within three days it rained which made them have a great belief in the Devil Nineteen Leagues from Longo is the Province of Mayombe which is all Woods and Groves so overgrown that a man may travel twenty days in the shadow without any Sun or Heat Here is no kind of Corn or Grain nor any kind of tame Cattel nor Hens so that the People live onely upon Plantans and Roots of sundry sorts very good and Nuts But they have great store of Elephants flesh which they highly esteem also they have many kinds of wild Beasts and great store of Fish The Woods are so covered with Baboons Monkeys Apes and Parrots that it will fear any man to travel in them alone Here is also two kinds of Monsters which are common in these Woods and very dangerous the greatest of these two Monsters is called Pongo in their Language and the lesser is called Eugeco This Pongo is in all proportion like a man but more like a Giant in stature for he is very tall and hath a Mans face hollow cyed with long Hair upon his Brows His Face and Ears are without Hair as also his Hands his Body is full of Hair but not very thick and it is of a Dunnish colour He differeth not from a Man but in his Legs for they have no Calf He goeth always upon his Legs and carrieth his Hands clasped on the nape of his Neck when he goeth upon the ground They sleep in the Trees and build shelters for the Rain They feed upon Fruit that they find in the Woods and upon Nuts for they eat no kind of Flesh They cannot speak and have no understanding more than a Beast The People of the Country when they travel in the Woods make Fires where they sleep in the nights and in the morning when they are gone the Pongoes will come and sit about the Fire till it goeth out for they have no understanding to lay the Wood together They go many in company and kill divers Negroes that travel in the Woods Many times they fall upon the Elephants which come to feed where they be and so beat them with their clubbed Fifts and pieces of Wood that they will run roaring away from them These Pongoes are never taken alive because they are so strong that ten men cannot hold one of them but yet they take many of their young ones for the young Pongo hangeth on his Mothers Belly with his Hands fast clasp'd about her so that when any of the Country people do kill the Female with their poisoned Arrows they easily take the young one so hanging about her When they die among themselves they cover the dead with great heaps of Boughs and Wood which is commonly found in the Forest One of these Pongoes took a Negro Boy of the Authors which lived a month with them for they hurt not those which they surprise at unawares except they look on them which he avoided He said their height was like a Mans but their bigness twice as great The Morombes use to hunt with their Country Dogs and kill many kinds of little Beasts and great store of Pheasants But their Dogs be dumb and cannot bark at all they hang wooden Clappers about their Necks and follow them by the rattling of their Clappers The Huntsmen have Petes which they whistle their Dogs withall The European Dogs are highly esteemed there because they do bark one of them having been sold up in the Country for 30 l. In the Town of Mani-Mayombe is a Feâ—isso or Idol called Maramba and it standeth in a high Basket made like a Hive and over it a great House This is their House of Religion for they believe onely in him and keep his Laws carrying his Reliques always with them They are for the most part Witches and use their Witchcraft for hunting and killing of Elephants Fishing helping of Sick and Lame men and to forecast Journies whether they shall speed well or evil By this Maramba are all Thefts and Murders tried for in this Country they use to bewitch one another to death therefore when any dieth their Neighbours are brought before Maramba and if it be a great man that dieth the whole Town cometh to swear The Order is when they come before Maramba to kneel and clasp the Idol in their Arms and to say Emeno eyge bembet Maramba that is I come to be tried O Maramba And if any of them be guilty they fall down stark dead for ever The same way of Tryal also they have for any other matter In this Country of Mayombe did Battel continue the space of twelve moneths going from thence to Mani-kesock North-east of which place live a kind of little people called Matimbas which are no bigger than Boys of twelve years old but very thick and live onely upon Flesh which they kill in the Woods with their Bows and Darts Several other places in Angola did he also see at last desirous to return to his Native Country he embarqued and arrived safely in England where he lived a long time after leaving in writing behind him at his death the Relation of these his Miraculous Travels and Deliverances A strange Deliverance of an English-man from a Desolate Island near to Scotland wherein he had long continued in extream penury and misery IN the Year 1616 a Flemming named Pickman who was well known in England and Holland for his Art and dexterity in getting out of the Sea the great Guns of that Spanish Fleet which was forced upon the Coasts of Scotland and Ireland in the Year 1588. This man coming from Dronthem in Norway in a Vessel loaden with Boards was overtaken by a Calm during which the Current carried him upon a Rock or little Island towards the Extremities of Scotland where he was in some danger to have been cast away To avoid a Wrack he commanded some of his men to go into the Shallop and to tow off the Ship They having done so would needs go up into a certain Rock to look for Birds Eggs But as soon as they were got up into it they at some distance perceived a man whence they imagined that there were others lurking thereabouts and that this man had made his escape thither from some Pyrats who if not prevented might surprise their Ship and therefore they made all the haste they could to their Shallop and so returned to their Ship But the Calm continuing and the Current of the Sea still driving them upon the Island they were forced to get into the Long-boat and to tow her off again The man whom they had seen before was in the mean time come to the Brink of the Island and made signs with his hands lifted up and sometimes falling on his knees and joyning his hands together begging and crying to them for relief At first they made some difficulty to go to him but at last being overcome by his lamentable signs they went nearer the Island where they saw something that
or Bear which they say would devour them if they did not remove Their Tent or Choom is made in this manner first they set up long Firr-poles then they have six Quarters double of Deer-skins which being set up they throw Snow round about the Edges a Yard thickness leaving the top open for to vent Smoak making a Fire in the middle spreading Deer-skins upon which they lie in which manner it is altogether as warm as the Stones in Russia they have no Towns neither any certain place of abode but with their Deer they travel from place to place where they find the best Moss on which their Deer feed Their Wives they buy for Deer and will have if he have ability four or five Wives with whom he lyeth by turn every Night several he is the richest man that hath most Deer or Daughters selling them to any that will give most for them In their Marriage having agreed of Price they use not great Ceremonies only they make a Feast to their Friends after which the Woman is brought to the Man that hath bought her she being hung with many Iron Rings and Brazen Bells all departing out of the Tent save they two till the next morning and then he departeth but if he be one of Wealth they will continue their Feast seven days It falleth out many times that after they have had their Wives half a Year or a Year they will turn them back to their Friends taking their Deers again paying for the charge of the Feast which is always to be made at her Fathers charge and losing the encrease of his Deer They have no knowledge of the true God but worship Blocks and Images of the Devil unto which they will strangle tame Deer rubbing the Blood on the Idols and eating the Meat themselves When a rich man dies because he shall not travel on foot his Friends will kill three Deer to draw him in the new World and they will strangle a Slave to tend on him The Deer they kill in this manner to serve the dead man they make a Stake sharp which they thrust into the Beasts Fundament with many Howlings and Cryings till they be dead the Master with the Slave they bury the Deer they eat as well raw as boiled or roast although they use all three If a young Child dye under fourteen of their Years which is seven of ours they do hang it by the Neck on some Tree saying it must fly to Heaven If any Controversie be which cannot be decided or the Truth known then one of the two betwixt whom the Controversie is must be sworn which is in this manner they will make an Image of a Man in Snow bringing a Wolf's Nose and delivering a Sword to him that must swear he rehearsing by name all his Friends desiring that they might all be cut in Pieces in that manner as he doth cut that Image of Snow Then he himself doth cut the Image of Snow all to pieces with the Sword then after the Wolves Nose being laid before him he desires that the Wolf may destroy all his tame Deer and that he may never more take or kill any wild Deer after that if he speak not the Truth so cutting the Wolf's Nose in pieces there is no more to be said of that Controversie When they would know any thing to come they send for their Priest or Witch to converse with the Devil sitting in one side of the Tent having before his Face a piece of an old Shirt of Mayl hung with Bells and pieces of Brass in his right hand a great Tabor made with a Wolves skin beating upon the same with a Hares foot making a very doleful sound with singing and calling for the Devil to answer his Demand which being ended they strangle a Deer for a Sacrifice making merry with the Flesh The Women be very hard of Nature for at their Child-bearing the Husband must play the Mid-wife and being delivered the Child is washed with cold Water or Snow and the next day the Woman is able to conduct her Argish or Sled A Description of Groen-land and the Inhabitants thereof by an Eye-witness Anno 1612. THE North-west part of Groen-land is an exceeding high Land to the Sea-ward and almost nothing but Mountains which are wonderful high all within the Land as far as we could perceive they are all of Stone some of one colour and some of another and all glistering as though they were of rich Value but indeed they are not worth any thing There are some Rocks in those Mountains which are exceeding pure Stone finer and whiter than Alabaster The sides of these Mountains are covered with Snow for the most part especially the North-sides and the North-sides of the Valleys having a kind of Moss and in some places Grass with a little Branch running all along the Ground bearing a little black Berry There are few or no Trees growing as far as we could perceive but in one place some forty miles within the Land in a River which we called Ball 's River there I saw on the South-side of an high Mountain which we went up and found as it were a young Grove of small Wood some of it six or seven Foot high like a Coppice in England that had been some two or three Years cut and this was the most Wood that we saw growing in this Country being some of it a kind of Willow Juniper and such like We found in many places much Angelica we suppose the People eat the Roots thereof for some Causes for we have seen them have many of them in their Boats There are great Store of Foxes in the Islands and in the Main of sundry colours and there are a kind of Hares as white as Snow with their Hair or Fur very long Also there be Deer but they are most commonly up within the Main very far because the People do so much hunt them that come near the Sea I saw at one time seven of them together which were all that we did see in the Country but our men have bought divers Coats of the People made of Deers skins and have bought of their Horns also besides we have divers times seen the Foot-steps of some Beasts whose Foot was bigger than the Foot of a great Oxe Furthermore the Inhabitants have a kind of Dogs which they keep at their Houses and Tents which Dogs are almost like unto Wolves living by Fish as the Foxes do but one thing is very strange as I thought for the Pizzles of both Dogs and Foxes are Bone The People all the Summer time use nothing but fishing drying their Fish and Seals-flesh upon the Rocks for their Winter Provision Every one both Man and Woman have each of them a Boat made with long small pieces of Firr-wood covered with Seals-skins very well dressed and sewed so well with Sinews or Guts that no Water can pierce them thorough being some of them above twenty foot long and not past two
was more like a Ghost then a living Person a Body stark naked black and hairy a meager and deformed countenance with hollow and distorted eyes which raised such compassion in them that they assayed to take him into the Boat But the Rock was so steepy thereabouts that it was impossible for them to land whereupon they went about the Island and came at last to a flat shore where they took the man aboard They found nothing at all in the Island neither Grass nor Tree nor ought else from which a man could procure any subsistence nor any shelter but the ruines of a Boat wherewith he had made a kind of Hut under which he might lye down and shelter himself against the injuries of Wind and Weather No sooner were they gotten to the Ship but there arose a Wind that drave them off from the Island observing this Providence they were the more inquisitive to know of this man what he was and by what means he came unto that uninhabitable place Hereunto the man answered I am an English-man that about a year ago was to pass in the ordinary Passage-Boat from England to Dublin in Ireland but by the way we were taken by a French Pyrate who being immediately forced by a Tempest which presently arose to let our Boat go we were three of us in it left to the mercy of the Wind and Waves which carried us between Ireland and Scotland into the main Sea In the mean time we had neither Food nor Drink but only some Sugar in the Boat upon this we lived and drank our own Urine till our Bodies were so dried up that we could make no more whereupon one of our company being quite spent died whom we heaved over-board and a while after a second was grown so feeble that he laid himself along in the Boat ready to yield up the Ghost But in this extremity it pleased God that I kenned this Island afar off and thereupon encouraged the dying man to rouse up himself with hopes of Life and accordingly upon this good news he raised himself up and by and by our Boat was cast upon this Island and split against a Rock Now were we in a more wretched condition than if being swallowed up by the Sea we had been delivered out of the extremities we were now in for want of Meat and Drink Yet the Lord was pleased to make some Provision for us for on the Island we took some Sea-mews which we did eat raw we found also in the holes of the Rocks upon the Sea-side some Eggs and thus had we through God's good Providence wherewithal to subsist as much as would keep us from starving but what we thought most insupportable was thirst in regard that the place afforded no fresh water but what fell from the Clouds and was left in certain Pits which Time had made in the Rock Neither could we have this at all seasons by reason that the Rock being small and lying low in stormy weather the Waves dashed over it and filled the Pits with Salt-water When they came first upon the Island about the midst of it they found two long Stones pitched in the ground and a third laid upon them like a Table which they judged to have been so placed by some Fishermen to dry their Fish upon and under this they lay in the Nights till with some Boards of their Boat they made a kind of a Hut to be a shelter for them In this Condition they lived together for the space of about six Weeks comforting one another and finding some ease in their common Calamity till at last one of them being left alone the Burden became almost insupportable for one day awaking in the morning he missed his Fellow and getting up he went calling and seeking all the Island about for him but when he could by no means find him he fell into such despair that he oft resolved to have cast himself down into the Sea and so to put a final period to that Affliction whereof he had endured but the one half whilst he had a Friend that divided it with him What became of his Comrade he could not guess whether Despair forced him to that extremity or whether getting up in the Night not fully awake he fell into the Sea but rather thought that thorough Carelesness he fell from the Rock as he was looking for Birds Eggs for he had discerned no Distraction in him neither could he imagine that he should on a sudden fall into that Despair against which he had so fortified himself by frequent and fervent Prayer And his loss did so affect the Survivor that he oft took his Beer with a purpose to have leaped from the Rocks into the Sea yet still his Conscience stopped him suggesting to him that if he did it he should be utterly damned for his self-Murther Another Affliction also befell him which was this His only Knife wherewith he cut up the Sea Dogs and Sea Mews having a bloody Cloath about it was carried away as he thought by some Fowl of Prey so that not being able to kill any more he was reduced to this Extremity with much difficulty to get out of the Boards of his Hut a great Nail which he made shift so to sharpen upon the Stones that it served him instead of a Knife When Winter came on he endured the greatest Misery imaginable for many times the Rock and his Hut were so covered with Snow that it was not possible for him to go abroad to provide his Food which Extremity put him upon this Invention He put out a little Stick at the Crevice of his Hut and baiting it with a little Sea Dogs Fat by that means he got some Sea Mews which he took with his hand from under the Snow and so kept himself from starving in this sad and solitary Condition he lived for about cleven Months expecting therein to end his days when God's gracious Providence sent this Ship thither which delivered him out of the greatest Misery that ever Man was in The Master of the Ship commiserating his deplorable Condition treated him so well that within a few days he was quite another Creature and afterwards he set him a shore at Derry in Ireland and some time after saw him at Dublin where such as heard what had happened unto him gave him Money wherewithall to return into his Native Country of England A strange Adventure of some English men in the recovery of their own Freedom and a Ship called the Exchange of Bristol from the Turkish Pirates of Argier Published by John Rawlins one of the Actors thereof IN the Year 1621 the first of November there was one John Rawlins born in Rochester and dwelling three and twenty Years in Plimouth employed to the Streight of Gibralter by Mr. Richard and Stephen Treviles Merchants of Plimouth and fraighted in a Bark called the Nicholas of Plimouth of the burden of forty Tun which had also in her Company another Ship of
motion doth easily bewray it self for could either holy Wolfhield beautiful Ethelfled or the wanton Wench of Andover keep the Needle of his Compass certain at one Point Nothing less but it was still led by the Load-stone of his ever mutable and turning Affections But thou wilt say he is religious and by founding of Monasteries hath expiated those Sins Indeed many are built for which Time and Posterities must thank holy Dunstan from whose Devotion those good Deeds have sprung But is thy Person holier than sacred Wolfhield's Thy Birth and Beauty greater than Ethelfled's the white Daughter also to a Duke The former of an holy Votary he made the Sink of his Pollution and the later is branded to all Ages by the hateful Name of a Concubine and her Son among us esteemed for a Bastard These should be motives to all beauteous and vertuous Ladies not to sell their Honours at so low and too-late repented a price Neither think sweet Countess that thy Husband is jealous or suspects thy Constancy which I know is great and thy self wholly compleat with all honourable Vertues but yet consider I pray thee that thou art but young and may'st easily be caught especially of him that is so old a Master of the Game neither persuade thy self of such Strength as is able to hold out so great an Assault for Men are mighty but a King is much more I know thou art wise and enough hath been said only let me add this That Evil Beginnings have never good Ends. And so with a kind Kiss hoping he had won his Wife to his Will prepared with the first to welcome King Edgar Lady Elfrida thus left to her self began seriously to think upon this Curtain Sermon whose Text she distasted being taken out of an over-worn and thred-bare Cloath-Proverb as though her Fortunes had been wholly residing and altogether consisting in her Parentage and Apparel but nothing at all in any parts of her self whereas Women commonly are more proud of their seeming inward Perfections than of any outward Ornaments whatsoever so that Disdain taking Possession of her Heart she breathed forth her Discontent in these Words Hath my Beauty said she been courted of a King famoused by Report compared with Hellen's and now must it be hid Must I falsifie and belye Nature's Bounties mine own Value and all mens Reports only to save his Credit who hath impaired mine and belyed my Worth And must I needs defoul my self to be his only fair Foul that hath kept me from the State and Seat of a Queen I know the Name of a Countess is great and the Wife of an Earl is honourable yet no more than Birth and Endowments have assigned for me had my Beauty and Parts been far less than they are He warns me of the end when his own beginnings were with Treachery tells me the Examples of others but observes none himself He is not jealous forsooth and yet I must not look out I am his Fair but others Pitch Fire Wine Bush and what not Not so holy as Wolfhield not so white as Ethelfled and yet that I am must now be made far worse than it is I would men knew the heat of that Cheek wherein Beauty is blazed then would they with less Suspect suffer our Faces unmask'd to take Air of their Eyes and we no whit condemnable for shewing that which cannot be hid neither in me shall become of it what will for should my Husband miscarry thereby yet were I unblameable since it is no Deccit to deceive the Deceiver Having taken upon her this Resolution to be a right Woman and like a true Daughter of Eve desiring nothing more than the thing forbidden she made preparation to put it in Practice Her Body she endulced with the sweetest Balms displayed her Hair and bespangled it with Pearls bestrewed her Breasts with Rubies and Diamonds rich Jewels like Stars depended at her Neck and her other Ornaments every way alike costly and suitable so that she seemed the Paragon of Nature and appeared rather like an Angel than an earthly Creature Being thus accoutered with all the additions of Art to beautifie Nature she attended the Approach and Entrance of the King whom with such fair Obeisance and seemly Grace she received that Edgar's greedy Eye presently collecting the illustrious Rays of her shining Beauty became a burning-glass to his Heart and the Sparkles of her fair Eyes falling into the Train of his Love set all his Senses on Fire yet dissembling his Passions he passed on to his Game where having the false Ethelwood at Advantage he ran him thorough with a Javelin and having thereby made fair Elfrida a Widdow he soon after took her to be his Wife on whom he begat a Son who was afterwards King of England known by the name of Ethelred the Unready The Story of Mackbeth King of Scotland ABout the Year of our Lord 1040. one Duncan was King of Scotland who being of a soft gentle Nature unapt for Warlike Exercises and to govern so robustious and rough a People as the Scots he therefore in all matters of Importance employed two of the principal of his Nobles Mackbeth and Banquho These two travelling together toward Fores whereas the King then lay they went sporting by the way together without other Company saving only themselves as they thus journeyed thorough the Woods and Fields suddenly in the midst of a Launde there met them three Women in strange and antick Apparel resembling Creatures of an elder World whom when they attentively beheld wondering much at such an uncouth sight the first of them spake and said All hail Mackbeth Thane of Glammis Thane was a Title unto which that of Earl afterwards succeeded and he had newly entered into that Dignity of Glammis by the Death of his Father who was Thane thereof the second of them said Hail Mackbeth Thane of Cawder and the third coming up to him said All hail Mackbeth that hereafter shall be King of Scotland This is unequal dealing said Banquho to give my Friend all the Honours and none unto me yes saith the first of them we promise greater Benefits unto thee than unto him for he shall reign indeed but with an unlucky end neither shall he leave any Issue behind him to succeed in his place where contrarily thou indeed shalt not reign at all but of thee those shall be born which shall govern the Scottish Kingdom by long Order of continual Descent and having said these Words they immediately vanished out of their sight This strange Apparition was reputed at the first but some vain fantastical Illusion by Mackbeth and Banquho insomuch that Banquho would oftentimes in jest call Mackbeth King of Scotland and Mackbeth again would call him in sport likewise the Father of many Kings But afterwards upon more serious Consideration the common Opinion was that these Women were the Weird Sisters viz. the Goddesses of Destiny or else some Nymphs or Fairies endowed with
of Hungary came thither accompanied with divers Noble-men and Gentlemen who notwithstanding found no deceit therein Thus she continued for the space of almost four years Her Torments seemed to increase more and more upon her At last the chief Magistrate of the City sent for her Parents and asked them whether they desired to have their Daughter delivered from so great Torments by the Physicians making incision into her Belly Her Father being a plain man answered that he was willing to leave his Daughter to God's Providence and to lawful Remedies of Physicians But the Mother being guilty of the Deceit said that she would not have them to attempt any thing to the endangering of her daughters life adding moreover that she would pray that God's Vengeance might light upon them if her Daughter miscarried under their hands Yet some were sent to the Maid to mind her that they had many times craved help of Physicians that now there was a proffer made of their help who by God's assistance might either wholly free her from her Distemper or at least asswage the violence of it But she being instructed of her Mother answered That she with a willing mind would patiently suffer what it should please God to inflict upon her that she desired not any Physick but that as for the space of four years she had undergone the extremity of her Pains so she was still willing to bear the Cross which God had laid upon her till it pleased him to remove it hoping that she should still be as able to bear the violence of her Disease as hitherto she had been But the Magistrate of Elsing being better pleased with her Father's Answer sent a Dr. of Physick with two Chirurgions and a Midwife to search the Maidens Belly by Incision These came to her and searching her Belly found it stuffed with Clouts very cunningly and with Pillows and such like Materials with divers Hoops wherewith her Belly was made round she crying out all the while and when all these were removed they saw the Maiden stark naked with as well a compact and as fair a Body as might be When now the Deceit was discovered the Parents with the Daughter and all they which were accessory with whom in the Night whilst others slept she made good cheer were carried to Prison and afterwards put to the Rack The counterfeit Belly was brought to the Town-house and there shewed to the Burgo-masters and the Maids Mother was found to be a Witch who by the Devils help had caused those strange noises which seemed to proceed out of the Maids Belly and upon strict examination she confessed that she had done all these things by the Devils perswasion and help for Gain-sake all these four years for which she was condemned by the Judge had first her Neck broke and afterwards was openly burned The Daughter had her Cheek burned through with an hot iron and was condemned to perpetual Imprisonment The Father who took his Oath that he was deceived by his Wife and Daughter even till that day wherein this wicked Fact vvas discovered vvas acquitted and freely dismissed the other Accessories vvere banished and some of them that vvere most guilty vvere othervvise punished Of People long-lived who have had their Teeth and Excrements of Hair renewed MR. Purchas in his Pilgrimage relateth that whilst the Portugals were busie in building a Fort in the Kingdom of Decan belonging to Asia that there came a certain Bengalan to the Governour which had lived as he affirmed three hundred thirty five years The old men of the Country testified that they had heard their Ancestors speak of his great Age and himself had a Son fourscore and ten years old and not at all Book-learned yet was a speaking Chronicle of those passed Times His Teeth had sometimes fallen out others growing in their places and his Beard after it had been very hoary by degrees returned into his former blackness About an hundred years before that time he had alter'd his Pagan Religion into the Arabian or Moorish For this his Miraculous age the Sultans of Cambaya had allowed him a Stipend to live on the continuance of which he sought and did obtain of the Portugals Fryar Joano dos Santos tells a Story of one who was alive Anno 1605 of whom the Bishop of Cochin had sent men to inquire who by diligent search found that he was then 380 years old and had married eight times the Father of many Generations They said his Teeth had thrice fallen out and were thrice renewed his hair thrice hoary and as oft black again He could tell of nineteen successive Kings which reigned in Horan his native Country in Bengala He was also born a Gentile and after turned Moor and hoped he said to dye a Christian rejoycing to see a Picture of St Francis saying as the Fryar tells us such a man when he was twenty five years old had foretold him that long life Nic-di Conti saith he saw a Bramane three hundred years old But to come nearer to our home Mr. Morison reporteth of the Irish Countess of Desmond that she lived to the age of a hundred and forty Years being able to go on foot four or five miles to the Market-Town and using weekly so to do in her last Years and not many years before she died she had all her Teeth renewed He also tells of one Jemings a Carpenter in Beverly a Town of Holdernes in England whom the men of those Parts reported to have lived a hundred and twenty years and that he married a young Woman some few years before his death by whom being of good Fame he had four Children and that his eldest Son by his first Wife then living was a hundred years old or thereabouts but was so decrepid as he was rather taken for the Father than the Son King James going a Progress into Hereford-shire the ingenious Serjeant Hoskin gave him an Entertainment where he provided ten aged People to dance the Morrice before him all of them making up more than a thousand years so that what was wanting in one was supplied in another A Nest of Nestors saith Mr. Fuller not to be found in another place In the Year 1634. Thomas Earl of Arundel a great Lover of Antiquities in all kinds brought out of the Country unto King Charles the First an old man named Thomas Parre Son of John Parre born at Alberbury in the Parish of Winnington in Shrop-shire who lived to be above a hundred and fifty Years of Age verifying his Anagram Thomas Parre Most rare hap He was born in the Reign of King Edward the Fourth 1483. and towards his latter end slept away most part of his time being thus character'd by an Eye-witness of him From Head to Heel his Body had all over A quick-set thick-set nat'ral hairy Cover Having been at Westminster about two Months change of Air and Diet better in it self but worse for him with the trouble of many Visitants or
small Turrets which are made open with Lights every way that a man in them may be easily seen and heard Now their Moolaas or devout Priests do five times every day ascend unto the tops of those high Turrets whence they proclaim as loudly as they can possibly speak their Prophet Mahomet thus in Arabian La alla illa alla Mahomet Resul-alla that is There is no God but one God and Mahomet the Messenger from God Upon a time Tom Coriat when their Moolaa was to cry as aforesaid he got upon an high place directly opposite to one of those Priests and contradicted him thus La alla illa alla Hasaret Eesa Benalla that is No God but one God and the Lord Christ the Son of God and farther added that Mahomet was an Impostor and all this he spake in their own Language as loud as possibly he could in the ears of many Mahometans that heard it But whether Circumstances considered the zeal or discretion of our Pilgrim were more here to be commended I leave to the judgment of the Reader No doubt but had this bold attempt of his been acted in many other places of Asia it would have cost him his Life with as much torture as cruelty could have invented But he was here taken for a Mad-man and so let alone Haply the rather because every one there hath liberty to profess his own Religion freely and if he please may argue against theirs without fear of an Inquisition as this our Pilgrim did at another time with a Moolaa who had called him Giaur that is Infidel or false Believer which Mr. Coriat took in such Dudgeon that he made a Speech to him as followeth Mr. Coriat's Speech to a Mahometan But I pray thee tell me thou Mahometan dost thou in sadness call me Giaur That I do quoth he Then quoth I in very sober sadness I retort that shameful word in thy Throat and tell thee plainly that I am a Musulman and thou art a Giaur for by that Arab word Musulman thou dost understand that which cannot properly be applyed to a Mahometan but only to a Christian so that I do consequently infer that there are two kinds of Musulmen the one an Ortho-musulman that is a true Musulman which is a Christian and the other a Pseudo-musulman that is a false Musulman which is a Mahometan What thy Mahomet was from whom thou dost derive thy Religion assure thy self I know better than any one of the Mahometans amongst many Millions yea all the particular Circumstances of his Life and Death his Nation his Parentage his driving Camels thorough Aegypt Syria and Palestina the marriage of his Mistress by whose Death he raised himself from a very base and contemptible Estate to great Honour and Riches his manner of cozening the sottish People of Arabia partly by a tame Pidgeon that did fly to his Ear for meat and partly by a tame Bull that he fed by hand every day with the rest of his Actions both in Peace and War I know as well as if I had lived in his time or had been one of his Neighbours in Mecha the Truth whereof if thou didst know as well I am persuaded thou would'st spit in the face of thy Alcoran and trample it under thy Feet and bury it under a Jakes a Book of that strange and weak matter that I my self as meanly as thou dost see me attired now have already written two better Books God be thanked and will hereafter this by God's gracious Permission write another better and truer yea I would have thee know thou Mahometan that in that renowned Kingdom of England where I was born Learning doth so flourish that there are many thousand Boys of sixteen years of Age that are able to make a more learned Book than thy Alcoran neither was it as thou and the rest of you Mahometans do generally believe composed wholly by Mahomet for he was of so dull a Wit he was not able to make it without the help of another namely a certain Renegado Monk of Constantinople called Sergis so that his Alcoran was like an Arrow drawn out of the Quiver of another man I perceive thou dost wonder to see me so much inflamed with Anger but I would have thee consider it is not without great cause I am so moved for what greater Indignity can there be offered to a Christian which is an Artho-musulman than to be called Giaur by a Giaur c. By this which hath been said you may perceive our Coriat thus distinguished that himself was the Orthodox Musulman or true Believer The Moolaa the Pseudo-Musulman or false true Believer a distinction which must needs make an Intelligent Reader to smile It also shews what an opinion he had of his former writings and how if he had returned what a bustle he would have made in the World with another Volume but death prevented him for having left it Thomas Rowe the English Ambassador at Mandoa he went to Surat where he was over-kindly used by some of the English who gave him Sack which they had brought from England he calling for it as soon as he first heard of it and crying Sack Sack is there such a thing as Sack I pray you give me some Sack and drinking of it though moderately for he was a very temperate man it increased his Flux which he had then upon him and this caused him within a few days after his very tedious and troublesome Travels for he went most on foot at this place to come to his journeys end for here he overtook Death December 1617. and was buried under a little Monument like one of those usually made in our Church-yards upon whom a joking Wit made this Epitaph Here lies the Wonder of the English Nation Within the bosome of old Tellus maw For fruitless Travel and for strange Relation He past and repast all thy eyes e're saw Odcomb produc'd him many Nations fed him And worlds of Writers through the World have spread him The reason inducing the Mahometans to often Prayer exemplified by a Story IN a great City where Mahomet was zealously professed there lived say they a devout Musulman who for many years together spent his whole day in the Mosquit or Church in the mean time he minding not the World at all became so poor that he had nothing left to buy bread for his Family yet notwithstanding his poor condition he was resolved still to ply his Devotions and in a morning when he perceived that there was nothing at all left for the further subsistence of himself and houshold took a solemn leave of his Wife and Children resolving for his part to go and pray and dye in the Mosquit leaving his Family if no relief came to famish at home But that very day he put on this resolution there came to his house in his absence a very beautiful young Man as he appeared to be who brought and gave unto his Wife a very good quantity of