderne Author hath written that there liue as many on the Waters as on the Land which to such as sayle in those Streames will not seeme too excessiue an hyperbole And I dare affirme this as a thing credible that there is as much shipping in this Kingdome as in all the world besides vnderstanding this assertion of fresh-water vessels for their sea-vessels are fewer and worse than ours Pantogia1 reporteth his owne iourney from Macao to Paquin the space of six hundred Spanish leagues which the next way by land is reckoned 1450. in all that space trauelling but one day by land for shortening his way otherwise all the way by water carried in a Riuer called of the Chinians a little Sea for the greatnesse being the greatest which euer he saw in some places two or three myles broad often tempestuous and cause of many shipwrackes The Chinois dare not sayle in it by night and they say That if one fall
their meat naked and where they dresse and eate their meat make a Circle within which none must enter during that time Their women are brought vp from their child-hood with shackles some of Siluer some of Brasse and some of Iron on their legges and Rings in their eares all which encrease with themselues being made bigger as they grow so that in time a man may thrust his hand through the holes of their eares Also they weare Bracelets of Elephants teeth about their armes from the wrist to the elbow Wee haue alreadie spoken of the Bulloches their Northerly neighbours Sunne-worshipping Giantly bignesse and Inhumane humanitie in eating mans-flesh and likewise of the Puttans or Agwans The Bulloches in Sinda and vpon the Persian Gulfe it seemes of this generation are Mahumetans Robbers by Land and Pyrats by Sea whereto they adde the murther of those they rob Their treachery to Sir R. Sherly and the Expedition is before mentioned which had it had expedition according to their plot they had murthered all but the Surgeon the Musician the Boyes and the Women When I was in Sinda saith M. Withington they tooke a Boat with seuen Italians and one Portugall Fryar this ripped vp by them to seeke Gold in his entrailes the rest slaine in the fight Yet there are very honest men of them in Guzerat and about Agra Touching other Superstitions of this Kingdome thus wrireth Ioannes Oranus in the Narration of this Kingdome Not farre from the Citie Lahor is an Idoll resembling a woman which they call Nazar Coto framed with two Heads six or seuen Armes and twelue or fourteene Hands one of which brandisheth a Speare another a Club. Hereunto resort many Pilgrims to worship and hereof they tell many miracles as that many cut off their tongues which are againe restored whole vnto them but remaine mute Some thinke our breath to bee our Soule Some affirme That all things are the same thing Some that God onely hath a being other things are shadowes and appearances Some thinke all things and some the round Circle of the World and some themselues to bee God Almost all doe hold the commigration of Soules into the bodies of Beasts They say the World shall last foure Ages or Worlds whereof three are past The first lasted seuenteene Laches euery Laches contained an hundred thousand yeeres and eight and twentie thousand yeeres Men in that World liued ten thousand yeeres were of great stature of bodie and great sinceritie of minde Thrice in this space did God visibly appeare on the Earth First in forme of a Fish that hee might bring out the Booke of the Law of Brama which one Causacar had hurled into the Sea The second time in forme of a Snaile that he might make the Earth dry and solid Lastly like a Hog to destroy one that said he was God or as others of them as truely say to recouer the Earth from the Sea which had swallowed it The second World lasted ten Laches and ninetie two thousand and six yeeres in which men were as tall as before and liued a thousand yeeres God did appeare foure times First in a monstrous forme the vpper part a Lion the lower a Woman to represse the pride of one which gaue out himselfe for God Secondly like a poore Bramane to punish a proud King that would by a new-deuised Art fly into Heauen The third time to be reuenged of another King which had slain a poore Religious man he came in the likenesse of a Man named Parcaram and lastly like one Ram the sonne of Giocorat which had slaine Parcaram The third World continued eight Laches and foure thousand yeeres wherein men liued fiue hundred yeeres and God appeared twice in Humane likenesse The fourth Age shall endure foure Laches whereof are alreadie passed foure thousand sixe hundred fourescore and twelue yeeres They say God will also appeare in this Age Others imagine That he hath alreadie appeared and that Echebar is hee Some hold That those ten Appearances were but creatures which had receiued Diuine power They themselues easily perceiue the vanity of these Chimaera's and monstrous opinions but will not leaue them lest they should at the same cast lose their Wealth and Superstition together In the Countrey of the Mogor they haue many fine Carts carued and gilded with two Wheeles drawn with two little Buls about the bignesse of our great Dogs in England and they will runne with any Horse and carry two or three men in one of those Carts They are couered with Silke or fine Cloth and be in vse as our Coaches in England But we will shut vp this too great discourse of the great Mogols Greatnesse in the words of the Worlds Greatest Foot-post He tels vs from the very Mogols Court That this present Prince is a man of three and fiftie yeeres of age of complexion middle betwixt white and blacke in a more expressiue Epitheton Oliue of a feemely composition of bodie of stature little vnequall to Mine but much more corpulent hee neuer trauelled so much on foot nor ten moneths together with fiftie shillings expence His Dominion is little lesse then foure thousand English miles which if it come short of the Turke in Geometricall dimension of ground it is with a great pleonasme supplied by the fertilitie of his Soyle and in the vnion of all his Territories Againe hee exceedeth him in Reuenue a great deale more then M. Coryats reckoning hee presenteth himselfe thrice euerie day at the rising of the Sunne which hee adoreth by the eleuation of his hands at noone and at fiue of the clocke in the euening but he standeth in a roome aloft alone by himself and looketh from a window that hath an embroidered sumptuous Couerture supported with two siluer Pillasters to yeeld shadow vnto him In feeding of his Beasts hee spendeth at the least ten thousand pound sterling a day and keepeth a thousand women for his owne body whereof the chiefe is Normal I haue bin in a Citie in this Country called Detee where Alexander ioyned battell with Porus in token of his victory erected a brasse Pillar which remaineth there to this day There arriued foure English ships at Surat and in the same Sir Thomas Rowe the English Embassador to the Mogol the newes whereof came to Asmere Octob. 8. 1615. and did much resocillate M. Coryats spirits as did M. Brownes verses from Amadavars and so I hope will yours CHAP. VIII Of Cambaya Decan and the neighbouring Nations §. I. Of the Cambayans ALthough we might seem to haue spoken sufficiently of the Cambayans alreadie in our former Mogol-Relations yet both as better knowne and because such was our Order in the former Editions wee haue allowed them a Chapter here by themselues Cambaya is also called Guzarat containing in length from the Riuer Bate to Circam a Persian Region fiue hundred miles of Sea-coast being on other parts enuironed with the Kingdomes of Dulcinda and
then they goe out of the Citie passing by the Riuers side to the burning-place where is prepared a great square Caue full of Wood. Here is made a great Banquet the woman eating with ioy as if it were her wedding-day and after they sing and daunce till the woman bid to kindle the fire in the Caue then she leaueth the Feast and taketh her husbands neerest kinsman by the hand and goeth with him to the banke of the Riuer where she strippeth her of her cloathes and iewels bestowing them at her pleasure and couering herselfe with a cloth throweth herselfe into the Riuer saying O wretches wash away your sinnes Comming out of the Water shee rowleth herselfe into a yellow cloth and againe taking her husbands kinsman by the hand goeth to the said Caue by which is erected a little Pinnacle on which she mounteth and there recommendeth her children and kindred to the people After this another woman taketh a pot with oyle and sprinkleth it ouer her head and therewith annoynteth all her bodie and then throweth it into the Furnace the woman going together with the same Presently after the woman the people throw great pieces of Wood into the Caue so that with those blowes and the fire she is quickly dead and their great mirth is on a suddaine turned into great lamentation and howling When a Great man dyeth all the women of his house both his wife and slaues with whom hee hath had carnall copulation burne themselues together with him Amongst the baser sort I haue seene saith Master Frederike the dead man carried to the place of buriall and there set vpright the woman comming before him on her knees casteth her armes about his necke while a Mason maketh a wall round about them and when the wall is as high as their neckes one comming behind the woman strangleth her the workeman presently finishing the wall ouer them and this is their buriall Ludouicus Vertomannus relateth the same Funerall Rites of Tarnasseri as in other parts of India sauing that there fifteene or twentie men in their idolatrous habit like Diuels doe attend on the fire wherein the husband is burned all the Musicians of the Citie solemnizing the Funerall pompe and fifteene dayes after they haue the like solemnitie at the burning of the woman those diuellish fellowes holding fire in their mouthes and sacrificing to Deumo and are her intercessors to that Diuell for her good entertainment The cause of burning their wiues is by some ascribed to their wonted poysonings of their husbands before this Law by others that the husband might haue her helpe and comfort in the other world Odoricus telleth of a strange and vncouth Idoll as bigge as Saint Christopher of pure Gold with a new band about the necke full of precious stones some one whereof was of value if he valued iustly more then a whole Kingdome The roofe pauement and seeling of the walls within and without the Temple was all Gold The Indians went thither on pilgrimage some with halters about their neckes some with their hands bound behind them some with kniues sticking on their armes and legges and if after their pilgrimage the wounded flesh festered they esteemed that limbe holy and a signe of their Gods fauour Neere to the Temple was a Lake where-into the Pilgrims cast Gold Siluer and Gemmes for honour of the Idoll and reparation of his Temple At euery yearely Feast the King and Queene with the Pilgrims and People assembling placed the said Idoll in a rich Chariot and with a solemne procession of Virgins two and two in a ranke singing before him and with Musicall Instruments carrie him forth Many Pilgrims put themselues vnder the Chariot wheeles where they are crushed in pieces More then fiue hundred persons vsed thus to doe whose carkasses were burned and ashes kept for holy Reliques Otherwise also they will deuote themselues to such a martyrdome in this manner The parents and friends assemble and make a Feast to this Votarie and after that hang fiue sharpe kniues about his necke and so carrie him before the Idoll where he taketh one of his kniues and cryeth For the worship of my God I cut this my flesh and cutting a piece casteth it at the face of the Idoll and so proceeding at the last sayth Now doe I yeeld my selfe to death in the behalfe of my God and being dead is burned as before Our Country-man Sir Iohn Mandeuile reporteth the same Historie of their Idoll-Procession and the ashes of those voluntary Martyrs which they keepe to defend them against tempests and misfortunes He also sayth That some Pilgrims in all their peregrinations not once lifted vp their eye-lids some at euery third or fourth pace fell downe on their knees to worship some whipped others wounded themselues yea killed themselues as is before said Nicolo di Conti reporteth the same in his time Neither is this bloudy custome yet left as Linschoten affirmeth by report of one of his chamber-fellowes that had seene it They haue sayth he a Waggon or Cart so heauie that three or foure Elephants can hardly draw it which is brought forth at Faires Feasts and Processions At this Cart hang many Cables or Ropes whereat all the people hale and pull of deuotion In the vpper part of the Cart standeth a Tabernacle and therein the Idoll vnder it sit the Kings wiues playing on Instruments And while the Procession passeth some cut pieces of their flesh and throwe at the Pagode some lay themselues vnder the wheeles of the Cart with such euent as you haue heard Gasparo Balby relateth the same and addeth That the Priests which haue care of this Idoll and certaine women are consecrated to these deuotions from their Cradles by their Zeale-blind parents And the women prostitute their bodies to gaine for the Idoll whatsoeuer they can get ouer and aboue their owne maintenance This filleth the Citie with Strumpets there being of this Sacred you may interpret it Cursed crue foure hundred in one place of the Citie These haue their place in the Idoll-procession some of them in the Chariot which is drawne by men euery one accounting himselfe happy that can touch or draw the same This he sayth was at Negapaton He further affirmeth That not farre from the Citie of Saint Thomas is the Towne Casta where the the Wife is not burned as at Negapatan but a great Graue being made for the deceased Husband they place the liuing Wife by the dead corps and their neerest kindred cast earth vpon them both and stampe thereon They which marry wed in their owne degree as a Smith to a Smiths daughter and they powre out their prayers at the Image of some Kow or a Serpent called Bittia di Capella Their Bramenes burne Kowes dung and if they intend any warres with other Nations they anoint their Nose and Forehead with those ashes not washing themselues till the euening They which sacrifice themselues to the Pagode
Disarius in Macrobius that the fresh waters which flow from so many Riuers being lighter then those on the Sea swimme on the top and are subiect to frost which the Sea-water is not And this force of the fresh waters is common to most great Riuers as Plata Zaire and others and in the Euxine it is obserued of Phasis by Arrianus The thawing of those Frosts is the cause of those fogges and mysts which so much infest these Seas and are so great a hinderance in all Northerne Discoueries And hence in likelyhood came the Prouerbe of Cimmerian darknesse rather then from that Hansem which Haithon mentioneth a place of a hundred miles compassed with a wall of pitchie darkenesse whence sometimes the crowes of Cockes and like sounds are heard but none dare enter or other like fabulous conceits of the Poets From these darke mysts the Euxine is called also Mare Maurum or the blacke Sea it was in old time called the Sarmatian Cimmerian Taurican Caucasean Phasian Pontike and what other titles peoples hils riuers or speciall occurrents fixed on it Of the description thereof Arrianus hath written a whole Treatise and Stuckius hath largely commented thereon and Ortelius hath bestowed good paines in that argument to whom I referre the Reader Arrianus was employed in this Discouerie by Adrian the Emperour beginning at Trapezond where he set vp Adrians Image and where before that was a Temple dedicated to Mercurie and Philesius his Nephew He sayled from thence descrying and describing the Coasts Riuers Cities about this Sea In Phasis hee obserueth the lightnesse of that water fresh on the top salt in the bottome where it is mixed with the Sea or rather slideth ouer it They had heere a Law That none might carrie water into Phasis and if they had any in their ships they must at the entrence of this Riuer cast it foorth otherwise fearing an vnluckie and dangerous Nauigation The water of this Riuer hee saith will last vncorrupt ten yeeres This Phasis Aeschylus calleth the limite of Europe and Asia At the left hand of the entrance was set the Image of the Phasian Goddesse seeming by her Cymball in her hand and Lyons drawing her Charioa to bee none other then Rhea There also as a holy Relique was shewed the Anchor of the ship Argo which because it was of Iron seemed to our Author to be counterfeit especially there being the fragments of an Anchor of Stone which seemed more likely to be that of the Argonautes so much chaunted by the Poets Other monuments of Iason he found none But to looke backe to the Strait or Thracian Bosphorus hee there nameth the Temple of Iupiter Vrius Dousa and Gyllius report the pleasantnesse and fertilitie of these parts Heere did Iason sacrifice to the twelue Gods and built a Temple to them Apello had sixe Temples neare the Straits the most ancient at Chalcedon giuing place to none of the Oracles two at Bizantium and the other neere thereunto But with these and manifold other antiquities Gellius can best acquaint the more leysurely Reader Of all the Cities along this shore I cannot but mention Heraclea where were obserued the deuotions of Iupiter Stratius his Altars and two Oakes planted there in his honour by Hercules This Citie was also made famous by the Legend of Hercules descending to Hell of Cerberus Acheron and the like Of this Citie Memnon wrote a large Historie some parts whereof doe yet remaine Cotta after a strait siege subduing it to the Romanes among other spoyle seized vpon the pyramidall statue of Hercules whom hee would haue serue him in a thirteenth labour exceeding in sumptuousnesse greatnesse elegance neere to which was his Club of solid Gold as was also his Lyons skinne and his Quiuer Many monuments and offerings he carried out of the Temples Both Memnon and Aelyan tell of Dionysius sonne of Clearchus King of Heraclea which grew into so grosse and vnwonted degree of fatnesse that it made him vnfit not for State-affaires onely but for necessarie functions of life especially in his sleepe From which to awaken him this remedy was deuised to thrust long Needles into his flesh which whiles they passed thorow that new-come flesh and fatnesse were no more felt then of a stone till they came to the more naturall flesh of his body When he sate in Iudgement he had a kind of Cupbord which had the rest of his body leauing his face onely open to be seene Marcianus Heraclâ—otes one of this Citie had written a Periplus or Circumnauigation of these and other Seas But least I seeme frozen in these colder Narrations or to haue lost my selfe in these Cimmerian mysts I will get me out of this Sea and obserue the principall Ilands adiacent to Asia For if I should after all these Discourses of the Sea enter into a new of the huge Whales and other varieties of Fishes and Monsters inhabitants of the Sea which is thought to haue creatures resembling in some sort all those of the Land both Men and Beasts I should grow tedious and Gesner with others haue done it alreadie I shall finde more due place for the strangest in some other parts of this Historie CHAP. XIIII A briefe Suruey of the Ilands adioyning to Asia also some fancies of the Sabbaticall Riuer and inclosed Iewes §. I. The Ilands from Iapan to the Persian gulfe IF wee should shippe our selues for the Discouerie of the Ilands in the Northeast Seas of Asia wee were like to finde cold entertainment Sir Hugh Willoughby with his Company lost themselues in this being frozen to death Stephen Burrough after attempted and found out scarse worth the finding Vaygats and Noua Zembla As bad or worse hath beene the successe of Pet Iackman and others both Dutch and English And the Russians reports to Heberstein are in some things so fabulous as of their Slata Baba and of men dying euery Nouember and reuiuing in Aprill following that a may well suspend his credite to the rest What Balakus in his letter to Mercator Hesselius in his late Maps of these parts or any other haue written will bee but meane Spokes-men to procure any Reader with vs in this North-east Discouerie Steering therefore another course and coasting another way to the East and South parts of Asia let vs take a briefe suruey of that World of Ilands in those Indian Seas reseruing a more full Description of the chiefe of them to the Chapters following and then proceed to a more leysurely view of the Arabian and some of the Mediterranean Ilands And first in this course we are encountred with the Iland or Ilands rather bearing the name of Iapan the principall whereof are three of which more afterwards Some mention beleeue it that list neere to Iapan certaine Ilands of Amazons with which the Iaponites yeerely haue both worldly and fleshly traffique and when a Ship commeth from Iapan so many women as there
ship to murther the English there Dangerous had this Fray prooued had not the murthering Peece with almost a cleane riddance of them cruelly decided the quarrell Yet would they not desire their liues and pulled the Pikes of such as had wounded them thorow their bodies to reuenge it with their Swords This is generall to the Iaponians call it fortitude or desperatnesse or cruelty or in some respects all of them Quabacondono the Nephew of Taicosama before mentioned feemed to delight in bloud and butchery and obserued as an ordinary recreation at set times to haue condemned persons brought before him in a place purposely inclosed and framed to this inhumanity in the midst of which was a faire Table and thereon those wretches were set in what posture he pleased so to try his arme art and blade in this beastly caruing of humane bodies sometimes also setting them for markes to his Peece or Arrowes sometimes exenterating women to open and curiously to search the closest Cabinets of Nature alway prouoking vengeance to repay him in his owne Coyne For old Taicosama hauing a young child of his owne bodie studied how to remoue this Quabacondono It is a custome in Iapon that the Fatherr growing old resigne their Signiories to the Sonne or Heire The Lords of Tensa which title includes the Iaponian Empire adde another ceremony to visit that Sonne now in possession so to acknowledge a kind of subiection all the Lords in the Empire doing the like in publike solemnity This time was appointed and Quabacondono prouided all variety of cheere for entertainment a thousand choyce Wayters to attend and thirteene thousand of their Iaponian Tables little bigger then our Trenchers but all was disappointed by Taicosamas iealousie refusing to come After that He picked quarrels with him and caused Him to goe to the Monastery of Coia a receptacle for Exiles Quabacondono in this distresse shaued his hinder-locke and beard changing his name to Doi The Bonzij gaue Him entertainment at Coia as to other Exiles without any respect to his present Title or late power A few dayes after came a Mandate from Taicosama that they should all plucke out their bowels after the Iaponian custome First began an Honourable seruant who hauing cut himselfe open acrosse the brest was by Quabacondono after reuerence done to him beheaded and then Others in order after the same manner the fift was Quabacondono whose head after hee had ripped vp himselfe was strooke off with the same Sword which hee had vsed before in his butcherly recreations And lastly he that had smitten off his head committed execution vpon himselfe the Bonzij presently burning all their bodies in the same place One of this company was offered by Taicosama his liberty which hee refused chusing kindly to dye with him who in life had vsed him kindly The like executions followed in others one of which was the mightiest Lord in Tensa who being slaine his Son but 16. yeeres old had his life offered but sending word to Taicosama he could not liue without reuenge of his Fathers death went presently to a Temple in Meaco and before the Idoll Fotoco disembowelled himselfe Of all Quabacondonos wiues and their followers one and thirty chiefe women and three of his children little Infants were carried in Carts to the place of execution where the Executioner presently presents them with Quabacondonos head that death might first enter at their eyes which by a bloudy hand soone possessed all the other members Their bodies were all laid in one Graue ouer which Taicosama raysed a Temple with Inscription The Temple of Traytors After other wiues and children of the other Nobles executed hee demolished to the ground the Palace which Quabacondono had built with the City by him founded consisting of little other then three hundred Noblemens Houses this being the Iaponian policy vnder shew of attendance to keepe the Grandes at the Court so to bee secured of their persons and practices I haue beene the longer in this Relation to shew the Iaponian tyranny in this example whereof it were easie to giue you many The poorest if sentence of Death bee determined on them will if they can haue knowledge and meanes preuent it with this accounted honourable kind of death crossing themselues And whensoeuer any man is executed presently euery man rusheth in and tryes his Catan or Sword on the body of the Dead thus shred into gobbets not a piece left bigger then a mans hand This Captaine Saris saw done on a woman and her two Paramours at Firando whom shee had appointed to visit her but one comming sooner and before the other was gone they quarrelled to draw a Sword in a Garrison Towne and adultery are both death and they were all thus executed The like for stealing one for a little bagge of Rice another for a piece of Lead not worth aboue sixe pence Their doores stand open so little doe they feare Theeues and they make ordinary through-faires thorow other mens houses Crucifying is common the bodies still hanging and putrifying by the high-wayes their Crosses haue two crosse timbers fastned to the maine Post which is set into the ground the one for the expansion of the hands the other of the feet with a shorter piece in the midst to beare vp the weight of the body They bind them thereto and runne a Launce into the right side of the crucified sometimes two acrosse Headding is vsuall which in Solemnitie is thus performed one goes before with a Mattocke another followes with a shouell a third with a boord or table contayning the crime which also hee himselfe following next holdeth in a sticke to which is fastened a paper made like a Vane the end whereof is in his hands tyed behind him by which cord the Executioner leades him on each side a Souldier with his Launce resting on him at the dismall place without shew of feare hee sits downe and holds out his head presently wiped off others mangling him as is said Since Captaine Saris his returne the King of Firando is dead and three of his followers crossed themselues their bodies were burned and enioyed the same Sepulchre with his And the Mint-master a Great man with this olde Emperour hath already promised thus to dye with Him I could leade you from these Tragedies to their Comedies which in Iapon are common and that by common women which are to bee hired of their Pandar or Owner for this the Bed or attendance at table to fill your drinke but it is Note-worthy that the Pandar being dead is by a bridle made of Straw put in his mouth drawne about the streets and cast on a dung-hill or some open place to bee deuoured of Beasts or Fowles This hinders not but these Hydras heads multiply Sometimes Great Men at their Great Solemnities will themselues in person personate the Acts of their Ancestors This Captaine Saris saw the King of Firando with the chiefe Men doe whiles hee
promise with the Hollanders when they obiected it My tongue he answered is not of Bone When they are sicke they vow vnto God vpon their recouerie a more honourable death which they performe after their recouerie by the murtherous hand of some other vpon them They are great Inchanters and obserue houres and fitting minutes and moments of time for composing their Blades and Armour of which they are conceited that being tempered with their charmes and superstitions with the least drawing bloud of another they will kill him themselues in their inchaunted Armour safe from others blowes They abide in expectation of these martiall minutes for their coniured Armours sometimes eight or ten yeeres before they can finish them The Iauans say That their Ancestors came from China which Countrey they forsooke because of the tyrannie wherewith they were oppressed and in great multitudes peopled this Iland They weare their haire and their nailes long They are dutifull to their superiors The great men stirre not forth without a great troupe of followers They are seldome idle much busied about their scabberds and weapons which they vse to poyson They are not without their weapons night or day which they will not suffer another man to touch They are so eager of reuenge that they will presse on their aduersaries weapon drawing it thorow their owne body to kill him that hath wounded them They haue Mahumetane Temples where they doe their deuotions with great silence They acknowledge IESVS Mahomet Dauid and Moses foure Prophets They obserue their houres and two Fasts or Lents The great mens wiues neuer goe out of the doores to be seene Their Cities are Ballambua and Panarucan a litle from whence is a burning Hill which first brake forth 1586. and oppressed infinite numbers of men and cast great stones into the citie for three dayes space making one continued night of darknesse Passarua the King whereof married the King of Ballambuas daughter and the second night after hee had lyen with her slue her and her attendants because hee would not turne Mahumetane Ioartam Surrabaia Tuban Matara are also royall Cities as are Daunia Taggal Charabaon and many others But bantam is of most traffick frequenced by Portugals Dutch and English in which euery day are three seuerall markets Here Merchants when they come may buy a woman for their fleshly and worldly businesse you may adde the Deuill too to make vp the number which at their departure they sell againe Publike affaires are treated handled by night at which time the Counsellors of State meet and ascend some tree or the roose of the house viewing the Heauens till the Moone arise and then goe into the Senate-house The women in Iaua act Comedies They punish Adulterie with death the woman chusing her neerest friend or allie to stabbe her The Southerne parts of Iaua are little knowne being full of Lions and wilde Beasts It hath been fatall to many English but much through their owne distemper with Racke a wine made or Rice and their contagious women Iohn Milwards iournall relateth of their voyage against their wills by the South of Iaua and of some Ilands Bayes and other obseruations in those parts Not farre from Bantam liue certaine of the Passarrans which being there oppressed by their King came hither and heere obtayned a piece of ground to build them a Citie which is called Sura They haue a King or Gouernour and liue quietly following Husbandrie they eate nothing that hath life a common Superstition of the Indians weare white Clothes of Paper made of the leaues of Trees and neuer marrie herein resembling the Iewish Essees yet neuer want succeeding generation Many of the Iauans daily consecrating themselues vnto their Societie The Chinois in Iaua doe sometimes bring vp Crocodiles and eate them Bantam is the chiefe Factorie of the English although they haue others The King of Bantam hath the Title but the Pangram exerciseth the Power and hath shut vp the King where none but at his pleasure may come at him The situation of this Citie is low and vnwholsome it is often subiect to fire in diuers of which fires our English haue by Gods blessing well escaped Not farre from hence at the I le Pulo Penione the Trades Increase perished in the Careening most of the Company both of English and others which wrought on Her dying of an infectious sicknesse which a Chinoise offered by sacrifice to the Diuell to cleere Sir Henry Middleton heere dyed of this sicknesse and the Ship too wanting that Head and necessarie Hands to sustaine her bequeathing that goodly Fabricke to the two Elements Fire and Water which not agreeing in the Diuiding whiles each laboured to haue all the Ship was lost in the quarrell A great losse of our greatest Merchants-ship that England euer had but not till after great exploits and not comparable to diuers losses of the Portugals or Hollanders at the Iland Mauricius and other places both there and at their owne doores The King of Tuban is the richest King and mightiest in all Iaua They haue many Horses and make great account of them decking them with gallant furniture of gold siluer and the counterfeits of Dragons and Diuels on their Saddles they ride and manage their Horses with great skill Iambee is another Passaman for vnwholsomnesse Madura is North from Iaua a fertile Iland of Rice the soyle whereof is so moyst and waterish that their Buffals and men goe almost knee-deepe when they sow it Arosbay is the chiefe Citie They are theeuish and giuen to spoyle and captiued many of the Hollanders which went thither on shoare to buy commodities which they were forced to redeeme at a deare rate In these parts are Battes as bigge as Hennes which the people rost and eate The Iland Baly is East from Iaua very populous contayning as is thought sixe hundred thousand Inhabitants they are Ethnikes and worship that which they first meet in the morning Heere and in Pulo Rossa the Women are burned with their dead Husbands one man is said to haue had fiftie of his Wiues for they marrie as many as they please burned with him whiles the Hollanders were there The Iland hath many Bulls Buffals Goates Swine Horse with many kindes of Fowles Fruits and Metals The chiefe men are carried by slaues on Seats borne on their shoulders or else in Chariots drawne with Buffals In the Voyage of Master Thomas Candish is mention made of a Iauan King called Raia Ballomboam very aged which had a hundred Wiues and his Sonne had fiftie Their custome is that when the King dyeth they burne the body and preserue the ashes Fiue dayes after the wiues of the dead King goe to a place appointed and there shee which was deerest in his fauour throweth a ball from her and where that ball resteth thither they goe all and turning their faces Eastward stabbe themselues with a Crise or Dagger to the heart
they goe to Market they wash them from top to toe and put on other clothes They buy no more but for that day or meale They stampe their Milia as wee doe spice fanne it in a wodden dish steepe it ouer-night with a little Mais and in the morning lay it on a stone and as Painters their colours grinde it with another stone till it be dowe which they temper with fresh water and salt and make rolls thereof twice as bigge as a mans fist and bake it a little on the hearth This is their bread Their dyet is strange as raw flesh handfuls of graine large draughts of Aqua-vitae Dogs Cats Buffles Elephants though stinking like carrion and a thousand magots creeping in them There are little birds like Bulfinches which make their nests on small ends of twigs for feare of Snakes these they eat aliue with their feathers The Moores say that within land they eat dried snakes and these will eat dogs guts raw which our Author hath seene and a Boy left in pawne on shipbord for debt which had meat enough yet would secretly kill the Hens that he might eat their raw guts They will eat old stinking fish dried in the Sun yet can they be daintie if they may haue it Some make a kind of Ale of Mays and water sodden together called Poitou Sometime foure or fiue together will buy a pot of Palme-wine which they powre into a great Cabas which groweth on trees and some of them are halfe as big as a kilderkin round about which they sit to drinke each sending a little pot-full to his best wife When they first drinke they take it out with a small Cabas laying their hands on the head of him which first drinketh crie aloud Tautosi Tautosi he drinkes not all off but leaues a litle to throw on the ground to the Fetisso saying I. ou spouting out some on their Fetissos on their armes and legs otherwise thinking they could not drinke in quiet They are great Drinkers and feed as vnmanerly as Swine sitting on the ground and cramming not staying till the morsell in the mouth be swallowed but tearing their meat in pieces with the three mid-fingers casting it into their mouthes ready gaping to receiue it They are alway hungry and would eat all day long yea the Dutchmen had great stomacks whiles they were there He that gets most must be most liberall industrious to get and as prodigall in spending vpon their liquor Before the Portugals trade they had no Merchandise but went naked and the people within Land were afraid of them because they were white and apparelled They come to trade in the ships in the morning for about noone the wind before blowing from land comes from Sea and they are not able to endure the roughnesse thereof They beleeue that Men when they die goe into another World where they shall haue like need of many things as heere they haue and therefore vse to put with the dead Corpes some parts of houshold And if they lose any thing they thinke that some of their friends which in the other world had need thereof came thence and stole it Of God being asked they said he was blacke and euill and did then much harme their good they had by their owne labour and not by his goodnesse Circumcision they vse and some other Turkish Rites They hold it vnmeet and irreligious to spit on the ground They haue no leter nor Bookes They obserue a Sabbath herein agreeing and yet disagreeing with Turke Iew and Christian for they obserue Tuesdayes Rest from their Fishing and Husbandrie The Wine of the Palme-tree which is that day gathered may not be sold but is offered to the King who bestoweth it on his Courtiers to drinke at night In the midst of the Market-place they had a Table standing on foure Pillars two elues high whose flat couer was made Straw And Reedes wouen together Hereon were set many strawne Rings called Fetissos or Gods and therein Wheat with Water and Oyle for their God which they thinke eates the same Their Priest they call Fetissero who euery Festiuall day placeth a Seat on that Table and sitting thereon Preacheth to the people the contents whereof I could neuer learne which done the Women offer him their Infants and hee sprinkleth them with water in which a Newt or Snake doth swim and then besprinkleth the Table aforesaid with the same water and so vttering certaine wordes very loude and stroking the Children with certaine colour as giuing them his blessing hee drinketh of that water the people clapping their hands and crying I. ou I. ou and so he dismisseth his deuout assembly Many weare such Rings of Straw next their bodies as preseruatiues from those dangers which else their angry God might inflict on them In honour of the same Deitie or Deuill as it seemes they conceiue him to be they bechalke themselues with a kind of chalkey Earth and this is vnto them in stead of their Morning Mattens The first bitte at meales and first draught is consecrate to their Idoll and therefore they besprinkle therewith those Rings which I said they weare on their bodies If Fishers cannot speed at Sea they giue a piece of Gold to the Fetissero to reconcile their frowning Saint He therfore with his Wiues walkes a kind of Procession thorow the Citie smiting his brest and clapping his hands with a mightie noise till hee come at the shore and there they cut downe certaine boughes from the Trees and hang them on their neckes and play on a Tymbrell Then doth the Fetissero turne to his Wiues and expostulates with them and withall hurleth into the Sea Wheat and other things as an offering to Fetisso to appease his displeasure towards the Fishermen When the King will sacrifice to Fetisso hee commands the Fetissero to enquire of a Tree whereto he ascribeth Diuinitie what he will demand Hee with his Wiues come to the Tree and in a heape of ashes there prouided prickes in a branch plucked off the Tree and drinking water out of a Bason spouts it out on the branch and then daubeth his face With the ashes which done he declareth the Kings question and the Diuell out of the Tree makes answer The Nobles also adore certaine Trees and esteeme them Oracles and the Diuell sometimes appeareth vnto them in the same in forme of a blacke Dog and other whiles answereth without any visible apparition There are which worship a certaine Bird which is spotted and painted as it were with Stars and resembleth the lowing of a Bull in her voyce To heare this Bird lowing in their journey is to them a luckie boding saying Fetisso makes them good promises and therefore let him in that place where they heare it a Vessell of Water and Wheat And as the Earth and Ayre yeeld them Deities so the Sea is not behinde in his liberalitie but yeelds certaine Fishes to their Canonization In this respect
because the Turkish Empire was so full of seditions and the Sophi had sent his Embassadour to them to chuse a fit warrior that they might with ioynt forces assault the Ottoman §. IIII. Of their Schooles and Cities THere are in all the Cities of Aethiopia two Schooles or Colledges for the instruction of youth one for the male sexe the other for the female each diuided into three parts the first for the Gentlemens children the second for Citizens the third for the baser vulgar with their seuerall instructers and without communion medling or conuersing of the one with the other the Seminarie or Colledge of Boyes is a quarter of a league without the City the other within There are they taught Letters and Religion All euen the Kings themselues are bound to send their children thither to be instructed and the Priests resort thither for Confession and ministring the Sacrament to them They may resort home at Festiuall times otherwise they are there detained The Virgins from ten to twenty the other from ten to sixteene yeeres of their age They haue not only this order in their wel ordered Schooles but in their disordered misorderly Stews the deuils work-houses and suburbs of Hell which yet in Rome and places of that Religion are permitted and admitted the Cities and his Holinesse selfe is not a little enriched with that which God prohibited The price of the Dogge and of the Whore The Ethiopians permit not any to bee strange women but strangers of other Countreys which may not enter into their Cities nor may the Nobles enter into the common houses which belong to the Citizens or these to those of the Plebians nor any but to those peculiarly designed their state vnder paine of death as adulterers to bee cast to Lyons These women are hired by certaine Officers at a common price and are not to take any thing of particular men they goe in pale-coloured garments and if they distaste and forsake that beastly trade they send them to some places subiect vnto the Portugals not admitting them to conuerse with their women for feare of infection But to leaue these Beasts the Ethiopians giue great respect to their Physicians which are onely of their Gentry and that not all that will but onely such as certaine Officers shall chuse of euery Citie to be sent to their generall Vniuersities of which there are seuen in Ethiopia there to be taught naturall Philosophy Logicke and other Arts they know not together with Physicke and the Arts of the Apothecarie and Chirurgian They are there maintained at the publike charge of the Cities that send them When the Doctors and Instructers see them fit for Graduates they go with them to the Monks of Alleluya and of Plurimanos who with a Monkes Cowle or Hood and other Doctoricall Ensignes doe inuest and inaugurate them in that Degree They are great Herbarists They make Mummia otherwise then in other parts where it is either made of bodies buried in the Sands or taken out of ancient Sepulchres where they had been laid being inbalmed with Spices For they take a captiue Moore of the best complexion and after long dieting and medicining of him cut off his head in his sleepe and gashing his body full of wounds and therein all the best Spices and then wrap him vp in Hay being before couered with a Seare-cloth after which they burie him in a moist place couering the body with earth Fiue dayes being passed they take him vp againe and remouing the Seare-cloth and Hay hang him vp in the Sunne whereby the body resolueth and droppeth a substance like pure Balme which liquor is of great price The fragrant sent is such while it hangeth in the Sunne that it may be smelt he saith a league off The priuiledges of Physicians are that they are freed from the common custome of giuing one in three of their sonnes for the Emperors warres that they may ride on Elephants in the Cities which is allowed onely to the Emperors Prelates and Priests that are Virgins They may also weare Miniuer-hoods and are free from Subsidies and Paiments Theologie and the Chaldee tongue is taught onely among their Priests and Ecclesiasticall persons in their Churches and Monasteries They reade Diuinitie in their natiue tongue the Text is the foure first generall Councels the Scripture they reade in Chaldee which is with them as Latine with vs They handle not questions as the Schoolemen in Logicall disputations and Arguings but copiously and eloquently interpret the Scriptures Because we haue mentioned their Cities Saba and Zambra let vs take some briefe view of them and so leaue this Spaniard whose Discourse hath I hope not without some delight thus long holden you Besides these two Cities none haue aboue three thousand houses in them But these are populous and magnificent with Towers Temples triumphant Arches Obeliskes Piramides and the like tokens of industry Antiquitie and Maiestie Saba was founded by that Queene which visited Salomon and was the mother-Citie of the Empire It hath fiue thousand houses great and sumptuous the streets spacious with Portals or Pent-houses that men may walke safe from the Sunnes violence It hath foure chiefe Gates all of Alabaster and Iasper wrought with Antique-workes the Gate-doores of Cedar curiously carued The wayes that leade to these Gates for the space of two leagues are set with Palmes Planes Oranges Cedars Cypresses and other trees on both sides for shade fruit the foure high streets goe thorow the Citie acrosse and where they meet is an Arch or Vault erected on high Pillars fairely wrought and gilded with the brazen Image of S. Matthew their supposed Patron as bigge as a Giant gilded also the worke of Architects sent by Francis Duke of Florence Neere to this Citie are Mines of Gold Gardens and other places of pleasure and profit Zambra is greater containing thirty thousand houses and innumerable concourse of people It stands in the Kingdome of Cafates and nigh that great Lake which hereof is called Zambra where the Emperor leauing his wonted maner of remouing vp downe in Tents haue fixed his Court-royall and yet without the Citie are many Tents that belong to the Court Here the Prete liueth with two and forty sons of Kings with his great Councell and the Latine Alexander the third built the Palace here 1570. by the Duke of Florence his workmen If I should follow the Frier further I could leade you on in a delectable way but doubtfull like the Poets writings and bring you into Elisian but fabulous fields fertile in al things but truth wherein let the Reader pardon that I haue already been so long rather then tedious in this Vtopian Aethiopia at the first much suspected by me as by many passages in the Story is expressed but since largely written against by Godignus a Iesuit and by latter Relations found eyther vncertaine or false whose paines shall helpe make vp another Chapter and then will we proceed in our
apprehended at Sea by a mighty and tedious storme wherewith after many dayes they were brought to Estotiland aboue a thousand miles West from Frisland vpon which one of the Boats was cast away and sixe men that were in it were taken and brought to a populous Citie where one that spake Latine and had beene cast by chance vpon that Iland in the name of the King asked them what Country-men they were and vnderstanding their case he acquainted the King there with They dwelt there fiue yeeres and found it to bee an Iland very rich being little lesse then Iseland farre more fruitfull One of them said he saw Latine Bookes in the Kings Librarie which they at this present doe not vnderstand They haue a peculiar Language and Letters or Characters to themselues They haue Mines of Gold and other Metals and haue trade with Engroneland They sow Corne and make Beere and Ale They build Barks but know not the vse of the Compasse and haue many Cities and Castles The King sent these Fisher-men with twelue Barkes Southwards to a Countrey which they call Drogio in which Voyage escaping dreadfull Tempests at Sea they encountred with Canibals at Land which deuoured many of them These Fishers shewing them the manner of taking Fish with Nets escaped and for the presents which they made of their fish to the chiefe men of the Countrey were beloued and honoured One of these more expert it seemeth then the rest was holden in such account that a great Lord made warre with their Lord to obtayne him and so preuayled that he and his company were sent vnto him And in this order was he sent to fiue and twenty Lords which had warred one with another to get him in thirteene yeeres space whereby hee came to know almost all those parts which hee said was a great Country and as it were a New World The people are all rude and void of goodnesse they goe naked neyther haue they wit to couer their bodies with the Beasts skins which they take in hunting from the vehement cold They are fierce and eat their Enemies hauing diuers Lawes and Gouernours Their liuing is by hunting Further to the Southwest they are more ciuill and haue a more temperate Ayre They haue Cities and Temples dedicated to Idols where they sacrifice men and after eate them and haue also some vse of Gold and Siluer He fled away secretly and conueying himselfe from one Lord to another came at length to Drogio where hee dwelt three yeeres After this time finding there certaine Boates of Estotiland he went thither with them and growing there very rich furnished a Barke of his owne and returned into Frisland where hee made report vnto his Lord of that wealthy Countrey Zichumi prepared to send thither but three dayes before they set forth this Fisherman dyed Yet taking some of the Mariners which came with him in his stead they prosecuted the Voyage and encountred after many dayes an Iland where ten men of diuers Languages were brought vnto them of which they could vnderstand none but one of Island He told them That the Iland was called Icaria and the Knights thereof called Icari descended of the ancient pedigree of Dodalus King of Scots who conquering that Iland left his Sonne there for King and left them those Lawes which to that present they retayned And that they might keepe their Lawes inuiolate they would receiue no stranger Onely they were contented to receiue one of our men in regard of the Language as they had done those ten Interpreters Zichumi sayling hence in foure dayes descried Land where they found abundance of Fowle and Birds Egges for their refreshing The Hauen they called Cape Trinity There was a Hill which burning cast out smoake where was a Spring from which issued a certaine water like Pitch which ranne into the Sea The people of small stature wilde and fearefull hid themselues in Caues Zichumi built there a Citie and determining to inhabit sent Antonio backe againe with the most of his people to Frisland This History I haue thus inserted at large which perhaps not without cause in some thinges may seeme fabulous not in the Zeni which thus writ but in the Relations which they receiued from others Howsoeuer the best Geographers are beholden to these Brethren for that little knowledge they haue of these parts of which none before had written nor since haue there beene any great in-land Discoueries §. II. Discoueries made by SEBASTIAN CABOT CORTREGALIS GOMES with some notes of Groenland SOmewhat since there hath beene discouered by Gasper Corteregale a Portugall Stephen Gomes a Spaniard and Sebastian Cabot and more by later Pilots of our Nation but little of the disposition of the In-land people Yea it was thought to be all broken Ilands and not inhabited but at certayne seasons frequented by some Saluages which come thither to fish Such as we can in due order we here bestow Sebastian Cabot reported to Ramusio that in the yeere 1497. at the charge of King Henry the Seuenth he discouered to the 67. degree and a halfe of Northerly latitude minding to haue proceeded for the search of Cathay but by the mutiny of the Mariners was forced to returne The Map of Sebastian Cabot cut by Clement Adams relateth That Iohn Cabot a Venetian and his Sonne Sebastian set out from Bristoll discouering the Land called it Prima Vista and the Iland before it Saint Iohns The Inhabitants weare beasts skinnes There were white Beares and Stags farre greater then ours There were plenty of Seales and Soles aboue a yard long He named sayth Peter Martyr certaine Ilands Boccalaos of the store of those fish which the Inhabitants called by that name which with their multitudes sometimes stayed his ships The Beares caught these fish with their clawes and drew them to land and ate them In the time of Henry the Seuenth William Purchas being then Maior of London were brought vnto the King three men taken in the New-found Iland these were clothed in beasts skins and did eate raw flesh But Cabot discouered all along the Coast to that which since is called Florida and returning found great preparations for wars in Scotland by reason whereof no more consideration was had to this Voyage Whereupon he went into Spaine and being entertayned by the King and Queene was sent to discouer the Coasts of Brasill and sayled vp into the Riuer of Plate more then six score leagues He was a made Pilot Maior of Spaine and after that Anno 1549. was constituted Grand Pilot of England by King Edward the Sixt with the yeerely Pension of an hundred threescore and sixe pounds thirteene shillings foure pence Where in the yeere 1553. hee was chiefe dealer and procurer of the Discouery of Russia and the North-east Voyages made by Sir Hugh Willoughby R. Chancelour Stephen Burrough and prosecuted by Pet Iackman and others towards Noua Zemla Persia Tartaria as in Master Hakluits first
poore mans Offering which hee deliuered to the Priests who pulled off their heads and cast them at the foote of the Altar where they lost their bloud and so they did of all other things which were offered Euery one offered meate and fruit according to his power which was laid at the foote of the Altar and was carried to the Ministers Chamber The offering done the people went to dinner the young men and Maydes of the Temple being busied meanewhile to serue the Idoll with all that was appointed for him to eat which was prepared by other women who had made a vow that day to serue the Idoll These prepared meats in admirable variety which being ready the Virgins went out of the Temple in Procession euery one carrying a little basket of bread in her hand and in the other a dish of these meates Before them marched an old man like to a Steward attired in a white Surples downe to the calues of his legges vpon a red Iacket which had wings instead of sleeues from which hung broad Ribands and at the same a small Pumpion stucke full of flowres and hauing many Superstitious things within it This old man comming neere to the foot of the staires made lowly reuerence Then the Virgins with like reuerence presented their meats in order this done the old man returnes leading the Virgins into the Conuent And then the young men and Ministers of the Temple came forth and gathered vp their meat which they carried to their Priests Chambers who had fasted fiue dayes eating but once a day not stirring all that time out of the Temple where they whipped themselues as before is shewed They did eate of these Diuine meates so they called it neither might any other eate thereof After dinner they assembled againe and then was sacrificed One who had all that yeere borne the habit and resemblance of their Idoll They went after this into a holy place appointed for that purpose whither the young men and Virgins of the Temple brought them their ornaments and then they danced and sung the chiefe Priests drumming and sounding other Instruments The Noblemen in ornaments like to the young men danced round about them They did not vsually kill any man that day but him that was sacrificed yet euery fourth yeere they had others with him which was the yeere of Iubilee and full pardons After Sun-set the Virgins went all to their Conuent and taking great dishes of earth full of bread mixed with Hony couered with small Panniars wrought and fashioned with dead mens heads and bones carried the same to the Idoll setting them downe retired their Steward vshering them as before Presently came forth all the young men in order with Caues of Reedes in their hands who began to runne as fast as they could to the top of the Temple staires euery one striuing to come first to the Collation The chiefe Priests obserued who came first second third and fourth neglecting the rest these they praysed and gaue them ornaments and from thence forward they were respected as men of marke The said Collation was all carried away by the young men as great Relikes This ended The young men and Maydes were dismissed and so I thinke would our Reader who cannot but be glutted with and almost surfet of our so long and tedious feasting Yet let me intreat one seruice more it is for the God of gaine who I am sure will finde Followers and Disciples too attentiue For the Festiuall of this Gaine-god Quetzaalcoalt the Merchants his deuoted and faithfull Obseruants forty dayes before bought a slaue well proportioned to represent that Idoll for that space First they washt him twice in a Lake called the Lake of the Gods and being purified they attired him like the Idoll Two of the Ancients of the Temple came to him nine dayes before the Feast and humbling themselues before him said with a loud voice Sir nine dayes hence your dancing must end and you must dye and hee must answere whatsoeuer hee thinketh In a good houre They diligently obserued if this aduertisement made him sad or if he continued his dancing according to his wont If they perceiued him sad they tooke the sacrificing Rasors which they washed and clensed from the bloud which thereon had remayned and hereof with another liquor made of Cacao mixed a drinke which they said would make him forget what had beene said to him and returne to his former iollitie For they tooke this heauinesse in these men to be ominous On the Feast Day after much honouring him and incensing him about midnight they sacrificed him offering his heart to the Moone and after cast it to the Idoll letting the body fall downe the staires to the Merchants who were the chiefe Worshippers These hearts of their Sacrifices some say were burned after the Oblation to this Planet and Idoll The body they sauced and dressed for a Banquet about breake of day after they had bid the Idoll good morrow with a small dance This Temple of Quetzaalcoalt had Chappels as the rest and Chambers where were Conuents of Priests young men Maydes and Children One Priest alone was resident which was changed weekly His charge that weeke after hee had instructed the Children was to strike vp a Drumme at the Sunne setting at the sound whereof which was heard throughout the Citie euery one ended his Merchandize and retired to his house all the Citie being as silent as if no bodie had beene there at day breaking hee did againe giue notice by his Drumme for till that time it was not lawfull to stirre out of the Citie In this Temple was a Court wherein they danced and on this Idols Holy-day had erected a Theater thirty foot square finely decked and trimmed in which were represented Comedies Masks and many other representations to expresse or cause mirth and ioy §. III. Of their Schooles Letters and other their Opinions THe Mexicans had their Schooles and as it were Colledges or Seminaries where the Ancients taught the Children to say by heart the Orations Discourses Dialogues and Poems of their great Orators and chiefe Men which thus were preserued by Tradition as perfectly as if they had beene written And in their Temples the sonnes of the chiefe Men as Peter Martyr reporteth were shut vp at seuen yeeres old and neuer came forth thence till they were marriageable and were brought forth to be contracted All which time they neuer cut their haire they were clothed in blacke abstained at certaine times of the yeere from meats engendring much bloud and chastened their bodies with often fasting And although they had not Letters yet they had their Wheele for computation of time as it is said before in which their writings were not as ours from the left hand to the right or as of the Easterne Nations from the right hand to the left or as the Chinois from the top to the bottome but beginning below did mount vpwards as in that
licence departed He sent with him many Guianians all laden with as much Gold as they could carrie but before he entred Orenoque the Orenoqueponi robbed him of all but of two Bottels of Gold beads which they had thought had beene his drinke or meate Thus escaped he to Trinidado and died after at Saint Iuan de Puerto-rico where in his extremes he vttered these things to his Confessor He called the Citie Manoa El Dorado the gilded or golden because that at their drunken Solemnities in which vice no Nation vnder Heauen excels them when the Emperour carowseth with any of his Commanders they that pledge him are stripped naked and their bodies anointed with a kinde of white Balsamum and then certaine seruants of the Emperour hauing prepared Gold made into fine powder blow it thorow hollow Canes vpon their naked bodies vntill they bee all shining from the foot to the head and in this sort they fit drinking by twenties and hundreds and continue in drunkennesse sometimes sixe or seuen dayes together Vpon this sight and for the abundance of Gold he saw in the Citie the Images in the Temples the Plates Armours and Shields of Gold vsed in their Warres he gaue the Citie that name Iuan de Castellanos reckoneth twentie seuerall Expeditions of some or other Spaniards for this Guianian Discouery with little effect saue that diuers lost their liues therein Anno 1543. Gonzalo Pizarro sent a Captaine named Orellana from the borders of Peru who with fifty men were carried by the violent current of the Riuer that they could not return to Pizarro he descended not in Orenoque the Guianian Riuer but in Maragnon called of him Orellana which Iosephus Acosta writeth from the Relation of one of their Societie who being a Boy had bin in the Expedition of Pedro de Orsua for this Discouery and had sailed the Riuer thorow that in the middest men can see nothing but the Skie as before is said and the Riuer and that it is seuentie leagues broad vnder the Aequinoctiall Martin Fernandez maketh it seuen degrees and a halfe to the North of the Line and fifteen leagues broad and the Sea of fresh water to bee another Riuer of forty leagues breadth others haue written otherwise which varying proceedeth from that varietie of Armes or mouthes of Orenoque or Raleana and Marannon or Amazones which since haue beene better discouered as Master Keymis Master Masham and others employed in this action haue found by experience It riseth in Quito Orellana sayled in it sixe thousand miles In all these parts their greatest treasure is multitude of women and children Topiawari made a heauie complaint that whereas they were wont to haue ten or twelue wiues now they had not aboue three or foure by reason of the wars with the Epuremei their Enemies whereas the Lords of the Epuremei had fifty or a hundred and their war is more for women then either for Gold or Dominion After Orellana Pedro de Orsua was employed with fiue hundred Souldiers for the conquest of the Amazons as they called it but for a beautifull woman which he had with him was slaine by conspiracie of Lope de Aguirre which loued her and Fernando de Guzman whom they saluted King c. Veg. pag. 2. lib. 8. c. 14. Berreo in the search for Guiana tooke his Iourney from Nueuo Reyno de Granado where he dwelt with seuen hundred Horse but trauelling he lost many of his company and Horse at Amapaia the soyle is a low Marish and the water issuing thorow the Bogs is red and venemous which poysoned the Horses and infected the men at noone the Sunne had made it more wholesome for their vse This new Kingdome of Granada is two hundred leagues within Land Southward from Cartagena It had that name because the Captaine that discouered it was of Granada in Spaine The plenty of Emeralds in these parts hath made that Gemme of lesse worth The next Prouince to this is called Popayan in both which the Spaniards haue many Townes And by the Riuer of Orenoque both may be inuaded All the parts from the Golden Castle and the Gulfe of Vraba to Paria yeeld Caribes or Canibals which eate mans flesh and geld children to make them more fat and tender for their diet And in all Inland parts neere Peru and in the Hils called Andes which some call Golden Castile they little differ Ciezar saith That in the Valley of Anzerma they keepe certaine Tablets amongst the Reeds wherein they carue the Image of the Deuill in a terrible shape also the figures of Cats and other Idols which they worship To them they pray for raine or faire weather they haue commerce with the Deuill and obserue such Superstitions as he enioyneth them They are great man-eaters At the doores of their houses they haue small Courts wherein are their graues in deepe Vaults opening to the East in which they bury their great men with all their wealh The Curies are not far from them they haue no Temple nor Idoll They haue conference with the Deuill They marry with their Neeces and Sisters and are man-eaters They call the Deuill Xaxarama They esteeme Virginitie little worth In the Prouince of Arma the Deuill doth often appeare to the Indians in honour of whom they sacrifice their Captiues taken in Warre hanging them vp by the shoulders and pulling out the hearts of some of them In Paucora they haue like Deuillish Deuotions and their Priests are their Oracles Before the house of the chiefe Lord was an Idoll as bigge as a man with his face to the East and his armes open They sacrificed two Indians euery Tuesday in this Prouince to the Deuill In the Prouince of Pozo in the houses of their Lords they had many Idols in such resemblance as the Deuill had assumed in his Apparitions And in those Idols he would also speake and giue answeres In Carrapa they are extreame Drunkards when any is sicke they offer Sacrifices to the Deuill for his recouery In Quinbaya is a Hill which casteth forth smoke but a more Hellish smoke is their conference and commerce with the Deuill like the former In the Prouince of Cali they likewise conferre with the Deuill they haue no Temples or Houses of Religion They make deepe pits for Sepulchres of their great men where their Armour Wealth and food is set about them Their lust subiecteth the Neece and Sister to their Marriages In Popayan they are man-eaters as also in the forenamed Prouinces They obserue the same Caninall and Deuillish Rites with the former framing their Superstitions to the Deuils direction in their mutuall Colloquies They bury with their Lords some of his Wiues and Prouision Some of them are great Wizards and Sorcerers In Pasto they talke also with the Deuill a thing common to al these parts of the Indies But let vs leaue these steepe and cold Hils these men of the Deuill whom they worship
vpon him He was solemnely inaugurated accordingly Hee was of comely person well fauoured affable easie and apt to ill counsell but dangerous in the end to the giuer of good capacity and ready wit about forty six yeeres of age much affected to Necromancie made shew of great Deuotion and Religion not Learned of a sudden apprehension very precipitate subtle a naturall good Oratour reuengefull not much giuen to luxury temperate in dyet Heroicall in outward shew one which gaue great entertaynment to forreigne Embassadours sent rich Presents to forreigne Kings to illustrate his owne greatnesse Hee now desired league by his Embassadours sent with Letters and Presents to the Emperour Pole Dane Swethen which the three last refused but vpon conditions to his loffe To them adhered those which loued him not and procured his ruine Hee continued the same course of gouernment but made shew of more security and liberty to the Subiect Still fearing his owne safety and continuance he desired to match his Daughter with Hartique Hans the King of Denmarks third Sonne Conditions were agreed on time appointed for the Marriage but this valorous hopefull Prince on that day whereon he should haue beene married dyed in the Musco Not long after he was put to extreame exigents by the Crimme the Pole and Swethen all inuading the neerest Confines Bodan Belskoy the old Emperours Minion vpon whom hee serued Boris his trusty turne making him away and so opening a way to that which Boris aymed at none being also better able to bring in subiection the aduerse Nobilitie and others was rewarded with such recompence as vsually followeth such trecherous Instruments Boris and the Empresse fearing his subtle wit found occasions and placed him remote with his Confederates sure as they thought But he in the time of his greatnesse hauing conuayed infinite Treasure now vseth it to reuenge and ioyning with many discontented Nobles stirres vp the King and Palatines of Poland with the power of Lithuania and with a meane Army hoping of assistance in Russia gaue out that they brought the true Dmetrius Sonne to Iuan Vasilowich Boris wants courage to fight notwithstanding sufficient preparations hee his Wife Sonne and Daughter tooke poyson whereof three presently dyed the Sonne liued to bee proclaymed but quickly dyed And now the Counterfeit Demetrius was admitted and crowned Sonne to a Priest sometimes carried Aquauitae to sell about the Country Married the Palatines Daughter and permitting the Poles to domineere ouer the Russe Nobility and to set their courses of Religion and Iustice out of ioynt hauing rooted out Boris his faction and Family c. The Russes conspire and kill Demetrius take him out of his bed dragge him on the Terras the Gunners and Souldiers thrust their Kniues in his body hacke hew and mangle his head body and legs carry it to the Market place shew it for three dayes about the City the people cursing him and the Traytors that brought him The Palatine his Daughter were conuayed away A new Election was made two propounded Knez Iuan Mishtelloskoy and Knez Vasily Petrowich Suskoy this was chosen and crowned but summoned as a Vassall by a Herald of Armes to yeeld obedience to the Crowne of Poland The Pole strikes the Iron whiles it is hote hauing gotten good footing amongst them inuades Russia repossesses the Musco takes Suscoy and diuers Nobles which are carried Captiues to Vilna chiefe Citie of Lituania Now the Poles tyrannise ouer the Russe more then before seize on their goods money and best things which they conuay into Polaud and Lituania But those hidden by Iuan Vasilowich and Boris in secret places doubtlesse remayne vndiscouered by reason the parties which had beene therein employed were still made away The Russe submits to the Pole desires Stanislaus his Sonne to liue and Reigne ouer and amongst them but that King and State would not herein trust them with their hope of Succession nor doe them so much honour but rule by their Presidents c. The Luganoie Nagoie and Chercas Tartars long setled in obedience to the Russe and best vsed by them now straitned of their wonted Salaries and vsage hate the Pole take armes in great numbers robbed spoyled killed carried away many of them with their rich booties before gotten the Russe Nobilitie tooke heart againe and bethinke them of another Emperour The Sonne of the Archbishop of Restona now Patriarch of Mosco Sonne to Mekita Romanowich before mentioned borne before he was made a Bishop Michael Fedorowich is elected and crowned by generall consent of all Estates God send him long to Reigne with better successe then his Predecessors RELATIONS OF THE KINGDOME OF GOLCHONDA AND OTHER NEIGHBOVRING NATIONS within the Gulfe of BENGALA Arreccan Pegu Tannassery c. And the ENGLISH Trade in those Parts by Master WILLIAM METHOLD THe Gulfe of Bengala famous for its dimensions extendeth it selfe from the Cape called Comorijne lying in 8. degrees of North latitude vnto Chatigan the bottome thereof which being in 22. degrees is not lesse as the Coast lyeth then a 1000. English miles and in breadth 900. limited on the other side by Cape Singapura which lyeth in 1. degree of South latitude washeth the Coast of these great and fertile Kingdomes viz. Ziloan Bisnagar Golchonda Bengala Arreccan Pegu and Tanassery and receiueth into its bosome many Nauigable Riuers which lose their note and names in the eminent Neighbourhood of the famous Ganges whose vnknowne head pleasant streames and long extent haue amongst those Heathen Inhabitants by the Tradition of their Fore-fathers gained a beliefe of clensing all such sinnes as the bodies of those that wash therein brought with them for which cause many are the Pilgrimes that resort from farre to this lasting Iubilee with some of whom I haue had conference and from their owne reports I insert this their beliefe The Island of Zeloan our Nation hath onely lookt vpon en passant the Portugals that clayme all East India by donation hold a great part of this in subiection and with such assurance that they beleeue they can make it good against all their Enemies yet are not they the onely Lords thereof for the naturall Inhabitants haue also their King commonly called the King of Candy with whom the Danes had not long since a fruitlesse treaty for commerce which falling short of their expectation they fortified vpon the Mayne not far from Negapatnam at a place called Trangabay with what successe or hopes of benefit I cannot relate The first Kingdome vpon the Mayne is that ancient one of Bisnagar rent at this time into seuerall Prouinces or Gouernments held by the Naickes of that Countrey in their owne right for since the last King who deceased about fiftene yeeres since there haue arisen seuerall Competitors for the Crowne vnto whom the Naickes haue adhered according to their factions or affections from whence hath followed a continuall Ciuill Warre in some parts of the Countrey and
meddle withall The next Tribe is there tearmed a Committy and these are generally the Merchants of this place who by themselues or their Seruants trauell into the Countrey gathering vp Callicoes from the Weauers and other Commodities which they sell againe in greater parcels in the Part Townes to Merchant Strangers taking their Commodities in bartar or at a price Others are Money Changers wherein they haue exquisite iudgement and will from a superficiall view of a piece of Gold distinguish a penny worth of difference without whose view no man dares receiue Gold it hath beene so falsified The poorest sort are plaine Chandlers and sell only Rice Butter Oyle Sugar Honey and such like belly stuffe and these men for their generall iudgement in all sorts of Commodities subtiltie in their dealings and austerity of dyet I conceiue to be naturally Banians transplanted growne vp in this Country by another name they also not eating any thing that hath life nor at all vntill they haue fresh washed their bodies and this Ceremony is also common to the former Tribe The next they call Campo Waro and these in the Countrey manure the earth as husbandmen in the City attend vpon the richer sort as Seruing men in the Forts are Souldiers and are for number the greatest Tribe these spare no flesh but Beefe and that with such reuerence that torture cannot enforce them to kill and eate and their reason for this besides the custome of their Ancestors is that from the Cow their Countrey receiues its greatest sustenance as Milke and Butter immediately then al the fruits of the earth by their assistance in tilling it so that it were the greatest inhumanity to feed vpon that which giueth them so plentifully wheron to feed and vnto vs that would take liberty in this case they wil not sell an Oxe or Cow for any consideration but from one to another for six or 8. shillings the best Boga Waro is next in English the Whoores Tribe and of this there are two sorts one that will prostitute themselues to any better Tribe then themselues but to none worse the other meeteth none bad enough to refuse and these with their Predecessors and Of-spring haue and do still continue this course of iniquity for the daughters if handsome are brought vp to the trade if otherwise they are maried to the men of this Tribe and their children if hansomer then their mothers supply their Parents defects from whence there neuer wants a sinfull succession of impudent Harlots whom the Lawes of the Country doe both allow and protect but this is not alwayes Heathenish for in most Christian Common-wealths such creatures either by permission conniuencie or neglect find meanes to set vp and customers to deale with all Being children they are taught to dance and their bodies then tender and flexible skrewed into such strange postures that it is admirable to behold impossible to expresse in words as for a child of eight yeeres of age to stand vpon one legge raysing the other vpright as I can my arme then bringing it down and laying her heele vpon her head yet all this while standing looses the wonder in my imperfect Relation but to behold is truly strange the like for their dancing and tumbling which doth as farre in actiuity exceed our mercenary Skip-iacks as the Rope-dancing woman doth a Capring Curtezan or an Vsher of a Dancing Schoole a Country Plough-Iogger The homage they owe the King is once a yeere to repaire to Golchonda to the Court and there being met together to make proofe of their actiuities where the best deseruing is guerdoned with some particuler fauour all of them gratified with Bettelee and so returne home againe to their seuerall Mansions The Gouernour of the place where they dwel exacts nothing of them but their attendance as often as he sitteth in the publike place at which times they dance gratis but at all other meetings as Circumcision wedding ships arriuals or priuate Feasts they assist and are paid for their company They are many of them rich and in their habit cleane and costly vpon their bodies they weare a fine Callico or Silken cloth so bound about them as that one part beeing made fast about the waste couereth downwards another part comes ouer the head couering all that way wearing also a thinne Wastcoat that couereth their breasts and armes vnto the elbowes all the rest of their armes couered almost with Bracelets of Gold wherein are set small Diamonds Rubies and Emeralds In their eares they weare many Rings and Iewels and some of them one through the right nosthrill wherein a Pearle or Ruby is commonly set as also about their fingers and toes about their middles one or two broad plates of Gold for Girdles and about their neckes many chaines of small Pearle and Corall or worser beads according to their estate without other ornament on their head then their own haire which being smoothly combde is tied on a knot behind them And these also in their bestuall liberty forbeare to eate Cowes flesh all other meats and drinks are common to them and they themselues common to all The Carpenters Masons Turners Founders Gold-smiths Black-smiths are all one Tribe and match into each others Family all other Mechanike Trades are Tribes by themselues as Painters Weauers Sadlers Barbers Fishermen Heardsmen Porters Washers Sweepers diuers others the worst whereof are the abhorred Piriawes who are not permitted to dwell in any Towne by any Neighbours but in a place without by themselues liue together auoyded of al but their own Fraternity whom if any man should casually touch he would presently wash his bodie These flea all dead cattle for their skins and feed vpon the flesh the skins they dresse making thereof Sandals for the Gentiles and shooes for the Moores othersome they vse to embale Merchandise to defend it against wet to conclude they are in publike Iustice the hateful executioners and are the basest most stinking ill fauoured people that I haue seene the Inhabitants of Cape bona Esperanza excepted who are in these particulars vnparalleld and so I leaue them adding onely one word of the Porters who carry the Palamkeenes a Litter so contriued euery way as to carry a man his bed and pillowes which eight of these Porters will carry foure of those leagues in a day which are 36. of our miles supporting it on their bare shoulders and running vnder it by turnes foure at a time from which continuall toyle aggrauated by the extreme heate their shoulders are become as hard as their hoofes yet this their education makes easie to them for when their children can but goe alone they lay a small sticke on their shoulders afterwards a logge which they make them carry with proportionable increase vntill Roman Milo like they are able to run vnder a Palamkeene and in that sometimes perchance an Oxe But all these thus distinguished are in Religion one body and haue
an Earth-quake changed his channell thereby a great part of the neighbour Region being turned into a desart For in this Indus is like vnto Nilus in that without it the Countrey would be a Wildernesse and therefore is also worshipped of the Inhabitants It receiueth fifteene other Riuers into it Hee mentioneth the Cathei not farre from thence which after happily gaue name vnto Cathay The Indians are of seuen sorts The first in estimation and sewest in number were their Philosophers These kept-publike Acts once a yeere before the King he which in his Obseruations was found three times false was condemned to perpetuall silence The second sort were Husband-men which payd the King the onely owner of all the Land a fourth part of the increase The third was of Shepheards and Huntsmen which wandred in Tents The fourth Artificers The fifth Souldiers The sixth Magistrates The seuenth Courtiers and those of his Priuie Councell If any woman killeth the King in his drunkennesse shee is rewarded with the marriage of his Sonne and Heire If any depriue another of a member besides like for like he loseth his hand and if hee bee an Artificer his life They strangle their sacrifice that it may be so offered whole to their Idols §. II. Of their Philosophicall or Religious Sects OF their Philosophers or men Learned and Religious the Brachmanes obtaine the first place as being neerest in Sects to the Greekes These are after their manner Nazarites from the wombe So soone as their Mother is conceiued of them there are learned men appointed which come to the Mother with Songs containing Precepts of Chastitie As they grow in yeeres they change their Masters They haue their places of Exercise in a Groue nigh to the Citie where they are busied in graue conferences They eare no liuing Creatures nor haue vse of women liue frugally and lye vpon skinnes They will instruct such as will heare them but their Hearers must neither Sneese nor Spit nor Speake When they haue in this strict course spent seuen and thirtie yeeres they may liue more at Pleasure and Libertie in Dyet Habit proper Habitation and the vse of Gold and Marriage They conceale their mysteries from their Wiues lest they should blab them abroad They esteeme this life as mans Conception but his Death day to bee his Birth-day vnto that true and happy life to him which hath beene rightly Religious They hold the World to bee Created Corruptible Round ruled by the high GOD. Water they imagine to haue beene the beginning of making the World and that besides the foure Elements there is a fifth Nature whereof the Heauen and Starres consist They intreate of the immortalitie of the Soule and of the torments in Hell and many such like matters The Germanes another Order of Religious or Learned men are honoured amongst them especially such of them as liue in the Woods and of the Woods both for their dyet of those wilde Fruits and their habit of the Barkes of Trees not acquainted with Bacchus or Venus any more then with Ceres They speake not to the Kings when they aske counsell of them but by messengers and doe pacifie the angrie gods as is supposed by their holinesse Next in honour to these are certaine Mendicants which liue of Rice and Barley which any man at the first asking giueth them together with entertainment into their houses These professe skill in Physicke and to remedie Diseases Wounds and Sterilitie very constant in labour and hardship Others there are Inchanters and Diuiners Masters of Ceremonies about the Dead which wander thorow Townes and Cities Some there are more Ciuil and Secular in their life professing like Pietie and Holinesse Women also are admitted vnto the fellowship of their studies in this Philosophie not to their beds Aristobulus writeth That hee saw two of these Brachmanes the one an old man shauen the other young with long haire which sometimes resorted to the Market-place and were honoured as Counsellors and freely tooke what they pleased of any thing there to be sold for their sustenance They were anointed with Sesumine oyle wherewith and with hony they tempered there bread They were admitted to Alexanders Table where they gaue lessons of patience and after going to a place not farre off the old Man lying downe with his face vpward sustained the Sun and showers terrible violence The yonger standing on one foot held in both his hands a piece of wood of three cubits lifted vp and shifted feet as the other was weary nd so they continued euery day The young man returned home afterward but the old man followed the King with whom he changed his Habit and Life for which when as he was by some reproued he answered That he had fulfilled the fortie yeeres exercise which he had vowed Onesicritus saith that Alexander hearing of some Religious Obseruants which went naked and exercised themselues to much hardship and would not come to others but would bid Men if they would haue any thing with them to come to them sent him vnto them who found fifteene of them twentie furlongs from the City each of them obseruing his own gesture of sitting standing or lying naked and not stirring til sun-setting in that vnsupportable heat at which time they returned into the Citie Calanus was one of them He afterward followed Alexander into Persia where beginning to be sicke hee caused a great Pile or Frame of wood to be made wherein he placed himselfe in a golden chayre and caused fire to be put to in which he was voluntarily consumed telling if they tell TRUE that he would meet Alexander at Babylon the place fatall to Alexanders death Aelianus saith That this was done in a suburbe of Babylon and that the fire was of Cedar Cypres Mirtle Laurell and other sweet woods and after he had performed his daily exercise of running hee placed himselfe in the middest crowned with the leaues of Reeds the Sunne shinning on him which he worshipped This adoration was the signe which hee gaue to the Macedonians to kindle the fire in which he abode without any stirring till hee was dead Alexander himselfe admiring and preferring this victorie of Calanus before all his owne This Calanus told Onesicritus of a golden World where Meale was as plentiful as dust and Fountaines streamed Milk Hony Wine and Oyle Which Country by men turned into wantonnesse Iupiter altered and detayned imposing a life of hardnesse and labour which while men followed they enioyed abundance but now that men begin to furfet and grow disobedient there is danger of vniuersall destruction When hee had thus spoken hee bad him if hee would heare further strip himselfe and lie naked vpon these stones But Mandanis another of them reproued Calanus for his harshnesse and commending Alexander for his loue to learning said that they inured their bodies to labour for the confirmation of their mindes against passions For his nakednesse he alledged that that was the
best house which needed lest furniture of houshold Hee added that they searched the secrets of Nature and that returning into the Citie if they met with any carrying figs or grapes they receiued of him gratis if oyle they powred it on them and all mens houses and goods were open to them euen to the Parlors of their wiues When they were entred they imparted the wisdome of their sentences as the other communicated his meats If they feared any disease they preuented the same with fire as was now said of Calanus Megasthenes reproueth this Calanus as Alexanders Trencher-Chaplaine and commendeth Mandanis saying That when Alexanders messengers told him that he must come to the sonne of Iupiter with promise of rewards if he came otherwise menacing torture hee answered That neither was he Iupiters sonne nor did possesse any great part of the earth as for himselfe he neither respected his gifts nor feared his threatnings for while he liued India yeelded him sufficient if he dyed he should be freed from age and exchange for a better and purer life Whereupon he saith Alexander both pardoned and praised him Clitarchus reporteth also that to the Brachmanes are opposed another sect called Pramnae men full of subtiltie and contention which derided the studies of others in Physiologie and Astronomie He diuideth the Brachmanes into those of the Mountaines clothed in Deere skins which carried scrips full of roots and medicines which they applied with certaine charmes to cure diseases and the second sort he calleth Gymnetae those naked ones before mentioned whereof it seemeth they were called Gymnosophistae which had women amongst them but not in carnall knowledge the third he calleth Ciuill which liued in Cities and Villages wearing fine linnen and apparrelled in skins Clemens Alexandrinus speakes of their fastings and other austere courses out of Alex. Polyhistor de rebus Indicis The Brachmanes saith he neither eate any quick thing nor drinke wine But some of them eat euery day as we doe some onely euery third day They contemne death nor much esteeme of life beleeuing to be borne againe Some worship Pan and Hercules But those Indians which are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their grauitie and austeritie liue altogether naked These practise Truth and foretell things to come and worship a certaine Pyramis vnder which they thinke are laid the bones of some god Neither the Gymnosophists nor these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vse women but thinke it vnlawfull and against Nature and therefore obserue chastitie Likewise there are Virgins which are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the female sexe They seeme to obserue the heauenly bodies and by their signification to foretell future euents Thus farre Clemens Nicolaus Damascenus saith That at Antiochia hee saw the Indian Embassadors sent to Augustus from Porus the King as his letter contained of sixe hundred Kings with presents among which was a female-Viper of sixteene Cubits one of the like bignesse Strabo saith he saw sent out of Egypt and a Cray-fish of three Cubits and a Partrich bigger then a Vulture Zarmanochagas one of these Indian Philosophers was one of the Embassadours who at Athens burned himselfe not moued thereto by aduersitie but by prosperitie which had in all things followed his desires lest in his succeeding age it might alter and therefore entered the fire anointed naked laughing His Epitaph was Here lyeth Zarmanochagas the Indian of Bargosa which according to his Countrey-custome made himselfe immortall But it is not such maruell that their Philosophers thus contemned death whereas their Women the weaker and more fearefull sexe wherein out-went their sexe and weakenesse For their custome admitting many wiues the dearest of which was burned with the deceased husband Hae igitur contendunt inter se de amore viri they are Hieromes words ambitio summa certantium est ac testimonium castitatis dignam morte decerni They ambitiously contend amongst themselues to obtaine this fatall testimonie of their husbands loue and their owne chastitie and the conqueresse in her former habit lyeth downe by the carkasse embracing and kissing the same contemning the fire which thus marryeth them againe in despight of deaths diuorce A thing to this day obserued in many parts of India as we shall see anon Arrianus reporteth of a place called Comar it seemeth the Cape Comori ouer-against Zeilan wherein is a Hauen to which vsed to resort certaine Votaries which had deuoted themselues to a single life to wash themselues in those holy-waters The like was done by their Nun-like women They had a tradition of a certaine goddesse which vsed to wash her selfe there euery moneth Suidas telleth of a Nation called Brachmanes inhabiting an Iland in the Sea where Alexander erected a pillar with inscription that he had passed so farre They liue an hundred and fiftie yeeres and haue neither bread wine flesh nor metals nor houses but liue of the fruits and cleere water and are very religious Their wiues liue apart on the other side Ganges to whom they passe in Iuly and August and after fortie dayes returne home againe When the wife hath had two children shee neither knoweth her husband after nor any other man which is obserued also when in fiue yeeres he can raise no issue of her hee after abstaineth These slay no beasts in sacrifice but affirme That GOD better accepteth vnbloudie sacrifices of Prayer and more delighteth in Man his owne Image In the Hills called Hemodi Bacchus is said to haue erected pillars to witnesse his Conquest as farre in that Easterne Ocean as Hercules did in the West He built the Citie Nysa where he left his sicke and aged Souldiers which Alexander spared and suffered to their owne libertie for Dionysius or Bacchus his sake And as Bacchus erected Pillars so did Alexander Altars to the Twelue chiefe gods as high as Towers Monuments of his farre trauels where he obserued solemne games and sacrifices Hee sacrificed also not to his Countrey gods alone but to Hydaspis Acesine and Indus Indian Riuers and to other gods with other Rites and Sacrifices then he had before vsed drowning a golden bowle in Indus and another in the Ocean in his Ethnicke superstition To him did the Indian Magi so doth Arrianus call their Brachmanes say That hee was but as other men sauing that hee had lesse rest and was more troublesome and being dead should enioy no more land then would serue to couer his bodie And euery man said they stamping with their feet on the ground hath so much as he treadeth on Eusebius reciteth out of Bardesanes Cyrus that amongst the Indians and Bactrians were many thousand Brachmanes which as well by Tradition as Law worshipped no Image nor ate any quick Creature dranke no Wine nor Beere only attending on Diuine things whereas the other Indians are very vicious yea some hunt Men sacrifice and deuoure them and were as Idolaters Plinie besides his Relations of Monsters in