we would have been very glad of the warmth of a Rugg upon us and the Noon of that following day would be so extreme hot as that it was troublesome then to keep on the thinnest cloathing Sometimes there the winde blowes very high in those hot and dry seasons not long before the rain begins to fall raising up into the air a very great height thick clouds of Dust and Sand which appear like dark clouds full of moysture but they deceive like the broâ—k in Job 6. 15. that hath no water in it These dry showers which Almighty God threatens to send among a people as an heavy judgment Deut. 28. 34. When he will make the rain of a land pouder and dust most grievously annoy all those amongst whom they fall enough to smite them all with a present blindness filling their eys ears nostrills and their mouths are not free if they be not also well guarded searching every place as well within as without our tents or houses so that there is not a little Key-hole of any trunk or cabinet if it be not covered but receives some of that dust into it the dust forced to finde a lodging any where every where being so driven and forced as it is by the extreme violence of the winde But there is no place nor Countrey under Heaven nor yet ever hath been without some discommodities The Garden of Eden had a Serpent in it Gen. 3. He that made all things by his absolute command hath so mixed and tempered and ordered all things here below by his infinite wisdom that either too much Heat or too much Cold Either the barrenness of the soyl or the unwholesomeness of the air or some thing else ministers matter of exception more or less against every place that the sons of men might hence learn that there is no true and perfect content to be found in any Kingdom but in that of Heaven For while we are here trouble and peace mourning and joy comfort and discontent come all of them by courses and successions so that there is no weeding up of those tares no removing of those Annoyances from the life of man And so having observed what is truth and what is enough to be said of the inconveniences and annoyances as well as of the commodities and contentments which are to be found in those parts I come now to speak of the people that inhabit there And because many particulars will necessarily fall within the compass of this part of my observations which would more wâ—ary my Reader if they should be presented unto him in one continued discoursâ— I shall therefore as I have begun break this into Sections and proceed to speak SECTION V. Of the Inhabitants of East-India who they are of their most excellent ingenuity expressed by their curious manufactures their Markets at home to buy and sell in and their Trade abroad THe Inhabitants in generall of Indostan were all antiently Gentiles called in generall Hindoes belonging to that very great number of those which are called Heathens which take up almost two thirds of the number of the people who Inhabit the face of the whole earth But of this more hereafter There are some Jewes but they are not many here and there scattered and lost as it were in those other great numbers of people the greatest company of Jewes now to be found together in any one place of the world as I have been made to believe from the observation of others are to be seen at Grand Cairo in Egypt whither they are returned and where setled to take their fill of their fore-fathers Flesh-pots For the Inhabitants of East-India ever since they were subdued by Tamberlain they have been mixed with Mahumetans which though they be by far in respect of their number less than those Pagans yet they bear all the sway and command all in those Countreys There are besides these now become as it were natives there a great number of Persians and Tartars who are Mahumetans by Religion that there inhabit very many of which the Mogol keeps for Souldiers to serve on hors-back called there Haddees There are of both these many daring stout hardy and valiant men For the Persians there are of them many comely persons not so swart as those of East-India But for the Tartars I have there seen and I have seen many of them they are more to be commended for their valour than beauty a square stout strong people having plaâ—ter faces and flat Noses There are many Armentans and some Abissins amongst them who wear the Livery of Christ in being called Christians the greatest part of whose Christianity lyes in their Name Those Armenians there make some wine to sell of Reysons Sugar and other ingredients that is strong and heady and luscious tasted too much by many Christians that Come thither as by those too that make it Of the green grapes there though they have abundance and they great and sweet and good yet they make no wine at all The Mahumetans in obedience to a precept of Mahumets which forbids wine neither make nor drink it and others are not suffered there to make it of those green grapes for fear as I suppose they should make and drink too much of it To those I have named of other nations that are to be seen in East-India there are besides some few almost of every people in Asia and many Europeans of divers parts that use to stirre from their own fires to be found amongst them and among that great variety of people and nations there to be observed I have taken speciall notice of divers Chinesaas and Japanesaas there and those I have seen of them for the generality are a people of no large stature with little eyes and noses something flatted de tribus Capillis with a few black hayres that stand scattered on their upper lipps which make them as handsome beards as are to be seen on our Hares or Catts There are some Jewes here as before I observed whose stubbornness and Rebellion long agoe caused Almighty God to threaten them that they should be after sifted and scattered a-among all the Nations of the world So the Prophet Jeremy speaks Jer. 24. 9. That God would deliver them to be removed into all the Kingdomes of the earth for their hure to be a reproach and a Proverb and a taunt and a curse in all places whither he should drive them And Jer. 42. 18. they were threatned to be made an execration and an astonishment c. and so after it came to pass For there is no word of the Lord that shall fall to the ground unfulfilled And since those prophesies that antient imprecation of their own spoken against themselves in derision of our Blessed Saviour Mat. 27. 25. His Blood be on us and on our Children followes them close all the world over they beeing every where strangers but no where beloved though they be a people that get wealth wheresoever they come
stayed a time to gain the company of a Caravaâ— which consists of a great mixt multitude of people from divers parts which get and keep together travelling those parts for fear of the incursions and violences by Thieves and Murtherers which they would undoubtedly meet withall if they travelled single or but few together With these he after set forwards towards and to that City antiently called Nineveh in Assyria which we find in the Prophesie of Jonah was sometimes a great and excellent City of three daies journey Jonah 3. 3. but now so exceedingly lessen'd and lodg'd in obscurity that passengers cannot say of it this was Nineveh which now hath its old name changed and is called Mozel From hence they journied to Babylon in Chaldaea situated upon the River Euphrates once likewise so great that Aristotle called it a Countrey not a City but now it is very much contracted and 't is called Bagdat From this place they proceeded through both the Armeniaes and either did or else our Traveller was made to believe that he saw the very Mountain Ararat whereon the Ark of Noah rested after the Flood Gen. 8. And from hence they went forward towards the Kingdome of Persia and there to Uzspahan the usual place of residence for that great King then called Sha Abbas or King Abbas And after they went to Seras antiently called Shushan where the great King Ahasuerus kept his Royal and most Magnificent Court Est 1 From hence they journied afterwards to Candahor the first Province North east under the subjection of the Great Mogol and so to Lahore the chiefest City but one belonging to that great Empire a place as I have been often told by Tom Coryat and others of very great trade wealth and delight lying more temperately out of the Parching Sun than any other of his great Cities do And to this City he wanted not Company nor afterwards to Agra the Mogol's Metropolis or chief City And here it is very observable that from Lahore to Agra it is four hundred English miles that the Countrey betwixt both these great Cities is rich even pleasant and flat a Campania and the rode-way on both sides all this long distance planted with great Trees which are all the year cloathed with leaves exceeding beneficial unto Travellers for the shade they afford them in those hot Climes This very much extended length of way 'twixt these two places is called by Travellers the Long Walk very full of Villages and Towns for Passengers every where to find Provision At Agra our Traveller made an halt being there lovingly received in the English Factory where he staid till he had gotten to his Turkish and Morisco or Arabian Languages some good knowledge in the Persian and Indostan Tongues in which study he was alwaies very apt and in little time showed much proficiency The first of those two the Persian is the more quaint the other the Indostan the vulgar Language spoken in East-India In both these he suddenly got such a knowledge and mastery that it did exceedingly afterwards advantage him in his Travels up and down the Mogol's Territories he wearing alwaies the Habit of that Nation and speaking their Language In the first of these the Persian tongue he made afterwards an Oration to the Great Mogol bringing in that Story of the Queen of Sheba 1 King 10. in which parts of that Sacred Historic the Mahumetans have some knowledge and he told him that as the Queen of Sheba having heard of the fame of King Salomon came from far to visit him which when she had done she confessed that though she had heard very much of him and many things beyond her belief yet now seeing what she did acknowledged that she had not heard half of that which she now saw concerning the Wisdome and Greatness and Reâ—inue and Riches of Salomon So our Orator told the Mogol that he had heard very much of him before he had the Honour to see him when he was very far off in his own Countrey but now what he beheld did exceedingly surmount all those former Reports of him which came to his ears at such a distance from him Then larding his short Speech with some other pieces of Flattery which the Mogol liked well concluded And when he had done the Mogol gave him one hundred Roopus which amounts to the value of twelve pounds and ten shillings of of our English Money looking upon him as a Derveese or Votary or Pilgrim for so he called him and such as bear that name in that Countrey seem not much to care for money and that was the reason I conceive that he gave him not a more plentiful Reward After this he having got a great mastery likewise in the Indostan or more vulgar Language there was a woman a Landress belonging to my Lord Embassadors house who had such a freedome and liberty of speech that she would sometimes scould brawl and rail from the Sun-rising to Sun-set one day he undertook her in her own language and by eight of the clock in the morning so silenced her that she had not one word more to speak I shall have occasion to say more of this man in some passages of this following Discourse and therefore shall not wrap all I have to speak of him in this although it be a very long digression Yet because I must now shortly bring you to his journies end I shall take the freedome to enlarge my self a little further concerning him here in this place before I leave him for the present and to give thee Reader a piece of his Character it speaks thus That he was a man of a very coveting eye that could never be satisfied with seeing as Salomon speaks Eccles 1. 8. though he had seen very much and I am perswaded that he took as much content in seeing as many others in the enjoying of Great and Rare things He was a man that had got the mastery of many hard Languages as before I observed to the Latine and Greek he brought forth of England with him in which if he had obtained wisdome to husband and manage them as he had skill to speak them he had deserved more fame in his generation But his knowledge and high attainments in several Languages made him not a little ignorant of himself he being so covetous so ambitious of praise that he would hear and endure more of it than he could in any measure deserve being like a Ship that hath too much Sail and too little Ballast Yet if he had not fall'n into the smart hands of the Wits of those Times he might have passed better That itch of Fame which engaged this man to the undertakings of those very hard and long and dangerous Travels hath put thousands more and therefore he was not alone in this into strange attempts onely to be talked of One long ago built a Temple to Diana in hope of Glory intending it for one of the Great Wonders of the
singular good Fowl They have variety of Fish all which by reason of their Plenty and because many of the Natives eat no kind of Flesh at all nor of any thing that hath or may have life and those that feed on such things eat not freely of any of those living Creatures they are all bought there at such easy rates as if they were not worth the valuing They do not cut their Chickens when they be little to make Capons and therefore they have no Creatures of that name but men their Eunuchs called there Cogees or Capons in their Language so made when they be very young and then deprived of all that might after provoke jealousie and therefore they are put to be attendants on their women the great men of that Nation keeping many of them a soft tender people tener Spado as Juvenal cals one of them that never come to have any Hair on their Faces But to return again to their Provisions the Beeves of that Countrey differ from ours in that there are none of them very large and those they have have each of them a great bunch of grisly flesh which grows upon the meeting of their shoulders The flesh of their Beeves is much whiter than the flesh of ours and very sweet tender and good Their Sheep differ from ours by their great fleshy Bob-tails which severed from their bodies are very ponderous Their Wool is generally coarse but their flesh is not so Now to season all their good Provisions there is great store of Salt and to sweeten all abundance of Sugar growing in that Countrey which after it is well refined may be there had at a very low rate out of which they make very pure white Sugar-Candy which may be had there at a small easy Price likewise Their Fruits are every way answerable to the rest the Countrey abounding in Musk-Melons very much better because they are better digested there by the heat of the Sun than these with us They have many Water-Melons a very choyce good Fruit and some of them as big as our ordinary Pompions and in shape like them the substance within this Fruit is spongie but exceeding tender and well tasted of a colour within equally mixed with red white and within that an excellent cooling and pleasing liquor Here are likewise store of Pome-granats Pome-citrons here are Limons and Oranges but I never found any there so good as I have seen elswhere Here are Dates Figs Grapes Prunelloes Almonds Coquernuts of which I observed something before and here they have those most excellent Plums called Mirabolans the stone of which Fruit differs very much from others in its shape whereon Nature hath curiously quartered several strakes equally divided very pretty to behold many of which choyce Plums they write are very cordial and therefore worth the prizing are there well preserved and sent for England They have to these another Fruit we English there call a Planten of which many of them grow in Clusters together long they are in shape made like unto slender Cucumbers and very yellow when they are Ripe and then tast like unto a Norwich Pear but much better Another most excellent Fruit they have called a Manggo growing upon Trees as big as our Walnut-trees and as these here so those Trees there will be very full of that most excellent Fruit in shape and colour like unto our Apricocks but much bigger which taken and rolled in a mans hands when they are through ripe the substance within them becomes like the pap of a roasted Apple which then suck'd out from about a large stone they have within them is delicately pleasing unto every Palate that tasts it And to conclude with the best of all other their choyce Fruits the Anâ—anas like unto our Pine-Apples which seems to the Taster to be a most pleasing Compound made of Strawberies Claret-wine Rose-water and Sugar well tempered together In the Northernmost parts of this Empire they have variety of Pears and Apples every where good Roots as Carrets Potatoes and others like them They have Onions and Garlick and some Herbs and small Roots for Salads and in the Southernmost parts Ginger growing almost in every place the large Races whereof are there very excellently well preserved as we may know by our tasting them in England And all these things I have last named may be there likewise bought at very low rates And lastly some one kind or other of their very good and choyce Fruits may be there had at every time or season of the Year And here I cannot chuse but take notice of a very pleasant and clear liquor called Toddie issuing from a Spongie Tree that grows strait and tall without Bowes to the top and there spreads out in tender branches very like unto those that grow from the Roots of our rank and rich Artichokes but much bigger and longer This Toddie-tree is not so big but that it may be very easily embraced and the nimble people of that Countrey will climb up as fast to the top thereof the stem of the Tree being rough and crusty as if they had the advantage of Ladders to help them up In the top tender branches of those Trees they make incisions which they open and stop again as they please under which they hang Pots made of large and light Gourds to preserve the influence which issues out of them in a large quantity in the night season they stopping up those vents in the heat of the day That which thus distils forth in the night if it be taken very early in the morning is as pleasing to the tast as any new White-wine and much clearer than it It is a very piercing and medicinable and moffensive drink if taken betimes in the day onely it is a little windy but if it be kept till the heat of the day the Sun alters it so as if it made it another kind of liquor for it becomes then very heady not so well relished and unwholsome and when it is so not a few of our drunken Sea-men chuse to drink it and I think they so do because it will then presently turn their brains for there are too too many of the common sort of those men who use the Sea who love those brutish distempers too much which turn a man out of himself and leave a Beast in the skin of a man But for that drink if it be taken in its best and most proper season I conceive it to be of it self very wholsome because it provokes urine exceedingly the further benefit whereof some there have found by happy experience thereby eased from their torture inflicted by that shame of Physicians and Tyran of all Maladies the Stone And so cheap too is this most pleasing Wine that a man may there have more than enough for a very little money At Surat and so to Agra and beyond it seldome or never rains but one season of the year but yet there is a refreshing
to learn what should be the true reason thereof it being there very far from any shore and the Sea so deep as that we could fetch no ground The 21. we discovered the main Continent of Asia the Great in which East-India takes up a large part The 22. we had sight of Deu and Damon places that lye in the skirts of India principally inhabited and well fortified by Portugals and the 25 of September we came happily to an Anchor in Swally-Road within the Bay of Cambaya the Harbour for our Fleet while they make their stay in these remote Parts Then after a long and troublesome and dangerous passage we came at last to our desired Port. And immediately after my arrival there I was sent for by Sir Thomas Row Lord Embassadour then residing at the Mogol's Court which was very many miles up in the Countrey to supply the room of Mr. John Hall his Chaplain Fellow of Corpus Christi College in Oxford whom he had not long before buried And I lived with that most Noble Gentleman at that Court more than two years after which I returned home to England with him During which space of my abode there I had very good advantage to take notice of very many places and persons and thing travelling with the Embassadour much in Progress with that King up and down his very large Territories And now Reader I would have thee to suppose me setting my foot upon the East-Indian shore at Swally before named On the banks whereof amongst many more English that lye there interred is laid up the body of Mr. Thomas Coryat a man in his time Not us nimis omnibus very sufficiently known He lived there and there died while I was in those parts and was for some Months then with my Lord Embassadour during which time he was either my Chamber-fellow or Tent-mate which gave me a full acquaintance of him That Greek-travelling-Thomas they which know his story know why I call him so formerly wrote a Book entituled Coryats â—rud 〈…〉 ies Printed in the beginning of the year 1611. and then ushered into the World by very many Copies of excellent Verses made by the Wits of those Times which did very much advantage and improve if not enforce the sale thereof doing themselves much more honor than him whom they undertook to commend in their several Encomiasticks And if he had lived he would have written his last Travels to and in and out of East-India for he resolved if God had spared him life to have rambled up down the world as sometimes Ulysses did and though not so long as he yet ten full years at least before his return home in which time he purposed to see Tartaria in the vast parts thereof with as much as he could of China and those other large Places and Provinces interposed betwixt East-India and China whose true Names we might have had from him but yet have not He had a purpose after â—his to have visited the Court of Prester John in Aethiopia who is there called by his own people Ho Bâ—ot The King and after this it was in his thoughts to have cast his eyes upon many other places which if he had done and lived to write those Relations seeing as he did or should such variety of Countries Cities Nations Things and been as particular in them as he was in his Venetian Journal they must needs have swoln into so many huge Volumns as would have prevented the perishing of Paper But undoubtedly if he had been continued in life to have written them there might have been made very good Use of his Observations for as he was a very Particular so was he without question a very Faithful Relator of things he saw he ever disclaiming that bold liberty which divers Travellers have and do take by speaking and writing any thing they please of remote parts when they cannot easily be contradicted taking a Pride in their feigned Relations to overspeak things being resolved in this case Not onely things to do but or'-do Speaking writing all and more too I therefore for my part believing this Relaton to be none of those have taken some things from his trust and credit in this my following Discourse And because he could not live to give an account unto the world of his own Travels I shall here by the way make some little discovery of his footsteps and flittings up and down to and fro with something besides of him in his long peregrinations to satisfie very many yet living who if they shall please to read this Discourse may recall that man once more into their remembrance who while he lived was like a perpetual motion and therefore now dead should not be quite forgotten In the year 1612. he shipt himself from London for Constantinople now called by the Turks Stombole where he took special notice of all things there most observable In which place he found very great respect and encouragement from Sir Paul Pinder then and there Embassadour to whose House he had free and welcom access whensoever he pleased Being there for some time he took his opportunities to view divers parts in Grecia and in the Hellespont took special notice of those two Castles directly opposed to each other called Sestos and Abydos which stand on the several banks that bound that very narrow Sea which Places Musaeus makes famous in his very antient Poem of Hero and Leander He desired much to see where those seven Churches sometimes famous in Asia the Less stood but since their sin so darkned their light and God removed their Candlesticks from them as before he threatned those Places lye so in the dark that it cannot be well discovered where they once were Onely Smyrna is famous at this present day for Trade but not Religion and Ephesus and some others of them keep their names still though they left and lost their Faith and profession of Truth with the rest He saw what yet remains of the Ruins of sometimes great Troy but Jam Seges est ubi Troia fuit That place which was once so populous as if it had been sow'n with People And seeded thus had after born Millions of men now 's sow'n with Corn. And O jam periere Ruinae the very Ruins of that place are almost all gone to Ruine The most observable thing there yet remaining is part of an exceeding great House which is continued by Tradition to have been sometimes a part of the famous Palace of great King Priamus From Smyrna he found a Passage to Alexandria in Egypt Egypt that is called by some in regard of the Plenty it produceth the Granary or Storehouse of the World And in Egypt near Gran-Câ—iro antiently called Memphis he observed what remains of the once fam'd Pyramids Returning thence back to Alexandria with one Englishman more they found a pass by Sea to Jatta antiently called Joppa and there they met some others going to Jerusalem which is about twenty English miles distant
into Colours or else stain in it variety of well-shaped and well-coloured Flowers or Figures which are so fixed in the Cloth that no water can wash them out That pretty art of staining or printing and fixing those variety of Colours in that white Cloth the People of Asia have engrossed to themselves where the most curious Pintâ—daes are made whither neighbouring as well as more remote Nations bring their Monies to fetch them thence In Decan which bounds upon the Mogol's Territories South the Princes whereof are Tributaries unto him there are many Diamond Rocks in which are found those most pretious of all other Stones and they are to be sold in this Empire and consequently to be had by those who have skill to buy them and Money to pay for them But as all the Stones in East-India are not pretious so those that are the Natives know very well how to value But further for the Merchandizing Commodities the Mogol's Provinces afford there is Musk by reason of their abundance of Musk-Cats to be had in good quantity and there are Bezar-stones which are not so called from any Beast of that name but they grow in the maws of Goats which when they observe to grow exceeding lean they kill them and find those Stones in them and if they did not so that Stone in them would make an end of them by which we may observe how that pretious Bezar-stone that proves many times such a Cordial and Preservative to the Life of Man is destructive and mortal unto the poor Creature from whence it is taken Like that pretious Word of God that may proceed from the lips of him that hath a lean soul and may do others good but himself nothing but mischief The greatest number of those Goats from whence those Bezars are taken feed on the Mountains of Lar in the Persian's Territories the West bound as before of the Mogol's great Empire They have some store of Silk here but the greatest quantity of that rich Commodity that any place in the whole World affords comes out of Georgia a Province belonging unto the King of Persia Those Georgians and Armenians both under the Command of the Persian King are by profession Christians like those of the Greek Church And the Abissins under the Command of Prester John are in profession Christians likewise but these Abissins circumcise their Males before they baptize them Alas poor People who for want of better instruction cannot know what they should and therefore know not what they do All those Armenians Georgians and Abissins as I have it from others but can relate something of it out of my own knowledge even all of them see Christ but in the dark and by reason of the general ignorance that is in them cannot know God as they ought in Jesus Christ These are the different cases of many which profess Christ in the World some cannot know him some care not to know him and some will not know him Amongst the first of these they all may be ranked whom I but now named as many others of the Greek and those that profess Christianity in Russian Churches with many-many others of the Romish who have the Truths of God sealed up in an unknown tongue to keep and to continue them in ignorance who instead of the two Breasts of the Church the Law and the Gospel are fed with mouldy and finnowed Traditions and their case being so our Charity towards them may lead us thus far to believe that they would do better if they knew better and this may speak much in their excuse But what plea may be made for us of this Nation that do not what we know or if we be ignorant it is because we will be so not because we cannot know but because we care not for knowledge and will not know But to return to the place where I began my last digression I told you that the People there have some store of Silk of which they make Velvets Settins Taffatâ—es either plain or mingled or striped in party-colours but the best of them for richness and goodness come not near those which are made in the parts of Italy Many curious Boxes Trunks Standishes Carâ—ets with other excellent Manufactures may be there had They have medicinable Drugs and amongst them very much Cassia growing there in Canes They have Gums well sented and much Lignum Aloes which burnt yields a perfume better than any one thing in the World that I ever smelled They have great store of Gum-lac of which they make their hard Wax and that Gum likewise they there imploy for many other â—eat usis The Earth there yields good Minerals of Lead Iron Copper Brass and they say that they have Silver-Mines too which if true they need not open being so enriched from other Nations of Europe and other parts 〈◊〉 who yearly bring thither great Quantities of Silver to purchase their Comâ—modities Which I collect from our English Trade there for though we â—ent some quantity of our Woollen Cloth with some other things we carry thitheâ— yet the greatest part by far of Commodities brought thence 〈…〉 are caught by the Silver hook And this is the way to make any Nation of the World rich â—â—to bring and leave Silver in it and to take away Commodities And as all Rivers run into the Sea so many Silver Streams run into this Monarchy and there stay the People of any Nation being there very welcome that bring in their Bullâ—on and carry away the others Merchandizes but it is look'd on as a Crime that is not easily answered to transport any quantity of Silver thence The Coyn or Bullion brought thither from any place is presently melted and refined and the Mogol's Stamp which is his Name and Titles in Persian Characters put upon it The Coyn there is more pure than in any other part of the World being as they report made of pure Silver without any Allay so that in the Spanish Money the purest of all Eurâ—pe there is some loss They call their pieces of Money Roopees of which there are â—ome of diveâ—s values the meanest worth two shillings and three pence and the best two shillings and nine pence sterling By these they account their Estates and Payments They have another Coyn of inferiour value in Guzarat called Mamoodies about twelve pence sterling both the former and these are made in halfs and some few in quarters so that three pence is the least piece of Silver current in those Countryes and very few of them to be seen That which passeth up and down for exchange under this rate is Brass or Copper money which they call Pices whereof three or thereabouts countervail a Penny Those pices are made so massie and thick as that the baser-metal of which they are made put to other uses is well-nigh worth the Silver they are rated at Their Silver Coyn is made either round or square but so thick as that it never breaks nor
are made after this fashion for prospect as well as pleasure After this manner as it appeares in the sacred storie the Jewes were wont to build for David from the Roof of his house 2 Sam. 11. 2. espies an object c. such a one as if God had not been very mercifull was sufficient to have undone him for ever as they write of the Basilisk that it kills by sight By the way let me here further adde that Davids eyes thus wandred to fetch home a temptation immediatly after he had risen from the bed of idlleness and ease for while he was imployed in business he was innocent and safe The industrious have not such leisure to sin as the idle have who have neither leisure nor power to avoid it Exercise as it is wholesome for the body even so for the soul The remission whereof breeds diseases in both David from the roof of his house sees Bathsheba when probably she saw not him lust is quick-sighted David had no sooner seen that object but his eyes presently betray and recoyl upon his Heart smiting it with sinfull desires which made him to covet her and presently to send for her that he might enjoy her That which David here did and afterward grievously repents for so doing shall one day be the wofull song of many a wretched soul as the Lascivious mans song the Covetous mans song the song of Theeves Idolaters Gluttons Drunkards as of others I saw I coveted I took for all these receive their death by their eye There Bathsheba was washing herself from her uncleaness and presently after in an Adulterous bed became more unclean than ever she was before never was Bathsheba more foul than when she was newly washed the worst of nature being cleanliness to the best of Sin But I proceed Those houses of two stories have many of them very large upper roomes which have many double doores in the sides of them like those in our Balconies to open and let in fresh air which is likewise conveyed in unto them by many lesser lights made in the walls of those roomes which are always free and open The use of glass windows or any other shuttings being not known there nor in any other very hot Countreyes Neither have they any Chimneyes in their buildings because they never make any use of fire but to dress their food which fire they make against some firm wall or without their Tents against some bank of Earth as remoâ—e as may be from the places where they use to keep that they may receive no annoyance from the heat thereof It is their manner in many places to plant about and amongst their buildings trees which grow high and broad the shadow whereof keeps their houses by far more cool this I observed in a special manner when we were ready to enter Amadavar for it appeared to us as if we had been entring a Wood rather than a City That Amadavar is a very large and populous City entred by many fair Gates girt about with an high and thick Wall of Brick which mounts above the topps of their houses without which wall there are no suburbs Most of the houses within the City are of Brick and very many of them ridged covered with tiles But for their houses in their Aldeas or Villages which stand very thick in that Country they are generally very poor and base All those Countrey dwellings are set up close together for I never observed any house there to stand single and alone Some of their houses in those villages are made with earthen walls mingled with straw set up immediatly after their Raines and having a long season after to dry them throughly stand firm and so continue they are built low and many of them flat but for the generality of those Countrey Villages the Cottages in them are miserably poor little and base so that as they are built with a very little charge set up with sticks rather than Timber if they chance to fire as many times they do for a very little they may be reedified Those who inhabit the Countrey Villages are called Coolees these till the ground and breed up Cattel and other things for provision as Henns c. These they who plant the Sugar the Cotten-wooll and Indico c. for their Trades and manifactures they are kept in Cities and Towns about which are their choicest fruits planted In their Cities and Towns without their dwellings but fix't to them are pend-houses where they shew and sell their provisions as bread and flower-Cakes made up with Sugar and fruits and other things and there they shew their manifactures and other Commodities some of which they carry twice every day to sell in the Bazar or Market I saw two houses of the Mogols one at Mandoa the other at Amadaver which appeared large and stately built of excellent stone well squared and put together each of them taking up a large compass of ground but we could never see how they were contrived within because there are none admitted strangers or others to have a sight of those houses while the Kings wives and women are there which must not be seen by any but by himself and his servants the Eunuchs The Mogols Palace Royal is at Agra his Metropolis of which more afterward but for the present I shall take a little notice of a very curious Groâ— I saw belonging to his house at Mandoa which stood a small distance from it for the building of which there was a way made into a firm Rock which shewed it self on the side of an Hill Canopied over with part of that Rock It was a place that had much beauty in it by reason of the Curious work-manship bestowed on it and much pleasure by reason of its cooleness That City Mandoa I speak of is situated upon a very high mountain the to whereof is flat and plain and specious From all parts that lye about it but one the ascent is very high and steep and the way to us seemed exceeding long for we were two whole dayes Climbing up the Hill with our Cariages vvhich vve got up vvith very much difficulty not far from the bottom of vvhich Hill vve lodged at a great tovvn called Achabar-pore vvhere vve ferried over a broad River as vve did in other places for I observed no bridges made there over any of their Rivers vvhere their high-vvayes lye That Hill on vvhich Mandoa stands is stuckround as it vvere vvith fair trees that keep their distance so one from and belovv the other that there is much delight in beholding them either from the bottom or top of that Hill In those vast and far extended woods there are Lions Tygres and other beasts of Prey and many wild Elephants We lay one night in that wood with our Carriages and those Lions came about us discovering themselves by their Roaring but we keeping a very good fire all night they came not neer enough to hurt either
extenuated by the multitude of offenders which live under the guilt thereof that nothing can more aggravate it With men commoness pleads for favour with God it pleads for judgment the Leprosie of the whole body being by far more loathsome then that which appears but in a part thereof and so much of this I will now proceed to take notice of other particulars which follow in this relation As SECTION XII Of their Language their Books their Learning c. THE Language of this Empire I mean the Vulgar bears the name of it and is called Indostan it hath much affinitie with the Persian and Arabian tongues but the Indostan is a smoother language and more easy to be pronounced than the other a language which is very significant and speaks much in few words They write it as we to the right hand It is expressed by letters which are very much different from those Alphabets by which the Persian and Arabian tongues are formed The Persian there is spoken as their more quaint and Court-tongue The Arabian is their learned language both written backward to the left hand like the Hebrew from whence they borrow many words which come so neer it as that he who is a good Critick in the Hebrew may very well guess at the meaning of much in both those languages The Persian is a language as if it consisted all of Guttur all letters as some in the Hebrew Alphabet are called filling the mouth in the Pronunciation of them for as the words in that language are full of sense so in their speaking they are full of sound For the Latin and Greek by which there hath been so much knowledge conveyed into the world they are as ignorant of them both as if they had never been and this may be one great reason why there is so little learning amongst them But for the people themselves they are men of very strong reason and will speak ex re natâ upon any offered occasion very exceeding well and doubtless they are a people of such strong Capacities that were there literature amongst them they might be the Authors of many excellent works but as the case stands with them all that is there attainable towards learning is but to read and write And here by the way let me insert this that I never saw any Idiot or natural Fool nor any deformed person amongst them in any of those parts For Logick and Rhetorick which are so instrumental the first to enlarge and the second to polish discourses they have none but what is Natural They say that they write some witty Poems and compose many handsome Annals and Stories of their own and other adjacent Countreys They delight much in Musick and have some stringed but many more winde Instruments They have the use of Timbrils likewise but for want of pleasing Airs their Musick in my ears never seemed to be any thing but discord Their Books are not many and those are Manuscripts That rare and happie invention of Printing which hath been the advancement of so much learning within Christendom is not known without it They have heard of Aristotle whom they call Aplis and have some of his books as they say in the Arabian tongue in which language they further say they have many books written by Avicenna that ancient Physician who was born in Samarchandia one of the most fam'd places within the Tartarian Empire the Countrey as they believe where Tamberlain the Mogols great Ancestor drew his first breath Some parts or fragments they have of the old Testament of which more when I shall come to speak of their Religion Many amongst them profess themselves to have great skill in judicial Astrologie that great Cheat which hath been very anciently and often put upon as the Sacred Storie witnesseth the people inhabiting the East and South parts of the world I call it a Cheat because there is and must needs be so much uncertainty in it all things here below being ordered and overruled by the secret and unerring providence of Almighty God which frustrateth the tokens of the Lyars and maketh Diviners mad that turneth wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish Esay 44. 25. First these Diviners are mad when things fall not out according to their bold predictions And secondly they have been and not without cause esteemed as mad-men in foretelling things which they could not know and much less bring to pass And therefore I have heard a great Master in and a publick Professor of Astronomie who could see as far into Constellations and observe as much from them as any other often say that he would go by the very selfesame rules that others did to predict things to come and would write that which was quite contrary to what they observed yet what he wrote should as often fall to be as true as what they 〈…〉 old Yet notwithstanding the truth of these premises the great Mogol puts so much confidence in his Astrologers that he will not undertake a journey nor yet resolve to do any thing besides of the least consequence unless his wizards tell him it is a good and a prosperous hour to begin and set upon such an undertaking and at the very instant he hath his directions from them he sets upon the thing he undertakes and not before It is strange to consider what ignorance or despair in this â—case may not put men upon may not put men into ignorance in that King thus besotted with an high opinion of his Astrologers So despair in Saul another King long before him who after he had lost the favour of God grew desperate and resolved that if God would not answer him Sathan should And therefore he said in his distress unto his servants 1 Sam. 28. 7. Seek me out one that hath a familiar spirit The condition of Saul was at this time exceeding sad as appears by his complaint v. 15. The Philistins make war against me and God is departed from me and answers me no more either by Prophets or Dreams and what shall I do I confess that the loss of God is the greatest of all losses For as his favour to a believing Soul in the want of every thing besides is enough because his loving kindnes is better than life it self Psal 63. 3. So the gaining of every thing the world can afford with the loss of Gods Countenance makes profit loss a Chaire of State uneasy an hereditary and much more a usurped Scepter so unweildy as that it cannot be managed with comfort Here Saul a King is so perplexed in his thoughts when as Almighty God had taken his loving kindnes from him that he asks the question what shall I do Not what thou did'st wretched Saul against the streame of thine own Conscience to seek unto those whom thou had'st but of late condemned and punished to take a course which thou knowest to be divellish Miserable Saul how couldst thou hope to find God at thy Command
comfort in those their frequent performances in that great duty He answered that I needed not to trouble my selfe with that for they found as great comfort as they could desire in what they did And presently he would needs inferr this Relation There was said hee a most devout Mussleman who had his habitation in a great City where Mahomet was zealously professed and that man for many yeares together spent his whole day in the Mosquit or Church in the mean time he minding not the world at all became so poor that he had nothing left to buy bread for his family yet notwithstanding his poor condition he was resolved still to ply his devotions and in a morning when he perceived that there was nothing at all left for the further subsistence of himselfe and houshould tooke a solemne leave of his wife and Children resolving for his part to goe and pray and dye in the Mosquit leaving his family if no relief came to famish at home But that very day he put on this resolution there came to his house in his absence a very beautifull young man as he appeared to be who brought and gave unto his wife a very good quantity of Gold bound up in a white Napkin telling her that God had now remembred her husband and sent him his pay for his constant paines taken in his devotion withall charging her not to send for her husband for though he had taken such a solemne leave of her that morning yet he would come home to her againe that night and so he departed from her The woman presently bought in some necessaryes for her house for they had eaten up all before and further made some good provision for her husband against his coming home in the evening for so he did and finding all his family very cherefull and merry his Wife presently told him that there had been such a one there as before described and left so much gold behinde him with that fore mentioned message delivered with it Her husband presently replyed that it was the Angel Gabriel sent from God for the Mahometans speak much of that Angel and he further added that himselfe had nothing to bring home unto her but a little grett or sand which he tooke up in his way homeward and bound it in his girdle which he presently opening to shew her it was all turn'd into pretious stones which amounted unto a very great value in Money The Seventh part of which as of his gold likewise he presently gave to the poore for said he a Mussleman is very charitable and then inferrd that if we doe not neglect God God will not forget us but when we stand most in need of help will supply us Vnto which conclusion we may all subscribe leaving the premises which are layd downe in that story unto those that dare believe them The Mahometans say that they have the Bookes of Moses but they have very much corrupted that story in ascribing that to Ishmael which is said of Isaac Gen 22. as if Ishmael should have beene sacrificed not Isaac of which more afterward They say that they have the Booke of Davids Psalmes and some Writings of Solomon with other parcels of the old Testament which if so I believe a made much to vary from their original They speak very much in the Honour of Moses whom they call Moosa Calim-Alla Moses the publisher of the minde of God So of Abraham whom they call Ibrahim Carim-Alla Abraham the Honored or Friend of God So of Ishmael whom they call Ismal the Sacrifice of God So of Iacob whom they call Acob the blessing of God So of Joseph whom they call Eesoff the betrayed for God So of David whom they call Dahood the Lover and prayser of God So of Solomon whom they call Selymon the wisdome of God all expressed as the former in short Arabian words which they sing in ditties unto their particular remembrances And by the way many of the Mahometans there are called by the names of Moosa or Ibrahim or Ismal or Acob or Eesoff or Dahood or Selymon so others are called Mahmud or Chaan which signifies the Moone or Frista which signifies astarre c. And they call their women by the Names of Flowers or Fruits of their Countrey or by the names of Spices or Odours or of pearls or precious Stones or else by other Names of pretty or pleasing signification As Iob named one of his daughters Jemimah which signifies Cleare as the day the second Keziah which signifies pleasant as Cassia or sweete spice And the name of the third Keren-happuch signifying the Horne or strength of beauty Iob 42. 14. But I 'll return again to that people that I may acquaint my reader with one thing of speciall observation and t is this That there is not one among the Mahometans of any understanding which at any time mentions the name of our blessed Saviour called there Hazareâ— Eesa the Lord Christ but he makes mention of it with high Reverence and respect For they say of Christ that he was a good man and a just that he lived without sin that he did greater miracles than ever any before or since him nay further they call him Rha-how-Alla the breath of God but how he should be the Son of God cannot conceive and therefore cannot believe Perhaps the Socinians first tooke that their opinion from these which bids them to have every thing they receive as truth to be cleered up unto them by the strength of Reason as if there were no need of the exercise of faith And truly I must needs confess that to beleeve the Incarnation of the Son of God is one of the hardest and greatest taskes for Faith to encounter withall that God should be made a Man that this Man Christ should be born of a Virgin that Life should sâ—ring from Death and that from Contempt and Scorne Triumph and Victorie should come c. But Christians must bind up all their thoughts as to these in that excellent meditation of Picus Mirandula saying Mirandam Dei Incarnationem c. concerning that admirable and wonderfull Incarnation of Christ the Son of God I shall not say much it being sufficient for me as for all others that look for benefit by Christ to believe that he was begotten and that he was born These are Articles of our Faith and we are not christians if we believe them not It may seem very strange therefore that the Mahometans who understand themselves better should have such a very high esteem of our Blessed Saviour Christ and yet think us who profess our selves Christians to be so unworthy or so uncleane as that they will not eat with us any thing that is of out dressing nor yet of any thing that is dressed in our vessels There are more particulars which challenge a roome in this Section as their proper place but because I would not have it swell too bigg I shall here part it and speak
hurtfull Creatures too And those which are most tender hearted in this case are called Banians who are by far more numerous than any other of those Indian Sects and these hold Pythagoras his Metempsycosis as a prime Article of their Faith and from hence it is that they cannot abide to kill any living Creatures and from this ground that Philosopher disswades from eating of flesh by many arguments laid down in the fifteenth book of Ovids Metamorphosis Heu quantum scelus est in viscere viscera condi Congestoque avidum pinguescere corpâ—re corpus Altâ—riusque animantem animantis viverâ— Letho Ah sinfull who in Bowels Bowels hide And flesh by greedy eating flesh do breed That Creatures life by Creatures death may feed And after this that Philosopher placeth the Souls immortality in its Transmigration from one Creature to another saying Morte carâ—nt animae semperque priore relictâ— Sede â—ovis domibus vivunt habitantque receptae Ipse ego nam memeni Trojani tempore belli Panthoides Euphorbus eram Souls are immortal and when ere they leave Their former houses new ones them receive I' th Trojan War I well remember I Was Panthos Son Euphorbus And a little after he thus speaks Omnia mutantur nihil interit errat illinc Huc venit hinc illuc â—uâ—slibeâ— occupat artus Spiritus eque feris humana in corpora transit Inque fer as noster nec tempore deperit â—llo Utque novis facilis signatur cera figuris Nec manet ut fuerat nec formas servat easdem Sed tamen ipsa eadem â—st animam sic semper â—andem Esse sed in varias doceo migrare figuras Ergo ne pietas sit victa cupidine ventris Pâ—rcite vaticinor cognatas câ—de naâ—andâ Exturbare animas ne sanguine sanguis alatur Things are not lost but chang'd the Spirit strayes Hence thither hither thence nor lodged stayes In any limbs to humane bodies flies From beasts from these to these nor ever dies And as new prints in easie wax we make Which varying still several impressions take Yet is it self the same so the same Soul I teach doth into several fashions roul Then let not piety by lust subdued Suffer your hands in Parricide imbrued Dislodge the souls or nourish bloud with bloud Thus much from Ovid of that Pythagorian fancy which that untaught people come up very near unto thinking that all the Souls both of men and women after they leave their bodies make their repose in other Creatures and those Souls as they imagine are best lodged that go into Kine which in their opinion are the best of all sensible Creatures therefore as before they give yearly large sums of mony unto the Mogol to redeem them from slaughter And this people further conceit that the Souls of the wicked go inâ—o vile Creatures as the Souls of Gluttons and Drunkards into Swinâ— So the Souls of the voluptuous and incontinent into Monkies Apes Thus the Souls of the furious revengefull cruel people into Lions Wolves Tygres as into other beasts of prey So the Souls of the envious into Serpents and so into other Creatures according to peoples qualities and dispositions while they lived successively from one to another of the same kinde ad infinitum for ever and ever by consequence they believing the immortality of the world And upon that same mad and groundlesse phansie probably they further believe that the Souls of froward peevish and teachy women go into Waspes and that there is never a silly Fly but if they may be credited carries about it some Souls happily they think of light women and will not be perswaded out of their wilde conceivings so incorrigib â—are their sottish errours The day of rest which those Hindoos observe as a Sabboth is Thursday as the Mahometans Friday Many Festivals they have which they keep solemnely and Pilgrimages the most famous briefly spoken of before in those short descriptions of Nagraiot and Syba observed in my first section Now there are a race of other Heathens I named before living amongst those Hindoos which in many things differ very much from them they are called Persees who as they say originally came out of Persia about that time Mahomet and his followers gave Laws to the Persians and imposed a new Religion on them which these Persees not enduring left their Countrey and came and setled themselves in East-India in the Province of Guzarat where the most part of them still continue though there are some of them likewise in other parts of India but where ever they live they confine themselves strictly to their own Tribe or Sect. For their Habits they are clad like the other people of that Empire but they shave not their hair close as the other do but suffer their beaâ—â—s to grow long Their profession is for the generality all kinds of husbandry imploying themselves very much in sowing and setting of Herbs in planting and dressing of Vines Palmeeto or Toddy Trees as in planting and husbanding all other Trees bearing fruit and indeed they are a very industrious people and so are very many of t 〈…〉 Hindoos as before observed and they do all very well in doing so and in this a due and deserved commendation belongs unto them For There is no condition whatsoever can priviledge a foulded arm Our first Parents before their fall were put into the Garden of Eden to dress it Certainly if idlenesse had been better than labour they had never been commanded to do work but they must labour in their estate of innocency because they were happy and much more we in our sinfull lost estate that we may be so It was a Law given before the Law that man should eat bread by the sweat of his brows and it is a Gospel-precept too that he who will not work should not eat The sluggard desireth and hath nothing saith Solomon because he doth nothing but desire and therefore his desires do him no good because his hands refuse to labour That body therefore well deserves to pine and starve without pity when two able hands cannot feed one mouth Bâ—t further for those Persees they use their liberty in meats drinks to take of them what they please but because they would not give offence either to the Mahometans or Banians or to other Hindoos amongst whom they live they abstain from eating Beef or Swines flesh It is their usual manner to eat alone as for every one of them to drink in his own Cup and this is a means as they think to keep themselves more pure for if they should eat with others they are afraid that they might participate of some uncleannesse by them Alas poor Creatures that do not at all understand themselves and their most miserable condition for to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure Yet I observed before the Mahometans and Gentiles there are very strict in this particular so that they will not eat with
white Cloath the Daroo or Harboode accompanies the dead body near unto the door which enters that place alwayes kept fast shut but when it is opened upon this occasion to let in their dead and come thither speaks these words in the audience of all those which are thither assembled That whereas the party deceased consisted of all the four Elements he desires that every one of them may now take his part And this is the form they use when they there thus dispose of the bodies of their dead Which being there so left in that open place are presently laid bare by the Fouls of the Air who in short time after pick all their flesh clear from their bones by consequence their fleshly part having no other Sepulchres Graves or Tombs but the Craws and Gorges of those ravenous Fouls And when upon this occasion they enter that round stage of Mortality the bare Skelitons they there finde which have parted with all their flesh are by those bearers of the dead cast into that deep round pit where they mix promiscuously together and so make room for other dead bodies But now that my Reader may not â—onceive that I have endeavoured in some of these strange relations to write a new Romance I would have him to think that for my part I do believe that there is very much of truth in the particulars I have inserted if there be any credit to be given to some men of much integrity that lived amongst them who made it a great part of their businesse to be satisfied in many of the particulars here spoken of or if I might trust mine own eyes and ears that saw and heard much of it which could have enabled me to have written a great deal more concerning the Rites Ceremonies Customes wilde conceivings and mad Idolatries of this people as of the Hindoos spoken of before if I durst have thrown away more time upon them all which would have made my judiciour Reader thus to have concluded with me that those Mahometans and Heathens ground very many of their opinions upon custom tradition and phansie not reason much lesse upon safe rules that might lead them into and after keep them in the way of truth They esteeming it a very great boldnesse a very high presumption to be wiser in their Religion thâ—n their forefathers were as many of the more ignorant sort of Papists will often say though it be directly against themselves and therefore are desirous to do and to believe as their Ancestors have before them to fare as they have fared and as they have sped to speed though they perish everlastingly with them never considering of or ruminating on those things which they hold and maintain for truths being like unto unclean Beasts which chew not the Cudde So much of that people in general I come now more particularly to speak SECT XXII Of their King the great Mogol his discent c. NOw those Mahometans and Gentiles I have named live under the subjection of the great Mogol which Name or rather Title if my information abuse me not signifies circumcised as himself and the Mahometans are and therefore for his most general title he is called the great Mogol as the chief of the circumcised or the chief of the circumcision He is lineally descended from that most famous conqueror called in our stories Tamberlane concerning whose birth and original Histories much differ and therefore I cannot determine it but in this all that write of him agree that he having got together very many huge multitudes of men made very great conquests in the South-East parts of the World not onely on Bajazet the Emperour of the Turks but also in East-India and elsewhere for what cannot force by multitudes do This Tamberlane in their stories is called Amir Timur or the great Prince and Emperor Timur who as they say towards his end either by an hurt received in his thigh or else by an unhappy fall from his Horse which made him halt to his grave was ever after that called Timur lang or Timur the lame from whence he is corruptly in our stories named amberlane the late Mogol at whose Court we lived was the ninth in a direct line from that his great Ancestor And now that my Reader may see the great Mogol in a Portrature which was taken from a Picture of his drawn to the life I have caused that to be here inserted which presents him in his dayly unvaried Habite as he is bedeckt and adorned with Jewels he continually wears for the fashion of the Habite in which he is here presented it is for the fashion the Habite of that whole vast Empire so that he who strictly views this may see the dresse of the men throughout that whole great Monarchy After this I have set up the Royal standard of the great Mogol which is a Couchant Lyon shadowing part of the body of the Sun And after that I have caused his Imperial Signet or great Seal to be laid down before my Readers eyes wherein nine rounds or Circles are the Names and Titles of Tamberlane and his lineal successors in Persian words which I shall make presently to speak English and as I conceive no more in English than what is fully expressed in those original words The Royall Signet of the great MOGOL For Timar-lang or Tamberlane he was famous about the year of Christ 1398. in the last year of the Reign of Richard the Second King of England And he the first of the Race of those great Monarchs hath a Title which speaks thus 1. Amir Timur Saheb Ceran that is the great Conqueror or Emperor Timur or Tamberlane Lord possessor of the Corners or of the four Corners of the World 2. The second his Son was called Mirath-Sha the King and inheritor of Conquests 〈◊〉 the inheritor of his Fathers Conquests 3. The third his Son was called Mirzae Sultan Mahomeds the Prince and Commander for Mahomet or the Desender of the Mahometan Religion for this King as it should seem was the first Indostan Emperor that professed Mahometisme which Tamberlane his Grand-father was a great enemy too therefore ever strongly opposed it But this third Monarch of that line and all his successors since have been Mahometans 4. The fourth his son was called Sultan Abusaid the Prince and Father or fountain of Beneficence 5. The fifth his son was called Mirzee Amir Sheick the Imperial Princely Lord. 6. The sixth his son was called Baba Padsha the King the Father or the King the Father of his Countrey 7. The seventh his son was called Hamasaon Podsha the King Invincible 8. The eight his son was called Achabar Padsha the great King or Emperor that is most mighty or the King most mighty 9. The ninth his son was called Almozaphar Noor Dein Gehangeir Padsha Gaze the most warlike and most victorious King the Light of Religion and the Conqueror of the World Here are very high titles taken by
the palm of his hand long by a mistake took the poysoned Piâ—â— himself and gave him the other which Pill put the King immediately into a mortal flux of bloud which in few dayes put an end to his life in his â—itie Lahore Neque enim lex justior ulla est Quam necis artifices arte perire sua When some to kill most deadly engines frame 'T is just that they themselves be caught it 'h same Achabar Sha thus dead Sultan Coobsurroo his Grand-Childe then aged about twenty years took his opportunity at the first bound and ascended the Regal Throne at Lahore where by a general Acclamation of that very great and populous City he was pronounced and acknowledged King His Father the late Mogol was thus acknowledged at Agra Two great Armies were presently levied and meet together to decide the controversie and the generality of the people within that Empire thinking it meet that the Father should be King before the Son clave by far more to him then to his Son by which means Sultan Coobsurroo was defeated and taken prisoner and a very great many of young Gallants with him whereof his Father immediately after caused to be impaled or put upon Stakes that most cruell and tormenting death eight hundred in two severall ranks in one day without the City Lahore and then carried his Son most disgracefully through them bidding him to behold the men in whom he trusted His Son told him that he should have serv'd him so and spared the other who did nothing in that action but upon his command his Father replyed that he could serve him so presently if he so pleased his Son wild and desired him so to do telling his Father that he had no joy at all to live after the beholding of so many gallant men dead Notwithastanding the King spared his life casting him into Prison where his eyes were sealed up by something put before them which might not be taken of for the space of three years after what time that seal was taken away that he might with freedom enjoy the Light though not his Liberty And after his Father had taken him out of Prison he kept him alwaies near about him but with a very strong guard upon him so that he following the King his Father in his Progresses we sometimes saw him And once he called my Lord Ambassadour to him as we passed by him asking him many questions as how far distant our Country was from them and what we brought thither and what we carried thence and how the King his Father had used him since his arrive there whither or no he had not bestowed upon him some great gifts The Ambassadour told him that his business there was to obtain a free trade for his Nation the English and that being granted him he had reward enough The Prince replyed that this could not be denyed us we coming so far to trade there with him and the Prince further asked him how long he had been there the Ambassadour told him about two years the Prince replyed again that it was a very great shame for the successor of Tamberlane who had such infinite Rules to suffer a man of his quality to come so far unto him and to live so long about him and not to give him some Royall gift and he further added that for himself he was a Prisoner and therefore could do him no good but he would pray for him and so he departed For that Prince he was a Gentleman of a very lovely presence and fine carriage so exceedingly beloved of the common people that as Sâ—â—tonius writes of Titus he was Amor Deliciae c. the very love and delight of them Aged then about thirty and five years He was a man who contented himself with one wife which with all love and care accompanied him in all his streights and therefore he would never take any wife but her self though the liberty of his Religion did admit of Plurality It was generally beleeved to be the intent of his Father for he would often presage so to make this Prince his first-born his successor though for the present out of some jealousie his being so much beloved of the people he denyed his liberty His Fathers love brings upon him the extream hatred of his Brother Caroom the Mogals third Son who then lived in very great Pomp and splendor at that Court ayming at that Empire to which end he put many jealousies into his Fathers head now grown in years concerning his Brother Coobsurroo and that his Father might live more secure and out of all present fear of him if he so pleased upon which insinuations partly by force as I observed before and partly by intreaty of friends about the King he was by the King put into the Cruel hand of his Brother Caroom who told his Father that he would have both his eyes upon him and further so provide that he should never have cause to fear him any more and he was as good as his word for presently after he had gotten possession of him thoâ—gh his Father had given him as great a charge as possibly he could to use him well and to keep him honourably and by no means to hurt him which was all promised by Caroome to be faithfully observed he caused his second Brother Sultan Parveen to be poysoned and not long after that strangled that most gallant Prince his eldest Brother which did so trouble his Father that the grief thereof as it was strongly beleeved shortned his days who not long after this much against his mind made room for that murderer to succeed him in that Empire who layd the foundation of his high advancement in the blood of his Brothers and rather than he would have missed it would certainly made a way through the blood of his Father likewise All Laws of honesty of Nature by him thrown down trampled under foot forgotten and made void to compass and gain his most unjust ends as if he resolved to practise that language which Polynices out of the height of Ambition spake in the Tragedy Pro Regnovelim Patriam Penates Conjugem flammis dare Imperia Precio quolibet constant bene Sen. Trag. Fire on my Gods Wise Country for a Crown An Empire can the dearest price weigh down But whatsoever he might think I am sure that the holy Scriptures are stored with examples that have fallen heavy upon usurpers and resisters of lawfull Authority as upon Corah and his Confederates swallowed up quick into the Earth Upon Zimri burnt in his Palace which he had but immediatly before usurped Upon Absolon hangd by his hairy Scalp As Achitophel in an halter Certainly they who ever they be that come to rule upon hard and unjust tearms shall first or last live to rue and to repent their bargain as Ahab did in another case after he had kild and taken possession And as the Emperours of this large spreading and far extended Monarchy have been