Earthquake shall be kneaded together like a lump of Dough That a second blast of the same Horn shall after forty days restore all again That Cain shall be the Captain or Ring leader of the damned who shall have the Faces of Dogs and Swine That they shall pass over the Bridge of Justice laden with their sins in Satchels That the greater Sinners shall fall into Hell the lesser into Purgatory only with a thousand the like fopperies needless to relate which may be found in the Alcoran a thing so full of Tautologies incoherences and gross absurdities of so impure and carnal mixture that whoever is taken with it must abandon his natural reason if Force Ambition or want of Christian Education do not induce him to imbrace it For if we seriously consider the causes of the deplorable increase and long continuance of this Religion we shall find them to be cheifly these 1. The greatness of the Victories obtain'd by the Saracens who easily compell'd the conquered Nations to receive their Law 2. The great zeal and diligence of the Arabians themselves who being a numerous people and much given to Merchandize have possessed themselves of all the Seacoasts of Africk from the Streights of Babel Mandel almost to the Cape of Good Hope of all the Islands in those Seas and many Factories and good Towns on the Coasts of India in all which they have setled their Religion also as a thing inseparable from their Nation 3. A peremptory restraint of all disputations in any point of Religion whatsoever 4. The Suppressing Philosophy and the Study of Humane Sciences the light whereof might easily detect the grosness of their Superstitions 5. The sensual liberty allowed of having variety of Wives and as many Concubines as they are able to keep 6. The promise of the like sensual pleasures in the other World with which a mind not illuminated with the Spirit of God is generally more affected than with the Speculative hope of a future happiness 7. The forbidding Printing and Printed Books whereby people might perceive the truth and purity of the Christian Faith with the Falshood and impurity of the Law of Mahomet Yet had not these last been sufficient to induce the belief of such absurdities if the first had not opened and prepared the way For force of Arms was really the most prevailing Argument by which Mahomet himself confirmed and his Successors since have propogated and dispersed his Doctrine Who being strengthned by that Rascal Rabble which resorted to him he assaults Medina pretending a quarrel to the Jews who had there a Synagogue repulsed at first with loss of men and a wound in his face by which some of his fore-teeth were beaten out and was there likely to have ended his New Religion if not recovered by his Souldiers for further mischief At the next onset he prevail'd the Battel being sought neer a place called Bedez scituate betwixt Mecca and Medina frequently mentioned in the Alcoran After which fight he took the City converting the Synagogue to a Temple for his own impieties The News hereof so startled the Nobility of Mecca that they armed all their powers against him and succeeded so well in the beginning of the War that they drove him forcibly from their Territories which yet not long after he again subdued and made his cheif Residence at Mecca From that his flight the Saracens compute their years as we from Christs Nativity which they call the Hegira and begins about the year of our Lord 617. so termed from an Arabick word that signifies The Persecution raised about Religion It happened about this time that the Saracens revolting from Heraclius the Eastern Emperor joined themselves to Mahomet being exasperated by Julian the Apostate whom they served in his Wars against the Persians for telling them upon demanding their pay That he had greater store of Steel than Gold But they then wanted a Head to resort to Now serving Heraclius in the same War they were used by his Officers in the same ill manner for asking their pay the Treasurer of the Army made them this Churlish answer There is scarce Money enough to pay the Roman and Graecian Souldiers and why must those Dogs be so importunate for their Wages Provoked herewith and hearing the fame of Mahomet they joined him who strengthned herewith and the coming in of the rest of their Countreymen he soon brought all Arabia under his Subjection and having defeated the Emperors forces sent against him he conquered some parts of Syria and Egypt and returning to Mecca there died frantick and distempered in the 70 year of his Age and twenty third of his Impostures of which he spent thirteen at Medina and the rest at Mecca His dead Body being kept four days in expectation of a Resurrection which he promised to perform at the end of three grown full of stench and putrefaction was carried to Medina and there interred His Successors out of wicked and Worldly Policy keeping up the reputation of that Religion after his decease which they scorned and derided in his life calling themselves Caliphs and Vicar Generals to him their Prophet But to return to Persia the Government of that Empire is purely Despotick or Tyranical for the King has the sole Power of life and death over all his Subjects independent from his Council and without any Trials or Law Proceedings He can put to what death he pleases the chief Lords of the Kingdom no man daring to dispute the reason Nor is there any Soveraign in the World more absolute than he The King deceasing and leaving Male Issue behind him the Eldest ascends the Throne while his Brothers are kept in the Haram or Castle and their Eyes put out and if the King have the least jealousy they are instantly put to death without further Examination and not only they but the Children of the Kings Brothers and Sisters likewise I remember saith my Author when I first travelled into Persia they were not so rigorous but were contented to move a red hot Iron to and fro before their Eyes But Sha Sefi the last Emperor peceiving his command negligently Executed and that the poor unhappy Princes had some sight left them he ordered their Eyes to be digged out of their Heads Sha Sefi's cruelty went yet further for he spared not his Eldest Son Sha Abbas the lawful Heir of his Throne ordering one of the Eunuchs to move an Iron before his Eyes no man knowing a reason but the Eunuch compassionating the young Prince moved an Iron yet not red hot before his Eyes and teaching him to counterfeit himself blind preserv'd his sight till his Father lay upon his Death bed when being very Penitent for having put out the Eyes of his Eldest Son to whom the Crown did of right belong the Eunuch seeing the King so sadly afflicted and ready to give up the Ghost assured him that he would restore the Prince to his sight and to comfort him at his death
again and the Juice of a certain Herb there growing applyed it will be so consolidated as the wounded party shall in a few hours be perfectly cured But the chief cause of their good government is an excellent disposition in the nature of the People so that all both Old and Young hate all manner of vice and live in such love peace and amity as it seems to be another Paradise Though it is true likewise that some are of a better disposition than others which they discern immediately at their Birth And because it is an inviolable Law amongst them that none shall be put to death therefore perceiving by their Stature or some other signs who are like to be of a wicked and debauched humor they send them I know not by what means into the Earth and change them for other Children before they have either opportunity or ability to do amiss among them but first they say they are fain to keep them there for some time till the Air of the Earth alters their colour like ours Their ordinary vent for them is a certain high Hill in the North of America whose people I am apt to believe are wholly descended from them both in regard of their colour and their continual use of Tobacco which the Lunars or Moon Men smoak exceedingly the place abounding much with moisture together with the pleasure they take therein and some other respects too long to rehearse Sometimes though but seldom they mistake their aim and fall upon Europe Asia or Africa I remember some years since I read certain stories tending to confirm what is related by these Lunars and especiaily one Chapter of Neubrigensis de rebus Angl. It is toward the end of the first book the Chapter I have forgot Inigo Mondejar in his discription of Nova Granata Book 2. Also Joseph Defia de Carana in his History of Mexico if my memory fail not recount what will make my report much more credible but I value not testimonies If you inquire farther of the government of the Lunars and how Justice is executed alas what need is there of exemplary punishment where no offences are committed neither need they any Lawyers for there is no contention the seeds whereof when they begin to sprout are instantly by the wisdom of the next Superior pluckt up by the Roots And as little want is there of Physicians they never surfeit themselves the Air is always pure and temperate neither is there any cause at all of sickness I could never hear of any that were distempered But the time assign'd them by nature being spent they dye without the least pain or as I should rather say they cease to live as a Candle does to give light when what nourishes it is consumed I was once at the departure of one of them and was much surprized that notwithstanding the happy life he liv'd and the multitude of Friends and Children he should forsake yet as soon as he certainly understood his end to approach he prepar'd a great Feast and inviting all whom he especially esteem'd he exhorts them To be merry and rejoyce with him since the time was come he should now leave the counterfeit Pleasures of that World and be made partaker of all true Joy and perfect happiness I did not so much admire his own constancy as the behaviour of his Friends With us in the like case all seem to mourn when many of them do oft but laugh in their Sleeves or under a Vizard But here all both young and old did in my conscience not pretendedly but really rejoyce thereat and if any dissembled it was only grief for their own particular loss Being dead their Bodies putrify not and therefore are not buried but kept in certain Rooms appointed to that purpose so that most of them can shew their Ancestors Bodies uncorrupt for many Generations There is never any Rain Wind or change of Weather never either Summer or Winter but as it were a perpetual Spring yielding all pleasure and content free from the least trouble or annoyance O my Wife and Children what wrong have you done me to bereave me of the happiness of that place But it is no great matter for by this Voyage I am sufficiently assured that when the race of my mortal life is run I shall attain a greater and everlasting happiness elsewhere It was the ninth of September that I began to ascend from the Pike of Tenariff twelve days I was upon my Voyage and Arrived in that Province of the Moon called Simiri Sept. 21. following Friday May the twelft we came to the Court of the great Irdonozur and return'd back the seventeenth to the Palace of Pylonas where I continued till March 1601. When I earnestly requested Pylonas as I had oft done before to give me leave to depart though with never so great hazard of my life back into the Earth again He much dissuaded me insisting on the danger of the Voyage the misery of that place from whence I came and the abundant happiness I now enjoy'd but the remembrance of my Wife and Children outweigh'd all these reasons and to say the truth I was so elated with a desire of the deserved glory I should purchase at my return as methought I deserved not the name of a Spaniard if I would not hazard twenty lives rather than lose the least particle thereof I therefore replyed that I had so strong a desire to see my Children as I found I could not possibly live any longer without going to them He then requested me to stay one year longer I told him I must needs depart now or never my Birds began to droop for want of their usual Voyage three were already dead and if a few more failed I was forever destitute of all possibility of return At length with much solliciting I prevail'd having first acquainted the great Irdonozur with my Intentions and perceiving by the often baying of my Birds a great longing in them to be gone I trim'd up my Engine and took my leave of Pylonas who for all the kindness he had shewn me required but one thing of me which was to promise him faithfully that if ever I had opportunity I would salute from him Elizabeth whom he term'd The great Queen of England calling her the most glorious of all Women living and indeed he would often question me about her wherein he so much delighted that he seem'd never satisfied with talking of her he likewise delivered me a Present for her of no small value and though I account her an Enemy to Spain yet will I not fail in performing this promise as soon as I am able Thursday March 29. Three days after my waking from the last Moons light I fastened my self to my Engine not forgetting to take the Jewels Irdonozur had given me with the Virtues and use whereof Pylonas had aaquainted me at large together with a small quantity of Victuals whereof afterward I had great occasion A vast
and the great knowledge he had in his Masters business he gained so far on the Affections of his Mistress that upon the death of Abdal she made him her Husband Possessed of all his Masters Wealth he affected ease and being till-then of no Religion or at least a Pagan he began to hearken to Sergius a Nestorian Monk who flying out of Syria for fear of punishment the Heresies of Nestorius being newly both revived and censured came into Arabia where he found Entertainment in the House of Mahomet By his perswasions who found him a fit Instrument for the Devil to work on he began to entertain thoughts of hammering out a new Religion which might unite all Parties in some common Principles and bring the Christians Jews and Gentiles into which the World was then divided under one Profession Resolv'd on this he retired to a Cave not far from Mecca as if he there attended only Contemplation Sergius in the mean time Trumpetting in the Ears of the People both his Parts and Piety who being thus prepared to behold the Pageant out comes the principal Actor with some parts of his Alcoran pleasing enough to sensual minds which he professed to have received from the Angel Gabriel And finding that this edified to his expectation he next proclaimed Liberty to all Slaves and Servants as a thing commanded him by God by whom the natural Liberty of Mankind was most dearly tendred which drew to him such a Rabble of unruly People that without fear or opposition he dispersed his Doctrines reducing them at last to a Book or Method The Book of this Religion he calleth the Alcoran or Collection of Precepts the original whereof they feign is written on a Table kept in Heaven and the Copy brought to Mahomet by the Angel Gabriel A Book so highly reverenced by the Mahometans that they write upon the cover of it Let none touch this but he that is clean The Body of it as it now standeth was composed by Osman the fourth Caliph or Governour who seeing the Saracens daily inclining to divers Heresies by reason of some false Copies of Mahomets Law and that the Empire by the same means was likely to fall into civil dissention by the help of his Wife who was Mahomets Daughter he got a sight of all Mahomets Papers which he reduced into four Volumes and divided into 124 Chapters commanding expresly upon pain of death that that Book and that only should be received as Canonical through his Dominions The whole body of it being only a Gloss and Exposition on Eight of the Commandments First Every one ought to believe that God is a great God and one only God and Mahomet is his Prophet They hold Abraham to be the Friend of God Moses the Messenger of God and Christ the Breath of God whom they deny to be conceived of the Holy Ghost affirming that the Virgin Mary grew with Child of him by smelling to a Rose and was delivered of him at her Breasts They deny the Mystery of the Trinity but punish such as speak against Christ whose Religion was not say they taken away but amended by Mahomet and whoever in his Pilgrimage to Mecca doth not visit the Sepulchre of Christ either going or coming is reputed not to have merited or bettered himself by his Journey 2. Every man must marry to increase the Disciples of Mahomet Four Wives he allows to every man and as many Concubines as he will between whom the Husband makes no difference either in Affection or Apparel but that the first Wife only enjoys his Sabbath days Benevolence The Women are not admitted while alive into their Churches nor after death into Paradise And whereas in most other Countreys Fathers give some Portions with their Daughters the Mahometans give Money for their Wives which being once paid the Contract is Registred in the Cadies Book and this is all their formality of Marriage 3. Every one must give of his Wealth to the Poor Hence some buy Slaves and set them free others buy Birds and let them fly They use commonly to release Prisoners and Bond-slaves To build Caves or Lodgings in the ways for relief of Passengers Repair Bridges and mend High ways But there most ordinary Almes consists in Sacrifices of Sheep and Oxen which when the Solemnity is perform'd they distribute amongst the Poor to whom also on the first day of every year they are bound to give the Tyth or Tenth part of their profits the year past so that there are scarce any Beggars among them 4. Every one must make his Prayers five times a day When they pray they turn their Bodies toward Mecca but their Faces sometimes one way and sometimes another believing that Mahomet shall come behind them while at their Devotions The first time is an hour before Sun-rising the second at noon-day the third at three a Clock Afternoon the fourth at Sun-setting the fift and last before they go to sleep At all these times the Cryers bawl in the Steeples for the Turks and Saracens have no Bells for the people to come to Church and such as cannot must when they hear the voice of the Cryers fall down in the place where they are do their Devotions and kiss the ground thrice 5. Every one must keep a Lent one month in a year This Lent is called Ramazan in which they suppose the Alcoran was given to Mahomet by the Angel Gabriel This Fast is only in the day time their Law allowing them to be as Frolick in the night as they please so they abstain from Wine and Swines Flesh which is prohibited in their Law at all times but never so strictly abstained from as in Lent 6. Be Obedient to thy Parents Which Law is most neglected of any in all the Alcoran never any Children being generally so unnatural as the Turkish 7. Thou shalt not Kill This they keep inviolate amongst themselves but the poor Christians are sure to feel their sury And as if by this Law the actual shedding of Blood only were prohibited they have invented punishments for their Offenders worse than death it self As first the Strappado which is hanging them by the Arms drawn backwark and then drawn up on high and letting down again with a violent swing which unjointeth all their Back and Arms. Secondly they sometimes hoise up their Heels and with a great Cudgel give them three or four hundred blows on the Soles of their Feet Thirdly It is ordinary to draw them naked up to the top of a Gibbet or Tower full of Hooks and cutting the Rope to let them fall down again and by the way they are caught by some of the Hooks where they commonly hang till they die for hunger 8. Do unto others as thou wouldst be done unto thy self Cruel Executions in India Their Opinions of the end of the World are very rediculous as that at the Winding of an Horn not all Flesh only but the Angels themselves shall dye That the Earth with an
At Poleroon on the Isle of Banda At Firando in Japan And lastly at Amboina Hitto and other of the Molucco's which they quietly enjoyed till the Dutch by base Circumventions and treacherous practices deprived the English of that Trade and several of them of their Lives as has been at large published to the World The honourable East-India Company was incorporated in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and hath since been confirmed with divers Immunities added to their Charter by all the succeeding Kings so that now they have as ample Priviledges as any other Company whatsoever and are found very beneficial to the Nation by the great Trade they drive in Importing so many rich Commodities from India Persia and Arabia They export from hence Peices of Eight Dollars Broad cloaths Perpetuana's Gun-Powder Elephants Teeth Lead Amber Looking-Glasses Sizars Knives Beads Bracelets Feathers Coral Quicksilver Vermillion Allom Brimstone and many others For which they import all sorts of Spices Cotton-yarn Callicoes Pintadoes Tamerinds Sanders Spiknard Bezoar Alloes Mirrhe Rubarb Opium Frankincense Cassia Borax Calamus Mirabolans Green Ginger Sugars Sugar Candy Camphire Sandal Wood Benjamin Musk Civet Ambergreece Rice Indico Silks both Raw and wrought Salt Petre Precious Stones of several sorts Pearl Mother of Pearl Gold Silver Christal Cornelian Rings Agats Lacquie Furrs and Skins of Wild Beasts Porcelane Copper China Roots Tea Sanguis Draconis China Wares of divers sorts with several other Commodities and Drugs too tedious to relate Designing to give some Account of the Countreys wherein the aforementioned Forts and Factories are placed according to my propos'd Method and the scantling allowed me I shall begin with Ormus which is an Island Scituate in the Persian Gulf about twenty Mile in compass stony and full of Rocks and in a manner barren of all necessaries except Salt wherewith the very Rocks are covered and of Salt Stone many Houses built So destitute of all things fitting for the life of man that the Inhabitants had all their Victuals even the Water which they drank from the adjoining Countreys The Air so hot in Summer that the people rest themselves in Caves covered over with Wood where they stand or sit in Water up to the Chin and have Loopholes in the Tops of their Houses to let in the Wind Which notwithstanding in regard of the Scituation it was of late one of the richest Empories in all the World the wealth of Persia and East-India being brought thither and conveyed hence up by Water to the River Euphrates and so by Boats or on Camels Backs to Aleppo Alexandretta Tripoly and from thence dispersed into all the Countreys of the Mediterranean Sea The chief and only City was of the same name with the Island founded about seven hundred years ago by one Mahomet Danku descended from the Kings of Saba in Arabia Faelix Who with many Families of the Sabeans passed over the Streights into Carmania and the Isles adjoining and liking the Scituation of this Island built this City in it which he called Ormus or Armuzium according to the name of the Promontory wherein it lies It is seated at one end of the Isle about 2 Miles in compass well built and adorned with a fair Market place some Churches and a well fortified Castle furnished with all necessaries for a Seige By reason of its wealth and resort of Merchants grown to such esteem that it gave gave occasion to this distich Si terrarum Orbis quaequa patet Annulus esset Illius Ormusium Gemma decusque foret Were all the World a Ring this Isle alone Might of that Ring be thought to be the Stone It was first under its own King whose Dominion extended also to some part of the Continent on either side and over all the rest of the Islands within the Gulf His Revenue of no great yearly value till the coming of the Portugals thither by whom it was discovered under the conduct of Albukerque in 1509. Who having fortified some part of it for their own defence made it the Staple of their Trade for the Indian Merchandize so inricht the same that the Revenues of those Kings though Vassals and Tributaries to the Portugals amounted to an hundred and Forty Thousand Seriffs yearly In this flourishing state it stood till 1622. when Abbas the Sultan of Persia having received some affronts from the Portuguess or desirous to remove the Trade from Ormus to some Port of his own gave order to Emangoli Chan the Duke of Shiras to besiege it with fifteen thousand men Who dispairing of prevailing by his Land Forces only furnished himself with Ships and Cannon of some English Merchants to whom he promised many things which he never performed For being once Master of the City he utterly destroyed it removing the Ordnance to Lar the wealth thereof to his own Treasury at Shiras and the Materials of the Houses to Gombroon beforementioned the Portuguess and Christian Natives passing over to Muskahat in Arabia Faelix Since which time though the English Captains that ventured in it were disappointed of the rewards they expected yet so much honour hath been given by the King of Persia to the English Nation that the Agent who resides at Gombroon takes Custom of all Strangers who traffick thither The People hereof in their Persons Habit and Religion participate somewhat of the Arabians but most of the Persians They are Mahometans for the most part of the Sophian Sect the Author of which Religion has infatuated so great a part of the World with his Blasphemous dotage was Mahomet that Grand Impostor born at Jathrip an obscure Village not far from Medina his Father called Abdalla was an Idolatrous Pagan his Mother named Hemina as perverse a Jewess Deprived of both his Parents when but two years old he was left to the care of an Uncle who not able to give him Education nor willing to keep him any longer sold him at sixteen years of Age to the Ishmaelites by whom exposed to Sale in the open Market he was bought by one Abdal a wealthy Merchant By whom imploy'd at first in drudgery and servile Offices till noting his great Wit and fitness for better Services he at last used him as his Factor sending him with his Camels and Loads of Merchandize into Syria Persia Egypt and other places wherein he behaved himself with such dexterity that he much increased his Masters wealth and his own estimation Of Person he is said to be low and withal Scald headed but otherwise comely and of good aspect Much troubled with the falling sickness which infirmity he made good use of afterward affirming those fits were nothing but heavenly raptures in which he conversed with the Angel Gabriel He is likewise said to have been well Skill'd in Magick by which he taught a white Pigeon to feed at his Ear which he declared was the Holy Ghost by whom he was instructed in the Law he was to publish but this not till afterwards By Sorceries comeliness of Person