reports For he being a Mariner vsed to the Sea from his youth and sayling from Cales to Portugall obserued that at certaine seasons of the yeere the windes vsed to blow from the West which continued in that manner a long time together And deeming that they came from some coast beyond the Sea he busied his minde so much herewith that he resolued to make some triall and proofe thereof When he was now forty yeeres old hee propounded his purpose to the Senate of Genua vndertaking if they would lend him ships he would find a way by the West vnto the Ilands of Spices But they reiected it as a dreame Columbus frustrate of his hopes at Genua yet leaues not his resolution but goeth to Portugall and communicates this matter with Iohn the second King of Portugall but finding no entertainment to his suites sendeth his brother Bartholomew Columbus to King Henry the seuenth of England to sollicite him in the matter whiles himselfe passed into Spaine to implore the aide of the Castilians herein Bartholomew vnhappily lighted on Pirats by the way which robbed him and his company forced him to sustayne himselfe with making of Sea-cards And hauing gotten somewhat about him presents a Map of the World to King Henry with his Brothers offer of Discouerie which the King gladly accepted and sent to call him into England But hee had sped of his suite before in Spaine and by the King and Queene was employed according to his request For comming from Lisbone to Palos di Moguer and there conferring with Martin Alonso Pinzon an expert Pilot and Fryer Io. Perez a good Cosmographer hee was counselled to acquaint with those his proiects the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and of Medina Caeli which yeelding him no credit the Fryer counselled him to goe the Court and wrote in his behalfe to Fryer Fernand di Telauera the Queenes Confessor Christopher Columbus came to the Court of Castile Anno 1486 and found cold welcome to his suite at the hands of the King and Queene then busied with hot warres in Granada whence they expelled the Moores And thus remayned hee in contempt as a man meanely clothed without other Patron then a poore Fryer saue that Alonso di Quintaniglia gaue him his Dyet who also at last procured him audience with the Archbishop of Toledo by whose mediation he was brought before the King and Queene who gaue him fauourable countenance and promised to dispatch him when they had ended the warres of Granada which also they performed Thus Columbus is set forth with three Caruels at the Kings charges who because his treasure was then spent in the warres borrowed sixteene thousand Duckets of Lewes de Sanct Angelo and on Friday the third of August in the yeere of our Lord 1492. in a Vessell called the Gallega accompanyed with the Pinta and Ninna in which the Pinzons Brethren went as Pilots with the number of an hundred and twenty persons or thereabouts set sayle for Gomera one of the Canary Ilands and hauing there refreshed himselfe followed his Discouery After many dayes hee encountred with that Hearbie Sea whereof before we haue spoken which not a little amated and amazed the Spaniards and had caused their returne had not the sight of some Birds promised him land not farre off He also first taught the Spaniards to obserue the Sunne and Pole in their Nauigations which till his Voyage they had not vsed nor knowne But the Spaniards after three and thirty dayes sayling desperate of successe mutined and threatned to cast Columbus into the Sea disdayning much that a stranger a Genuois had so abused them But he pacified their enraged courages with milde speeches and gentle promises On the eleuenth day of October one Rodorigo di Triana espyed and cryed Land Land the best Musicke that might be especially to Columbus who to satisfie the Spaniards importunity had promised the day before that if no Land appeared in three dayes hee would returne One the night before had descryed fire which kindled in him some hope of great reward at the Kings hand when hee returned into Spaine but beeing heerein frustrate hee burnt into such a flame as that it consumed both Humanitie and Christianitie in him and in the agony of indignation made him leaue his Countrey and Faith and reuolt to the Moores But thee Columbus how can I but remember but loue but admire Sweetly may those bones rest sometimes the Pillars of that Temple where so diuine a Spirit resided which neyther want of former example nor publike discouragements of domesticall and forren States nor priuate insultations of proud Spaniards nor length of time which vsually deuoureth the best resolutions nor the vnequall Plaines of huge vnknowne Seas nor grassie fields in Neptunes lap nor importunate whisperings murmurings threatnings of inraged companions could daunt O name Colon worthy to be named vnto the Worlds end which to the Worlds end hast conducted Colonies or may I call thee Colombo for thy Doue-like simplicitie and patience the true Colonna or Pillar whereon our knowledge of this New World is founded the true Christopher which with more then Giant-like force and fortitude hast carried Christ his Name and Religion through vnknowne Seas to vnknowne Lands which we hope and pray that it may be more refined and reformed then Popish superstition and Spanish pride will yet suffer Now let the Ancients no longer mention Neptune or Minos or Erythras or Danaus to all which diuers authors diuersly ascribe the inuention of nauigation Mysians Troyans Tyrians vaile your bonnets strike your top-sayles to this Indian-Admirall that deserueth the top-saile indeed by aspiring to the top that sayling could ayme at in discouering another World Let Spaniards French English and Dutch resound thy name or His Name rather whose Name who can tell that would acquaint Thee and the World by thee with newes of a New-World But lest we drowne our selues in this Sea of Extasie and Admiration let vs goe on shoare with Columbus in his new discouered Iland And first mee thinkes I see the Spaniards yesterday in mutinie now as farre distracted in contrary passions some gazing with greedie eyes on the desired Land some with teares of ioy not able to see that which the ioy of seeing made them not to see others embracing and almost adoring Columbus who brought them to that sight some also with secret repinings enuying that glory to a stranger but byting in their byting enuie and making shew of glee gladnesse all new awaked out of a long trance into which that Step-mother-Ocean with dangers doubts dreads despaires had deiected them reuiued now by the sight of their mother-earth from whom in vnknowne armes they had beene so long weaned and detayned On shoare they goe and felling a tree make a Crosse thereof which there they erected and tooke possession of that New World in the name of the Catholike Kings This was done on the eleuenth of October Anno 1492.
neighbour Nations obserue this and by diuers of them it is diuersly named Those of Siam and Cochin call it Cin whence the Portugals call it China the Iaponites Than the Tartars Han the Westerne Saracens as hath beene obserued Cathay and the Chinois themselues haue one name common to all ages Ciumquo as also Chium hoa which signifie the former a Kingdome the other a Garden in the middest they conceiuing the Earth square and their Countrey in the midst thereof which made them offended with our Maps that placed them in the furthest East and Ricius so disposed his Maps after that hee placed them in the middle of the same The King is entituled Lord of the Vniuerse which how boysterous soeuer is more excusable then in many other inferiour Potentates the Chinois thinking according to their Geographie that the World contained but few other Nations and those for the most part so contemptible that they willingly relinquished them or thought them not worth the conquering Neither was euer any one Kingdome so worthy the name of GREAT beginning at the Ile Hainam which signifies the South Sea in the 19. degree and extendeth Northwards to 42. and from the 112. degree in Longitude reckoning from the Canaries in the Prouince Yunan to the 132. Eastwards This hath been obserued by Mathematicall Instruments and obseruations of Eclipses in their Kalenders and especially for the Northerne computation it is out of doubt But for illustration hereof we will adde out of one of their own bookes entituled A description of that Kingdome printed 1579. thus interpreted In this Kingdome are two Royall or Parliament Prouinces Nanquin and Pequin the one signifying the South Court the other the North and besides these thirteene others In these fifteene Prouinces or Kingdomes are numbred by another diuision 158. Regions or Shires they call them Fu the most of which haue twelue or fifteene Cities besides Townes Villages Castles and Hamlets In these are two hundred seuen and fortie great Cities which they call CHEV rather in dignitie then greatnesse or otherwise exceeding the inferiour Cities called Hien of which are 1152. The persons of such as are growne to mans estate all which pay tribute to the King are 58. millions 550. thousands 801 not reckoning the feminine Sexe Boyes Striplings or Youths Eunuches Souldiors Magistrates the Kings kindred Students and many others And yet of Souldiors notwithstanding their long peace are maintained in perpetuall pay and seruice aboue one million the three Northerne Prouinces being almost halfe of them in militarie stipend The bordering Kingdomes tributarie are to the East three to the West fiftie three numbred in that Booke though this tribute bee of no great value The Kingdome is also fortified by Nature and Art the Sea on the South and East and steepe Precipices ioyned together with a strong wall the space of foure hundred and fiue leagues to the North and a sandie Wildernesse on the North-west all conspiring to the strength thereof and for the South-west it is full of Hills and Desarts with a few small Seignories vnworthy their feare or desire It is diuided into fifteene Prouinces six whereof border on the Sea Cantan Foquien Chequiam Nanquin Xantum Paquin the other nine be in land Quiamsi Huquam Honan Xiensi Xansi Suchion Quoicheu Iunan Coansi Some sound these names some what otherwise The Kings residence is at Paquin though Paquin enioyeth also a Court Royall as being the Royall Seat of the ancient Kings which some place in Quinsay but of that afterwards II. Of the Commodities of China and commodious Riuers and shipping with two Maps one made by HONDIVS the other h taken out of a China Map made there by the Chinois BY reason of this large extent both East and West and North and South it comes to passe that no Countrey yeelds such varietie of things growing in such varietie of Clime and Soyle making others indebted to it but it selfe not indebted to any Countrey either for necessitie or delicacie of diet Neither haue wee scarcely any thing in Europe which is not there found and what is missing is more then recompenced in other things exceeding There is store of Wheat Barley Miller Panike and other kindes of graine In Rice their chiefe food it farre excelleth Europe Of Beanes and Pease wherewith they feed their Beasts in some Prouinces they haue two or three Haruests in a yeere None of our principall fruits but Oliues and Almonds are wanting others they haue vnknowne to vs as those which they call Longanes Coco-nuts and other Indian fruits Their Oranges Limons Pome Cittons farre excell the Europaean in varietie and delicacie The like we may say of their Garden heathes which Religion to some to others Pouertie haue made their only food Great is their varietie of Flowers many heare vnknowne but there the colour more respected then the sent As for distillations they neuer till of late by vs had heard of such an Art Bettele and Arecca2growes in the foure Southerne Prouinces Their Wine is THE MAP OF CHINA 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 MATHAEUS RICIUS A picture of a Chinese man Picture of a China woman HONDIVS his Map of China CHINA farre inferior to ours for their Grapes are fewer and lesse pleasant nor doe they make Wine of them but of Rice and other things which is both well tasting and not so burning as ours They commonly feed on Porke they haue store also of Beefe Mutton Goats flesh Hennes Duckes Geese they feed also on Horses Mules Asses Dogs which are sold in the Shambles as well as other flesh But in some places either for Superstition or Husbandry they spare their Beeues and Buffalls Venison especially of red Deere is plentifull Hares and other things all verie cheape Their Horses are not so comely as in these parts but in number cheapenesse and vse for burthen excelling Yet is there lesse need of such carriages by reason of plentie of Riuers which Nature or Art hath prouided through all the Countrey Hence is there such store of shipping that a moderne Author hath written that there liue as many on the Waters as on the Land which to such as sayle in those Streames will not seeme too excessiue an hyperbole And I dare affirme this as a thing credible that there is as much shipping in this Kingdome as in all the world besides vnderstanding this assertion of fresh-water vessels for their sea-vessels are fewer and worse than ours Pantogia1 reporteth his owne iourney from Macao to Paquin the space of six hundred Spanish leagues which the next way by land is reckoned 1450. in all that space trauelling but one day by land for shortening his way otherwise all the way by water carried in a Riuer called of the Chinians a little Sea for the greatnesse being the greatest which euer he saw in some places two or three myles broad often tempestuous and cause of many shipwrackes The Chinois dare not sayle in it by night and they say That if one fall
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
Father of Lights himselfe thus conuinceth vs of darknesse Where is the way saith he where light dwelleth And By what way is the light parted And if we cannot conceiue that which is so euidently seene and without which nothing is seene and euident how inaccessible is that Light wherein the Light of this light dwelleth Euen this light is more then admirable life of the Earth ornament of the Heauens beautie and smile of the World eye to our Eyes ioy of our Hearts most common pure and perfect of visible creatures first borne of this World and endowed with a double portion of earthly and heauenly Inheritance shining in both which contayneth sustayneth gathereth seuereth purgeth perfecteth renueth and preserueth all things repelling dread expelling sorrow Shaking the wicked out of the Earth and lifting vp the hearts of the godly to looke for a greater and more glorious light greatest instrument of Nature resemblance of Grace Type of Glorie and bright Glasse of the Creators brightnesse This Light GOD made by his Word not vttered with sound of syllables nor that which in the beginning and therefore before the beginning was with GOD and was GOD but by his powerfull effecting calling things that were not as though they were and by his calling or willing causing them to be thereby signifying his will as plainly and effecting it as easily as a word is to a man That vncreated superessentiall light the eternall Trinitie commanded this light to bee and approued it as good both in it selfe and to the future Creatures and separated the same from darknesse which seemes a meere priuation and absence of light disposing them to succeed each other in the Hemisphere which by what motion or reuolution it was effected the three first dayes who can determine Fond it is to reason a facto ad fieri from the present order of constitution to the Principles of that institution of the Creatures whiles they were yet in making as Simplicius and other Philosophers may I terme them or Atheists haue absurdly done in this and other parts of the Creation And this was the first dayes Worke THE SECOND DAYES WORKE IN the second GOD said Let there bee a Firmament The word Rakiah translated Firmament signifieth expansum or expansionem a stretching out designing that vast and wide space wherein are the watery clouds here mentioned and those lights which follow in the fourteenth Verse by him placed in expanso howsoeuer some vnderstand it only of the Ayre The separating the waters vnder this Firmament from the waters aboue the Firmament some interprete of waters aboue the Heauens to refresh their exceeding heat or of I know not what Chrystaline Heauen some of spirituall substances whom Basil confuteth Origen after his wont Allegorically Most probable it seemeth that Moses intendeth the separation of those waters here below in their Elementarie Seat from those aboue vs in the clouds to which Dauid alluding saith Hee hath stretched out the Heauens like a Curten and laid the beames of his Chambers in the waters This separating of the waters is caused in the Ayrie Region by the Aethereall in which those forces are placed which thus exhale and captiuate these waters That matter before endued with lightning qualitie was now in this second day as it seemeth attenuated extended aboue and beyond that myrie heape of Earthywaters and both the Aether and Aire formed of the same first matter and not of a fift Essence which some haue deuised to establish the Heauens Eternitie both Twins of the Philosophers braines And wherein doe not these differ from each other touching the Celestiall Nature Roundnesse Motion Number Measure and other difficulties most of which are by some denyed Diuersitie of motions caused the Ancients to number eight Orbes Ptolemie on that ground numbred nine Alphonsus and Tebitius ten Copernicus finding another motion reuiued the opinion of Aristarchus Samius of the Earths mouing c. Others which therein dissent from him yet in respect of that fourth motion haue added an eleuenth Orbe which the Diuines make vp euen twelue by their Empyreall immoueable Heauen And many deny this assertion of Orbes supposing them to haue beene supposed rather for instructions sake then for any reall being And Moses here saith expansum as Dauid also calleth it a Curtaine which in such diuersitie of Orbes should rather haue beene spoken in the plurall number The Sidereus Nuncius of Galilaeus Galilaeus tels vs of foure new Planets Iupiters attendants obserued by the helpe of his Glasse which would multiply the number of Orbes further A better Glasse or neerer sight and site might perhaps find more Orbes and thus should we runne in Orbem in a Circular endlesse Maze of Opinions But I will not dispute this question or take it away by auerring the Starres animated or else moued by Intelligentiae A learned Ignorance shall better content me and for these varieties of motions I will with Lactantius ascribe them to GOD the Architect of Nature and Co-worker therewith by wayes Naturall but best knowne to himselfe Neither list I to dance after their Pipe which ascribe a Musicall harmonie to the Heauens THE THIRD DAYES WORKE ANd thus were the Aethereall and Ayrie parts of the World formed in the Third Day followeth the perfecting of the two lowest Elements Water and Earth which as yet were confused vntill that mightie Word of GOD did thus both diuorce and marry them compounding of them both this one Globe which he called Dry Land and Seas I call it a Globe with the Scriptures and the best Philosophers for which respect Numa built the Temple of Vesta round Neither yet is it absolutely round and a perfect Spheare but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather Strabo affirmeth hauing saith Scaliger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 depressed Vallies extended Plaines swelling Hillockes high-mounting Mountaines long courses of Riuers and other varieties of Nature and Art which all in so huge a masse rather beautifie the roundnesse then take it away The Eclipse of the Moone later seene in the East then in the West the round shaddow of the Earth which darkeneth it the rising of the Sunne and Starres sooner in the East then West the vnequall eleuation of the Pole and the Northerne Constellations appearing to vs the Southerne continually depressed all these obseruing due proportions according to the difference of places and Countries yea the compassing of the Earth by many Mariners argue the round compasse thereof against Patritius his difformitie or that deformitie which other Philosophers haue ascribed thereto The equalitie or inequalitie of dayes according to the neerenesse or farrenesse from the Equinoctiall holding proportion as well by Sea as Land as doth also the eleuation of the Pole and not being longer wher 's a quarter of the World is Sea then if it were all Earth doe confute the
Diarbech The chiefe Cities in it are Orfa of seuen miles compasse famous say some for the death of Crassus Caramit the mother Citie of the Countrey of twelue miles compasse Mosul and Merdin of which in the next Chapter Betweene Orpha and Caramit was the Paradise of Aladeules where hee had a fortresse destroyed by Selim. This his Paradise was like to that which you shall finde in our Persian Historie Men by a potion brought into a sleepe were brought into this supposed Paradise where at their waking they were presented with all sensuall pleasures of musicke damosels dainties c. which hauing had some taste of another sleepie drinke after came againe to themselues And then did Aladeules tell them That he could bring whom hee pleased to Paradise the place where they had beene and if they would commit such murders or haughtie attempts it should bee theirs A dangerous deuice Zelim the Turke destroyed the place CHAP. XIIII Of Niniue and other neighbouring Nations WE haue hitherto spoken of Babylonia but so as in regard of the Empire and some other occurrents necessitie now and then compelled vs to make excursions into some other parts of Assyria Mesopotamia c. And I know not how this Babylon causeth confusion in that Sea of affaires and in regard of the diuision of the pennes as sometimes of tongues of such as haue written thereof Hard it is to distinguish betweene the Assyrian and Babylonian Empire one while vnited another while diuided as each partie could most preuaile and no lesse hard to reconcile the Ethnike and Diuine Historie touching the same Ptolemey straitneth Assyria on the North with part of Armenia neere the hill Niphates on the West with Mesopotamia on the South with Susiana and Media on the East But her large Empire hath enlarged the name of Syria and of Assyria which names the Greekes did not well distinguish to many Countries in that part of Asia The Scripture deriueth Syria from Aram and Assyria from Ashur Both were in their times flourishing and mention is made from Abrahams time both of the warres and kingdomes in those parts yea before from Ashur and Nimrod as alreadie is shewed Mesopotamia is so called and in the Scripture Aram or Syria of the waters because it is situate betweene Euphrates and Tygris the countries Babylonia and Armenia confining the same on the North and South Whereas therefore wee haue in our former Babylonian relation discoursed of Assyria extending the name after a larger reckoning here wee consider it more properly Euphrates is a Riuer very swift for they which goe to Bagdet buy their boats at Birra which serue them but one voyage and sell them at Felugia for seuen or eight which cost fiftie because they cannot returne But Tygris is swifter the Armenians bring victuals downe the same to Bagdet on rafts made of Goats skinnes blowne full of wind and boords laid vpon them on which they lade their goods which being discharged they open the skinnes and carrie them backe on Camels Dionysius and Strabo tell of this Riuer that it passeth through the Lake Thonitis without mixture of waters by reason of this swiftnesse which also giueth it the name for the Medes call an Arrow Tygris Lucan sayth it passeth a great way vnder ground and wearie of that burthensome iourney riseth againe as out of a new fountaine At Tygrim subito tellus absorbet hiatu Occultosque tegit cursus rursusque renatum Fonte nouo flumen pelagi non abnegat vndas The chiefe Citie in these parts was Niniue called in Ionas A great and excellent Citie of three dayes iourney It had I borrow the words of our reuerend Diocesan an ancient testimonie long before in the Booke of Genesis For thus Moses writeth That Ashur came from the land of Shinar and built Niniueh and Rehoboth and Calah and Resin At length he singleth out Niniue from the rest and setteth a speciall marke of preeminence vpon it This is a great Citie which honour by the iudgement of the most learned though standing in the last place belongeth to the first of the foure Cities namely to Niniue Others imagined but their coniecture is without ground that the foure Cities were closed vp within the same walls and made but one of an vsuall bignesse Some ascribe the building of Niniue to Ninus the sonne of Belus of whom it tooke the name to be called either Ninus as wee reade in Plinie or after the manner of the Hebrewes Niniue They conceiue it thus That when Nimrod had built Babylon Ninus disdaining his gouernment went into the fields of Ashur and there erected a Citie after his owne name betweene the riuers Lycus and Tygris Others suppose that the affinitie betwixt these names Ninus and Niniueh deceiued profane Writers touching the Author thereof and that it tooke to name Niniueh because it was beautifull or pleasant Others hold opinion that Ashur and Ninus are but one and the same person And lastly to conclude the iudgement of some learned is that neither Ashur nor Ninus but Nimrod himselfe was the founder of it But by the confession of all both sacred and Gentile Histories the Citie was very spacious hauing foure hundred and fourescore furlongs in circuit when Babylon had fewer almost as some report by an hundred and as afterwards it grew in wealth and magnificence so they write it was much more enlarged Raphael Volaterranus affirmeth That it was eight yeeres in building and not by fewer at once then tenne thousand workemen There was no Citie since by the estimation of Diodorus Siculus that had like compasse of ground or statelinesse of walls the height whereof was not lesse then an hundred foot the breadth sufficiently capable to haue receiued three Carts on a row and they were furnished and adorned besides with fifteene hundred Turrets Thus farre our reuerend and learned Bishop Diodorus telleth out of Ctesias that Ninus after he had subdued the Egyptians Phoenicians Syrians Cilicians Phrygians and others as farre as Tanais and the Hyrcanians Parthians Persians and other their neighbours he built this Citie After that hee led an armie against the Bactrians of seuenteene hundred thousand footmen and two hundred thousand horse in which Expedition he tooke Semiramis from her husband Menon who therefore impatient of loue and griefe hanged himselfe Hee had by her a sonne of his owne name and then died leauing the Empire to his wife His Sepulchre was nine furlongs in height each of which is sixe hundred feete and ten in breadth The credite of this Historie I leaue to the Author scarce seeming to agree with Moses narration of the building of Niniue any more then Semiramis building of Babylon Some write That Semiramis abusing her husbands loue obtained of him the swaying of the Empire for the space of fiue dayes in which shee depriued him of his life and succeeded in his estate But lest the
Esay speake to the Princes of Sodome in his time and the people of Gomorrha in respect of that their wickednesse which suruiued them and hath fructified vnto vs among whom yet the Lord of Hoasts as with them hath reserued a small remnant from this worse plague then Sodoms brimstone a Reprobate sense The difference betwixt ours and them is that they were more open ours more close both in like height but not in like weight of wickednesse our darkenesse excelling theirs both in the sinne and in the punishment in as much as a greater light hath shined which we with hold in vnrighteousnesse And if you will haue the maine character of difference betwixt these and those the one are beastly Men the other are Deuils in the flesh First from a sparke of Hell Concupiscence guided by Sensuall Lust attended by Ease and Prosperitie and further inflamed and blowne by the Deuill an vnnaturall fire which stil beareth the name of Sodomie was kindled which gaue coales to a supernaturall flame rained by the LORD in Brimstone and fire from the LORD out of Heauen and burning euen to Hell againe the Alpha and Omega of wickednesse where they suffer saith Iude the vengeance of eternall fire This is written for our learning on whom the ends of the world are come their ashes being made an example vnto them that should after liue vngodly Let not any obiect the Preacher here and require the Historian seeing that Historie builds no castles in the ayre but preacheth both ciuill and diuine knowledge by examples of the passed vnto the present Ages And why should not I preach this which not my calling alone but the very place it selfe exacteth Discite iustitiam moniti is the quintessence of all Historie They being dead yet speake and the place of their buriall is a place to our memorie being turned into a Sea but a Dead Sea which couereth their sinnes that it may discouer ours which as astonished at their vnnaturalnesse hath forgotten her owne nature It drowneth the Earth which it should haue made as whilome it did fertile it staies it selfe with wonder and indignation and falling in a dead swowne sincketh downe with horrour not wakened not mooued with the windes blustering refusing the light of the Sunne the lappe of the Ocean the Commerce of strangers or familiarity of her owne and as it happeneth in deepe passions the colour goeth and commeth changing three times euery day it gaspeth foorth from her dying entrailes a stincking and noysome ayre to the neere dwellers pestiferous sometimes voyding as it were excrements both lighter ashes and grosse Asphaltum The neighbour fruits participate of this death promising to the eye toothsome and wholesome foode performing only smoake and ashes And thus hath out GOD shewed himselfe a consuming fire the LORD of anger to whom vengeance belongeth all Creatures mustering themselues in his sight and saying at his first call to execution Loe we are heere That which I haue said of these miracles still liuing in this dead-Sea is confirmed by testimonie of many h Authors Brocard telleth of those Trees with ashes growing vnder Engaddi by this Sea and a vapour rising out of the Sea which blasteth the neighbour-fruits and the slimie pits on the brinkes of the Sea which hee saw Neither strangers nor her owne haue accesse there where Fishes the naturall inhabitants of the Waters and Water-fowles the most vsuall ghests haue no entertainment and men or other heauie bodies cannot sinke Vespasian prooued this experiment by casting in some bound vnskilfull of swimming whom the waters surfetted with swallowing her owne spewed vp againe This is mentioned by Aristotle also who saith that the saltnesse there of is the cause why neyther man nor beast though bound can sinke in it nor any fish liue therein which yet in the salt-sea wee see no otherwise The Philosopher could see no further then reason nor all that neither but Moses guideth vs beyond Philosophie to diuine vengeance which thus subuerted Nature when men became vnnaturall The Lake Iosephus saith is fiue hundred and fourescore furlongs in length Plinie hath an hundred myles the breadth betweene sixe and fiue and twentie myles Strabo telleth of thirteene Cities still whereof Sodome was chiefe of threescore furlongs compasse wherof some were consumed by fire or swallowed by Earth-quakes and sulphurous Waters the rest forsaken some Remainders as bones of those carkasses then in his time continuing Vertomannus saith That there are the ruines of three Cities on the tops of three Hils and that the Earth is without water and barren and a greater miracle hath a kinde of bloody mixture somewhat like red waxe the depth of three or foure cubites The ruines of the Cities are there seene still Georgius Cedrenus in his Greeke History written aboue fiue hundred and fiftie yeeres since writeth that hee had seene this dead-Sea and reckoneth thereof these maruells That it produceth no quicke Creature that dead carkasses sinke therein a liuing man can scarcely diue vnder water lamps burning swimme but being put out they sinke there are fountaines of Bitumen allume also and salt but bitter and shining Where any fruit is found nothing is found but smoake The water thereof is holesome to such as vse it but differing from other waters in contrarie accidents Not long after his time Fulcherius Carnotensis in the beginning of the Westerne kingdome in these parts testifieth the vntolerable saltnesse of this sea from his owne taste And that neere the same is a hill which in diuers places thereof is likewise salt shining therewith like ice and hard as stone and ghesseth that the saltnesse of this sea proceedeth partly from that cause partly from the intercourse which vnder the earth it holdeth with the greater sea Compassing this lake on the South side we came to a Village which they say is Segor abounding with Dates where the Inhabitants were blacke And there saith he did I see apples on the trees which when I opened I found blacke and dustie within * The like is read Sap. 10.7 Of whose wickednesse euen to this day the waste Land that smoketh is a testimony and plants bearing fruits that neuer came to ripenesse and a standing pillar of Salt is a monument of an vnbeleeuing soule They left behind them to the World a memoriall of their foolishnesse c. And Moses Deut. 32.32 their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the vine of Gomorrah their grapes are grapes of gall their clusters are bitter c. Which allegorie must haue his foundation in the naturall disposition of those places and fruits Later Trauellers as William Lithgow and I haue heard the like of Master Eldred which haue seene these parts say there are now no such fruits which may come to passe by that alteration which so long space may cause or else because they visited not those parts which Fulcherius mentions Lithgow addes that the water of this dead Sea contrarie
besides those that by diseases or other manifold lets were not partakers thereof and in regard of this Feast being assembled thither through GODS iust iudgement their whole huge multitudes were couped or caged together in the wals of this Citie to destruction vnder Titus The bloud of the Lambe they were to receiue in a vessell and to sprinkle the same with a bunch of Hysope on the doore posts and to eate it in the night which was the beginning of the fifteenth day roast with fire with sowre hearbes and vnleauened bread both the head feete and purtenance girded shod with staues in their hands in haste standing burning whatsoeuer was left of the same After the eating the Sacramentall Lambe standing they had other prouision which they eate sitting or after their manner of lying at Table in remembrance of their libertie as appeareth by Iohns leaning on his brest and Iudas his sop at Christs supper In the Law it was commanded that they should eate the Passeouer standing which they onely practised in the first celebration in Aegypt For so the Iewes set forth the difference of the Paschall night from other nights in their twice washing which on other nights they do but once in their vnleauened in their Endiue or sowre hearbes And whereas on other nights they sit or lie now they lie onely in token of their securitie The washing was therfore necessarie lest they should defile the beds whereon they lay with their dusty feete In which respect the Gentiles also vsed to wash their feete the Iewes their whole bodie And the Pharise maruelled at Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was not thus baptized or washed before he sate downe Some contented themselues onely with washing of the feete the want of which Office Christ obiected to another of his Pharisaicall hostes But in the Paschall rite a double washing was requisite because of their double Supper which in the flourishing state of the Iewes was also vsed in other their chiefe solemnities of the Pentecost and Tabernacles In the former they eate their Sacrifices in the later certaine Prayses were sung and it was called the supper dimissorie But this second Paschall Supper differed from that in other solemnities wherein they vsed iunkets which in this were forbidden and instead therof they had Endine and wilde Lettice mingled with Vinegar and other things which now they make as thick as mustard The Housholder first dipt his vnleauened soppe therein and eate it and then tooke from vnder the carpet or cloth another which he brake into as many pieces as he had Communicants in his company euery piece being as big as an Oliue which was giuen to each of them in order When he eate that sop first he said Blessed be thou Lord our God King of the world which hast sanctified vs with thy Commandements and hast giuen vs the precept of vnleauened bread And when he had eaten he said as he distributed to the rest This is the bread of affliction which our fore-fathers ate in the land of Aegypt Euery one which is hungry come and eate euery one which hath neede come and obserue the Passeouer After the destruction of Ierusalem they added these words Now we are here seruants but hereafter wee shall be in the land of Israel now we are here seruants hereafter in the land of Israel free After this he tasted of the Cuppe and deliuered to the next and he to the third and so on through the company This was called the Cup of thankesgiuing or of singing the Hymne which he deliuered with these words Blessed art thou O Lord our GOD King of the world Creator of the fruite of the Vine Then did they sing a Hymne and depart for the Canon forbad them to eate or drinke any thing after the Hymne These were the Paschall rites in the time of CHRIST who also vsed that reiterated both washing saith Scaliger and Supper and also the Hymne They were in the Eeuen of the foureteenth day to purge their houses of leauen and that throughout the Land where the Lambe might not be eaten All the Israelites were inioyned this dutie And they which by occasion of iourneying or vncleanenesse could not now celebrate the Passeouer were to obserue it the next moneth Numb 9. The day after or second day of this Paschall Feast they were to bring to the Priest a Gomer of the first-fruits of their Corne and a Lambe with other duties for a burnt offering to the LORD before which time they might not eate of the new yeeres fruites which at that time in those Countries beganne to ripen and so to acknowledge GOD the giuer thereof Philo saith That each priuate man which otherwise brought in his Sacrifice to the Priest Sacrificed or slew this Sacrifice with his owne handes And else where hee affirmeth the same Eleazarus or as other say the Synedrium ordayned three hundred and fiftie yeeres before the birth of Christ that the Passe-ouer should not bee solemnized on the second fourth or sixt day of the Weeke And therefore when it fell on the sixt day which wee call Fridaie it was deferred to the seuenth at the time of Christs Passion he with his Disciples ate it the night before according to the Law of God This Eleazarus ordained that the feast of Lots should not be celebrated on the second fourth or seuenth or Pentecost on the third fift or seuenth Or that of the Tabernacles on the first fourth and sixt Or the Fast of Expiation on the first third or sixt Or their New-yeeres day on the first fourth and sixt which decree is extant in the booke of Gamaliel Pauls Master which they did superstitiously to auoide two Sabbaths in so strict a rest together and carrying boughes on the Sabbath if that Feast fell thereon and on other such reasonlesse reasons After this sixteenth day of the moneth or second day of the vnleauened bread in which first of all sickle was thrust into the Haruest to offer the first fruits thereof vnto GOD were numbred seuen intire Weekes and the next day which was the fiftieth accounting inclusiuely was celebrated the feast of PENTECOST receiuing his name of that reckoning of fiftie And Schefuoth that is of Weekes because of this reckoning of seuen weekes it is called also the Feast of the Haruest of the first fruites the rites thereof are prescribed Leuit. 23. The institution was in respect of the Law then giuen on Mount Sinai and a type of that Euangelicall Law which Christ hauing ascended vp on high did write not in Tables of stone but in fleshly Tables of the heart when at the same time hee gaue the holy Ghost to his Disciples as a remembrance also of the Author of their Haruest-fruits and of their possession of that land where they had seede-time and haruest which in the wildernesse they wanted As the seuenth day in the weeke so the seuenth moneth in the yeere was in a great
further the Priests hindrances Ceremoniall was the third Tithe as dependant on the Temple and Feasts The Fourth Iudiciall as reliefe to the poore of that Iewish state whether Leuites or Lay-man in their seuerall habitations But if any lust to fill themselues with matter of this argument let them reade what hath beene written by Master Selden and his Antagonists which maintaine the portion of Leui in the Euangelicall Priest-hood against his Historie of Tithes seeming by way of Storie to vndermine it Wherein Sir Iames Sempills labours that I mention not many of our owne more interessed deserue honorable mention in all Leui's Tents and to all his generations §. III. Of their Personall Offerings and of their and our Ecclesiasticall Reuenues BEsides First-fruits and Tithes they payed to the Treasurie personall offerings as Exod. 30.12 Euery man payed halfe a shekel which the Hebrewes interpreted to be perpetuall for the maintenance of the Sacrifices others temporarie then onely put in practice As for that collection 2. King 21. made by Ioas for the repayring of the Temple and that after by Nehemiah Chap. 10. the circumstances shew much difference This Treasurie in regard of this Poll-money grew very rich as appeared in Crassus robbing the same often thousand talents at one time besides a great beame of gold which Eleazarus the Treasurer vpon Crassus his Oath afterwards violated neuerthelesse to redeeme the rest deliuered to him weighing three hundred Mina euery Mina being two pounds two ounces and a quarter Troy Tully and other Authors mention these Oblations of the Iewes to their Treasurie yeerely These Gifts and offerings the Law exacted they performed many other also either of their free-will or of Vow otherwise little differing from the former Leuitici vltimo Many other Ceremonies of their meates garments fastings Trumpets and in other cases I hope I shall haue leaue to omit in this place and remit him that would further know of them to the Scripture it selfe hauing pointed out the principall But by this is apparant which Doctor Downam hath obserued that all these being deliuered them in the Lords Treasurie without their labour or cost together with their eight and fortie Cities assigned them amounting to a farre greater proportion for the maintenance of that small Tribe then all the Bishoprick Benefices Colledge-lands or whatsoeuer other Ecclesiasticall endowments and profits in this Land although the prophane Ammonites or hypocriticall Cloysters had neuer conspired to shaue off our beards and our garments by the Buttocks not leauing to couer our nakednesse or their shame And yet how sicke is Ahab for Naboths Vineyard And would GOD we had no Iezabels to play the too cunning Physicians in this disease Let me haue a little leaue to say no more then others for the substance in bookes and Sermons haue said alreadie although those Bellies to whom we speake haue no eares The first stroke that wounded vs and causeth vs still to halt was from Rome The mother of abominations and whoredomes Here as in the suburbs of Hell were founded the Churches Ruines Our Bulls of Bashan Abbey-lubbers and Cloysterers with the leaden hornes of those Romane Bulls haue pushed downe our Churches our Chauncels at least and made them to fall into those Cages of vncleane Byrds the Popish Monasteries Of nine thousand two hundred eightie and foure Parishes in England after Master Camdens account three thousand eight hundred fortie fiue were it is properly termed impropriated And who knoweth whether those Appropriations did not supplant their Supplanters and dispropriate them of that which in a iuster proprietie was giuen them in their first foundations for that three-fold maintainance of themselues of learning and of the poore yea happily yet if we obserue the course of Diuine Iustice we may see many whose former inheritances haue by the addition of these as of a contagious garment beene infected and haue either died or beene sicke at the least of this plague The Arke when it was in Dagons Temple because imprisoned in an Idoll-Temple brake Dagons neck and when it was thence translated to their Cities they also were filled with diseases Our Arke hath thus dealt with the Temples and cannot well brooke the Cities and Lay-hands which imprison or if they will appropriate it O that they would once send it home where it should be How fitly and fully doe those words of Habacuk agree to the houses founded for Religion by this and like irreligion peruerted and at last subuerted They coueted an euill couetousnesse to their houses they consulted shame to their owne houses by destroying many people and sinned against their owne soules The stone hath cryed out of the wall and the Beame out of the Tymber hath answered it Woe vnto him that buildeth a Towne with blood and erecteth a Citie by iniquitie Thus we see the stones haue cryed out of their walles indeede and by their demolished heapes may receiue Labans name Iegar schadutha the heape of witnesse their ruines remayning testimonies of GODS iudgements A violent streame saith Master Camden breaking through all obstacles hath rushed out vpon the Ecclesiastick state of this Land and ouerwhelmed to the worlds wonder and Englands griefe the greatest part of the English Clergie with their most beautifull buildings and those riches which the Christian pietie of the English had from the time of their first Christianitie consecrated to God were as it were in a moment dispersed and if I may so say prophaned And let not our Temporall men pretend inheritances and humane Lawes in these things of diuine right For how can Kyrkes so called as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Lords houses before giuen vp by solemne consecration into diuine possessions with their liuings become humane without surrender of the owner or satisfaction to him As the word since hath receiued a double aspiration so the things themselues a doubling and deceiuing alteration wherby we haue robbed our GOD as in Malachie he complaines worse then the heathen which he there iustifies and which in that extreme Aegyptian famine alienated all Lay possessions but wanted this Aura sacra fames sacri left the Priests Lands inuiolated which yet were very large as in our Aegyptian Relations shall appeare Poore Vzzah offered in a good intent which I also thinke of many which were forward in suppression of Religious houses in the daies of King Henrie and of other Church lands in King Edwards time but GOD accepted not such zeale and he by his vntimely fates left the name to the place Perez Vzzah vntill this dvy Nor did King Henry long enioy that his Ecclesiasticall purchase or long continue much wealthier by it but was forced to base monies before his end that I speake not of the short raigne of King Edward his sonne that vertuous Prince whose times rather then his holy hands caused the desolations of the Chauntrie lands and how many other vanished away in
were once a yeere on the ninth day of the Moneth Ab allowed entrance into Ierusalem by Adrians Edict But then also saith Saint Hierome they are forced to pay for it that they which sometime bought the blood of Christ now must buy their owne teares There may you see saith he on that day whereon Ierusalem was taken by the Romans decrepit women and old ragged men annis pannisque obsitos and many wretched people but pittied of none with blubbered cheekes blacke armes disheueled hayre howling and lamenting for the ruines of their Sanctuarie in their bodies and habite bearing and wearing the markes of Diuine vengeance Of whom the Souldier exacteth his fee also for libertie of further weeping It is written in an ancient Iournall of Burdeaux that not farre from the Images there is a stone boared thorow to which the Iewes come yeerely and anoint it lamenting grieuously and renting their garments and then depart Beniamin an Hebrew Author relateth that one and twentie dayes iourney from Kupha through the Wildernesse he trauelled to the Region of Seba where dwelled Iewes called the children of Rechab or men of Theima which gaue Tithes to the Disciples of the wise who continually applied themselues to learning and to Sermons alway sitting in the Schoole and to the humbled Israelites and deuout persons which lament Sion and bewayle Ierusalem These dwell in Caues or in ruined houses fasting all the daies of their life except on the Sabbaths and Festiuals beseeching mercy continually at the hands of God touching the banishment and deportation of Israel they neuer eate flesh nor drinke wine The same also do all the Iewes of the Countrey Theima and of Talmaas pray All which go with rent clothes and fast fortie dayes for the Iewish captiuitie And so let them mourne which refuse the glad tidings of great ioy to all people that vnto vs is borne IESVS a Sauiour which is Christ the Lord But yet what rockie heart can but mourne with them and for them thus made spectacles to the World of bodily and spirituall misery which both in these times mentioned and before in the time of Traian and in all ages since hath pursued them in all places of their habitation if that name may be giuen to this World-wandring and Vagabond-people In the time of Traian Adrians predecessor the Iewes had rebelled in Egypt and Cyrene where they committed much outrage and mischiefe vnder one Luke their Captaine against whom the Emperour sent Martius Turbo who destroyed many thousands of them and fearing that the Iewes in Mesopotamia would do the like commanded Lucius Quietus to destroy them vtterly in recompence of which seruice executed to his minde he made him president of Iudaea Dion saith That the Captaine of the Iewes was named Andrew and that they slue many Greekes and Romans did eate their flesh gyrt themselues with their guts were imbrued with their blood and clothed with their skinnes many they sawed asunder from the crowne downewards many they cast to the Beasts and many were found to kill one another with mutuall combats so that two hundred and twentie thousand persons perished by this vnspeakeable crueltie In Egypt and Cyprus vnder their Captaine Artemion they destroyed two hundred and fortie thousand They were subdued by Traians captaynes specially by Lucius And it was made a capitall crime for a Iewe although forced by tempest to set foote in Cyprus Africa was re-peopled where they had destroyed with new Colonies No maruell if the Romans thus prouoked both in the time of Traian Hadrian destroyed so many thousands of them Iulian afterward gaue them leaue to return into their Countrie re-build their Temple more for hatred of the Christians then for loue to their Nation Whose wickednesse and answerable successe herein is plainely detected and detested by Gregorie Nazianzene and other Fathers as we haue before related §. III. Of other their False Christs and Seducing Prophets TO adde further of their bodily confusions and the illusions of their bewitched minds Nicephorus mentioneth a Pseudo-Moses of the Iewes in the parts of Arabia destroyed by the forces of the Empire together with his Complices in a like Rebellion Socrates describeth a further madnesse of theirs for true is that saying of Saint Paul That they which will not beleeue the Truth are giuen ouer to strong delusions to beleeue lies In the I le of Creete was a false Prophet that affirmed himselfe to be Moses which led the Israelites thorow the Red-Sea and to be sent from Heauen to those Iewes to conduct them thorow the Red-Sea into the continent of the holy Land This he perswaded them for the space of a whole yeere going from Citie to Citie And at last induced them to leaue their riches to them that would take them and to follow him at a day appointed he went afore them vnto a Promontorie of the Sea and there bid them leape in which many obaying perished in the waues and many more had perished had not some Christian Merchants and Fishers beene at Land which saued some and forbad the rest to follow The Iewes seeking to be reuenged of this counterfeit Moses could no where finde him and therefore thought him to be some Deuill in humane shape which sought their destruction and thereupon many of them became Christians Beniamin Teudelensis reporteth of one in Persia called Dauid Elroi sometime the Disciple of Hasdai which was Head of the captiuitie one learned in the Law and Talmud in forraine learning in the Ismaelites tongue and in Magike who gathered together the Iewes in Hhapthon and would needes warre on all Nations and winne Ierusalem affirming that GOD had sent him therefore and to free them from the Gentiles Many beleeued him to bee the Messias The King of Persia sent for him imprisoned him in the citie Dabasthan whence they are not freed during life But he three dayes after when the King and his Councel sate to examine and take order for this businesse came amongst them And when the King asked who brought him thither he said his owne wisedome and industrie The King bid lay hold on him but his seruants answered they could heare him but not see him and away he went the King following him to a Riuer ouer which Dauid stretching his hand-kerchiefe passed ouer and was then seene of them all who in vaine pursued him with their boates This Dauid the same day went ten dayes iourney from thence to Elghamaria and declared to the Iewes there all which had passed The Persian sent to the Calipha of Bagded that he should cause the head of the Captiuitie to perswade him to other courses otherwise threatning destruction to all the Iewes in Persia which Iewes likewise for feare thereof writ to the head of the Captiuitie He therefore writ to Dauid We would haue thee to knowe that the time of our deliuerance is not yet come nor haue we yet seene our signes and
of seates with marble steps in the highest whereof sate the Head of the Captiuitie with the Iewes of the family of Dauid In Gehiagan sometime Rezen two dayes iourney from thence were fiue thousand Israelites One dayes iourney from hence was Babel now wholly ruinated in which are yet seene the ruines of Nabuchodonosors Palace but inaccessible by reason of diuers kindes of Serpents Twentie miles from these ruines dwell twentie thousand Israelites which there pray in the Synagogues the chiefe whereof is that of Daniel of squared stones There were at Hhilah fiue miles thence ten thousand Iewes in foure Synagogues Foure miles thence it is to the Tower which the Sonnes of Diuisions built with Brickes which the Arabians call Lagzar the length of the foundation is about two miles the breadth of the wals two hundred and forty cubits where it is broadest it is an hundred reedes and betweene euery ten reedes space are waies in manner of spires continued thorow the whole building on the top of which one may see twentie miles about Halfe a dayes iourney from hence is Naphahh where were two hundred Iewes And three leagues thence the Synagogue of Ezechiel neere Euphrates and in the same place sixtie Towers one against another and a Synagogue betweene euery one The monument of Ezechiel was built by Iechonias with fiue and thirtie thousand Iewes And this is a holy place whither they resort from the beginning of the yeere to the day of Expiation to pray and keepe festiuall Thither commeth the Head of the Captiuitie and other chiefe men from Bagdad and two and twentie miles about they pitch their Tents here and there and the Arabians keepe then and there a great Faire At this time they reade on the Expiation day out of a booke which Ezechiel writ and there is a holy house full of bookes since the time of the first and second Temple the custome being that they which die without children should bequeath their bookes hither The Iewes in Persia and Media make vowes to bee performed in this place to which also the Ismaelites resort to pray The Sepulchre of the three Saints companions of Daniel is halfe a dayes iourney from hence with fayre and great Arches Three miles thence is Alkotsonath and in it three hundred Iewes At Kupha the Sepulchre of Ieconia and seuen thousand Iewes One and twentie daies iourney thorow the wildernes is the Region of Seba now called the Land of Aliman where dwell Iewes the children of Rechab This Region extended sixteene daies along the mountaines subiect to no forren Nation hauing therein foure hundred strong Cities two hundred Townes an hundred Castles The Metropolis is Themai In all those Cities are about three hundred thousand Iewes In the Region of Tilmaas an hundred thousand Three dayes iourney hence is Chibar in it fiftie thousand These they say are of the deportation of Ruben Gad and Manasses From hence twentie fiue dayes iourney is Vira which is a Riuer running into Eliman where were three thousand And seuen iourneys from thence Neasar in it seuen thousand Fiue daies iourneyes from thence Bosra vpon Tygris and in it one thousand Two dayes iourneyes from thence the Riuer Samura the beginning of Persia with a Towne of the same name wherein were fifteene hundred The place is famous by the Sepulchre of Esdras who in his returne to Babylon in Embassage here died There was a Synagogue honoured also by the Ismaelites In Susan were seuen thousand Iewes in foureteene Synagogues before one of which was the Sepulchre of Daniel about which rose a controuersie betweene the inhabitants of the one and other side of the Riuer They which dwelt on that side where the Sepulchre was seeming to the other the more fortunate this caused blowes but was after agreed that euery yeere it should be remoued by course which was done with solemne procession till Senigar the Persian King thinking it a prophanation to the holy Coffin caused it to be hanged in a chest of glasse for all men to see and forbad to take fish within two miles of that place in the Riuer From hence was three dayes iourney to Robad-Bar where were twentie thousand Iewes Two iourneyes from hence was the Riuer Vaanath where were foure thousand Iewes Foure iourneyes further Malhhaath here they were not Ismaelites nor vnder the Persian they had two Colledges of Israelites which acknowledged neuerthelesse the Head of the Captiuitie in Bagdad At Ghaarian fiue iourneyes beyond were fiue and twentie thousand Here began the mountaines of Hhaphthon wherein were an hundred Synagogues This is the beginning of Media they speake Chaldee and there were amongst them the Disciples of the wise Ghamaria is vnder the Persian where Dauid Elroi was It was ten dayes iourney thence to Hhamdan chiefe Citie of Media there were fiftie thousand Iewes in that Region and the Sepulchre of Mordecai and Esther Foure iourneyes further was Debarzethaan neere this Riuer Gozen in it foure thousand Iewes Beyond that seuen iourneyes Asbahan the chiefe Citie twelue miles in compasse and therein fifteene thousand Israelites ouer whom and all the Persian Iewes was Salom by authoritie from the Head of the Captiuitie Foure iourneyes hence was Siaphaz called of old Persis whence the whole Region was named Persia therein ten thousand Seuen dayes iourneys thence Ginah vpon Gozen a famous Mart in which were eight thousand Samarcheneth was the furthest Citie of that Kingdome fiue iourneyes from Ginah where were fiftie thousand Foure iourneyes thence Tubot and twentie eight further I passed to the mountaines Nisbon which ouer looke the Riuer Gozen where were many Israelites and they say there dwell the foure Tribes of Dan Zabulon Asser Naphthali Their Countrey extendeth twentie dayes iourney and hath many Cities free from subiection to any Heathen They are gouerned of Ioseph Armacala Leuita they till the ground and hold warres with the children of Chus trauelling through the desart thither They are in league with the Copher Althorech a people that worship the Windes and liuing in the Wildernesse they haue neither bread nor wine but eate raw flesh eyther new or dried they haue no nose but onely two holes Fifteene yeeres since they tooke and sacked Rai a chiefe Citie in Persia whereupon the King warred against them and passing through the wildernesse to them was deceiued by his guide and his people almost starued and after forced to flie with whom passed into Persia Moses one of the Iewes in those parts which told me Beniamin our Author all this Hence I went to Cheuazthaan vpon the Riuer Tigris which runneth thence into Hoduor the Indian Sea hauing in the mouth the Iland Nekrokin a famous Mart where were fiue hundred Iewes I sayled ten dayes thence to Kathiphan where were fiue thousand Israelites Thence to the Kingdome of Haaulem a people of Chus which worship the Sunne Thence after twentie two dayes sayling I came to the I le Chenerag where they worship the
fire where were twentie three thousand Iewes Fortie dayes sayling from thence was the Kingdome of Sinne from which to Gingalan was fifteene dayes there were ten thousand Israelites Thence I went to Ethiopian India which they call Baghdaan in which were high mountaynes and in them many Israelites subiect to none which warred on the Hamaghtani that is the Libyans From thence to Azzan was twentie daies iourney through the wildernesse Sebor the King whereof was Sultan Alhabas an Ismaelite Twelue dayes thence is Hhalauan where were three hundred Iewes from which they passe in troupes through the desartal-Tsahaca into Zeuila in the tract of Geena or Ginaea where they encounter showres of sands This Region is in the land of Chus and is called Alhhabas towards the West Thirteene dayes iourney from Hhaluan is Kits the beginning of Egypt And fiue from thence Pium once Pithon where were twentie Iewes and many monuments of our fathers to be seene Thence to Misraim is foure iourneyes where were two thousand Iewes in two Synagogues which differed in their distribution of the Lectures of their Law the Babylonians finishing it in a yeere as in Spaine the Israelites in three But twice a yeere they assembled together in Prayers on the feast Laetitia Legis and on the feast Latae Legis Nathaneel was chiefe ouer all the Vniuersities or Synagogues of Egypt and appointed Masters and Aeditui He was familiar with the King Amir Almumanin Eli sonne of Abitalib At Alexandria were three thousand Israelites But for his trauels in Egypt and the Synagogues which there he found as also backe againe into Sicilia Germany Boheme Prussia c. because there are yet knowne Synagogues of them I surcease relation And much may I feare I haue too much wearied the Reader in so long a Iewish Pilgrimage but seeing Authors of best note Scaliger Drusius Lipsius c. cite him and Arias Mont. hath taken the paines to translate him and his trauels are such ample testimonies of this our present subiect of Iewish dispersions I haue beene bold to annex these things If any list not to beleeue such multitudes of Iewes I will not vrge him howsoeuer that deluge of Tartars in all those Asian Regions soone after Beniamins dayes brought a new face of all things in these Easterly parts as a Iew and relating these things to Iewes and by Iewes passing to vs it is like he reported and we haue receiued with the most For his Geographie some of his names are easily reconciled to the present some hardly which I leaue to the Readers industrie §. VI. Of some Iewes lately found in China and of their late Accidents in Germany AFter these relations of Beniamin I thought it not vnfit to insert out of Ricci Trigautius Iesuites lately residing in China somewhat appertaining to these Iewish affaires It is but few yeeres since the Iesuites could settle themselues at Paquin the Royall Citie of China Thither did a certaine Iew moued with report of these strangers hauing an imagination that they were Iewes resort vnto them This Iew was borne at Chaifamfu the mother-Citie of the Prouince Honan his name was Ngai his countenance not resembling the Chinois he neglecting Iudaisme had addicted himselfe to the China studies and now came to Paquin to the Examination in hope of proceeding Doctor There did he enter the Iesuites house professing that he was of their Law and Religion Ricci leades him into the Chappell where on the Altar stood the Image of the Virgin Iesus and Iohn Baptist kneeling which hee taking to be the Image of Rebecca and her twinnes did worship vnto them contrarie he said vnto their custome The Images of the Euangelists he supposed to be so many of Iacobs sonnes But vpon further questioning the Iesuite perceiued that he was a professor of the Law of Moses he confessed himselfe an Israelite and knew not the name of Iew so that it seemed the dispersion of the ten Tribes had pierced thus farre Seeing the Hebrew Bible hee knew the Letters but could not reade them He told them that in Caifamfu were ten or twelue Families of Israelites and a faire Synagogue which had lately cost them ten thousand Crownes therein the Pentateuch in rolles which had beene with great veneration preserued fiue or six hundred yeeres In Hamcheu the chiefe Citie of Chequian he affirmed were many more Families with their Synagogue many also in other places but without Synagogues and by degrees wearing out His pronunciation of Hebrew names differed from ours as Herusoloim Moscia for Messia Ierusalem His brother he said was skilfull in the Hebrew which hee in affection to the China preferment had neglected and therefore was hardly censured by the Ruler of the Synagogue To this Citie did Ricci send one of his to enquire who found these reports true which also copied the beginnings and endings of their bookes which they compared and found to agree with their owne Pentateuch sauing that they wanted pricks or points He writ also in China Characters to the Ruler of their Synagogue that he had the rest of the bookes of the old Testament and other bookes of the New which contained the acts of the Messias being already come The Ruler doubted saying that he would not come till ten thousand yeeres were expired He also promised that because he had heard much good of him if he would come thither and abstaine from Swines-flesh they would make him Ruler of their Synagogue After this three Iewes came from thence to Paquin and were almost perswaded to become Christians These complained that through ignorance of the Hebrew their Religion decayed and that they were likely all of them in a short time to become Saracens or Ethnikes The old Archisynagogue was now dead his sonne a young man succeeded in place but ignorant of their Law And that their Iewish Religion was indeede languishing appeared by this that they both worshipped the Popish Images and complained that in their Synagogue and priuate houses they had none They were offended that they were forbidden the eating of any creature which themselues had not killed which had they obserued in this iourney had cost them their liues Their wiues and neighbours esteemed Circumcision of their infants on the eight day a cruell thing which they could be willing to altar with acceptation of the Christian Law nor would much stand about Swines-flesh They told them of certaine Christians also or worshippers of the Crosse in China which with the Iewes and Saracens were all called by the Chinois Hoei adding some distinction from their differing Rites calling the Saracens Hoei which refused Swines flesh The Iewes Hoei which abstaine from the sinew the Crosse-worshippers Hoei which abstaine from round-footed beasts whereas the Iewes Saracens and Chinois eate the flesh of horses asses and the like This Historie I haue added to shew how the Iewes haue bin dispersed into the furthest parts and how time the deuourer of all things hath almost eaten them out
the very middle of the world That in the Messiahs dayes Wheate shall grow without renewing by Seed as the Vine But of these and the like more then enough in this booke following L. Carretus a Conuert from the Iewes setteth downe these size as the maine differences betwixt them and vs The Trinitie the Incarnation the manner of his comming whether in humilitie or royaltie the Law ceremoniall which the Iew holdeth eternall saluation by and for our owne workes which the Christian ascribeth to Faith in Christ crucified and lastly of the time of his comming whether past or present To these he thinketh all other may be referred But let vs examine the particulars CHAP. XIIII Of the Iewish opinions of the Creation their Ceremonies about the birth of a Child Of their Circumcision Purification and Redemption of the first-borne and Education of their Children §. I. Of their Exposition of Scripture a taste in Gen. 1.1 THeir Exposition of Scripture is so absurd that wee haue hence a manifest argument that as they denyed the Sonne that Eternall Word and Truth whose written word this is so that Spirit which indited the same the Spirit of Truth hath put a vayle on their heart and iustly suffered the spirit of errour to blind their eyes that seeing they should see and not vnderstand This will appeare generally in our ensuing Discourse but for a taste let vs begin with the beginning of Moses whereon R. Iacob Baal Hatturim hath left to the world these smoakie speculations The Bible beginneth with Beth the second letter in the Alphabet and not with Aleph the first because that it is the first letter of Beracha which signifieth blessing this of Arour that is a curse Secondly Beth signifieth two insinuating the two-fold Law written and vnwritten for Bereshith hath the letters of Barashetei first hee made secondly Lawes thirdly Bereshith the first word of Genesis hath as many letters as Aleph be Tishrei that is the first of Tishrei or Tisri on which the Iewes say the world began fourthly Bereshith hath the letters of Baijth roshe that is the first Temple which he knew the Iewes would build and therefore created the world fiftly it hath the letters of Iare shabbath that is to keepe the Sabbath for God created the world for the Israelites which keepe the Sabbath sixtly also of Berith esh which signifieth the Couenant of fire to wit Circumcision and the Law another cause of the creation seuenthly likewise it hath the letters of Bara iesh that is hee created as many worlds as are in the number Iesh that is three hundred and ten that the Saints might reioyce therein Now if I should follow them from these letters and spelling to their mysticall sententious exposition of greater parts of the sentence you should heare Moses tell you out of his first words that the world was created for the Talmudists for the sixe hundred and thirteene precepts because hee loued the Israelites more then the other people Againe that hee foresaw the Israelites would receiue the Law but hee is now an Asse saith he which beareth Wine and drinketh water There are in the first verse seuen words which signifie the seuen dayes of the weeke seuenth yeere of rest seuen times seuenth the Iubilee seuentimes seuen Iubilees seuen Heauens seuen lands of Promise and seuen Orbes or Planets which caused Dauid to say I will praise thee seuen times a day There are 28. letters in it which shew the 28. times of the World of which Salomon speaketh Eccles 3.1 There are in it sixe Alephs and therefore the world shall last sixe thousand yeeres So in the second verse The earth was without forme and voyde are two Alephs which shew the world should bee two thousand yeeres voyde now in the third verse are foure Alephs which shew other foure thousand yeeres two of which should bee vnder the Law and two vnder Messias §. II. Their Dreames of Adam NOw for the first man his body saith R. Osia in the Talmud was made of the earth of Babylon his head of the land of Israel his other members of other parts of the world So R. Meir thought hee was compact of the earth gathered out of the whole earth as it is written Thine eyes did see my substance now it is elsewhere written The eyes of the Lord are ouer all the earth There are twelue houres of the day saith R. Aha in the first whereof the earth of Adam or earthly matter was gathered in the second the trunke of his body fashioned in the third his members stretched forth in the fourth his soule infused in the fift hee stood vpon his feet in the sixt hee gaue names to the Creatures in the seuenth Eue was giuen him in marriage in the eighth they ascended the bed two and descended foure in the ninth hee receiued the Precept which in the tenth he brake and therefore was iudged in the eleuenth and in the twelfth was cast out of Paradise as it is written Man continued not one night in honour The stature of Adam was from one end of the world to the other and for his transgression the Creator by laying on his hand lessened him for before faith R. Eleazar with his head he reached a reacher indeed the verie firmament His language was Syriacke or Aramitish saith R. Iuda and as Reschlakis addeth the Creator shewed him all generations and the wise-men in them His sinne after R. Iehuda was heresie R. Isaac thinketh the nourishing his fore-skin He knew or vsed carnall filthinesse with all the beasts which GOD brought vnto him before Eue was made as some interpret R. Eleazar and R. Salomon but Reuchline laboureth to purge them of that sense who affirmeth that hee had an Angell for his Master or Instructor and when he was exceedingly deiected with remorse of his sinne GOD sent the Angell Raziel to tell him that there should be one of his progenie which should haue the foure letters of Iehouah in his name and should expiate originall sinne And heere was the beginning of their Cabala and also presently hereupon did hee and Eue build an Altar and offer sacrifice The like offices of other Angels they mention to other Patriarchs and tell that euery three moneths are set new watches of these watchmen yea euery three houres yea and euery houre is some change of them And therefore wee may haue more fauour of them in one houre then another for they follow the disposition of the starres so said the Angell Samael which wrestled with him vnto Iacob Let mee goe for the day breaketh for his power was in the night But let me returne to Adam of whom they further tell that he was an Hermaphrodite a man-woman hauing both Sexes and a double bodie the Female part ioyned at the shoulders and backe parts to the Male their countenances turned from each other This is proued by Moses his words So GOD created man
vs oftentimes that they doe not worship him as gods but GOD in them Neither are the Heathen we say that are round about vs so blinded that they thinke the stocks and stones to be GOD but they are perswaded that God may be worshipped in them And yet they goe farther for the Christians in Spaine and Portugall haue it written in their Bookes That the Virgin Mary is the Lords Treasurer and that she bestowes gifts and graces vpon her seruants That her Mercie pardoneth them whom the Iustice of her Sonne might condemne and that our saluation lieth in her hands But our Law teacheth That GOD is All-sufficient hee giueth to whom he listeth He will not giue his glory to another c. The Reader may if hee please from that Iew himselfe in his printed Confession be further informed of that Partition wall which separateth the Iew and Catholike They are so much the more scandalized when they see the Catechismes recite the Decalogue with omission of that second Commandement which they thinke as one of their greatest Rabbins contested with our Author was the Ordinance of Christ himselfe Yea the Priests and Friers let passe in their Conferences with them for currant their Iewish vpbraidings that Christ a Carpenters Sonne was an Image-maker or at least an Author of their worshipping As for those speculatiue plaisters of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of intention instrumentall and finall in worship of Images of the true and Idols of the false gods they are as euen now you heard the vnsauourest dregs to the Iew in the world The poore Idiot among the Christians can as little distinguish as the Pagan and both amongst the Christians is like honour done to Gods Image and to that of Saints and to them both in like forme of worship as amongst the Pagans They are forced to be at some Sermons and there are well edified by their hearing when they see the Preacher direct his prayer to a Crucifixe calling it his Lord and Sauiour Their Transubstantiation is a monster as hideous as the former The meanes vsed to their conuersion are weake especially in some places where they haue not the New Testament in such Language as they can vnderstand and the Inquisitors haue inhibited and taken from them all bookes written on that Theame in defence of Christian Religion or against it alledging they will haue no disputing in matters of Religion either way like the Iesuits Edict at Dola forbidding all talke of GOD either in good sort or in bad But of all other this is a good furtherance that when in their Baptisme they deny the Deuill and all his workes they must renounce their right and propertie in all their goods and possessions the shamefull couetousnesse of hypocriticall Christians hauing brought these irritamenta malorum within the compasse of the Deuils workes presupposing forsooth that either the conuerted Iew or his corrupt ancestors haue scraped together such heapes of wealth by vsurie or oppression or some vnlawfull meanes or other Therefore for the good of his soule his body shall be left to beg or starue while with the leauing of his Iewish superstition hee must likewise leaue all that he hath and his new-receiued Religion must be a meanes to strip him of his riches and to weane him from his wel-beloued Mammon which that Nation is naturally so farre in loue with This alone to the world-bewitched Iew is such a Partition-wall to keepe him from Christianitie that he will venture soule and all rather then thus betray himselfe his wife and children to extreme beggerie and want And so much the worse saith Victor Carbensis one of these Conuerts because in their Iewish estate they had not learned any Art which now might minister vnto them sustenance Thus are they driuen to beg from doore to doore for their food exposed not onely to this extremitie of want but to the opprobries also of vnchristians Christians who Iewishly hate the name of a Iew nor can the Iew be washed from it with the sacred tincture of Baptisme whiles the scumme of the irreligious-religious vulgar scoffe and point at them saying There goes a baptized Iew a name best fitting themselues and on the other side their owne Countreymen hate and abhorre them as Apostataes Renegadoes and Fugitiues And if any shew them kinder entertainment yet as a nine-dayes wonder it lasteth but a little while whereof the Iewes haue this prouerbe A now Conuert is as a new or cleane cloth which at first is pleasant but after a little wearing groweth foule and loathsome Especially since the fairest of his preferment to welcome him to our Religion is to turne Frier then which profession nothing can be more hatefull to him who accounteth it a course against Nature and a breach of that Ordinance of GOD Crescite multiplicamini of multiplying the world by a holy propagation in that Honourable estate of Mariage which that doctrine of Deuils hath made the Frier vncapable of As for the example of Elias and some other holy Men whom our Popish Votaries would make Patrones of their disorderly Orders the Iew herein more truely-Christian then the Papist holdeth it a course extraordinary and ordinarily preferreth holy Marriage farre before that seeming-holy Vow of Virginitie Thus we see what outward scandals besides their generall preiudice against Christianitie doe hinder them from it which offences in behalfe of the Christians together with that preiudice Pride and Enuie and aboue all that Veile which Diuine Iustice hath left vpon their hearts GOD in his good time remoue and grant according to that Prophecie That all Israel may be saued CHAP. XXII The later Inhabitants of Palestina and the parts adioyning since the dispersion of the Iewes till this day §. I. Of the Christian times before the Saracens ANd thus haue we ended our Iewish Relations our next iourney is into Arabia a way dreadfull sometimes to the Israelites passing this way to Canaan where yet their expected inheritance their pillar of a cloud by day and fire by night their Manna and many other miraculous effects of Diuine presence might arme them against heates droughts desarts serpents enemies and all oppositions Not so your Pilgrime now leauing Palaestina and the Holy Land to visite these Arabian desarts full of emptinesse stored with wants and yet most fruitfull of that which is worse then barrennesse the very Seminary of Mahumetane impious pietie The very conceit whereof makes him like the Riuer Iordan which loseth himselfe in this wildernesse and therefore lingers as long as he may diffusing himselfe in lakes by the way as loth to mixe his Fresh-waters with the Dead Sea to stay and stray so long in Palaestina as he which knowes a Heathenish and Morish Mare mortuum will swallow him if he could sinke as soone as he is passed hence Let vs therefore stay here a little longer to refresh our eyes wearied with Iewish spectacles and take view
is a place of Heretikes for so the Saracens deemed them Beniamin Tudelensis aboue foure and fortie yeeres agoe hath written that these Hhasissin neere Baalgad vnder Libanus followed not the doctrine of the Ismaelites but of one whom they esteemed a Prophet whose word they obeyed whether to liue or die Him they call Hheich all Hhassissin he is their Senator at whose command all the Mountaines goe out and in His seate is in the Citie called Karmos which was sometime the biginning of the Country of Sehon And they haue a Religion amongst themselues according to the doctrine of their Senator They are a terrour to all men for they kill euen Kings with the Sawe Their Dominion continues eight dayes iourney They hold warre with the Christians called Frankes and with the King of Tripolis of the Region of Saam Damascus wherein hapned not long since an Earth-quake whereby were slaine in that Region many both Iewes and Gentises and in the Land of Israel twenty thousand Thus farre out of the Iew. Iacobus de Vitriaco Bishop of Acon in his Easterne Storie accounts it no small grace of GOD that in the siege of Damiata where himselfe was present An. 1219. their chiefe men escaped these Assasines they being after that murther by the Templaries committed on their Legate for the most part enemies vnto them Yet one he mentioneth the sonne of the Earle of Tripolis being at his deuotions in the Church of our Lady at Carchusa slaine by them as he was kneeling before the Altar Whereupon the Templers warred on them and forced them to the Tribute of three thousand Byzantines In his first Booke he telleth their customes at large The place of their first originall whence they came into Syria he placeth neere Baldac or Bagdet in the confines of Persia they willingly and cheerefully obey all the commands of their Abbat Master or OLD MAN of the Mountaines in all things absolutely esteeming it meritorious who also bringeth vp children of purpose in secret and pleasant places and in diuers languages where they neuer see any but their Masters till their Lord send them thence for hatred of his enemies or at request of his friends or for reward and price giuing them a sharpe knife or blade for such exploits If they dye they are accounted Martyrs and reuerenced as Saints their Parents rewarded with gifts and if they were bond with freedome Hence it is that they take vpon them so cheerefully this deadly Legacie with no lesse warinesse and subtile in Protean insinuations and fashion-imitations then vehemencie of desire and resolution studious to effect the same sometimes in the habit of the Clergie men or Monkes sometimes like marchants alwayes applying themseluer to others fashions that it is impossible to preuent them inferiour persons they disdaine to deale with but mightier Potentates must either purchase their securitie or alwayes be strongly garded Vitriacus affirmeth that they were imagined to bee descended from the ancient Esses and that they still retained the Iewish writing hauing letters mixed of the Hebrew and Chaldee which perhaps may bee the Samaritan Letters Marinus Sanutus Torsellus about three hundred yeeres since wrote a large booke entituled Secreta fidelium Crucis touching the recouerie of the Holy Land in which he mentions these Assasines or as he cals them Arsasidae of whom besides other things hee relates this Storie An. 1194. Boamund Prince of Antiochia sends for Leuuon Lord of Armenia his vassall so great where then the Christian affaires to come to him which he at first refused because he had in like manner sent for his brother Rupinus and made him prisoner but after vpon condition he came with such an Ambuscado that when Boamund would contrarie to Couenant haue taken him himselfe was taken and carried prisoner into Armenia from whence he was deliuered by meditation of Henry then Gouernour of the Holy-Land vnder Q. Isabell at whose hands the said Lord of Armenia desired and receiued the Title and Crowne of a King And this was the beginning of that Royall Title to those Kings of Armenia But this Henry in his returne visited according to his request the King of the Arsasidae so he calles him who brought him to a Castle where was a very high Tower and in each corner thereof stood two men clothed in white Then said the King to his ghest Your Subiects will not obey you in like manner as mine will me and withall gaue a humane or spetting token and presently two of those white ones cast themselues downe and with the fall died instantly Then did hee offer the like experiment in the rest but Henry refused as hauing more proofe then he desired of this more then Votarie obedience He offred him also that if he had any enemie he would procure him to bee slaine by these his seruants I stay the longer on these cursed Assassines that the Reader may make comparison and obserue their resemblance with the latter Iesuiticall brood in totall and simple obedience the opinion that it is tolerable nay lawfull commendable meritorious of heauen to kill and treacherously to murther the Princes of the earth and the glorious martyrdome of such as are therefore executed §. V. Of the Dogzijn and Drusians and other Pagans there ANother like both People and Sect Brethren in euill were the Dogzijn of whom Beniamin thus writeth About ten miles from Sidon there is a certaine people which holds warre with the Sidonians called in their language Dogzijn of others called Pagans of no Religion or Sect They dwell in the Mountaines in Caues and holes of Rocks obeying no King or Gouernor but liue at randome in the highest Hills and steepest Rockes three dayes iourney vnto the Hill Hermon They are infamously incestuous the Fathers polluting their owne Daughters And in a solemnitie which they yeerely celebrate all both men and women come to a common Feast where they change Wiues with each other They hold that the soule when it departeth out of the body of a good man passeth into some Infant then begotten but of a bad man into a Dog or other Beast Their knowledge is according to their life There are no Iewes amongst them but sometimes Artificers and diuers come vnto them for Marchandize and goe away againe and the Iewes are gently entertained of them This people is very swift in running vp and downe those hills and not to bee vanquished of other men Thus farre Tudelensis Martin a Baumgarten relateth that the Venetian Consull told him of a Sect not farre from Tripoli which vse at certaine times promiscuous lusts the Father with the Daughter the Mother with the Sonne and each with his next Mate The issue thereof if Male to be killed with needles as sacrificing their bloud the Females preserued Hee names them not But it is likely to be the posteritie of those Dogzijn perhaps that of killing their Males being added by such as make bad things worse and yet
but those on the left hand in their left hands shall receiue the scroll or sentence of their condemnation And 79. In the last Iudgement the earth shall be ouerthrowne the heauen shall be powred forth 8. Angels shall beare vp the Throne of God And 80. The heauens shall vanish as smoke and the earth shall bee plucked as wooll And 111. There shall be set vp the ballance of Iudgement they to whom shall befall a light weight shall liue but they which haue a heauie weight shall be cast into fire The booke of bad Workes shall bee kept in the bottome of the earth the booke of good Workes in a high place In diuers places of the Alcoran the better to colour his filthinesse hee hath dispersed good SENTENCES like Roses scattered on a dung-hil and flowers in a puddle concerning Almes Prayer Tithing Iustice c. Others he hath of another sort establishing his owne Tyrannie and Religion Az. 26. Swines-flesh Bloud that which dieth alone and that which hath the necke cut off not in Gods Name is vnlawfull Be chaste euery where but with your owne wiues or such as are subiect to you and doe serue you Euery Adulterer shall haue an hundred stripes in the presence of many He which accuseth a woman of Adulterie not prouing it by foure witnesses shall haue eightie The iealous husband accusing his wife must sweare foure times that hee chargeth her truely and a fifth time curse himselfe if it bee otherwise The woman must doe the like to cleere her selfe 43. After a woman be diuorced from one any other may marrie her 19. Trust not a sonne or a brother except hee be of your owne Law 72. On Friday when they are called to prayer they must lay all businesse apart when prayers be ended they may returne to their commodities Redeeme captiues and thy sinnes by good workes About Circumcision I finde no iniunction in the Alcoran In the 3. 8 and 9. Az. Hee permitteth all licenciousnesse with all women which they haue of their owne but prescribeth washings after Venery and after naturall easements Loue not your enemies the women of another faith proue first and if they fauour the vnbeleeuers diuorce them 52. The women must couer their faces 43. Wilfull murther is prohibited Az. 10. But casuall killing is to be satisfied with redemption of some good man and the kindred recompenced except they forgiue it THE going on PILGRIMAGE and the perpetuall abode at the Temple of Haran that is vnlawfull because nothing but there holies are there lawfull we repute of equall merit They which loue it not or doe it iniurie shall sustaine grieuous euils Abraham founded this Temple Az. 6. and blessed it and cleansed it for them which abode there and for the Pilgrims Hee preached one GOD without partaker and the pilgrimage to this Temple that on the dayes appointed they might in naming GOD sacrifice beasts wherewith to feast themselues and the poore and might fulfill their vowes and goe in Procession round about the old Temple a worke which GOD will greatly reward Az. 32. and 19. In the times of fasting and pilgrimage hunting by land is vnlawfull except that so gotten bee bestowed on the poore at Mecca taking fish by Sea as they goe or returne is lawfull Az. 13. The vnbeleeuers are not worthy to visit the Temple Haran And these good Pilgrims are not equall to the good warriours 38. He entred into the Temple Haran with his head shauen Az. 2. We enioyne vnto you as to your Predecessors FASTING in the time thereto appointed and in a certaine number of dayes that is in the moneth Romadan in which this Booke which discerneth betweene good and euill was sent you from heauen Euery one must obserue it but the sicke and traueller and let them doe the same in the remainder of the time The rich vse to satisfie their fasting with almes let them doe both the one and the other He permitteth you the vse of your wiues in the night because it is hard and impossible to abstaine But let none vse their company in the Temples Fast all the day and when night is come eate and drinke as much as you please till the morning By the Moone is knowne the time of Pilgrimages and of Fastings whereby is knowne that you loue and feare GOD. Spend your money in the loue of GOD in Pilgrimage not despairing Hee that is impotent and that is not accompanied with his wife in the Pilgrimage must fast three dayes in the voyage and seuen after his returne To the sick fasting with almes is sufficient They which purpose this Pilgrimage let them not giue their mindes to any euill Let them not be ashamed to aske necessaries 2. Hold it for iust and good to enter the house at the doore not at the side or back-side thereof 35. Salute those which yee meete when ye enter into the house Ridiculous is the confirmation of this holy Law by such variety of OATHES as I am almost afraide to mention in regard of our Gull-gallants of these times who would sometimes bee at a set in their braue and brauing phrases if they should not haue variety of Oathes and curses to daube vp with such interiections all imperfections of speech and make smoother way for their current of their gallantrie But yet euen for their sakes let vs mention a few that they may see Mahomet had as braue a humor this way as they He induceth GOD swearing by lesse then himselfe as by the order of Angels by the Alcoran by the blowing Windes by the waterie Cloudes by the sayling Ships by the Mount Sinai the Heauen the Sea the euening Sarre the West his Pen and Lines the guiltie Soule the Deuils by the Morning ten Nights the Passeouer by the Figges and Oliues by the Dawning and Twilight and a World more of the like onely he saith Azoara 100. that he may not sweare by the earth nor by the Sonne like to the Father Yet he allowes not others to sweare or forsweare as after you shall see Az. 8. They which eate the inheritance of Orphans euerlasting fire shall eate them Be faithfull in keeping and deliuering their goods for GOD taketh knowledge of all accounts Let one Sonne haue as much as two Daughters In barganing vse no lying slaying your owne soule The couetous shall haue endlesse punishment he that killeth vnwillingly shall giue to the Kindred of the partie slaine another man or if he cannot doe that let him fast two monethes together he which killeth wilfully shall be cast into the fire Az. 70. It is no sinne to reuenge iniuries Salute him which saluteth thee for salutation is much pleasing to GOD. Az. 27. Worship one GOD alone Honour thy Father and Mother and doe them good Giue them no bad word when they are old Be subiect with all humility and pray GOD to pardon them Giue to the poore and to your kindred but not
terrible crueltie that a few blowes may either lame or kill the partie And therefore no King is more feared then these Mandarines or Magistrates In the middest of their Cities are Palaces of the Kings for these Officers to reside in In Paquin and Nanquin the multitude of these Magistrates is incredible one of these Cities contayning more then two thousand and fiue hundred as many as somewhere are of Citizens These all twice a day heare causes and execute iustice These Magistrates are no way comparable in wealth to the Nobles in Europe Their sentence against guiltie persons is without solemne furniture of words as Let him haue twentie strokes more or lesse which by those Canine Cane-men is suddenly executed the partie lying grouelling on the ground These Canes are cleft in the midst three or foure fingers broad twentie or thirtie blowes will spoyle the flesh fiftie or threescore will aske long time to be healed an hundred are vncurable They vse also the Strappado hoysing them vp and downe by the armes with a cord They bee aboue measure patient in hearing causes and their examinations are publique Condemned persons haue a pillory-boord fastned about their necke and hanging downe before them to the knees in which his Fellony or Treason is expressed which boord neither suffereth them well to sit or lye to eate or sleepe and in fine killeth them There be in euery Metropolitane Citie foure principall houses for those chiefe Officers before mentioned the fourth for the Taissu wherein is the principall Gaole or Prison walled about high and strong with a gate of no lesse force within the same are three other gates before you come where the prisoners lye in the meane space are such as watch and ward day and night The prison within is so great that in it are streets and market-places and neuer void of seuen or eight hundred men that goe at liberty In Canton alone are said to bee 15000. prisoners and in this and euery other Metropolitane Citie thirteene prisons sixe of which are alwayes possessed or doe possesse rather those which are condemned to death In euery of them are a hundred Souldiers with their Captayne to keepe them The offendors are allowed to worke in the day-time for their liuing for little almes are giuen in China and but a little Rice allowed them by the King Such prisoners as are in for debt haue a (null) appointed for payment at which if they fayle they are whipped and a new time assigned and so they proceed till the debt bee paid or the debtor dead If any man remoue his dwelling from one place to another the Neighbours cause a Cryer to proclaime it with ringing of a Bason that his creditors if hee haue any may come to demand their debts which the Neighbours if they neglect this dutie are charged with Executions of deadly sentence are seldome and that with many ceremonies Thus it comes to passe that of whippings and imprisonment there die thousands yeerely Theeues are slightly punished the first time The second they are burned with two characters on the arme the third receiueth the same punishment on the face If he steale oftner hee is whipped more or lesse or condemned for a certayne time to the Gallies This makes pilfries common for they are neuer done to death for the euery Many extraordinary crimes haue new deuised extraordinary punishments as after in this history followeth One had so freely libelled against the Kings tyrannies that many were cruelly tormented being thereof suspected and one by torments confessed the fact and was therefore a diudged to haue 1600. pieces of his flesh cut from him his head vntouched that his eyes might see this mangling and lastly his head cut off which amongst them is a great abomination Others accused of treason at Nanquin were forced to stand in those pillory boords till they rotted some continuing fifteene dayes in torment Those which our-liue their beatings must passe vnder the Surgeons hands for cure which ordinarily proue new tormentors except money make them propitious and this the Iesuites report of their owne fauours amongst them in all difficulties money hath bin their best friend without which is no friendship in China no Faith no Loue no Hope of them But by following Perera sometime a prisoner there into his prison others I find my selfe almost imprisoned and therfore will flee hence into their Temples there take Sanctuary Here they deale as madly with their gods as there with their men Yet first let vs take view of some rare workes of diuine Prouidence in this Countrey Ludouicus Georgius in his Map of China describeth a huge Lake in the Prouince of Sancij made by inundation in the yeere of our Lord 1557 . wherein were swallowed seuen Cities besides Townes and Villages and innumerable multitudes of people one only Child in a hollow tree escaping so great a destruction Such as escaped drowning were as Boterus addeth destroyed with fire from heauen Gasper de Cruz reciteth a Letter of the Mandarines to the King 1556. containing newes of a terrible Earth-quake in the Prouinces of Sanxi and Santon wherein the day waxed darke The earth opened the yeere before in many places vnder which was heard the noise as it were of bells there followed winde and raine The winde which they call Tufan is so violent that it driueth ships on the land ouerthroweth men and houses it commeth almost euery yeere once lasteth foure and twentie houres in which space it compasseth the Compasse In Vinyanfu the Earth-quake caused a fire to breake out which consumed all the Citie and innumerable people The like happened to another Citie neere it where none escaped It caused the Riuer at Leuchimen to encrease and drowne multitudes At Hien the fall of the houses slue eight thousand In Puchio the house of the Kings kinsmen fell and slue all therein but a child Cochu with fire from aboue and waters from beneath was left desolate At Enchinoen almost an hundred thousand perished At Inchumen the Riuer ebbed and flowed ten times in a day and night This perhaps was the same with that which Georgius and Boterus mention Boterus ascribeth vnto China seuentie millions of people whereas hee alloweth to Italy scarce nine and to Spaine lesse to England three to all Germany with the Switzers and Low-Countries but fifteene and as many to all France Lamentable it is that the Deuill should haue so great a tribute in this one Kingdome Gonsales in his Discourse of China translated by Parkes reckoneth I know not how truely almost seuen millions of Souldiers in continuall pay Dalmeida numbreth seuentie millions and two hundred and fiftie thousand Inhabitants besides Souldiers and reckoning but the principall in each Family often-times not aboue three of ten as their Bookes testifie I thought it not impertinent here to adde the Catalogue of the Kings of this countrey according to their owne stories which although it be in part fabulous as what ancient prophane
Paroes the Countrey being full of Riuers in which they goe to and fro with their Families as strange is the dwelling here on the Land their houses being set on high posts and their going vp on Ladders for feare of Tygres From hence to Pegu is tenne as is said before or eleuen dayes iourney by the Riuers as before is expressed where their Markets are as their dwellings vpon the water in Boates with a great Sombrero like a Cart-wheele to keepe off the Sunne made of Coco-Leaues They vse in riding to carry bits in their mouthes which make them swell and puffing cheekes The husbands buy their wiues and if they mislike put them away And if the wiues Parents will take away their daughters they must restore that which was giuen in price for her If a man dies without children the King is his Heire And if hee hath children the King hath a third they the rest They vse to carrie men somewhat after the fashion of Congo in a kind of Couerlet of Cotton called Delingo of diuers colours made commodiously to keepe off the Sunne and Raine and easie to lie on as a bed carried by foure men which alway runne from morning to night resting onely once in the day The wife children and slaues of the Debtor are bound to the Creditor who may carry the Debtor to his house and shut him vp or else sell the wife children and slaues The Noble and Ignoble obserue one fashion of attire differing in the finenesse of the matter which commonly is bombast One piece for a shirt another large and painted tied vp betweene the legges On their heads a kind of Mitre of the same and some like a Hiue they goe bare-foot but the Nobles vsually are carried in Delingos or on Horse-backe The women weare a smocke to the girdle from thence a strait cloth of purpose to shew that they are Women in sort before related They goe bare-foote their armes laden with Hoopes of Gold and Iewels and their fingers full of precious Rings with their haire rolled vp about their heads Many weare a cloth about their shoulders in stead of a Cloake In Pegu they vse much Opium Aracan is mid-way betweene Bengala and Pegu on the Coast Hee is able saith Fredericke to arme many Austs by Sea and by Land hath certaine Sluces with the which if the King of Pegu his greatest enemy assaulted his Countrey hee could at pleasure couer a great part with waters In Pegu they haue a custome of buying and selling by Brokers which vndertake for the performance on both sides Also that others standing by may know what is bidden for commodities they haue their hands vnder a cloth and by touching the fingers and nipping the ioynts each finger and ioynt hauing his proper signification they make vp their bargaines CHAP. V. Of the Religion in Pegu and the Countreys sometime subiect thereto THeir Varellaes or Idol-Temples in the Kingdome of Pegu are many They are made round like a Sugar-Loafe or a Bell some are as high as a Church or a reasonable Steeple very broad beneath some a quarter of a mile in compasse in the making of them they consume many Sugar-Canes with which they couer them from the top to the bottome Within they bee all earth done about with stone They spend thereon much gold for they be all gilded aloft and many of them from the top to the bottome and euery ten or twelue yeeres they must bee new gilded because the Raine consumeth off the gold for they stand open abroad Were it not for this vaine custome gold would there be good cheape About two dayes iourney from Pegu there is a Varelle or Pagode which is the Pilgrimage of the Pegues It is called Dogonne and is of wonderfull bignesse and all gilded from the foot to the top This house is fifty fiue paces in length and hath in it three Iles or Walks and forty great Pillars gilded which stand betweene them It is gilded with gold within and without These are houses very faire round about for the Pilgrims to lie in and many goodly houses for the Tallipoys to preach in which are full of Images both of men and women all ouer gilded I suppose it the fairest place in the world It standeth very high and there are foure waies to it which all along are set with Trees of Fruits in such wise that a man may goe in the shade aboue two miles in length And when their feast-Feast-day is a man can hardly passe by Water or by Land for the great prease of people which resort thither from all places of the Kingdome There are on the shoares of Dogon two Statues which from the head down-ward represent young men but haue the faces of Deuils and two wings on their backes In Pegu there is Varelle or Temple like to this which the King frequented to doe his Holies therein mounting vp staires at the foot whereof were two Tygers gaping wide seeming as if they had beene aliue Besides the many Magazins or Treasuries full of Treasure which the late Braman King had hee had neere vnto the Palace a Court walled with stone the gates whereof were open euery day Within this Court are foure gilded Houses couered with Lead and in euery of them certaine Idols of great value In the first house was a great Statue of Gold and on his head a Crowne of Gold beset with rare Rubies and Saphires and about him foure little children of Gold In the second House is another of Siluer as high as an House set as it were sitting on heapes of money crowned his foot is as long as a man In the third house there is the like Idoll of Brasse and in the fourth of Ganza which is their Mony-mettall tempered of Lead and Copper In another Court not farre from this stand foure other Colosses or huge Images of Copper in Houses gilded faire as they are themselues saue the head Balby tells of fiue made of Ganza so monstrous that the toes of their feeet were as big as a man and sitting crosse-legged were yet as high as one could hurle a stone and were all gilded Fernandes relateth of threescore and seuen Images of Gold richly adorned with Iewels and three hundred threescore and sixe Combalengas or Gourds of Gold molten by the Kings Father each weighing a hundred fourescore pound besides his other Treasures to conceale which he slew two hundred Eunuchs his attendants Their Tallipoys before they take Orders go to Schoole till they be twentie yeeres old or more then they come before a Tallipoy appointed for that purpose whom they call Rowli Hee as chiefe and most learned examineth them many times Whether they will leaue their Friends and the company of all Women and take vpon them the habite of a Tallipoy If hee be content then hee rideth vpon an Horse about the streets very richly apparrelled with Drums and Pipes to shew that hee leaueth the riches of the
fiue and fiftie pound weight English these are rough and of all sorts and sizes but none lesse then two Carrets and an halfe Of Ballase Rubies two thousand Of Pearles twelue Batmans Of Rubies of all sorts two Batmans Of Emeralds of all sorts fiue Batmans Of Eshime which stone comes from Cataya one Batman Of stones of Emen a kinde of red stone fiue thousand Of all other sorts as Corall Topazes c. the number is innumerable Of Iewels wrought in Gold two thousand and two hundred Swords the Hilts and Scabberds set with rich stones two thousand Ponyards Of Saddle Drums of Gold set with stones vsed in Hawking fiue hundred Of rich brooches for their heads in which their feathers are set two thousand Of Saddles of Gold and Siluer set with stones one thousand Of Tuikes fiue and twentie This is a great Launce couered with gold and the fluke set with stones and are carried when the King goeth to warres in stead of colours Of Kitta-soles of State to shadow him twentie None else in his Empire may haue any of any sort carried for his shadow Of Chaires of State fiue and of other sorts which are of siluer and gold one hundred Of rich glasses two hundred Of Vases for Wine set with Iewels one hundred Of drinking Cups fiue hundred of which are fiftie very rich as of one stone c. Of Chaines of Pearle and other Chaines of Rings with Iewels c. are infinite which the Keeper onely knowes Of all sorts of Plate wrought as Dishes Cups Basons c. Two thousand Batmans Of gold wrought a thousand Batmans Of Beasts twelue thousand Horses as many Elephants fiue thousand with teeth the rest female and young Camels twentie thousand of Oxen for seruice ten thousand Of Moyles a thousand Of Deere for game three thousand Ounces for game foure hundred Hunting-Dogs foure hundred Lyons tame an hundred Buffles fiue hundred Hawkes foure thousand Pigeons for sport ten thousand Singing-Birds foure thousand Hee hath also Armour to arme fiue and twentie thousand men at an houres warning All this concerning his Treasure expences and monethly pay is in his Court or Castle of Agra and euery one of the Castles aboue named hath a seuerall treasure and so hath Lahor also which was not mentioned And if any censure this Story for want of truth and Mee for want of iudgement in relating such fulnesse so fully for it I must leaue it to the Authors credit for my selfe I was induced by the raritie of the subiect not easie in this distance to be knowne nor by Trauellers except such as this Author whose Embassage and exceeding grace with the King for the greatest part of his residence might further his Intelligence herein besides the rarenesse of the Copie whereof I know but one and that written by himselfe Time may make further triall Nor may any measure those parts of the Indies for wealth in these kindes with our Europaean or any other and that which so many Kings and States had in many ages stored together by the euent of warre became Ecbars the father of this Selim of which you haue heard of the incredible wealth of the King of Cambaia alone Besides if you obserue his customes it makes it so much neerer credite For when any Noble-man dies all deuolueth to him and well is it with the wife and children if he bestoweth the Land and what he pleaseth on them and the fathers Title on the eldest sonne One dyed in my time saith our Author named Raga Gaginat on whose goods the King seized which besides Iewels and other treasure amounted to threescore Maunes in gold euery Maune is fiue and fiftie pound weight None likewise may come before the King with any Petition emptie-handed and on certaine Festiuall dayes they bring him rich Presents as before is said India besides Mines must needes be rich in money for all Nations bring it and carrie commodities for it so that once in twentie yeeres it commeth to the King All Lands in his Monarchy are his giuen and taken at his pleasure Escheats are many by reason of his seueritie And of those lands which hee giueth in Fee the third part still remaines to the King and of the Crowne Lands two thirds the rest to the Occupiers For Presents and Mortuaries wee haue before giuen diuers instances And my iealousie hath made mee verie inquisitiue of such as haue liued there in the Ministerie Factorie Souldiorie all which affirme that Captaine Hawkins hath written with the least Of all sorts of his wealth except Coyne is brought daily a certaine quantitie before him for which purpose his Beasts and all things of value are diuided into three hundred and threescore parts so that the same things come but once in the yeere to his view Hee hath three hundred Elephants royall for himselfe to ride on which are brought with pompe richly couered twentie or thirtie men going before with Streamers his female with her yongling or yonglings following besides foure or fiue other yong ones attending as Pages These are dispersed amongst the great ones to ouer-see them the King allowing them for it but scarcely sufficient and they dare not make shew of them in euill plight One of them eats ten Ropias euery day in Butter Graine Sugar Sugar-canes c. they are very tame I saw one take vp the Kings owne son by his appointment being a child of seuen yeeres There are thought to be in this Empire fortie thousand Elephants of his and his Nobles of which twentie thousand are trained for warre When the King rides in progresse his Tents are in compasse about as large as London two hundred thousand people vsually following his Campe This King is esteemed the greatest Emperour in the East Hee hath many Dromedaries whose swiftnesse auailed his Father much in his sudden Expedition of warre Those valiant Captaines which Ecbar had Selim hath by tyranny much diminished Fiue times a weeke hee commands his Elephants to fight before him which often in their comming in or going out kill many if any be but wounded and might escape yet hee commands him to bee cast into the Riuer saying Hee will curse him as long as he liues and therefore best to dispatch him Hee delights to see men executed and torne with Elephants Of these tyrannies he reckons many particulars which he saw and some for no fault but for his lust set to fight with the Lyon and one valiant man to buffet with a very fierce Lyon without any weapon offensiue or defensiue If any of his subiects haue any precious stone of value and make not him the offer of it it is death to him hee must haue the refusall of all and yet giues not the worth by a third part That Iewell hee weareth this day is not worne againe till that day twelue-month all his Iewels being proportioned to such a course All his seueritie and tyranny cannot cleere perhaps this causeth them his Countrey of Out-lawes There
Parimal There are two sorts of Moores one Mesticos of mixed seed of Moore-fathers and Ethnike-mothers called Naiteans Mungrels also in their Religion the other Forreiners which come thither in trading There are also many Iewes which haue almost lost their Iudaisme minding more their merchandize then superstition Besides those former Sects Stephanus de Brito speaketh of the Maleas which inhabit small Villages in the Mountaynes which are Hunters of Elephants amongst whom are no thefts or robberies and therefore they leaue their doores open when they goe abroad They haue no Idoll amongst them only they obserue their Ancestours Sepulchres These haue no Commerce with their Neighbours nor are much subiect to Kings only pay them a kinde of tribute hauing Arelli set ouer them as Iudges or Magistrates vnder each of them fiue or sixe thousand men Their houses are made of Indian Canes dawbed with earth and some liue on trees laying beames from one tree to another and so building them lofty Cottages free from Tygres and wilde Elephants whereof the Montaynes are full which they take in Pits couered ouer with leaues They haue fertile fields and Valleyes but not diligently husbanded They are content with one Wife which they carry with them whithersoeuer they goe though but a Hunting-voyage They are as other Malabars naked from the waste vpwards a long garment hangs thence to the ankles and on their heads a Turbant as the Mores Their necke eares and nostrils are laden with gold For the Malabars weare gold aswell for nose-rings as eare-rings These Maleas are of better estimation then the base vulgar nor is it accounted a pollution to touch them no more then other Nairos or Thomaean Christians They haue their Pipes and Tabors on their Feasts They are also Sorcerers acd diuine by familiar Spirits but vse not to kill or hurt men by Witch-craft as other Indians and Malabars doe A witty docible honest people perhaps descended of those Malliani which Plutarch and Curtius mention in the life of Alexander Of the Feast which all the Malabar-Kings hold euery twelfth yeare in honour of the Riuer Ganges we haue there spoken where we haue discoursed of the Riuer This Feast lasteth eight and twentie or thirtie dayes with great solemnitie the Samorin euery day washing himselfe and offering Sacrifices to Ganges after which hee returnes to his Palace with innumerable troupes of men riding vpon an Elephant in great pompe and three dayes after in the morning and euening with greatest Royaltie makes shew of himselfe in a high Throne many Lampes of gold and siluer burning about him many Peeces discharged with other ceremonie of State The King prostrates himselfe on the ground and three times doth reuerence to the People and they to Him the Kings Vassals then doing him homage After this many Champions exercise their Fencing-skill before him and at the sound of Instruments the chiefe Nobles by two and two in a ranke with their faces to the ground doe reuerence the Elephants are likewise to honour Him Twentie thousand Crownes are spent on this solemnitie by the King Another more diuellish rite followes About the yeare 1520. the Zamorin slue a certaine King In memorie whereof the Successors of that King send a certayne number of their Souldiers to reuenge his death themselues being sure to be slaine these are called Amocae which are Clients to that King and are either to come themselues or to send so many Souldiers to the number of thirtie which rush among the People and kill as many as they can themselues certayne to be killed of the Kings Souldiers CHAP. XI Of the Kingdome of Narsinga and Bisnagar §. I. Of their Funerall and Idolatrous bloudie Rites FRom those places where our feet last rested or touched rather vnto the Cape Guadauerin betwixt that ridge of Mountaines called Gate and the Ocean which is there named the Gulfe of Bengala trendeth the Kingdome of Narsinga or Bisnagar those two Royall Cities contending which shall giue name to this mightie Empire containing two hundred leagues of Sea-coast The King hath in continuall pay forty thousand Nairos But as occasion serueth he can bring into the field many many thousands more as in that Expedition against Idalkan specified by Barrius and Boterus in which was a world of people seuen hundred thousand foot fortie thousand horse seuen hundred Elephants twentie thousand harlots Hee sacrificed also vnto Idols twentie thousand seuen hundred and threescore head of Beasts and Fowles in nine dayes space which in Idoll-deuotion were all bestowed after on the poore In the yeare of our Lord 1565. Biznagar was sacked by foure Kings of the Mores as saith Frederike naming them Dialkan Zamaluc Cotamaluc and Viridy through treason of two More Captaines which had seuen or eight score thousand Souldiers vnder them but being of the same Religion with the Kings of Decan betrayed their owne King forsaking him in the midst of the battaile This was a iust reward of treason to the true King of Biznegar For three Captaines had kept the King thirtie yeares as prisoner once a yeare shewing him to the people themselues ruling the State When he dyed then Ramaragio exalted himselfe to the Throne Temiragio the second swayed the gouernment and the third Bengahe was Generall of the Armie Onely Temiragio escaped and returned when the Decans had sacked the Citie and were gone to Beznegar and sent to Goa great promises for Horses if any Merchants would bring any Whereupon Frederike went with other Merchants which carried store of them but brought no store of money in payment the Tyrant accepting the Horses but paying nothing Temiragio temoued his Court from Bezneger to Penegorde eight dayes iourney within Land And his sonne put to death the sonne of that King before mentioned which had beene imprisoned as this also had beene till Death by a murthering hand freed him Hence grew many broyles the Nobles refusing to acknowledge this New King and thus Bezneger being forsaken remained after this an Habitation for Tygres and wild Beasts containing in circuit foure and twentie myles as our Author that stayed there seuen moneths affirmeth He neuer saw Palace exceeding that of Biznagar It had nine Gates with guards of Souldiers Here hee obserued their Rites in burning the women so often mentioned which after his and Balby his relations are thus I haue declared the like for substance before this as in some Rites differing I adde also The woman taketh two or three moneths respite after her husbands death The day being come she goeth earely out of her house mounted on a Horse or Elephant or else on a Stage carried by eight men apparelled like to a Bride adorned with Iewels and her haire about her shoulders holding in her left hand a Looking-glasse in the right an Arrow and singeth as shee passeth through the Citie saying That she goeth to sleepe with her husband She is accompanied with her friends vntill it be one or two of the clocke in the afternoone
second of fresh the third of Honey the fourth of Milke the lift of Tair which is Creame beginning to sowre the sixt of Sugar the seuenth of Butter that the Earth had nine corners whereby it was borne vp by the Heauen Others dissented and said that the Earth was borne vp by seuen Elephants the Elephants feete stood on Tortoises and they were borne by they know not what When the Naicho of Tangaor died 375. of his Concubines willingly offered themselues to the fire to honour his Funerall so much can Custome harden so delicate and soft-hearted a nature The Temples in the Countrey haue great reuenues which in some places are encreased by the deuotion of women which prostitute themselues to gaine for their Idols and many young Girles are brought vp for this purpose Many are in these parts of the Sect of the Guzzarates which kill no quicke thing as is spoken Some haue a stone hanging about their necks as bigge as an Egge with certaine lines drawne thorow the middle thereof and this they worship and call it Tambarane they keepe euery Friday holi-day The Kingdome of Orissa hath on the Sea-coast 350. miles betwixt the richer Kingdomes of Bengala and Bisnagar poore of Ports and Traffique Frederike writes that before the King of Patane had conquered Orissa there was great Trade for Oile of Zerzeline Lacca Long Pepper Ginger Mirabolans and cloth made of herbs which grow with a bowle as bigge as an Orange yeelding silke The Countrey was so safe that a man might haue trauelled with his Gold in his hand The King was a Gentile and resided in the Citie Catecha sixe dayes Iourney within Land The King of Patane was soone after subdued by the Mogoll The Inhabitants except a few Moores are Gentiles little or nothing that I can learne differing in Rites from their Neighbours of which yee haue heard Some ascribe to the Citie Orissa as the name so the Principalitie of the other Cities of this Kingdome In these parts is the Citie of Saint Thomas or Malepur where they say Saint Thomas after he had preached the Gospell to the Indians was martyred and burned The Legend which some report of his death were too tedious to recite and as little likelihood of truth is in that long tale of the miraculous Crucifixes heere found related by Osorius who likewise declareth the Rites of those Saint Thomas-Christians of their Chaldean-Pope Cardinals Patriarches and Bishops of which in a another place we shall more fitly speake On the first day of Iuly Saint Thomas Holiday is celebrated as well by the Pagans as Christians and his Sepulchre is had in deuout estimation both of the Moores Gentiles and Christians each pretending the right of his owne Religion to the Church where this Saint lieth interred to which the Indian Christians goe on Pilgrimage carrying with them a little of that earth for a great Relique A Moore had the keeping of the Church which was built after our fashion and begged of the commers for maintenance of it and of a light continually burning therein The Portugals now inhabit this Towne almost desolate the Iesuites also haue heere a Residence The Church doores by the Superstition of some are almost cut in pieces and carried away to set in Gold and Siluer and to weare about their neckes as a holy relike the Portugals herein being exceedingly vaine and attributing hereunto many Miracles verifying that Prouerbe which the Spaniards vse affirming the Portugals to be Pocos sotos deuotâ—s One sent Linschoten a whole Bead-roll or paire of Beads thereof the bringer affirming that those Beades had calmed a Tempest miraculously by the way The Inhabitants in this respect haue driuen their Church-doores full of nailes but Saint Thomas bones are now remoued to Goa Those doores are of such renowned holinesse because they were made of that wood which Saint Thomas drew with his girdle out of the Hauen which it choaked and could not before this Miracle by any meanes be remoued One thing I thought not to omit that there bee whole Villages and Kindreds of people in other things like to other men but are borne with one of their legs and one foot from the knee downwards as thicke as an Elephants legge which the common people imagine to be a curse by Diuine Iustice inflicted vpon the whole Generation for that their Progenitors murthered Saint Thomas Linschoten saith he hath seene and spoken with them and could learne no other cause thereof It is to them a deformitie but no let or impediment otherwise The Gouernour of Musulipatan being of Mahomets posteritie had agreed for custome to take foure per centum and exacted twelue Offering the English there diuers wrongs Here the Gentiles haue in those parts a Feast when the New Moone comes vpon Munday and then both Sexes wash themselues in the Sea as a matter of much Indulgence for their sinnes And then after much indignitie the Cape-Merchant Floris performed a worthy exploit deseruing still to flourish though he be dead The Gouernours Sonne being set ouer the Custome and at the Custome-house guarded with his Souldiers Floris entred alone as it were for businesse and as he had plotted a few English followed by diuers wayes which seized on the weapons of the Guard at the Custome-house doore and Floris laid hold of the Gouernours Sonne Wencatadra by name which was suddenly conueyed into their Boat three thousand people presently running to the shoare But being vnder their ships protection they both secured themselues and for redemption of his Sonne forced the Father to pay all debts by him detained with satisfaction for wrongs offered Yet such was his Superstition that he almost first starued a shipboord rather then he would eate or drinke with the English Thus from the foure and twentieth of Nouember till the thirtieth he kept a strict Bramene Fast the English pittying his misery and willing therefore to take pledges in his roome But after that weeke of cleane Lent without eating or drinking he was redeemed the debts being paid by his Father And hence let the Reader iudge of bodily exercise and opus operatum without true faith how little it auaileth In Narsapur Peta a place not farre hence where they Careened the Globe happened in August that yeere such ouerflowings of water that many thousands of men and cattell were drowned Townes Fields of Rice and Salt-hils ouerflowne foure thousand houses washed away and two Stone Bridges ouer the Riuer one of nineteene the other of fifteene Arches comparable to Rochester Bridge standing three fadome aboue water Many Portugals also liue in the parts of Bengala adioyning like Wildmen and Iaric speakes of 1200. which thus obserue not Christianitie and therefore may be reckoned amongst these Heathens And thus haue we finished our perambulation of the Continent of Asia Some perhaps will maruell why I haue not handled the Muscouites and Russians in this Asian Discourse to whom I answere That
day an hundred thousand workemen to his exceeding cost and their intollerable slauerie which with their ruines destroyed thousands sixe hundred gilded Images in the Temple of Ianzusangue were cast downe and broken in pieces as many remaining whole It brought vp the Sea a great way vpon the maine Land which is carried backe with it into the Sea not leauing mention that there had beene Land So was the Citie Ochinofama swallowed Famaoqui Ecuro Fingo Cascicanaro the neighbour-Townes attended her in this new Voyage and became Sea The Ships in the Hauen found no more fecuritie but were also deuoured The like happened in the yeere of our Lord 1586. to Nagafama a place frequented with Merchants which the Sea before had enriched then with an Earthquake deuoured the Earth in many places opening such wide mouthes that a Caliuer-shot could scarce reach from the one side to the other belching out of that yawning such a stinke as none were able to passe by The Earth and Sea not onely shooke with feare but bellowed out such roaring cries vnder that blow of their Creators hands as did make the accident more dreadfull Yet was all soone forgotten and Taicosama tell to building of new Palaces Francis Fernandes writeth that in the way from Malacca to Iapan they are encountred with great stormes which they call Tuffons that blow foure and twentie houres beginning from the North to the East and so about the Compasse these happen in Iune and Iuly It is there colde in Nouember December Ianuarie and Februarie because of continuall North and North-west windes Whiles Captayne Saris was there a terrible Tuffon blew downe the houses in Firando turning them ouer with the fire in them which must needs haue fired them but for as strange an accident so much Raine comming withall A Bonzi pretended to haue beene told by their God or Deuill that such a Night their Towne should bee burnt this made such Out-cries euery night the Diuell still prouing a lyar that they could not sleepe That Tuffon sunke diuers Iunkes and did much harme to the Hollanders wharfe bringing vp the Sea so terribly that it made the Earth to shake And yet the yeere after worse harme was related from Edoo by Master Cockes this faire Citie all ouerflowne and the people forced to flee into the Mountaynes the waters taking possession of those gilded Houses and the windes carrying away all the Tiles of the Kings Palace stately builded in His new Fortresse these Tiles all gilded but now none to bee found The Pagans ascribe this to the Charmes of the Iesuites lately banished the Christian Iaponians vnto that persecution Their women are as white as with vs but not well coloured which they supply with Art There are women at Firando which liue in their Boates and take Fish by diuing in eight fathom deepe their Eyes are red by this diuing they easily this way knowne They haue three sorts of Siluer It is with little cost reduced to the Spanish puritie Their houses are floored with Mats and they fringed with Silke Gold or other stuffe The Iapanders confirme and subscribe their compacts and bonds with their Blood Their Siluer is in bars their Gold coyne in long forme Hee that listeth further to bee acquainted with Iaponian affayres may resort to the Epistles of the Iesuites which besides these I haue named are many and of that societie are not many lesse then two hundred in this Iland which also is now become an Episcopall Sea. Some Cities are become wholly Christian if wee beleeue the Iesuites abandoning all their Ethnike Paganisme and Idolatrie would God no leauen were mixed with their Christianitie Peter Martinez their first Bishop tels of aboue twentie thousand in a yeere conuerted to Christian Religion whereas in China they haue found small successe notwithstanding that they there promised to themselues a more plentifull haruest then in any other Nation The first of them was Xauier one of Ignatius first companions and like to haue beene canonized before him too which dyed in China 1552. and lyeth buried at Goa of which Arias Blandonins and the Iesuites tell many strange things But the first finding of this Iland is by Galuanus ascribed to Anthonie Mota and his fellowes 1542. But before these M. Polo writeth of this Iland which hee calleth Xepangu whither Cublai the great Tartarian Can in the yeere 1264. sent two Captaynes to conquer the Iland The windes as angry with the Tartarians and taking part with the Ilanders raised so stormie a Sea that when there were now thirtie thousand of their Companie landed in a little Iland they were forced to put off to Sea and scattered with tempests The Ilanders set foorth a Nauie to take those Tartarians which so confusedly ordered that enterprise that the Tartarians found meanes to make themselues Masters of their enemies Nauie and therewith to sayle away Marcus Paulus reporteth like things of their Idolatrous Religion as you haue heard of Idols with heads of Oxen Hogges and Dogges and other deformed shapes and some with many hands as a testimonie of their great power The enemies which they tooke in warre not able to redeeme themselues hee saith they did eate in solemne Feasts hee addeth that in the Iaponian language Mangi was called Cin as now it is Cina or China I haue presumed to adde a piece of a Letter of Quabacondonus to the Viceroy of India which after other things hath these words Iapan is the Kingdome of Chamis whom wee esteeme to bee the same with Scin which is the beginning of all things This Scin is the substance and very being of all things and all things are one and the same with Scin and into Scin are resolued which in Scina is called Iutto and in Tescincu Buppo In the obseruation of the Lawes of this Chamis consisteth all the politique gouernment of Iapan both inward and outward c. Betweene the Sects of Amida and Xaca happened a late grieuous quarrell Anno 1609. Both Sects number great multitudes and are said in times past to haue numbred betwixt them three thousand Colledges or Monasteries in the Mountaynes not farre from Meaco Their originall was from Sijenoyama a Towne in the said Hilles those of the Amidan Sect were called Fandoxus the other of Xaca Foquexus Now it happened that one of these Foquexus transported with zeale in a Sermon of his had rayled on Amida and his Sectaries which by one of them was soone answered whereupon followed a challenge of Disputation betwixt them which came to the eares of Cubo who followed Amida Hee commanded that both of them should come to Yendo or Edoo to trie the matter before Him where the Foquexus feared the Emperour the rather because hee had shewed the bitternesse of his zeale against one of Cubos Sonnes which hee said being lately dead was now damned for being of Amidas Heresie and rode vp and downe all Iapan without rest appearing heere and there And now could hee speake
eighteene Cubits depth whereinto the water of Nilus is conueyed by a certaine sluce vnder the ground in the midst whereof is a Pillar marked also with eighteene Cubits to which Officers for the purpose resort daily from the seuenteenth of Iune to obserue the increase which if it amount to fifteene Cubits and there stay it doth portend fertilitie and how much ouer or vnder so much lesse abundance In the meane time the people deuoutly exercise Prayer and Almes-giuing And after the price of victuals especially of Corne is proportionably appointed for the whole yeere The Cities and Townes of Egypt whiles this inundation lasteth are so many Ilands Master Sandys writes that it begins to arise with the arising Sunne on the seuenteenth of Iune swelling by degrees till it mounts sometimes foure and twenty Cubits but that the vttermost Heretofore seuenteene was the most that it attayned to presented by that Image of Nilus hauing seuenteene children playing about it brought from hence by Vespasian and dedicated in his Temple of Peace still to bee seene in the Vatican at Rome That yeere when he was there it did rise at Cairo three and twentie Cubits about two miles aboue the Citie at the end of old Cairo in the beginning of August they cut the bankes for sooner it would destroy the vnreaped fruits the Bassa himselfe in person giuing the first stroke a world of people attending Boates or in Pauillions on the shoare with night triumphs and reioycings welcoming in the Riuer into the Land diuers dayes together The Bassa feasts three dayes in the Castle of Michias In the nights their many lights placed in buildings erected of purpose for this solemnity make a glorious shew These lights are said to succeed the Deuillish Sacrifices of a young Man and a Mayd wonted to be offered at this time to Osiris and Isis euery night they haue fire-workes Euery Turke of account hath a gallant Boat adorned with Streamers Chambers and the Lights artificially set to represent Castles Ships Houses or other formes in the day making Sea-fights others practising like exercises on land The soyle is sandy and vnprofitable the Riuer both moystening and manuring it Yea if there dye in Cairo fiue thousand of the plague the day before yet on the first of the Riuers increase the plague not only decreaseth but meerely ceaseth not one dying the day after which we haue elsewhere ascribed to the Sunnes entrance into Leo. The land is otherwise a very Desart as appeared two yeeres together when Cleopatra raigned Nilus not ouer-flowing and in Iosephs seuen yeeres of famine the Riuer being part of Pharaohs Dreame by which he stood and out of which the fat and leane Kine ascended And thus sayth Herodotus The Land of Egypt doth not onely owe the fertility but her selfe also vnto the slimy increase of Nilus for raine is a stranger in this Countrey seldome seene and yet oftner then welcome as vnwholesome to the Inhabitants Pharus by Homer mentioned farre off in the Sea is now adioyning to the Continent The mouthes or falls of Nilus numbred by the Prophet Esay and other in old times seuen and after Plinie who reckoneth the foure smaller eleuen are now as Willielmus Tyrius out of his owne search testifieth but foure or as other Writers but three worthy of consideration Rosetto Balbicina Damiata where the saltnesse of the earth and shels found in it may seeme to confirme Herodotus opinion that Nilus hath wonne it from the Sea which Goropius laboureth to confute Aristotle g doth not onely auerre the former opinion with Herodotus but addes that all the mouthes of Nilus except that of Canopus may seeme to be the labour of men and not naturall Channels to the Riuer HONDIVS his Map of Egypt AEGYPTUS §. II. The diuision of Aegypt and the great workes of their Ancient Pharaos EGypt was anciently diuided into Thebais Delta and the Region interiacent and these subdiuided into sixe and thirty Nomi which we call Shires whereof Tanete and Heliopolite were the assignement of Iacobs Family them called Goshen from whence Moses after conducted them into Canaan as Strabo also witnesseth The wealth of Egypt as it proceedeth from Nilus so is it much increased by the fit conueyance in the naturall and hand-laboured channels thereof Their haruest beginneth in Aprill and is threshed out in May. In this one Region were sometimes by Herodotus and Plinies report twenty thousand Cities Diodorus Siculus sayth eighteene thousand and in his time three thousand He also was told by the Egyptian Priests that it had beene gouerned about the space of eighteene hundred yeeres by the Gods and Heroes the last of whom was Orus after whom it was vnder Kings vntill his time the space almost of fifteene hundred yeeres To Herodotus they reported of three hundred and thirty Kings from Menas to Sesostris The Scripture whose Chronology conuinceth those lying Fables calleth their Kings by one generall name Pharao which some interprete a Sauiour Iosephus saith it signifieth authority and maketh ancient mention of them in the dayes of Abraham Some begin this Royall computation at Mizraim If our Berosus which Annius hath set forth were of authoritie hee telleth that Cham the sonne of Noah was by his father banished for particular abuse of himselfe and publike corruption of the World teaching and practising those vices which before had procured the Deluge as Sodomie Incest Buggerie and was therefore branded with the name Chemesenua that is Dishonest Cham in which the Egyptians followed him and reckoned him among their gods by the name of Saturne consecrated him a Citie called Chemmis The Psalmes of Dauid doe also thus intitle Egypt The land of Cham which name was retayned by the Egyptians themselues in Ieromes dayes Chemmis after Diodorus was hallowed to Pan and the word signifieth Pans Citâ—â—'s in Herodotus his time it was a great Towne in Thebais hauing in it a Temple of Perseus square and set round with Palme-trees with a huge porch of stone on which were two great statues and in it a Chappell with the Image of Perseus The Inhabitants want not their miraculous Legend of the Appatitions of their god and had a relique of his a sandale of two cubits which hee sometimes ware they celebrate festiuall games in his honour after the Greeke manner Herodotus also mentioneth an Iland called Chemmis with the Temple of Apollo in it Some say Thebes was called in their Holies Chemia or Chamia and all Egypt was sometime called Thebes Lucan saith the Egyptians were the first that had Temples but their Temples had no Images Their first Temples are reported to haue beene erected in the time of Osiris and Isis whose parents were Iupiter and Iuno children to Saturne and Rhea who succeeded Vulcan in this Kingdome They built a magnificent Temple to Iupiter and Iuno and two other golden Temples to Iupiter Coelestis and
the way further hereunto incouraged by the Delphian Oracle Scydrothemis protracting the businesse was by diseases and manifest anger of the Gods forced to assemble and perswade his people to suffer the carrying away of their God But whiles they resisted this enterprize the ambitious Idoll without once taking leaue conueyed himselfe into the ship which also together with him hee made to arriue at Alexandria in three dayes where this Temple was built to him in the place wherein sometime had stood Isis Chappell Some esteemed him Aesculapius for his cures some Osiris some Iupiter some Pluto but Serapis was his Egyptian appellation Ptolomeus Philadelphus his Sonne bestowed cost in that famous Library at Alexandria before related by Caesars Souldiers casually burned Cornelius Tacitus telleth no lesse Miracle of Memnons stony Image at Thebes or as others say at Abidus which being striken with the Sun-beame at the Sun-rising yeelded a vocall sound This Image was halfe cut off by Cambyses Pausanias sayth that he saw it and largely describeth it Augustus hauing destroyed Anthony and Cleopatra brought Egypt into a Prouince and scowred all the trenches of Nilus Hee caused the body of Great Alexander to bee brought forth which he crowned with a Crowne of Gold and strewing with flowers worshipped it Hee built Nicopolis in memory of his Actian Victory instituted there Quinqueniall Games enlarged Apollos Temple and consecrated the place where he had pitched his Tents to Neptune and Mars adorning it with spoyles Onias one of the Iewish Priests according to the Iewish manner literally interpreting Esaies Prophesie of the Altar in Egypt built a Temple at Bubastis in fashion of that at Ierusalem but lesse by the permission of Philometor and furnished it with Priests and Leuites after the Iewish Religion At Alexandria also the Iewes were free and had their Synagogues as at Leontopolis likewise and other places Precopius sayth that Dioclesian the Emperour bestowed Elephantina and the parts adioyning on the Blemi and Nobatae whose Religion was a mungrell of the Greekish Egyptian and their Owne but he caused them to cease humane Sacrifices which they vsed to offer to the Sunne And thus was the state of Religion in Egypt during the conquests of the Persians Greeks and Romans each rather seeking to settle heere their Empires then Opinions But when the Sunne of Righteousnesse the Sonne of God the Sauiour of Man appeared to the World he honoured Egypt with his infancy as after with a Religious conquest by weapons not carnall casting downe the holds which these Hellish spirits had heere so long possessed thus fulfilling truely what Esay had prophesied and Mercury foretold Alexandria became a Patriarchall Sea the first Bishop whereof was Saint Marke enioying in Libya Pentapolis and Egypt the same power that the Romane Bishop had in Italy by Decree of the first Nicen Councell Heere also liued the first Heremites the first and chiefe of which was Anthony an Egyptian Inuenter of this Order in the sandy Desarts by occasion of those bloudy persecutions wherein many thousand lost their liues Of these Heremites reade Io. Cassianus and Seuerus Sulpitius de vita Martin l. 3. But when as the Mahumetan Religion and Armes began first to peepe into the World Egypt was made a slaue to those Superstitions vnder which it groneth till this day §. IIII. Of the Moderne Aegyptians of Cairo and Alexandria THe Saracens diuided Egypt into three parts Errif from Cairo to Rosetto Affahid the Land part from Cairo to Bugia Maremma or Bechria as Nilus runneth to Damiata It was subdued vnder the conduct of Hamrus the sonne of Hasi Generall of the Arabian forces to Homar or Aumar the second Caliph Hee onely exacted Tribute permitting freedome of their Conscience to all He built vpon the bankes of Nilus a Towne called by the Arabian Fustato that is Tabernacle because in the Desart places through which he passed he was constrained to lye in Tents The common people call this Towne Mesre Hatichi the Ancient Citie for so it is in respect of Cairo which was after built two miles from hence by one Gehoar who of a Dalmatian slaue had beene aduanced to be a Counsellor vnto Elcain the Mahumetane Calipha and was Generall of his Army about the foure hundred yeere of their Hegira Hee called it Elchahira which signifieth an imperious Mistresse Hee walled it round and built in it that famous Temple called Gemih Hashare as Hamrus had done before at Fustato In this Towne of Fustato standeth the Sepulchre of a famous Saint of their Sect called Nafissa of the Line of Mahomet whose beautifull Shrine the Schismaticall Patriarches of Egypt adorned with siluer Lampes Carpets of Silke and other precious ornaments No Mahumetan commeth to Cairo eyther by Water or Land but he adoreth this Sepulchre and offereth thereat insomuch that the yeerely Oblations and Almes heere offered for the reliefe of the poore kindred of Mahomet and mayntenance of the Priests that keepe it which want not their counterfeit Miracles to delude the peoples zeale amount to one hundred thousand Saraffi And when Zelim conquered Cairo the Ianizaries rifling this Sepulchre found in it fiue hundred thousand Saraffi in ready Coine besides other riches Some report that this Nafissa being a Dame of honour yeelded her body without reward to any that required the same bestowing as she said this Almes for the loue of the Prophet Mahomet Lettice sutable to such lips Like Prophet like Saint But Leo would haue you thinke her an honester woman Fustato is reckoned as a Suburb to Cairo contayning in Leo's time Anno one thousand fiue hundred twenty sixe fiue thousand Families besides many Sepulchres adored of the fond people which couer the pauement with rich Carpets Hither resort euery Friday great multitudes for deuotion and bestow liberall Almes They heere sprinkle cold water with sweet herbes and leauy boughes Bulach is another Suburb of Cairo vpon the bankes of Nilus of like distance and hath in it foure thousand Families with stately Temples and Colledges Beb Elloch standeth a mile from Cairo and hath about three thousand Families Gemeh Tailon was adorned by Tailon sometime Gouernour of Egypt with a sumptuous Temple and Palace Beb Zuala another Suburbe containeth twelue thousand Families Cairo it selfe within the Walles hath not aboue eight thousand Families and is full of stately and magnificent Temples Heere is an Hospitall built by Piperis the first Soldan of the Mamalukes Race the yeerely reuenues whereof amount to two hundred thousand Saraffi or as some reckon fiue hundred Ducats a day It is open to all sicke and diseased persons and heire to all that die there The Plague is sometime so hot at Cairo that there dye twelue thousand persons daily This was the state of Cairo in Leo's time Solomon Schuveigher affirmeth that at his beeing in Cairo Anno a thousand fiue hundred eighty one there died
Almohades and had by him the Alcoran This Abdelmon or Abdel Mumen was he writeth the sonne of a Potter to whom Auentumerth a great Astronomer foretold his Royaltie To this Auentumerth did one Almehadi ioyne himselfe who interpreted the Alcoran contrary to the Bagdat Catholocisme and the interpretations of the Almoranides which then ruled in Africa whose helpe Abdel vsed to obtaine the Kingdome both of Africa and Spaine Hee buried Almohadi being dead very Royally not farre from Marocco where he is had in great veneration and prayers made to him and the followers of his sect called of him Almohadis To Abdel Mumen succeeded his Sonne Auen Iacob who being slaine in Portugall his Brother Aveniuseph succeeded and then his Sonne this Auen Mahomath with whom he saith were slaine two hundred thousand Moores the carkasses lying so thicke that they could scarce ride ouer them and yet in all the field no signe of bloud to be seene For two dayes space the Spanish Armie burne no wood for any vse but the Arrowes Launces and Pikes of the Moores burning of purpose and not onely for necessitie and yet scarcely consumed halfe With him perished the Almohades Thus farre Rodericus an eye-witnesse not much differing from Leo. I cannot omit that which Mathew Paris hath written of Iohn King of England about these times and in his owne dayes He sent saith he Thomas Herdinton and Radulph Fitz Nicolas Knights and Robert of London Clarke to Admirall Murmelius King of Marocco Africa and Spaine whom they commonly call Miramumelius to make offer vnto him of his Vassalage and that he would not onely hold the Land of him with payment of Tribute but would also change his Religion and accept the Mahumetan The Embassadours hauing declared their message the King or Emire Elmumenin to call him rightly shut vp the Booke whereon they found him reading and after a little deliberation thus answered I was now reading a Greeke Booke of a certaine wise man and a Christian called Paul whose wordes and deeds well please me this onely I like not that hee forsooke the Religion wherein he was borne and vnconstantly embraced another and the same I say of your Master God Almightie knowes that if I were without the Law and now to chuse This aboue all other should be my choise And then by diuers questions enforming himselfe better of the state of the Kingdome and of the King he grew into great passion and indignation against the King protesting that he thought him vnworthy to bee his Confederate and commanded the Embassadours neuer more to see his face The Author heard Robert of London one of those which were sent relate these things HONDIVS his Map of the Kingdome of Marocco MAROCCHI REGNUM §. II. Of the Kings of the Seriffian Familie ABout the yeere 1508 began to grow in name through Numidia a certaine Alsaique borne in Tigumedet in the Prouince of Dara beeing a subtill man and no lesse ambitious in minde then learned in those Sciences whereunto the Mahumetanes are most addicted Hee by confidence of his blood descended of their Prophet and of the diuisions of the States of Africa and the exploits there dayly atchieued by the Portugals attempted to make himselfe Lord of Mauritania Tingitana For this cause hee sent his three Sonnes Abdel Abnet and Mahomet to visit the Sepulchre of Mahomet Much was the reuerence and reputation of holinesse which they hereby acquired amongst that superstitious people which now beheld them as Saints and kissed their garments as most holy Reliques These failed not in their parts of the play to act as much deuotion as high contemplatiue lookes deepe fetched sighes and other passionate interiections of holinesse could expresse Ala Ala was their yernfull note their food was the peoples almes The old Father ioyning to see his proiects thus farre proceed and minding to strike whiles the Iron was hote sent two of them to Fez Amet and Mahumet where one of them was made Reader in the Amodonaccia the most famous Colledge of Fez and the younger was made Tutor to the Kings young sonnes Aduanced thus in fauour of the King and People by their Fathers aduice they apprehended the present occasion of the harmes sustained by the Arabians and Moores vnder the Portugals Ensignes they demanded Licence of the King to display a Banner against the Christians putting him in hope easily to draw those Moores to him and so to secure the Prouinces of Marocco In vaine were Mulley Nazer the Kings brother his allegations not to arme this Name of Sanctitie which being once victorious might grow insolent and forget dutie in minding a Kingdome They obtaine their desires and with a Drum and Banner with Letters of commendations to the Arabians and people of Barbary they are so attended with forces and fortunes that Ducala and all as farre as Cape de Guer stoopes to their command the people willingly yeelding their Tenths to this Holy warre against the Portugals enemies of their Faith Hereunto was added the ouerthrow which they gaue to Lopes Barriga a famous Portugall Captaine the brightnesse of that sun-shine being somewhat eclipsed with the losse of their elder brother if rather a Monarchie were not hereby furthered By faire words they entered into Marocco The Arabians of Ducala and Xarquia about this time trying their quarrels by dint of Sword in mutuall conflicts presented a fit occasion to the Seriffs to prey vpon them both their strength hauing made them weake and their weaknesse making the other strong And now did they begin to vsurpe soueraigntie presenting their Fessan King with sixe Horses and sixe Camels and those but simple whom before they had acknowledged their Soueraigne with payment of the fifths of their spoile The King of Fez before applauding his owne victories in theirs began now to distaste and to distrust hee sends to them to demand his fifths and the tribute also formerly paide him by the Kings of Marocco Death the common enemie of Mankinde here interposed her selfe on the Seriffian part and tooke the King of Fez out of the world the Scepter descending to his Sonne Amet the Scholler of the young Seriff who not onely proceeded not in his Fathers demands but confirmed Amet in the Signiorie of Marocco so that in some small matters hee would acknowledge the soueraigntie of Fez But now the Seriffs whose hearts continually encreased with their fortunes sent him word that being lawfull successours to Mahomet they owed no man tribute and had more right in Africa then he if hee would respect them as his friends and Allies so it were if otherwise they which had power to offend the Christian should not bee destitute in defending themselues The sword the vnequalle starbiter of equitie is now made vmpire the Fessan proclaimeth warres besiegeth Marocco is dislodged and in his returne vanquished Thus haue the Seriffs acquited themselues of that yoake and now intend new conquests on the other side of Atlas and in Numidia and in
they goe to Market they wash them from top to toe and put on other clothes They buy no more but for that day or meale They stampe their Milia as wee doe spice fanne it in a wodden dish steepe it ouer-night with a little Mais and in the morning lay it on a stone and as Painters their colours grinde it with another stone till it be dowe which they temper with fresh water and salt and make rolls thereof twice as bigge as a mans fist and bake it a little on the hearth This is their bread Their dyet is strange as raw flesh handfuls of graine large draughts of Aqua-vitae Dogs Cats Buffles Elephants though stinking like carrion and a thousand magots creeping in them There are little birds like Bulfinches which make their nests on small ends of twigs for feare of Snakes these they eat aliue with their feathers The Moores say that within land they eat dried snakes and these will eat dogs guts raw which our Author hath seene and a Boy left in pawne on shipbord for debt which had meat enough yet would secretly kill the Hens that he might eat their raw guts They will eat old stinking fish dried in the Sun yet can they be daintie if they may haue it Some make a kind of Ale of Mays and water sodden together called Poitou Sometime foure or fiue together will buy a pot of Palme-wine which they powre into a great Cabas which groweth on trees and some of them are halfe as big as a kilderkin round about which they sit to drinke each sending a little pot-full to his best wife When they first drinke they take it out with a small Cabas laying their hands on the head of him which first drinketh crie aloud Tautosi Tautosi he drinkes not all off but leaues a litle to throw on the ground to the Fetisso saying I. ou spouting out some on their Fetissos on their armes and legs otherwise thinking they could not drinke in quiet They are great Drinkers and feed as vnmanerly as Swine sitting on the ground and cramming not staying till the morsell in the mouth be swallowed but tearing their meat in pieces with the three mid-fingers casting it into their mouthes ready gaping to receiue it They are alway hungry and would eat all day long yea the Dutchmen had great stomacks whiles they were there He that gets most must be most liberall industrious to get and as prodigall in spending vpon their liquor Before the Portugals trade they had no Merchandise but went naked and the people within Land were afraid of them because they were white and apparelled They come to trade in the ships in the morning for about noone the wind before blowing from land comes from Sea and they are not able to endure the roughnesse thereof They beleeue that Men when they die goe into another World where they shall haue like need of many things as heere they haue and therefore vse to put with the dead Corpes some parts of houshold And if they lose any thing they thinke that some of their friends which in the other world had need thereof came thence and stole it Of God being asked they said he was blacke and euill and did then much harme their good they had by their owne labour and not by his goodnesse Circumcision they vse and some other Turkish Rites They hold it vnmeet and irreligious to spit on the ground They haue no leter nor Bookes They obserue a Sabbath herein agreeing and yet disagreeing with Turke Iew and Christian for they obserue Tuesdayes Rest from their Fishing and Husbandrie The Wine of the Palme-tree which is that day gathered may not be sold but is offered to the King who bestoweth it on his Courtiers to drinke at night In the midst of the Market-place they had a Table standing on foure Pillars two elues high whose flat couer was made Straw And Reedes wouen together Hereon were set many strawne Rings called Fetissos or Gods and therein Wheat with Water and Oyle for their God which they thinke eates the same Their Priest they call Fetissero who euery Festiuall day placeth a Seat on that Table and sitting thereon Preacheth to the people the contents whereof I could neuer learne which done the Women offer him their Infants and hee sprinkleth them with water in which a Newt or Snake doth swim and then besprinkleth the Table aforesaid with the same water and so vttering certaine wordes very loude and stroking the Children with certaine colour as giuing them his blessing hee drinketh of that water the people clapping their hands and crying I. ou I. ou and so he dismisseth his deuout assembly Many weare such Rings of Straw next their bodies as preseruatiues from those dangers which else their angry God might inflict on them In honour of the same Deitie or Deuill as it seemes they conceiue him to be they bechalke themselues with a kind of chalkey Earth and this is vnto them in stead of their Morning Mattens The first bitte at meales and first draught is consecrate to their Idoll and therefore they besprinkle therewith those Rings which I said they weare on their bodies If Fishers cannot speed at Sea they giue a piece of Gold to the Fetissero to reconcile their frowning Saint He therfore with his Wiues walkes a kind of Procession thorow the Citie smiting his brest and clapping his hands with a mightie noise till hee come at the shore and there they cut downe certaine boughes from the Trees and hang them on their neckes and play on a Tymbrell Then doth the Fetissero turne to his Wiues and expostulates with them and withall hurleth into the Sea Wheat and other things as an offering to Fetisso to appease his displeasure towards the Fishermen When the King will sacrifice to Fetisso hee commands the Fetissero to enquire of a Tree whereto he ascribeth Diuinitie what he will demand Hee with his Wiues come to the Tree and in a heape of ashes there prouided prickes in a branch plucked off the Tree and drinking water out of a Bason spouts it out on the branch and then daubeth his face With the ashes which done he declareth the Kings question and the Diuell out of the Tree makes answer The Nobles also adore certaine Trees and esteeme them Oracles and the Diuell sometimes appeareth vnto them in the same in forme of a blacke Dog and other whiles answereth without any visible apparition There are which worship a certaine Bird which is spotted and painted as it were with Stars and resembleth the lowing of a Bull in her voyce To heare this Bird lowing in their journey is to them a luckie boding saying Fetisso makes them good promises and therefore let him in that place where they heare it a Vessell of Water and Wheat And as the Earth and Ayre yeeld them Deities so the Sea is not behinde in his liberalitie but yeelds certaine Fishes to their Canonization In this respect
haue added to this Armes a Crosse which the Lion holdeth in his right foot And in this right they lay challenge to Ierusalem for their Inheritance Now for the fragment of the Table which Moses brake it is receiued for a truth throughout Ethiopia and it is still preserued in the Hill Amara as the greatest Iewell in the World Baltasar had often seene and handled it It seemeth to be of the Chalcedonie stone shining and transparent and is a corner of a square Table the broken edges yet being manifest with the letters some broken some whole much differing from the common Hebrew which Genebrard sayth the Iewes inuented thereby to differ from the Schismaticall Kingdome of the Israelites of the ten Tribes the Samaritans still retayning the former as both hee and Scaliger affirme But these letters cannot bee read for hee brought a learned Iew skilfull in all the Easterne Languages Persian Arabike Indian Chinois c. yet knew them not This relique is with such deuotion admired of the Iewes that when they passe but within sight of that Hill Amara they prostrate themselues on the ground with reuerence and for this cause make much of the Ethiopians wheresoeuer they meete them as a people beloued of God to whom he hath imparted such a Relique They tell also a tale I thinke so likewise of the former of the Queene of Saba that in her iourney homewards she had a reuelation concerning a piece of Wood which shee saw that it should bee the same whereon Christ should after die for Mankind wherefore adoring the same with much deuotion and teares she wrote to Salomon thereof who hid it in the earth foure Stades where the Poole of Bethesda was made afterwards and by vertue thereof wrought Miracles But the Ethiopian Superstition hath Fables enough of her owne and needeth not the officious helpe of Romish Saints in this kind As for that succession of Iewish Officers Luys denyeth it himselfe therefore denyed by later examiners and sayth the Iewes are no where more hated then in Ethiopia and Alexander the Third late Emperour among them banished all Iewes and Mores out of all his Dominions The Officers of the Emperour are sayth hee the Sonnes of the Tributary King his Vassals and the noblest of his subiecti And for the Iewes which came with Meilech or Meilelec after called Dauid his next successor Lofu so hee calleth him becomming an Apostata reduced Idolatry and whereas Dauid his Father had giuen them one of the Temples dedicated to the Sunne in mount Amara to make it an house of Prayer to the God of Israel casting forth the Idols therein now in this Iosues dayes some of them returned to Ierusalem or to other Prouinces of Africa and some inhabited the vtmost parts of Africa neere the Cape of Good Hope and Desarts not before inhabited And the said Don Iuan de Baltasar being sent by the Emperour into the Lands of Monopopata so he calleth it and of Galofes of Barbizin of Mandinga and of Zape which are inhabited of Idolatrous Gentiles hee found among them some of these Iewes descended of that exiled stocke as themselues also hold which had forgotten their Iudaisme and all knowledge of the Scriptures onely had retained some reliques of it and abstinence from Swines flesh differing also from those Gentiles in worshipping one God whereas the other acknowledge One great God whom they call Caramus but worship also Tigres Lions Flyes Spiders Snakes Lizards and whatsoeuer first meete them in the morning These Gentiles call the Iewes Tabayqueros and will not admit them to purchase houses or inheritance but eyther vse them as Interpreters or Factors for Merchants which is the higest step they can attaine to or else to employ them in base drudgeries to be their porters slaughter-men and such like that they seeme rather slaues to those barbarous Nations then to enioy any liberty of freemen Rightly may those Nations hee called Barbarous which seeme rather to barke then to speake and yet they scorne that any should abase them with the basest of titles in their opinion to call them Tabayquero and reuenge it with the death of the wrong doer But I feare me our Frier will be found a Lyer howsoeuer I am forced to relate many things out of him hauing written so largely of this Ethiopian subiect with such boldnesse and pretending such assurance from reports of that Balthasar as if no doubt were to be made of his assertions CHAP. III. Of PRESBYTER IOHN and of the PEIEST-IOHNS in Asia whether that descended of these HAuing now declared the antiquities of Ethiopia drawne out of ancient Authors let vs neerer hand behold what neerer our times Others haue reported thereof Wherein first we will heere insert out of Scaligers annotation vpon the Ethiopian Ecclesiasticall Calendar or Computation of times somewhat remarkeable and fitting to our present purpose The name sayth hee of the Christian Ethiopians is not now first made knowne to vs For their Church not onely at Ierusalem and Constantinople but at Rome also and Venice hath had liberty a good while to vse their owne Rites The Portugals and Francis Aluares haue further discouered them Before we onely heard the name of Ethiopia A wonder it is that some ages since their Emperours name was made knowne to vs out of Asia rather then out of Ethiopia it selfe Three hundred yeeres agoe the Ethiopian Kings reigned in Asia especially in Drangiana the borders of Susiana India and China vntill the Tartars dispossessed them of the Asian Empire For Cingis first the first Tartar King slue Vncam the Ethiopian Emperour and his Posteritie chased the Abissines out of Moin and China and forced them to flee into Africa Often haue I maruelled that a people of no knowledge in these times of Sea-affaires could atchieue so mightie exploits as to propagate their Empire from Ethiopia to China Since that time the knowledge of that Emperour hath come to vain the name of Prestegiano which in the Persian tongue as much now of reckoning in Asia as the Latine in the West signifieth Apostolike inferring thereby that he is a Christian King of the right faith For Prestegan signifieth Apostles and Prestegani Apostolicall Padescha Prestigiani the King Apostolicall in Arabian Melich ressuli in Ethiopian Negusch Chawariawi Of this greatnesse of their Empire in Asia are witnesses those Ethiopian Crosses which are seene in Giapan China and other places Yea the Temple of Thomas the Apostle in the Region of Man labar hath nothing in it but is Ethiopian the crosses building and name it selfe It is called Hanarija which in Ethiopian is as much to say as Apostle which Marcus Paulus falsly expoundeth a Holy man This name in the Author seemeth to be giuen not to the Church but to the Apostle himselfe Paulus addeth that the remainder of the Christians subiect to Prestegian aboue in Teaduch The neighbouring Arabians call them now Habassi and wee from thence Abissines
doe it in which respect not onely a third part of the old World but another new-found World is now named India Therefore Acosta and Adrianus Turnebus esteeme India to be a generall name to all Countries which are farre off and strange to vs although it be properly attributed to the East Indies Now if any wonder at such an extrauagant discourse of India heere let him know that in our search for Presbyter Iohn which then was knowne to withstand the Tartars in Asia I cannot see how hee can bee the Abessine or Aethiopian but rather thinke that when a mightie Christian Prince was found in Aethiopia they did imagine him to bee that Presbiter Iohn of which they had heard in Asia being furthered in this errour by the name India which as is said did generally comprehend both the true India and this more truely called Ethiopia Now for that Presbiter Iohn in India I take him for some Christian King for at that time there were many Christians as appeareth by Venetus in manner dispersed throughout Asia and some called Saint Thomas Christians remaine in India to this day Why I thinke it not to agree to the Abissine my reasons besides the former are the distance of place all that huge tract of Arabia with the wide Seas on each side separating India from Ethiopia the vnpassable Desarts by Land No mention in Historie who should dispossesse them of that India Maior where the Tartar had neuer any great power the Histories which wee haue of those Indian Princes the Kings of Malabar of Decan the Samorin c. are against it the difference of Religion for those Indian Christians of Saint Thomas are not branded with hote Irons nor Circumcised nor agree in other Rites with the Ethiopian the Ethiopian Historie challengeth no such large extents to their Empire except in Africa where they seate them in a continuall descent from the time of Salomon till now whereas those Presbiter Iohns had their dwelling and abode in Asia as their Stories signifie And further the name Priest Iohn is a name vnknowne in Ethiopia and by ignorant mistaking of the Europaeans applied to that Ethiopian Emperour when first they heard of him as saith Zaga Zabo his Embassadour to the King of Portugall who reproueth the men of these parts saying that he is named of them Belul which signifieth Excellent or precious and in the Chaldean tongue Ioannes Encos which signifieth the same Sabellicus saith the Ethiopians called him Gyan Linschoten affirmeth Bel Gyan Bel signifieth the highest and Gyan Lord But Frier Luys out of Baltasar the Aethiopian sheweth that in the hill Amara are ancient records which testifie that from the time of that Queene that came to Salomon the Emperours haue beene called Beldigian the signification whereof is a precious Stone or a thing of great value which Title hath continued to those Emperours as Pharao to the Egyptians and Caesar to the Romanes Some also of the Royall bloud which are vsually kept as after shall appeare in the hill Amara when they are elected to the Empire if there bee many of that Imperiall issue take Orders and become Priests not procreating any Children Such saith hee in our times haue beene Daniel the second Paphnutius that succceeded to Naum and Alexander the third his successour all which were both Priests and Kings and therefore by the Ethiopians which resort to the Holy Sepulchre at Ierusalem and vsed to speake Greeke were called Priest Beldigian This by corruption of the name by Merchants and such as knew not the signification and also for breuities sake was pronounced Priest Gyan or Iohn Now for the Priest Iohn in Asia hee tels that when Saint Thomas was martyred in India the three Mags who had visited CRIST by the leading of a Starre in his Infancie and had after beene consecrated Bishops ouer their seuerall Kingdomes you must not deny their royaltie by the Apostle chose one amongst themselues to bee Priest and King who was called Priest Iohn If you beleeue not Peter de Natalibus out of whom the Frier cites this I should bee too much troubled in perswading you Hee telleth also out of Otho Frisingensis that about the yeere 1145. one Iohn a Christian both King and Priest reigning in the furthest parts of the East warred vpon and ouer-came the Medes Assyrians and Persians and had intended to free Ierusalem out of Saracenicall seruitude but not finding passage ouer Tigris was forced to returne This is like to bee that Presbyter Iohn whose posteritie vsed that stratageme before mentioned against the Tartars And to him I thinke might fitly agree that Title of Prestegian easily deflected and altered to Priest Iohn whereof you haue heard out of Ioseph Scaliger I haue seene a Manuscript in old French pretended to bee a Letter from Prester Iohn to the Emperour Frederike wherein is discoursed of the site greatnesse puissance wealth and other rarities of his estate but finding so many monsters and vncouth relations therein I could not bee so prodigall of faith or penurious of iudgement as to value his authoritie at any high rate wherein Sir Iohn Mandeuill seemes to haue beene a lender or borrower so iustly doe they agree in disagreeing from both probabilitie and possibilitie of truth yet both in the one and the other wee may obserue the like situation of Prester Iohns dwelling in these parts of Asia neere Persia and that such a multitude of fables could not but haue some truth for their ground My conclusion is That for that name of Prestegian I like well Scaligers interpretation and thinke that it may agree either to this or some other Christian Prince at those times in India which is farre neerer to Persia and from whence the Indians borrowed their Royall Titles both in those times and since as Garcias ab Horto and Linschoten shew Idalham or Adelham the Title of the King of Goa and the Countries about commonly called Idalcan is not a proper name but a Title of honour signifying as Adonizedek Iosh 10.1 Lord or King of Iustice Nisamaluco the speare of the Kingdome and such like Ismael the Sophi which name also is by some interpreted Elect because they pretended to bee or doe so and others the reprobate followers of a reprobate Religion added the Title of Xa or Sha to such as embraced his new Sect as Nisomoxa c. If the borrowing of names from the Persian language so generall in those parts bee still obserued no maruell if some Christian King in those times might stile himselfe Prestegian or Apostolicall which others not vnderstanding called Priest Iohn or Prete Ianni as being compassed with so many Saracens the enemies of the Apostles besides Heretikes and Heathens At Mosul is yet a Patriake who in Paulus time was of farre greater iurisdiction and as an Easterne Pope ordayned Archbishops and Bishops through all the parts of India besides Cairo and Baldach and therefore no
place where the Turke hath his Arsenal and Gallies for those Seas the matter whereof is brought out of Caramania by Sea by Nilus and by Camels ouer Land the rest of the way at incredible charges Here in old times was a Channell which conueyed the waters of Nilus to this place where they had Cisternes to receiue it all destroyed by the Mahumetans and now the Inhabitants fetch the water which they vse six miles off Some thinke that Pharaoh was here drowned which passage others set downe at Tor where the Sea is straitned and is not aboue nine miles ouer It seemeth that the prints of the Chariot-wheeles which Orosius affirmeth still remayned as testimonies of Pharaohs ouerwhelming vnder those waues and could not by any industrie of man be done out but by the mightie hand of God were soone restored in the same forme are not now there to bee found for they would soone end the controuersie Asion Gaber was a Port hereabouts whence Salomon sent his Nauie to Ophir and after him Iehoshaphat but not with like successe which Iosephus saith was Berenice not farre from Elana Hierome calls it Essia Doctor Dee writes that Ezion Geber was neere Eloth or Elana or Iltor the East end of the Bay the other which some call Suez is higher Bernice was the Port of the Red Sea where the Indian drugs and spices in the time of the Roman Empire were vnladen and landed to be carried thence to Alexandria the whole course whereof Plinie describeth Agatharchides reckoning diuers Etymologies of the Erythraean title liketh best of that which ascribes it to one Erythras who first built a ship to saile in those Seas altogether disallowing that it should be so called of the colour Hee hath written strange things of the people adioyning Hee nameth foure sorts of Ethiopians according to their dwelling neere the Riuers or Lakes or Sea-coast or wandring Those on the Sea-coast he saith liue altogether on fish which the Tide brings vp and leaues on the hollow places or plashes neere the shore which they cast vpon hot Rocks which cause the fishie substance to fall from the bones this they treade with their feet mixing the seede of Paliurus and then make cakes thereof which they drie in the Sunne and eate all in common and on the fift day goe to drinke laying their mouthes to the water like Oxen and sup in as much as their skins will hold not able scarce to breathe nor eating any thing one day after Some of those Ichthyophagi or Fish-eaters which haue store of this prouision content themselues with the moysture of their diet and drinke not at all Some of them seeme subiect to an Apathie not of Stoikes but of stocks not shunning or complayning for blowes or wrongs But mee thinkes I see my Reader haue sense and not without reason make complaint of wrong done him in these Relations and therefore will referre them that will to our Authour himselfe Don Iohn di Castro can better acquaint vs with the later then Agatharchides with the ancient state Hee ascribeth to Toro which he maketh the same with Elana 28. 1 8 degrees They are Christians and haue a Grecian Monasterie He reporteth the Moores tradition that Moses smote the sea twelue times thereby opened twelue paths for the Israelites 600000. Egyptians were drowned the Iewes arriued where Toro now is At Bohalel Xame they found a Towne within a house like a Chappell where was hanging a Banner of silke and many Arrowes or Darts round about the graue at the head of the graue was a table with an Epitaph testifying that there lay buried one of Mahomets kindred and great indulgence was granted to such deuout Pilgrimes as to that place resorted But the Portugals burnt it Hieronymo da Sancto Stephano relateth his voyage from Cairo in fifteene dayes to Cariz and a good Port called Cane finding many buildings and Temples ruined by the way seuen dayes iourney they went from hence by land to Cosir a Hauen of the Red Sea Procopius saith that this Sea is boisterous and rough in the day time and calme in the night that Iotabis one thousand furlongs from Aila was an Iland of Iewes of which hee mentions among the Homerite Arabians as doe Nicephorus Tudelensis and Vertomannus also which hee extendeth alongst the Sea and addeth to them many other Nations and Man-eating Saracens What the Portugals haue done in these Seas Barrius Marmolius Osorius Maffaeus relate Nonius Cugna in his Letter to the King declares that Anno 1530. they tooke Surrate other peeces of Cambaya and many Indian ships and chased away the Turkes Nauie which besieged Aden and brought the King of Aden to pay yeerly tribute ten thousand Serassins But the Turkes after obtayned it The length of this Arabian Gulfe Botero reckons 1200. miles in breadth 100. for the most part Comito Venetiano in Ramusius saith it accounteth 1400. in length in breadth 200. and in some places more so full of sholds that if they keepe not the Channell in the middest there is no sayling but by day light Outwards bound they keepe the middle and haue Pilots for that purpose homewards they haue other Pilots which direct the ship within the shallowes and are taken in at Babelmandel called by Ptolemey Insula Diodori an I le in the entrie or strait of the Gulfe which Strabo saith the ancient Kings of Egypt chayned to keepe the passage Zidem is twelue leagues from Mecca where the ships haue vsed to vnlade their Spiceries as before at Berenice without this Towne is a Moschee which the Moores say is the Sepulchre of Eua. Their water is raine-water reserued in Cisternes Passing by the I le Mehun the I le Camaran is famous by the diuers spoiles there made by the Portugals it is in fiftie degrees This Iland saith Corsali is the hottest place that euer I saw not one of vs but had our secret parts chafed and flayed with heate and many of our companie dyed Dalaqua is an Iland where they gather Pearles 125. leagues long twelue broad it is the name also of the Metropolitan Citie Betweene it and Abex saith Aloisius in the Relation of Castros voyage are fiue Ilands one of which is called Xamoa the land of which is red the King a Moore Suachen is the best harbour in all the Gulfe which the Turkes haue taken from the Abassine it stands in nineteene degrees and a third Mazzua is an Iland which makes Ercocco a good Hauen But of the Hauen and Ports on both sides the Gulfe Barrius relateth more largely Of the Iles Achafas and Tuicce wee haue but names likewise of others whereof Ptolemey doth number a great multitude The people of these parts are Mahumetans and many Baduini hereticall and theeuish Moores Many Iewes are in Aden the chiefe Towne of merchandize in these parts the King whereof after much kinde gratulation Salyman Bassa hung vp at the
apprehended at Sea by a mighty and tedious storme wherewith after many dayes they were brought to Estotiland aboue a thousand miles West from Frisland vpon which one of the Boats was cast away and sixe men that were in it were taken and brought to a populous Citie where one that spake Latine and had beene cast by chance vpon that Iland in the name of the King asked them what Country-men they were and vnderstanding their case he acquainted the King there with They dwelt there fiue yeeres and found it to bee an Iland very rich being little lesse then Iseland farre more fruitfull One of them said he saw Latine Bookes in the Kings Librarie which they at this present doe not vnderstand They haue a peculiar Language and Letters or Characters to themselues They haue Mines of Gold and other Metals and haue trade with Engroneland They sow Corne and make Beere and Ale They build Barks but know not the vse of the Compasse and haue many Cities and Castles The King sent these Fisher-men with twelue Barkes Southwards to a Countrey which they call Drogio in which Voyage escaping dreadfull Tempests at Sea they encountred with Canibals at Land which deuoured many of them These Fishers shewing them the manner of taking Fish with Nets escaped and for the presents which they made of their fish to the chiefe men of the Countrey were beloued and honoured One of these more expert it seemeth then the rest was holden in such account that a great Lord made warre with their Lord to obtayne him and so preuayled that he and his company were sent vnto him And in this order was he sent to fiue and twenty Lords which had warred one with another to get him in thirteene yeeres space whereby hee came to know almost all those parts which hee said was a great Country and as it were a New World The people are all rude and void of goodnesse they goe naked neyther haue they wit to couer their bodies with the Beasts skins which they take in hunting from the vehement cold They are fierce and eat their Enemies hauing diuers Lawes and Gouernours Their liuing is by hunting Further to the Southwest they are more ciuill and haue a more temperate Ayre They haue Cities and Temples dedicated to Idols where they sacrifice men and after eate them and haue also some vse of Gold and Siluer He fled away secretly and conueying himselfe from one Lord to another came at length to Drogio where hee dwelt three yeeres After this time finding there certaine Boates of Estotiland he went thither with them and growing there very rich furnished a Barke of his owne and returned into Frisland where hee made report vnto his Lord of that wealthy Countrey Zichumi prepared to send thither but three dayes before they set forth this Fisherman dyed Yet taking some of the Mariners which came with him in his stead they prosecuted the Voyage and encountred after many dayes an Iland where ten men of diuers Languages were brought vnto them of which they could vnderstand none but one of Island He told them That the Iland was called Icaria and the Knights thereof called Icari descended of the ancient pedigree of Dodalus King of Scots who conquering that Iland left his Sonne there for King and left them those Lawes which to that present they retayned And that they might keepe their Lawes inuiolate they would receiue no stranger Onely they were contented to receiue one of our men in regard of the Language as they had done those ten Interpreters Zichumi sayling hence in foure dayes descried Land where they found abundance of Fowle and Birds Egges for their refreshing The Hauen they called Cape Trinity There was a Hill which burning cast out smoake where was a Spring from which issued a certaine water like Pitch which ranne into the Sea The people of small stature wilde and fearefull hid themselues in Caues Zichumi built there a Citie and determining to inhabit sent Antonio backe againe with the most of his people to Frisland This History I haue thus inserted at large which perhaps not without cause in some thinges may seeme fabulous not in the Zeni which thus writ but in the Relations which they receiued from others Howsoeuer the best Geographers are beholden to these Brethren for that little knowledge they haue of these parts of which none before had written nor since haue there beene any great in-land Discoueries §. II. Discoueries made by SEBASTIAN CABOT CORTREGALIS GOMES with some notes of Groenland SOmewhat since there hath beene discouered by Gasper Corteregale a Portugall Stephen Gomes a Spaniard and Sebastian Cabot and more by later Pilots of our Nation but little of the disposition of the In-land people Yea it was thought to be all broken Ilands and not inhabited but at certayne seasons frequented by some Saluages which come thither to fish Such as we can in due order we here bestow Sebastian Cabot reported to Ramusio that in the yeere 1497. at the charge of King Henry the Seuenth he discouered to the 67. degree and a halfe of Northerly latitude minding to haue proceeded for the search of Cathay but by the mutiny of the Mariners was forced to returne The Map of Sebastian Cabot cut by Clement Adams relateth That Iohn Cabot a Venetian and his Sonne Sebastian set out from Bristoll discouering the Land called it Prima Vista and the Iland before it Saint Iohns The Inhabitants weare beasts skinnes There were white Beares and Stags farre greater then ours There were plenty of Seales and Soles aboue a yard long He named sayth Peter Martyr certaine Ilands Boccalaos of the store of those fish which the Inhabitants called by that name which with their multitudes sometimes stayed his ships The Beares caught these fish with their clawes and drew them to land and ate them In the time of Henry the Seuenth William Purchas being then Maior of London were brought vnto the King three men taken in the New-found Iland these were clothed in beasts skins and did eate raw flesh But Cabot discouered all along the Coast to that which since is called Florida and returning found great preparations for wars in Scotland by reason whereof no more consideration was had to this Voyage Whereupon he went into Spaine and being entertayned by the King and Queene was sent to discouer the Coasts of Brasill and sayled vp into the Riuer of Plate more then six score leagues He was a made Pilot Maior of Spaine and after that Anno 1549. was constituted Grand Pilot of England by King Edward the Sixt with the yeerely Pension of an hundred threescore and sixe pounds thirteene shillings foure pence Where in the yeere 1553. hee was chiefe dealer and procurer of the Discouery of Russia and the North-east Voyages made by Sir Hugh Willoughby R. Chancelour Stephen Burrough and prosecuted by Pet Iackman and others towards Noua Zemla Persia Tartaria as in Master Hakluits first
Tome appeareth Perhaps this Voyage of Cabot was the same which is mentioned by Master Robert Thorne in a Treatise of his written 1527. that his Father and Hugh Eliot a Merchant of Bristow were the Discouerers of the New-found-lands and if they had followed their Pilots minde the Lands of the West Indies had beene ours Anno 1500. Gasper Corteregalis a Portugall minding new Discoueries set forth a ship at his owne charge from Lisbone and sayling farre North at last came to a Land which for the pleasantnesse thereof he called Greene The men as he reported were barbarous brown-coloured very swift good Archers clothed in Beasts skins They liue in Caues or base Cottages without any Religion but obserue Sooth-sayings They vsed Marriages and were very iealous Petrus Pasqualigi in a Letter concerning this Voyage sayth they brought from thence a piece of a gilded Sword which seemed to be of Italian workmanship a child also amongst them ware two siluer-earings which by the workmanship appeared to bee brought from these parts perhaps belonging to some of Cabots company Returning into Portugall hee sayled thitherward againe Anno 1501. But what became of him none can tell His Brother Michael Corteregalis the next yeere set forth two ships to make search for his Brother but he also was lost The King Emanuel grieued herewith sent to enquire of them but all in vaine Their Brother Vasco would haue put himselfe on this aduenture but the King would not suffer him The name Greene vpon this occasion was withered and the land was called Terra Corteregalis Thus farre Osorius It reacheth according to Boterus reckoning to the 60. degree Let vs come to our owne For of Steuen Gomes little is left vs but a Iest This Gomes hauing beene with Magellan a few yeeres before in his Discouery of the South Sea inlarged with hopes of new Streights in the yeere 1525. set forth to search this Northerly passage But finding nothing to his expectation he laded his ship with slaues and returned At his returne one that knew his intent was for the Moluccas by that way inquiring what hee had brought home was told Esclauos that is slaues Hee fore-stalled with his owne imagination of Cloues had thought it was said Clauos and so posted to the Court to carry first newes of this Spicy Discouery looking for a great reward but the truth being knowne caused hereat great laughter Dithmar Bleskens in his Treatise of Island relateth that in the yeere 900. the Nobilitie of East Frisia and Breame found that Iland and 200. leagues from thence discouered Groenland which he saith was named per antiphrasin of the contrary for want of greene and pleasant Pastures and that by Whirle-pooles and misty darknesse all their Nauie but one ship perished William Steere translated a Booke Anno 1608. before translated out of the Norsh Language 1560. for the vse of Henry Hudson in which is mention of diuers Townes of Groenland as Skagenford an Easterne Dorp or Village and from thence more Easterly Beareford where was great fishing for Whales by the Bishops licence the benefit redounding to the Cathedrall Church Allabourg sound where Fowle and Oxen were plentifull Fendbrother Hauen where in Saint Olaffs time some were drowned and their ship cast away Crosses being yet seene on their Graue-stones Corsehought where by authority from the Bishop they hunted for White Beares from hence Eastward nothing but Ice and Snow Westward stood Kodesford a Dorp well built with a great Church Wartsdale Peterswicke Saint Olaffes Monastery and another of Saint Benets Nuns here were many warme-water◠in the Winter intolerably hot and medicinable There was also a Church of Saint Nicholas and many other Parishes and Villages Desarts Beares with red patches on their heads Hawkes Marble of all colours great Streames Nuts and Acornes in the Hils Wheate Sables Loshes c. He affirmeth that it is not so cold there as in Island and Norway But let vs obserue the Discoueries of our owne Countrimen §. III. Discoueries by Sir MARTIN FROBISHER SIr Martin Frobisher deserueth the first place as being the first that in the dayes of Queene Elizabeth sought the Northwest Passage in three seuerall Voyages The first whereof was written by Christopher Hall the second by Dionise Settle the third by Thomas Ellis and all in one Discourse by M. George Best all which at large the Reader may find in M. Hakluyts laborious Discouery of Discoueries To speake briefly what may best befit vs in our Pilgrimage Sir Martin Frobisher sayled from Blackewall Iune the fifteenth and the seuenth of Iuly had sight of Frisland but could not get on shore for the abundance of Ice which was also accompanyed with an extreame fogge as double gard to that Iland vncertaine whether to fortifie it or to imprison them The twentieth of Iuly he had sight of and high Land which he named Queene Elizabeths fore-Fore-land Here was he much troubled with Ice but sayling more Northerly descryed another Fore-land with a Great Gut Bay or Passage which he entred calling it Frobishers Straits supposing it to be the diuision of Asia and America Hauing entred threescore leagues hee went on shore and was encountred with mighty Deere which ranne at him with danger of his life Here had he sight of the Saluages which rowed to his ship in Boats of Seales skinnes with a Keele of wood within them like a Spanish Shallop saue onely they be flat in the bottome and sharpe at both ends They eat raw flesh and fish or rather deuoured the same they had long blacke haire broad faces flat noses tawny of colour or like an Oliue which neyther Sunne or Wind but Nature it selfe imprinted on them as appeared by their Infants and seemeth to be the generall Liuery of America Their apparell was Scales skins their women were painted or marked downe the cheekes and about the eyes with blue strakes These Saluages intercepted fiue of our men and the Boat Ours also tooke one of theirs which they brought into England where they arriued the second of October 1576. Hee had taken possession of the Countrey in right of the Queene and commanded his company to bring euery one somewhat in witnesse of the same One brought a piece of blacke stone like Sea-coale which was found to hold Gold in good quantity Whereupon a second Voyage was made the next yeere 1577. to bring Ore And comming to those Straits in Iuly found them in manner shut vp with a long Mure of Ice which sometime indangered their ships especially on the nineteenth of that moneth They found a great dead fish round like a Porcpis twelue foot long hauing a Horne of two yards lacking two inches growing out of the Snout wreathed and straight like a Waxe Taper and might bee thought to be a Sea Vnicorne It was broken in the top wherein some of the Saylers said they put Spiders which presently dyed It was reserued as a Iewell
making a noyse downward that they worship the Deuill vnder them There is no flesh or fish which they find dead smel it neuer so filthily but they wil eat it without any other dressing Their Deere haue skins like Asses and feet large like Oxen which were measured 7. or 8. inches in breadth There are no Riuers or running Springs but such as the Sun causeth to come of snow Sometimes they will perboyle their meate a little in kettles made of beasts skins with the bloud water which they drinke lick the bloudy knife with their tongues This licking is the medicine also for their wounds They seeme to haue traffike with other Nations from whom they a small quantity of Iron Their fire they make of heath mosse In their leather Boats they row with one oare faster then we can in our Boats with all our oares §. IIII. Discoueries by IOHN DAVIS GEORGE WEYMOVTH and IAMES HALL to the North-West MAster Iohn Dauis in the yeere 1585. made his first voyage for the North-west discouery and in 64. degrees and 15. minutes they came on shore on an Iland where they had sight of the Sauages which seemed to worship the Sunne For pointing vp to the Sunne with their hands they would strike their breasts hard with their hands which being answered with like action of the English was taken for a confirmed league and they became very familiar They first leaped and danced with a kind of Timbrel which they strucke with a sticke Their apparell was of beasts and birds skins buskins hose gloues c. Some leather they had which was dressed like the Glouers leather The 6. of August they discouered land in 66. deg. 40. min.. They killed white Beares one of whose fore-feet was fourteene inches broad so fat that they were forced to cast it away It seemed they fed on the grasse by their dung which was like to Horse-dung they heard Dogs howle on the shore which were tame They killed one with a Collar about his necke hee had a bone in his pisle these it seemed were vsed to the Sled for they found two Sleds The next yeere he made his second voyage wherein hee found the Sauage people tractable They are great Idolaters and Witches They haue many Images which they weare about them and in their Boats They found a graue wherein were many buried couered with Seales skinnes and a Crosse laid ouer them One of them made a fire of Turfs kindled with the motion of a sticke in a piece of a boord which had a hole halfe thorow into which hee put many things with diuers words and strange gestures our men supposed it to be a sacrifice They would haue had one of the English to stand in the smoke which themselues were bidden to doe and would not by any meanes whereupon one of them was thrust in and the fire put out by our men They are very theeuish They eate raw Fish grasse and Ice and drinke salt-water Heere they saw a whirlewinde take vp the water in great quantitie furiously mounting it vp into the ayre three houres together with little intermission They found in 63. degrees 8. minutes a strange quantitie of Ice in one entire masse so bigge that they knew not the limits thereof very high in forme of land with Bayes and Capes like high-cliffe-land they sent their Pinnasse to discouer it which returned with information that it was onely Ice This was the 17. of Iuly 1586. and they coasted it till the thirtieth of Iuly In the 66. deg. 33. min.. they found it very hot and were much troubled with a stinging Fly called Muskito All the Lands they saw seemed to bee broken and Ilands which they coasted Southwards till they were in foure and fifty and a halfe and there found hope of a passage In the same voyage he had sent the Sun-shine from him in 60. degrees which went to Iseland and on the seuenth of Iuly had sight of the Gronland and were hindered from harbour by the Ice They coasted it till the last of Iuly Their houses neere the Sea-side were made with pieces of wood crossed ouer with poles and couered with earth Our men played at foot-ball with them of the Iland The third voyage was performed the next yeere 1587. wherein Mr Dauis discouered to the 73. degree finding the Sea all open and forty leagues betweene land and land hauing Groenland which hath an Iland neere it to the West for the loathsome view of the shore couered with snow without wood earth or grasse to be seene and the irkesome noise of the Ice called Desolation in 59. on the East and America on the West The Spanish Fleet and the vntimely death of Master Secretarie Walsingham the Epitome and summary of Humane worthinesse hindered the prosecution of these intended Discoueries In the yeere 1602. Captain George Weymouth made a voyage of Discouery to the Northwest with two Fly-boats set forth by the Muscouy Company saw the South part of Gronland and had water in 120. fadome blacke as thick as puddle and in a little space cleere with many such enterchanges The breach of the Ice made a noise as a thunder-clap and ouerturning had sunke both their Vessels if they had not with great diligence preuented it They had store of Fogges some freezing as they fell In 68 deg. 53. min.. they encountred an Inlet forty leagues broad and sailed West and by South in the same 100. leagues Iames Hall An. 1605. sailed to Groenland from Denmarke and had like encounters of Ice yeelding in the breach no lesse noise then if fiue Canons had beene discharged with people also like those which in Frobishers Voyage are mentioned they make sailes of guts sowed together for their fishing Boats and deceiued the Seales with Seales-skin garments Groenland is high Mountainous full of broken Ilands alongst the Coasts Riuers nauigable and good Bayes full of fish Betweene the Mountaines are pleasant Plaines and Vallies such as a man would scarce beleeue He saw store of Fowle no beasts but blacke Foxes and Deere The people seemed a kind of Samoydes wandering in Summer by companies for Hunting and Fishing and remouing from place to place with their Tents and Baggage they are of reasonable stature browne actiue warlike eate raw meat or a little perboyled with bloud Oyle or a little water which they drinke their apparell beasts of fowles skinnes the hairy or feathered side outward in Summer in the Winter inward their arrowes and darts with two feathers and a bone-head they haue no wood but drift they worship the Sunne Anno 1606. He made a second Voyage thither found their Winter houses built with Whales bones couered with Earth and Vaults two yards deepe vnder the Earth square They call Groenland in their language Secanunga Vp within the Land they haue a King carried on mens shoulders The next yeere he sailed thither the third time and in a fourth Voyage 1612. was slaine
there by a Sauage in reuenge as was thought for some of the people before shipped from thence They haue Hares white as snow with long furre Dogs which liue on Fish whose pisles as also of their Foxes are bone Their Summer worke is to dry their Fish on the Rocks Euery one both man and woman haue each of them a Boat made with long pieces of Firre couered with Seales skins sowed with sinewes or guts about twenty foot long and two and a halfe broad like a shittle so light that one may carry many of them at once so swift that no ship is able with any winde to hold way with them and yet vse but one oare which they hold by the middle in the middest of their Boat broad at both ends wherewith they row forwards and backwards at pleasure Generally they worship the Sunne to which they pointed at our approach saith Baffin striking on their brests and crying Ilyout not comming neere till you doe same They bury in out-lands on the tops of hils in the heapes of stones to preserue from the Foxes making another graue hard by wherein they place his Bow and Arrowes Darts and other his vtensils They bury them in their apparell and the cold keepes them from putrefaction Anno 1606. Mr Iohn Knights made a North-west voyage lost his Ship sunke with Ice and was with three more of his company surprised by the Sauages of whose language hee wrot a pretty Dictionary which I haue seene with M. Hakluyt §. V. Of King IAMES his Newland alias Greeneland and of the Whale and Whale-Fishing I Will not heere beginne with records of Discoueries in these parts written two thousand yeeres since out of which Mr Doctor Dee is reported to haue gathered diuers Antiquities antiquated by Antiquitie and rotten with age nor to shew that King Arthur possessed as farre as Greeneland nor that Sir Hugh Willoughby discouered hitherto as some coniecture but content my selfe with later Discoueries and Obseruations Much hath been spent both of Cost Industrie and Argument about finding a more compendious way to the Indies by the Northwest and by the North-East and by the North. Of the first somewhat hath been spoken Of the second were the Voyages of Master Stephen Burrough Pet and Iacman our Countrey-men and of the Hollanders in the yeere 1594. and the three following before by vs mentioned in a duer place as appertaining to Asia for they found themselues by Astronomicall obseruation in a hundred and twelue Degrees fiue and twenty minutes of Longitude and threescore and sixteene of Latitude in the place where they wintered They had touched more Northerly in some parts as is thought of greene-Greene-land sailing along by the Land from fourescore Degrees eleuen minutes vnto Noua Zemla I omit their red Geese in one place of this Voyage their azure-couloured Ice in another place and the losse of their Ship in the Ice which constrained them to set vp a house to Winter in that Land of Desolation This building they beganne about the 27. of September Stilo Nouo the cold euen then kissing his New-come Tenants so eagerly that when the Carpenters did but put a naile in their mouths after their wont the Ice would hang thereon and the bloud follow at the pulling out In December their fire could not heat them their Sack was frozen and each man forced to melt his share thereof before he could drinke it their melted Beere drinking like water They sought to remedie it with Sea-cole fire as being hotter then the fire of Wood which they had store of though none there growing by drifts and stopped the chimney and doores to keep in the heat but were suddenly taken with a swounding which had soone consumed them if they had not presently admitted the aire to their succor Their shooes did freeze as hard as horns on their feet and as they sate within doores before a great fire seeming to burne on the fore-side behinde at their backs they were frozon white the Snow meane-whiles lying higher then the house which sometimes in clearer weather they endeuoring to remoue cut out steps so ascended out of their house as out of a Vault or Seller They were forced to vse besides store of cloathes and great fires stones heated at the fire and applyed to their feet and bodies and yet were frozen as they lay in their Cabins yea the cold not onely staid their Clocke but insulted ouer the fire in some extremities that it almost cast no heat so that putting their feet to the fire they burnt their hose and discerned that also by the smell before they could feele the heat They supposed that a barrell of water would haue been wholly frozen in the space of one night which you must interpret of their twelue houres glasse for otherwise they saw no Sunne after the third of Nouember to the 24. of Ianuary reckoning by the new Calendar a thing strange to be without the Sunne fifttie dayes before the Solstice which happened after their account on December 23. and yet within forty one dayes after might see the vpper circle of the Sun-rising aboue the Horizon which made great question whether their Eyes had deceiued them or the Computation of time in that long Night which both being found otherwise by their obseruation and experience caused no lesse wonder whether this timely approach should be attributed to the reflexion by the water or the not absolute roundnesse of the Earth in those parts or the false accounting of the Solstice or which some affirme the falshood of their calculations But I leaue this to Philosophers Our Author affirmes that when the Sunne had left them they saw the Moone continually both Day and Night neuer going downe when it was in the highest Degree the twi-light also remaining many dayes and againe they might see some day-light sixteene dayes before they saw the returne of the Sunne The Beares which had held them besieged and often endangered them forsooke them and returned with the Sunne the white Foxes all that while visited them of which they tooke many whose flesh was good Venison to them and their skins in the linings of their Caps good remedies against that extremitie of Cold. As for their feet they vsed Pattents of wood with sheepe-skinnes aboue and many socks or soles vnderneath they vsed also shooes of Rugge and Felt. These Beares were very large and cruell some of them yeelding skins thirteene foot long and a hundred pounds of fat which serued them for Oyle in their Lampes the flesh they durst not eate some of them forfeiting their whole skinnes after they had eaten of the Liuer of one of these eaters which deuoure any thing not sparing their owne kinde For the Hollanders hauing killed one Beare another carried it a great way ouer the rugged Ice in his mouth in their sight and fell to eating it they made to him with their weapons and chased him from his purchase but found
they would not suffer our men to see but feasted there two houres On a sudden all arose with cudgels in their hand and made a lane as is before said and the children being laid downe vnder a tree to their seeming without life they all fell into a ring againe and danced about the children a good space and then sate downe in a circle about the tree Raphanna in the mids caused burdens of wood to be brought to the Altar made of poles set like a steeple where they made a great fire which our men thought but were deceiued was to sacrifice their children to the Diuell whom they call Kewase who as they report suckes their bloud They were vnwilling to let them stay any longer They found a woman mourning for yong Paspiha sacrificed at the Towne of Rapahanna but this Paspaiha is now aliue as Mr Rolph hath since related to me and the mourning of the women is not for their childrens death but because they are for diuers moneths detained from them as we shall after see Yea the Virginians themselues by false reports might delude our Men and say they were sacrificed when they were not For euen still they are very inconstant it is Mr Rolphs report in all that they speake of their Religion one denying that which another affirmeth and either not knowing or nor willing that others should know their diuellish mysteries And hence perhaps it was that as Captaine Smith addeth a Werowance being demanded the meaning of this sacrifice answered that the children were not all dead but that the Oke or Diuell did sucke the bloud from their left brest who chanced to be his by lot till they were dead but the rest were kept in the wildernesse by the yong men till nine Moones were expired during which time they must not conuerse with any and of these were made their Priests and coniurers This Sacrifice they held to be so necessarie that if they should omit it their Oke or Diuell and their other Quiyoughcosughes or gods would let them haue no Deere Turkies Corne or Fish and who would besides make a great slaughter amongst them They thinke that their Werowances and Priests which they also esteeme Quiyoughcosughes when they are dead doe goe beyond the Mountaines towards the setting of the Sunne and euer remaine there in forme of their Oke hauing their heads painted with Oyle and Pocones finely trimmed with feathers and shall haue Beades Hatchets Copper and Tobacco neuer ceasing to dance and sing with their Predecessors The common-people they suppose shall not liue after death Some sought to conuert them from these Superstitions the Werowance of Quiyoughcohanock was so farre perswaded as that he professed to beleeue that our God exceeded theirs as much as our Guns did their Bowes and Arrowes and many times did send to the President many presents entreating him to pray to his God for raine for his God would not send him any William White reporteth these their ceremonies of honouring the Sunne By breake of day before they eate or drinke the men women and children aboue ten yeeres old runne into the water and there wash a good space till the Sunne arise and then they offer sacrifice to it strewing Tobacco on the land or water the like they doe at Sun-set Hee also relateth that one George Casson before mentioned was sacrificed as they thought to the Diuell being stripped naked and bound to two stakes with his backe against a great fire then did they rip him and burne his bowels and dryed his flesh to the bones which they kept aboue-ground in a by-roome Many other of our men were cruelly and treacherously executed by them though perhaps not sacrificed and none had been left if their ambushes and treasons had taken effect Powhatan thus inuited Captaine Ratliffe and thirty others to trade for corne and hauing brought them within his ambush murthered them Alexander Whitaker saith That their Priests whom they call Quiokosoughs are Witches of whom the people stand in great awe The manner of their life is Heremite-fashion in woods in houses sequestred from the common course of men where none may come or speake with them vncalled They take no care for victuals for all such necessaries are set in a place neere his Cottage for his vse If they would haue raine or haue lost any thing he at their request coniureth and often preuaileth He is their Physician if they bee sicke and sucketh their wounds At his word they make warre and peace and doe nothing of moment without him Master Rolph affirmes that these Priests liue not solitarily and in other things is of another opinion which perhaps our former Author at his first comming might haue by relation of others The Wirowance of Acawmacke told our men of a strange accident two children being dead and buried being reuiewed by the parents seemed to haue liuely and cheerefull countenances which caused many to behold them and none of the beholders escaped death §. III. Of the Sasquesahanockes with other and later obseruations of the Virginian Rites THe Sasquesahanockes are a Gyantly people strange in proportion behauiour and attire their voice sounding from them as out of a Caue their attire of Beares skins hanged with Beares pawes the head of a Wolfe and such like iewels and if any would haue a spoone to eate with the Diuell their Tobacco pipes were three quarters of a yard long carued at the great end with a Bird Beare or other deuice sufficient to beat out the braines of a Horse and how many Asses braines are beaten out or rather mens braines smoaked out and Asses haled in by our lesse Pipes at home the rest of their furniture was sutable The calfe of one of their legges was measured three quarters of a yard about the rest of his limbes proportionable With much adoe restrained they this people from worshipping our men And when our men prayed according to their dayly custome and sung a Psalme they much wondered and after began in most passionate manner to hold vp their hands to the Sunne with a Song then embracing the Captaine they began to adore him in like manner and so proceeded notwithstanding his rebuking them till their song was ended which done one with a most strange action and vncomely voice began an Oration of their loues That ended with a great painted Beares skinne they couered the Captaine another hung about his necke a chaine of white Beades Others laid eighteene Mantles at his feet with many other ceremonies to create him their Gouernour that hee might defend them against the Massa-womekes their enemies As these are very great so the Weighcocomocoes are very little I may also heere insert the ridiculous conceits which some Virginians hold concerning their first originall as I haue heard from the relation of an English Youth which liued long amongst the Sauages that a Hare came into their Countrey and made the first men and after preserued them
Medowes Fish and other things all very white which were the signes their God had giuen them of their promised Land In the night following Vitzliputzli appeared in a dreame to an ancient Priest saying That they should goe seeke out a Tunall in the Lake which grew out of a stone vpon which they should see an Eagle feeding on small Birds which they should hold for the place where their City should be built to become famous through the world Hereupon the next day they all assembled and diuiding themselues into bands made that search with great diligence and deuotion In their search they met with the former Water-course not white as it was then but red like bloud diuiding it selfe into two streames one of which was an obscure Azure At last they espied the Eagle with wings displayed toward the Sunne compassed about with many rich feathers of diuers colours and holding in his Tallons a goodly Bird. At this sight they fell on their knees and worshipped the Eagle with great demonstrations of ioy and thankes to Vitzliputzli For this cause they called the Citie which there they founded Tenoxtiltan which signifies Tunal on a stone and till this day carry in their Armes an Eagle vpon a Tunal with a bird in his Tallon The next day following by common consent they made an Heremitage adioyning to the Tunal of the Eagle that the Arke of their God might rest there till they might haue meanes to build him a sumptuous Temple This they made of Flagges and Turfes couered with Straw Afterwards they consulted to buy of their neighbours Stone Timber Lime in exchange of Fish Fowles Frogges and other things which they hunted for in the Lake by which meanes they procuring necessaries built a Chappell of Lime and Stone and laboured to fill vp part of the Lake with rubbish The Idoll commanded that they should diuide themselues into foure principall quarters about this house and each part build therein to which he enioyned certaine Gods to his appointment called Calpultecco which is Quarter Gods This was the beginning of Mexico §. II. The Historie of eight of their first Kings THis diuision seemed not equall to some of the Ancients who valued their deserts farre aboue their allotted portion who therefore separated themselues and went to Tlatedulco whose practices against the Mexicans caused them to chuse a King to which Soueraigntie was chosed Acamapitzli Nephew to the King of Culhuacan and of the Mexican bloud by the Fathers side Him by Embassage they demanded and obtained in the name of their God with this answere from the King of Culhuacan Let my Grand-child goe to serue your God and be his Lieutenant to rule and gouerne his Creatures by whom we liue who is the Lord of Night Day and Windes Let him goe and bee Lord of the Water and Land and possesse the Mexican Nations c. Hee was solemnely welcommed by the Mexicans welcome thou art saith an Orator vnto him in their name to this poore House and City amongst the Weedes and Mud where thy poore Fathers Grand-fathers and Kinsfolkes endure what it pleaseth the Lord of things created Remember Lord thou commest to bee our defence and to bee the resemblance of Vitzliputzli not to rest thy selfe but to endure a new charge with many words to that effect expressed in the Mexican Histories reserued by tradition the children to that end learning them by heart and these being as Presidents to them which learned the Art Oratorie After this they were sworne and hee crowned The Crowne was like that of the Dukes of Venice His name Acamapitzly signifieth a handfull of Reedes and therefore they carrie in their Armories a hand holding many Arrowes of Reedes The Mexicans at this time were tributaries to the Tapanecans whose chiefe Citie was Azcapuzalco who iudging according to the nature of Enuie and Suspition that they were so much weaker how much the stronger they saw their neighbours thought to oppresse them by a strange policie in imposing an vncouth and in shew impossible tribute which was that they should bring the Tapunecan King a Garden planted and growing in the water In this their distresse Vitzliputzli taught them to doe it by casting earth vpon Reedes and Grasse laid in the Lake and planting in this mouing Garden Maiz Figs Gourds and other things which at the time appointed they carried growing and ripe a thing often since proued in that Lake emulous no lesse of that glorie to be accounted one of the Wonders in that New World then those pensill Gardens towred vp in the Ayre at Babylon both heere and there the reason of Man according to his naturall priuiledge subiecting to his vse the most rebellious Elements of Ayre and Water Acamapitzli the Mexican King after he had raigned fortie yeeres dyed leauing it to their choice to chuse his Successor They chose his Sonne Vitzilovitli which signifieth a rich Feather they anointed him with an Oyntment which they call Diuine being the same wherewith they anointed their Idoll Of their Coronation thus Lopez de Gomara saith that this was done by the High Priest attired in his Pontificalibus attended with many others in Surplices the Oyntment was as blacke as Inke They blessed him and sprinkled him foure times with Holy-Water made at the time of the Consecration of their God Then they put vpon his head a Cloth painted with the bones and skuls of dead men clothed him with a blacke garment and vpon that a blue both painted with figures of skuls and bones Then did they hang on him Laces and bottles of Powders whereby he was deliuered from diseases and Witchcrafts Then did he offer Incense to Vitzliputzli and the High Priest tooke his Oath for the maintenance of their Religion to maintayne Iustice and the Lawes to cause the Sunne to giue his light and the Clouds to raine and the earth to be fruitfull c Lastly followed the acclamations of the people crying God saue the King with dances c. He being crowned and hauing receiued homage of his Subiects obtained the King of Azcapuzalco his daughter to wife by whom he had a sonne called Chimalpopoca and procured a relaxation of Tribute from his father in Law Hee was deuout in his Superstitions hauing raigned thirteene yeeres he dyed His son then but ten yeeres old was chosen in his roome but was soone after slaine by the Inhabitants of Azcapuzalco The Mexicans inraged with this iniury assembled themselues and an Orator among many other words tels them That the Sunne is eclipsed and darkened for a time but will returne suddenly in the choice of another King They agreed vpon Izcoalt which signifieth a Snake of Rsors the sonne of Acamapixtli their first King The common people were earnest with this new King for peace with the Tapanecans for the obtaining whereof they would carry their God in his Litter for an intercessor This was hindered by Tlacaellec the Kings Nephew a resolute and valiant
and the Piaces their Masters goe to them by night to teach them When this time of their solitary discipline is past they obtaine a testimoniall thereof and begin to professe in practice of Physick and Diuination Let vs bury the Cumanois and then we haue done Being dead they sing their praises and bury them in their houses or dry them at the fire and hang them vp At the yeeres end if he were a great man they renue the lamentation and after many other ceremonies burne the bones and giue to his best beloued wife his skull to keepe for a Relique They beleeue that the Soule is immortall but that it eateth and drinketh about in the fields where it goeth and that it is the Eccho which answereth when one calleth §. III. Of Trinidado and Paria IN the yeere 1497. some adde a yeere more Christopher Columbus seeking new Discoueries after the suffering of vnsufferable heats and calmes at Sea whereby the hoopes of his vessels brake and the fresh-water not able further to endure the hot indignation of that now-beleeued Burning-Zone fled out of those close prisons into the lap of that Father of waters the Ocean for refuge he came at last to Trinidado The first Land he incountred he called by that name either for deuotion now that his other hopes were dried vp with the heat or washed into the Sea by the violent showres aboue-boord and the lesse but not lesse dangerous which flowed from his Caske within or else for the three Mountaines which he there descried Once this discouery of Land so rauished his spirit by the inexpected deliuery from danger as easily carried his impotent thoughts into a double errour the one in placing earthly Paradise in this Iland to which opinion for the excellency of the Tobacco there found hee should happily haue the smokie subscriptions of many Humorists to whom that fume becomes a fooles Paradise which with their braines and all passeth away in smoke the other was that the Earth was not round like a Ball but like a Peare the vpper swelling whereof he esteemed these parts Hence Columbus sailed to Paria and found out the Pearle-fishing of which Petrus Alphonsus a little after made great commoditie by trade with the Sauages He was assailed with eighteene Canoas of Canibals one of which he tooke with one Caniball and a bound Captiue who with teares shewed them that they had eaten sixe of his fellowes and the next day he must haue gone to pot too to him they gaue power ouer his Iaylor who with his owne club killed him still laying on when his braines and guts came forth and testified that hee needed not further feare him In Haraia or Paria they found plenty of salt which the Fore-man in Natures shop and her chiefe worke-man the Sunne turned and kerned from water into salt his worke-house for this businesse was a large plaine by the waters-side Here the Sepulchres of their Kings and great men seemed not lesse remarkable they laid the body on a kinde of hurdle or grediron of wood vnder which they kindled a gentle fire whereby keeping the skinne whole they by little and little consumed the flesh These dried carkasses they held in great reuerence and honoured for their houshold Gods In the yeere 1499. Vincent Pinzon discouered Cape Saint Augustine and sailed along the coast from thence to Paria But why stand we here pedling on the coast for Pearles Salt and Tobacco Let vs rouze vp higher spirits and follow our English guides for Guiana Onely let me first haue leaue to mention concerning the Superstitions of these parts Northward from Guiana what it pleased Sir Walter Raleigh to impart vnto mee from the Relation of a very vnderstanding man of that Countrey whom he vsed for an interpreter These people worship the Sunne whom they imagine as the fabulous Grecians tell of his Charet and horses wherewith yong Phacton sometime set the World on fire to be drawne into a Chariot by Tigres which are the most fierie and fierce beasts amongst them In honour therefore of the Sunne and for sustenance of his Chariot-beasts they carefully wash the carkasses of their dead and lay them forth in the night for repast vnto the Tigres wearied with their long and late iourney in the day For so they beleeue that after Sun-set these beasts are to this end dismissed from their labour and that vicissitude wherein Dauid obserueth the wisedome of diuine prouidence that when it is night the wild beasts goe forth to seeke their prey which when the Sunne ariseth and calleth men forth of their houses to labour returne to their Dens is blindly by them applyed to this their superstition They likewise haue a Tradition amongst them that their Ancestors in times past neglecting thus to prepare the corpses of such as died for the Tigres diet or not washing them so neatly as behoued the Tigres made hereof a complaint to the Sunne as not able to doe his worke if not allowed their wonted cates whereupon the Sun sent one amongst them brandishing a terrible fierie sword and so dreadfully assaulting the places of their habitations and the soyle couered with long grasse that all fell on fire and an hundred thousand of the Inhabitants were destroyed a terrible warning hereafter to bee more diligent in these Tigre-deuotions which accordingly they performe to this day CHAP III. Of Guiana and the Neighbouring Nations on the Coast and within the Land §. I. Discouerie of Guiana by Sir WALTER RALEIGH IN the yeere 1595. Sir Walter Raleigh hauing before receiued Intelligence of this rich and mighty Empire set forth for the Discouery and on the two and twentieth of March anchored at Point Curiapan in Trinidado and searched that Iland which he found plentifull Hee tooke the Citie of Saint Ioseph and therein Antonie Berreo the Spanish Gouernour Leauing his ships hee went with an hundred men in Boats and a little Galley and with some Indian Pylots passed along that admirable confluence of Riuers as by the Corps du Guard vnto Orenoque as great a Commander of Riuers as the Emperour of Guiana of Souldiers And although wee haue before mentioned somewhat thereof yet this his peculiar place requireth some further consideration This Riuer Orenoque or Baraquan since of this Discouerie called Raleana runneth from Quito in Peru on the West it hath nine branches which fall out on the North side of his owne maine mouth on the South side seuen Thus many Armes hath this Giant-like streame to be his Purueyers which are alway filling his neuer-filled mouth seeming by this their naturall officiousnesse incorporate thereunto and to bee but wider gapings of the same spacious iawes with many Ilands and broken grounds as it were so many morsels and crummes in his greedy Chaps still opening for more though he cannot euen in Winter when his throat is glibbest altogether swallow these yea these force him for feare of choking to yawne his
in water thicke and white the next day in fresh and the day after saw two Islands in the mouth of Amazones accounting themselues fortie Leagues vp the Riuer May 22. they were in the Riuer of Wiapogo which they called Caroleigh in three degrees and halfe Northward from the Line The people were ready to giue them entertainment The Iayos and Capayos offered them their owne houses and gardens already planted two of which he accepted with some gardens vndertaking to defend them against the Charibes and their other enemies They desired him to send into England for some to teach them to pray and gaue fiue pledges to be sent thither He after intending for England dyed aboord his ship of the Flux They intoxicate the fish with a strong sentedwood called Ayaw whereby they easily take them on the top of the water Their bread is Cassaui of which chewed they also make drinke They are much troubled with a Worme like a Flea the Spaniards call it Niguas which creepes into the flesh of their toes vnder the nailes and multiply there with much multiplication of torment except they vse speedie preuention One was so pestred with them that for remedie they were faine to hold his feet vpwards and powre thereon melted Wax hot which being cold they plucked off and therewith seuen or eight hundred Niguas The people are of modest countenance naked but would weare clothes if they had them Huntly returned for England and left there fiue and thirtie which should haue bin succoured it Discord had suffered Anno 1605. a ship was sent for supply but the Mariners and Land-men quarelling these were left on Land at Saint Lucia an Island in twelue degrees of Northerly Latitude to the number of threescore and seuen and most of them slaine a by the Ilanders These Indians go naked haue long blacke haire their bodies painted red with three strokes also of red from the eare to the eye Eleuen of our men after much miserie and famishment which killed some of them in the way got to Coro and after good and bad entercourse of fortunes with the Spaniards some returned home The Spaniards there as Iohn Nichol one of this companie testifieth told them of a Vision of Christ on the Crosse appearing to our King and reuoking him from his error at the sight whereof three of our Bishops fell into a trance and so continued three dayes after which they became Catholikes and preached and the King had sent to the Pope for learned men to perfect this Conuersion These were the Spanish tricks with faithlesse tales to peruert these men to their faith The Mariners gaue names to the places which they left according to their conceits of these men Rogues Bay Cape Knaue Riuer of Rascals They came as farre as Comana or Cumana where they obserued the weather hot till noone and then a coole breeze and thunder without raine by windes and current they were detained from Wiapogo which they sought A Fleming there told them fabulous rumours of Warres with Spaine Another ship of Amsterdam to disgrace our men told the Indians of Wiapoco that they came to inhabit there and to oppresse them as the Spaniards did See what gaine can doe without godlinesse A ship of Middleburgh came thither with Negros to sell thither came also a ship of Saint Malos The Indians of these parts as Wilson reporteth choose their Captaines at their drunken Feasts in this sort They set the nominated person in the midst with his hands lifted ouer his head making Orations to him to bee valiant after which they whip him with a whip that fetcheth bloud at euery stroke for tryall of his courage he neuer mouing thereat They haue commerce with the Deuill For they told vs of three ships in the Riuer of Amazons and that One two moneths after would visit vs They call this Deuill Peyae with whom the men haue often conference the women neuer that they could perceiue they suffer not meane-while a childe in the house When any bee sicke they thus consult of their recouerie and if their Oracle answer death they will giue no Physicke if life they vse their best helpes For an Axe they would trauell with them two or three moneths or finde them so long victuals at home The Iayos are proud ingenious giuen to flouting The Arwakos of better carriage The Saspayes craftie The two former hate the Spaniards as much as the Caribes Their houses haue doores at each end the men keepe at one end the women at the other they are like Barnes but longer some hundred and fiftie paces long and twentie broad an hundred of them keepe together in one No raine commeth in notwithstanding that store which falleth in Aprill May Iune and most of Iuly They paint them when they goe to feasts Against the time of trauell the women haue as roome apart whereto they goe alone and are deliuered without helpe which done shee cals her husband and deliuers it to him who presently washeth it in a pot of water and paints it with sundry colours I could not heare saith Wilson the woman so much as grone all the time of her trauell When one dyes they make great moane ten or twelue dayes together and sometimes longer Here are store of Deere Hares Conies Hogs Monkeyes Leopards Lyons Porke-pines Parrots as big as Hennes blue and red very beautifull c. He returned with the rest in a ship of Amsterdam the Indians being loth to part with them They often inquired of Sir Walter Raleigh and one came from Orenoque to aske of him alledging his promise of returne The like remembrances of him are mentioned by Master Harcourt in his late published Voyage to Guiana This worthy Gentleman An. 1608. with Gentlemen and others to the number of 97. set forth for Wiapoco The ninth of May they fell into the Current of that great and famous Riuer of Amazones of which they drunke fresh and good being 30. leagues from Land the tenth day the water became muddy whitish and thicke the eleuenth day they made Land and their Pinnace being left dry vpon the Ebbe by the next floud comming on was almost spoyled Thence they stood along the Coast to Wiapoco whither they came May the seuenteenth and setled themselues at Caripo Hee tooke possession in his Maiesties name as Captaine Leigh had also done of this spacious Countrey of Guiana bounded on the North with Orenoque and the Sea on the East and South with the Riuer of Amazones on the West with the Mountaines of Peru The Charibes are the Ancient Inhabitants the Other later Incrochers There is no setled gouernment amongst them only they acknowledge a superioritie which they will obey as long as they please They commonly punish Murther Adulterie by death which are the only offences punished amongst them and certaine persons are appointed to execute those punishments The better sort haue two or three wiues or more the rest but one
at mans estate they cut bigger with a Cane and weare therein a greene stone otherwise they esteeme a man no Gallant but a Pesant They haue no Religion vse Polygamie but the women are tied to one husband except hee giue her publike leaue When they goe to warre the wiues carrie all the prouision That wife whom hee giueth his hunted prey is his bed-fellow that night and she goeth to the water and washeth her selfe after which she lyeth downe in the net and commandeth all the rest to attend on her for that day When they are in trauell they goe to the doore and being deliuered the father lyeth downe and is visited as before is said No Indian will kill any female creature whiles his wife is with childe thinking that would be the death of his childe They trauell with great store of Tobacco and haue continually a leafe thereof along the mouth betweene the lip and teeth the rheume running out at the lip-hole They war against the Portugals and all others eating all and take so many new names as prisoners They thinke mans flesh makes them valiant Their houses are two hundred yards long without partition they hang their nets on beames wash euery morning both men women and children they part their grounds They haue Serpents amongst them with bodies like trees which strike two fins out of their fore-quarters that kill whatsoeuer they call them d Iaboya They haue foure legs and a taile like an Aligator or Crocodile which they hide when they lye in the woods for their prey They haue Monkies as big as a water-dog faced like a man with long broad beards which goe twentie together on a tree and one of them will alway walke vp and downe with his hand on his beard making a great noyse the rest harkening still an houres space The Maraquites are betweene Fernambuc and Baya other Indians call them Tapoyes that is wilde men which name all but these and the Vaanasses which are like them account a disgrace The men are of good stature the women very proper and fight with their bowes as well as the men They haue no dwelling Religion nor friendship with any Nation yet he left them in peace with the Portugals They haue holes in their lips but carue not their bodies vse Polygamie are swift neuer come into the field to fight but keepe in the Mountaines they eate mans flesh without ceremonies The Topimambazes inhabite from R. de S. Franc. to Baya de todos Sanctos they are and speake like the Petowares but the women are of better complexion The men let their beards grow long From Baya to Eleoos are the Waymoores men of great stature and swift as a Horse fiue or sixe of them will set on a Sugar-house with an hundred therein I haue seene one saith our Author take a man aliue and defend himselfe with this his prisoner as it were with a Target They haue long haire are without Townes or Houses and care not where they come presuming of their swiftnesse They are greedie Man-eaters and are alwaies foule with durt and dust by lying on the ground and ashes Iarric writes that they are without Gouernours euery one doing what seemes good in his owne eyes only he is accounted most Noble that hath slaine most enemies with whom for any of them to speake is punished with death They roue vp and downe in vncertaine dwellings and therefore cannot by warre be conquered This wandring is common to many of these Brasilian Saluages The Tomomymenos dwell at Spirito Sancto haue settled Townes with great stones set about like pales of a good height and within walls of clay and stone they make the sides of their houses with loope-holss to shoot out at They deck their bodies with feathers and paint themselues blacke and red One of these tooke the Portugall Captaine Martin de Sa and in spite of all his company carried him a stones cast and threw him into a Riuer but hee was rescued by Petummyen another Sauage The Portugals tooke sixteene thousand slew the tenth parf and parted the rest destroying the Country downe the Riuer Paraeyua The Waytaquazes dwell on the North and South sides of Cape Frio They are of greater stature then the Waymoores we took thirteene of them and whiles we searched for more they burnt their cords from their hands and fled Their women warre with bowes and arrowes They lye on the ground like Hogs with a fire in the midst hold no peace with any but eate all they can get Heere the mountaines were full of Crablice which sticked so fast on their skins that they were faine to take dry straw to singe themselues Abausanga-retam was Captaine of a kinde of Tamoyes an hundred and twenty yeeres old which being taken ranne amongst the enemies where being shot in one and twenty places he fell then desired Baptisme after which within foure houres he died his haughtie courage could not brooke captiuitie The Wayanasses keepe at Ila Grande they are low great bellied cowards not carued glory not to eate mans flesh the Women vgly with bigge bodies and are well faced painted red with Vrucu which growes in a cod like a Beane the crownes of both Sexes are shauen like Friers the rest of their haire long The Topinaques haue their dwelling at Saint Vincents are of good stature and complexion the women painted with diuers colours eate mans flesh adore nothing onely when they kill a man paint themselues with a fruit called Ianipano and with feathers on their heads great stones in their lips Rattles in their hands dance three dayes together drinking a filthy liquor whereto they said Tobacco made them fresh Among them is great store of Gold in many hils by the Sea The Pories dwell an hundred miles within Land are low like the Wayanasses liue on Pine-nuts and small Cocos as big as Apples with shels like Wall-nuts but harder they call them Eyrires they warre with none eate not mans flesh if they haue other meat lye in nets of barke haue no houses but two or three boughs tyed together couered with Palme-leaues for a knife or combe they will giue fiue or sixe gallons of Balsame-oyle The Molopaques inhabite heere the Riuer Paradiua are like Dutchmen in bignesse faire of complexion bearded ciuill couer their priuities their Towns circled with wals of earth and great logges haue a King called Moriuishann which had thirteene wiues They haue store of Gold which they esteeme not nor vse it but to tye on their fishing lines this is in the Riuer Para fourescore leagues beyond Paraeyua They take none but what the rayne washeth from the Mountaines which are of blacke earth without Trees The Women are goodly and faire like English women modest neuer seene to laugh and of good capacitie They tye their haire about their middle with barke and couer therewith their nakednesse their haire also is of diuers colours and
his Pinnasse left him in forty seuen The Ro-bucke kept with him to thirtie sixe Captaine Barker transgressing his directions was slaine with fiue and twenty men on Land and the Boat lost and soone after 25. others followed the like fortunes ten others by the cowardise of the Master of the Ro-bucke forsaken at Spirito Sancto which stole away with sixe monethes victuals for an hundred and twenty persons they being but forty sixe At Sebastians happened another mutinie by treacherie of an Irish man here Master Kniuet and other sicke persons were set on shore Intending againe for the Straits he beate and was beaten vp and downe the frowning Seas and came within two leagues of Saint Helena but could not attaine it and professeth he had rather haue put himselfe on an Iland if hee could not attaine it and professeth hee had rather haue put himselfe on an Iland if he could haue found one which the Charts place in eight degrees then returne and now was scarce able to hold a Pen when he wrote this Hee dyed homewards Since that Sir Richard Hawkins passed the Straits into the South Sea of which his Voyage I haue read a long Discourse written by himselfe Hee fell into the hands of the Spaniards which tooke him in the South Sea Let me adde this touching these Straits that possession thereof was formally taken by turfe and twigge after the English manner in the first Voyage Captaine Drake deliuering the said seisin to Captaine Winter in the name of Queene Elizabeth and her Successors This did Captaine Winter himselfe relate to me at Bathe in the presence of many desiring to haue it published this last September 1618. forty yeeres after the performance with many other particulars of that his Voyage CHAP. VII Of Terra Australis and Chili AS for the Land on the Southerne side of the Straits it is called the Land of Fire either because the Discouerers saw fire thereabouts or because that cold Climate so much needeth fire More Easterly against the Cape of Good Hope is the Land Terra di Vista This Land about the Straits is not perfectly discouered whether it be Continent or Ilands Some take it for Continent and extend it more in their imagination then any mans experience towards those Ilands of Salomon and New Guinnee esteeming of which there is great probabilitie that Terra Australis or the Southerne Continent may for the largenesse thereof take vp a fift place in order and the first in greatnesse in the diuision and parting of the whole World Master Brerewood our Learned Countriman as is before obserued perswadeth himselfe that it is as large as the Easterne Continent which containeth Europe Africa and Asia altogether His reasons are that touching latitude it is knowne to approch neere if not on this side the Aequator and touching Longitude to runne along in a continuall circuit about the Earth fronting both the other Continents Another reason which he deemeth of more certaine importance is this that the Land to the North side of the Line in the other Continents of the Old and New World is at least foure times as large as that part of them which lyeth to the South Now for as much as the face of the Sea is leuell so hee argueth being therefore called Aequor Aqua and secondly the Earth beeing equally poysed on both sides of her owne Centre and thirdly this Centre being but one to the Water and the Earth euen no other then the Centre of the World it followeth thereupon that the Earth should in answerable measure and proportion lift it selfe and appeare aboue the face of the Sea on the South side of the Line as it doth on the North. And consequently that what is wanting in the South parts of the other Continents towards the counteruailing of the North parts which is about three fiue parts of both the other Continents layed together must of necessitie be supplyed in this Continent of the South Lopez Vaz writeth That the Gouernours which the King of Spaine sendeth for Peru and New Spaine haue a custome to discouer new Countries The Licentiate Castro being Gouernour of Peru sent forth a Fleet from Lima which sayling 800. leagues Westward found certaine Ilands in 11. degrees to the South of the Equinoctiall with a kind of people of yellowish complexion and all naked Heere they found Hogs Dogges Hens Cloues Ginger Cinamon and some Gold The first Iland they named Izabella the greatest Guadalcanal on the Coast whereof they sayled 150. leagues where they tooke a Towne and some graines of Gold hanged vp in the Houses They burnt their Towne because they had in a sudden surprize killed fourteene of their men They spent fourteene moneths in this Discouery and named them the Ilands of Salomon that by that name men might bee further induced to discouer and inhabit them imagining that Salomon had his Gold from thence Noua Guinea was discouered by Villalobos sent from New Spaine in the yeere 1543. going to discouer the Moluccas Herera saith it was discouered by Aluaro of Saauedra Anno 1527. and the Ilands of Salomon in the yeere 1567. by Lope Garcia of Castro which are many and great but eighteene principall some of them 300. leagues in compasse two of 200. others of 100. and of fifty and lesse the Inhabitants some blacke some white some browne the greatest named Saint Isabel 150. leagues in length and eighteene in breadth Saint Nicholas 150. leagues in compasse The Inhabitants are blacke of hue and wittie The Spaniards haue coasted it 700. leagues and yet cannot tell whether it bee an I le or Continent Hesselius Gerardus hath largely set forth the Petition or Memoriall of Peter Ferdinandez de Quir vnto the King of Spaine about his discouery of those Southerne vnknowne Ilands for the Plantation of the same I haue since seen this his Supplication to the King in Spanish with other memorials thereof wherein he saith that hee was sent with two ships to discouer the Ilands of Salomon and taking his course about the height of the Magellan Straits discouered a mayne Land and sayled eight hundred Leagues on the Coast till hee came in fifteene degrees Southward from the Line where he found a fruitfull Countrey He discouered a Bay into which fall two great Riuers where they purpose to settle a Plantation Order was taken that he should presently be sent from Peru with commission to take vp 1200. men with shipping and other necessaries and as many the yeere after out of New Spaine He found out three and twenty Ilands 230. leagues from Mexico Taumaco Chicayma where are great Oysters with Pearles Guaytopo the people whereof are as white as the Spaniards Tucopio Fonofono c. They pray to the Deuill which hath conference with an Indian vnseene from a piece of wood and to him and all the rest many times by night he toucheth the face and brest with cold touches but they could neuer learne what he was
a great Banquet for him brought in the last seruice which was a Cup full of molten Gold which they forced him to drinke saying Now glut thy selfe with Gold This Baldiuia had entred Chili with foure hundred Horse and easily conquered that part which had beene subiect to the Kings of Peru but the other which was the richer part held out The Spaniards sent them word they were the Sonnes of God and came to teach them the Word of God and if they would not yeeld to them they would shoote fire among them The Indians would try this argument in the field and there the great Ordnance so well pleaded the cause that they beleeued and subiected themselues The Spaniards imployed them in the Mynes whence they gathered such plenty of Gold that others had twenty thousand but Baldiuia himselfe had three hundred thousand Pezos by the yeere The Indians after perceiuing the Spaniards to be but mortall men rebelled and whereas they had vsed to carry grasse into the Fort for the Spaniards Horses they conueyed in the same Weapons by which meanes being assisted by their fellowes without they wonne the Forts and when Baldiuia would haue recouered it he lost himselfe as you haue heard Euer since this hostility hath continued and the Araucans are the Lists and Barres to the Spanish Conquests Their Countrey to consider Arauco by it selfe is but small about twenty leagues in length neither could the Inguas or Kings of Peru conquer it their manner of Warre is much like the Christians in pitched Battels placing their Bowmen among their rankes of Pikemen To speake of other Townes which the Spaniards haue built in this Coast is not our purpose When they sacked Baldiuia Anno 1599. they feasted the Spaniards with the like golden Cups powred hot downe their throats they cut off the Images heads triumphing ouer the Spaniards Gods as they termed them They were then at the siege of Imperiall another Spanish Citie hauing before taken Baldiuia They plucke out the hearts of the Spaniards which they kill and drinke in their skuls Lately the Hollanders haue not only taken the Bay and Towne of All Saints on the Easterne shore of Brasil but are also reported to haue done much harme to the Spaniards in Peru the particulars whereof partly I haue expressed in the second part of my Pilgrimes after the Relation of the Amboyna Tragedy partly haue left to more full discouery by Time the Mother of Truth Likewise since the last Edition of this Worke that Expedition of Mayre and Schouten round about the Globe hath beene published and in the second Booke of my Pilgrimes is extant in which the Coasts of Terra Australis are best notified But let mee giue the Reader warning that Sir Francis Drake had discouered those Straits in 57. being forced by tempest out of the South Sea thorow them and named that Elizabeths Iland in Anno 1578. which these Hollanders called Barneuelts as in an old Map in his Maiesties priuy Gallery dedicated to Queene Elizabeth is yet to be seene CHAP VIII Of the Conquest of Peru by the Spaniards and of their Ingua's or Emperours §. I. Of PIZARRO his Discouery and taking the King of Peru FRancis Pizarro was the Bastard sonne of Gonzallo a Captaine in the Kingdome of Nauarre he was borne at Trusiglio and exposed at the Church doore and none being found that would giue him the brest he was nourished by sucking a Sow for certaine dayes at last his Father acknowledged him and when hee was growne set him to keepe his Swine which being one day strayed and lost hee durst not returne home for feare and therefore went to Siuill and thence passed to the Indies In this Swinish education hee had not so much as learned to reade Hee went to Vraua with Alonso de Hoieda with Valuoa to the Discouery of the South Sea and with Pedrarius de Auila Gouernour of Golden Castile to Panama In this Citie were diuers which affâ—cted Golden Discoueries Pedrarius intended Nicaragua but Diego di Almagro Hernando Luche or Luques a rich Priest and this Pizarro now growne rich agreed to ioyne their Purses and best industry to search Southwards where they had heard was store of wealth They prouided a Nauie and two hundred and twenty Souldiers and Almagro with Pizarro in the yeere 1525. or as Benzo hath it 1526. set forward Almagro and he parting company Pizarro offering to land his men was wounded and forced to retire to Panama Almagro in another place had better successe the Indians vsing him kindly and giuing him three thousand Ducats of Gold But seeking to land in that place of Pizarro's misfortune hee was set vpon by the Indians and lost in fight one of his eyes They meet at Panama and hauing cured their wounds repaire their forces and with two hundred men and many slaues set sayle and land in another place but a re repelled to their ships by the Inhabitants and goe to Gorgon a little Iland sixe miles from the Continent where Pizarro stayed whiles Almagro went backe for better supply At his returne Pizarro and his company were almost starued but being refreshed and all of them now together attempting the Indian shore were repelled with losse to the I le which they called Galli Almagro is againe sent backe for new aide the Souldiers would haue passed with him and cursed this Land and their Couetousnesse Pizarro and his Company agree to search further and hauing sayled fiue hundred miles came to Chira a Prouince of Peru and taking some of the Inhabitants to learne them the Spanish Tongue returned to Tumbez Hauing learned of the Indians the great wealth of those parts he set one Peter a Candian on shore who was kindly entertayned of the Gouernour that shewed him a Temple dedicated to the Sunne wherein were vnspeakable riches which when he related to Pizarro at his returne the Spaniards goe backe with these newes to Panama His two fellowes Almagro and the Priest called after the Foole because he had spent his estate on this businesse and at last was excluded by his companions agreed with Pizarro to goe to Spaine to get license for this Conquest and borrowed one thousand and fiue hundred Ducats to set him forth Pizarro seekes and obtaynes this Facultie onely for himselfe neuer mentioning his Partners and with Letters Patents returneth to Panama with his foure Brethren Hernando Gonzalo Iohn and Martin di Alcantara his Brother by the Mothers side His two Partners were not a little grieued when they heard how things passed but after much stirre Almagro and Pizarro became friends and agreed to communicate Purses and Titles Pizarro goes before with a hundred and fiftie Souldiers taking order that Almagro should follow with all the strength he could make and Lands in Peru a Riuer so called which gaue name to those mighty and rich Prouinces because the Spaniards by this way discouered them They went by land enduring much misery by the way to Coach
where I with others saw him and he espying me called vpon Christ They threw him into a Dungeon where hee miserably ended his life He had liued in pompe and beene Authour of much mischiefe had conuayed much treasure out of the Countrey by way of England to Wesell in Westphalia where hee was borne though brought vp in Cambridge an Enemy alway to our Nation Hee had deluded the Emperour with tales of Queene Elizabeths youth and hopes by his Calculations of obtayning her But the Emperour out of hope hereof heard that there was a young Lady of the bloud Royall the Lady Mary Hastings daughter to the Earle of Huntington whom he now affected The Bishop of Nouogrod was condemned of coyning and sending money to Swethen and Poland of keeping Witches buggering Boyes and Beasts confederating with Bomelius c. All his goods were confiscated and himselfe throwne into a Dungeon with Irons on his head and legges where he made painted Images Combes and Beads liued with bread and water Eleuen of his confederate Seruants were hanged in his Palace gate at Mosco and his women Witches shamefully dismembred and burnt The Emperour passed ouer those which had beene accused and now consulted about marrying his second Sonne Chariwich Theodor being of great simplicitie the eldest hauing no issue But hauing his Prelates and Nobles together could not but euaporate some of his conceits from the former confessions of their Treasons being Ascension day on which before Musco had beene burned He spent some houres in Rhetoricall enlarging the dismalnesse of that day with great eloquence darting still with his eye at many Confederates in the late Conspiracie protesting to leaue them a naked disloyall and distressed people and a reproch to all Nations of the World The Enemies are at hand God and his prodigious creatures in the Heauens fight against vs Scarcity and Famine witnesse it and yet no Iudgements moue remorse in you The Originall is too long to recite Little was done but all prostrating themselues to his Maiesty and mercy desired God to blesse his holy purpose for the marriage of his Sonne for whom he chose Irenia daughter of Theodor Iuanowich Godonoue and after the solemnization of the marriage with great Feast dismissed the Nobles and Prelates with better words and countenance which was taken for a reconciliation But the Nuptials could not be performed by vsuall cohabitation which much distempered the King it is not decent to write the courses taken therein The Emperous Letters Instructions were ready himselfe his chiefe Secretarie Sauelly Frowlow whiles I was present closed them vp in one of the false sides of a woodden Bottle filled with Aquanitae to hang vnder my Horse-mayne not worth one penny appointed me foure hundred Hungarian Duckets in Gold to be sowed in my boots and quilted in some of my worst garments He said he forbare to tell me of some secrets of his peasure fearing left I passing thorow his Enemies Country might bee inforced to discouer what hee would not haue knowne The Bottle you carry with you shall declare what you shall say to Queene Elizabeth my louing Sister of which you must haue care as of your life vntill you come in safe place to open it In meane while and alway bee thou my sweet Sunshine Eremiska trusty and faithfull and thy reward shall be my goodnesse and grace from me hereafter I fell prostrate layd my head on his foot with a heauy heart to bee thus exposed to vnauoydable danger Doeafie Vlanon a Gentleman of good ranke and daily Wayter on the King attended me my Sled and Horse and twenty Seruants were ready at the posterne gate I posted that night to Otuer ninety miles where victuals and fresh Horses were prepared and so to Nouogrod and Plesco 600. miles in three dayes where entring into Liuonia my Gentleman and Seruants tooke their leaues and desired some token to the Emperour of my safe comming thither They left me with a poore guide only Within three houres after the Centinell tooke me vpon the borders and brought me to New house into the Castle before the State-holder or Lieutenant who straitly examined and searched me suspecting me as one comming from their enemies Country I said I was glad to come into their hands out of the vaile of misery the Moscouites Country not without losse On the third day vpon some mediation they appointed mee a Guide and suffered mee to passe The Guard expected gratuitie but I excused as pinched by the Russe I passed three dayes by Land and frozen Meares to Ossell in Liefland an Iland large and spacious vnder the King of Denmarke Raggamuffin Souldiers tooke me and vsed me roughly and carried me to Sowen Burgh and so to Orent Burgh the chiefe Townes and Castles in those parts and there deliuered me to the State-holders Lieutenant I attended his pleasure kept hardly as a Spie the Snakes creeping in my Lodging on Bed and board and Milke pans the soyle was such they did no harme I was called before the chiefe Gouernour a graue Gentleman in good fauour with the King many Halberds attending who examined me with many questions I answered I was a Subiect of the Queene of England who had peace with all Christian Kings specially with the King of Denmarke but was committed againe to custody whence hauing dismissed his company he sent for me againe by his Sonne and being priuate holding a Letter in his hand said I haue receiued sundry Letters from my friends and one of late from my daughter captiue in Mosco which sheweth of much friendship shee hath found at an English Gentlemans hand which negociates in that Court for the Queen of England My Lord said I is your daughter called Magdalen Vrkil yea Sir said he I answered I was the man that within these ten dayes she was well He sayd he could not procure her ransome and clasps me about the neck crying as did his Sonne likewise Gods Angell hath brought your goodnesse thus to me how euer disguised in this turbulent time that I might render you thankes and furtherance I desired free passe and safe conduct He feasted me ioyfully and made ready his Letters and Pasports to Captaines of Townes and Castles gaue mee a faire German striking Clocke offered his Sonne and Seruants armed to guard me out of danger which I could not accept of and commended his daughter to me I passed on to Pilton a strong Castle where King Magnus lay who vsed mee roughly because I could not drinke with him excessiuely Hee had riotously spent and giuen most of his Townes and Castles Iewels Plate c. to his followers and adopted daughters which hee receiued in Dowre with the Emperours Neece and not long after dyed miserably leauing his Queene and only daughter in very poore estate I roade thorow the Duke of Curlands Country and Prussia to Konninsburgh Meluin and Danzike in Polond Pomerania and Mickelburgh to Lubeck where I was
much of it is exported to Mocha and Arrecan and not a little drunke amongst themselues It is but weake yet sure more care in curing and making it vp would helpe that fault they onely dry the leaues in the Sun and vse it so without further sophistication These are the generall Commodities of this Countrey which are dispersed in some measure through the World but are best knowne in Indian Traffique and produce constantly certaine profit in their exportation to other parts to which purpose they build great Ships and good ones too considered in their burthen and materials but not comparable to ours for beautie conueniencie or defence some of them not lesse then 600. tunnes substantially built of very good timber and Iron whereof we haue had vpon some occasion good experience in careening the Globe Salomon and Clawe in the Riuer of Narsoporpeta With these their Ships they traffique ordinarily to Mocha in the Red Sea to Achijne vpon Sumatra to Arrecan Pegu and Tannassery on the other side the Gulfe and to many Ports alongst their owne Coasts as farre as Zeloan and the Cape Comorijne To Mocha they set sayle in Ianuary and returne in September or October following and thither the King sends yeerely a proportion of Rice as an Almes to be distributed amongst the Pilgrimes which resort to Mecha and Medina where their Prophet Mahomets Shrine is visited with much deuotion He sendeth also an Aduenture the proceed whereof is inuested in Arabian Horses which are returned not aboue sixe or eight in a Shippe whereof they make great account For in this Countrey there is no Race of good Horses Tobasco they send in great quantities many small Rocans to make Launces certaine sorts of Calicoes proper for Turbants Iron Steele Indico Beniamin and Gumme Lacke For which they returne some few watered Chamblets but the most part ready money in Sultannees or Rials of eight In September the Ships for Achijne Arrecan Pegu and Tannassery set all sayie for it is to be vnderstood that alongst this and all other Coasts of India the windes blow constantly trade sixe moneths one way and sixe moneths another which they call the Monsons alternately succeeding each other not missing to alter in Aprill and October onely variable towards their end so that taking the last of a Monson they set sayles and with a fore-winde arriue at their desired Hauen and there negotiating their Affaires they set sayle from thence in February or March following and with the like fauourable gale returne in Aprill vnto their owne Ports To Acheene they export much Steele and some Iron diuers sorts of Calicoes both white and painted and of late times when the Myne was first discouered store of Diamonds which were sold to great benefit from whence they returne Beniamin and Camphora of Barouse Pepper of Priaman and Tecoo Brimstone and all sorts of Porcellane and China Commodities if to be had to sell againe to profit To Arrecan they send store of Tobacco some Iron and few sorts of painted clothes and returne from thence some Gold and Gumme Lacke but most part Rice which they sell about Pallecat and that Coast of Narsinga To Pegu they export much Siluer in Rials of eight Cotton yarne and Beethyles dyed red with seueral sorts of paintings bring from thence the perfect Rubies Saphires which are dispersed through the World much Gold the best Gum Lack with some Tin Quicksiluer To Tannassery they carry red Cotton yarne red and white Beethyles paintings of seuerall sorts befitting that Countries weare and landing them at Tannassery carry them from thence to Syam fourteene dayes iourney ouer Land from whence by the like conueyance they bring all sorts of China Commodities as Porcellane Sattins Damaskes Lankeene Silke Lignum Aloes Beniamin of Camboia and great store of Tinne and a wood to die withall called Sapan wood the same we heere call Brasill Alongst their owne Coast they trade with smaller shipping lading Rice and other graine where it is cheapest selling it againe on the Coast of Bisnagar to great benefit taking children in exchange which cost not them aboue three or foure shillings a childe and they sell againe in Musulipatnam and other places for forty shillings And thus much shal suffice to haue written of this Kingdom wherein I haue been the more prolixe because my own knowledge fortified with almost fiue yeeres experience assureth me of the truth of what I haue written Where this Country endeth the Kingdome of Bengala beginneth subsisting at this time vnder the Monarchy of the Great Mogull which he ruleth by his Gouernours disposed into seuerall Prouinces whose powerfull Neighbourhood causeth the King of Golchonda to keepe constant Garisons which with the aduantage of Riuers and Deserts secureth him on that side of his Kingdome In this Countrey we are meere strangers the Coast is too dangerous and our shipping too great to aduenture them amongst so many shelfes and sands yet are we enformed by such as comes from thence and confirmed by the price and abundance of such things as that Countrey produceth that it is the most plentifull of all the East For once a yeere there ariueth at Musulipatnam a Fleet of small Vessels from thence of burden about twenty tunnes the plankes onely sowne together with Cairo a kinde of Cord made of the rinds of Coconuts and no Iron in or about them In which Barkes they bring Rice Butter Sugar Waxe Honey Gumme Lacke Long Pepper Callico Lawnes and diuers sorts or Cotton-cloth Raw Silke and Moga which is made of the barke of a certaine tree and very curious Quilts and Carpets stitched with this Moga all which considering the plenty of the place whereunto they bring them should come hither as we say of Coales carried to New-castle yet here they sell them to contented profit Many Portugals decayed in their estates or questioned for their liues resort hither liue here plentifully yet as banished men or Out-lawes without gouernment practice or almost profession of Religion to conclude it may truly be spoken of this Countrey as it is abusiuely of another Bengala bona terra mala gons It is the best Countrey peopled with the worst Nation of whom this repute runnes currant in India the men are all Theeues and the women Whoores Here the famous Ganges disimboqueth into the Sea fructifying it seemes the Countrey but little sanctifying the Inhabitants whereof I can speake very little as hauing alwayes liued at great distance from it onely I haue heard it is full of Crocodiles and so are most Riuers within the Gulfe where I haue seene many of immense bignesse which the Ferrimen that passe men and cattle ouer those Riuers know how to charme and then with safety ferry ouer the Passengers in the bodies of one or two Palmito trees ioyned and swimme ouer the Cattle the order of which charming hauing once seene I thought good to insert Beeing at a Riuers side and ready to passe it we espied
Abdurrahman and his Army was a 100000. Hiagi and he made 81. fights in 100. dayes Abdurrahman fled and was taken at Sahan which Zentil hearing besieged Sahan and freed him Hee assembled sixty thousand men against whom went Iezid and ouercame them Abdulmelic Anno 86. made Walid partner of the league and dyed after hee had raigned one and twentie yeeres and fifteene dayes Walid his Sonne prayed for him He was very couetous and called Sweat-stone Hee dreamed that he had pissed foure times in the chiefe Temple consulting with Said Sonne of Musabbib he told him that foure of his children should reigne which came to passe in Walid Suleiman Iezid and Hisiam His Seale was inscribed I beleeue in God our Sauiour In his time Simon Syrus was the Iacobite Patriarke of Alexandria to whom the Indians sent to ordaine them a Bishop and Priests which he refused till the Gouernour of Egypt commanded him and then the Legate went to another which did it whence arose great stirres After him was Alexander which endured hard times Abdulaziz brother of Abdulmelic the Gouernour of Egypt exacted tribute of the Monkes of each a piece of Gold This was the first tribute exacted of them After his time Asama was more cruell killing and spoyling the people and branding the Monkes with an Iron Ring in their hands which round marke they which wanted had their hand cut off of whom was a number innumerable And whosoeuer trauelled without a Passe should pay ten pieces of Gold or be slaine which was exacted of a woman whose Passe was in her Sonnes hand whom as hee drunke of the Riuer a Crocodile carried away and she neuerthelesse was forced to sell her clothes and begge that payment But Asama was taken and died by torment of his iron coller and woodden fetters in the way at the command of Omar the Chalif But the persecution of Christians continued till the Raigne of Hisiam He writ for their liberty in their Rites and Priuiledges Iezid his Predecessor had razed their Crosses and Temples and commended them to Abdalla whom he sent Gouernour But he when he came into Egypt exceedeed his Predecessors doubled the tribute and caused their persons and beasts to bee numbred and branded the Christians with the figure of a Lion cutting off euery mans hand which was found without it Hisiam therefore deposed him and sent him into Africa where he did likewise whereupon the people rebelled and slue his Sonne whose heart and inwards they threw at the fathers head Walid was the thirteenth Chalifa sixth of the house of Ommia Sonne of Abdulmelic Sonne of Merwan Hee was surnamed Abulabbas Hee was created Chalifa on the day of his Fathers death In his time were atchieued great victories His brother Muslimas inuaded the Romans and tooke many captiues Catibas Sonne of Muslimas oppugned the Land of Baikend and Mauranahar besieged Bochara wonne Sogda Fargan and Bagras And when the Turkes were assembled the Muslims assaulted and tooke their chiefe City and got great wealth Catibas Sonne of Muslima made peace with the King of Chouarazma and hee built therein a Cathedrall Temple and set a Pulpit therein thence preaching on the Friday and prayed with the Muslims he burned also his Idols they were fastned with nailes of Gold weighing fifty thousand drammes Their tribute imposed was two thousand pieces of Gold yeerely After this hee went to Samarcand and Tooke it Muhammed Sonne of Casim conquered India and the Land of Sind or Indus and slue the King Daehar The same yeere Walid commanded the Temple of Damascus to bee builded and the Church of the Christians consecrated to Saint Iohn to be pulled downe He offered for the same forty thousand pieces of Gold which they refused and therefore hee destroyed it and gaue them nothing Twelue thousand Masons were employed in that building but Walid died before it was finished Foure hundred Chists each contayning fourteene thousand pieces of gold were bestowed thereon In it were sixe hundred golden chaines of Lampes the brightnesse whereof hindred men from praying which after were coloured with smoke and remayned to the time of Omar Sonne of Abdulaziz who put them in the Treasury and hanged iron chaines in their steed Corrah Sonne of Sieric was made Gouernour of Egypt in the ninetieth yeere a man manifestly impious which entred the Cathedrall Temple of Mithra with Ruffians and Gamesters and with them sate in the Chancell in time of Prayers Anno 93. Taric conquered Spaine and Toledo and brought to Walid the Table of Salomon Sonne of Dauid made of Gold and Siluer hauing three borders or rowes of Pearles Anno 94. a great Earthquake lasted forty dayes at Antiochia and ruined the Citie The same yeere dyed Zainulabidin Sonne of Husein Sonne of Ali Sonne of Abutalib which was Religious and Deuout and performed a taske of a thousand kneelings euery day for which cause he was called the Prayer He left children Zeid and Muhammed Abugiafar of happy memory Anno 95. dyed Hagiagi which is said to haue slaine 120000. men besides those which hee slue in warres and fifty thousand dyed in his Prisons besides thirty thousand women Eightie thousand he slue when he was full But his Dominion passed as if it had not beene and happy is he which doth good The same yeere Walid cast out of Damascus Ali Sonne of Abdalla Sonne of Abbas and commanded him to reside at Homaim where hee got aboue twenty Sonnes Anno 93. dyed Corrah Sonne of Sieric Gouernour of Egypt which builded at Misra the olde Temple Walid also dyed hauing raigned nine yeeres and eight moneths He married and put away many wiues hee is said to haue had sixty three and spent much on women and buildings He built the Temple of the Prophet and the Mansions adioyning and Omar the Gouernour of Medina was set ouer it Hee first built a Hospitall for sicke and strangers His Seale O Walid thou shalt dye and giue an account A.M. 6206. and seuenty nine dayes past Suleiman his brother was made Chalif the same day Catibas Gouernour of Chorasan inuited the Chorasans to depose him which refused and slue him Suleiman placed Iezid Sonne of Mahleb which obtained many victories tooke Taberistan and Giorgian slaying and spoyling innumerable Infidels and imposing tribute on the rest Suleiman sent his brother Muslima against the Romans which lay before Constantinople a Seed time and Haruest Asamas writ that the measure of Nilus at Hulwan was falne whereupon hee commanded that measure to be builded in the Iland betwixt the Riuers of Fustata and Gijza Anno 97. which still remayneth Anno 98. Muslima conquered the City Sacaliba and made himselfe Gouernour of it Suleiman builded Ramla and made Iob his Sonne partner of the league and he dying Omar Sonne of Abdulaziz Suleiman died Anno 99. and Omar prayed for him He was tall leane slender halting many-wiued and a Glutton euery day eating about a hundred pounds Hee was poysoned by procurement
and monstrous shapes of men denyed 385 Monomotapa or Benomotapa Empire 759. Their Mines Religion and Rites 759. 760 Moores who and why so called 224 Two Sects of Moores 275 Moores in China 457. vid. Saracens Arabians Moores where now inhabiting and how dispersed 757. 758 Moone why called a great light 10 11. Her greatnesse and excellence ibid. Dimas his iourney thither 16. Worshipped of the Chaldees 51. at Carrae 66. By the Iewes 107. By the Arabians 227. At Diopolis 241. By the Persians 393. Tartars 431. 432. Chinois 470. 471. Goa 545. Brasilians 918. Boorneo 578. 579. By Negroes and others 709. Why the Saracens vse the signe of the Moone on their Steeples 230. 231. The moone seeke the day of her coniunction 305. Iewish Fables of the Moone 193 194 Mahomets Fables of the Moon 252. 253. The New-Moone-Feast when it began with the Iewes 106. 107. How obserued 106. 196 Moneths how reckoned by the Iewes 106. Their names ibid. They haue in some places no names 107 Money of Salt and Paper 750. Money of Ganza 612 Money of Almonds 619 Money by whom inuented 335 The effects of it 336. Monasteries of the Turkes 308. In Tartaria 416. 431. In China 465. 471. Of Saint Francis in Goa 546 Monkes 541 Monoemugi 757 Monuments vid. Sepulchers Mopsus a Lydian 80 Mountaines of Armenia 343. 344 Mountaines of Crystall 412. Mountaine of Pardons by Mecca 269. 270 Burning mountaines 612 Mount Moriah 94. Sinai 225 The Mountaine of Health 271. Morboner a Sect of the Iewes 135 Doctor Mortons commendation 95 Mordecay why hee worshipped not Haman Morduit-Tartars Moratui Iland 578 Morabites a Sect in Africa 626 Morauia and Moldauia 416 Morse or Sea-Oxe described 913 914 Moses what hee did on Mount Sinai 155. Iewish opinions of him 156. He receiued the first Alphabetarie letters in the Table of the Decalogue 82. Moses chaire 132. First Pen-man of Scripture his excellencie 175. Pseu-Moses a Coozener 143. Moses Aegyptius vid. Rambam The Turkes opinion of Moses 302. his wife 729. Mosco destroyed by the Tartars 422 Moscouites of Mesech 37 Moschee or Mosquita vid. Temple Mossinaeci a beastly people 330. Mosambique 785. Beastly Rites of some neere them ibid. Moslemans Religion 265. 266. Mosleman women disrespected 265 Mosull supposed to be Niniue 67 Famous for Cloth of gold silke fertilitie c ibid Mosse foode to the Deere of the Samoeds 432 Moth interpreted Mire 77 Mourners doore in the Temple 99 A Sect 135. Funerall mourning of Iewes 206. Of others vid. Funerall Muaui son of Abusofian the seuenth Emperour of the Muslims 1021 Muaui son of Iezid the ninth Chalifa 1022. Muaui the Chaliph his Acts 234 seq Mufti of the Turkes and their Authoritie 320. 321 Mulli and Muderisi 312 Muleasses King of Tonis 672 Muley Hammet his Stile and Letter to the Earle of Leicester 696 Mummia 226. 632. How made in Aethiopia 748 Murther amongst the Turkes vnpardonable 300. Selfe-murther 633. Musa Alhadi the 25. Chalifa strangled by his mother 1028. Musarab Christians 1024 Muske of a Beast 564 Muslim what it signifies 1013 Muslim Empire falleth in pieces 1036 Musulipatan or Musulipatnam 994 Described 995. Mustapha his Acts 286. The succession of Mustapha twice 293 294 seq Mustaed-Dini chiefe Priest or Mufti of the Persians 391. Musteatzem last Chalif of Bagdet 237. 242 Mutadids equitie and cruelty 1033 Mutars Sect in Persia 370. 391 Mutasim the 29. Chalifa his strength of body 1030 Mutewakkels crueltie to Muhammed 1031 Mutezuma King of Mexico 860 861 Myiodes Myiagrus 81 Mydas his Storie 331 Mylitta Venus 56 Myrrhe in Arabia 231 Mysia 334. The Mysians for their great Deuotion called Smoke-climers 334. Matters famous in Mysia 334. 335 N NAamah first Inuentor of making Linnen and Wollen and vocall Musicke 29 Naaman a Scenite Arabian 227 Nabathea and Nabathaeans 227 230 Nabathitae 222 Nabunanga King of Iapon 856 857 Nabuchodonosor his Babylonish garments 48. His Pensile Gardens 49. Nabuchodonosor in Iudith vncertaine 60 Nabopollasar ibid. Not the same with Nabuchodonosor 62 Nabonidus the same with Darius Medus 63 Naboth Iewish Dreames of his Soule 187 Nafissa a Queane Saint at Cairo 652 Nagayan Tartars 423 Nairos Knights or Souldiers in India their Rites 553. 554 Naida supposed to be built by Cain 29 Naicks Indian Gouernours 993 Naimaini 404. 405 Nakednesse of Adam 22. Iewish Dreames of Nakednesse 180 181. 183 Nanquin a City of China 439. 466 Nastacia the Empresse made a Saint 974 Nations their beginning 37. seq Natitae and Natophantae certaine Priests 58 Nature what it is 13 Nature of man first infected now infecting 25 Natolia described 325. Now called Turkie ibid. Nailes long in China 469. Accounted a Gentleman-like signe ibid. Nauigations of the Ancients 684. The first Inuentor of Nauigations 82 Naugracot supposed the highest part of the Earth 35 Nazareth 90 Nazarites 133 Nazareans Iewish Sectaries 133 Necromancie 369 Neerda and Nisibis 63 Negapatan the situation and description thereof 557. seq The Bloudy and Beastly Rites there ibid. Negroes a description of the land of Negroes 709 sequitur Whence called the Land of Negroes 709. Many Nations 711. Strange kinde of Negroes 712. 713. The cause of the Negroes Blacknesse 721. 722. Their Coasts and Inland Countries 721. sequitur Negro Slaue made King of Egypt and Syria 1037 Neriglossoorus 62 Neru and the Rites there 605 Nero his Superstitions 69 Nestorians in Cathaya their Rites 404 409. In Ergimul 416. In Egrigaia and Tenduc 429. 430. At Quinsay 442. 443 Nethanims or Gibeonites 123 New Moone vide Moone New yeeres day of the Iewes 107. 196. Their Dreames of that Day 197 New yeeres day of the Chinois 463 Newberies Trauels 579. 580 New Granada 816 New World why called America and West Indies 791 New England 829. 830 New Wales 830 New Britaine 829 new-New-land of King Iames 814 815. seq New France 823. 824. Late Plantations of New France 825. 826. seq New Mexico 855 New Spaine 858 seq Newfoundland 821. sequitur Diners Voyages thither 822. Plantation there by the English 822. 823. seq Nicaragua described and how situate 887. Their Bookes Sacrifices Priests Processions Confessours ibid. Their Feasts Marriages Punishments Lake and Riches 888 Nicaraguas questions 889 Nicostrata Author of the Latine Letters 82 Nififa in Barbary 700 Nigritarum terra 709 Niger his course 709. 710. sequitur Niguas little Wormes great trouble 818 Nilus Riuer a large Discourse thereof 627. sequitur The cause and time of the ouerflowing 628. The shallownesse in some places ibidem The falls thereof 727. 740. Stayed by the Prete 731. The Spring of Nilus 740 Nilus diuerted 1042 Nimrod 37. 44. A Tyrant 45 Author of Idolatry 45. 46 Ninias supposed Amraphel 61 Niniue built 45. Taken by Arbaces the Mede 61. By Cyaxares 66. Described 65. Who built it ibidem The ruines thereof 138 Ninus first Deifier of his Father Belus 46. His History examined 65. His Exploits 65. 66 His Sepulchre ibid. Nine a
they prayed in Acusamil for raine Gomar hist of Cortes part 1. gen hist part 2. c. 82. q Three or foure words r Acts 17.27 Ortelius in his Map of Mare-Pacificum affirmeth that the people of America in likelihood were peopled from Europe by Groenland Island , Frisland c. Å¿ Io. di Castellanos t Du Bartas Colonies Morney de verit Christ Relig. Botero vbi sup. u Gap 13. Genebr Chron. l. 1. Cl. Duret x Act. 7.26 y Sir Humfrey Gilberts Discouerie of the North-West Plato's owne Discouerie tels that it was swallowed by an Earthquake z R. Verflegant Antiquities * F.G. histor gener part 2. cap 13. I. Mar. lib. 26. cap. 3. a Columbus was borne at Cugureo or as some say at Nerui in the Territorie of Genua hee was a Mariner from a child and traded into Syria and other parts of the East After this he became a Master in making Sea-cards he went to Portugall to learne their Nauigations on the coast of Africa and there married Gom. cap. 14. R Eden b Hier. Benzo lib. 1. cap. 5. Ram. praef 3. vol. c Lib. 2. cap. 1. d Gaspar Ens lib 1. cap . 2. coniectureth that Columbus moued with his owne coniectures to this discouerie was confirmed further therein by this Pylot which is said to dye in his house g Fernand Columb in vita patris Christophori c 13. Hak tom. 3. Nauig C. Col. in No. Orb. Ouied lib 2. cap· 4. h Gomar c. 15. Herera saith he first sollicited the Catholike Kings but receiuing an answere to his discontent hee made offer to the Dukes i Lib. 7. cap. vlt. k Pet. Mart. Dec. 1. l. 1. l A. Benzo lib. 1 cap. 6. m Gaspar Ens lib. 1. cap. 2. n Columbi-Nauigationes 1. 2 3 4. Ouied. l. 2. c. 5. o Of his death see Ouied. l. 3. c. 9 p His true name was Colon which corruptly is called Columbus q Prou. 30.4 a Some thinke Columbus did run on ground of purpose that he might leaue some behind b Bart. de las Casas Hispanâ— crudelit c History of China p. 312. H. Benzo l. 1. c. 8. d The Fort of the Natiuity in Hispaniola e Alexander a wicked Pope Guicciard l. 1. he of whose daughter Lucretia Pontanus writeth that she wa Alexandri Filia Sponsa Nurus abused by the incestuous lusts of the Father and his two Sonnes was Author of the Bul whereby the Spaniards challenge the new World for theiâ—s f Sept. 25. 1493 a Ouied. l. 2 c. 13 b Ramus in praefat ad vol. 3. Ouied. l. 3. c. 6. c Gas Ens lib. 1 cap. 5. d Vide l. 5. c 16 pag. 452. e Nauigationes Vinc. Pinzoni Naui Alb. Vesp Seb. Cabota vid. Hak. tom 3. f A rule to know what beasts were here naturall for to such they haue names in their own language and what transported for these the Indians call by their Spanish names g Acost l. 1. c. 21 l. 4. c. 34. a Lib. 4. c. 39. See Car. Clus de exot Ouied. gen hist summar sebast Schroteri to 2. Gens de Qu dr b Vincent Pinzon c P. Mart. de Insulis d Ouied. summar 22. e Cataphractus equus f Hul. Schmidel cap 44. A. D o 1548. g Aug. Carate hist Peru l. 1. h And. Theuet cap. 41. Lerius nau c. 11. i Natura in magnis magna in minimis maxima k Car. Clus Exot. lib. 5. l Ouiedo summar cap. 48. m Lopez de Gomara hist Mexicana of Conquest of the West Indies n Acost l. 4. c. 17. o See Monardus Clusius D. Lovel Gerard and other herbarists and chiefly of these and other the Indian plants and trees see Ouied. gen hist Ind. l. 7 8 9 10 11. and of the beasts fowles fishes in the 12 13 14 15. bookes and also his Summario p Th. Turner q Acost l. 4. c. 24. r In the Ilands but not in all places of the firme Land Å¿ Spanish fruits thriue well in one place or other of the Indies t Botero Rel. port prima l. 4. u The Baltike Persian Arabian Caspian Seas c. x Many haue written discourses of the possibility of a passage by the N. or N.W. as Thome S.H. Gilbert Cir. of the earth alleaging some examples of a Fryer which passed it the Portugall cards c. y Discourse of Frobishers Voyages by Georgae Best Voyage 3 . a 2. Cor. 4. b The discoueries of M. Nic. and Ant. Zeni gathered out of their letters by Francisco Marcolina They are related by M. Hakluyt in his 3. vol. pa. 121. S. Thomas Monasterie in Groenland Estotiland * Abrah Ortel Chart. 6. Hak. vol. 3. Botero Maginus * Groenland is now found a huge Continent to 78. by Baffin An. 1616. a Ramus in praefat in 3. Vol. b Clem. Adams Hak. to 3. p. 1. 6. c P. Mart. Dec. 3. l. 6. d Cod-fish e Rob. Fabian ap Hak. vbi sup. f Sir Hugh Willoughby R. chanceler Steuen Burrow Pet. Iackman written by Hugh Smith all in Hak. to 1. g Osor de reb. Eman. l. 2. tit Pet. Pasquali 3. in N.. h Corterealis or Laborador extendeth from 60. degrees to the Riuer of S. Lawrence G. Bot. Ben . i Steph. Gomes k Gaspar Ens l. 2. c. 25. hist Ind. l Dithmar Bleskens m Written by Iuer Boty a principall man in the Bishops court n Sir Mart. Frob. o Christ Hall Dionise Settle Thomas Ellis George Best p 1576. q Queenes fore-Fore-land and opposite thereto Hals I le in 62. degrees 50. min.. r Gaspar Ens l. 2. Hist Ind. Occid c. 26. affirmeth that one Iohn Scoluc a polonian this yeere 1576 sayled beyond Frisland and Groneland thence to Estotiland and Labrador Å¿ Such a horne was brought home two yeeres since found on shore in Greenland by the Carpenter of Ionas Pooles ship 7. foote a halfe long sold since at Constantinople reported to be good against poysons and such a one was taken vp Anno 1588. in the Coast of Norfolke and sold by an ignorant woman for 18. pence which was also said to be effectuall against poysons as I was told by M. Rob. Salmon of Leegh who had a piece of it t Frisland is in length 25. leagues the Southern part of it is in the latitude of 57. degrees and one second Thomas Wiar 1 u It seemeth they are of fresh waters because the Ice is fresh and the Sun melting the tops causeth rils of fresh water to runne downe which meeting together make a prettie streame x The Moone setteth not nor the Sun in the Polar regions being in Cancer See the Relations of the Dutch wintering in Noua Zembla in the third part of my Pilgrimes W. Hely his reports of lighting Tobaccoâ— by the Sun with a Glasse at mid night a The voyage of M Dauis written by Iohn Iames Hac to 3. p. 100 b Hen. Morgan c Iohn Dauis in his Hydrographicall
is one betweene Agra and Amadauar which commands as much Land as a good Kingdome he is strong twentie thousand Horse and fiftie thousand Foot and keepes on the Mountaines Men can scarcely trauell for Out-lawes The often shifting of men from their lands makes them exact more cruelly in the time they hold them grinding the face of their poore Tenants in ruefull manner If they continue but sixe yeeres they raise a great state sometimes they hold not halfe a yeere If any be employed in warres or businesses in another place he must forgoe his land here and be assigned it there The Kings allowance otherwise is exceeding as for euery Horse twentie Ropias a moneth for the warres and for so many more which hee hath of Fame hee is allowed two Ropias a moneth for the maintenance of his Table Concerning the Kings Religion and behauiour it is thus In the morning about breake of day hee is at his Beades his face to the Westwards in a priuate faire roome vpon a faire Iet-stone hauing onely a Persian Lambe-skinne vnder him Hee hath eight Chaines of Beades euery of which containeth foure hundred they are of Pearle Diamants Rubies Emeralds Lignum aloes Eshen and Corall At the vpper end of this Iet-stone are placed the Images of Christ and our Lady grauen in stone Hee turneth ouer his Beades and saith so many words to wit three thousand and two hundred and then presenteth himselfe to the people to receiue their Salames or good morrow for which purpose multitudes resort thither euery morning This done hee sleepeth two houres more then dineth and passeth his time with his women at noone he sheweth himselfe again to the people sitting till three or foure a clocke to view his pastimes by Men and Beasts euery day sundry kindes At three all the Nobles in Agra whom sicknesse detaineth not resort to the Court and the King comes forth in open audience sitting in his Seat-Royall euery man standing in his degree before him the chiefe within a Red raile which was allowed to our Author hauing but fiue before him the rest without This Red raile is three steps higher then the place where the rest stand Men are placed by Officers there are others to keepe men in order In the middest right before the King standeth an Officer with his master Hang-man accompanied with fortie others of the same profession with hatches on their shoulders and others with whips Here the King heareth causes some houres euery day and then departs to his house of prayer which ended foure or fiue sorts of well dressed meates are brought him whereof hee eateth what hee likes to stay his stomacke drinking once of his strong drinke After this he comes forth into a priuate roome where none may come but such as himselfe nominates Two yeeres together our Author was one of the Attendants In this place he drinkes other fiue cups which is the portion that the Physicians allow him after which he eateth Opium then layes him downe to sleep euery man departing home When he hath slept two houres they awake him and bring his supper to him thrusting it in his mouth not being able to feed himselfe This is about one of the clocke at night and so hee sleepeth the rest of the night In this cup-space he doth many idle things but nothing without writing be he drunken or sober For he hath writers by course which write all not omitting his going to the stoole or how ought he lieth with his women and with whom to the end that when he dieth those writings may be brought forth and thence what is thought fit may be inserted in their Chronicles When any poore men come to demaund Iustice of the King they goe to a certaine rope fastened to two pillars neere where the King sits this rope is full of Bels plated with gold and with shaking the rope the King hearing the sound sends to know the cause and doth Iustice accordingly While our Author was with him hee made his brothers children Christians not for zeale as the Iesuites thought but in policie to disappoint a Prophecie of certaine learned Gentiles which fore-told their succession in the Kingdome to make them odious to the Moores God take the wise in his craftinesse and conuert this peruerse policie to their true Conuersion One of his sonnes Sultan Sharier of seuen yeeres could not by diuers cruelties purposely inflicted on him by his father be forced to cry pretending his Nurses instructions to the contrary Hee keepes many Feasts in the yeere but some principall one called Nourous or New-yeeres day Then hath he a rich Tent pitched curiously and costly wrought two acres of ground in compasse so richly spread with silke and gold Carpets and preciously hanged as is more admirable then credible There are roomes also for his Queenes to see vnseene round about so that in all it may bee fiue acres Euery Noble-man makes his roome each striuing to excell other in cost The King will come to which of them he effects and is sumptuously feasted and presented But because hee will not receiue any thing as a Present he allowes as much as the Treasurer values it which is halfe the worth Thus all prouide and present At this Feast commonly euery mans state is augmented it beginneth at the beginning of the Moone in March Some foure months after is the Feast of his Birth-day which euery one striueth to honor with his richest Apparel and Iewels after many Palace-pastimes hee goeth with the greatest pompe to his Mothers to whom euery Noble-man presents a Iewell After banket ended hee weigheth in a ballance of gold against himselfe in one scale other things of diuers sorts to the worth of ten thousand pound which is giuen to the poore but his richer Subiects present him that day tenne times as much On his Fathers Funerall-day is solemnized a Feast at his Sepulchre where himselfe meaneth to bee buried with all his posteritie at which time much meate and money is giuen to the poore It hath beene fourteene yeeres in building and is thought will not bee finished in seuen yeeres more notwithstanding three thousand at least be daily at worke thereon But one of our workemen will dispatch more then three of them It is by his description three quarters of a mile about made square hath seuen heights each narrower then other till the top where his Hearse is At the vtmost gate before you come to the Sepulchre is a stately Palace in building the compasse of the wals ioyning to the gate c. may be at least three miles it is foure miles from Agra The Kings custome is euery yeere to make a hunting progresse of two moneths but when hee comes forth of his Palace if he mounts on a horse it is a signe of his going to the war if on an Elephant or Palamkin it is but a hunting iourney §. IIII. Of the setling of the English Trade in these parts and of the
against those Colds the one as is said alwayes in manner naked the other alwayes clothed out-brauing the Winters violence in their Summer-like Greene Liuery seeming to stoope vnder the burthen of continuall Frosts and Snowes and in a naturall wisdome clothe themselues and hold their leaues the surer Those Giantly men about Port Desire when they die are brought to the Cliffes and there buried with their Bowes Arrowes Darts and all their almost no substance Master Kniuet writeth that he saw footings at Port Desire as bigge as foure of ours and two men newly buried one of which was fourteene spans long He also saw one in Brasil taken by Alonso Dias a Spaniard being by foule weather driuen out of Saint Iulians which was a yong man and yet aboue thirteene spans high They goe naked and are faire and well proportioned At Port Famine in the Straits He saith they saw some dwarfish Sauages not aboue fiue or six spans high which were thicke and strong with wide-mouthes almost to the eares they eate their meat a little scorched besmearing their faces and brests with the bloud running out of their mouthes they lay young feathers to this bloud which glues them to their bodies Foure or fiue thousand traded with them at the Poles end The cold is so extreme that Henry Barwell became bald therewith so continuing a yeere or two One Harris a Goldsmith blowing his frozen nose cast it with his fingers into the fire and our Author himselfe going on shore and returning wet on his feet the next morning pulled off his toes together with his stockins from his benummed feete which were as blacke as foote without feeling and were after cured with words or charmes Euery day some died of cold They saw there a kind of beast bigger then a Horse with eares aboue a span long and a taile like a Cow called Tapetyweson he saw the like in Manicongo The Sauages about the Straits feed as both the same Author and the Hollanders report on raw flesh and other filthy food and are Man-eaters §. III. Of the Magellan Straits IT is no small credit to our Nation and Nauigation that these Straits haue more enlarged themselues and giuen oftner and freer passage to vs then to any other Drake swamme thorow Winter both passed and returned and so did Carder in the Pinnasse as before is said Candish passed but returned as Drake had done about the World in his circuit The Delight of Bristoll entred them and with small delight spent sixe weekes in them and Captaine Dauies companion of Master Candish in his last Voyage three times entred the South Sea which three times forced him backe into the embracing armes of the vntrustie Straits Some others haue attempted but not attained them as Fenton and Ward and the Voyage set forth in the yeere of our Lord 1586. by the Earle of Cumberland The Land on Larbord side saith Sir Richard Hawkins is without doubt Ilands low sandy broken on Starbord is very mountaynous the lower Mountaynes whereof although they be for their height wonderfull yet as we haue said of the differing statures of the men they haue more Giantly ouer-lookers with Snowie lockes and Cloudy lookes betweene them may be numbred three Regions of Clouds These Straits are fourescore and ten leagues thorow of vnequall breadth in the narrowest place a league ouer The mouth is in two and fifty degrees and an halfe or as Sir Richard Hawkins obserued in 52. degrees 50. minutes His company killed a thousand Penguins a day this is a Fowle like a Goose hauing no feathers on their bodies but downe it cannot flye but will runne as fast as most men feeds on fish and grasse and harbours in Berries Seales are many in these parts which will fall dead with a blow on the snout some affirme the same of the Crocodile otherwise not easily pierced with a Sword or fearing a Musket-shot He saith they are like Lions that they sleepe on Land and haue euer one to watch which is also reported of the Morse Hee addeth of the Canoes of the Sauages there that they are made artificially of the rindes of Trees sowed together with the finnes of Whales sharpe at both ends and turning vp When these Straits were first discouered they named them the Strait of Victorie because the ship called the Victorie first descried them a name fitly ascribed both to the Straits and Ship the one first obtayning the Marine victory encompassing the compasse of the earth the other still remayning the onely knowne passage whereby that Sea-victory can bee atchieued But the name soone passed from the Ship to the Generall of whom still it is called the Strait of Magaglianes or Magellan The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake so vexed the Spaniard that hee sent Pedro Sarmiento to inhabit there that he might prohibit other Nations to passe that way but Tempest and Famine hating the Spanish insolence whose ambitious designes alway aimed at a Plus vltra brought them to a Plus vltra indeed further then euer they had designed diuers of the ships which at first were three and twentie with three thousand and fiue hundred men perishing in the deuouring iawes of the Ocean and others in their selfe deuouring mawes of Hunger which eate them vp with not eating The Name of Iesus and Philips Citie were their two newly erected Colonies peopled with foure hundred men and thirty women which by famine were brought to three and twenty persons when Master Candish tooke Hernando one of that company in his prosperous Voyage another who had maintained himselfe by his Peece and liued in a house alone a long time was taken by the Delight of Bâ—iâ—toll two yeeres after The English gaue a name fitting to this distressed Citie calling it Port Pamine The last Voyage of Master Candish proued vnfortunate both in the losse of himselfe and many men the blacke Pinnasse was lost in the South Sea the Desire returned but lost diuers of her men surprised as was thought and deuoured by the Sauages neere to Port Desire The Sauages heere presented themselues throwing dust in the Aire leaping c. and either had Vizards on their faces like Dogges faces or else their faces were Dogges faces indeed I haue seene a Copie of a Discourse written by Master Candish himselfe to Sir Tristram-Gorges whom he made sole Executor of his last Will where he thus affirmeth The running away of the Villaine Dauis was the death of me and decay of the whole action and his onely trecherie in running from me the vtter ruine of all Hee complaines also of mutinies and that by South-west and West South-west winds he was driuen from shore foure hundred leagues and from fifty to forty degrees that he was taken with Winter and stormes in the Straits and such Frosts and Snowes in May as he neuer saw the like so that in seuen or eight dayes forty dyed and seuenty sickened Dauies in the Desire and