tell his Disciples the Historie of the Arke Who told them that by the weight of the Ordure the Arke leaned on the one side whereupon Noe consulting with GOD was bidden bring the Elephant thither out of whose dung mixed with mans came forth a Hog which wrooted in that mire with his snout and by the stinke thereof was produced out of his nose a Mouse which gnawed the boords of the Arke Noe fearing this danger was bidden to strike the Lion on the forehead and by the Lions breath was a Cat engendred mortall enemie to the Mouse But to returne from this stinking tale to refresh our selues with the like sweets of this Paradise He addeth that there they haue the wiues that here they had and other Concubines whom how when wheresoeuer they will Abd. But why is Wine lawfull there and here vnlawfull Mah. The Angels Arot and Marot were sometime sent to instruct and gouerne the world forbidding men Wine iniustice and murther But a woman hauing whereof to accuse her husband inuited them to dinner and made them drunke They inflamed with a double heat of Wine and Lust could not obtaine that their desire of their faire Hostesse except one would teach her the word of ascending to heauen and the other of descending Thus she mounted vp to heauen And vpon enquirie of the matter shee was made the Morning-Sarre and they put to their choice whether they would bee punished in this world or in the world to come they accepting their punishment in this are hanged by chaines with their heads in a pit of Babel till the day of Iudgement Hell saith Mahomet there hath the floore of Brimstone smoakie pitchy with stinking flames with deepe pits of scalding Pitch and sulphurous flames wherein the damned are punished daily the trees beare most loasome fruits which they eate The day of Iudgement shall be in this sort In that day GOD will command the Angel of Death to kill euery Creature which being done hee shall aske him if nothing bee aliue Adreiel the Angell of Death shall answere Nothing but my selfe Then goe thy waies betwixt Paradise and Hell and last of all kill thy selfe Thus he folded in his wings prostrate on the earth shall strangle himselfe with such a bellowing noise as would terrifie the verie Angels if they were aliue Thus the world shall bee emptie fortie yeeres Then shall GOD hold the Heauen and Earth in his fist and say Where are now the mightie men the Kings and Princes of the World Tell mee if yee be true whose is the Kingdome and Empire and Power Repeating these words three times he shall rise vp Seraphiel and say Take this Trumpet and goe to Ierusalem and sound This Trumpet is of fiue hundred yeeres iourney At that sound all Soules shall come forth and disperse themselues vnto their owne bodies and their bones shall be gathered together Fortie yeeres after hee shall sound againe and then the bones shall resume flesh and sinewes After fortie yeeres the third sound shall warne the Soules to re-possesse their bodies and a fire from the West shall driue euery creature to Ierusalem When they haue here swum fortie yeeres in their owne sweat they shall with much vexation come to Adam and say Father Adam Father Adam Why hast thou begotten vs to these miseries and torments Why sufferest thou vs to hang betweene hope and feare Pray to GOD that hee will finish his determination of vs between Paradise and Hell Adam shall excuse his vnworthinesse for his disobedience and send them to Noe Noe will post them to Abraham Abraham to Moses He shall send them to Iesus Christ To him they shall come and say The Spirit Word and Power of GOD let thy pitie moue thee to make intercession for vs He shall answer them That which you aske you haue lost I was indeed sent vnto you in the power of GOD and Word of Truth but yee haue erred and haue made me GOD more then euer I preached to you and haue therefore lost my benefit But goe to the last of the Prophets meaning him with whom thou now talkest Abdia Then shall they turne to him and say O faithfull Messenger and friend of GOD we haue sinned heare vs holy Prophet our only hope c. Then shall Gabriel present himselfe to helpe his friend and they shall goe to the Throne of GOD. And GOD shall say I know why you are come Farre be it that I should not heare the prayer of my faithfull one Then shall a bridge be made ouer Hell and on the top of the bridge shall bee set a ballance wherein euery mans workes shall bee weighed and those which are saued shall passe ouer the bridge the other shall fall into Hell Abd. How many bands of men shall there be in that day Mahom. An hundred and twentie of which three only shall be found faithfull and euery Band or troupe of men shall be in length the iourney of a thousand yeeres in breadth fiue hundred Abd. What shall become of Death Mah. He shall be transformed into a Ram and they shall bring him betweene Paradise and Hell Then shall arise much dissentions betweene these two peoples through feare of the one and hope of the other But the people of Paradise shall preuaile and shall slay Death betweene Paradise and Hell Abd. Thou O Mahomet hast ouercome and I beleeue that there is but one GOD Almightie and thou art his Messenger and Prophet In this long and tedious Summarie of that longer and more tedious Dialogue compared with the former Iewish opinions touching their Behemoth Leuiathan Ziz Ierusalem Swines flesh the Angell of Death and other their superstitious opinions it may appeare that the Iewes were forward Mint-masters in this new-coyned Religion of Mahomet In the beginning of this Dialogue are mentioned their fiue Prayers and their Ramadam or Ramazan Of which that Arabian Noble-man in confutation of the Alcoran writeth thus He which hath fulfilled these fiue Prayers shall bee praised in this world and in the next They are as follow Two kneelings in the morning after-noone foure at Vespers or a little before Sun-set foure after Sun-set foure at their beginning of supper two and after supper when it is darke two in all eighteene kneelings in a day Their Lent or Fast of the Moneth Ramazan is thus In the day time they must fast from Meate Drinke and Venerie till the Sunne bee downe then is Riot permitted them till a white threed may be discerned from a blacke But if any be sicke or in iourneying he may pay at another time the same number of dayes Sampsates Isphacanes a Persian in a letter written to one Meletius which had conuerted to Christianitie and fled to Constantinople to reduce him to his former vomit alleageth this saying of GOD to Mahomet I haue made all things for thee and thee for mee obiecteth to Christians the worship of three Persons the Father Mother and Sonne the worship of many gods And
out of Berosus and Nicolaus Damascenus of old and Cartwrights later trauels what may be thought thereof Armenia as Strabo affirmeth receiued the name of one of Iasons companions which followed him in his Nauigation out of Harmenia a Citie of Thessaly betweene Pherae and Larissa The wealth of this Region appeared when Ptolomey appointing Tigranes to bring in to the Romans sixe thousand Talents of Siluer he added voluntarily beyond that summe to euery Souldier in the Campe fiftie drammes of Siluer to euery Centurion a thousand to euery Deputie of a Countrey and Chiliarch a Talent Their Religion must at first be that which Noah and his Family professed after by time corrupted Here saith our Berosus Noah instructed his posteritie in Diuine an Humane Sciences and committed many naturall secrets vnto writing which the Scythian Armenians commend to their Priests onely none else being suffered to see or reade or teach them He left also Rituall Bookes or Ceremoniall of the which hee was termed Saga that is Priest or Bishop Hee taught them also Astronomy and the distinction of yeeres and moneths For which they esteemed him partaker of Diuine Nature and surnamed him Olybama and Arsa that is the Heauen and the Sunne and dedicated to him many Cities some saith he remaining at this day which beare these names And when hee went from thence to gouerne Cytim which now as bee affirmeth they call Italy the Armenians were much affected to him and after his death accounted him the Soule of the heauenly bodies and bestowed on him Diuine Honors Thus Armenia where hee began and Italy where he ended doe worship him and ascribe to him Names Heauen Sunne Chaos the Seed of the World the Father of the greater and lesse Gods the Soule of the World mouing Heauen and the Creatures and Man the GOD of Peace Iustice Holinesse putting away hurtfull things and preseruing good And for this cause both Nations signifie him in their writings with the course of the Sunne and motion of the Moone and a Scepter of Dominion persecuting and chasing away the wicked from among the societie of men and with the chastitie of the bodie and sanctimony of the minde the two keyes of Religion and Happinesse They called also Tidea the mother of all after her death Aretia that is the Earth and Esta that is the Fire because shee had beene Queene of the Holy Rites and had taught maidens to keepe the holy euerlasting fire from euer going out Noah before he went out of Armenia had taught men Husbandry more ayming at Religion and Manners then Wealth and Dainties which prouoke to vnlawfull things and had lately procured the wrath of GOD. And first of all men he found out and planted Vines and was therefore called Ianus which to the Aramaeans soundeth as much as The Author of Wine Thus farre Berosus lib. 3. and in the fourth Booke hee addeth that Nymbrot the first Saturne of Babylon with his sonne Iupiter Belus stole away those Rituall or Ceremoniall bookes of Iupiter Sagus and came with his people into the land Sennaar where he appointed a Citie and laid the foundation of a great Tower a hundred thirtie and one yeeres after the Floud but neither finished this nor founded the other Old Ianus when hee went hence left Scytha with his mother Araxa and some inhabitants to people Armenia being the first King thereof Sabatius Saga being consecrated High Priest from Armenia vnto the Bactrians all which space saith he in our Age is called Scythia Saga In his fifth booke hee reporteth That Iupiter Belus possessed with ambition of subduing the whole world closely endeuoured to make or take away Sabatius Saga who being not able otherwise to escape his treachetie fled away secretly But Ninus the sonne of Belus pursued his fathers intent against Sabatius who substituted his sonne Barzanes in his place and fled into Sarmatia and after from thence into Italy to his father Ianus Barzanes was subdued by Ninus But to come to an Author of better credite Strabo saith The Armenians and Medes haue in veneration all the Temples of the Persians but the Armenians especially esteeme the Temples of Tanais as erecting them in other places so in Acilesina They dedicate vnto them men-seruants and women-seruants the most noble of that Nation there dedicating shall I say or prostituting their daughters where after long prostitution with their Goddesse they are giuen in marriage none refusing such matches How much can the shadow how little can the substance of Religion perswade men to The Image of Tanais or Anaitis was set vp in her Temple all of solid gold and when as Antonius warred against the Parthians this Temple was robbed The same went That hee which first had layed sacrilegious hands on the spoyles was smitten blind and so diseased that he died thereof But when Augustus being entertained of an ancient warriour at Bononia asked him of the truth of this report he answered Thou now O Emperour drinkest that bloud for I am the man and whatsoeuer I haue came by that bootie This Goddesse is supposed to be the same with Diana A Region of Armenia bare the same name Anaitis How bloudy Rites the Armenians sometimes vsed appeareth by the Historie of the Riuer Araxes before called Halmus borrowing this later name of a King there raigning to whom in warres betwixt him and the Persians the Oracle prescribed the sacrifice of his two faire daughters Pietie forbade what pietie commanded and whiles the King would be an Vmpire between Nature and the Oracle which is the vsuall euent in arbitrements he satisfied neither That the Oracle might bee fulfilled he sacrificed two of noble birth of notable beautie that Nature might not be wronged hee wronged Iustice the true touch-stone of true pietie hee spared his owne and offered the daughters of Miesalcus but so hee lost both his daughters by Miesalcus reuenging sword and himselfe in this Riuer by himselfe drowned Bacchus loued Alphoesibaea an Armenian Damsell and while Tygris then if you beleeue the Story called Sollax was too coole a Mediatour betweene the two hot louers hee swam ouer on a Tygers backe Hence the Fable of his Metamorphosis into a Tygre hence that name left to the Riuer Armenia was subdued to the Persians by Cyrus one part thereof payed to the Persians twentie thousand Colts for yeerely tribute Sariaster sonne to Tigranes the Armenian King conspired against his father the Conspirators sealed their bloudie faith with a bloudie ceremonie they let themselues bloud in the right hands and then dranke it Wonder that in such a treachery as immediately before the same Author affirmeth of Mithridates his sonne that any man would helpe or that hee durst importune the Gods no wonder that so bloudie a seale was annexed to such euidence The Temple of Baris mentioned by Strabo may happily be some Monument of Noahs descent by corruption of the word Lubar as before said Iosephus out of
knowledge both of the Turkish and of the Tartarian Historie as well as of the Scythian The MASSAGETAE famous for the ouerthrow of Cyrus esteeme the Sunne alone for God and offer vnto him a horse They haue one wife to each man and yet euery one vseth also his Neighbors wife openly hanging meane while his quiuer on the Waine or Cart The best death and most happy amongst them is when they are become old to bee cut in pieces and to be eaten together with sheeps flesh if hee dye naturally they burie him in the earth as dying a base and beastly death Their weapons are of brasse their furniture of gold of both which they haue much store little of yron and siluer The BACTRIANS when they were old or worne with sicknesse cast their Parents to Dogs which they kept for this purpose and called Buryall Dogs The Bactrian women are pompous riding in great state and lye with their seruants and with strangers They haue among them Brachmanes Zoroastres the Bactrian is accounted first author of the Magi and of liberall Arts he liued twenty yeeres in a wildernesse with cheese but others account this another Zoroastres The SACAE sometimes made neerer sometimes further inuasions they possessed Bactria and a great part of Armenia which after of them was called Sacasena and proceeded vnto Cappadocia where in the midst of their feastings being in the night surprised by the Persians and slaine they left their name Saca or Sacea to a yeerely solemnitie among the Persians in memory of this victory Of the Sacae some hold our Saxons to be descended Dionysius in his Greeke verses giueth them the highest praise for shooting of all others The AMAZONS of whom is before related are said to be descended of the Scythians who vnder the conduct of Plinos and Scolpythus settled themselues by the Riuer Thermodon and possessed the field of Themiscyra But when they continued to spoile the adioyning Countries they were by secret conspiracie of those people destroyed Their wiues became Warriours both in defence and offence and did great acts vnder their two Queenes Marthesia and Lampedo after Ohera and Antiope the daughter of Marthesia in the time of Hercules reigned then Penthesilea who in the Troian warres was slaine Yet the reliques of that Nation continued vntill Minthia or Thalestris in Alexanders time and by degrees ware out altogether One of their Queenes instituted the sacrifice to Mars and Diana called Tauropolium saith Diodorus who addeth that they liued not without men but that they put the men to domesticke drudgeries and exercised the women in the field Yet doth hee no lesse then Strabo make doubt of these Amazonian or Vnimammian Nation and no lesse of the HYPERBOREAN which hee thus relateth out of Hecataeus that they dwell in an Iland in the Ocean neere vnto the Pole in which Latona was borne and Apollo was most of all worshipped and that the Ilanders generally are Apolloes Priests euerie day chanting Hymnes in his praise they haue also a huge Groue and a round Temple dedicated to Apollo to whom their Citie is sacred These and other things fable they of the Hyperborei to which Salinus addeth many other of the clemencie of the ayre of the innocencie of the men of their freedome from sicknes and voluntarie seeking for death in the fulnes of daies after they haue made merrie casting themselues from a certaine Rocke into the Sea all these pleasures concurring notwithstanding things contrarie both to Truth and Nature except with Goropius wee turned some parts at least of this Historie into an Allegorie He yet historically interpreteth that they which placed the Hyperborei beyond the Arimaspi these beyond the Issedones and those also beyond the Scythians and these againe beyond the Cimmerians intended the Europaean Scythians or inhabitants about Maeotis the Liuonians and Muscouites the Issedones to be in Scandia and all alongst those frozen or Icy Seas as he proueth by Etymologie of the word North-East and Eastwards from these in the continent of Asia he placeth the Arimaspi and in the continent of America Mexicana hee seateth the Hyperborei They which list to haue recourse to his learned discourses of this argument Porcacchi telleth of some Scythians which hanged their dead on trees as the Colchi of old and some Tartarians are still reported to do esteeming it a disgrace to be buried in the earth The Taurici buried with their Kings some of their best friends The DERBICES feasted with the flesh of their kinsmen which were seuentie yeeres old the women at that age they strangled and after buried The CASPIANS straitly imprisoned such as attained to that age and their famished them Some say they laid them amongst the woods and obserued what became of them esteeming them as is said before of the Persians highly honoured and next to a canonizing whom the Birds tare with their talons In the next degree of happinesse whom Dogs or wilde beasts praied on but beneath all disasters and disaduentures which could find neither the one nor the other to become vnto them such enemie-friends The TIBARENI crucifie those old men which they haue best loued The HERVLES being sicke or old were placed by their kindred on a pile of wood and there by another which was not of that kinne slaine with a dagger who being descended the pile was fired His wife was forced to hang her selfe or else to abide perpetuall infamie But I am loth to burie you in these buriall Rites The Scythians punished no fault more seuerely then theft They would make themselues drunken with the smoake of hearbs burnt in the fire They sware by the Kings Throne by their Sword and by the Wind When they had sacked Athens and piled a heape of bookes to the fire which others had compiled with studious paines one of the companie disswaded burning of then lest that the Greekes neglecting the Muses would become Martiall They doubled their numbers at foure as we doe at ten through vnskilfulnesse in numbring §. IIII. Of the SERES WE might proceed further in these cold Scythian narrations if the deepe Snowes long Desarts beastly Men and man-kind beasts Men-eaters and other monstrous aduentures in the way did not make it both perplexed and dangerous Leauing therefore these horrid and vncouth Nations the first ciuill Countrie Eastward is the Seres the quietest and mildest of men fleeing the commerce and traffique with other Nations bartering yet with such Nations as resort to them not valuing wares by words but by their eyes Among them is reported to be neither Thiefe nor Whore nor Murtherer nor Hailes nor Pestilence nor such like plagues A woman after conception or in her purgation is not desired None eateth vncleane flesh none knoweth sacrifices but euerie one is iudge to himselfe of that which is right They tell that they liue two hundred yeeres that the Common-wealth is gouerned by a Councell of
foure Gunners with great Peeces and goe not before the Armie lest they should hinder their sight or being hurt disturbe the rankes and therefore are set in the Rere a Sword bound to their trunke and Daggers fastened to their great teeth King Echebar was borne in the Prouince of Chaquata which hath Indostan on the South Persia on the West the Tartars East Their Language is Turkish but the Courtiers to this day speake Persian Baburxa his grand-father chased the Parthians vnto Bengala before possessors of the Region of the Mogors after whose death the Parthians or as they are now called Pataneans of Patanau before mentioned recouered themselues and warred on his sonne Their descent is from Tamerlan whose third sonne was Miromcha grandfather to Abusayd who slue Abdula successor to Abdelatife which had slaine Oleghbek the sonne and successor of Mirzah Charrok the fourth sonne and first successor of Tamerlan Sultan Hamed sonne of Abusayd obtayned Maurenahar and after him Babor his sonne which in the yeere 1500. was dispossessed by the Vsbechs yet still possessed Gaznehen and some parts of India succeeded by his sonne Homayen the father of this Achabar Thus Mirkand The Iesuites say they are Parthians descended of Cingis therefore rather to be called Tartars Achabars grandfather they call Baburxa which by his sword entred Industan and chased those Tartars into Bengala But they againe preuailed after his death insomuch that Achabars father Emmaupaxda as the Iesuites report being driuen to great straights by the Parthians Tartars or Pataneans was driuen to aske aide of the Sophi or Persian King which he obtained with condition of submitting himselfe to the Persian Religion The Mogors speake the Turkish language The Empire of this Mogor is exceeding great contayning the Countries of Bengala Cambaya Mendao and others comprehended by some vnder the name of Industan This Mendao is said to be ten leagues in circuit and that it cost the Mogor twelue yeeres siege Agra and Fatipore are two Cities in his Dominion great and full of people much exceeding London and the whole space betweene is as a continuall populous Market Many Kings he hath conquered and many haue submitted themselues and their States voluntarily to his subiection Twentie Gentile Kings are numbred in his Court which attend him equalling the King of Calecut in power Many others pay him tribute In his Countries are many Spices Pepper Ginger Cassia and others many precious Stones Pearles Metals of all sorts Silkes Cotton Horse and other Commodities which yeeld him many millions yeerely beyond his expences About the yeere 1582. the Iesuites first entred there after whose report his Dominions were then as followeth since much more enlarged Eleuen great Riuers run through his Dominions Taphi Haruada Chambel Iamena Ganges the other sixe are Indus or Schind as they call it and Catamul Cebcha Ray Chenao Rebeth tributaries to Indus The whole Monarchie enuironeth nine hundred leagues King Echebar hath many Lords each of which is to maintayne eight ten twelue or fourteene thousand Horse in readinesse for the warre besides Elephants of which in the whole Kingdome are said to bee fiftie thousand Himselfe can further bring of his owne into the Field fiftie thousand Horse and Foot-men innumerable To those Lordes hee alloweth certaine Prouinces for such Militarie seruice for hee is Lord of all nor hath any else possession of any thing but at the will of the King Once a yeere they appeare before the King where they present a view of those their enioyned Forces Many millions of Reuenue doe besides accrew vnto his Coffers yet his Port and Magnificence is not so great as of many other Princes eyther for Apparell Diet or the Maiestie of his Court-seruice Hee cannot write or reade but heareth often the Disputations of others and Histories read before him being of deepe iudgement piercing wit and wise fore-cast In execution of Iustice hee is very diligent insomuch that in the Citie where hee resideth he heareth all Causes himselfe neither is any malefactor punished without his knowledge himselfe giuing publike Audience twice euery day For which purpose he hath two wide Halls or rather open Courts and in them Royall Thrones where hee is attended with eight Councellors besides Notaries Yet doth hee stand and not sit and at other times sit on Carpets after the Turkish manner notwithstanding his Chayre of Estate standing by He hath twelue Learned men alway about him which ordinarily reason and dispute in his presence or relate Histories Hee is a curious discourser of all Sects Hee is both Affable and Maiesticall Mercifull and Seuere delights himselfe in diuers Games as fights of Buffals Cockes Harts Rammes Elephants Wrestlers Fencers Dances Comedies and in the Dances of Elephants and Camels thereto instructed In the midst of these Spectacles he dispatcheth serious affaires He delights in Hunting vsing the Panther to take wild Beasts Hunting Dogs hee had none They vse tame Harts to take the wild with Nets fastened to their hornes wherewith they intangle the other When hee goes to warre hee will cause a whole Wood to bee round beset with men hand in hand sending others in which raise the Beasts and driue them into the others armes which if they let them goe are punished to make sport that way He was skilfull in diuers Mechanicall Trades as making of Gunnes casting of Ordnance hauing his Worke-house in the Palace for that purpose But we haue obserued that this is common to all Mahumetan Priests and Princes the Great Turke yea the Great Challfa himselfe as Tudelensis writes of his Times practising some Mechanicall Mysterie Theeues and Pyrates He punished with losse of the hand Murtherers Adulterers Robbers by the high way with empaling hanging or other doaths not executed till the Sentence had beene thrice pronounced Loued and feared of his Owne Terrible to his Enemies Affable to the Vulgar seeming to grace them and their Presents with more respectiue Ceremonies then the Grandes of sparing Dyet scarce eating Flesh aboue foure times in the yeere but feeding by Rice Whit-meats and Electuaries sleeping but three houres in the night curiously industrious This King detesteth the Mahumetan Sect which as you heard his Father embraced for his aduantage and therefore hath ouerthrowne their Moschees in his Kingdome razing the Steeples and conuerting the rest to Stables and more trusteth and employeth the Gentiles in his affaires then the Moores whereupon many of them rebelled against him and stirred vp the Prince of Quabul his Brother to take Armes against whom Echebar opposed himselfe as is said and caused him to retire into his owne Countrey It is vncertaine what Religion hee is of some affirming him to bee a Moore some a Gentile some a Christian some of a fourth Sect and of none of the former Indeed it appeareth that he wauereth vncertaine which way of many to take able to see the absurdities of the Arabian and Gentile professions and not able to beleeue the high mysteries of the
vsuall in gouernment but thou beggest helpe of him who giueth all of mercie If thou punishest thou shalt haue example but if thou sparest thou shalt be good beyond example Hee gaue him ten thousand pieces of Gold and dismissed him in Peace An. 212. Almamon published the speech according to the forme of the Alcoran and the correcting of Ali Sonne of Abutalib which had bettered the forme after the messenger of God An. 213. hee gaue to Abbas Mutasim and Abdalla fiue hundred thousand pieces of Gold to each in one day An. 215. and 216. he inuaded the Romans An. 217. One of the children of Ommia writ to him that Merwan had treasures hidden in Hebron where some chists were found and amongst other things ten thousand shirts with foule sleeues the reason whereof being asked Asmagaeus sayd that he was a Glutton and when a rosted sheepe was set before him he vsed to thrust in his hand sleeue and all for the Kidneyes as before is said and then to haue put on another garment Almamon gaue to Asmagaeus those shirts which he sold for so many pieces of Gold An. 218. Almamon tryed the People in the forme of the Alcoran grieuously punishing those which would not vtter it Hee dyed hauing reigned twenty yeeres fiue moneths and thirteene dayes None of the Abbasians were more learned He was skilfull in Astronomy and the winds and one wind beareth name of him His Seale was inscribed Aske of God and he will giue thee Muhammed Mutasim Billa Abuishac his brother was created Chalifa on the day of his brothers death An. 218. The Horrimaeans a vile and hereticall Nation made insurrection lead by Babec But Mutasim sent an Army against them which killed sixty thousand of them and the rest fled to the Roman Dominions An. 219. Muhammed Sonne of Casim Sonne of Omar Sonne of Ali Sonne of Husein Sonne of Ali had many followers made many battels but at last was taken An. 220. the children of Babec lost aboue a hundred thousand in battell in Arsaw and Babec fled to Badwa which Citie Asfin besieged and tooke and gaue security to Babec but killed him notwithstanding An. 223. Ammoria was taken and great spoyle made in the Roman Regions An. 224. Barabas Sonne of Caran made insurrection and after many battels was taken by Abdalla Sonne of Taher who sent him to Mutasim which beate him to death and then crucified him besides Babec An. 226. Asfin was added to them for in his house were found Idols and wicked Bookes neither had he altered his Paganisme An. 227. Mutasim dyed at Samarra Hee was strong able to carry certaine paces a thousand pound weight Bagdad was not able to containe his Souldiers and therefore he built Samarra and placed his Souldiers there And Samarra remayned the Seat of the Chalifas till Mutadid reigned which remooued to Bagdad as the after Chalifas also did Mutisim was vnlettered and could not write He was called Octauian for that the number of eight agreed to him eleuen wayes he was the eight Chalifa of the Abbasians created An. 218. reigned eight yeeres eight moneths and eight dayes aged forty eight yeeres borne also in the eight moneth of the yeere his Fathers eight Son left eight Sons and eight Daughters fought eight battels and left eight Millions of Gold in his Treasury and eighty thousand Staters He dyed in the yeere of the Sunne 6333. and a hundred and thirty dayes compleate An. 223. and of Dioclesian 547. Abuna Ioseph was made Patriarch of Alexandria In his time Iacob a Bishop in Aethiopia when the King was abroad in Warre was displaced by the Queene and another substituted in his place But Drought and Pestilence followed and the King sent to the Patriarch to send backe the Bishop which hee did and hee was receiued with great ioy Hee sent also Bishops into Africa to Pentapolis and Cairawan Haron Wacic Billa Abugiafar was the ninth of the Abasians and 30. King of the Muslims created on the day of his Fathers death at Samarra An. 227. And An. 228. hee remooued his Iudges and Scribes and tooke of them much money A. 230. Abdalla Son of Taher deceassed an honorable and valiant man which had bin Gouernour of Chorasan Egypt and Syria to whom was great resort of learned men and Poets to whom he was very bountifull Wacic seeking to increase his abilitie for lust was aduised to eate Lions flesh boyled in red Vineger and to take three drammes thereof but he dyed soone after he had vsed it Stretching his sicke body on a Carpet he said O thou whose kingdome passeth not haue mercy on him whose Kingdome passeth away He loued and rewarded Poesie Hee propounded to men the forme of the Alcoran as Almamon had done and alienated mens minds from him He reigned fiue yeeres nine moneths and sixe dayes Giafar Abufadl Mutewakkel Aballa Wacics brother succeeded An. 231. They first put on the Chalifate Robes on Muhammed Sonne of Wacic but then contemning his childhood the Iudge Ahmed sent for Giafar Sonne of Mutasim and clothed him with a long garment and kissed him betwixt both his eyes saluting him Emperour of the faithfull and surnaming him Mutewakkel He imprisoned Muhammed his Counsellor and appointed one to keepe him waking and after some dayes watching permitted him to sleepe which he did a day and a night and then put him into a hot Iron Ouen hauing nayles within and there tortured him to death He was a Grammarian and Poet but proud shamelesse couetous and mercilesse being accustomed to say that Mercy was a certaine imbecilitie in nature and that Liberalitie was foolishnesse An. 235. Mutewakkel appointed his Sonne Mustansir Billa his Successor after him Mutaz Billa after that Muaijad Billa giuing to each two Banners one black which was the Banner of the league or couenant the otherwhite of their place of gouernment assigning to Mustansir Africa and all the West from Egypt also Kinnasrin Awasim Syria Mesopotamia Diarbecr Diarebia Mausil Habeb Aiat Chabur Karkisia Tecrit the Region of Tigris Mecca and Medina Aliaman Hadramat Iamam Bahrain Sindia and adioyning thereto Ahwaz Sacalas Samarra Cufa Maseidan Hazran Siahruzar Comma Casan and Giebel To Mutaz hee assigned Chorasan Tabristan Raija Persia Armenia and Aderbigian the Mints also and his name to be stamped in all Comes To Muaijâ—d hee assigned the Prouinces of Damascus Emessa Iardan and Palaestina A. 238. Abdurrahman King of Spaine died his Son Muhammed succeeded In the yeere 241. and 242. the Romans inuaded and carried away Muslims captiues This yeere were terrible Earthquakes which oppressed forty fiue thousand men most of them in Damijs In Persia also Chorasan and Syria Earthquakes and vnusuall sounds happened and in Aliaman with great destruction An. 245. also were terrible Earthquakes and the Springs of Mecca failed so that a bottle of water was sold for a hundred Staters Many were oppressed with an Earthquake at Antiochia and fifteene hundred houses and ninetie
Towres of the wall fell thereby the people ranne into the fields and Acraus the Hill there fell into the Sea a blacke and vnsauoury smoke ascending thence The Riuer also vanished for a farsang An. 246. Omar inuaded the Romans and carried thence seuentie thousand captiues others also in other places Mutewakkell hauing prayed and preached before the people the last Friday in Ramadan at his returne reproued his Sonne Mustansir and threaned him and his Mother who thereupon set his Seruants to kill him A principall cause hereof was Mutewakkels hatred to Ali Sonne of Abutalib which Mustansir could not beare Hee reigned fourteene yeeres ten moneths and three days He tooke away the temptation from men and the World was ordered Muhammed Abugiafar Mustansir Billa was priuately inaugurated the same day of his Fathers death and publikely the day after He continued sixe moneths A Persian Carpet with the Image of a King being haply brought before him he would needs force one to read the Letters therein wrought which were I Syroes Sonne of Cosroes slue my Father and reigned but sixe moneths Some say he was poysoned A fearefull Dreame also of his Fathers threatning him with short Reigne and fire after it terrified him He had made his two brethren resigne their partnership of the couenant Ahmed Ahulabbas Mustain Billa Sonne of Muhammed Sonne of Mutasim was enthronized in his place and imprisoned Mutaz and Muaijad An. 249. the Turkes killed Vtamaz which ruled all vnder Mustain An. 250. Iahia Sonne of Omar of the Posteritie of Ali arose at Cufa but was slaine in battell They which had slaine Mutewakkell slue also Iaaz whereupon Mustain fledde to Bagdad and the people created Mutaz Chalifa Mutaz sent his brother Ahmed to besiege Mustain at Bagdad whose Generall Abdalla made his Peace with Ahmed The same yeere Hasen of the Posterity of Ali possessed himselfe of Tabristan and another Hasen the Talibite of Ali his Posteritie arose in the Region of Dailam and besieged Mecca but both were put to flight and this last died An. 252. Mustain resigned the Chalifate and was committed to custodie where by Mutaz his procurement he was slaine He reigned two yeeres and nine moneths Muhammed Abu-Abdalla Mutaz Billa was the thirteenth Abasian Chalif Hee deposed his brother Muaijad from the partnership of the couenant and imprisoned him and perceiuing that the Turks would haue him set at liberty he caused him to be strangled in clothes that the Iudges could perceiue no signe of violent death in him An. 253. the Turkes killed Wasif for their stipends the Keeper of the Port whose Sonne Salih procured the deposition of Mutaz and starued him to death hauing reigned foure yeeres six moneths and three and twentie dayes He was a man giuen to his pleasures and negligent of gouernment A. 254. Ahmed Sonne of Tulan was made Gouernour of Egypt Muhammed Abu-Abdalla Muhtadi Billa Sonne of Watic Sonne of Mutasim succeeded . An. 255. He forbade the vse of Wine and reiected Singers and Iesters exiled Soothsayers refused the Lions and hunting Dogges in the Imperiall Tower and tooke away Tributes He also tooke on him to bee present at Iudgements and Accounts and sate euery Munday and Thursday to attend the people hauing a Booke before him Habib rebelled at Basra saying falsly that he was Ali Sonne of Muhammed of the Posteritie of Ali. He gathered together the Rihi which liued like Lions he was an Astrologer of bad Religion Hee continued to the yeere 270. Musa killed Salih the killer of his Master An. 256. Muhtadi Billa was slaine that yeere by the mutinous Turkes hauing reigned eleuen monethes and some dayes Ahmed Abulabbas Mutamid Alalla Sonne of Mutewakkel was created the same day at Samarra An. 256. the Rihi tooke foure and twentie Ships of the Sea and slue all that were in them and Habib with eighty thousand men did much spoyle He got the victory in diuers fights against Mutamids Armies He tooke Basra and slue twenty thousand Inhabitants at his entrance He preuayled also A. 258. and slue Muflish neyther could Muaffic Billa whom Mutamid had made Gouernour of the East and partner of the league preuayle against him Hee made the People beleeue that hee knew all secrets and could doe things miraculous An. 259. Iacob Sonne of Allit rebelled at Nisabur and possessed himselfe of Tabristan Habibs Souldiers slue fifty thousand at Ahwaz and threw downe the wals He and Iacob made great stirres and ouerthrew Mutamids Captaines Iacob put to flight Muhammed Sonne of Wasil and tooke his Castle in which were forty Millions of Staters Hee tooke Wasit Mutamid with his partner went against him and put him to flight But Habid preuayled in diuers battels he continued spoyling and victorious till Anno 267. at which time Muaffic Billa sent his Sonne Mutadid who chased him tooke his Citie Mabia which he had builded ruined the wals and filled vp the Ditches and freed out of his Prison fiue thousand Muslim women Muaffic pursued them to the Citie which they had builded with fiue Walls and as many Ditches and draue them out of it and got rich spoyles Habib had fortified Mahbar and had three hundred thousand Souldiers with him there Muaffic seeing it could not in short time be taken builded another Citie Muaffikia ouer against it he built also a Temple there stamped Coines inuited Merchants and by degrees preuayled An. 268. Lulu rebelled against Ahmed the Gouernour of Egypt and got Muaffics fauour whereby Ahmed was cursed in all Pulpits For Muaffic ruled all and Mutamid enioyed only the title his name on coines and to pray in Pulpits An. 270. Habib was taken and executed his head carried about for shew Muaffic was surnamed Nasir Lidinilla that is the Helper of Gods Religion for killing Habib The same yeere Ahmed dyed when death approched he lift vp his hands saying O Lord haue mercy on him which knew not his owne quantitie and shew thy selfe mercifull to him when he dieth He left three and thirty Sonnes He was a man of much iustice and almes and gaue euery moneth 300000. pieces of Gold in almes A thousand pieces of Gold daily were designed to his Kitchin and to Ecclesiasticke persons euery moneth hee gaue as much And whiles he gouerned Egypt two Millions and two hundred thousand pieces of Gold were carried to Bagdad to be giuen to the poore and to learned and good men Hee left in his treasury ten Millions of Gold Hee had seuen thousand Slaues and as many Horses eight thousand Mules and Camels three hundred Horses for warre all his owne proper goods The Rent of Egypt in his time was three hundred Millions of pieces of Gold He is said to haue executed with adding those which dyed in Prison eighteene thousand His Sonne Hamaruias succeeded in all which he had in Egypt and Syria An. 273. Muhammed Sonne of Abdurrahman King of Spaine dyed his Sonne Mundir succeeded An. 278. Muaffic Billa dyed and
a line thence drawne to the Caspian Sea and that Isthmus which is betwixt that and the Pontike Sea secondly the great Chams Countrey from thence to the Easterne Sea betwixt the frozen Sea and the Caspian thirdly That which is subiect to the Turke all from Sarmatia and Tartaria Southwards betweene Tygris and the Mediterranean Sea fourthly The Persian Kingdome betweene the Turke Tartar India and the Red Sea fiftly India within and beyond Ganges from Indus to Cantan sixtly The Kingdome of China seuenthly The Islands These diuisions are not so exact as may be wished because of that variety vncertainty in those Kingdomes Many things doth Asia yeeld not elsewhere to be had Myrrhe Frankincense Cinamon Cloues Nutmegs Mace Pepper Muske and other like besides the chiefest Iewels It hath also Minerals of all sorts It nourisheth Elephants Camels and many other Beasts Serpents Fowles wilde and tame as in the ensuing Discourse in their due places shall appeare yet doth it not nourish such monstrous shapes of men as fabulous Antiquitie fained It brought foorth that Monster of Irreligion Mahumet whose Sect in diuerse Sects it fostereth with long continuance of manifold Superstitions It hath now those great Empires of the Turke Persian Mogore Cathayan Chinois it had sometimes the Parthian and before that the Persian Median Assyrian Scythian and first as it seemeth before them all the Babylonian Empire vnder Nimrod which is therefore in the next place to be spoken of CHAP. X. Of Babylonia the originall of Idolatrie and the Chaldaeans Antiquities before the Floud as BEROSVS hath reported them COnfusion caused diuision of Nations Regions and Religions Of this Confusion whereof is alreadie spoken the Citie and thereof this Countrey tooke the name Plinie maketh it a part of Syria which hee extendeth from hence to Cilicia Strabo addeth as farre as the Pontike Sea But is vsually reckoned an entire Countrey of it selfe which Ptolomey doth thus bound On the North it hath Mesopotamia on the West Arabia Deserta Susiana on the East on the South part of Arabia and the Persian Gulfe Luke maketh Babylonia a part of Mesopotamia Ptolomey more strictly diuideth them whereunto also agreeth the interpretation of the Land of Shinar that it was the lower part of Mesopotamia containing Chaldaea and Babylon lying vnder the Mount Sangara In this Countrey was built the first City which we read of after the Floud by the vngratefull World mooued thereunto as some thinke by Nimrod the sonne of Cush nephew of Cham. For as Caines posteritie before the Floud were called the sonnes of Men as more sauouring the things of men then of God more industrious in humane inuentions then religious deuotions so by Noahs curse it may appeare and by the Nations that descended of him that Cham was the first Author after the Floud of irreligion Neither is it likely that he which derided his old Father whom Age Holinesse Fatherhood Benefits and thrice greatest Function of Monarchy Priesthood and Prophecie should haue taught him to reuerence That he I say which at once could breake all these bonds and chaines of Nature and Humanitie would be held with any bonds of Religion or could haue an eye of Faith to see him which is inuisible hauing put out his eyes of Reason and Ciuilitie Had hee feared God had he reuerenced man had hee made but profession of these things in some hypocriticall shew hee could not so easily haue sitten downe at ease in that Chaire of Scorning whence we read not that euer hee rose by repentance From this Cham came Nimrod The mightie hunter before the Lord not of innocent beasts but of men compelling them to his subiection although Noah and Sem were yet aliue with many other Patriarches As for Noah the fabling Heathen it is like deified him The Berosus of fabling Annius calleth him Father of the gods Heauen Chaos the Soule of the World Ianus his double face might seeme to haue arisen hence of Noahs experience of both Ages before and after the Floud The fable of Saturnus cutting off his Fathers priuities might take beginning of that act for which Cham was cursed Sem is supposed to be that Melchisedech King of Salem the figure of the Lord and the propagator of true Religion although euen in his posteritie it failed in which Abrahams Father as witnesseth Ioshua serued other gods Iaphets pietie causeth vs to perswade our selues good things of him Cham and his posteritie we see the authors of ruine Philo and Methodius so are the two bookes called but falsly tell That in these daies they began to diuine by Starres and to sacrifice their children by Fire which Element Nimrod compelled men to worship and that to leaue a name to posteritie they engraued their names in the brickes wherewith Babel was builded Abraham refusing to communicate with them and good cause for he was not yet borne was cast into their Brick-kill and came out long after from his Mothers wombe without harme Nahor Lot and other his fellowes nine in number saued themselues by flight Others adde that Aram Abrams brother was done to death for refusing to worship the Fire Qui Bauium non odit amet tua carmina Maeui To come to truer and more certaine reports Moses saith That the beginning of Kimrods Kingdome was Babel and Erech and Acad and Calne which three some interpret Edessa Nisibis Callinisum And whereas commonly it is translated in the next words Out of that Land came Ashur and built Niniueh Tremellius and Iunius read it Out of this Land hee Nimrod went into Ashur or Assyria and built Niniue and Rehoboth Calah and Resen But most vsually this is vnderstood of Ashur the sonne of Sem who disclayming Nimrods tyrannie built Niniue which after became the chiefe City of the Assyrian Empire to which Babylon it selfe was subiected not long after Xenophon de Aequiuocis if his authority be current saith That the eldest of the cheife families were called Saturni their Fathers had to name Coelum their wiues Rhea and out of a piller erected by Semiramis to Ninus alleageth this inscription My Father was Iupiter Belus my Grandfather Saturnus Babylonicus my great Grandfather Saturnus Aethiops who was sonne of Saturnus Aegyptius to whom Coelus Phoenix Ogyges was Father Ogyges is interpreted Noah therefore called Phoenix because of his habitation as is thought in Phoenicia not farre from whence in Ierusalem Sem raigned Saturnus Aegyptius may be the name of Cham of whose name Egypt is in Scripture tearmed the land of Cham. Saturnus Aethiops is Cush Nimrod Babylonicus the father of Belus who begat Ninus But this cannot be altogether true For Niniue hath greater antiquitie then Nimrods Nephew howsoeuer the Greeke Histories ascribe this to Ninus and Babylon to his wife Semiramis except we say that by them these two Cities formerly built were enlarged and erected to that magnificence which with the growth of the Assyrian Empire
and by the glorie and order of them learned the knowledge of GOD neuer ceasing that diuine search till GOD appeared to him Which opinion may reconcile both the former that first he was and after ceased to be an Idolater before God appeared in vision to him He alledgeth Philo for his Author that at fourteene yeeres Abraham reproued Thara for seducing men vnto Idolatrie moued by his priuate lucre with Images and seeing the Heauen sometime cleare sometime cloudie he gathered that that could not bee GOD. The like hee concluded of the Sunne and Moone by their Eclipses for his father had taught him Astronomie At last GOD appeared and bade him leaue his Countrey Whereupon hee tooke his Fathers Images who as before is said was an Image-maker and partly broke partly burnt them and then departed Suidas further thinketh him the first inuenter of Letters of the Hebrew tongue and of the interpretation of dreames which I leaue to the Authors credit But for the fault of Abraham before his calling and other blemishes after in him and the rest of the Patriarchs what doe they else but in abounding of mans sinne set out the superabounding grace of GOD and are profitable as learned Morton in his answere of this cauill hath out of one of their owne obserued against them what he had obserued out of Augustine to these foure purposes Faith Instruction Feare and Hope the Faith of the Historie which flattereth or concealeth the faults of none Instruction to vertue by seeing others faults taxed Feare for what shall Shrubs doe if Cedars fall and Hope that wee imitate their repentance by seeing their pardon But to returne to our Historie Many of the Ethnike histories mention him Berosus commendeth him for his iustice and skill in Astronomie Nic. Damascenus sayth that hee raigned at Damascus and that in his time his house continued in Damascus and was still called by his name Hecataeus wrote a booke of him and Alexander Polyhistor telleth that hee was borne in the tenth generation after the floud in Camarine or Vrien a Citie of Babylon Iosephus addeth that when famine draue him into Aegypt hee disputed with the Priests and most learned Aegyptians in questions of Diuinitie and in their diuided Sects hauing confuted one by another he communicated to them the truth both in this and in Arithmeticke and Astronomie whereof before the Aegyptians were ignorant Abram sayth Master Broughton in his Consent was borne sixtie yeeres later then the common account as appeareth by computation of Terahs age who died at two hundred and fiue yeeres and after his death Abram went from Charan into Canaan the threescore and fifteenth yeere of his owne life and therefore was borne in the hundred and thirtieth and not in the seuentieth yeere of his father in the three hundred fiftie and two yeere after the Floud whereas the common opinion reckoneth the two hundred ninetie and two To Abram GOD had giuen commandement saying Goe from thy Countrey and from thy Kindred and from thy Fathers house into the Land which I shall shew thee and I will make of thee a great Nation c. His Historie is fully related by Moses and his progenie also whereof Ismael his Sonne by Agar and other his sonnes which he had by Ketura his second wife he sent to inhabite the East Countrey Arabia in his life time but Isaac was made his Heire both temporall and spirituall to whom Iacob succeeded in the promised blessing who with his sonnes and familie went downe into Aegypt where his posteritie multiplied exceedingly and were called sometimes Ebrewes of their ancient pedegree sometime Israelites of the name Israel giuen to Iacob by the Angell Gen. 32.28 Their whole Historie so largely and plainely in holy Writ recorded I feare to make Mine by euill reciting Those Fountaines are more open to all then that any should neede ours or others Brookes mixed with some myrie earth at least in the passage and my intent is to bee largest in relation of those things which are not in the Scriptures onely touching those things briefly for order sake Their Religion meane while was the best amongst the best though stayned in some as Rachel which stale her father Labans Idols and Iacob was forced to reforme his Familie in this respect and after in Aegypt they were corrupted with the Aegyptian superstition as Ezechiel protests against them The manner of Diuine worship was not so straitly limited as afterwards to persons and places By Reuelation and Tradition they receiued the religious worship wherein they instructed their posteritie vntill that in their extremest thraldome GOD sent Moses and Aaron to deliuer them vnder whose conduct they passed through the Sea and Wildernesse to the brinkes of Iordan receiuing in the way that Law which as a Tutor or Schoole-master was in that their nonage to traine them vp vntill that full and ripe age when GOD sent his Sonne made of a woman made vnder the Law that hee might redeeme them that were vnder the Law that wee might receiue the adoption of Sonnes §. II. Of the Law of MOSES the twelue Tribes and of Proselytes OF this Law although Moses hath giuen vs an absolute relation in Scripture whereof he was the first Pen-man of that at least which remayneth vnto vs yet if wee shall out of him bring them into their order and ranke them vnder their seuerall heads as Sigonius and others haue done it shall not be I thinke ouer-tedious to the Reader The Law is diuided vsually into the Morall Ceremoniall and Iudiciall as parts of the same the first deliuered on the Mount Sinai by the dreadfull voice of the Almightie God and by the finger of God written after in Tables of stone called Ten words summarily abridged into two Commandements by the Law-giuer himselfe The first and great Commandement enioyning the loue of GOD the second of our NEIGHBOVRS that God who himselfe is Charitie imposing nothing but the louely yoke of Loue and Charitie vnto his seruants This Law is eternall written first in the hearts of our first Parents which being defaced it was written againe in the stonie Tables of the Law where it was but a killing letter till Grace and Truth by IESVS CHRIST indited and indented it in the fleshy Tables of the Gospell as Christs new Commandement written it renewed hearts and shall for euer be then grauen in those spirituall Tables when wee that here are Naturall men shall rise againe Spirituall men and shall be the Law of that holy Citie the new Ierusalem this being then perfected when Faith and Hope and this World shall bee finished The other parts Ceremoniall and Iudiciall were for the particulars proper vnto that Nation the one respecting the manner of Diuine seruice the other of ciuill Gouernment not giuen as the other immediatly to the Israelites by GOD himselfe but communicated in the Mount to Moses that hee might acquaint the
it with them and to pray God for health and pardon of sinnes To this building is added a Noble Schoole or Vniuersitie A. H. 949. by Solyman who adorned it by his costs by maruellous structure and endowed it with reuenues After these visitations all the Pilgrimes goe to a certaine Temple on a Hill ten miles from the Citie and flocking in great numbers buy according to their abilitie one or more Rams for sacrifice And because some are of opinion that the Mohamedans haue no sacrifices we will relate what Iacub Ben-Sidi Aali hath written of their ceremonies Dhahhla so the Arabs call a Sacrifice is a killing of beasts in the worship and for the offering of God and they are Lambs of sixe or seuen moneths at least Camels of fiue yeeres Bullockes of two yeeres The males are to be chosen before females and those cleane white infected by no naturall or violent defect fatte corpulent horned Euery man must kill his owne Sacrifices and rippe them with his owne hands except in vrgent necessities and then he may substitute others to doe it for him For euery one before they eate any thing are bound to eate some peace of the Sacrifice the rest if they can to giue cheerefully to the poore They which are admitted to these Oblations let them offer one Ram for themselues another for the soules of the Dead another for Mahomed that in the day of Iudgement he deliuer them from calamities These Sacrifices are offered to God in imitation of Abraham which would haue offered his sonne Ismael to God who going out of the Citie with him to a certaine Hill called Mena where he would haue offered him to God but when the sword could not cut his necke a white Ram appeared betwixt his hands fat and horned which he sacrificed to God in stead of his sonne Whiles the Pilgrims are heere busied in their sacrifices Beduine Arabs assault the Carauans and robbing them flee to the Hils and inaccessible refuges so swift as if they did flie And although all Armes are forbidden in the Territorie of Mecca which containeth on the East sixe miles on the North twelue on the West eighteene on the South foure and twentie in which respect Mecca Medina are called Atharamain yet they cease not to infest Pilgrims are here forced to Armes This Territorie is barren for want of water and raine hath very few Herbs and Plants or other pleasures of Groues Gardens Vines or greene obiects but is roasted with the Sunne both land and people And this haply is the cause that no man may breake a bough if they finde any Tree Only the shrubs of Balsam brought hither from Cairo thriue well and are now so propagated that all the sweet liquor of Balsam is carried onely from this Citie thorow all Regions in great plentie Heere are store of Pigeons which because they are of the stocke of that which came to Mahomeds eare as the Moslemans fable no man may take or scarre them A certaine Scerif enioyeth the dominion of this Citie and all the Land of Medina by inheritance called Alamam-Alhascemi that is the Captaine or chiefe Hascemee descended of Hascem great Grand-father of Mohamed Who were neuer depriued of their dominion by the Ottoman or Soldan Yea the Ottoman calls not himselfe the Lord of Mecca and Medina but the humble seruant Yet this Scerif notwithstanding his reuenues and gifts by Pilgrims and Princes through the Beduines spoiles and his kindreds quarrels seeking the Soueraigntie is alway poore Therefore doth the Ottoman bestow the third part of the reuenues of Egypt and to protect the Pilgrims from the inuasions of the Arabs Medina is called The Citie by Antonomasia and Medina Alnabi that is The Citie of the prophet because Mohamed when he was forced to forsake his Countrey Mecca betooke himselfe to this Citie then called Iathreb and was made Lord thereof It is an errour that he was borne here for he was borne and brought vp at Mecca CHAP. VII Of the Successors of MAHOMET of their different Sects and of the dispersing of that Religion through the World MAHOMET hauing with Word and Sword published his Alcoran as you haue heard his followers after his death succeeding in his place succeeded him in tyrannie Eubocar surnamed Abdalla vndertooke the defence of that faithlesse Faith and Kingdome and that as his Predecessor had done partly by subtiltie partly by force For when as Mahumets Disciples had buried their new Religion with their old Master except a few of his kindred hee applied his wits to recall them and whereas Hali Mahomets neerest kinsman and sonne-in-law disagreed from him and was perswaded by the Iewes to professe himselfe a Prophet with promise of their best aide and assistance Eubocar or Ebuber reconciled him and as the Arabian Chronicle witnesseth conuerted many Infidels and slue the gaine-sayers He raigned one yeere and three moneths and thirteene dayes The next successour Aomar saith the same Author Leo termeth him Homar ordained their prayers in the moneth Ramazan and that the Alcoran should be read through which he caused to be written out and vnited in one booke He conquered Egypt by Hanir his Captaine after that Damasco Ierusalem Gaza and a great part of Syria were subdued He raigned ten yeeres and sixe moneths Odmen or Ozimen succeeded and raigned twelue yeeres and after him Hali and next to him his sonne Alhacem and then Moaui the great Conquerour c. These foure Eubocar Aomar Ozimen and Hali are the foure great Doctors of the Mahumetan Law and Mahomet before his death prophesied that they should succeed him and of their worthinesse But as Mahomet had pretended the name of Gabriel to the dreames of Sergius and other Apostata's of the Christians and Iewes disagreeing both with the truth and themselues so it was not long that this vntempered mortar would hold together these buildings For the Alcoran being according to diuers Copies thereof read diuersly was cause of different Sects among them Ozimen to preuent the danger hereof commanded that all the Copies of their Law should be brought and deliuered into the hands of Zeidi and Abdalla who conferring their Copies should make one booke and where they dissented should read according to the Copie of Corais Thus these two according to the Kings Edict to stablish an vniformitie in the reading of the Alcoran hauing out of all those Copies framed one to be Athenticall burned all others Yet were they deceiued of their hopes partly because Hali Abitalib and Ibenmuzod would not bring in their bookes of which that of Hali was the same which Mahumet had left and was after by the Iewes altered putting out and in at their pleasure partly because that booke which they had thus culled out of the rest to remain Canonical was lost of the foure Copies which they had written therof by fire negligence al perished Eletragig would haue vsed the like
Heretikes holding that euerie man is saued in his owne Law and all Lawes to be a like good to the obseruers these are burned if they be taken Strange it is that he reporteth of the miraculous workes of some of them that they may seeme as he saith incarnate Deuils Some going naked with their priuities onely hidden and some of these are impassible besides the violence of Winter and Summer induring like stones the branding with fire or wounding with sword some seldome eate or drinke and some not at all others but from hand to mouth some are perpetually silent hauing no conuersation with men of which he saith he saw one and some haue their supernaturall traunces or rauishments some dwell amongst men some by themselues apart and some in Wildernesse some keepe hospitalitie in Cities at least to harbour men if they haue not food for them some carrying about water in leather bagges giuing it to all and demanding nothing for the same except any voluntarily gratifie them Some inhabite at the Sepulchers of the Saints keeping the same and liuing on the vowes and offerings of the people not obseruing the washings and ceremonies of the Law As concerning those Water-carriers Nicholas Nicholai saith that he hath seene in a morning at Constantinople fiftie of those Sacquas so he calleth them in a company all furnished with their Scrips of leather full of Cisterne or Fountaine-water hanging on their side with cups of fine Corinthian Latten gilded and damaskined bearing in the same hand a Looking-glasse which they hold before their eyes of them whom they giue to drinke admonishing them to thinke on death and if any giue them any thing they out of a Violl cast on their faces sweet smelling water Hee telleth of some that would seeme to liue a solitarie life amongst beasts but indeed liue in shops in most popular Cities the walls whereof are couered with skins of diuers beasts and vpon the hornes thereof they hang Tallow Candles In the midst of this their sacred shop standeth a stoole couered with a greene cloth and vpon the same a great Latten Candle-sticke without any Candle Moreouer they haue painted a Cimitterre hung in the middest in memorie of Haly who forsooth with his sword cut the Rockes in sunder and they breed vp with them beasts as Bulls Beares Harts Rauens Eagles so that in stead of their liuing with beasts beasts liue with them And if sufficient be not brought to their shops they with one of these beasts in their hand goe about the streets begging In the Armie of the Turkes that assaulted Malta in the yeere 1565. were thirteene thousand of a certaine kinde of men amongst the Turks which liue of the reuenues of the Church who had at Constantinople vowed their liues for their superstition Antonio Pigafetta reporteth that as the Emperours Ambassadors were conueyed from the presence of the Great Turke to their lodging by the Ianizaries and their Aga there were amongst them certaine Religious men called Haagi which vse to follow the Ianizaries who continually turning about and in their going singing or rather howling certaine Psalmes or Prayers for their great Sultans welfare made them wonder that they fell not downe for giddinesse And this my friend Master Simons hath seene them doe taking one another by the hand in a ring and so continuing their whirle-gigg-deuotions with continuall turnings fitly agreeing to so giddie and brain-sicke a Religion till with the great applause of Turkes and admiration of others sweat and a long protracted wearinesse makes an end of this dancing their round But amongst all their orders of Religion Nicholas Nicholai and before him Menauino reckon foure which are most common amongst them the Giamailer the Calender the Deruisi and the Torlachi The Giamailer are for the most part faire young men of rich houses which giue themselues to trauell through diuers Regions at other mens charges vnder colour of Religion carrying with them none other apparell then a little Cassocke of purple colour girt with a girdle of silke and gold vpon the ends whereof hang certaine Cymbals of Siluer mixt with some other cleere-sounding metall and they doe ordinarily weare sixe or seuen of these about their girdles and vnder their knees In stead of a cloake they are couered with the skinne of a Lyon or Leopard being whole and in his naturall haire which they make fast vpon their breast by the two former legges All the rest of their bodies are bare sauing that they weare great Rings on their eares and a kinde of Sandalls on their feet their haire groweth long like womens disheueled ouer their shoulders They beare in one of their hands a Booke written in the Persian language full of amorous Sonnets And thus with their Voyces and Cymbals they make pleasant Musicke especially if they meet some faire stripling whom they set in the midst of them and incompasse with their Morice-musicke These are the Pilgrimes of Loue and vnder pretext of Religion doe draw vnto them the hearts of women and younglings and are called the men of the Religion of Loue vnto which order of Religion youth is prone more then enough The partakers of their Musicke ordinarily impart to them of their Coyne The Calender is of a contrarie profession to the former glorying of abstinence and chastitie They haue for their dwelling certaine little Churches which they call Techie ouer the gates whereof they doe write these or the like words Coeda normas dil ersin cusciunge al cachecciur that is They which will enter into their Religion must doe workes like theirs and remaine in their Virginitie These Calenders are clothed with a little short coat without sleeues after the fashion of Haire-cloth made of Wooll and Horse-haire and doe not let their haire grow long but cut the same and couer their heads with felt Hats like the Priests of Graecia about which hang certaine strings about the breadth of an hand made of Horse haire in their eares and about their neckes and armes they weare great rings of Iron They pierce their skinne vnder their priuy member thrusting thorow the same a ring of an indifferent bignesse and weight to barre them from venerie if they were thereunto otherwise willing They also goe reading of certaine Songs made by one of their Order called Nerzim the first Saint and Martyr after their reckoning of their Religion who for certaine words spoken against the Law of Mahomet was in Azamia flaid quicke Menauino saith he had read some of his writings agreeing with the Christian Faith in many points Some say he was martyred for confessing Christ The Deruis goe bare-headed and cause their head and beard to be cut with a razor and all the hairie parts of their bodie and burne also their Temples with a hot Iron or an old piece of cloth burnt hauing their eares pierced wherein they doe weare certaine great rings of Iasper All their clothes are two sheepes or
Heresie of Eutyches heere Iason had built a Temple to Iupiter in the straights which seuer Europe from Asia after Melas measure fiue furlongs Of their ancient Kings others haue related but one cannot passe this our Historie without obseruation and that is Mithridates the sixth King of that name who loosing his father in the eleuenth yeere of his age by his Tutors was trecherously assailed but escaped and by vse of that antidote which of him still beareth the name Mithridate out-liued their poysoning conspiracie Hee liued indeed to the death of thousands which either his crueltie or his warres consumed Foure yeeres together to auoid their Treasons he liued in the fields and woods vnder a shew of hunting both preuenting their designes and inuring himselfe to hardnesse Hee spake two and twentie languages being Lord of so many Nations Hee held warres with the Romans sixe and fortie yeeres whom those renowned Captaines Sylla Lucullus Pompey did so conquer as he alway arose againe with great lustre and with greater terror and at last dyed not by his enemies command but voluntarily in his old age and his own Kingdome neuer made to attend the Roman triumphs Syllaes felicity Lucullus prowesse and Pompeyes greatnesse notwithstanding His aspiring thoughts had greedily swallowed the Soueraignty both of Asia and Europe He caused in one night all the Romans in his Dominions to be slaine in which massacre perished a hundred and fiftie thousand as some haue numbred But it cannot be conceiued saith Orosius how many there were or how great was the griefe both of the doers and sufferers when euery one must betray his innocent guests and friends or hazard his owne life no Law of Hospitalitie no Religion of Sanctuary or reuerence of Images being sufficient protection And no maruell if he spared not his enemies when he slew Exipodras and Homochares his sonnes and after the poysonings and voluntary death of Monyma his wife Statira and Roxane his daughters his sonne Pharnaces like to taste of the same cup won to his part his fathers Armie sent against him with which he pursued his father so hotly that hee hauing denounced a heauy curse vpon him entred amongst his Wiues Concubines and Daughters and gaue them poyson pledging them in the same liquor which his body accustomed to his Antidotes easily ouer-came and therefore was faine to intreat another to open a bloudy passage for that his cruell soule A man saith Orosius of all men most superstitious alway hauing with him Philosophers and men expert in all Arts now threescore and foureteene yeeres old The Religion in Pontus was little differing from the Greekes Wee read of the Sacrifices of this King to Ceres and to Iupiter Bellipotens in which the King brought the first wood to the fire He powred also thereon Hony Milke Wine Oyle and after made a Feast In honour of Neptune they drowned Chariots drawne with foure white Horses with which it seemed they would haue him ease himselfe in his Sea-voyages At the mouth of Pontus was the Temple of Iupiter Iasus called Panopeum and nigh thereto a Promontory sacred to Diana sometime an Iland ioyned to the Continent by an Earthquake Hereabouts was the Caue Acherusium whose bottomlesse bottome was thought to reach to Hell I may in the next place set downe Paphlagonia which as it fareth with such as haue mightie Neighbours can scarcely finde her proper limits Some reckon it to Galatia before described and sometimes Pontus hath shared it and either the force of Armes or bountie of Emperours hath assigned it at other times to Phrygia Cilicia or other parts the bounds thereof are thus deliuered Pontus confineth on the North on the East the Riuer Halys on the South Phrygia and Galatia on the West Bithynia Of the people hereof called Heneti some deriue the Veneti of Italy They now call it Roni It had the name Paphlagonia of Paphlagon the sonne of Phineus The Mount Olgasys is very high and in the same are many Paphlagonian Temples Sandaracurgium is another Mountaine made hollow by the Metall-miners which were wont to bee slaues redeemed from capitall Sentence who heere exchanged that speedie death for one more lingring So deadly is the Alpha and Omega the beginning and ending of this Idoll of the World which the Spaniards haue verified in the West by the destruction of another world Vitruuius tells of a Fountaine in Paphlagania as it were mixed with Wine whereof they which drinke without other liquor proue drunken The Heptacometae and Mossynoeci inhabited about those parts a people of that beastly disposition that they performed the most secret worke of Nature in publike view These are not so much notorious for being worse then beasts as their neighbours the Tibareni for surpassing in iustice other men They would not warre on their enemy but would faithfully before relate vnto him the Time Place and Houre of their fight whereas the Mossynoeci vsed to assault strangers that trauelled by them very treacherously They haue also a venemous kinde of Hony growing out of their trees with which they beguiled and slew three troupes of Pompey The Tabareni obserued one strange fashion that when the woman was deliuered of a childe her husband lay in and kept his chamber the women officiously attending him a custome obserued at this day amongst the Brasilians CHAP. XVI Of Asia proprie dicta now called Sarcum THis Region in the strict sense being a particular Prouince of the lesser Asia is bounded on the West with part of Propontis and Hellespont the Aegean Icarian and Mertoan Seas on the South with the Rhodian Sea Lycia and Pamphilia on the East with Galatia on the North with Pontus and Bithynia and part of Propontis In which space are contained Phrygia Caria and both Mysias Aeolis Ionia Doris Lydia Some circumcise from hence both Phrygia and Mysia alledging the authoritie of Saint Luke But in the Apocalypse Chap. 1. these parts are also added and 1. Pet. 1.1 PHRYGIA is diuided into the greater which lyeth Eastward and the lesse called also Hellespontiaca and Troas and of some Epictetus The greater PHRYGIA hath not many Cities Here stood Midaium the Royall Seat of Mydas and Apamia the Phrygian Metropolis Phrygia is called of the riuer Phryx which diuideth it from Caria Herodotus telleth that the Phrygians were accounted the most ancient of all people for the triall whereof Psammetichus King of Egypt had shut vp without societie of any humane creature two children causing onely goats to bee admitted to suckle them who after long time pronounced bec which they had learned of the goates but because that with the Phrygians signified bread therefore they accounted the Phrygians first authors of mankinde Before Deucalions floud Nannacus is reported to raigne there and foreseeing the same to haue assembled his people into the Temple with supplications and prayers Hence grew the prouerbe to say A thing was from
and Peloponnesus for feare of a second returne of Techellis The remainder of Techellis his power as they fled into Persia robbed a Carauan of Merchants for which outrage comming to Tauris their Captaines were by Ismaels command executed and Techellis himselfe burnt aliue but yet is this Sect closely fauoured in Asia §. III. Of their Rites Persons Places and Opinions Religious WE haue now seene the Proceedings of this Sophian Sect both in Persia and Turkie both here kept downe and there established by force To weare red on the lower parts of their body were to these Red-heads scarsely piacular Touching Hali they haue diuers dreames as that when they doubted of Mahomets successor a little Lizard came into a Councell assembled to decide the controuersie and declared that it was Mahomets pleasure that Mortus Ali or Morts Ali should be the man He had a sword wherewith hee killed as many as he stroke At his death he told them that a white Camell would come for his body which accordingly came and carried his dead body and the sword and was therewith taken vp into heauen for whose returne they haue long looked in Persia For this cause the King kept a horse ready sadled and kept for him also a daughter of his to be his wife but she died in the yeere 1573. And they say further that if he come not shortly they shall be of our beleefe They haue few bookes and lesse learning There is often great contention and mutinie in great Townes which of Mortus Ali his sonnes was greatest sometime two or three thousand people being together by the eares about the same as I haue seene sayth Master Ducket in Shamaky and Ardouill and Tauris where I haue seene a man comming from fighting and in a brauery bringing in his hand foure or fiue mens heads carrying them by the hayre of the crowne For although they shaue their heads commonly twice a weeke yet leaue they a tuft of hayre vpon their heads about two foot long whereof when I enquired the cause They answered that thereby they may bee the easier carried vp into heauen when they are dead In praying they turne to the South because Mecca lyeth that way from them When they be on trauell in the way many of them will as soone as the Sunne riseth light from their horses turning themselues to the South and will lay their gownes before them with their swords and beads and so standing vpright doe their holy things many times in their prayers kneeling downe and kissing their beades or somewhat else that lieth before them When they earnestly affirme a matter they sweare by God Mahomet and Mortus Ali and sometime by all at once saying Olla Mahumet Ali and sometime Shaugham bosshe that is by the Shaughes head Abas the young Prince of Persia charged with imputation of treason after other Purgatorie speeches sware by the Creator that spread out the ayre that founded the earth vpon the deepes that adorned the heauen with Starres that powred abroad the water that made the fire and briefly of nothing brought forth all things by the head of Ali and by the Religion of their Prophet Mahomet that hee was cleare If any Christian will become a Bosarman or one of their superstition they giue him many gifts the Gouernor of the Towne appointeth him a horse and one to ride before him on another horse bearing a sword in his hand and the Bosarman bearing an arrow in his hand rideth in the City cursing his father and mother The sword signifieth death if hee reuolt againe Before the Shaugh seemed to fauour our Nation the people abused them very much and so hated them that they would not touch them reuiling them by the names of Cafars and Gawars that is Infidels or Mis-beleeuers Afterwards they would kisse their hands and vse them gently and reuerently Drunkards and riotous persons they hate for which cause Richard Iohnson caused the English by his vicious liuing to be worse accounted of then the Russes Their opinions and rites most-what agree with the Turkish and Saracenicall Their Priests are apparelled like other men they vse euery morning and afternoone to goe vp to the toppes of their Churches and tell there a great tale of Mahomet and Mortus Ali. They haue also among them certaine holy-men called Setes accounted therefore holy because they or some of their ancestors haue beene on pilgrimage at Mecca these must be beleeued for this Saint-ship although they lie neuer so shamefully These Setes vse to shaue their heâ—ds all ouer sauing on the sides a little aboue the Temples which they leaue vnshauen and vse to braide the same as women doe their hayre and weare it as long as it will grow Iosafa Barbaro at Sammachi lodged in an Hospitall wherein was a graue vnder a vault of stone and neere vnto that a man with his beard and hayre long naked sauing that a little before and behind he was couered with a skinne sitting on a peece of a matte on the ground I sayth hee saluted him and demanded what hee did he told mee hee watched his father I asked who was his father He quoth he that doth good to his neighbour with this man in this Sepulchre I haue liued thirty yeeres and will now accompany him after death and being dead be buried with him I haue seene of the world sufficient and now haue determined to abide thus till death Another I found at Tauris on all-Soules day in the which they also vsed a commemoration of Soules departed neere to the Sepulchre in a Church-yard hauing about him many birds especially Rauens and Crowes I thought it had beene a dead corpse but was told it was a liuing Saint at whose call the birds resorted to him and he gaue them meat Another I saw when Assambei was in Armenia marching into Persia against Signior Iausa Lord of Persia and Zagatai vnto the City of Herem who drew his staffe in the dishes wherein they are and sayd certaine words and brake them all the Sultan demanded what he had sayd they which heard him answered that he said hee should be victorious and breake his enemies forces as hee had done those dishes whereupon he commanded him to be kept till his returne and finding the euent according he vsed him honourably When the Sultan rode thorow the fields he was set on a Mule and his hands bound before him because he was sometime accustomed to doe some dangerous folly at his feet there attended on him many of their religious persons called Daruise These mad trickes he vsed according to the course of the Moone sometimes in two or three dayes not eating any thing busied in such fooleries that they were faine to bind him Hee had great allowance for his expences One of those holy men there was which went naked like to the beasts preaching their faith and hauing obtained great reputation hee caused himselfe to bee immured in a wall forty
timely and quick passage and be borne againe in richer Families And therefore they seeke no corners but execute their bloudy parricides publikely Yea greater abominations then these are here perpetrated vpon as sleight grounds many laying violent hands vpon themselues both in desperation and impatience and in malice also so to hurt their enemies Thus they say many thousands both of men and women euery yeere drowne themselues in Riuers hang themselues sometimes at their aduersaries doors or poyson themselues whereupon their kindred complaine to the Magistrates on those which gaue cause or occasion to these extremities which sometimes are seuere in these cases to the accused It may be reckoned among their cruelties which in the Northerne Prouinces is practised the gelding of their Male-Infants so to make them capable of the Kings seruice none other being admitted to attend or speake with Him and the whole sway of the Kingdome being in great part in these vn-manly hands of ten thousand scarce any but Plebeian illiterate seruile in condition and conditions impotent impudent of weake both conceit and performance Neither is this a little crueltie that the Magistrates are thought to kill as many against the Lawes as the Lawes themselues by execution of iudiciall sentence by their custome of beating men with Canes in manner at their owne lust This makes men that they are not Masters of their owne but are in continuall feare to be vndone by calumny and tyranny The Choinois are also a fraudulent and treacherous people They contemne strangers scorning to learne any thing out of their bookes as being vnlearned and rude yea all the Characters whereby they expresse the name of strangers are compounded of such as signifie beasts hauing indeed a beastly and diabolicall conceit of them When Embassadors come to them from Neighbour-Countries to pay their tributes or for other busines they are very suspiciously intreated entertained as captiues all the time of their iourney not permitting them to see any thing They shut them vp like beasts in stables within their Palaces neuer admit them the Kings presence themselues dealing with few of the Magistrates and all their businesse being ordered by Officers thereto assigned Nor may any natiue trauell out of the Kingdome without diuers cautelesse Petreius the Portugall Embassador died in prison at Canton They will not suffer strangers which haue staid long in China in some places the custome is nine yeeres to returne from thence Their Souldiers are base meere mercinaries not regarding honor where they are not rewarded with honor alike vile in estimation and action the most part slaues thereto by their owne or parents wickednesse legally condemned except at times of employment being Porters Horse-keepers or of like seruile drudgerie Their Captaines and Commanders haue some shaddow of dignitie but the substance we haue before rightly attributed to them who can punish these as the meanest Long nayles are some say accounted a Gentlemanly signe as of hands not employed to labour Their exceeding pride in which they are not exceeded of any appeared in this that they thought the Iesuites must needs attaine the Popedome at their returne into Europe as hauing so much bettered their learning by the Chinois Authors But These haue since euen by the opinion of learning obtained a better estimation It were tedious to tell of their opinions touching the Creation All being a rude and vnformed Chaos Tayn say they framed and settled the Heauen and Earth This Tayn created Pauzon and Pauzona Pauzon by power of Tayn created Tanhom and his thirteene brethren Tanhom gaue names to all things and knew their vertues and with his said brethren multiplied their generations which continued the space of ninetie thousand yeeres And then Tayn destroyed the world for their pride and created another man named Lotzitzam who had two hornes of sweet sauour out of which presently did spring forth both men and women The first of these was Alazan which liued nine hundred yeeres Then did the Heauen create another man Lotzitzam was now vanished named Atzion whose Mother Lutim was with child with him only in seeing a Lions head in the ayre This was done in Truchin in the Prouince of Santon he liued eight hundred yeeres After this Vsao and Hantzui and Ocheutey with his sonne Ezonlom and his nephew Vitei the first King of China they say were the inuenters of their many Arts In the later Epistles from China dated 1606. and 1607. little is there to further this Historie As for their tales of Miracles in those and the Iaponian Epistles bearing the same date wherein Ignatius Loyolaes picture is made a miracle-worker I hold them not worth relation The Chinois beleeue as is there reported that there is a certaine spirit which hath power of the life and death of children that are sicke of the measells and therefore when their children are sicke thereof they hang a glasse before the dore of the chamber where he lyeth that the spirit comming to destroy the child seeing his Image in that glasse should not dare to approach neerer Their Baptisme cured the disease a new remedy for measels a new vertue of Baptisme Their order for the Poore may be a patterne vnto Christians they suffer none to beg nor to be idle If any be blinde yet hee is set to some worke as grinding in a Querne or such like of which sort after Boterus account there are foure thousand blind persons that grinde still in Canton alone If they be impotent that they cannot worke their friends if they be able must-prouide for them if not they are kept in Hospitalls out of which they neuer passe and haue all necessaries prouided them by Officers appointed in euery Citie to this businesse Common women are confined to certaine places and may not goe abroad nor dwell in the Citie for infecting others and are accountable to a certaine Officer of their euill earnings which when they are old is bestowed on their maintenance Their dwelling is in the Suburbs of Cities They are great Sodomites although they haue many Wiues and Concubines which they buy of their Parents or in the Markets in like manner as the Turkes They are not by Law prescribed to obserue this or that Sect and therefore they haue many Sects some worshipping the Sunne some the Moone some nothing and all what themselues best like as is in part before shewed They take their oathes as here by kissing a booke with thrice drinking of a certaine liquor Antony Dalmeida saith that in saying Masse they were so thronged with the people that they were almost trodden vnder foot And of a Chinian Priest contrarie to the zeale elsewhere in any Religion they were inuited to dinner and feasted together with many other of their Priests that vsed them kindly §. VIII Of their Temples IT followeth now that we speake of places Religious amongst the Chinois of which their Temples challenge the first place their Sepulchres the next Of
serue one thousand of them a day When the wormes by reason of that chaine breeding in his flesh fell off he would place it there againe and aske if it had nothing to gnaw His carkasse is still kept there to which are pilgrimages out of all the Kingdome and this Temple built to his honor The Regulars are diuided into twelue stations and each hath a Superior besides One supreme ouer all the rest They professed chastitie but their house was both a stewes for whoredome and a denne of theeues and robbers Here were many huge Idols of brasse and other metall and of wood gilded in one station fiue hundred They had diuers steeples and bells in them one so great that they had neuer seene so great a bell in Europe The Corpse of Lusu was shewed them which they worship but many doubt whether it be the true for could it escape the wormes which had seised on it aliue kept in the midst of the Temple in a high place where hang fiftie lamps which burne at appointed times The Abbot of this Monasterie confessed that in ancient times the Chinois had worshipped no Idols but that they were politically appointed by Magistrates lest the vulgar should bee without all Religion They haue their Chappels in great mens houses But we will take view onely of the Kings Temple at Nanquin and so end This is a Royall one indeed for greatnesse and statelinesse It is built in a groue of Pine-trees neere the Citie which is compast with a wall twelue miles in circuit The Temple after the China manner of building is most of timber the wals of brick diuided into fiue Iles with rowes of pillars on both sides which are of round timber as big as two men can fathome the roofe is carued and guilded verie faire hauing lost nothing of the beautie though not vsed by the Kings for sacrifice in this their two hundred yeeres absence In the midst is an eminent place of precious Marble in which are two Thrones of Marble one for the King to sacrifice in the other left emptie for him to whom he doth sacrifice The Cloisters without the Temple are beautified with elegant turnings and all the windowes netted with yron to keepe out birds which is vsed also in all the Palace All the doores of the Temple are couered with plates of brasse guilded and richly carued without the Temple are many Altars of red Marble which represented the Sun Moone Starres and China Mountaines whereby they inferre that the god there worshipped created all things which are therefore set without the Temple as acknowledged not to be gods No man vnder grieuous penalties may cut a bough off any of the trees in that groue which makes them great and old About the Temple are many Cels which were baths in which the Kings and Ministers washed before sacrifice There Altars are of the Dutch fashion that one may goe round about them §. IX Of their Funeralls THe Chinois are very superstitiously conceited of Death and are exceeding loth to haue any die in their house Linschoten writeth That when a man lies on his death-bed they present vnto him the picture of the Deuill with the Sunne in his right hand and a Poniard in his left bidding the sicke man looke well on him that hee may be his friend in the other world How euer the sicke be visited let vs now performe our last office to these Chinois and follow them to their graues Many are the Ceremonies which they there obserue in Funerals As they honor their parents in their life time being otherwise lyable to grieuous punishments yea some of their chiefest Mandarines will sue for the Kings licence to leaue their publike function to giue priuat and more diligent attendance to their parents so after their death they mourne three yeeres in white Hats and Garments although they beare the highest Magistracies in the Kingdome as the Colai c. the militarie Magistrates excepted The first moneths they gird vnto them a rough Vesture with a rope like the bare-foot Friers This is not onely obserued of the meaner sort but the mightiest Mandarines after newes of their fathers death leaue their function and in their priuate houses bewaile their losse The wealthier sort keepe them aboue ground two or three yeeres in a Parlour fitted for that purpose whither they daily resort vnto them to salute them and to burne Incense and set meates before them Sometimes also the Bonzij or Priests resort thither with their Dirges and holy things Their wiues children and neighbours come likewise to bewaile them being admonished of the death by the sonne or neerest of the kindred in a solemne Libell mournfully composed The Hall is spread with white Clothes or Matts in the midst thereof is an Altar and thereon the Coffin and Image of the dead To that Hall within foure or fiue dayes all the kindred come in mourning attyre one after another euery houre of the day and burne odours and set two Wax-lights to the dead making foure bowings and kneelings after their fashion before deliuered the sonne meane while standing by and modestly lamenting Behind the Coffin are the women of the house hid behind a curtaine in mourning weedes and howling behauiour They burne Paper and white Silkes so thinking to minister apparell to the dead They will not vse their wonted lodging diet and delights but lye on Straw Mattresses on the bare ground neere the Coffin eate no Flesh or Dainties drinke no Wine Bathe not companie not with their Wiues come not at Feasts nor for certaine moneths space abroad alwaies remitting more of this austeritie as the three yeares grow neerer an end They vse not the same apparell house-hold furniture salutations They colour part of the Paper in which they write with another colour They obserue not their wonted proper names but call themselues otherwise as Disobedient or such like Musick is banished their dyet is hard When the corpes is to bee buried all the kindred come together being re-invited with another Libell in mourning habit The pompe is in manner of Procession diuers Statues of Men and Women Elephants Tygres and Lyons all of Paper diuers-coloured and gilded goe before which at the graue are burned A long rancke of Priests also attend which performe many Rites by the way pattering their prayers and playing on Tymbrels Pipes Cymballs Bells and other Instruments Likewise huge Censers of Bell-metall are carried on mens shoulders Then followes the Coffin adorned sumptuously carried of forty or fifty Bearers vnder a great Canopie of Silke The children come after on foot leaning on their staues as fainting Then then the women vnseene vnder a white curtaine and then other women further in bloud carryed in mourning chayres They assemble as many Priests as they can which on musicall Instruments and with their voyces tune their mournefull Ditties The place whither the corps is carried is adorned with diuers Images The Coffin is very large the
people of their money by many deuices as by selling them Scroles to keepe them by the Deuill from hurt of Deuils after death borrowing of money here to repay with great interest in the future World giuing the Creditor a Bill or Scroll of their hands for security by telling of things stolne or lost which they doe by Inchantments calling a Deuill into a child who being so possessed answereth their questions by selling their blessings and curses like Balaam Some by vow the most liue vnmarryed as the Bonzian women Another Sect called janambuxos before their admission into that Order liue two thousand or more together on a high Mountayne for the space of threescore dayes macerating themselues with selfe-inflicted penance the Deuill in diuers shapes meane-while appearing to them And after this they are receiued into that damnable Fellowship distinguished by white flockes hanging downe their neckes curled haire and blacke hats and so wander from place to place giuing notice of their comming by a little Bell. Another Sect called Genguis dwell on some high Hill blacke of complexion and as is supposed horned marrie Wiues of their owne kindred passe ouer great Riuers by the Deuils helpe who on a certaine Hill at times appointed appeareth to them of whom by the name of Amida he is worshipped In another Hill he was wont to appeare to his deuout followers whom then hee would lead as they thought to Paradise indeed to destruction They say that a Sonne not able to perswade his Father from this passage to Paradise secretly followed him with his Bow and Arrowes and when the Deuill appeared shot and wounded a Foxe whom he followed by the bloud to a Lake wherein he found many dead mens bones They haue another Vniuersity in Iapon called Coia whose Bonzian Students are of the Sect of Combendaxis supposed the Inuenter of the Iaponian Letters He in his old age digged a foure-square Caue into which hee conueyed himselfe affirming that hee then dyed not but after some Millions of yeeres would returne in the dayes of one Mirozu which then should be a most worthy King in Iapon About his Sepulchre burne many Lampes sent thither from diuers Nations with opinion that such as enrich that Monument shall themselues here be enriched and in the other life by Combendaxis patronized In the Colledges here liue sixe thousand of those Shauelings from whom women are restrayned vpon paine of death At Fatonochaiti the Bonzij trayned vp witty and proper youths in all trickes of subtlety and guile acquainting them with Genealogies of Princes that so they might counterfeit to bee the sonnes of such or such great men and borrowing money on that credit might enrich their wicked Colledge till the sleight being found they were killed of the Inhabitants There be that worship the Sunne and Moone who haue an Image with three heads which they say is the vertue of the Sunne Moone and Elements These worship the Deuill in visible shape appearing to them with many and costly Sacrifices Some Bonzij play the Physicians which burne certaine papers in which are written the sentences of Cam and Fotoch which papers being burnt they put the ashes in drinke and giue the same to cure diseases and with lyes to turne away lyes and fraudulent dealing Some hold Xacas booke in such veneration that without it they hold it impossible to bee saued Other Bonzij haue beene in other ages in high reputation of holinesse but one especially not a hundred yeeres since the author of the sect called Icoxos the Ruler or Generall of which sect is openly wicked but so adored of the people that if he but looke on them they will salute him with teares of ioy praying him that all their sinnes may bee pardoned and therewith giue him no small quantitie of their gold His yeerly festiuall is so honoured with thronging of the people that in the entrie of the Cloyster many are trodden vnder foot which yet is of the blinde people accounted a happinesse many willingly yeelding themselues to be killed in that presse And in the night whiles his prayses are sung there is a great howling and lamentation Nequiron was author of the sect Foquexan There is an Image or Colossus of Copper in the way from Ozaca to Sorungo called Dabis made hollow sitting vpon his heeles of huge greatnesse and yeelding a great sound if any hallow in the hollow thereof as some of Captaine Saris his companie did At Meaco he obserued one Temple as great as the body of Paules westward from the Quire with a stone roofe borne vp on as high pillars Hee saw an Idoll greater then the former reaching vp to the top of the arch That of Dabis was in their way to the pilgrimage of Tenchadema where Master Adams told him that hee had beene There they euery moneth present the Deuill with a new Virgin instructed by the Bonzij to aske him certayne questions which he in humane shape appearing answereth hauing the carnall vse of her body if some Bonzi make not the Deuill Cuckold as in our Egyptian Relations yee shall find of Tyrannus Some of their Bonzij professe a militarie discipline as the Knights of Malta The profession called Neugori was instituted by Cacubau who is therefore deified in which some intend their prayers whiles others fight and others performe their taske of making fiue arrowes a day Their gouernment is an Anarchie euery one obeying and commanding the meanest person amongst them hauing a Negatiue in all their consultations And nothing is agreed on till all be agreed In the night they often kill one another without remorse and yet such is their Religion this Sect holdeth it a sinne to kill a flye or any liuing thing Amongst the Bonzij there are two principall men which if vnder their hand-writing they giue their testimoniall to other of their Orders it is as conferring a Degree yea a kinde of Canonization For thence-forward they sit in a chaire and are adored and appoint to other Students their taskes of meditation One of these puffed vp with vanitie and arrogance professed to know what he was before he was borne and what should become of him after death Valentine Caruaglio in relating the death of some principall Nobles which withstood Daifusama the present Emperor speaks of a certaine Bonzi which neuer stirres out of doores but vpon such occasions who accompanied with many of his Sect after other hallowing ceremonies did giue them a certaine booke to kisse and laid it on their heads wherein they reposed much holinesse and worshipped it as a god but one of them named Augustine reiected him crying out hee was a Christian and therewith tooke out a picture of Queene Catharine of Portugall sister to Charles the fifth in which were also represented the holy Virgin and our Lord and with great reuerence laid it three times on his head and so resounding the names of Iesus and Maria was beheaded This I mention to let
They are very resolute people and dread no attempt which the King shall enioyne them bee it neuer so dangerous All the race of this King Ballomboam was rased and vtterly destroyed by the Passaruan after a long siege which warre was begun in the blood of the King of Ballamboams Daughter whom he slew as is before said and added this Drunkennesse vnto his thirst Iortam or Ioartam contayneth about a thousand Housholds The Inhabitants are Ethnikes and haue their Temples in Woods to which they resort to say and doe their Holies at noone before their deformed Diuell-formed Pagodes In this Citie dwelleth the chiefe Pope or heigh Priest of that Superstition whose authoritie is great in all those parts Hee was a hundred and twentie yeeres old and had many Wiues which nourished him with their milke being not able to take other sustenance a deadly enemie to the Christians whom the King did yet with some priuiledges fauour Edmund Scot writeth That they vse in Bantam martiall Law Adulterie is death The free Iauan must to euery wife keepe ten women-slaues which are their Concubines also some keepe fortie but they may haue but three Wiues They are proud and by this multitude of Slaues poore cruell and cowardly Their Crisses or Daggers are two foot long waued Indenture-fashion and poysoned that few escape The vulgar sort haue little Religion but many pray to the Diuell whom for that end they haue painted in their houses and set Wax Candles and sing before them for feare of hurt which they doe not to God because of his goodnesse The most of their worke is to carue stickes for their Crisse-handles They are Couzeners Theeues Idle Gluttons take Betele Opium Tobacco They haue diuers Sects yet most are in manner Atheists Many Chinois dwell there Some thinke that if they bee good they shall be borne againe after death to great riches and that wicked men shall bee turned into Toades or other vgly beasts Euery New Moone they burne Sacrifices and sing ouer them certayne Prayers in the meane while tinging a Bell which at the end of euery Prayer they ring out which is also their Passing-Bell Ceremonie when any are readie to die They furnish their Altars with Goats Hennes Duckes sometimes raw and sometimes ready dressed all which they eate onely certaine papers painted and cut out in curious workes they burne Many of them haue some skill in Astronomie They keepe no Sabbath but what day they begin any great worke they after keepe holy They haue South-sayers which sometimes runne vp and downe the streets like mad-men with swords in their hands tearing their hayre and throwing themselues against the ground Chinois cut not their haire for then they may not returne to China They buy Slaues and get Children of them which they carrie with them to China but sell the Mother The * Moores if they be Great men haue Moschees in their owne houses they haue one great one in the Citie Forreiners whereof are many from many places inhabite the Suburbes They buy by night distilled Wines of the Chinois and drinke it secretly being forbidden it by their Mahumetane Law It was about the yeere 1560. that this people became of that Sect The men and women passe their time day and night in much sloath dalliance and chewing Betele Epicuri de grege porci CHAP. XVII Of Samatra and Zeilan SAmatra is esteemed by some the greatest of the Easterne Ilands stretching it selfe almost seuen hundred miles in length in bredth aboue two hundred The Ayre is not very wholsome by reason of the situation vnder the Line and the multitude of Lakes and Riuers whereout the Sun drinketh more then hee can well concoct and therefore as it were belcheth out heere continually such crude and vndigested vapours Their food is Millet Rice Sagu and Fruits Their riches are Pepper Ginger Cassia Silke Benioyn Gold Tinne Iron c. The Kingdome of Campa yeeldeth Trees whose pith or marrow is Aloe which is prized in India at the like weight some say of Gold the Barke is called Aquila In the Sea-coast they are Moores in Religion and so haue been about these last two hundred yeeres vp within Land they are Pagans and in many places as in the Kingdomes of Andragiri and Aru they are Man-eaters They were diuided before the Portugals entred India into nine and twentie Kingdomes whereof the chiefe was Pedir after that Pacem and now Acem For Abram sometime a Slaue since King of Acem hath conquered almost all the North part of the Iland and with helpe from the Turke and the Arabians distresseth sometimes the affaires of Malacca This King gaue in marriage with his Daughter to the King of Ior a Peece of Ordnance such as for greatnesse length and workmanship can hardly bee matched in all Christendome Heere is a Hill called Balaluanus which continually burneth and a Fountaine as is reported which runneth pure Balsome Some thinke that this was Chersonesus Aurea of the Ancients Galuanus writeth That the Bacas or Man-eaters in the Mountaines of Samatra gild their teeth and esteeme the flesh of blacke people sweeter then of the white The flesh of their Kine Buffes and Hennes is as blacke as Inke They say that there are certaine people there called Daraqui Dara which haue tayles like to Sheepe Heere is said also to grow a Tree the juyce whereof is strong poyson and if it touch the blood of a man killeth him but if a man drinke of it it is a soueraigne Antidote As for those tayled-people a slander by Beckets Legend reported of some Kentish-men iniurious to that angrie Saint and after applyed to our whole Nation many indeed esteeming the English to bee tayled Galuano affirmeth That the King of Tidore told him that in the Ilands of Batto-China there were some which had tayles hauing also a thing like vnto a dugge betweene their coddes out of the which there came Milke Nicoli di Conti saith in his time the Samatrans were all Gentiles and the Man-eaters amongst them vsed the skuls of their eaten enemies in stead of money exchanging the same for their necessaries and he was accounted the richest man which had most of those skuls in his house In Vertomannus time they had money in Pedir marked on the one side with a Diuell on the other with a Chariot drawne with Elephants Their Religion hee saith is the same with those of Tarnassari burning their Wiues in like manner The inhabitants are cunning Artificers Merchants and Saylers their Ships haue at each end a Prow which with maruellous agilitie they can dispose forwards or backwards making vse of the same according to the diuersitie of Wind and Channell which there are very changeable In Acem are Mesquits of Timber and Reed with Vessels of water at the entrie for them to wash according to the Arabian custome The King comes little abroad nor may any goe to him except he be sent for
same things not else-where found in India They make their teeth white with an herbe which all the day they chew in their mouthes CHAP II. Of Cumana and Paria §. I. Of the People and strange Creatures in Cumana CVmana is a Prouince named of a Riuer called Cumana where certayne Franciscans Anno 1516. built them a Monasterie and the Spaniards were very diligent in the fishing for Pearles About that time three Dominicans went fourescore miles West from thence to preach the Gospell and were eaten of the Indians which hindered not but others of the same order founded them a Monasterie in Ciribici neere Maracapana Both these Orders tooke paines with the Indians to conuert them and taught their children to write and read and to answer at Masse and the Spaniards were so respected that they might safely walke alone through all the Country but after two yeeres and a halfe the Indians whether for their too much imployment in the Pearle-fishing or for other cause rebelled and killed a hundred Spaniards slue the Friers one of which was then saying Masse and as many Indians as they found with them which the Spaniards of Domingo soone after reuenged The losse of Cumana hindered their Trade for Pearles at Cubagua and therefore the King sent Iames Castilion to subdue them by force which hee did and began the Plantation of New Caliz for the Spaniards to inhabit there Cubagua was called by Columbus the Finder the Iland of Pearles situate in twelue degrees and a halfe of Northerly Latitude and containes twelue miles in circuit This little Iland is exceeding great in commoditie that accreweth by those Pearles which hath amounted to diuers millions of gold They fetch their Wood from Margarita an Iland foure miles to the North and their Water from Cumana which is two and twentie miles thence they haue a Spring of medicinall Water there in the Iland The Sea there at certaine times of the yeere is very red which those Pearle-oysters by some naturall purgation are said to cause There are Fishes or Sea-monsters which from the middle vpwards resemble men with Beards Haire and Armes The people of Cumana goe naked couering only their shame At Feasts and Dances they paine themselves or else anoint themselues with a certaine Gumme in which they stick Feathers of many colours They cut their haire aboue the Eares and will not suffer it to grow on any places of their bodies esteeming a bearded man a Beast They take great paines to make their teeth blacke and account them women which haue them white They blacke them with the powder of the leaues of a certaine Tree called Gay these leaues they chew after they are fifteene yeeres old they mixe that powder with another of a kinde of Wood and with Chalke of white shels burned in manner as the Easterne Indians vse their Betele and Arecca with Chalke of Oysters and this mixture they beare continually in their mouthes still chewing it that their teeth are as blacke as coales and so continue to their death They keepe it in Baskets and Boxes and sell it in the markets to some which come farre for it for Gold Slaues Cotton and other Merchandize This keepeth them from paine and rotting of the teeth The Maides goe naked only they bind certain bands hard about their knees to make their hips and thighes seeme thicke which they esteeme no small beautie The married Women liue honestly or else their husbands will diuorce them The chiefe men haue as many Wiues as they will and if any stranger come to lodge in one of their houses they make the fairest his Bed-fellow These also shut vp their Daughters two yeeres before they marrie them all which time they goe not forth nor cut their haire After which there is made a great feast and very many bidden which bring their varietie of cheere also wood to make the new Spouse a house A man cuts off the Bridegroomes haire before and a woman the Brides and then they eate and drinke with much excesse till night This is the lawfull wife and the other which they marry afterwards obey This. They giue their Spouses to be defloured to their Piaces so they call their Priests which these reuerend Fathers account their Preeminence and Prerogatiue the Husbands their honour the Wiues their warrant The men and women weare Collars Bracelets Pendants and some Crownes of Gold and Pearls the Men weare Rings in their Noses the Women Brooches on their brest whereby by at first sight the sexe is discerned The Women Shoot Runne Leape Swim as well as the Men their paines of trauell are small they till the Land and looke to the house whiles the men Hunt and Fish They are high-minded treacherous and thirstie of reuenge Their chiefe weapons are poisoned Arrowes which they prepare with the bloud of Snakes and other mixtures All of both sexes from their infancy learne to shoot Their meat is whatsoeuer hath life as Horse-leeches Bats Grashoppers Spiders Bees Lice Wormes raw sodden fried and yet their Countrey is replenished with good Fruits Fish and Flesh This Diet or as some say their Water causeth spots in their eyes which dimme their sight They haue as strange a Fence or hedge for their Gardens and possessions namely a threed of Cotton or Bexuco as they call it as high as a mans Girdle and it is accounted a great sinne to goe ouer or vnder the same and he which breakes it they certainly beleeue shall presently die So much safer is their threed wouen with this imagination then all our stone-wals The Cumanois are much addicted to Hunting wherein they are very expert and kill Lyons Tygres Hogs and all other foure-footed Beasts with Bowes Nets Snares They take one Beast which they call Capa that hath the soles of his feet like a French shoo narrow behinde broad and round before Another called Aranata which for the Physnomie and subtiltie seemes to be a kinde of Ape it hath mouth hands and feet like a man a goodly countenance bearded like a Goat They goe in Heards they bellow loud runne vp Trees like Cats auoid the Huntsmans Arrow and cast it with cleanly deliuerie againe at himselfe Another Beast hath a long snout and feedeth on Ants putting his tongue into a hollow Tree or rather place where the Ants are and as many of them as come thereon hee licks in The Friers brought vp one till the stinke thereof caused them to kill it snouted like a Foxe rough-haired which voided in the excrements long and slender Serpents which presently dyed This Beast stinking while he liued and worse now dead yet was good food to the Indians They haue one which will counterfeit the voice of a crying child and so cause some to come forth and then deuoure them The like is written of the Hyana That shee will call the Shepheards by their names and then destroy them when they come forth They haue Parrots as
could but touch and away we may aduenture notwithstanding the wonted danger vpon Bermuda Danger hath made it now not so dangerous nocuments haue beene documents For while some haue beene wracked there they haue made vertue of Necessitie and so well obserued the Coast that skill hath almost secured that which Nature had seemed to set there in defiance both of Habitation and Nauigation to both which it is now subiected by our Nation It was called Bermuda as Ouiedo sayth of Iobn Bermudez which first discouered it and Garza of the ships name wherein hee then sayled Ouiedo writeth that hee was iust by it and had thought to haue sent some Hogs on shore there to haue multiplyed but by force of tempest was driuen thence and others eyther of like purpose or by force of shipwracke haue since done it It is also called the Iland of Deuils which they suppose inhabit there and the Inchanted Iland but these are inchanted conceits Iob Hortop relateth That in the height of Bermuda they had sight of a Sea-monster which three times shewed himselfe from the middle vpwards in shape like a man of the complexion of a Mulato or tawny Indian But this name was giuen it not of such Monsters but of the monstrous tempests which here they haue often sustayned Sir G. Sommers hath deserued that it should beare his name by his indeuours thereabouts testified in life and death Hee with Sir Thomas Gates as before is said were wrackt on the Iland which losse turned to some gaine as if God would giue them this into the Virginia-bargaine Before Anno 1593. Henry May an Englishman in a French ship was wracked thereon and hath giuen vs some Discourse thereof more fully hath Syluester Iourdan one of that Virginian Company one of the company of those worthy Knights in a Treatise of that shipwracke and the Discouerie of Bermuda The Commodities whereof he reckoneth varietie of fishes plentie of Hogges which it seemeth haue escaped out of some wrackes diuers Fruits Mulberries Silke-wormes Palmitos Cedars Pearles Ambergrise But the most strange thing seemes the varietie of Fowle of which they tooke a thousand of one sort in two or three houres being as bigge as a Pidgeon and laying speckled Egges as bigge as Hens Egges on the sand where they come and lay them daily although men sit downe amongst them When Sir Thomas Gates his men haue taken a thousand of them Sir George Sommers men haue stayed a while by them and brought away as many more Another Fowle there is that liueth in holes like Cony-holes their Egges like in quantity and qualitie to Hen-egges Other Birds were so gentle that whistling to them they would come and gaze on you while with your sticke you might kill them Other Egges they had of Tortoyses a bushell in the belly of one very sweet they tooke forty of them in a day and one would serue fiftie men at a meale Two were there borne and other two married to make the most naturall possession thereof for our Nation which now in hope of good successe hath there planted an habitation That wracked Company built there a Ship and a Pinnasse and set saile for Virginia William Strachie in a large Discourse with his fluent and copious pen hath described that tempest which brought them to this Iland affirming that there was not an houre in foure dayes in which they freed not out of their almost captiued Ship twelue hundred Barricoes of water each contayning sixe gallons and some eight besides three Pumps continually going euery foure houres they bestowed an hundred tuns of water on the cruell Sea which seemed the more hungry after their bodies or thirstie for their bloud from Tuesday noone till Friday noone they bayled and pumped two thousand tunnes and were ten foot deepe nor could haue holden out one day longer when they first had fight of the Bermudas These he sayth are an Archipelagus of broken Ilands not fewer then fiue hundred if all may be so called which lye by themselues the greatest which lyeth like an halfe moone is in 32. degrees 20. minutes At their first landing they killed with Bats seuen hundred Fowles like to Guls at one time The Ilands seeme rent with tempests of Thunder Lightning and Raine which threaten in time to deuoure them all the stormes in the full and change keepe their vnchangeable round Winter and Summer rather thundring then blowing from euery corner sometimes 48. houres together especially when the Halo or circle about the Moone appeareth which is often and there foure times as large as with vs The North and Northwest winds cause Winter in December Ianuary and February yet not such but then young Birds to be seene Without knowledge a Boat of ten tuns cannot be brought in and yet within is safe harbour for the greatest Ships They found there for their sustenance wild Palmitos the tops of which trees rosted did eate like fried Melons sodden like Cabbages with the leaues they couered their Cabins Berries blacke and round as bigge as a Damson ripe in December and very luscious in the Winter they shed their leaues No Iland in the World had more or better Fish Of Fowles was great varietie They killed a wild Swan Some there are which breed in high Ilands in holes to secure them from the Swine They haue their seasons one kind succeeding another Besides this reliefe of Fowles they had plenty of Tortoise Egges which they lay as bigge as Goose Egges and commit to the Sun and Sands hatching nurserie They had sometimes fiue hundred in one of them Euen heere lest the Iland should lose that former name of Deuils some entred into Deuillish conspiracie three seuerall time Some were banished and after reconciled Henry Paine was shot to death Some fled to the Woods but all reduced except Christopher Carter and Robert Waters But these Ilands haue now beene possessed diuers yeeres by an English Colonie and my friend Master Barkley which hath beene there and is now onwards on a second Voyage thither seemeth rauished with the naturall endowments both for health and wealth of these Ilands which now are to be shared amongst the Aduenturers and fortified against all inuasions Nature it selfe being herein readie to further their securitie against the greatest forren force mustering winds which some say are violent further off but calmer neere the Ilands and Rockes many leagues into the Sea for their defence which now yet they are gone to strengthen both with men and munition The Colonie that is there haue not onely sent verball but reall commendations of the place as may appeare by a Treatise thereof lately set forth by one which in the Shippe called the Plough sayled thither Anno 1612. wherein is declared the Commodities there found as Mullets Breames Lobstars and Angel-fish Hog-fish Rock-fish c. as before is said The Ayre is very healthfull as their experience the best argument hath found and agreeing well
they haue new husbands if the former bee absent twentie dayes 369. In Thebet 430. In China 468. 469. In Pegu 502 503. Of Bengalans 508. 509 Indians 678. About Goa 544 545. Of Bramanes 547. 548 In Calecut 549. Of Brasilians 919. In Peru 935. In Golchonda 1000 Marriage of Parents and children 64. Iew more Christian then the Papist in preferring Marriage before the seeming-holy Vow of Virginitie 214 Malebar vide Malabar Maranatha a kind of Excommunication of the Iewes 100. What it signifieth 101 Mars how worshipped in Scythia 396. 397 Marsyas flayed quicke 330 Marthus and Marthana 134 Martyrs in all Religions 28. Of the Turkes 315. 316. 317. 318 Maruthas Bishop 362 Masbothaei or Masbothenai a Sect of the Iewes 135 Masorites 165 Masoreth 169. 170 Massalians 134 Massagerae their Religion and Rites 399 Mathematicall Instruments in China 468. Their skill in the Mathematicks ibid. Iesuits get credit there by them 469 Marstach an hearbe which maketh mad 316 Mattins of the Iewes 185. 186. seq Mauiitania Caesariensis Mauri Maurusij 675. 676. Their miserable life ibid. Women Prophetesses ibid. Mauritius the Emperour 380. seq Mausolus his Tombe 335 Maxes their Rites 667 Maximinus his huge stature 32 Mays 806 Mazalcob Mazal and Mazaloth 70 Meaco a Citie in Iapon 595. 596 Measures inuented by Cain 29 Meats prohibited to the Aegyptian Priests 642. 643 Meats forbidden in Loango 770 By the Mahumetans 257 Mecca taken and conuerted to Islamisme 1015. The Pilgrimages thither 255. 267. 268. 269. seq Description of Mecca 267 273. The description of the Mosquita there 269 Mecca spoyled of the Black-stone 1035 Medes 37. The story of the Medes 349. 350. seq Media whence so called 349. The description thereof 350. seq The diuision thereof 351. 352 Medina described 271. Conuerted to Islamisene 1014 Mediterranean Sea 575 Medan and Merou 728 Medina and Mecca spoyled 1022 Megalobyzi certaine Priests so called 337 Megasthene his testimony of Nebuchodonosor 49. Of Darius Medus 61 Megauares their Rites 667 Mehokekim who so called 99 Meletius Patriarch of Alexandria 659 Melici or Melchia Sect 704 Melinde 754 Memphis or Noph 631 Memnon 79. His speaking Image ibid. Menas King of Aegypt 631. 632 Mendao a great Citie 812 Mengrelia the sauation and description thereof 347. The state of the present Mengrelians 347 Menon husband of Semiramis 66 Menudde and Menudim 98 Mereury 77 Mercuries certaine Planets so called 51 Meroe Iland described 727. 728 Their Rites ibid. Their Table of the Sunne 728. 729 Merists or Merissaeans 135 Merwan the 11. Chalifa poysoned by his Wife 1022 Meshech Mesehini and Mazaca 37 Melchisedech 121 Merdin a Citie and Patriarchall See 67 Mermaids 626 Merwan the 21. Chalifa his gluttony 1026 Mescuites or Moschees and the Ceremonies in them 266 999 Mesopotamia why so called and how situate 65. Mesopotamian Cities 64 Messa and tales thereof 165 Messias of the Iewes 142. 207. seq Counterfeit Messias 143 144. Dreames of an earthly Messias 162. Of the signes of the comming of the Iewes Messias 207. 208. seq Two Messiasses expected ibid. Iewish Messias his Feast 201 Meta Incognica discouered and described 811. 812 Metasthenes 62 Metempsychosis 471. 469 Menis Iland 941 Master MetholdsVoyage and obseruations 993. seq Methra and Mithra 57. 372 Metsr the name of Cairo and all Aegypt 655 Mexico why so called 862. seq The foundation thereof and strange Expedition thither ibid. Mexico entred by the Spaniards 862. Besieged taken and rebuilt 863. Their seuerall peoples 864. The history of their Kings 865. 866. Their Orations 866 Coronations ibidem Ominous prodigies and ancient Tributes 867. The present state thereof 868. 869. Their Gods Goddesses and worship in Mexico 869 870. Their horrible Sacrifices 871. Their Priests 871. 872 Their Temples 873. 874. Their Monasteries 874. 875. Their Rites and Opinions 876. 877 Their bloudie Processions ibid. Their Baptismes and Education of their children 877. Their Punishments Mariages Funerals 878. Supputation of times 879 Their opinion of fiue Sunnes ibid. Their Feasts and Festiuall rites 880. 881. Of Transubstantiation ibid. Their Iubilee Reliques Lent Processions 881 Other rites 882. Their Schooles Theaters Writings Hieroglyphicks Bookes Whistling 883 Their manner of Numbering ibid. Their opinion of the Soule ibid. Michaels borne a Iewish Miracle before the comming of the Messias 209. 210 Midas his Story 231 Middleton viz. Sir Henry Middleton his Story 582. 583. seq His death 610 Mina a superstitious place 247. A Castle so called 306. A Summe 119 Mindanao Iland her extent and Cities 578 Minaei or Minim 129 Mines how deadly 760. In barren soyles ibid. Mines of Sofala 759. Of the West Indies and what thoy cause men to doe 483. 781 Mine of Diamants 1002 Miracles reported of the Sytian Goddesse 67. 68. Of Beelzebub why applyed to Christ 81. The Popish Miracles ibid. Iewish Dreames of Miracles 164. 165 208. 209 Miracles of the Arabians 228. Of Mahomet 243. Disclaimed by him 244. False ibid. Of Turkes 315. seq Of Tartars 406 407. seq In China 447. 448 seq Amongst the Brachmanes 478. 479. As Ganges 509 510. Of the Mogoll 520. Of the Bramenes 547. In Iapon 592. In Zeiland 616. 617. At Cyprus 584. At Golchonda 999 Miralmumim his building Marocco and other his Acts 234. The Prince of Beleeuers ibid. Miriam Fountain 193 Mislates King of Persia his reigne 361 Mithres and Mithra 57. 372. The Sunne and Fire ibid. Mithridates 329. From him the Antidote Mithridate so called ibid. His cruell Edict 335 Mizraim and his Posterity 37. The name of Cairo 652 Moabites 85 Mogores 512 Mogor or Mogol why so called 515 Mogol Tartars 426. 427. The Great Mogor his large Dominions 515. The disposition and course of Echeber 516. His Religion and his new Sect ibid. His conquests in Decan 517. 518 His huge presents 517. Other Conquests 518. His death 519 The Succession and Title of Selim 519. 520. The Mogors Religion ibid. The storie of that State by Captaine Hawkins 520. 521. The Mogor his great Riches Reuinues Feodaries Iewels c. 521. 522. The meanes of his riches ibid. His Elephants and other beasts 522. 523. His progresse and enemies 523. His deuotions and daily course of life 523 524. His sitting in Iustice and Feasts 524. The Sepulchre of his Father ibid The settling of the English trade and of the two Sea-fights betwixt the English and Portugals 524 525. Trauels of English through the Mogors dominions 526. 528 529. Diuers superstitions of the Mogor 530. 531. seq Of the People subiect to the Mogol and of their Countries Religion and Rites 534 535 536 Moha in the Red Sea 583. The Iourny of Sir Henry Middleton thence to Zenan and back again 583. 584. 585. The description and situation of Moha 584 Mohel a Iewish Circumciser 180. Molucca Ilands the situation and description thereof 578. 604. 605 Moloch and Melchom Idols 86 Mombaza 755 Mongol a Countrie of Tartars 401 Monkes pay tribute 1023 Monsters
848 Saualets many Voyages Sciequian Sect 463 Sclauonian Tongue the large extent thereof 973 Scribes not a Sect but a Function 132. The Historie of them 132. 133. Two sorts of them 132 Scriptures sense how diuerse 14 The mysticall is miste-all and missecall 16. Opinions concerning the Scripture 169. First penned by Moses 175. Digested by Ezra 87. Numbers of the Bookes Chapters Verses Who first Authour of Chapters 159 The Trent Decree of Translations 168. Iewes respect to the Scripture 168. 169 Seyles King of the Scythians his misfortunes 398 Scythia a great part of the World contayned vnder the name 396 Why so called ibid. The people religion language and manner of life 396 397. Their Temples Diuination Funerals c. 397. 398 Their cruelty and hatred of Forreigne Rites ibidem Particular Nations in Scythia their Acts and Rites 398. 399. seq Scythes a Monster 396 Scythilmus 45 Sea the Creation thereof 10. Diuision thereof 575. Commodities thereof ibid. The Red Sea 84 582. 583. seq 775. seq A large Discourse of the Sea and many Obseruations thereof 571. 572. seq The forme greatnesse depth ibid. The profit motion and saltnesse 573. 574 The Sea Original of Fountaines 574. Varieties of Seas 575. 576 The Persians and Mogol haue no power by Sea 293 Seales a kind of Fishes 435 Seba Peopler and people of Arabia 37. 225. The Region of Seba 143 Sebua Sebuaeans 139. Sebuaeans a Sect of Samaritans ibid. Sebaste in Samaria 105 Seboraei whence so called 165 Sebyrians 432 Secsina in Barbary 700 Sects in Golchonda 995 Seed of the woman and the Serpent 27 Master Selden his deserued commendation 70. 150 Seilan or Zeilan 616. seq The riches and rarities thereof ibid. Their Temples Images Monasteries Processions 617. Their workmanship and iugling 618 Whither Seilan bee Taprobane ibid. Selim the great Turke 283. sequitur Selim the second 285. 286. Selim the great Mogol now reignning his greatnesse and conditions 519. 520 Selfe-penance vide Punishments Selfe-murther 633 Selebes they abound with Gold 578 eat mans flesh 608. Ilands neere ibid. Seleucia 63. Turned into Bagdet 50. Built by Seleucas 63. With eight other of that name 73 Seleucus worshipped 70. His historie 73 Seleuccian Family of Turkes 279 280. 281 Semiramis her Pillar 45. Her Babylon Buildings 48. 49. Not the Founder thereof ibid. Her Sepulchre 45. The first that made Eunuchs 61. Abuse of her Husbands 66. Supposed the Founder of the Temple at Hierapolis 68 Her Image there 69. In Media 350. Her inuading India 381 Senaga Riuer 714 Senacherib ouerthrowne by Mice 62. Slaine by his owne Sonnes 66 Sentence in the Court of the Iewes how giuen 98 Sentida a feeling herbe 563 Sensim an Order of Tartarian Priests who obserue great strictnesse 418 Separatists a Sect of Moores 273 Sepulchres vide Funerals Serpents eaten in America 33. Diuers kinds of Serpents in India 565. Death to kill a Serpent ibid. The King of Calicuts opinion of Serpents 565. 566. Huge Serpents in Africa 623. 624 Seuerall kinds of Serpents there ibid. Serpent vsed to tempt Eue 21. 22 His curse 23. Seed of the Serpent 27. 28 Serpent Images in Belus Temple 47 Serpent honoured by the Phaenicians 77. By the Ophitae 135 Worshipped by the Arabians 221 By the Indians 565. By the Aegyptians 637. 638. By the Adeans 652. A Serpent the Armes of the King of China 451. Tame Serpents 623 Serpents in Brasill 912. 913 Seres their Habitaion and Rites 400 Serug Author of Idolatry 45. 95 Sesostris 227 Seth his Natiuitie and Posteritie 29. 30. Artes ascribed to him 31 Sethiani a Sect of the Iewes worshippers of Seth 135 Sem Sonne of Noah 36. His Posteritie 37. The same with Melchisedec 45 Serapis his Temple and Rites 650 651 Seriffo of Barbary his History 695 696 Seuerus his seueritie 71 Seuerity Elders 99 Seuenty Weekes of Daniel 98 Sharke a Fish 953. 954 Shaugh Tamas the Story of him and of the Persian troubles after his death 585. 586 Shem and his Posteritie 37 Shemer 136. A Citie so called ibid. Sherly viz. Sir Anthony Sherley his Trauels 388. 389 Sheshack and Shacke 58 Shomron Mountaine 136 Siam Silon or Sion a Citie and Kingdome in India 490. Their Houses Inundations Monkes and Superstitions ibidem Their Gods and Religious Men 491. sequitur Their Feastes Temples Deuotions 492. The Kings greatnesse ibidem Besieged 493. Acts of the Blacke and White Kings ibidem Fury of the Iapanders there ibidem They weare Balls in their yards 496 Sibils counterfeit 35. 38 Sichem 137. Called Flauia Caesarea and Naples 143. The Sichemites Religion ibid. Sicke persons how vsed amongst the Iewes 206 Sidon the building thereof 78 Sidonians first Authors of Weights and Measures 82 Sidon first inhabited the Sea-coast 86 Siluer the nature thereof and of the Mines 797 Sinai 225. Mount Sinai how situate ibid. Sincopura Straits 579 Sinda described 532. 533 Sinne the definition and distinction thereof 24. Whence Originall Sinne and how ibidem Whither by Generation 25 Sinnes combination in our first Parents 22. The fearefull state of Sinners 28. Seuen mortall sinnes reckoned by the Turkes 301 Sinne-offering of the Iewes 116 The nature of actuall sinne 25 What accounted sinnes by the Tartars 415. 416 Sion 94 Sithuchrus the same with Noah 47. His Chaldaean Legend ibid. Sitting a signe of reuerence standing of dignitie 420 Skuls in the Temple of Mexico how many 873. In Nicaragua 888 Skuls of Parents made drinking cups 951. A Turret built of stone and Skuls 951 Slaues of Angola 766 Sleds vsed by the Samoeds drawne with Deere 432. Their swiftnesse ibid. Sleds drawn with dogs 744 Snakes vide Serpents Snake-wood where growing 570 Socatera or Socotoro 778. The description thereof 779 Socota an Idoll in Virginia 839 Sodome and Sodomites 85. Historie of Sodome 83. 84. sequitur The Sodomie of Turkes 229 230. Of Persians 371 Of Tartars 419. Of Chinois 440 Sogor a Village neere Sodome 84 Sofala 756. Supposed Ophir ibid. Soldania 761. Their cheape sale of beasts beastly habit and diet colour c. 762. 763. 764 Solyman a name of diuers Turkes 280. 284 Solyman the Magnificent his acts 284. 285 Solmissus how situate 339 Sommers Ilands 960. 961 Sophia chiefe Temple in Constantinople turned into a Meschit 306. 307 Sophi of the Turkes 321 Sorceries of the Tartars 416 Soule 13. It s immortalitie 126 The Iewes Opinion of three soules and one Sabbatary 127 Dogzijn their Opinion of the soule 220 South-sea sayled by Viloa and Alarchon 922 South Continent how great 832 By whom discouered 831 Spaniards how detested in the Philippinas 604. 605. 606. In Cuba 954. Indian conceits of them and their Horses 962 Their cruelties in the West Indies and of their peruerse Conuersion of the Indians vnto Christianitie 962. 963. sequitur Spaine infested by the Danes 1045 Spelman viz. Sir Henry Spelman his deserued commendation 116 Spirit very God 3. Our sanctifier 4. His manner of working 6. 7. Mouing on the waters 6