It flyeth so swift saith Ouiedo that the wings cannot be seene It hath a nest proportionable I haue seene saith he one of those birds together with her nest put into the scales wherein they vse to weigh Gold and both weighed but two Tomins that is foure and twenty graines Haply it is therefore called Tomineios as weighing one Tomin The feathers are beautified with yellow greene and other colours the mouth like the eye of an Needle It liueth on dew and the juice of herbs but sitteth not on the Rose The feathers specially of the necke and brests are in great request for those feather-pictures or portraitures which the Indians make cunningly and artificially with these natural feathers placing the same in place and proportion beyond all admiration The Indian Bats should not flee your light and are for their rarity worthy consideration but that wee haue spoken before somewhat of them They haue Birds called Condores of exceeding greatnesse and force that will open a sheepe and a whole Calfe and eate the same They haue abundance of Birds in beautie of their feathers farre surpassing all in Europe wherewith the skilfull Indians will perfectly represent in feathers whatsoeuer they see drawne with the Pensill A figure of Saint Francis made of feathers was presented to Pope Sixtus Quintus whose eye could not discerne them to be naturall colours but thought them pensill-worke till he made tryall with with his fingers The Indians vsed them for the ornaments of their Kings and Temples Some Birds there are of rich commoditie onely by their dung In some Islands ioyning to Peru the Mountaines are all white like Snow which is nothing but heapes of dung of certaine Sea-fowle which frequent those places It riseth many Ells yea many Launces in height and is fetched thence in Boats to hearten the Earth which hereby is exceeding fertile To adde somewhat of the Indian Plants and Trees Mangle is the name of a Tree which multiplyeth it selfe into a wood as before we haue obserued of it the branches descending and taking root in the Earth The Plane-tree of India hath leaues sufficient to couer a man from the foot to the head but these the Coco and other Indian Trees are in the East-Indies also and there we haue mentioned them Cacao is a fruit little lesse then Almonds which the Indians vse for money and make thereof a drinke holden amongst them in high regard They haue a kinde of Apples called Ananas exceeding pleasant in colour and taste and very wholesome which yet haue force to eate iron like Aqua fortis The Mamayes Guayauos and Paltos be the Indian Peaches Apples and Peares But it would bee a weary wildernesse to the Reader to bring him into such an Indian Orchard where he might reade of such varietie of fruits but like Tantalus can taste none or to present you with a Garden of their Trees which beare flowres with other fruit as the Floripondio which all the yeere long beareth flowres sweet like a Lilly but greater the Volusuchil which beareth a flowre like to the forme of the heart and others which I omit The flowre of the Sunne is is now no longer the Marigold of Peru but groweth in many places with vs in England The flowre of the Granadille they say if they say truely hath the markes of the Passion Nayles Pillar Whips Thornes Wounds exceeding stigmaticall Francis For their Seeds and Craines Mays is principall of which they make their bread which our English ground brings forth but hardly will ripene it growes as it were on a Reed and multiplyeth beyond comparison they gather three hundred measures for one It yeeldeth more blood but more grosse then our Wheat They make drinke thereof also wherewith they will be exceedingly drunke They first steepe and after boyle it to that end In some places they first cause it to be champed with Maids in some places with old women and then make a leauen thereof which they boyle and make this inebriating drinke The Canes and leaues serue for their Mules to eate They boyle and drinke it also for paine in the back The buds of Mays serue in stead of Butter and Oyle In some parts they make bread of a great root called Yuca which they name Caçaui They first cut and straine it in a Presse for the iuyce is deadly poison the Cakes dryed are steeped in water before they can eate them Another kinde there is of this Yuca or Iucca the iuice whereof is not poison It will keepe long like Bisket They vse this bread most in Hisponiola Cuba and Iamaica where Wheat and Mays will not grow but so vnequally that at one instant some is in the grasse other in the graine They vse in some places another root called Papas like to ground Nuts for bread which they call Chuno Of other their roots and fruits I am loth to write lest I weary the Reader with tedious officiousnesse Spices grow not there naturally Ginger thriueth well brought and planted by the Spaniards They haue a good kinde of Balme though not the same which grew in Palestina Of their Amber Oiles Gums and Drugs I list not to relate further Out of Spaine they haue caried great varietie of Plants herein Americo exceeding Spaine that it receiueth and fructifieth in all Spanish Plants that are brought thither whereas the Indian thriue not in Spaine as Vines Oliues Mulberies Figs Almonds Limons Quinces and such like And to end this Chapter with a comparison of our World with this of America Our aduantages and preferments are many Our Heauen hath more Stars and greater as Acosta by his owne sight hath obserued challenging those Authors which haue written otherwise of fabling Our Heauen hath the North-Starre within three degrees and a third of the Pole their Crosier or foure Stars set a-crosse which they obserue for the Antarticke is thirtie degrees off The Sunne commucateth his partiall presence longer to our Tropike then that of Capricorne remaining in the Southerne Signes 178. dayes one and twenty houres and twelue minutes in the Northerne 186. dayes eight houres and twelue minutes B. Keckerman System Astron L. 1. Tycho Brahe L. 1. reckoneth these a hundred fourescore and sixe dayes houres eighteene and a halfe dayes eight and one third part fere plus quam in Australi c. This want of the Sunne and Stars is one cause of greater cold in those parts then in these Our Earth exceeds theirs for the situation extending it selfe more between East and West fittest for humane life whereas theirs trends most towards the two Poles Our Sea is more fauourable in more Gulfes and Bayes especially such as goe farre within Land besides the Mid-Land-Sea equally communicating her selfe to Asia Africa and Europa This conuenience of traffique America wanteth Our beasts wilde and tame are farre the more noble as the former discourse sheweth For what haue they to oppose to our Elephants Rhinocerotes Camels Horses
Gibbins was employed on this Discouerie in the Discouerie so was the ship called but withous any great discouerie that I haue heard of Persisting in their purpose the next yeere Robert Byleth one which had beene in three former Voyages was sent forth in that ship as Master and William Baffin his Mate with foureteene other Men and two Boyes which leauing England about the latter end of March stayed at Silly till the seuenth of April and were forced to put-backe to Padstow in Cornwall but weighing Anchor on the nineteenth on the sixt of May saw land on the Coast of Groen-land on the East-side of Cape Farewell On the first of lune they came into a good Harbour on the N. W. side of the Iland of Resolution which is at the entrance into Hudsons Strait in 61. degrees 45. minutes On the eight they came to Sauage Ilands in 62. degrees 30. minutes threescore Leagues from the entrance so called of some people they found in a Canow they were at their Tents also and found among other things a little bagge with many small images of men therein and one of a woman with a child at her backe The Tents were couered with Seales skinnes and about them some forty Dogs ranne vp and downe most of them muzzled as bigge as Mungrel-Maâ—â—iues of a brended blacke colour looking almost like Wolues these they vse to draw their sleds ouer the ice with collars and furniture fitting their sleds also being shod or lined with fish-bones The people are like those in Groenland but not so neat and ciuill ranging vp and downe as their fishing is in season vncertaine where they keepe in Winter The Master was confident in this and other places that the floud came from the West which Baffin saith by the floating of the ice he obserueth on land to be contrarie onely the Islands cause by their diuers points differing Sects and Eddie On the two and twentieth of Iune He obserued the Longitude hauing faire sight of the Sunne and Moone and found himselfe by Astronomicall account 74. degrees 5. minutes West from the Meridian of London which if some studious Mariners would practise in their remote Voyages wee should soone haue a farre more perfect Geographie I omit their icie sieges sometimes scarsly leauing them space to dip a paile of water They called one place in 65. latitude and 85. degrees and 20. minutes long Cape Comfort for the hopes they apprehended of a passage which soone they found to be frustrate Hence they passed to Sea-horse Cape so named of the plenty of Morses and fifteene leagues thence to Notingham Iland and thence to Digs his Iland in all those places obseruing the floud come from the South-east Captaine Button and Hudsons men being all deceiued as this our Authour affirmeth other Ilands sometimes keeping off the force of the tyde or by eddies causing an obscurity and their errour We will therefore leaue that spacious Sea called Buttons Bay with the great Ilands and some places not yet perfectly discouered within and beyond that Strait of Hudson and come to Baffins Bay so discouered to be This last yeere 1616. at the charges of the worthy Aduenturers before mentioned in the same ship by the same Master the same both their Pilot and ours The first land they saw after their departure from England was in Fretum Dauis on the Coast of Groenland in 65. degrees 20. minutes On the fourteenth of May where they saw people But they plyed to the North till they were in 70. degrees 20. minutes The people fled from them Here they tooke in fresh water but doubted the passage because the tydes were small not aboue eight or nine foot and vncertayne the floud from the South On the six and twentieth day they found a dead Whale floting and got from the roofe of her mouth 160. of those synnes or Whale-bones but could not get the rest by reason of foule weather following On the first of Iune they put in among diuers Ilands the people forsooke their Seale-skin-tents and fled some women they found whom they kindly intreated giuing them pieces of Iron for which they returned Seales skins and the fat or blubber of them as for our meate tasting they would not swallow it They called the place the Womens Ilands in 72. degrees and 45. minutes the floud comes from the South and the most of their food is the flesh of Seales dryed and eaten raw they cloth themselues with the skins whereof they also make couerings for their Tents and Boats dressing them very well The Women differ in their apparell from the Men razing their skins with sharpe Instruments and putting thereon an indelible blacke colour marking their faces with diuers blacke lines They haue a kind of deuotion to the Sunne which continually they will point vnto and strike their hand on their brest Crying Ylyout They bury their dead on the side of the Hils where they liue which is commonly on small Ilands making a pile of stones ouer them yet not so close but that the corps may be discerned the piercing ayre keeping them from stinke their Dogges also they bury in the same manner They came to other Ilands in 74. degrees 4. minutes which vse to be much frequented with people in the latter part of the yeere as it seemeth by the houses made of stones and turfe round like Ouens with doores to the South but they were not yet come Iune the ninth The floud ariseth not aboue fiue or sixe foot the ebbe runnes stronger by the abundance of melted Snow On the fifteenth day in the latitude of 73. degrees 45. minutes came forty two of the Inhabitants to them in Boats and gaue them Seales skins and many pieces of the bone or horne of the Sea-Vnicorne and shewed them pieces of Morses teeth They receiued in exchange small pieces of Iron Glasse Beades and the like thus they did foure times the place they called Horne Sound On the third of Iuly they passed by a faire Cape in 76. degrees 35. minutes which they named Sir Dudley Digs his Cape Twelue leagues beyond is Wolstenholme Sound a fit place for killing of Whales Proceeding a little further they found themselues embayed One place they called Whale Sound of their abundance in 77. degrees and 30. minutes Hakluyts Iland is neere and Sir Thomas Smiths Sound in 78. degrees The Compasse there varieth aboue 56. degrees to the Westward so that a North-east and by East of the Compasse is the true North which hath not beene obserued so much varied in any part of the World Putting off to the West side of the Bay they gaue names to Alderman Iones his Sound and that of Sir Iames Lancaster and in their returne recouered their sicke men by Scuruy-grasse or Cochlearia which they found on a little Iland in great plenty boyled in Beere and eaten in Sallads with Orpine and Sorrell and so returned home Thus wee see Fretum Dauis is no passage
against those Colds the one as is said alwayes in manner naked the other alwayes clothed out-brauing the Winters violence in their Summer-like Greene Liuery seeming to stoope vnder the burthen of continuall Frosts and Snowes and in a naturall wisdome clothe themselues and hold their leaues the surer Those Giantly men about Port Desire when they die are brought to the Cliffes and there buried with their Bowes Arrowes Darts and all their almost no substance Master Kniuet writeth that he saw footings at Port Desire as bigge as foure of ours and two men newly buried one of which was fourteene spans long He also saw one in Brasil taken by Alonso Dias a Spaniard being by foule weather driuen out of Saint Iulians which was a yong man and yet aboue thirteene spans high They goe naked and are faire and well proportioned At Port Famine in the Straits He saith they saw some dwarfish Sauages not aboue fiue or six spans high which were thicke and strong with wide-mouthes almost to the eares they eate their meat a little scorched besmearing their faces and brests with the bloud running out of their mouthes they lay young feathers to this bloud which glues them to their bodies Foure or fiue thousand traded with them at the Poles end The cold is so extreme that Henry Barwell became bald therewith so continuing a yeere or two One Harris a Goldsmith blowing his frozen nose cast it with his fingers into the fire and our Author himselfe going on shore and returning wet on his feet the next morning pulled off his toes together with his stockins from his benummed feete which were as blacke as foote without feeling and were after cured with words or charmes Euery day some died of cold They saw there a kind of beast bigger then a Horse with eares aboue a span long and a taile like a Cow called Tapetyweson he saw the like in Manicongo The Sauages about the Straits feed as both the same Author and the Hollanders report on raw flesh and other filthy food and are Man-eaters §. III. Of the Magellan Straits IT is no small credit to our Nation and Nauigation that these Straits haue more enlarged themselues and giuen oftner and freer passage to vs then to any other Drake swamme thorow Winter both passed and returned and so did Carder in the Pinnasse as before is said Candish passed but returned as Drake had done about the World in his circuit The Delight of Bristoll entred them and with small delight spent sixe weekes in them and Captaine Dauies companion of Master Candish in his last Voyage three times entred the South Sea which three times forced him backe into the embracing armes of the vntrustie Straits Some others haue attempted but not attained them as Fenton and Ward and the Voyage set forth in the yeere of our Lord 1586. by the Earle of Cumberland The Land on Larbord side saith Sir Richard Hawkins is without doubt Ilands low sandy broken on Starbord is very mountaynous the lower Mountaynes whereof although they be for their height wonderfull yet as we haue said of the differing statures of the men they haue more Giantly ouer-lookers with Snowie lockes and Cloudy lookes betweene them may be numbred three Regions of Clouds These Straits are fourescore and ten leagues thorow of vnequall breadth in the narrowest place a league ouer The mouth is in two and fifty degrees and an halfe or as Sir Richard Hawkins obserued in 52. degrees 50. minutes His company killed a thousand Penguins a day this is a Fowle like a Goose hauing no feathers on their bodies but downe it cannot flye but will runne as fast as most men feeds on fish and grasse and harbours in Berries Seales are many in these parts which will fall dead with a blow on the snout some affirme the same of the Crocodile otherwise not easily pierced with a Sword or fearing a Musket-shot He saith they are like Lions that they sleepe on Land and haue euer one to watch which is also reported of the Morse Hee addeth of the Canoes of the Sauages there that they are made artificially of the rindes of Trees sowed together with the finnes of Whales sharpe at both ends and turning vp When these Straits were first discouered they named them the Strait of Victorie because the ship called the Victorie first descried them a name fitly ascribed both to the Straits and Ship the one first obtayning the Marine victory encompassing the compasse of the earth the other still remayning the onely knowne passage whereby that Sea-victory can bee atchieued But the name soone passed from the Ship to the Generall of whom still it is called the Strait of Magaglianes or Magellan The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake so vexed the Spaniard that hee sent Pedro Sarmiento to inhabit there that he might prohibit other Nations to passe that way but Tempest and Famine hating the Spanish insolence whose ambitious designes alway aimed at a Plus vltra brought them to a Plus vltra indeed further then euer they had designed diuers of the ships which at first were three and twentie with three thousand and fiue hundred men perishing in the deuouring iawes of the Ocean and others in their selfe deuouring mawes of Hunger which eate them vp with not eating The Name of Iesus and Philips Citie were their two newly erected Colonies peopled with foure hundred men and thirty women which by famine were brought to three and twenty persons when Master Candish tooke Hernando one of that company in his prosperous Voyage another who had maintained himselfe by his Peece and liued in a house alone a long time was taken by the Delight of Bâ—iâ—toll two yeeres after The English gaue a name fitting to this distressed Citie calling it Port Pamine The last Voyage of Master Candish proued vnfortunate both in the losse of himselfe and many men the blacke Pinnasse was lost in the South Sea the Desire returned but lost diuers of her men surprised as was thought and deuoured by the Sauages neere to Port Desire The Sauages heere presented themselues throwing dust in the Aire leaping c. and either had Vizards on their faces like Dogges faces or else their faces were Dogges faces indeed I haue seene a Copie of a Discourse written by Master Candish himselfe to Sir Tristram-Gorges whom he made sole Executor of his last Will where he thus affirmeth The running away of the Villaine Dauis was the death of me and decay of the whole action and his onely trecherie in running from me the vtter ruine of all Hee complaines also of mutinies and that by South-west and West South-west winds he was driuen from shore foure hundred leagues and from fifty to forty degrees that he was taken with Winter and stormes in the Straits and such Frosts and Snowes in May as he neuer saw the like so that in seuen or eight dayes forty dyed and seuenty sickened Dauies in the Desire and
Father of Lights himselfe thus conuinceth vs of darknesse Where is the way saith he where light dwelleth And By what way is the light parted And if we cannot conceiue that which is so euidently seene and without which nothing is seene and euident how inaccessible is that Light wherein the Light of this light dwelleth Euen this light is more then admirable life of the Earth ornament of the Heauens beautie and smile of the World eye to our Eyes ioy of our Hearts most common pure and perfect of visible creatures first borne of this World and endowed with a double portion of earthly and heauenly Inheritance shining in both which contayneth sustayneth gathereth seuereth purgeth perfecteth renueth and preserueth all things repelling dread expelling sorrow Shaking the wicked out of the Earth and lifting vp the hearts of the godly to looke for a greater and more glorious light greatest instrument of Nature resemblance of Grace Type of Glorie and bright Glasse of the Creators brightnesse This Light GOD made by his Word not vttered with sound of syllables nor that which in the beginning and therefore before the beginning was with GOD and was GOD but by his powerfull effecting calling things that were not as though they were and by his calling or willing causing them to be thereby signifying his will as plainly and effecting it as easily as a word is to a man That vncreated superessentiall light the eternall Trinitie commanded this light to bee and approued it as good both in it selfe and to the future Creatures and separated the same from darknesse which seemes a meere priuation and absence of light disposing them to succeed each other in the Hemisphere which by what motion or reuolution it was effected the three first dayes who can determine Fond it is to reason a facto ad fieri from the present order of constitution to the Principles of that institution of the Creatures whiles they were yet in making as Simplicius and other Philosophers may I terme them or Atheists haue absurdly done in this and other parts of the Creation And this was the first dayes Worke THE SECOND DAYES WORKE IN the second GOD said Let there bee a Firmament The word Rakiah translated Firmament signifieth expansum or expansionem a stretching out designing that vast and wide space wherein are the watery clouds here mentioned and those lights which follow in the fourteenth Verse by him placed in expanso howsoeuer some vnderstand it only of the Ayre The separating the waters vnder this Firmament from the waters aboue the Firmament some interprete of waters aboue the Heauens to refresh their exceeding heat or of I know not what Chrystaline Heauen some of spirituall substances whom Basil confuteth Origen after his wont Allegorically Most probable it seemeth that Moses intendeth the separation of those waters here below in their Elementarie Seat from those aboue vs in the clouds to which Dauid alluding saith Hee hath stretched out the Heauens like a Curten and laid the beames of his Chambers in the waters This separating of the waters is caused in the Ayrie Region by the Aethereall in which those forces are placed which thus exhale and captiuate these waters That matter before endued with lightning qualitie was now in this second day as it seemeth attenuated extended aboue and beyond that myrie heape of Earthywaters and both the Aether and Aire formed of the same first matter and not of a fift Essence which some haue deuised to establish the Heauens Eternitie both Twins of the Philosophers braines And wherein doe not these differ from each other touching the Celestiall Nature Roundnesse Motion Number Measure and other difficulties most of which are by some denyed Diuersitie of motions caused the Ancients to number eight Orbes Ptolemie on that ground numbred nine Alphonsus and Tebitius ten Copernicus finding another motion reuiued the opinion of Aristarchus Samius of the Earths mouing c. Others which therein dissent from him yet in respect of that fourth motion haue added an eleuenth Orbe which the Diuines make vp euen twelue by their Empyreall immoueable Heauen And many deny this assertion of Orbes supposing them to haue beene supposed rather for instructions sake then for any reall being And Moses here saith expansum as Dauid also calleth it a Curtaine which in such diuersitie of Orbes should rather haue beene spoken in the plurall number The Sidereus Nuncius of Galilaeus Galilaeus tels vs of foure new Planets Iupiters attendants obserued by the helpe of his Glasse which would multiply the number of Orbes further A better Glasse or neerer sight and site might perhaps find more Orbes and thus should we runne in Orbem in a Circular endlesse Maze of Opinions But I will not dispute this question or take it away by auerring the Starres animated or else moued by Intelligentiae A learned Ignorance shall better content me and for these varieties of motions I will with Lactantius ascribe them to GOD the Architect of Nature and Co-worker therewith by wayes Naturall but best knowne to himselfe Neither list I to dance after their Pipe which ascribe a Musicall harmonie to the Heauens THE THIRD DAYES WORKE ANd thus were the Aethereall and Ayrie parts of the World formed in the Third Day followeth the perfecting of the two lowest Elements Water and Earth which as yet were confused vntill that mightie Word of GOD did thus both diuorce and marry them compounding of them both this one Globe which he called Dry Land and Seas I call it a Globe with the Scriptures and the best Philosophers for which respect Numa built the Temple of Vesta round Neither yet is it absolutely round and a perfect Spheare but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather Strabo affirmeth hauing saith Scaliger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 depressed Vallies extended Plaines swelling Hillockes high-mounting Mountaines long courses of Riuers and other varieties of Nature and Art which all in so huge a masse rather beautifie the roundnesse then take it away The Eclipse of the Moone later seene in the East then in the West the round shaddow of the Earth which darkeneth it the rising of the Sunne and Starres sooner in the East then West the vnequall eleuation of the Pole and the Northerne Constellations appearing to vs the Southerne continually depressed all these obseruing due proportions according to the difference of places and Countries yea the compassing of the Earth by many Mariners argue the round compasse thereof against Patritius his difformitie or that deformitie which other Philosophers haue ascribed thereto The equalitie or inequalitie of dayes according to the neerenesse or farrenesse from the Equinoctiall holding proportion as well by Sea as Land as doth also the eleuation of the Pole and not being longer wher 's a quarter of the World is Sea then if it were all Earth doe confute the
interprete but others in order not of the Elders alone but of the inferiour rankes also if any thing were reuealed to them which Tradition of theirs Saint Paul saith hee applied to the Christian Assemblies of those times They vsed to pray in their Synagogues standing as did also the Primitiue Christians Besides these Temples and Houses consecrated to God Ambition the Ape of deuotion founded some of other nature Herod the Great erected a sumptuous Temple and Citie in the honour of Caesar which sometime had beene called Stratonis turris and after Caesarea The Temple of Caesar was conspicuous to them which sailed farre off in the Sea and therein were two Statues one of Rome the other of Caesar The sumptuousnesse of Herods ambition in this Citie Temple Theater and Amphitheater c. Iosephus amply describeth He built another Temple at Panium the fountaine of Iordan in honour of Caesar and lest this should stirre vp the peoples hearts against him to see him thus deuoutely prophane and prophanely deuout he remitted to them the third part of the tributes Hee consecrated Games after the like Heathenish solemnitie in honour of Caesar to be celebrated euery fifth yeere at Caesarea He built also the Pythian Temple at Rhodes of his owne cost Hee gaue yeerely reuenue to the Olympyian Games for maintenance of the Sacrifices and solemnity thereof Quis in rapacitate auarior Quis in largitione effusior He robbed his owne to enrich or rather vainely to lauish out on others He spared not the Sepulchers of the dead For the Sepulchre of Dauid had lent before to Hyrcanus three thousand talentts of siluer which filled him with hope of the like spoyle and entring it with his choise friends hee found no money but precious clothes and whiles he in a couetous curiositie searched further he lost two of his company by flame as fame went breaking out vpon them Herevpon he left the place and in recompence in the entry of the Sepulchre built a monument of white Marble He built also Sebaste in the Region of Samaria wherein hee erected a Temple and dedicated a Court of three furlongs and a halfe of ground before it to Caesar Thus Caesar was made a God by him who would not allow Christ a place among men but that hee might kill him spared not the infants of Bethleem no not his owne sonne amongst the rest as this his god ieasted of him saying That hee had rather bee Herods Swine then his Sonne For his Iewish deuotion prohibited him to deale with Swine but not Religion not Reason not Nature could protect those Innocents from slaughter CHAP. IIII. Of the Iewish computation of time and of their festiuall daies THE day amongst the Iewes was as amongst vs Naturall and Artificiall this from Sunne-rising to Sunne-setting to which is opposed Night the time of the Sunnes absence from our Hemisphere that comprehended both these called of the Greekes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 containing one whole reuolution of the Sunnes motion to the same point of the Horizon or Meridian in twenty foure houres This Naturall day the Babylonians began at the rising of the Sunne the Athenians at the setting the Vmbrians as the Astrologians at Noone the Egyptians and Romane Priests at Midnight The Iewes agreed in their reckoning with the Athenians as did the Galli in Caesars time reporting Pluto to be the author of their Nation and some relickes hereof is in our naming of time by a seuen-night and a fort-night although otherwise wee reckon the day betweene two midnights The most naturall computation of this naturall day is to follow that order of Nature wherein darkenesse had the prioritie of time and the euening and the morning were made one day or the first day which saith Hospinian the Italian and Bohemian Clockes doe yet obserue The day was not diuided of the first Hebrewes before the Babylonian captiuity into houres but was distinguished by Vigiliae or Watches of which they had foure the first began at euening the second at mid-night the third in the morning the fourth at noone Neither is there any Hebrew word signifying an houre although some interpret the degrees of the Dyall of Ahaz to be houres some as Tremell halfe houres Afterwards it was diuided into houres twelue in the night and as many in the day not equall as ours but longer or shorter according to so many equall portions of the day or night so that with them the first second third fourth fift sixt seuenth eighth ninth tenth eleuenth and twelfth houre was answerable with our houres of seuen eight nine ten eleuen twelue one two three foure fiue and sixe if we consider them in the Equinoctiall otherwise they differed from our equall houres more or lesse according to the vnequall lengthening or shortning of the daies but so that an easie capacitie may conceiue the proportion These houres sometimes they reduced into foure the first containing the first second and third or with vs the seuenth eighth and ninth houres the second the fourth fift and sixt or after our reckoning ten eleuen and twelue of the clock and so forwards This was the Ecclesiasticall Computation according to the times of Prayers and Sacrifices imitated still in the Church of Rome in their Canonicall houres Thus is Marke reconciled to the other Euangelists in relating the time of Christs passion the first calling it the third houre when they crucified him or led him to be crucified whereas Iohn saith That it was about the sixt houre when Pilate deliuered him Thus may the parable of the Labourers in the Vine-yard bee vnderstood Matth. 20. and other places of Scripture The night also was diuided into foure Watches each containing three houres accordingly They had three houres of Prayer the third the sixt the ninth as both the Iewish and Euangelicall Writers mention the first of which they say Abraham instituted the second Isaac it began when it was halfe an houre past the sixt houre and continued till halfe an houre after the ninth at this houre the Disciples of the Wisemen tooke their meate which before this Prayer tasted nothing the third began when the former left and continued till the Euening And this was obserued both for their publike and priuate Prayers although it bee not likely that the whole time was that way spent especially in priuate deuotions for then their particular callings had beene frustrate and cancelled by this exercise of the generall Seuen daies were a weeke whereof the seuenth was called the Sabbath others had no particular name but were called the first day of the weeke or the first day of or after the Sabbath and so of the rest The Christians called them Feriae as the first second or third Feria for Sunday Munday Tuesday the reason whereof was the keeping of Easter weeke holy For that being made in their Calender the first weeke of the yeere and by Law being wholly feriata
betweene Euphrates and Nilus he inuaded Persia where the Persians lost both their King Hormisda their State Religion and Name of Persians being conuerted into Saracens This victorious Homar made Ierusalem his Royall seat and while he was praying was murthered by his seruant Ozmen the succeeding Caliph sent a great Armie into Africa vnder the leading of Hucba who ouercomming Gregorius Patritius and destroying Carthage subiected all that Prouince to their Empire making Tunes the Mother-citie but soone after translated that honour to Chairoan which he built thirtie six miles from the Sea and a hundred from Tunes In the third yeere of his raigne Muauias the Deputie of Egypt with a Nauie of seuen hundred or as others say of a hundred and seuentie saile assailed Cyprus and taking Constantia wasted the whole Iland and hauing wintred his Armie at Damascus the next yeere besieged Arad in Cyprus and won it and dispeopled all the I le Thence hee inuaded the continent of Asia and carried away many prisoners and after in a Sea-fight with Constans the Emperour dyed the Lycian Sea with Christian bloud Hee wan Rhodes and sold to a Iew the brazen Colosse or pillar of the Sun which laded nine hundred Camels sometimes reckoned one of the worlds seuen wonders made in twelue yeeres space by Chares After this hee afflicted the Cyclides Ilands in the Archipelago and then sent his Fleet against Sicilia where they made spoile with fire and sword till by Olympius they were chased thence Muauias himselfe with an Armie by land entred into Cappadocia Iaid hauing ouer-run all the neighbouring Armenia vnto the hill Caucasus But meane while Ozmen besiged in his house by Ali his faction slew himselfe when hee had liued eightie and seuen yeeres and raigned twelue The Saracens could not agree about their new Prince Muaui and Ali with great armies being Corriuals of that dignitie and Ali being treacherously murthered by Muauias meanes in a Temple neere Cufa a Citie of Arabia was there buried and the place is of him called Massadalle or Alli his house for if you beleeue the Legend his corps being laid on a Camell which was suffered to goe whither hee would he staid at this place Of this Ali or Hali Mahomets Cousin the Persians deriue their sect and tell of him many Legendary fables Bedwell calls this place in his Arabian Trudgman Masged Aly that is the Mesged Mosque or Temple of Ali. Alhacem the sonne of Ali and Fatima Mahumets daughter was by Muauia his owne hands crowned and by him soone after poysoned Thus was Muaui sole Caliph who granted peace to the Emperour on condition that hee should pay him euery day tenne pounds of gold and a Gentleman-seruant with a horse Damascus was now made the Seat-Royall Of which Citie although wee haue said somewhat in our first booke yet let vs bee a little beholden to Beniamin Tudelensis to shew vs the Saracenicall face thereof In his time it was subiect to Noraldine as hee termeth him King of the children of Thogarma that is the Turkes The Citie saith hee is great and faire containing on euery side fifteene miles by it slideth the Riuer Pharphar and watereth their Gardens Amana is more familiar and entreth the Citie yea by helpe of Art in Conduits visiteth their priuate houses both striuing in emulous contention whether shall adde more pleasure or more profit to the Citie by Naaman therefore in the heate of his indignation preferred before all the waters of Israel But no where is so magnificent a building saith Beniamin as the Synagogue of the Ismaelites which is therein the people call it the Palace of Benhadad There is to be seene a wall of Glasse built by Art-Magicke distinguished by holes as many as the yeere hath dayes and so placed that euery day the Sunne findeth them fitted in order to his present motion each hole hauing therein a Diall with twelue degrees answering to the houres of that day so that in them is designed both the time of the yeere and of the day Within the Palace are Baths and costly buildings so rich of gold and siluer as seemeth incredible I saw there hanging a ribbe of one of the Enakims or Giants nine Spanish palmes long and two broad on the Sepulchre was written the name of Abchamaz After this in the time of Tamerlan the magnificence of their Temple was not quite extinct but as is reported it had fortie great Porches in the circuite thereof and within nine thousand Lamps hanging from the roofe all of gold and siluer For the Temples sake at first he spared the Citie but after prouoked by their rebellion he destroyed it and them Neither were the walls of Damascus rebuilded till a certaine Florentine for loue of the Gouernours daughter denying his faith became Mahumetan and after that both Gouernour and repairer of the Citie in the walls engrauing a Lyon the Armes of Florence He was honoured after his death with a Moskee and worshipped after the manner of their Saints the Saracens visiting his tombe and hauing touched the same stroking their beards with their hands There did our Author see a large house compassed with high walls which was inhabited with Catts The reason forsooth is this Mahomet sometime liuing in this Citie made much reckoning of a Cat which he carried in his sleeue by lucky tokens from her ordred his affaires From this dreame the Mahumetans make so much of Catts and hold it charitable almes to feede them thinking that he should prouoke the iudgement of God which should suffer a Cat to starue And many of them are found in the shambles begging or buying the inwards of beasts to nourish Catts a superstition more likely to descend from the Egyptians who for the benefit they receiued by Catts in destroying their vermine of which that Countrey yeelds store in a Heathenish superstition deified them But let vs returne to Muaui hee subdued the Sect of Ali in Persia and after inuaded Cil icia and sent to aide Sapores a band of Saracens which afflicted Chalcedon and sacked Armaria a City of Phrygia and with a Fleete inuaded Sicill tooke Siracuse and carried away with them the riches of Sicilia and of Rome it selfe lately fleeced by the Emperour and here horded Another Armie of Saracens ouer-running the Sea-coast of Africa led away eight hundred thousand prisoners Muamad and Caise on the other side subdued to Muaui Lydia and Cilicia and after with Seuus another Saracen Generall besieged Constantinople from Aprill to September and taking Cizicum there wintred their forces and in the spring returned to their siege which they continued seuen yeeres but by Diuine assistance and force of tempest they were chased thence And Constantine slew three hundred thousād Saracens in a battell not long after against Susia the Nephew of Muaui and compelled the Saracens to pay a great tribute Iezid raigned after the death of Muaui his father a better Poet then Souldier
the Aethiopian and Calliata Ellecedi which vpon emulation composed also euery one an Alcoran glory of those their Workes containing more honestie and truth Neither hath it pleased any noble or wise man but the rude vulgar of which sore the wearie Labourers gladly gaue eare to his promise of Paradise the poore delighted to heare of Gardens in Persia and Bankrupts and Felons easily listened to securitie and libertie The language is vulgar Postellus also testifieth and without all Art of Grammar such as is obserued of their learned Writers without all bounds of reason or eloquence The Method is so confused that our Arabian Author who liued before it was so generally embraced and in freer times saith That hee had heard euen good Saracens affirme with griefe that it was so mixed and heaped together that they could finde no Reason in it Bad Rime as you haue heard and worse Reason Hierome Sauanorola hath the like saying That no man can finde herein any order Nor could so confused and foolish a Worke proceed from any naturall or supernaturall light It is yet craftily contriued when hee hath set downe some wicked doctrine presently to lace and fringe it with precepts of Fasting Prayer or good manners alwayes taking away things hard to bee beleeued or practised and where it deliuereth any truth it is maymed with defect eclipsed with obscuritie and serueth for a stale to falshood Erpenius hath translated the Chapiter of Ioseph containing a hundred and eleuen Verses the second of which calls it Coran and the next Alcoran the Article added His Annotation is Per verbum Dei intelligunt legem suam qua Coranus ipsis dicitur quam Muhamed ijs persuasit coelitus ad se demissam And although the matter bee absurd and impious yet he saith others perhaps haue of zeale said otherwise that this Coran is composed with such puritie of speech accurate analogie and expressed with perfection of writing that deseruedly it is to them the matter and rule of Grammar They call it Koran of a word which signifies to read as a reading Lecture or collection of Chapiters as the learnedst Arabs will haue it It is not much lesse then the New Testament in words The Arabs extoll it aboue all creatures and ranke it next to God and thinke him vnworthy to liue which toucheth it vnreuerent as a contemner of God They vse it therefore with all reuerence nor will permit a Christian or a Iew to touch it to sit on it is a grieuous crime capitall to Iewes or Christians Nor may they themselues touch it vnwashed and therefore write on the couer thereof Let no man touch it but he which is cleane In it are one hundred and fourteen Chapiters of vnequall quantitie that of Ioseph the twelfth the second as large as the last fortie The first is but of six Verses and therefore not reckoned a Chapiter by our Country-man Robert of Reading who also diuides the fiue following into more by tenne that the seuenth is his seuenteenth Euery Chapiter hath the name of the first word or of the subiect as this is called Ioseph the first opening because it presents it selfe at the opening of the booke It was composed out of diuers papers of Muhamed found at his house which hee professed to receiue from Gabriel at diuers times by Abubecr his father in law the Numa of that Saracen Empire Each Chapiter is called Souraton and with the Article Assurato whence the Latine call it Azoara z. for ss and o. a for o. u as in the word Alcoran it is not to be construed vultus but gradus a degree or step for these steps the whole is passed and each of these was a lesson also to be conned of children and of his disciples After these fancies had caused him to bee expelled Mecca he fled ten dayes off to Iatfrib and there diuulged the rest This is called Medina and Medinatalnabi the Citie of the Prophet and hence some Chapiters haue title of Mecca some of Medina This flight was the fifteenth of Iuly at night A. 622. which is their Aera or computation of their yeeres reckoned by the Moone so that their 1026. began the twentie ninth of December A. D. 1616. Euery Chapiter consists of Verses very vnequall and lame affected rithmes Yea sometimes a sentence is patched in to make vp a rithme Before euery Chapiter is prefixed Bismillahirrahmanirrahimi for so they read it coined together with Articles as if it were all one word the signification is In nomine Dei miseratoris misericordis that is In the name of God shewing mercie mercifull which is as much as summè misericordis exceedingly mercifull or mercifull in Act and Nature To these words they ascribe innumerable mysteries and vertues so that they thinke that almost no worke can haue good successe vnlesse they preface it with this sentence Therefore in the beginning of their bookes they vse it and whatsoeuer businesse they goe about if it be to mount their horse or set forth to rowe a boat c. as I haue beene told Also there are in the beginning of Chapiters fourteene mysticall words of the signification whereof the Arabs professe their vncertaintie and Abubecr was wont to say That in euery booke God kept somewhat secret to himselfe which in the Alcoran were those mysticall beginnings of Chapiters Diuers haue diuersly deuised to hunt out Cabalisticall senses and state-periods with other vanities from them They hold that all the Alcoran was sent in one night which they call therefore nox demissionis nox potentiae and lest it might breed a contradiction that some parts were deliuered at Mecca for so it must be written not Mecha they say that Muhamed receiued them by pieces of the Angell as occasions required but hee from God all in one night and so they will haue the name signifie also a booke sent from heauen Thus much Erpenius in his Annotations on that Chapiter wherein also he blameth the old translation of Robert Reading as in other things so in that that when his mistresse brought Ioseph before other women they were all saith the translation menstruous and cut their hands saying hee was rather an Angel then a man He translates for menstruate sunt magnificarunt eum they magnified him adding concerning that cutting off the hand that it is still an vse of the Arabs Persians and people of the East to expresse loue My friend Mr. Bedwel fortie yeeres studious of Arabike hath told mee that that translation of Reading is generally reasonable well done nor is so faultie as some will haue it or much reading supply that way As for other supply it needs a sword like that Gordian knot rather then a penne that as by the sword it hath beene obtruded on the world as a iust punishment of ingratitude to the Sonne of God the eternall Truth and not by reasons or Scriptures which it corrupts mingles mangles maimes as the Impostors obliuion sometimes sometimes
hee was so bold with the Emperour as to tell him to his face that if hee did neglect the cause of those Mahumetans hee might be thereunto by his subiects compelled Concerning the Mufti and other steps of their Hierarchy Master Knolles writeth That the Turkes haue certaine Colledges called Medressae at Constantinople Adrinople Bursia and other places in which they liue and studie their prophane Diuinitie and Law and haue among them nine seuerall steps or degrees vnto the highest dignitie The first is called Softi which are young Students The second are Calfi who are Readers vnto the first The third Hogi Writers of Bookes for they will suffer no Printing The fourth are Naipi or young Doctors which may supply the place of Iudges in their absence The fifth Caddi Iudges of their Law and Iustices to punish offenders of which there is one at least in euery Citie through the Turkish Dominion and are knowne from other men by their huge Turbants two yards in compasse The sixth are Muderisi which ouersee the Caddies doings and are as Suffragans to their Bishops who are the seuenth sort and are called Mulli which place and displace Church-men at their pleasure The eight Cadelescari who are but two great and principall Iudges or Cardinals the one of Graecia the other of Natolia and these two sit euery day in the Diuano among the Bassaes and are in great reputation The ninth is the Mufti who is among the Turkes as the Pope among the Roman Catholikes When the Bassaes punish any offence against their Law they send to him Hee may not abase himselfe to sit in the Diuano neither when hee comes into the presence of the Grand Seignior will he vouchsafe to kisse his hand or to giue any more reuerence then he receiueth The Great Sultan ariseth to honour him when hee comes vnto him and then they both sit downe face to face and so talke and conferre together No man can ascend to this place but by the dignities aforesaid Mahomet the third forced by a tumult of the Ianizaries to present himselfe vnto them came accompanied with the Mufti and some few others of the reuerend Doctors of their Law who were by the Sultan commanded to sit downe whiles the great Bassaes abode standing Such respect it had to these men Thus much Knolles In the Booke of the Policie of the Turkish Empire it is said that the Mufties authority is like to that of the Iewish High Priest or Roman Pope I rather esteeme it like to that of the Patriarkes of Alexandria Antioch c. as binding not all Mahumetans but the Turkes onely whereas the one had the other challengeth a subiection of all which professe their religion That Author also affirmeth that whensoeuer the Mufti goeth abroad forth of his own house which he vseth to doe very seldome his vse and custome is first to goe and visit the Emperour who as soone as hee seeth him comming to salute him and doe him reuerence presently ariseth out of his seat and embracing him with great kindnesse entertaineth him very friendly and louingly causing him to sit downe by him and giuing him the honour of the place His authoritie saith Soranzo is so great that none will openly contradict the Mufties sentence but yet if the Emperour be setled in a resolution the Mufti with feare or flattery inclines vnto him Next to the Mufti is the Cadilescher who being also chosen by the Emperour may bee compared to those whom the Christians call Patriarches or else to the Primats and Metropolitans of a Kingdome Of these there are now in this encreased greatnesse of the Turkish Empire three whereas it seemeth that they had in the time of Baiazet but one and long after as before is said but two To one of these is assigned Europe namely so much thereof as is subiect to the Turke for his Prouince To the second Natolia or Turky to the third Syria and Egypt with the parts adioyning There were but two Cadileschers till Selym wan Syria and Egypt and erected a third But Soranzo saith that this third of Cairo is not rightly called Cadilescher but should rather be called the great Cadi Out of all which Prouinces whatsoeuer causes come to be determined by appeale or otherwise they are brought to be decided before the Cadilescher of the same Prouince whence they arise notwithstanding that the abode of each of them be continually or for the most part at Constantinople or elsewhere wheresoeuer the Emperour holdeth his Court The honour done to them is little lesse then to the Mufti for that their authoritie is ouer Priest and people temporall and spirituall they are also learned in their law aged and experienced Of the Muderisi and Mulli I can say no more then I haue done Next to these are the Cadi which are sent abroad and dispersed into euery Citie and Towne of the Turkish Empire which besides their Ecclesiasticall iurisdiction as I may terme it in forcing man to their religious obseruations are as it were Iusticers and Gouernours of the places So neere glued are the Offices and Officers the religion and politie of the Turkes There are other which are not sent forth which are called Choza that is Elders These with the Talismans haue the ordering of their Parishionall Churches The Thalisman calling the people to prayer and the Choza executing the Seruice and Preaching and in absence each supplying others Office Menauino more distinctly and in other names numbreth those Church-officers The Modecis is a Gouernour of an Hospitall receiuing and disposing the rents with the other customes thereof Their Schoole degrees are before spoken of out of Knolles Some adde to these former these other Priests of baser condition The Antippi are certaine Priests which vpon Friday called of them Glumaagun and is obserued as their Sabbath because Mahomet as some hold was borne on that day and on other their fasting and feasting-dayes after they haue vsed diuers Ceremonies in a certaine place in the middest of the Temple about thirtie steps high from thence read vnto the people something concerning the life of Mahomet After which two little boyes stand vp and sing certaine Prayers Which being ended the Priest and all the people sing a Psalme with a low voyce and then for halfe an houre together they cry Illah illelah that is there is but one God After all this one of these Antippi out of that high place sheweth forth vnto the people a Lance and Scimitar with exhortation to vse their Swords and Lances in defence of their Religion Of the Imam and Meizin is elsewhere shewed that the one calleth the people to the Mosche or Meschit the other there celebrateth publike Orisons The Sophi also are certaine Clerks or Priests employed in the singing of Psalmes and Hymnes after their manner in their Churches at the times of publike Prayers All these inferior Orders of Priests are chosen by
vanitie they gathering that good could not bee either cause or effect of euill found out this remedy worse then the disease to hold two Authors of all things calling Orimazes a God and Arimanius the fountaine of euill a deuill the one cause of light the other of darkenesse Betwixt these two they placed Mithres as Mediator or Intercessor Zoroastres was author of this opinion To the first of these was praise and vowes offered to the later mournfull deuotions For rubbing a certaine hearbe called Omomi they call on Dis Pater Orcus then they wash it with the bloud of a slaine Wolfe and carry it into a shadowie place where they powre it out They assigne plants partly to the good partly to the bad God as they doe also quicke creatures the earthly creatures to the good the watery to the bad and therfore esteem him happy that hath killed most of them Oromazes say they begotten of pure light and Arimanius the childe of darknesse warre one against another Tho first created six Gods Beneuolence Truth Politie Wisdome Riches Honest delight the later as many contrarie When Oromazes had thrice enlarged himselfe he was as farre beyond the Sunne as the Sunne is from the Earth and formed the Starres Of which one he fixed as a Gardian and Watch-man the Dogge-starre hee made other twentie foure Gods which hee closed in an Egge Arimanius did as much but his twentie foure brake their shell and so became good things and euill mingled But a fatall time shall come when Arimanius the Author of plague and famine shall perish and then shall bee one societie of all mankinde in happinesse vsing but one language Theopompus saith according to their opinion that one of these Gods shall raigne three thousand yeeres the other being discomfited and other three thousand they shall fight and labour to destroy one another at last Dis Pater shall be destroyed and men shall bee happy This opinion of the Magi the Chaldeans haue applied to their Astronomy in the seuen Planets making two good two bad three indifferent The Grecians to their Iupiter Dis Pater and Harmonia Empedocles to his Friendship and Discord Aristotle to his Forma Priuatio Pythagoras to his One and Two Plato to his Idem Alterum Manes to his deuilish heresie as before is said The Persians in this respect as some expound their mysteries called Mithra triplex as a third person and reconciler of the other two And there haue not wanted which ascribe this threefold Mithra to that threefold day as they interprete that Signe of the Sunnes going backe ten degrees in the dayes of Hezekiah which if there were houres made the day twice ten beside the ordinarie twelue houres But as in Hercules his generation a threefold night attends these mistie mysteries which I could as willingly construe of some misconstrued notice of the blessed Trinitie Dio Chrysostomus telleth of Zoroaster the Author of this science that enflamed with the loue of vertue hee forsooke the world and went apart into a mountaine And afterwards leauing that habitation he seemed to those to whom hee would shew himselfe which was onely to the Magi to shine with a fire which came downe from heauen vpon him This perhaps was borrowed and peruerted from the shining face of Moses Onely Persians saith Gramay were chosen into their number The name Magi is among Authors applied also to the Chaldeans which in Babylon professed the same Arts and superstitions the Disciples saith Lucian of Zoroastres of whose cunning in charmes you may reade in his Necromantia a pleasant discourse Mithrobarzanes a Chaldean Magus and Menippus whom hee washed twentie nine dayes in Euphrates by the Moone and in the morning sets him against the rising Sunne with long charmes after that spitting three times in his face hee brings him backe againe not once looking aside Their meate was Acornes their drinke Milke Mulse and the water of Choaspi their lodging on the wide field on the grasse After all this he brought him about midnight to Tygris where washing him hee purifieth him with a Torch and the herbe Squilla and other things c. which howsoeuer Lucian suteth to his scoffing humour yet I haue inserted as somewhat expressing their superstitions obserued in charming and diuinations CHAP. VII Of the religious and other rites of the ancient Persians §. I. Of their Gods and superstitions out of HERODOTVS LEauing these Magi let vs take a view of the Persian religious rites which Herodotus thus describeth The Persians neither erect Images nor Altars nor Temples and impute it to madnesse in such as doe therefore as I thinke because they are not of the Greekes opinion that the Gods haue risen from men Their custome is ascending vp the highest Hils to offer sacrifice to Iupiter calling the whole circle of heauen Iupiter They sacrifice to the Sunne and Moone and Earth to the Fire and Water and Winds to these onely they haue accustomed to sacrifice from the beginning They sacrifice also to Vrania which they haue learned of the Assyrians and Arabians The Assyrians call Venus Militta the Arabians Alitta the Persians Metra Their rites in sacrificing are these Being to sacrifice they neither set vp Altar nor kindle fire nor vse vestments pipes cakes or libaments but he which intendeth to sacrifice placing the sacrifice in a cleane place calleth vpon that God wearing their Tiara girded about with myrtle The sacrificer prayeth not for himselfe alone but generally for all Persians and especially for the King And after that the sacrifice is cut into small pieces he streweth vnder the sudden flesh small herbes chiefly Trisoly and setting the flesh in order thereon the Magus standing by singeth some hymnes of the generation of the Gods which they hold to be a most effectuall inchantment Without one of their Magi no sacrifice is accounted lawfull After all this the sacrificer vseth the flesh at his pleasure Of all daies euery man accounteth his owne birth-day to be most solemnly obserued and then maketh greatest cheare The richer sort then set whole Beeues Camels Horses Asses baked in an ouen or furnace on the Table the poorer smaller beasts The Persians are small eaters but in their drinking consult of the weightiest affaires Of which they deliberate fasting but pronounce sentence after they are well in drinke To vomit or make water openly is vnlawfull to them Those that are equall salute when they meete each other with a mutuall kisse which is fastened on the cheeke only if they be of vnequall degree They hold themselues the best of all men their neighbors so much better how much neerer them they dwell They are much addicted to Venerie with both sexes Next vnto Martiall valour they repute excellent the procreation of many Children the King allowing annuall presents to him who hath begotten most Children and therefore they vse many women The childe commeth not in his fathers sight till hee be fiue yeeres old
Citie Royall Now for custome of both whereas in China theeues and malefactors are seldome executed and none hath power to execute any without speciall Commission from the King but either they die by stripes hunger or imprisonment except some few once in a yeere Marcus Paulus and Iosafa Barbaro from the relation of eye-witnesses affirme That in Cambalu was such sudden and rigorous execution of Iustice that one taking a iarre of Milke from a womans head and beginning to drinke vpon the womans out-cry was apprehended and presently with a sword cut in sunder that the bloud and milke issued together a Tartarian Embassador affirming both this and that he had seene the like execution vpon another for taking a piece of Bayes from a woman so chopped in twaine But the relation of the Chinian and Cathayan differing Rites will further yeeld scruples in this case As for the name of Cathay ascribed to China by the Moores I answere That William de Rubruquis who was in the Court of Mangu Can supposeth Cathay to be Serica Regio described by Ptolomey farre more Northerly then the Iesuite reporteth China to bee by his owne Astrolabicall obseruation And to these Seres Ptolemey ioyneth the Sinae or Chinois on the South and our later Geographers generally concurre in this opinion Hee also which readeth Ioannes de Plano Carpini shall finde that the Tartars conquered the Kara-Kitai or blacke Cathayans and then the Emperour of Kithai be vndermining his Citie as is said in the daies of Cyngis and yet a great part of Kitai remained still vnconquered and withstood his forces and namely that part which is neerest the Sea And this wealthy countrie of great Cathaya hath many Prouinces the more part whereof doe yet withstand the Moals or Tartars it is the last Printed period in William de Rubriquis I hence gather that the name Kitai was applied to a great part of the North-East of Asia happily no lesse generall to many Regions on that side then India to the Southerly parts And why may not the name of Kathay as well by the Mogores and Persians bee giuen to the North parts of China one parcell of the North-East of Asia as the name of India not onely to so great a part of Asia but to America also which was called India because the first Discouerers thought they had encountered the Indian Continent And these parts of China may much fitter retaine the name of Cathay to which Empire it had so long been subiect and by the Cathayan conquest was first knowne to our world Since my first Edition I met with the other part of Rubruquis which Master Hakluit then whom I know none in this kind more industrious copied out of an entire booke in the Librarie of Bennet Colledge in Cambridge Where betweene Cataya and India he placeth a Sea which fitly agreeth to the Chinian Map made by the Chinois themselues who paint a great Bay or Gulfe of the Sea betwixt the Northern parts of China which we reckon to Cathaia and the Southerne which may be accounted to India Further hee addeth That all the Nations of Great Cathaya which Epithete is not a little to bee obserued are situate amongst the Caucasean hils on the North side euen to the Easterne Sea But they knew no countrie else so named True for the Lawes of the Cathayans forbidding egresse of the Natiues and ingresse of Aliens and a more forcible law of Mountains and Desarts wilde beasts and wilder men the manifold smaller and more beggerly Segniories betweene euerie one challenging their ninth if not themselues confiscating or theirs robbing all now in so long a space may burie euen the name and knowledge of the Great Can whereas neither Armes of Princes nor traffique of Subiects can open any new or retaine the olde notice of Nations What dreames did the West conceiue of the East in Asia and South in Africke till the Armies first and Merchants after of the Carthaginians Macedonians and Romanes discouered them And yet how did those flouds of barbarous people afterwards drowne with barbarous ignorance the knowledge of all Arts and this of Geographie amongst the rest And till the Tartarians like a terrible thunder-clap with the lightning and noyse of their Armies brought a more sudden then welcome knowledge of themselues to the world who euer in Persia or Assyria had heard of their names or of diuers people else and these Cathayans among the rest first knowne by their conquests Further the Iesuite himselfe to Paquin ascribeth iust fortie degrees and Marcus Paulus his Father and Vncle went from Boghar the altitude whereof Master Ienkinson at his being there obserued to be thirtie nine degrees and ten minutes or as Abilfada Ismael placeth it thirtie nine and an halfe North and North-East to goe into Cathay The like course did the same men hold going into Cathay from Armenia afterwardes with Marcus himselfe sempre alla volta di Graeco Tramontana whereas a course directly East or inclining to the South must haue beene taken if China had beene Catai Neither is is likely that their iourney would haue beene so much letted by Frosts and Snowes The same may be gathered out of the discourses following in Marcus Paulus where he abutteth the countries in succeeding linkes to Cathay from the East to the Northwards and from the North-East declining Westward in reckoning from thence And whereas Pantogia raiseth the most Northerly part of China but to fortie two degrees at the most wherein as to an eye-witnesse wee yeeld him credit How can it stand with reason how can it be likely that in those temperate climes the world can yeeld but a few Nations and those base Moores and Ethnikes when as a good part of Spaine halfe Italy Greece all France Germanie and Hungarie to omit other welthy parts of the world are subiect to the same parallels And indeed herein Pantogia hath well helped vs whereas our moderne Maps haue caused no small scruple to a diligent obseruer in placing Cathay a countrie reported to bee so fertile and ciuill in so Northerly a clime very indiscreetly raising Cambalu to the height of sixtie degrees and paralelling Cathay with Norwey which cannot stand with other things thereof reported howsoeuer the Tartars themselues were happily of a more Northerly climate then this mentioned Others go not so farre yet they place Cambalu too farre within land which Paulus saith is within two dayes iourney of the Sea It seemeth that now this great Tartarian Prince if there be any such hath no strength at Sea and therefore is lesse knowne And herein participate other great and mightie Princes Prester Iohn so called of Aethiopia in Africa and the Sophi and great Mogor in Asia ranked iustly amongst the greatest Emperours of the world who hauing some part of their Dominion adioyning to the Sea make little or no vse thereof Abilfada Ismael a Syrian Prince who wrote an exact Geographie in Arabike
haue heard before in the eight Chapter of this Booke These three sorts of Tartars which we haue hitherto mentioned are all for the most part Mahumetans There are some yet as Michouius affirmeth neere the Caspian Sea which are not Mahumetans nor shaue their haire off their heads after the Tartarian manner and therefore they call them Calmuch or Pagans §. IIII. Of the Cathayan and Mogol Tartars c. THE fourth are those which in greatnesse are first namely the Cathayans called Carabas that is Black-heads of their Turbants as the former Ieselbas But of their Religion further then that which hath beene before expressed we can say little And it seemeth by the relations mentioned in the former Chapters that they are Gentiles or Christians and not of Mahomets errour Chaggi Memet a Persian Merchant related as in part is said before to Ramusius that he had beene at Campion Damir Can then raigning and that vnto Camul the Westerly part of Tanguth they were Idolaters and Ethnikes from thence Westwards Musulmans or Saracens In the Epistle of Carualius the Iesuite it is reported by a Mahumetane Merchant that they were Christians for those reasons is seemes yee haue heard before By Benedictus Goes his obseruations yee haue seen them so deuoted to Mahomet that a tender Lady of the weaker sexe in the strength of sect from the remote parts of Cascar bordering on China visited Mecca in Pilgrimage And their zeale or pretence thereof put him into often perils for his faith shall I say or his goods yet doth he make a difference between the Saracens and the Tartars these it seemes professing robbery and little minding any religion They worship in those parts to the West for that way stands Mecca The fifth and last forme of our Tartars are those which abide in those places whence the Tartars first issued to ouer-whelme all Asia with their Armies of which is related at large in the eleuenth Chapter of which for want of probable intelligence I can say little more Our Maps place there the Hords of the Danites Nephthalites Ciremissians Turbites and other which some deriue from the dispersion as is said of the ten Tribes Here is Tabor also whose King was by Charles the fifth Emperour in the yeere 1540. as before is said burned at Mantua for soliciting to Iuduisme Pope Innocent King Lewes of France by meanes of William de Rubruquis and the King of Armenia solicited as you haue partly heard both the great Can and his chiefe Princes to become Christians and it is likely that the Tartars might if diligence had beene vsed and some Superstitions had not darkened the Christian profession haue thereunto beene perswaded which many also of them were as appeareth in Haiton Mat. Westmonast and Vincentius But the Saracens which had before polluted those Countries where the Mahumetan Tartars now abide by that sutablenesse of their Law to their lawlesse lusts of Rapine and Poligamie preuailed as Michouius reporteth with Bathi and those other Tartars to embrace Mahumet and refuse Christ They say Eissa Rocholla that is Iesus is the Spirit of the Lord Mahomet Rossollai that is Mahomet is the Iustice of GOD. They obey saith hee the Pentateuch of Moses are circumcised obserue the legall Ceremonies they haue no Bels but euery day crie La illo illo loh which signifieth that there is but one GOD. They professe themselues Ismaelites the Christians they call Dzintzis that is Pagans and Gaur Infidels They obserue three Feasts the first Kuiram to which they prepare themselues with their thirtie dayes Lent and in that Feast offer Rammes Birdes c. The second they celebrate for All Soules for which they fast a moneth visit the graues and doe workes of mercie The third they keepe for themselues and their owne saluation and fast twelue dayes Iosafa Barbaro a Venetian which liued among the Tartars about the yeere 1437. saith That they embraced not the faith of Mahomet generally but as euery man liked vntill about that time in the dayes of Hedighi a Captaine vnder Sidahameth Can who first compelled them thereunto being before free vnto their Idolatries if they pleased And of the other Tartars neere the Zagathayans he saith That many of them were Idolaters and carried Idols in the Carts yea some of them vsed to worship whatsoeuer Beast they first met with after they went abroad in the morning This Docter Fletcher reporteth of the Mordiuit Tartars adding that they vse to sweare by it all that day whether it bee Horse Dog or whatsoeuer else And when his friend dieth hee killeth his best Horse and flaying off the skin carrieth it on high vpon a long Pole before the corps to the place of buriall The Moxij at a certaine time in the yeere take a horse which they set in the field with his foure legges tyed to foure posts and his head to another post fastened in the ground This done one of them standing in a conuenient distance shooteth him to the heart Afterwards they flay him and obseruing certaine ceremonies about the flesh eate the same The skin they fill with chaffe and in each of his legges thrust a straight stick that hee may stand vpright as if hee were aliue Lastly they goe to a great Tree and loppe there from as many boughes as they thinke good and make a Roome or Sollar in that tree where they set this horse on his feet and worship him offering vnto him Foxes and diuers Beasts which beare rich Furres of which offerings the Trees hang full Master Ienkinson mentioneth a Nation liuing among the Tartars called Kings which are also Gentiles as are also the Kirgessen of whom wee haue spoken and the Colmackes which worship the Sunne as they doe also a redde Cloth fastened to the toppe of a Pole and eate Serpents Wormes and other filth Neere to which hee placeth in his Mappe of Russia certaine Statues or Pillars of Stone which sometime were Hords of Men and Beasts feeding transformed by diuine power if it bee not humaine errour into this stonie substance retayning their pristine shape These Nations are eyther Tartars or in manner of life like vnto them and may therefore passe vnder that generall appellation And this may suffice touching the Tartarian Nation and Religion which in the West and South parts of their abode is Mahumetane in the more Northerly and Easterly partly Heathenish partly Iewish or Moorish or mixed or as may best aduantage them and most please them wandring in opinion in like sort as in their habitation Doctor Fletcher reckons these things as generall to all the Hords of Tartars First to obey their Magistrates whatsoeuer they command about the publike seruice Secondly Except for the pulique behoofe euery man to bee free and out of controlement Thirdly No priuate man to possesse any Lands but the whole Countrey to bee common Fourthly To neglect all daintinesse and varietie of meates and to content themselues with that which commeth next to
the Ancients which they hold in estimation of Saints diuised these Arts and after ascended bodie and soule into Heauen Many volumes are written in both these Arts and many printed Both seeme to haue like successe the one lessening their siluer for siluer the other shortning their liues to lengthen them The Alchymist passeth his dayes and euaporateth his substance in smoake either aduanced by great labour and cost to beggerie or if hee attaine to any siluered siluer-science it furthers him in deceiuing himselfe and others One only Alchymist said a madde lad of this generation that had melted a faire house in these furnaces hath beene in this kind happy that can turne so little Lead into so much Gold But these Chinois want such sanctified fires howsoeuer herein also besides their exceeding diligence many of them seeke to better their attempt by many yeeres fastings No people more bewitched with this though vniuersall foolery no harmes fraudes losses teaching them more discretion And yet greater madnesse may be ascribed to the other who hauing obtained some prosperous condition of life thinke nothing wanting to felicitie but continuance Few there are in this City Pequin saith Ricius of the Magistrates Eunuchs and chiefe men which are not sicke of this disease none being warned by the ordinary deaths of Masters and Schollers in this kinde I haue read in the Chinese Chronicles of one of their ancient Kings who by these Impostors helpe had procured a potion which hee thought would make him immortall A friend of his sought to disswade him from this vanitie but in vaine wherevpon watching opportunitie he catched the cup and dranke vp the potion The King in his furie offered to kill him whereat the other How canst thou kill mee said hee whom this cup hath made immortall and if thou canst then haue I freed thee of this error The King rested satisfied but not so this people which though many write against both these professions doe now more then euer practise them Trigautius writes of one man which had obtained the second Degree of learning which by this profession had gotten much wealth He had bought many children and killed them secretly composing his Recipes of their bloud as if hee could adde life to others which he had taken from them This came to light by one of his Concubines and he apprehended and thereof conuicted A new punishment was inuented for this new inuention that hee should be bound to a stake and three thousand pieces of his flesh should be cut from him with a Rasor the vitall parts being spared as much as might be This sentence being sent to the King was by him confirmed There be which fable themselues to be very old vnto whom is great recourse of Disciples as to some heauenly Prophets to learne lessons of long liuing They supposed the Iesuites whom they tooke to be of great learning did not truely tell them their Age but suspected that they had alreadie liued some Ages and knew the meanes of liuing euer and for that cause abstained from marriage The Spaniards of the Philippina's being feasted by the Viceroy two Captaines appointed Stwards or Feast-masters before they sate downe did take each of them a cup full of liquor in his hand and went together whereas they might discouer the Heauen and offered the same to the Sunne adding many prayers that the comming of their guests might bee for good and then did fill out the wine making a great curtesie And then proceeded they to their feast The Chinois in the Eclipse of the Sun and Moone are afraid that the Prince of Heauen will destroy them and pacifie him with many sacrifices and prayers they hold the Sunne and Moone Man and Wife §. VII Of the Marriages Concubines and other vices and errours of the CHINOIS THeir Marriages and Espousals want not many Ceremonies Both are done in their youth They like equalitie of age and state betwixt the parties The Parents make the contracts not asking their Childrens consent neither doe they euer refuse As for their Concubines euery one keepes according to his pleasure and abilitie respecting in them especially their beautie and buy them for the most part the price being a hundreth Crownes or lesse The common people also buy their wiues and sell them at their pleasure The Magistrates marry in their owne ranke their legitimate wife This chiefe wife only sits at table with her husband the rest except in the Royall Families are as seruants which in the presence of either of the former may not sit but stand Their children also call that wife their Mother not their naturall Parent and for her Funeralls alone solemnize their three yeeres mourning or leaue their Office not for their owne Mother In their marriages they are very scrupulous that the wife haue not the same surname with her husband although there be no kindred betwixt them and the surnames in all China are not a thousand as before is said neither may any deuise new but must haue one that the same which their Ancestors by the fathers side not the mothers had except he be adopted into another Family They heed not degrees of affinitie or consanguinitie so this surname differ and therefore marry in the Mothers kindred be it almost neuer so neere The Bride brings no portion to her husband and yet the first day she comes to his house she hath to attend abundance of houshold-furniture euen the streets being therewith filled all at the husbands cost who some months before sends her a great summe of mony to this purpose There are many which being poore doe for lust make themselues slaues to rich men that so they may be furnished with a wife amongst his women-slaues whereby also the children become perpetually bond Others buy their wiues but seeing their increasing family grow chargeable beyond their abilitie sell their young sonnes and daughters at the same price they would sell a swine or beast or some two or three duckats more yea though they bee not by dearth compelled thereto Thus this Kingdome abounds with seruants not taken in the warres but home-bred Citizens The Spaniards also and Portugalls carry many of them out of the Countrey into euerlasting seruitude But this child-sale is the more tolerable because the estate of seruants is there more easie then in other Nations the number of the poore which liue hardly is exceeding and they may redeeme themselues at the same price if they be able to giue it And lastly a greater villiny in some Prouinces vsed makes this seeme the lesse which is to murther those their children especially of the female sexe which they thinke they cannot bring vp which fact also is with them the lesse heynous not by preuenting that sale and transportation of their children an impious pietie but by a pious impietie that opinion of transanimation or passage of soules into other bodies thinking that by this vntimely and sudden murther they may haue more
for now he had found this signe thereof the Sabbaticall Riuer shewing this Sand in proofe thereof Credit Iudaeus Apella the Iewes beleeue quickly all but the truth especially in Portugall whither he came with this report Many thousand moued by his words remoued their dwellings and selling their substance would needs goe into these parts of Persia by the Sabbaticall Riuer to fixe their habitation there wayting for their promised Messias One and a chiefe of this superstitious Expedition was Amatus Lusitanus a Physician of great note accounted one of the most learned of his Profession and a Writer therein and Iohn Micas a Merchant of great wealth They passed through France Germany Hungary their company like a Snow-ball encreasing as they went with the addition of other Iewes of like credulity When they came to Constantinople there were of them in many Bands or Companies thirty thousand Cabasomi Bassa the Turkish Commander thought to gaine by this occasion and would not suffer them to passe ouer the water into Asia without many hundred thousands of Duckets except they would passe on horse-backe This example was soone both spred and followed of the other Bassaes and Commanders in Asia as they went their wealth and substance being euery where so fleeced that they came into Syria much lessened in numbers in estate miserable and beggerly new Officers euery where as new hungry Flyes lighting on these wretched carkasses so I may call them some they whipped some they empaled some they hanged and burned others Thus were these miserable Pilgrimes wasted and Don Iohn Baltasar was present when Amato aforesaid being dead with this affliction his Physicke bookes were in an Out-cry to be sold at Damasco and because they were in Latine no man would buy them till at last another Iew became Chapman Micas one of the wealthiest men which Europe held dyed poore in an Hospitall at Constantinople And this was the issue of their Pilgrimage to the Sabbaticall streame which they supposed to finde in this Persian Gulfe where wee haue too long holden you the Spectators of this Iewish Tragedie And yet let me intreate your patience a litle longer in considering the occasion of this error We haue elsewhere mentioned this Sabbaticall Riuer now you shall vnderstand that the Iewes generally haue drowned their wits therein Rambam cals it Gozan Genebrard alleageth many R. R. testimonies of it but of all and of all let Eldad Danius his tale which Genebrard hath translated find some fauourable entertainment the rather because one of our Apocryphall Authors seemes to weaue the same webbe which as the worthier person deserueth first examination Esdras therefore so wee suppose him and this is not all his Iewish Fables reporteth that the ten Tribes which Salmanasar led captiue tooke counsell among themselues to leaue the multitude of the Heathen and goe forth into a further Countrey where neuer Mankind dwelt that they might there keepe their statutes which they neuer kept in their owne Lord And they entred into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the Riuer For the most High then shewed signes for them and held still the floud till they were passed ouer For through that Countrey there was a great way to goe namely of a yeere and a halfe and the same Region is called Arsareth Then dwelt they there vntill the latter time And now when they shall begin to come the Highest shall stay the Springs of the streame againe c. Here you see no lesse Miracle then in Iordan or the Red Sea for their passage which seeing it was through Euphrates yee will pardon our Iew for searching it neere this Persian Gulfe especially seeing his good Masters the Rabbins had increased this Tale with the Inclosure of these Iewes from passing againe into our World not by the continuall course of Euphrates as Esdras insinuateth but by the Sabbatising of the Sabbaticall streame which by Eldads description is two hundred cubits ouer full of sands and stones without water making a noyse like thunder as it floweth which by night is heard halfe a dayes Iourney from it On the Sabbath it is continually quiet and still but all that while ariseth thence a flame that none dare enter or come neere by halfe a mile Thus the fire if not the Religion of the Sabbath then detaynes them no lesse then the stony streame on the weeke dayes and what stony heart can refuse them credit Yet doth not hee and Esdras agree of the Inhabitants both deriuing them from the tenne Tribes but Eldad challengeth no lesse antiquitie then from Ieroboam who contending with Rehoboam the godly Catholike Israelites refusing to fight against the house of Dauid chose rather to attempt this Pilgrimage and so passing the Riuer Physon for the Scriptures had forbidden them to meddle with Egypt Ammon or Amalck they went and they went til they came into Ethiopia There did the foure Tribes of Dan Nepthali Gad Aser settle themselues which continually war vpon the seuen Kingdoms of Tusiga Kamtua Koha Mathugia Tacul Bacma and Kacua fie on the simplicity of our Geographers which know not one of these no better then Esdras his Arsareth they haue a King whose name is Huziel Mathiel vnder whom they fight each Tribe three moneths by course The Tribe also of Moses for they imagine his children claue to their Mothers Religion which was a Madianite or Ethiopian is turned to their truth and they all obserue the Talmud the Hebrew Tongue the Ordinances of the Elders and suffer nothing vncleane amongst them Yea no Vtopian State comparable to theirs He tels the like tales of the other Tribes But how came he thence to tell this newes Truely I wonder no lesse then you yet he saith he goe to the Sea forgetting that before he had compassed his Countrey with the Sabbaticall streame and there was taken captiue and by his leanenesse escaping the Canibals else our fat Storie had beene deuoured was sold to a Iew of whom perhaps this forged Tale procured his redemption Howsoeuer the Tradition holds both for these inclosed Iewes and that Sabbaticall streame that it should be sought here-a-wayes or found no where The reciting is sufficient refuting to a reasonable vnderstanding and yet the Iewes are not onely besotted with these their inclosed brethren imagining their Messias may bee amongst them although they know not whether to ascribe this transportation to Salmanaser or to Alexander the Great or to the dayes of Ieroboam but Christians also tell of them about the Pole and they know not where And I haue seene a printed Pamphlet of their comming out of those their Inclosures in our times with the numbers of each Tribe Yea Postellus Boterus and many other deriue the Tartars from them which dreame they which please may reade at large confuted by Master Brerewood It was about the yeere 1238. when Eldad came from thence into Spaine If any lust to haue another Guide for the Sabbaticall streame Master Fullers
square The soyle is not very fertile subiect to much Snow the ayre wholsome The bowels of the earth are stored with diuers Mettals the Trees are fruitfull and one wonderfull in that it abhorreth moysture and if happely it bee moystened it shrinketh and becommeth withered which they remedie by plucking it vp by the rootes and after it is dryed in the Sunne to set it in drie sand if a bough bee broken off and nayled on againe it groweth They haue two high Mountaynes one of which casteth foorth flames and in the toppe thereof the Diuell vseth to shew himselfe in a bright Cloud to some that by long fasting haue prepared themselues to this sight the other called Figeniana is by some leagues higher then the Cloudes They much esteeme a tall personablenesse they plucke off the haires on their head Children before the common people halfe way the Nobilitie almost all leauing but a little growing behind which growes long and is tyed vp on knots to touch which were to offer great indignitie to a man They can endure much hardship an Infant new-borne in the coldest of Winter is presently carried to the Riuer to bee washed their education is hard yet are they neate they vse forkes as the Chinois or stickes not touching the meat with their fingers and therefore need no Naperie they sit on Carpets and enter the roomes vnshod their Tables are a hand high some eighteene inches square curiously wrought to each Guest one and changed at euery new seruice or change of meat Frois saith speaking of Feasts they haue three of them at the beginning of the Feast set before each guest with diuers gilded Dishes in each of them and as many at the end And in greater solemnities more They vse much the powder of a certaine Herbe called Chia of which they put as much as a Walnut-shell may containe into a dish of Porcelane and drinke it with hot water At the departure of Friends they will shew all their most precious Houshold furniture the best whereof they employ about the heating water or other vses for this Herbe which is of precious account with them The women in Iapon which wanted meanes to bring vp their Children with inhumaine butcherie did depriue them being new-borne of that life which not long before they had communicated to them Their Houses are most of wood because of often Earthquakes and some of stone Temples and Monasteries they haue for both Sexes and more had till Nubunanga destroyed them Their Language is one and yet exceedingly diuersified according as they differ in State or Sexe or as they speake in praise or dispraise vsing a diuers Idiom They vse Characters in writing and Printing as in China Their Swords are of a most excellent temper Their Customes differ in many things from other men Blacke is a festiuall colour White a funerall their meates drinkes perfumes are as dissonant to ours Their Teeth are coloured with blacke as beauties liuery borrowed of Art which wee by Art would auoyd They mount on the right side of the Horse They sit as we rise to entertaine a friend They giue to the sicke persons salt things sharpe and raw they vse Pills neuer let blood we contrary as in other rites either to other ridiculous All their Nobles are called Toni amongst whom are diuers degrees all of them holding their all in capite to finde so many Souldiers to the warres at their owne costs Generally the whole Nation is wittie pouertie is a disgrace to no man Reproches Thefts Periuries Dice-play are hatefull very ambitious they are in all things respectiue to their credite full of courtesie each to other neuer brawling no not at home with their housholds The inconstancie of that State learneth them by vse to prepare for and to welcome euery State They are exceedingly subtill hypocriticall and double-dealing they are also of cruell disposition not to their enemies alone but sometimes will assay the goodnesse of their blade and strength of their arme on some innocent body and in case of distresse they esteeme it a credit to preuent the sentence of Law by bloody execution done on themselues which they vsually doe in ripping vp their brests a-crosse a seruant or friend attending to smite off his head and if it bee a Man of any sort his friends and followers in like manner with their owne hands plucke out their bowels to testifie their loue The Gouernours haue absolute rule ouer their inferiours yea in euery priuate Family the authoritie extendeth to life or death The people saith Adams are exceeding courteous and valiant they are gouerned in great Ciuilitie no Land better with seueritie of Iustice They are very superstitious and of diuers opinions HONDIVS his Map of Iapan IAPAN I. §. II. The Voyages of some English to Iapan and their abode there THis our Countryman went chiefe Pilot of a Fleet of Hollanders of fiue Saile 1599. and wintred in the Magellan Straits from Aprill to September Neere to the I le of Saint Mary in seuen and thirtie degrees in the South-sea the ship wherein hee was and another of the Fleet lost their men in fight with the Indians They sayled thence to Iapan and sought the North-Cape which is false placed in Maps in thirtie degrees but found it in 35½ In this voyage from Saint Mary hither they were foure moneths and two and twenty dayes and then there were but sixe besides himselfe that could stand vpon their legs They anchored neere Bomage and two or three dayes after a Iesuit from Langasack came aboord them The King of Bungo befriended them with house-roome and refreshing for their sicke but three of their company dyed the next day and three after onely eighteene were left The Emperour sent fiue Gallies or Frigats for them about fourescore leagues distance and demanded of them many questions touching our Countrey and the termes of Warre and Peace in which it stood with others Then was he commanded to prison and two dayes after conuented againe and demanded the cause of his Voyage The Iesuits and Portugals informed against them as robbers of all Nations and vsed their best friends to their worst designements so that euery day they looked to bee crossed or crucified which is there the vsuall death of malefactors But the Emperour answered they had not hurt him and after long imprisonment he was suffered to returne to his Ship and restitution of the goods before seized on commanded but without effect because they were dispersed They had fiftie thousand Rials giuen them This Citie was called Saca two leagues and a halfe from Ozaca From thence they were remoued to Quanto an hundred and twentie leagues Eastward neere to Eddo where the Emperour resided They could not obtaine leaue to goe where the Hollanders traded but were allowed each man two pound of Rice a day and eleuen or twelue Ducats a yeere In processe of three or foure yeeres the Emperour employed Adams in making him
the ground seemed as sharpe as a pointed Diamond The other are lower and want steps to ascend on them They are of marble But I would be loth to burie the Reader in these sumptuous monuments the witnesses of vanitie and ostentation of which besides the Ancient Martyr Bellonius Euesham Villamont and other eye-witnesses haue largely written Mycerinus is reckoned the next King better beloued of his subiects whose daughter was buried in a woodden Bull in the Citie Sai to which euery day were odors offered and a light set by night This Oxe once a yeere was brought out to the people Next to him was Asychis who made a Pyramis of bricks and these bricks were made of earth that claue to the end of a pole for this purpose in a vaine curiositie thrust into a Lake Yet were all these wonders exceeded by the Labyrinth the worke say some of Psammetichus or after Herodotus of the twelue Peeres which raigned in common as Kings partly aboue ground partly beneath in both contayning 3500. roomes Herodotus saith he saw the vpper roomes the lower he might not as being the sepulchres of the Founders and of the sacred Crocodiles all was of stone and grauen The cause of making this Labyrinth is diuersly deliuered by Demoteles the Palace of Mothetudes by Lysias the sepulchre of Meris the most probable opinion that it was consecrated to the Sunne the paterne to Dedalus for that in Crete representing but the hundreth part of this The entrance was of Parian marble pillars The worke was diuided into Regions and perfectures sixteene vast houses being attributed to sixteene of them There were also Temples for all the Aegyptian gods and Nemeses aboue in fifteene Chappels many Pyramides also each of fortie elles and founded on sixe walls After a wearie iourney they come to those inexplicable wayes the Labyrinth of this Labyrinth hauing before ascended high Halls and Galleries each of ninetie steps inly adorned with pillars of Porphyrie Images of their Gods statues of Kings and monstrous shapes Some of the houses were so seated that the opening of the doores caused a terrible thunder As terrible was the darke wayes and most of all without a guide the inextricable windings infolded walls and manifold deceiuing doores making by many passages none at all No cement or morter was vsed in all this huge worke The Lake of Maeris was not lesse wonderfull compassing three thousand sixe hundred furlongs and fiftie fadome in depth made by Meris whose name it beareth in the middest were two Pyramides fiftie fadome aboue and as much beneath water one for himselfe the other for his wife The water flowes sixe moneths out and sixe moneths in from Nilus The fish were worth to the Kings coffers twentie of their pounds a day the first sixe and a talent a day the last sixe moneths Of Necus whom the Scripture calls Pharaoh Necho and of his victorie against the Syrians in Magdolo or Magiddo where he slue King Iosiah Herodotus witnesseth Hee also makes this Necus authour of that Trench from Nilus to the Red Sea which Strabo ascribes to Sesostris Plinie makes Sesostris first Authour seconded by Darius who in this businesse was followed by Ptolemaeus one hundred foot broad seuen and thirtie miles long but forced to leaue the enterprise for feare of the Red Sea ouer-flowing Egypt or mixing his water with Nilus Tremellius thinkes it to be the labour of the Israelites in that seruitude from which Moses freed them He consumed in this worke 120000. Egyptians After him reigned Sammi and then Apries About these times Nabuchodonosor conquered the Egyptians according to Ezechiels prophecie Ezech. 30. But they had also ciuill warres Amasis depriued Apries who being of a base birth of a great bason of gold in which himselfe and his guests had vsed to wash their feete made an Image and placed it in the most conuenient part of the Citie and obseruing their superstitious deuotion thereunto said that they ought now no lesse to respect him notwithstanding his former base birth and offices When hee was a priuate man to maintayne his prodigall expenses he vsed to steale from others and when they redemanded their owne he committed himselfe to the censure of their Oracles Such Oracles as neglected his thefts hee being a King did neglect Hee brought from the Citie Elephantina twentie dayes sayling a building of solid stone the roofe being of one stone one and twentie cubits long fourteene broad and eight thicke and brought it to the Temple at Sai Hee ordayned that euery one should yeerly giue account to the Magistrate how hee liued and maintayned himselfe And he which brought a false account or liued by vniust meanes was put to death Hee was buried as was supposed in that Sphynx abouesaid Psammenitus his sonne succeeded whom Cambyses depriued CHAP. III. Of the Aegyptian Idols with their Legendarie Histories and Mysteries §. I. Of Osiris and Isis their Legends of the Creation c. IF we stay longer on this Aegyptian Stage partly the varietie of Authors may excuse vs which haue entreated of this Subiect partly the varietie of matter which adding some light to the Diuine Oracles not that they need it which are in themselues a Light shining in a darke place but because of our need whose Owlish-eyes cannot so easily discerne that light deserue a larger relation For whether the Histories of the old Testament or the Prophecies of the New be considered both there literally wee reade of Aegyptian Rites practised and here mystically of like Superstitions in the Antichristian Synagogue reuiued therefore spiritually called Sodome and Aegypt No where can Antiquitie plead a longer succession of errour no where of Superstition more multiplicitie more blind zeale in prosecuting the same themselues or crueltie in persecuting others that gaine-said Oh Aegypt wonderfull in Nature whose Heauen is brasse and yet thine Earth not Yron wonderfull for Antiquitie Artes and Armes but no way so wonderfull as in thy Religions wherewith thou hast disturbed the rest of the World both elder and later Heathen and Christian to which thou hast beene a sinke and Mother of Abhominations Thy Heathenisme planted by Cham watered by Iannes Iambres Hermes ouerflowed to Athens and Rome Thy Christianisme was famous for many ancient Fathers more infamous for that Arrian heresie which rising heere eclipsed the Christian Light the World wondring and groaning to see it selfe an Arrian I speake not of the first Monkes whose Egge here laide was faire and beginnings holy but by the Diuels brooding brought forth in after-ages a dangerous Serpent Thy Mahumetisme entertained with like lightnesse of credulitie with like eagernesse of deuotion hath beene no lesse troublesome to the Arabian Sect in Asia and Afrike then before to the Heathens or Christians in Europe The first Author it seemeth of this Egyptian as of all other false Religions was Cham as before is said which had taken deepe rooting in the dayes of Ioseph the Patriarch
was sometime sacred famous for the Garden of the Hesperides neere to which is that Riuer of Lethe so much chaunted by the Poets Nigh to this place also are the Psylli a people terrible to Serpents and medicinable against their poysons both by touching the wounded partie and by sucking out the poyson and by enchanting the Serpent The Oracle of Iupiter Ammon is famous among the Ancient The place where this Temple was hath on euery side vast and sandie Desarts in which they which trauelled as wee finde in Arrianus and Curtius seemed to warre with Nature for the Earth was couered with sand which yeelded an vnstable footing and sometime was blowne about with the windie motions of the Aire Water was hence banished neither Cloudes nor Springs ordinarily affoording it A fierie heate did possesse and tyrannize ouer the place which the Sands and Sunne much encreased Neither was here Tree or Hill or other marke for Trauellers to discerne their way but the Starres In the middle of this Desart was that sacred Groue which Silius Italicus calleth Lucus fatidicus not aboue fiftie furlongs in circuit full of fruit-bearing Trees watred with wholsome Springs seasoned with temperate Aire and a continuall Spring The Inhabitants called Ammonians are dispersed in cottages and haue the middest of the Groue fortified with a triple wall The first Munition contayneth the Kings Palace the second the Serail or lodgings for his women where is also the Oracle the third the Courtiers inhabite Before the Oracle is a Fountayne in which the Offerings were washed before they were offered The forme of this God was deformed with Rams-hornes crooked as some paint him according to Curtius without forme of any creature but like a round Bosse beset with jewels This when they consult with the Oracles is carried by the Priests in a gilded ship with many siluer Bells on both sides of the ship The Matrons follow and the Virgins singing their dis-tuned Procession by which they prouoke their god to manifest what they seeke These Priests were about fourscore in number Alexanders ambitious pilgrimage to this Oracle is sufficiently knowne by the Relations of Curtius and Arrianus This we may adde out of Scaliger That after that the Cyrenaeans to sooth this prowd King which would needes bee taken for the sonne of Ammon stamped his shape in their coynes with two hornes of a Ramme and without a beard whereas before they had vsed the forme of Iupiter with a beard and hornes wherein the other Easterne people followed them The Syrians vsed the like stampe with the name of King Lysimachus which Scaliger who hath giuen vs the pictures of these Coynes thinketh to be Alexander Rammes-hornes are said to bee ascribed to him because Bacchus wandering in these Desarts with his Armie was guided to this place by a silly Ramme Likewise Pausanias in his Messenica saith that one Ammon which built the Temple a Shepheard was authour of this name to their God Plutarchs reason of Amus we haue before shewed Others deriue this name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sand which may well agree with all Idoll deuotion as being a sandie foundation although it is here intended to the situation But that which I haue before noted of Ham the sonne of Noah soundeth more probable as being Progenitor of all these Nations and of this minde also is Peucerus This Strabo in his time saith was not in request as no other Oracle besides For the Romanes contented themselues with their Sybils and other diuinations This Oracle was not giuen by word but by signes This defect of Oracles in generall and especially of this occasioned that Treatise of Plutarch of this subiect enquiring the cause of the Oracles fayling Neuer had he read that the Gods which had not made heauen and earth should perish out of the earth nor had he eyes to see that Sunne of Righteousnesse the Light of the world whose pure beames chased and dispersed these mists of darknesse And therefore are his coniectures so farre from the marke as not able with a naturall eye to see the things of God The antiquitie of this Oracle appeareth in that Semiramis came to it and inquired of her death after which the Oracle promised to her diuine honours Perseus also and Hercules are reported to haue consulted the same in their aduentures against Gorgon and Busiris Besides this Groue there is another of Ammon which hath in the middest a Well they call it the Fountayne of the Sunne whose water at Sunne-rising is luke-warme and cooleth more and more till noone at which time it is very cold and from thence till mid-night by degrees exchangeth that coldnesse with heate holding a kinde of naturall Antipathy with the Sonne hottest in his furthest absence coldest in his neerest presence Plinie and Solinus place this Fountayne in Debris a Towne not very farre from those parts amongst the Garamants Lucretius mentions it and Philosophically disputeth the cause thereof nimirum terra magis quod Raratenet circum hunc fontem quà m caetera tellus Multaque sunt ignis prope semina corpus aquai c. The substance whereof is that the fire vnder that subtile earth by cold vapours of the night is pressed and forced to that waterie refuge but by the Sunne beames receiuing new encouragement forsaketh those holds and holes and for a little while takes repossession of his challenged lands The Ammonian women haue such great brests that they suckle their children ouer their shoulder their brest not lesse if Iunenal be beleeued then the childe In Meroe crasso maiorem infante mamillam In Meroe the monstrous Pappe Is bigger then the childe in lappe Pausanias reckoneth an Ammonian Iuno among the Libyan Cities as well as this Iupiter He addeth the Lacedemonians had this Ammon in much request and built to him diuers Temples as at Gytheum one which had no roofe and the Aphytaeans did him 40 lesse worship then the Libyans Ortelius who hath bestowed a Description of this Temple supposeth that his Image was painted with hornes but that Vmbilicus was accounted the Deitie it selfe or the signe of his presence which shapelesse shape he sampleth by many like in other Nations The ship he coniectureth to signifie that the Religion was brought from some other place But if Ammon be that sonne of Noah it might rather bee a memoriall of the Arke wherein Noah and his sonnes were preserued as that also of Ianus who is imagined to be Noah may more fitly be interpreted then according to the Poets glosse Sic bona posteritas puppim formauit in aere Hospitis aduentum testificata Dei So well-dispos'd Posteritie did frame A ship to shew which way their strange God came The ancient frugalitie of the Cyrenians is commended in Authors Sulpitius bringeth in Postumianus in his Dialogues telling That landing there by force of weather hee went with the
diuers places His Nobles about him neuer looke him in the face but sit cowring vpon their buttockes with their elbowes vpon their knees and their hands before their faces not looking vp till the King command them And when they depart out of his presence they turne not their backes vpon him Such reuerend regard doth that Negro King receiue of them The next yeere Master Iohn Lock went for Captaine into those parts to trade for Gold Graines and Elephants teeth And after that diuers Voyages were thither made by William Towerson who obserued at the Riuer of Saint Vincent strange trees with great leaues like great Dockes longer then that a man could reach the top of them and a kind of Pease by the Sea-side growing on the Sands like trees with stalkes seuen and twentie paces long Diuers of the women had brests exeeding long At the Cape Tres puntas they made him sweare by the water of the Sea that hee would not hurt them before they would trade with him King Abaan a Negro entertained our men kindly hee caused to bee brought a pot of Wine of Palme or Coco which they draw forth of trees as we haue elsewhere obserued but their Ceremonies in drinking are thus First they bring forth their pot of drinke and then make a hole in the ground and put some of the drinke into it and after that cast in the Earth againe and thereon set their pot and with a little thing made of a Gourd take out of the same drinke and put it vpon the ground in three places and in diuers places they haue certaine bunches of the pils of Palme-trees set in the ground before them and there they put in some drinke doing great reuerence in all places to the same Palme-trees All these Ceremonies done the King tooke a cup of Gold in which they put Wine and whiles hee dranke all the people cryed Abaan Abaan with certaine other words and then they gaue drinke to euery one The like Ceremonies they vse in all the Countrey In Benin the people goe naked till they be married and then are clothed from the waste to the knees Their bread is a kind of Rootes called Inamia which when it is well sodden may be preferred before ours They haue here great spouts of water falling out of the Aire which if they light on a ship doe endanger the same They fall like the pillars of Churches As for those Voyages to those parts made by Rutter Fenner Ingram or others I referre them to Master Hackluyts Collections One writeth That the King of Benin hath sixe hundred Wiues with all which twice a yeere he goeth in pompe the Gentlemen haue some of them fourescore some fourescore and ten the meanest ten or twelue At Cape de Lope Gonsalues some pray to the Sunne others to the Moone or to certaine trees or to the Earth esteeming it a great sinne to spit vpon it from whence they receiue their food Men and women inke their bodies putting thereon grease mixed with colour They will not drinke before they put out some and drinke not when they eate They offer their wiues to strangers The King keepeth his Daughters when they are growne for Wiues and the Queenes with like incestuous abomination vse their Sonnes They paint their bodies red vse Bananas dried in stead of bread and lay all their meates in a dish together About the Castle of Mina they are subiect to such Wormes as Master Ienkinson hath obserued to grow vpon men at Bognar in Bactria by drinking the water of the Riuer there which are an Ell long and must be pulled out by degrees euery day a little if they breake by the way it is very dangerous The torture they cause is vnspeakeable they breed in the armes and legges yea sometimes in the yard and cod one man hath had ten of them at one time The Inhabitants of Benin obserue Circumcision and some other Superstitions which may seeme Mahumetan but are more likely to bee ancient Ethnike Rites For many Countreyes of Africa admit Circumcision and yet know not or acknowlege not Mahumetisme but are either Christians as the Cophti Abassines or Gentiles they cut or rase the skinne with three lines drawne to their Nauell esteeming it necessary to saluation They will not easily doe iniury to any especially a stranger They haue Birds in such respect that it is deadly to any that shall hurt them And some are appointed to haue a peculiar care of them and to prouide them food which they doe in high Mountaynes where they lay meate for them which they come and eate Arthus writes That the Inhabitants of Guinea giue Religious respect vnto certaine trees And in the yeere one thousand fiue hundred ninetie eight certaine Hollanders cutting them and not ceasing at the perswasion of Negro's whose Superstitions in that case they derided it passed from words to blowes betwixt them the Dutchmen were forced to get them to their ships one of their company being slaine in the chase But the Murtherer was offered to the Hollanders to be punished which they refusing his Countrimen cut off his head and quartered his bodie bestowing the one as a monument of reuenge ouer the slaine parties graue the other on the Fowles vnburied Their trees are alway greene some haue leaues twice a yeere They seldome see the Sunne either rising or going downe by the space of halfe of an houre Their Winter beginneth in Aprill which yet is their time of Haruest Mays was brought thither out of America In Aprill May and Iune they haue much raine and the same very dangerous to the bodie and rotting the clothes if it bee not presently dryed It is often as warme as if it were sodden They haue some Snakes thirty foot long as much as sixe men can carrie they haue also a beast like a Crocodile called Lanhadi we haue spoken of the like about Pegu and Bengala which neuer goeth into the water Spiders as bigge as the Palme of ones hand which doe not spinne store of Cameleons Dogges woolly with sharpe snouts of diuers colours which cannot barke driuen to the Market as sheepe tied one to another blue Parrets many sorts of Apes blacke Flyes which seeme to burne In Senega some Snakes haue mouthes so wide that they swallo a whole sheepe without tearing they haue winged Dragons with tayles and long mouthes with many teeth being blue and greene which some Negros worship They boare a hole in the Palme-wine tree whence issueth a white iuyce first sweete and after by standing it becomes sowre and after by standing it becomes sowre It is somewhat like the Coco-tree The Palmita is without branches the fruit growes on the top which within is like Pomegranates full of graines without of a golden colour They buy Gentilitie with gifts a Dog a Sheepe a Cow in their creation is obserued much solemnitie They know not how to number their yeeres but seeme
the Islands of Africa from the Cape hitherwards §. I. Of Saint Helena Thomee Cape de Verd and diuers others betwixt them and of the weeds and calmes of those Seas ON this side the Cape is the Iland of S. Helena in 16 degrees and one quarter of Southerly latitude It is very high and hilly the name was giuen of the Saint on whose day it was discouered It hath in it store of goats hogs hens and other creatures which the Portugals haue there left to multiply for before there was none of them there also they haue planted Figs Oranges Limons and such like whereof the Vallies are full that it seemeth an earthly Paradise the Fruit growing all the yeere long They haue great store of Fish of which with crooked nayles they take great plenty the Rocks yeeld salt for the furthering of their prouision It seemes God hath planted it in conuenient place for the long and dangerous Indian Nauigations There the Portugals leaue their sicke which stay till other ships come the next yeere to take them It was neuer inhabited onely an Hermite dwelt there who vnder pretence of mortifying his flesh by penance butchered the flesh of the Goats and Bucks so fast for their skins that the King sent for him home and will suffer none to dwell there Abraham Kendall put in there about the yeere 1591. and left on shore one Segar a sicke man whom Edmund Parker eighteene moneths after found in good plight but their vnexpected comming as it seemeth so rauished his weake spirits with ioy that it distracted him and being otherwise of bodily constitution very wel he dyed eight dayes after The like I haue read of a Portugall in the same place In Iune 1613. the Dutch set vpon two Carricks in this roade but with ill successe one of their ships with nine and forty men being casually blown vp North-west from hence are the Iles of Ascension not inhabited Of Loanda nigh to or rather a piece of Congo is already spoken Ouer against the Cape of Lopo Gonsalues is the I le of Nobon and not farre from thence Saint Thomas an hundred and fourescore miles from the shore and so much also in compasse right vnder the Line At the first discouerie it was a Wood Now inhabited by Portugals and Negro's These liue an hundred and ten yeeres but few borne in Europe exceed fifty It is vnwholsome through exceeding heat vnto Europaeans especially which in December Ianuary and February can scarcely walk vp and downe for faintnesse In the middest is a wooddy Mountaine continually ouershadowed with a thicke cloud which so moistens the Trees that grow in great abundance thereon that from hence droppeth water sufficient for the watering of all their fields of Sugar-Canes They haue threescore and ten Ingenios or Sugar-houses each of which hath two or three hundred slaues belonging thereto They grind the Canes and boyle the iuice to make it into Sugar but by no meanes can they make it so white heere as in Madera and other places The refuse of their Canes they giue to their Hogs which are heere very many fat and delicate as the flesh of a Hen. They are some yeeres exceedingly plagued with Ants and also with Rats White men which liue there are visited two houres in euery eight or ten dayes with an Ague but strangers haue more shrewd entertainment and scarcely in twenty dayes with great care can shake off this Shaker The chiefe Citie is Pouoason an Episcopall Sea. The Negro's worke sixe dayes for their Masters and the seuenth day for themselues in setting and planting their seeds fruits and prouision Wheat heere sowne becommeth all blade without ripening any corne No fruit which hath a stone in it will heere prosper The town which hath about seuen hundred Families and the Castle was taken by the Hollanders 1599. The I le Del Principe was so called because the reuenues thereof were in times past allowed to the Prince of Portugall It standeth in three degrees of Northerly Latitude Iulian Glerehagen tooke the same An. 1598. The Iles of S. Matthew Santa Cruz S. Paul and Conception yeeld small matter of History Next to Cape Verde stand seuen Islands full of Birds empty of Inhabitants called Barbacene But those that are called the Iles of Cape Verde are nine situate betweene the Greene and White Capes Linschoten reckons ten They were first discouered by Antoni di Nolli a Genoway An. 1440. None of them are inhabited but the Isles of Iago and Del Fogo both which were taken An. 1596. by Sir Anth. Sherley who had one nights showre of Ashes from that Island of Fogo or Fuego or of Fire so called because it continually burneth which fell so thicke on their ship that you might write your name with your finger vpon the vpper decke Saint Iago was taken and burnt by Sir Francis Drake An. 1585. Braua and Bueua Vista haue brauer and goodlier names then Nature Maio yeeld salt in a Lake of two leagues long the Sun congealing and turning the waters into Salt From thence is passed into the Sea called Sargasso because it is couered with herbs like to the herbe Sargasso in the Portugall Wels not vnlike to Samper yellow of colour with empty Berries like Goose-berries but lesse which beginneth at twenty degrees and continueth till thirty foure farre off in the Sea for the ships in their going to India keeping neere the shore meet not with any The Sea seemeth as a greene field so thicke that a man cannot see the water and hindereth the ships passage except they haue a strong winde Ralph Wilson hath told vs of a new Iland discouered by the Salomon in 19. 34. to the South Anno 1612. The Coast of Africa is foure-hundred miles distant neither is any Iland neere saue that these weeds seeme to make many Ilands Thus doe men in ships behold the wonders of the Lord in the deepe no Land being nigh nor no ground to be found although it is thought to come from the ground Some thinke it growes on the Rocks and is thence beaten off by the Sea . And indeed all those Seas are full of wonders as they passe along the Coast toward the Indies Thomas Steuens complaineth of the continuall Thunders Lightnings and vnwholsome Rainos which there they met the raine-water if it stand a little conuerting presently to Wormes and filling the meat hanged vp with Wormes An herbe also swamme vpon the face of the waters like a Cocks Combe so venemous that it can scarce bee touched without perill Fishes called Sharkes most rauenous deuourers which had other sixe or seuen smaller fishes garded with blue and greene attending like Seruing-men Fishes also as big as a Herring with wings which doe not so much helpe them by flying to escape another greater fish that pursueth them by Sea as endanger them to a Sea-Fowle which waits that opportunitie Neither can it fly high or farre or
there by a Sauage in reuenge as was thought for some of the people before shipped from thence They haue Hares white as snow with long furre Dogs which liue on Fish whose pisles as also of their Foxes are bone Their Summer worke is to dry their Fish on the Rocks Euery one both man and woman haue each of them a Boat made with long pieces of Firre couered with Seales skins sowed with sinewes or guts about twenty foot long and two and a halfe broad like a shittle so light that one may carry many of them at once so swift that no ship is able with any winde to hold way with them and yet vse but one oare which they hold by the middle in the middest of their Boat broad at both ends wherewith they row forwards and backwards at pleasure Generally they worship the Sunne to which they pointed at our approach saith Baffin striking on their brests and crying Ilyout not comming neere till you doe same They bury in out-lands on the tops of hils in the heapes of stones to preserue from the Foxes making another graue hard by wherein they place his Bow and Arrowes Darts and other his vtensils They bury them in their apparell and the cold keepes them from putrefaction Anno 1606. Mr Iohn Knights made a North-west voyage lost his Ship sunke with Ice and was with three more of his company surprised by the Sauages of whose language hee wrot a pretty Dictionary which I haue seene with M. Hakluyt §. V. Of King IAMES his Newland alias Greeneland and of the Whale and Whale-Fishing I Will not heere beginne with records of Discoueries in these parts written two thousand yeeres since out of which Mr Doctor Dee is reported to haue gathered diuers Antiquities antiquated by Antiquitie and rotten with age nor to shew that King Arthur possessed as farre as Greeneland nor that Sir Hugh Willoughby discouered hitherto as some coniecture but content my selfe with later Discoueries and Obseruations Much hath been spent both of Cost Industrie and Argument about finding a more compendious way to the Indies by the Northwest and by the North-East and by the North. Of the first somewhat hath been spoken Of the second were the Voyages of Master Stephen Burrough Pet and Iacman our Countrey-men and of the Hollanders in the yeere 1594. and the three following before by vs mentioned in a duer place as appertaining to Asia for they found themselues by Astronomicall obseruation in a hundred and twelue Degrees fiue and twenty minutes of Longitude and threescore and sixteene of Latitude in the place where they wintered They had touched more Northerly in some parts as is thought of Greene-land sailing along by the Land from fourescore Degrees eleuen minutes vnto Noua Zemla I omit their red Geese in one place of this Voyage their azure-couloured Ice in another place and the losse of their Ship in the Ice which constrained them to set vp a house to Winter in that Land of Desolation This building they beganne about the 27. of September Stilo Nouo the cold euen then kissing his New-come Tenants so eagerly that when the Carpenters did but put a naile in their mouths after their wont the Ice would hang thereon and the bloud follow at the pulling out In December their fire could not heat them their Sack was frozen and each man forced to melt his share thereof before he could drinke it their melted Beere drinking like water They sought to remedie it with Sea-cole fire as being hotter then the fire of Wood which they had store of though none there growing by drifts and stopped the chimney and doores to keep in the heat but were suddenly taken with a swounding which had soone consumed them if they had not presently admitted the aire to their succor Their shooes did freeze as hard as horns on their feet and as they sate within doores before a great fire seeming to burne on the fore-side behinde at their backs they were frozon white the Snow meane-whiles lying higher then the house which sometimes in clearer weather they endeuoring to remoue cut out steps so ascended out of their house as out of a Vault or Seller They were forced to vse besides store of cloathes and great fires stones heated at the fire and applyed to their feet and bodies and yet were frozen as they lay in their Cabins yea the cold not onely staid their Clocke but insulted ouer the fire in some extremities that it almost cast no heat so that putting their feet to the fire they burnt their hose and discerned that also by the smell before they could feele the heat They supposed that a barrell of water would haue been wholly frozen in the space of one night which you must interpret of their twelue houres glasse for otherwise they saw no Sunne after the third of Nouember to the 24. of Ianuary reckoning by the new Calendar a thing strange to be without the Sunne fifttie dayes before the Solstice which happened after their account on December 23. and yet within forty one dayes after might see the vpper circle of the Sun-rising aboue the Horizon which made great question whether their Eyes had deceiued them or the Computation of time in that long Night which both being found otherwise by their obseruation and experience caused no lesse wonder whether this timely approach should be attributed to the reflexion by the water or the not absolute roundnesse of the Earth in those parts or the false accounting of the Solstice or which some affirme the falshood of their calculations But I leaue this to Philosophers Our Author affirmes that when the Sunne had left them they saw the Moone continually both Day and Night neuer going downe when it was in the highest Degree the twi-light also remaining many dayes and againe they might see some day-light sixteene dayes before they saw the returne of the Sunne The Beares which had held them besieged and often endangered them forsooke them and returned with the Sunne the white Foxes all that while visited them of which they tooke many whose flesh was good Venison to them and their skins in the linings of their Caps good remedies against that extremitie of Cold. As for their feet they vsed Pattents of wood with sheepe-skinnes aboue and many socks or soles vnderneath they vsed also shooes of Rugge and Felt. These Beares were very large and cruell some of them yeelding skins thirteene foot long and a hundred pounds of fat which serued them for Oyle in their Lampes the flesh they durst not eate some of them forfeiting their whole skinnes after they had eaten of the Liuer of one of these eaters which deuoure any thing not sparing their owne kinde For the Hollanders hauing killed one Beare another carried it a great way ouer the rugged Ice in his mouth in their sight and fell to eating it they made to him with their weapons and chased him from his purchase but found
againe hath gotten the Ilands all along the Coast which hee guardeth and keepeth with his watery Garrisons Virginia betwixt those two sowre-faced Suters is almost distracted and easily would giue entertainment to English loue and accept a New Britan appellation if her husband be but furnished out at first in sorts and sutes befitting her Marriage solemnitie all which her rich dowrie would mayntaine for euer after with aduantage And well may England court her rather then any other Europaean louers in regard of his long continued amity and first Discouerie of her Lands and Seas this by Sebastian Cabot with his English Mariners a hundred and fifteene yeeres since and the other by Sir Walter Raleighs charge and direction Anno Dom. 1584. Then first of all Christians did Master Philips Amadas and Master Arthur Barlow take possession in Queene Elizabeths name The next yeere that mirrour of Resolution Sir Richard Greenuile conuayed thither an English Colony which he there left for Plantation vnder the gouernment of Master Ralph Lane which there continued vntill the eighteenth of Iune in the yeere following and then vpon some vrgent occasions returned with Sir Francis Drake into England Yet had they stayed but a little longer a ship of Sir Walter Raleighs had supplyed their necessities and soone after Sir Richard againe repaired thither with three ships and then also left fifteene men more to keepe possession In the yeere 1587 a second Colonie were sent vnder the gouernment of Master Iohn White To their succour Sir Walter Raleigh hath sent fiue seuerall times the last by Samuel Mace of Weymouth in March one thousand sixe hundred and two but he and the former performed nothing but returned with friuolous allegations The same yeere Captaine Bartholmew Gosnold and Captaine Gilbert discouered the North parts of Virginia of which Voyage Iohn Brereton hath written a Treatise In the yeere 1603. the Bristow men by leaue of Sir Walter Raleigh set forth a Voyage thither in 43. degrees In this Expedition was Robert Salterne which had beene the yeere before with Captaine Gosnold They discouered Whitson-bay so they termed it in one and forty degrees twenty fiue minutes The people vsed Snakes skins of which some were six foot long for Girdles they were exceedingly rauished with the Musicke of a Gitterneboy dancing in a ring about him they more feared two English Mastiues then twentie men They had such Boats as before are mentioned seuenteene foot long foure broad of Birchbarke sowed with Osyers the seames couered with Rozen almost as sweet as Frankincense carrying nine men standing vpright and yet not weighing aboue threescore pound They brought one of them to Bristoll This yeere Captaine Gilbert set forth againe for Virginia at Meuis they laded twenty tuns of Lignum vitae hee had foure more were slaine by the Sauages And in the yeere 1605. Captaine George Weymouth made thither a prosperous Voyage and discouered threescore miles vp a most excellent Riuer His Voyage was set forth in print by Iames Rosier After this followed the plantation by the present Aduenturers for the foundation of a New Britan Common-wealth and the East and West parts of England ioyned in one purpose of a two-fold Plantation in the North and South parts of Virginia Of the North parts our Method requires first mention Mawooshen was many yeeres together visited by our men extending betweene 43. and 45. degrees 40. leagues in bredth and 50. in length They found therein nine Riuers Quibiquesson Pemaquid Ramassoc Apanawapaske Apaumensele Aponeg Sagadahoc Ashamahaga Shawokotoc Sagadahoc is in 43. degrees it is a mile and halfe at the mouth holding the same bredth a dayes iourney and then makes a sound three dayes iourney broad in which are sixe Ilands it hath two branches the one from the Northeast 24. dayes iourney the other North-west 30. dayes iourney At the heads are two Lakes the Westermost 8. dayes iourney long and foure wide the Eastermost halfe so large This is Bashabaes his dominion The Tarentines country is in 44. deg. two third parts where the Sauages tell of a Rock of Allum neere the Riuer of Sasnowa Captain T. Hanham Thomas Hanham sayled to the Riuer of Sagadahoc 1606. He relateth of their beasts doggs like wolues of colours blacke white red grisled red Deere and a beast bigger called the Mus c. of their fowles fishes trees of some Oare proued to be siluer Bashabes hath many vnder-Captaines called Sagamos their houses built with Wit hs and couered ouer with Mats sixe or seuen paces long He expresseth also the names of their twelue Moones or moneths as Ianuary Mussekeshos February Gignokiakeshos c. An. 1607. was settled a Plantation in the Riuer Sagadahoc the ships called the Gift and the Mary and Iohn being sent thither by that famous English Iusticer Sir Iohn Popham and others They found this coast of Virginia full of Ilands but safe They chose the place of their Plantation at the mouth of Sagadahoc in a Westerly Peninsula these heard a Sermon read their Patent and Lawes and built a Fort. They sailed vp to discouer the Riuer and Countrey and encountred with an Iland where where was a great fall of water ouer which they haled their Boat with a Rope and came to another fall shallow swift and vnpassable They found the Countrey stored with Grapes white and red good Hops Onions Garlicke Okes Walnuts the soile good The head of the Riuer is in forty fiue and odde minutes Cape Sinieamis in 43. deg. 30. min.. a good place to fortifie Their Fort bare name of Saint George Fortie fiue remained there Captaine George Popham being President Raleigh Gilbert Admirall The people seemed affected with our mens deuotions and would say King IAMES is a good King his God a good God and Tanto naught So they call an euill spirit which haunts them euery Moone and makes them worship him for feare Hee commanded them not to dwell neere or come among the English threatning to kill some and inflict sicknesse on others beginning with two of their Sagamos children saying he had power and would doe the like to the English the next Moone to wit in December The peple told our men of Canibals neere Sagadahoc with teeth three inches long but they saw them not In the Riuer of Tamescot they found Oysters nine inches in length and were told that on the other side there were twice as great On the 18. of Ianuary they had in seuen houres space thunder lightning raine frost snow all in aboundance the last continuing On February the 5. the President died The Sauages remoue their dwellings in Winter neerest the Deere They haue a kinde of shooes a yard long fourteene inches broad made like a Racket with strong twine or sinewes of a Deere in the mids is a hole wherein they put their foot buckling it fast When a Sagamos dyeth they blacke themselues and at the same time yerely
would ouertake and kill a horse for the horses fled from them either for their deformitie or because they had neuer seene the like The people haue no other riches they are vnto them meat drinke apparell their Hides also yeeld them houses and ropes their bones bodkins their sinewes and haire threat their horns mawes and bladders vessels their dung fire the Calues-skins budgets wherewith they draw and keepe water Gomara also mentioneth their sheepe which they so call because they haue fine wool and hornes they are as bigge as horses their hornes weigh fifty pound weight a piece There are also Dogs which will fight with a Bull and will carry fifty pound weight in Sacks when they goe on hunting or when they remoue from place to place with their heards The winter is long and sharpe with much snow in Cibola and therefore they then keepe in their Cellers which are in place of Stoues vnto them In the height of thirty seuen degrees at Tiguez the cold was so extreme that the horses and men passed ouer the Riuer vpon the Ice They there tooke a towne after fiue and forty dayes siege but with much losse and little gaine For the Indians killed thirty horses in a night and in another slue certaine Spaniards sent Ouando vp into the countrey they could not tell whether for sacrifice or for the shew and wounded fifty horses they drunke snow in stead of water and seeing no hope to hold out made a great fire and cast therein all they had of worth and then went all out to make way by force where they were all in manner slaine but not vnreuenged forcing some Spaniards to accompany them into the Regions of Death and wounding many more both men and horses The Snow continueth in these parts halfe the yeere Quiuira is more Northerly and yet more temperate The Spaniards returned to Mexico in the end of the yeare 1542. to no small griefe of Mendoza who had spent in this expedition six thousand Duokats Some Friers stayed but were slaine by the people of Quiuira onely one man escaped to bring newes to Mexico Sir Francis Drake sailed on the other side of America to forty degrees of Northerly Latitude and with cold was forced to retire although the Sunne followed him all the way from Guatulco hither which he sailed from the 6. day of April to the 5. day of Iune as if that most excellent and heauenly Light had delighted himselfe in his societie and acknowledged him for his Son more truely then the Spaniards whereof anon we shall heare or that Phaeton of the Poets not able to compasse this compassing iourney once hee was so good a Scholler and learned the Suns instruction so well that he followed him in a watery field all that his fiery circle round about this earthly Globe carried with the mouing winde as it were airie wings new stars Ilands Seas attending and admiring the English colours and first of any Generall loosed the girdle of the world and encompassing her in his fortunate armes enioyed her loue But I lose my selfe while I find him and yet excellent names I know not how compell men to stand awhile and gaze with admiration if not with adoration This our English Knight landed on this coast in thirty eight degrees where the inhabitants presented themselues vnto him with presents of feathers and kalls of Net-worke which hee required with great humanitie The men went naked the women knit loose garments of bull-rushes about their middles They came a second time and brought feathers and bags of Tobacco and after a long Oration of one that was Speaker for the rest they left their bowes on a hil and came downe to our men the women meane-while remaining on the hill tormented themselues tearing the flesh from the cheekes whereby it appeared that they were about some sacrifice The newes being further spred brought the King thither which was a man of goodly stature many tall men attended him two Embassadours with a long Speech of halfe an houre signified his comming before One went before the King with a Scepter or Mace wherein hanged two Crownes with three chaines the Crownes were of knit-worke wrought artificially with diuers coloured feathers the chaines of a bony substance The King followed cloathed in Cony-skinnes the people came after all hauing their faces painted with white blacke and other colours euery one bringing his present euen the very children also The Scepter-bearer made a lowd speech of halfe an houre taking his words from another which whispered the same vnto him which with a solemne applause being ended they came all downe the hill in order without their weapons the Scepter-bearer beginning a Song and dancing wherein all the rest followed him The King and diuers others made seuerall Orations or Supplications to the Generall to become their King and the King with a Song did set the Crowne on the Generals head and put the chaines about his necke honouring him by the name of Hioh The common sort leauing the King and his guard scattered themselues with their Sacrifices among our people taking view of all and to such as best pleased their fancy which were the youngest offered their Sacrifices with weeping scratching and tearing their flesh with much effusion of bloud The English misliked their deuotions and directed them to the liuing God they shewed againe their wounds whereunto the other applyed paysters and lotions Euery third day they brought their Sacrifices till they perceiued that they were displeasing And at the departure of the English they by stealth prouided a Sacrifice taking their departing very grieuously They found heards of Deere feeding by thousands and the Country full of strange Conies headed like ours with the feet of a Want and taile of a Cat hauing vnder their chins a bagge into which they gather their meate when they haue filled their body abroad There is no part of this Earth wherein there is not some speciall likelihood of Gold or Siluer The Generall named the Country Noua Albion §. II. Of New Mexico and Cinaloa IN the yeere 1581. Augustine Ruiz a Frier learned by the report of certaine Indians called Conchos that toward the North there were certaine great Towns not hitherto to discouered by the Spaniards whereupon he with two other companions of his owne Order and eight Souldiers went to seeke these parts and to preach vnto them They came vnto the Prouince de los Tiguas two hundred and fiftie leagues Northwards from the Mynes of Saint Barbara where one of the Friers was slaine by the Inhabitants This caused the Souldiers to returne backe but the Friers stayed still behind The Franciscans fearing the losse of these their Brethren procured Antonio de Espeio to vndertake this Iourney with a company of Souldiers Hee passing the Conchos the Passaquates the Toboses came to the Patatabueyes which is a great Prouince and hath many Townes their Houses flat roofed and built of lime and
stone their streets orderly placed The people are of great stature and haue their faces armes and legges razed and pounced Here were many Lakes of salt-water which at a certaine time of the yeere waxeth hard and becommeth very good salt The Caciques kindly entertayned them with victuals and other presents especially hides and Chamois skins very well dressed as well as those of Flanders And passing many dayes Iourney further Northwards they came where the Houses were foure stories high well built and in most of them Stoues for the Winter season The men and women weare Shooes and Boots with good soles of Neats Leather a thing not elsewhere to be seene in the Indies In this Prouince they found many Idols which they worshipped and particularly they had in euery House an Oratory for the Deuill whereinto they ordinarily carry him meate and as the Papists erect Crosses vpon high wayes so haue this people certaine high Chappels very well trimmed and painted in which they say the Deuill vseth to take his ease and to recreate himselfe as hee trauelleth from one Towne to another In the Prouince of Tiguas there were sixteene Townes in one of which the Friers aforesaid were slaine Sixe leagues from thence was the Prouince Los Quires which worship Idols as their Neighbours they saw there certaine Canopies wherein were painted the Sunne Moone and many Stars It is in 37. degrees and an halfe Hence they passed keeping still their Northerly course and found a Prouince called Cuuames where were fiue Townes one of which was Chia which contained eight Market places the houses were playstered and painted with diuers colours they presented them curious Mantles and shewed them rich Metals Beyond this they came to the Ameies and fifteene leagues thence to Acoma which is situate vpon a Rocke and hath no other entrance but by a Ladder or paire of staires hewne in the same Rocke all their water was kept in Cisternes They passed hence to Zuny which the Spaniards call Cibola and there found three Spaniards left by Vasquez forty yeeres before which had almost forgotten their owne Language Westward from hence they came to Mohotze where were exceeding rich Mynes of Siluer as likewise in some of the other These parts seeme to incline toward Virginia Martin Perez a Iesuite writeth of these Inland parts from Cinaloa 1591. that the flies about the Mountaine Tepesuan in 23. degrees are so troublesome as no beast can abide there the Cimmechi are warlike Indians Some Spaniards kept there which heard Masse scarsly once in a yeere The Prouince of Cinaloa is watered with eight Riuers The soyle fertile and ayre wholsome extending three hundred miles Northwards and within two dayes Iourney of new Mexico The people weare many Earings in fifty holes which they make for that purpose so that they are forced to sleepe with their faces vpwards The women are clothed beneath the waste aboue naked Both they and the men weare long haire tied vp on knots with Corals and shels therein They are a handfull higher then the Spaniards valiant vse poysoned Arrowes peaceable at home terrible in warre they haue many Languages Some of them haue familiaritie and commit abominable sinnes with the Deuill They vse Polygamy and thinke it not vnseemely to vse the Mother Sister Daughter as furthering domesticke peace Thus respect they affinity but of Consanguitie are very Religious They correct not their children Their Marriages are solemnized after consent of Parents on both sides with dances the consummation is stayed till fit age of the parties to whom they then leaue a House and houshold They obserue a custome to make Gentlemen or Knights giuing a Bow and then setting him to fight with a Lion or wild beast the death of which is the life of their Gentilitie When one adopteth another a stake is thrust into his throat causing him to vomit all in his belly and as it were his former birth together They are great Gamesters their play like that of Dice in which they carry themselues very patiently without swearing or wording and yet will lose the clothes from their backes and goe home naked If any be dangerously sicke a Graue is digged and stands open in which they bury him presently being dead or else burne him together with his House and stuffe and there couer the ashes sprinkling the Sepulchre with certaine dust whereof they make a drinke and eate and drinke themselues drunke Ludouicus Tribaldus Toletus in his Letter to Master Hakluyt 1605. writeth of one Iohn Onnate who in the yeere 1599. trauelled fiue hundred leagues from the Old to New Mexico He sent his Nephew to Acoma a Towne strongly fortified by Nature to trucke with them whom they deceitfully slue with his six companions Onnate in reuenge takes and kils the Indians and fires their dwellings forced a great City to sweare obedience to the King of Spaine and another Citie also greater then the former They built a Towne named Saint Iohns found Mynes of Gold and Siluer hunted the heards of Cibola In the yeere 1602. he made another Expedition to the Lake of Conibas on the banke whereof was a Citie seuen leagues long and two in breadth the houses built scattering with Hils and pleasant Gardens betweene The Inhabitants all had fortified themselues in the Market place which was very large the Spaniards departed without assault Neere California were found large Hauens before vnknowne and the Spaniards determined to build Forts Now that wee haue heard of the In-land Discoueries by the Spaniards and that Noua Albion of Sir Francis Drake let vs take some view of the Spanish Nauigation on these Coasts §. III. The Discoueries of VLLOA and ALARCHON on the Coasts of the South Sea COrtes the Conquerour of Mexico sent Francis de Vlloa with a Fleet for Discouerie in the yeere 1539. from Acapulco which came to Santa Cruz in California They sayled ouer the Gulfe and came to the Riuer of Saint Peter and Saint Paul where they beheld on both sides a goodly Country I am loth to hold on with them in their Voyage lest I saile from my scope and leaue the offended Reader behind me Here they found in their course burning Mountaynes which cast vp fire ashes and smoke in great quantitie They encountred with a cruell storme and being almost out of hope they saw as it were a Candle vpon the shrowdes of the Trinitie one of their ships which the Mariners said was Saint Elmo and saluted it with their Songs and Prayers This is the darknesse of Popery to worship a naturall light yea that which hath little more then beeing and is an imperfect Meteor is with them more perfect then Humane and must participate in Diuine worship Without the Gulfe of California they found store of great fish which suffered themselues to be taken by hand also they saw weedes floating on the Sea fifty leagues together round and full of gourds vnder them were store of fish on them store of
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
their crueltie with great magnanimitie the last of that race which had continued as Blas Valera reckons almost 600. yeeres in that Soueraigntie After his death followed that dispersion before related of his children and kindred The Viceroy returned with 500000. Pezos gotten in his gouernment which was arrested and himselfe discountenanced by the King who told him that he was sent into Peru to serue Kings not to kill Kings wherewith agrieued hee dyed in few dayes Garcia Loyola which tooke Amaru married his Neece the Daughter of Sayn Tupac and was made Gouernour of Chili who one night was slaine with all his Company by the Araucos He left only one Daughter which was married to Don Iuan Enriquez de Boria in Spaine whom the King entituled Marquesse of Oropesa a Towne founded by Toledo in Peru b P de Cieza part 1. c. 36. c Acost l. 3. c. 20 The winds and weather The Hils d Botero e Cieza p. 1. c. 72 f Acost l. 3. c. 21. Lakes g Acost. ib. c. 16. Cieza p. 1 c. 103. No raine the cause h Tellus Nubibus assiduis plisuiaque madescit ab Austro Ouid. i Cieza c. 59. k Cieza c. 25. l The like doth Apolodorus and the Poets tell of Typhon and other Giants Ap. de Ded. Orig l. 1. Hyginus fab 152. m Cieza c. 74. n Acost l. 1. c. 25 o Cieza p. 1. c. 103. p Acost ibid. Quippos q Id. ibid. c. 26. Posts r Cieza pag. 1. cap. 29. Å¿ Acost l. 6. c. 15 t Gom. c. 124. u Gom. c. 125. 126. x Not far from Lima on the South Sea Oliuer Noort was bemisted two dayes on the Sea with such a showre of ashes which made them seeme as they had bin sprinkled with Meale The Spaniards say they are there common y Benzo l. 2. c. 17 z F. Xeres Ortel Theat Strange Canes a Acost l. 5 c. 3. Viracocha b No name in the Culcan or Mexican tongues to signifie God c Which they pronounce Tius wanting the letter d in their Language Veg. l. 1. c. 40. d Benzo l. 3. c. 21 e Vega saith they called the Spaniards Viracah because they resembled a spectrum which appeared to Inga Viracocha with a beard c. They therefore thought them sent froÌ„ Heauen to doe iustice on Atabaliba for his tyrannie And were further confirmed in this errour by their Harquebuzes and Ordnance which they called Yllapa thuÌ„der and Hatun Yllapa great thunder the proper weapoÌ„s of the Sunne They called them also Inca or Ingua But after experience of their wickednesse they forbeare to call them so any longer called them Cupay 1. Deuils The people were so loyall and subiect as they held the Spaniards their conquerours as Gods and obserued them as they vsed their Idols f A. Gel. l 15. 21. I. Hygin Fab. g See c. 12. h Orta salo suscepta solo patre edita Coelo-Venus Ansonius i Albricus de Imag. deorum k Phornuti de Nat. dier Speculum Vid Im. de i Dai. Vinc. Sartan l Fulgentij Mytholog l 2. m Ac. l. 6. c 21. n So haue some reasoned In Templis quid facit aurum Pers o Acost l. 5. c. 5 p Gom. 1â—1 q Cieza c. 50. r Gom. hist gen cap 122. Apollon l. 1. Å¿ Calueto in Benz l. 3. c. 28. Cieza c. 72. u Gom. vbi sup. x This is like Guids tale of Tython c. Mel. 1. a Apollon l. 1. b Acost l. 5. c. 12 c Leu Apoll. l. 1 d Gom. c. 121 e Cieza cap. 72. f Acost l. 5 c. 12 g Guaynacapa h Cieza c. 64. Sodomites i Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum k Cieza c. 77 80. l Gom. c. 121. m Acost lib. 5. cap. 15. n The young Virgin Nuns o Acost l 5. c. 26 Sorcerers p Idem c 25. Confessions like the Popish Ychuyri q Gom c 121 Acost l. 5. c. 18. Sacrifices and Offerings r Fasting Å¿ Gom. quo sup. t Guaca signifieth mourning u Acost quo sup. Xeres y Gomara z Sansouin Selua p. 5. a Acost l 6. c. 3. b Knights of Peru Acost l. 5. c. 23. b A rare resembling the Christians Communion in a Deuillish Apishnesse c Corruptio optimi pessima Powder-traitors d They which did this were called Panconcos Chica what it is e Acost l. 4. c. 16. Feasts extraordinary f Procession g Acost li. 5. c 7. h Funerals i Wittie escape k Cieza p. 1. c. 62 l Rich Sepulchres Purgatorie m 1000. Duckets a yeere a piece Al. Vrsiuo n Ortel Theat De la Repub. de las Indias Occident l. 1. c. 2. He hath written 3. whole Bookes of American Rites and customes Degrees of Priests In Cholola was a Metropolis which had as many Temples as were dayes in the yeere One the most famous he saith in the World the foot or foundation of the Spire contayning a Crosse-bow shoote in breadth and much more in height the Spire it selfe being a league or a Lie in height c. a Ben. l. 3. c. 22 b To Leigh London too Siluest in Du Bartas c Planeta signifies a Wanderer d Ithaca was the place wher Vâ—ysses dwelt which after many yeeres trauell he so much desired to see e The Tides are stronger on the South Sea then on the North and higher by many degrees Pet. Mart. Dec. 3 lib. 2. f Terra Australis g The Ladrones or Ilands of Theeues h A Pigafetta Pet. Mart. Dec. 5. lib 6. i Nauig Thom. Cand sh ap Hak. k Nauig Ol N. in Additament 9. p. Americ l Certaine Fowles which breed on the Ilands m Pet. Mart. Dec. 3. l. 6. n Mundus muliebris o Botero del Isole l. 3. p Description of the Indies q Pet. Mart. Dec. 8. l. 6. r Pet. Mart. Dec. 3. l. 9. Å¿ Palephatus fab l. 1. saith the Amazones were Thracian men close shauen in long garments and therefore called women but denieth that there was euer any such Amazonian Expedition as Histories speake of t Pet. Mart. Dec. 1. l. 2. Ouied. ge hist l. 3 M H. Chalenge u Nau. M. Iohn Hawkins ap Hak tom 3. x S R. Hawkins y The like Sea-hawking is betweene the flying fish which hath as it were Bats wings the Bird Alcatraz and the Bonito the one in the Aire the other in the Sea pursuing him a Oranges Limons and the like are excellent remedies to this disease b The flames of Fuego hee saith are seene twenty leagues in the Night c Botero vol. 2. d Ouied. l. 6. c. 1. mentions this Bishopricke Monasterie e Of it reade Ouied. l. 18. f Mar. Dec. 1. l. 2 g Of this Iland read Ouied. l. 17 part tot h Ortel Thea. i Mar. Dec. 1. l. 2 k Botero l P. M. Dec. 7. 1. m Dec. 7. 8. n Dec. 1. l. 2. o Ortel Theat p Columbus called it Cipanga thinking it to be that Iland which Marcus Paulus cals by that name in