one another For arms they have staves bows and slings wherein they are very effectual being strong and good wrestlers They lead into the field troops of fierce and strong dogs and fling them the head hands and feet of an enemy for reward they only spare their wives to whom they yield all honour and marry with them There is not amongst them any sort of Science Learning or Character they believe the soul immortal and that the Sun created the world whom they call Courcourant and the Moon Beleida live like brothers without any Law of property every man hath his wife and with her is satisfied no distinction of sin amongst them vice nor vertue all equal onely a particular reverence to one chief as their King whom they call Caraybalan They shave their head and beard with a root called Meite which dryed at the Sun they make into powder and apply it plaister-wise all night Maids deflowr'd before Matrimony never marry though the fact is no dishonour to them Their Singay by the advantage of their mountains often fall upon them they have a sort of trunks through which they will blow their poysoned arrowes with strange vigour and wound incurably They are of admirable Footmanship and will fly like Grayhounds before a pursuing enemy and on such occasions their dogges stand them in good stead They scatter about the fields certain poysoned paste for the enemies dogges and lest their own should be taken with it they hold them up tyed he that hath two with him thinks himself secure When the dogge winds any thing if the Master cryes Taip the dogge stayes till his Master hath viewed his prey they carry burthens like horses Their houses are of straw and their burrowes are fortified with Timber-Palizadoes which they poyson against the invading enemy Of the same straw they cover their houses they make bridges and never make bridge of stone which straw-bridges are of good firmnesse They have some houses made of earth mingled with chopt straw The Charaybalan or King walks through the country with no attendance but dogges and allowes no man to approach him These dogges are his guard being very fierce and when they find any thing they first look on their Masters face to understand if they should eat it or not and stand for good servants the enemy hath strong apprehension of them These dogges have great tayles like Bulles and it hath been knowne that they have assaulted and defeated a good body of men so as the race of them is prized at a high rate CHAP. VII Of Virginia and Florida Fountains of youth dangerous love ON the South and East of all these parts lyes Virginia discovered by Sir Walter Rawleigh and the English and Florida first found by Sebastian Cabot an English Navigator in the yeare 1496. as he looked for another matter and more perfectly afterwards discovered by John Ponce of Lyons who so christened it because he arrived on Palme-Sunday in French called Flowre-Sunday or else because he found the land fragrant and spread with flowers This is a country of wide circuit towards 34. degrees having on the East the Channel of Bahama the Lucays and Virginia on the West Mexico and the gulph Panuco on the South it looks upon Cuba or Jucatan and on that side extends above 200. leagues to the 24. degree on the North lyes Canada New France and the Auanares towards this point or tongue of land in form of an Isthmus 't is dangerous sayling for the opposite winds and currents of water The natives are strong and turbulent eat their enemies of war but their friends and confederates never not for any extremity The men eradicate their beards to appear more lovely and pleasing to the women pierce their nose and ears and hang in rings and jewels they marry not till 40 years of age and the woman 25. holding that the children will be more robustious Women before matrimony observe not chastity and without dishonour but after marriage they will forfeit life as soon as their fidelity North they border on the Aunares and beyond them the Abardaos a cruell and wicked people continually in warre and use a thousand subtleties to ensnare their enemies but especially by night first laying their Engines or Caltrops then give the Alarme and seem to flye so the enemies pursuing are often taken in these trappes as they likewise take wilde beasts as they on the other side make conceal'd pits for them to fall in There are also the Jagares a people so swift they boast they can take a Deere in plain running and indeed the Deere there are not so wilde For they feed in fields in Heards like Cows whereof they make their ordinary sustenance Ponce de Leon sayes he sent one of these people with a letter and some provision to his company and in few houres he went and came thirty 1. They are cloathed with skins of beasts but cheifly Deere which they dresse very artificially Then there are the Apalchen and Chahamo people intirely barbarous and brutish who adore and sacrifice to devills that appeare to them in diverse formes The whole Countrey abounds in all Commodities as flesh of all sorts and fish and they say there are Mines of Gold and Silver whereof they make no great account They have a King whom foure of the Principall amongst them beare in the skin of a Saliabe a beast like a Hart apparrelled with skins and set with feathers they adore the Sun and believe the immortality of the soule and that some go to Heaven and others to the bowells of the earth Towards the Promontory of Baxos there is a fishing of ordinary pearles neither so fine nor great as in the River of Palmes and Margarita nor do the Natives much esteem them and value more a measure of Sperma Caetae then a handfull of pearles The people of Canada maâ—â— a greater account of them for the women weare them in their eares In many places they build their houses in forme of a Cressant in Honour of the Moone and cover them with barkes of trees or sea reeds For Armes they use Bows and poysoned Arrowes as doth the greater part of America They are much given to Hunt and Fish For more of the description of the Country and the manners of the people I refer my selfe to the French and Spanish relations I will only make mention of one miracle in the Countrey attested by the Licentiados Ayllon Figuerra and other Spaniards of Quality 't is a fountain of Youth whereof the water being drunke not only mitigates all maladies but makes the old young again restoring decayed strength and vigour whereof they saw the experience in an old decrepid man quite worne out who became vigorous and lusty that married and got children The Spaniards advanced not into the Country finding the People Martiall bloody and violent enemies to them which I suppose proceeded rather from cruelties they themselves exercised then the inclinations of the people whom the
or falls amongst the Mountains which so compresse it that it seems a shot or lightning in quicknesse and thunder in horrid noyse till having crossed Egypt and entertained some Rivers of Nubia branching it self into many streams which compose the so much celebrated fair and fertile Countrey of Delta comes to render it self into the Mediterranean at mouthes and sluces which our Ancestors took for seven others nine at this day the most known and remarkable are those of Damiete Rosete heretofore called Heracleotique and Pelusiaque which compose the two sides of the triangle As to the surfluxes and inundations which fertilize all Egypt and serve instead of fructiferous rains from June to September laying the Countrey like an Archipelagus covered with innumerable little Islands wherein stand their habitations more excelse then the rest which is a piece of water I leave to Philosophers to search the causes who in all ages were much perplext and much divided some attributing it to the dissolving of snows from the Ethiopian mountains where snow never fell others to anniversary winds forcing the waters to remount and so overflow others with more probability to the continual rains of the torrid Zone in this season as I my self have seen it happen all along this Zone to the Indies both East and West Yea there are some who go further for a cause and will have it proceed from winds and furious tempests which at this season rage about the Cape of good Hope swelling the Sea which by certain secret Subterranian channels communicates it self with the Ethiopian Lakes which makes Nile and other Rivers taking birth from thence to surfeit But howsoever it is and whencesoever it proceeds certainly the effect is altogether admirable the encrease lasting fourty daies as likewise the decrease and some say the River Noir or Cambra or Senega do the same The course of this River from birth to dissolution is esteemed to be nine hundred leagues in right line and windings and bosomes considered to be above two thousand which is the longest course of any River in the Universe except the Plate and Maragnon in Brasile CHAP. IX Of the Town of Bagamidri and the coronation of their Kings TO return to our voyage I shal tell you that Bagamidri is a Town in Ethiopia in three degrees of altitude beyond the line in a fair champion upon the River Zuama which disbanks as Nile do's For the kingdom of Bagamidri it reaches to the Tropick watered by Zuama called by the inhabitants Zimbada which crosses the deserts of Manica where are dismal Mountains and goes til it ingulphs it self in the Oriental and Meridian sea composing a most commodious shore where vessels take in fresh-water and fuel Here are abundance of wild goats and small Buls and Cows so fierce that he must be very skilfull that takes them they have little horns which grow but skin-deep mooving them as their ears as I observed in another place This River of Zuama is by the Portugalls called Rio del Spiritu sancto for the content they receive who saile upon it Moreover in passing or bathing in this River there ought great caution to be had and to be well arm'd against the Crocodiles which are here in great numbers nor is the danger on land much lesse for the Tigars of which there are great Troupes and will very sawcily dismount you either from Horse or Mule Towards the West the Countrey borders on Mancigonge Eastward on Cafates to the North it lyes on Gidada which some call the Countrey of Amazons South-ward on Monopotapa The Town of Bagamidri is called Imperial by reason the King of Tigrai or Tigremahon having received his first Crown at the place of his election receives the second here This Ceremonie was first instituted in the time of St. Abiblicanus who lived in a cave near the Town in so high repute that the King who then reigned would have the honour to be crown'd by so great a Saint since which time there is an Ordinance that all the Kings of Tigray shal be crown'd here as the several Crowns of our Emperours were received at Aix Milan and Rome and the third he receives from the hand of the Grand Negus his Soveraign who hath onely a crown of silver whereas the King of Tigray hath his of inestimable value Here I shal tell you by the way that in Tigramahon I saw a Church of one intire piece wrought in a Rock near to Tecassin which they call the Church of Creatures for that 't is dedicated to the four Evangelists In the lower Ethiopia there is the like which they call the Maiant Calassen that is the Seat of Eternity For the Kingdome of the Amazons they report it to be betwixt the country of Damut and Gorage or Goraga and Gongara where they recount many things not unlike the stories of our Ancestors as that the women have the authority are exceeding valiant and excellent Archers that they cut off their right breast to draw a how the better with other things of that kinde There is mention made of the like women in many other parts of the world Some say the word Amazon is derived from a country belonging to the Negus or Monopotapa near Mancinconge where the women are of great courage though the men are Masters and Preste John makes use of them in his warres In this country stands the faire city Felucia or Falacia where they say is a sumptuous Tombe of a Princesse called Agagina built all of a black marble clear and transparent as glasse The people of these countries are of severall complexions according to the place that gives them breath For under the line they are neither white nor black but of a swart tawny colour though the world affords not a more temperate climate then they are under They who live Westward from the countrey of Agagne to Ambian are intirely black and four degrees from the Line troubled with excessive raines for three moneths together But they of the Province of Zembre are more white and very docile especially the women who are passably beautifull and gracefull and good Christians though they were the last that received the faith since the Eunuch baptized by Saint Philip planted it in the better part of the Provinces of Ethiope and as some will have in Arabia the happy it self and as far as Tuprobane CHAP. X. Of the Mansion of Preste John and his Justice A History upon this subject BEing at Bagamidri some of us more curious then the rest of our company agreed to go see the Court of the Grand Negus or King of the Abissins and to this purpose leaving them that had no such desire we took a side-way towards the towns Barra and Barua where we were told the Prince most commonly resided Following on this road and having crossed many Provinces and Kingdomes at length we arrived at Barra the chief town of the Country where we found a numerous multitude of people
days we came to Cape Nona where we took in fresh water and seven dayes after we arrived at the white Cape a main shelter in the winter season where the fish lye so thick the ship brushes and rubbes upon them as 't were sayling through a shelf of sand There we found two vessels a Fleming and a Marseillian the Master whereof was John Baptista le vust called Servat who for his Merchant employed Aurigues the 15. of November we were upon a River of Guinea called Senega I ever carried with me a little memorial or diurnall where I set down all the curiosities I met with for which purpose I informed my self of the scituation of the countrey the quality of the Prince and government of which I will make a brief relation Guinea on the West is bounded with the River Senega which ingulfs into the Ocean at sixteen degrees to the North and the borders of Angela are at thirteen Guinea is divided into the high and the low the high Guinea inclines to the North the lower lyes along the Senega which they call Jeni and reaches to the kingdome Manicongo that begins at the first degree of the Line Upon the coast of Cape Verde are many Islands of one appellation the principal is of S. James in the hands of the Portuguese since the year 1446. where they have a well-fortified town and a Bishoprick stil'd Civitad an Island of 60. miles in length and 36. in breadth a mountanous country where they have never rain but in September and October which comprehend their winter The valleyes are fertile and afford excellent Melons the year round Dates and Sugar-canes in abundance flesh of all sorts Fowle and Venison with beards of horses and special good 'T is inhabited as that of S. Thomas by a conflux of all nations and the ayre being unwholesome they transport their infirm to an Island two leagues distant called Praya under a fine climate the ayr healthful and a commodious Haven betwixt two fair Rivers which compose two gulphs for harbours one whereof is capable to containe many vessels in security having before the mouth of it a little Island which guards it from the Maritime gusts and the land lying high defends it from windes by shore The other Islanders affect to land at this Port for that the rest are pester'd with sands and chiefly Borlouento and S. Thomas where there is ever some vessel cast away This Isle lyes close upon the Isle of Mago otherwise called Barlouento and near to Bona Vista Saint Nicholas Saint Anthony Saint Vincent Saint Lucie and Fell Islands plentifull of Cattle and Venison the inhabitants applying themselves onely to the chase powdering the flesh to sell to strangers as the skinnes likewise A little Eastward lyes the Isle del Fuego where they get as good wine as in the Canaries next is the Isle of Braua full of Venison and wilde Beeves whereof the Hydes are much sought after as being thick and tough But to Guinea the kingdome of the Jalofes is the first which beginnes Northward at the River Senega hath the Ocean on the West the Jalofes called Fonlogageias on the East and the kingdom of Barbessin on the South 't is above a hundred and fifty leagues in length of several commodities there is abundance as gold and silver which the natives conceale with all care from strangeers though in dealing with them 't is plain they have store for that by whiles they produce some unfined Taboucaton is their chief town They are Blacks but of good shape the women comely round-faced with eyes lively and attractive The men are martial dextrous in throwing a Javelin which they will throw with as exact arm as we shoot with our Gunnes They ride on good horses clothe as the African in short breeches a large Harnus like a sheet of wollen covers them from head to foot shod with Date-tree Sandals Vpon the coast they have the good and well-fortified Haven Beziguche whose entrance is skreen'd with a fair Island much frequented with strangers trading for the Indies Here are many Portuguese setled amongst them some married others who think of nothing but to heap up gold living something after the Barbarian Many of the Blacks go naked painted with dissolved gold their bodies carved and drawn with a various tincture as azure red and yellow which hold their life-time There are amongst them maids adorned in the same manner with great pendants in their ears and their lips pierced like the Brasilians they are generally libidinous and given over to luxury They who are thus engraved and inlay'd with paints or juyce of hearbs most commonly do it for want and this curiosiry is their attire Throughout the coast we find abundance of leather wax gold silver ivory and Amber-gris which is the reason the English Hollanders and Flemings visit them so oft The Jalofes are easie of belief and inclined to Christianity when they behold the Moon they make strong ejulations with sorts of adoration They adore yet some other Idols which neverthelesse fixe not their faith the Mahometans on one side who impugne them with their law on the other the Portuguese preaching ours and their own Priests charming them with their delusions and Idolatries They make their sacrifices in the woods making large hollow trees their Temples where they keep many Idols to which they sacrifice pulse Mill Rice and the blood of beasts whose flesh they eat The countrey of Bracala confines upon the rapide River of Gambra which in the mouth is five good leagues over ships cannot enter it without a direct wind with which they may advance three hundred leagues within the Countrey This River cuts the great kingdome of Mandinga in the middle peopled with Blacks Idolaters and abundance of Sorcerers wicked treacherous and base people When they hold a counsel t is in a cavern under ground to secure them from the prying of strangers They have store of Brasil wood as good as they of America and upon the river many townes and villages where they mantain many vessels of Warre to encounter with any whatsoever but upon advantage This countrey ends Southward at the Cape of S. Mary 30. leagues from the river Chougala by the Portuguese called S. Dominick There are two nations of the same quality the Barbachins called Ariates and Falupes who trade in nothing but fish and cattel They have an excellent way to take the sea-oxe the skins whereof they make great use of They apply themselves to till the soyle and get Mill Rice Pulse and other graine Out of this countrey comes the River Casamanca bounded Northward with the Jabundos on the South with the people of Bemum who on the East have the Casangas Of late yeares the Portuguese have discovered a way by an Arme of the Sea to Casangas and for this purpose have erected a good Fort upon the cheek of it called S. Philips This kingdome reaches Northward to Jaren and together do homage to the Sultanship
come by the streights of Hudscas Davis Forbisher and others which are thought to crosse to the Orientall and Tartarian sea but here they appear rather gulphs and arms of the Sea then streights Then we come to the Lands of Estotiland Labrador Cortereal New France or Canada and Bacaleos Norembeck Virginia New Nideoland or the New-Low-Countries Florida and New Spain or Mexico as well the old as new and the lands above new Granada Mar Vermeio California Quiuira or new Aâ—bion and Anian to the famous Streight of land or sea of the same name which joynes or divides North Asia or high Tartarie from this part of America And 't is probable that this way for many Ages men and beasts have passed who have peopled this new World whether from China Tartarie Moscovia and other places or as farr as Scandia or from elsewhere carried by the windes cast up by shipwrack or coming upon designe or for ease of people alwayes growing onward But this dispute I leave to be decided by better abilities being out of my reach and no part of my design South America from Jucatan Honduras and Nicanagua to the Streight of Panama proceeds by Vraba Dariena Castilia Dor Venesusla Paria Cabagna Cumana Curibana and further up into the famous Land of Guinea then comes the vast Territory or Coast of Brasile of above 1000 leagues Patagona and Chica to the Streights of Magellan and Maire and at last ascending towards the South-sea by Chila and Peru to the Isthmus of Mannama As for the Parts southward beyond the Streights towards the Land of Fou or Queinos to the Isles of Salomon new Guinea and others 't is not yet knowne what they are As to the Discovery of this New World leaving that common question If our Ancestors had any knowledge of it t was first made by Columbus in the yeare 1492. afterwards successively by Americus Vespasius Cabot Cortercall Cupral Verazan Cortez Pisarra and at last by Sir Francis Drake Sir Walter Rawley Forbisher Davis Hudson and others Towards the Lands of Labrador and Canada one Captaine Velasco a Spaniard passing that way entred the river of Canada or St. Laurens and taking it for an Arme of the Sea having a faire winde sayl'd up about 200 leaugues where he found many Townes and Villages inhabited by people called Piperones of an extraordinary stature as ten foote high or more people kinde enough and tractable spending their time only in hunting and fishing their ordinary diet milke and cheese Upon a Sunday coming on shore to celebrate Masse there came innumerable Savages to admire our Sevice and Ceremonies as a thing altogether new to them They presented the Spaniards abundance of sheep Kids and goats and they might have taken off the common what Cows and Cattel they would A people otherwise not very Military but exceeding simple and use Barkes like the Brasilian Canoes The Captaine in gratuity gave to the cheife of them a handsome sword and dagger who by signes let him understand he had nothing to returne him but 50 Cows and 200 sheep desiring him to accept them for accomodation for his company Part of them he took and gave him a Coate of Azure Tafeta which he highly esteemed and admir'd and went confidently abord them with a score of his men and at severall times came little boats loaded with fruit which this Lord had provided to present the Captain with at his departure he fired some Cannons which strangely amazed these poor people who thought the World at an end they go cloath'd with skins commodiously sew'd together In the Land of Labrador and beyond Northward are abundance of Mountains and Forrests where there are numbers of wilde beasts and amongst others huge beares and great Griffins all white which are nothing like those of the East or Africa which are gray only a little red under the belly but both of them have but two feet and not foure as they are painted They have also Partridges and other sorts of birds all white A little higher lies the frozen sea which some say is not a sea frozen but land covered with ice An Indian one Irica told me that in his youth he had been in the Land of Labrador which the Natives call Vchacara which borders on a Countrey called Alfringa and that crossing from Province to Province he saw seas of Vast extent all frozen and the people assur'd him t was not a Sea but Land covered with fresh water-ice a thing hard to be credited They have not any Townes but Villages where on little hills they live in timber houses covered with hides of Beifes and other beasts The people are Whites kinde and affable This Coast extends to the space of 400 leagues there is a large river they call de tres Hermanos which some Spanish were about to crosse but could not for snows Some imagine here is a streight that goes into the Orientall sea others that t is an Arme of the sea only Some take this for the river Rio Neuado which on one side coasts this Countrey for 200 leagues on the other side to the Bay of Maluas and by the Gulph Merosco lyes the Isle of Devills so called because they hold it to be haunted with spirits as many of the eastern Islands are as I observed in another place There are Tawnies amongst them they weare in their eares rings of gold and silver their cloaths lin'd with Martins and other furrs amongst them there live some Britains and English men Next lies the Countrey called Bacaleos or Bacca-Lao so called from our fishing for Codds there to which the Seamen give that terme That place is so thronged with this sort of fish that sometimes they cumber a Vessell in sayling The coast from thence to Florida is about 900 l. The Country is cold like Flanders and under almost the same climate The people are Idolaters and bruitish void of civility except along the shore where the French inhabit there they live better and eat not mans flesh as the rest round about them do They live in obedience to one they elect out of the most potent amongst them many Islands adjacent are possessed by the French Not far from thence lyes the Countrey called Chicora the people whereof are of extraordinary size they wear their hair down to their girdle the women much longer They believe the immortality of the soule and that after death they transmigrate to a better Countrey than their own They keep stocks of tame Deer which they drive to pasture as we do Cows and Oxen from them they make excellent cheese which mingled with a sort of clouted cream is a very delicate dish The English say the land of Bacalaos was first discovered by one Cabor sent thither by Henry the 7. King of England to which the Spaniards consent not much lesse the French who trafick'd here long before any other Nation Chicora lyes upon the Continent a little above Bacalaos and according to some is
held the Spaniards in play with good order and military discipline they had learnt of one Lanearo an Indian sometime page to Valdiuia and afterwards revolted against him This Arauco is a small division in Chila not above ten leagues in length and seven broad upon the Sea-side and breeds the most warlike people of the Indies upon which account the Spaniards stiled it El estado in domito wherein are contained the vales of Ponco Purto Tucapol Angol Cauten c. and the Towns of the Conception and the Imperiall In 1599. the Arucans took and demolished the Town and Fort Valdiuia and others putting all the Spaniards to sword man woman and child and sacked and burnt all and had repossessed the rest of the Country had they not been repulsed This constant war with the Araucans gave occasion to the famous Poet Alonzo de Ercilla to make his Poem the Auracana where he describes the Countrey and their war with the Spaniard and begins with this vanity truely poetical and Romantick Spaniard-like No Las damas Amor no gentilezas Di cavalieros canto enamorados Ni las Maestras regales y ternezas De amorosos a feijos y cay dados Mas el valor los huecos las proesas De aquelles Espagnoles esbercadòs Que a la cermi de Arauco no do madae Pasieron duro y ago per la espada Here I observe a singularity amongst these people in election of their Chief or Captain Generall who is the man that can carry longest a great tree like a date tree upon his shoulders as one Canpolican who was chosen did for three dayes together without the least rest CHAP. XV. Of the streight of Magellan FRom Chila the next is the streight of Magellan of about 100. leagues in length and not much more in breadth or any waies which is not to be survey'd till you are well within the land The tides are strong and dangerous principally from the South sea by reason of the narrow entrance in the mouth and a multitude of rocks and mountains before the mouth of it which render the passage hard to find and being but a little out at sea one can perceive nothing of it so as you must go cast about with the cock-boat though otherwise you know the way and the true heighth which is about 52. degrees There is one very high Mountain hard upon the mouth called la campana being in form like a bell The shallowest place is fifteen or twenty fathoms and a very good bottom The South sea enters thirty leagues within amongst very high Mountains covered with snow the North sea enters it seventy leagues on the other side where they find bottoms in many places as on the contrary on the South side the depth is such no ship can ride at anchor On the North side there are expatiate plains and champians upon the firm land and divers Rivers that fall into this streight shaded with odoriferous trees which shews the goodnesse of the soyle It containes some Islands not to be ventured on without discretion The Inhabitants on the South side are exceeding little on the North of Gyants stature whom in Magellan they call Paragous for their great feet they clothe with skins of sheep and other beasts for the rigidnesse of the Climate These are a people without civility law or policy wandring up and down without any certain abode reposing in Cabins and no other arms than bow and arrows when we speak to them and they understand not the language they lift their eyes to heaven They live upon flesh dried in the Sun enemies to none but give themselves wholly to chase and fishing This Streight is vexed with forcible tides from both sides which like two Cells encounter with a most obstreperous fragour where the danger is great and chiefly in winter when the winds rage there with more violence for the Streight is never free from winds no not in summer divers vessels perish in crossing the Rocks which seem an Archipelagus of Islands both those on the South-sea-side and those which come from Lima. The immense depth on the South side renders the sea more navigable and on the North the length of the fall breaks the force of the waves so as there is no great danger but in the narrowest and in some places of not above a musket shot In the winter the Sea is higher than in Summer and the passage wider notwithstanding the sailing is nothing more secure by reason of the crosse winds and colds Some are of opinion that the Tides do not meet at the same time but as it flowes on one side it ebbs on the other by a locall remotion of the sea but they are deceived for 't is certain that the floud comes in and goes out on both sides at the same time like as the boyling of a pot rising from the center disperses to all parts and cooling ceases all together this hath been proved by experience that at the same time the floud came thirty leagues form the South and seventy from the North the Sea swelling from both parts as the Pilots observed following the course of the Moon the Tides augmenting or diminishing according to her state the Tide and Ebbe coming sooner or later by three quarters of an hour daily conformable to the course of that plannet The Spaniards call the high-tide at the new-moon Cabeza de aguas the tide at the full Aguas viuas the low tides in the wane Aguas muertas This so admirable motion of the Sea seems rather a combat or like the boiling of water in a pot over a fire then a locall remotion which neverthelesse I refer to Naturalists The streight begins Northward at the Cape of eleven thousand Virgins as Magellan called it and ends Southward at Cape Victoria in the middle stood the Towne and Fortresse of St. Philip which afterwards the Inhabitants perishing with hunger and cold was called the Port of Famine The first that passed this streight was Ferdinand Magallanes a Portuguese who had both heard and seen something of it in their cards 'T was in 1519. when he went to find a road to the Moluccas that way for Charles the fifth Afterwards one Pedro Sarmicates passed the streight from North to South from South to North few passe for the danger and difficulty to find the way Since that the famous Argonautes who went round the world by Sea as Sir Francis Drake in one thousand five hundred seventy nine Candish in one thousand five hundred eighty five Oliuier de Nort in one thousand five hundred ninety nine and of fresher memory Spilberg le Maire Hermita and others But le Maire in 1618. a little further in some fifty six or fifty seven degrees towards the South found the new Streight called by his own name much shorter and much easier than the other not being above eight leagues in length and the breadth wide and facile the Spaniards came thither afterwards and gave it the name
pepper and ginger bruised together They compound an admirable drink with Areca mingled with the confection of the leaves of Bettel they preserve Tamur which is a sort of palm called Tamarindi myrabolans or plums the roots of a certain Bul-rush Clove Gillyflower tops or buds another root called Cucuma and many others They are of complexion more fair than black their cloathings are stuffs of cotton silk damask satin and velvet Their breeches cassocks or coats are almost of the Italian mode especially when they visit Ladies as at Ormus Their chiefest drink is milk with Sugar and Cinamon they make it of three sorts Sugar and Cinamon are still added and sometimes pepper Durions Mancoustan and Bananes The Banane tree is fifteen handfull high the trunk juycy and covered with a bark and leaves growing like the scales of fish two foot large and five foot long of a light green her root growing in the ground casts out sprouts that in time grow up to trees when this tree is come to full growth she puts forth from the middle of her stock a flower of a reddish colour about the bignesse and shape of an artichoke whence springs a bough hung with fruit to the number of a hundred each a handfull in length and four fingers large and bears but once a year which is held a wonder From incisions made into the tree there flowes good store of juyce or water very pleasant and gustfull in some places of the Indies they are called Masa in others Pican and say 't is the tree that bears the fruit of life In that Country Partridges are all white and bigger than ours there is plenty of all other fowle We went from Bengale in the company of many Merchants to trade at Castigan where were arrived some Portuguese ships and in those meetings much is got by the trade of gold and silver and in the exchange of our own commodities Castigan or Catigan belongs to the kingdom of Bengale which reaches over 400. leagues of land and the Lordship of Aracan a Kingdom between Bengale and Pegu stronger by Sea than land and wages often war with Pegu and some years since they say hath swallowed up Pegu but ruined by neighbours and therefore the King is called King of Aracan Tiparat Chacomas Bengale and Pegu. This King hath entertained the Fathers of the society at Chandecan his Royal Town and his whole state is strangely altered on a suddain as all the East is subject to innovations and changes the strongest still overcomming the weaker Catigan is a good Haven Town in the Mogor or Mogull's Country a great Kingdom and rich in all sorts of cattle in fish rice white and black spices especially pepper myrabolans and ginger which they candy and preserve and is better than any grows at Cananor the Prince of this Town called Banastarin his Son Achamu was converted by the Fathers of the society and obtained leave of the King his father to have a Church built for them he married the Princesse Cassubi a Christian Lady newly baptized he followed herein the advice of those holy Fathers for otherwise he intended to have ended his dayes in Celibat They relate many miracles of him amongst others that the first night they were bedded offering both their prayers to God upon their knees they were suddenly enlightned by a glorious light and smelt many sweet perfumes whereupon they mutually resolved to abstain from enjoyment and dedicate the remainder of their lives to chastity and sanctity He left his kingdom to his Brother Agazima desiring justice might be preserved in his Kingdom and that he would follow the advice of Father Philip of the society Agazima promis'd a performance but those Princes are all so jealous of our religion holding that the Christians adore one God great above the rest that wil not suffer any others disdaining to communicate himself to any and that he sets a greater esteem and value upon innocent poor and simple people then upon the rich Kings and Princes and that Princes had need to preserve to themselves the affections and obedience of their subjects to reign with more ease these were the seeming reasons Agazima offered his Brother and 't is those poor abused creatures ordinary discourse and opinion and the difficulty they find in our religion ignorant of the true and pure grounds thereof that teach subjects their obedience and subjection to their temporall Kings and Princes above all others Of Cassubi or Chasubi subject to Aracan I will hereafter speak In the kingdom of Bengale is the Town of Sartagan or Sartogan scituate upon a River that runs and loses her self in Ganges where the Portuguese have a fort There are great plenty of rice fine linnen cloaths sugar myrabolans and many other drugs The people are Gentils and in their Temples adore many Idols strangely and horridly shap'd others adore the first they meet my Camarade and I being lodg'd at a Brokers house who was happy in a sweet disposition'd a modest wife as we accompanied her one day from the market some of those Idolaters prostrated themselves at our feet and begun to make their prayers to us and were extreamly incensed when they saw we only endeavored to disabuse them and to laugh them out of their fopperies and idolatries they answered they were thus instructed by their parents and therefore thought it just and equitable They told me they were not of the Guzerates religion but were absolutely opposite to Mahometanism They esteem it a happiness to be near the Ganges believing that water purifies them from all filth and sin and therefore are carried thither both in health and sickness some leave orders that after their deaths their bodies may be burnt and their ashes cast therein that so they may go strait to heaven others hold the same of Euphrates and for this reason the Portuguese and other Christians abominate these rivers and never make anyuse of the water but of force and necessity which is a little superstitious on the other side the water of Ganges being the sweetest the wholsomest in the world and many drinking of it have been cured of great paines of the stomach which hardly afforded them any rest before 't is soveraign against many other pains aches and diseases The Indian Priests sing in their Temples from break of day to noon and after dinner they have other prayers which last till night when they hear this service they wash their hands feet and faces then walk barefoot upon stone laid on purpose to the Temple which is matted and there they stand upright without the least motion and after awhile they sit crosse-legged like Taylors There are two Altars one for the rising the other for the setting Sun and so they turn their faces ever to the Sunne They bury their dead in their Churches as we do and maintain women to lament and weep over the dead according to the ancient Roman fashion These
women are clothed in mantles of the Spanish fashion which reach lower then their girdles and of a purple colour and beneath that have skirts of blew cotton that trayle upon the ground and ten or twelve of them are dressed after this manner The corps this while is laid forth in some great room covered with a rich cloth or pall according to the quality of the person with four of those women waiting whilst the rest of them are sent abroad the town to deplore and lament the dead person the last whereof a little separate from her fellow-sisters declares the name quality and life of the defunct that all persons may prepare themselves to assist at the funerals They ejulate weep and lament with exotick gestures and tortions and in these postures having walked round the town they return to the corps with numbers of people and when the body is borne to the Temple then they raise yet lowder cries and ejulations One of these women makes a Panegyrick of the dead setting forth the great losse he is to his wife children friends and kindred then the multitude expresse their sadnesse acknowledging the losse they howle and cry out so hideously all together that you would think them distracted or at least at the brink of despaire when the body is carried out of the house Flutes Kettles and other Instruments play to the Church whither the Parents Kindred and Friends follow a most pitiful and sad sight CHAP. XXIII Of the Isles of Archi-Pelagus of S. Laurance of the Island of Sumatra of Elephants and other particulars AT the opening of the Gulph Bengale are many Isles great and small which make the Archi-pelagus called S. Lazarey and near 80. leagues in length and end about the Philippines and the Japon the chiefest thereof are Sumatra Javes Boraco Banda the Molukes the Philippines and others Towards Sumatra are the Isles of Andreman or Andemaon which signifies golden mynes inhabited by Antropophayes who warre with one another and eat their prisoners They make the like provision of humane flesh as we do of beef or bacon each of those Isles have their Kings It happened once to a Portuguese vessel having passed the Canall of Micobar and Sombrero called by the Indians Jenibra lying between Sumatra and the Continent the Portuguais call it Call or Canall of Sombrero because the place is covered by the winding and shade of the Isle as it were with a great brimmed hat One night by a sudden storme she was cast upon the Isles of Andreman otherwise Maduca within two leagues whereof is a shelf or bottome of white rock very dangerous hardly possible to sayle by without shipwrack The Portuguais call the place Pedra bianca Those in the shippe foreseeing the danger they were in threw over-board all their Artilery and all other things of weight they had therein and threw away their main Mast and by this means they escaped the shelve and rock being suddenly thrown out of that narrow passage by a great wave but behold their greatest misfortune escaping one danger they fell into another for seeing their ship begin to fill with water having sprung a leake they were forced to commit themselves to the mercy of their fiercest enemy The Captain Don sano Mendo advised them to prepare for land and to resolve to sell their lives dear since there was no hopes for a handful of people to escape the cruelties of so many barbarous villaines they suddenly cut and broak the ship to flitters every one snatching a planck endeavouring to reach the shore which was about halfe a league off and having put themselves in the best order could be expected in the like disorder or confusion with such arms they could carry as swords and axes as they were ready to land these barbarous insularies met them with their bows and arrowes and truncks and killed some 20. at the first onset the remainder of them about sixty having got footing on land by force made a great slaughter amongst the Infidels and seized of two Merchants houses where they fortified themselves the best they could untill their bloody irritated enemy fell upon them and besieged their sconce The Portugais reduced to this sad extremity resolved to sally forth with firebrands in their hands and to fire the adjacent town or village which being built with reeds and covered with palme was presently consumed then they thought to have escaped in boats belonging to the Isle but knowing not how to use them they returned back again and fortified themselves in the Caselba or Temple where with certain provisions they brought thither and others they found they maintained the place eleven or twelve dayes at the end of which time seeing there was no hope of a composition to be made with that furious people they resolved to dye gallantly with their weapons in hand and after a mutual and unanimous preparation and resignation of themselves they threw themselves amongst those barbarous infidels killed double or trebble their number but at last yielded all to the same doome and were eaten and salted by those sanguinary Barbarians Sumatra is one of the fairest Isles in the world sometime Taprobane and Palesimonde some would have it to be that which in old time was the Chersonese of gold and Ophir most renowned for Salomon It is called by some Tasan which signifies a great Isle because she hath 800. leagues compasse The Inhabitants of Malaca say it was formerly joyned to their continent but divided by an earthquake lyes directly under the Equinoctial lyne in the first climate her dayes and nights are all of a length is divided into many Provinces which make three kingdomes the chiefest whereof is Sougar commonly called Pedir and have all mynes of gold silver and other mettals and of the best sorts of Drugges and Spices the Pepper that growes there is larger and more biting then any other growing under the Torrid zone which causes the country to be the most temperate and best inhabited in the world for the reasons I have already spoken of The ayre is very wholesome and people live there very long and with good health the natives are very tractable but of little truth so 't is not safe trading with them for they will falsifie their word for their profit The kingdom of Assy is the richest in gold which is the finest of the world and Achen is the most potent The Isle is inhabited by Gentiles Moores and Jewes Many Turks have of late planted there for the goodnesse of the country and purity of the ayre The Idolaters only are natives all others come from other parts The earth is strangely fruitful in all products the onely inconvenience is the great flouds from rain which incessantly falls from Mid May untill Mid August and from mid-day to mid-night onely as at Bengale and as it happens in most of the countries under that Zone The King of the country discovering his subjects falshood which
ordained us drinks to all the Princes and loyall Subjects then every one drinks his health the three assistants stand up and salute him then sit down again and the King continually presents plates of meat sometimes to one sometimes to another so that for the feast time there is businesse enough The meat is seasoned with musk and amber At the Feast there are Buffons to delight the King and Company who have a thousand anticks and devices The King having done at Table the Emperour of Siam kissing his buskin as an homage presents him a rich Crown of gold which the King receives with embraces and kisses his cheek in testimony of perpetuall amity Then the rest kissing his buskin lay every one their presents at his feet The Kings bring Crowns the Princes chains and collars the rest present according to their quality all in gracefull order for the kingdoms and provinces march all according to their rank without confusion Then the rest of the people present other things both rare and curious These presents are brought in such quantity that every four hours they are forced to remove them at the coronation which was in my time the presents lasted five dayes from morning till night with unparallel'd wealth and magnificence during this time the people are all provided for at the Kings charge and take up fifteen leagues of land with wonderful regularity The Presents delivered they stay five days for dismission to return Amongst other things the King delights much in Cock-fights for which he hath Cocks from Besistan with beards which beard is properly but a carnosity hanging under the throat very brown growing of a burnt bloud the bird being exceeding hot for sport they match them with the Cocks of Pegu that are not altogether so fiery but more heavy and mortall enemies The King and his Court have this recreation once a week Their pens are close together with mats of palm that cover the windows at which they are fed At the creation which was in my time they had this game and lifting up the mats the Cocks immediately fell to fighting with their bils through the spaces of the lattice but the keepers parted them with switches till they had taken their portions which is of a small black grain they call Versin as big as a grape stone of quality exceeding hot The mats taken away then is the sport to see how they will range themselves in Battalions for the assault frowning with rage and the window once open they fall on in good earnest till they most cruelly tear one another and fill the place with blood for a good hour together then they part them many lying dead in the place which they eat the flesh being reddish like beef but exceeding tender and tastefull CHAP. XXXII Of the Justice and Policy with the Peguans their Sacrifices and horrible dances A lamentable History of two young Princes AS to the revenues of the King of Pegu when peoples ordinary payments are brought in there is Proclamation through the Dominions that no Subject is obliged to pay any Royall right gabell subsidy or impost for a whole year What Handicraftsmen alone pay him amounts to three millions or as they reckon so many Baselins a sort of weight Every house-keeper payes him so much by the year When a new King is elected all Towns and Villages send Deputies to make their acknowledgement with presents of rarities and things extraordinary As to the elect in our time were sent three white Cowes with tayles differing from others like swine hornes growing in their skins only not on the top of the head which they could move as their eares decked bard bridles covered with cloathes of crimson silk and hung over with bells of gold silver and Calin a mettal like silver much used in the Indies This present was very acceptable to him notwithstanding 't was done in derision of another people his Subjects who wear the like bells at their genitories to content their Mistresses with little hooks and rings to take them off when they go to visit them and testifie to them they have satisfaction in nothing but themselves for amongst them there are that are addicted to the unnaturall sin no more prohibited there than amongst the Turks except there be violence used for which there is severe punishment When the first Prince of the kingdom comes to take his leave he embraces him and kisses his cheek then presents him with ten fair white Persian coursers barded with cloth of gold of diverse colours their feet hang'd round with bells of gold to shew the people they are proper onely for beasts to wear These bells so disquieted the horses four or five men could but hold them so unruly they were likewise to the Prince of Siam at his departure he gave a collar of rubies of inestimable value in brief there was neither Prince nor Nobleman that parted without satisfaction 'T was thought the King distributed the best part of the horses in his stable where he had above thirty thousand which are the most magnificent present can be made in that country He gave besides many pieces of scarlet cloth silks of divers colours and other stuffes sufficient to load twenty thousand cammels An Elephant he never bestowes but on the contrary all Princes diligently endevour to get them for him All the horses he gives arise to the advantage of the State for when he hath occasion for them in war the subjects upon the least orders are all ready so well they affect him esteeming them amongst the blessed that dye in his service and for such the Priests never make prayers as being already in the number of the Saints and happy For their justice 't is equally administred to all offices and estates depending on the Kings will who gives them gratis and payes all officers out of his own Coffers which keeps them from doing any thing against Law and Justice for their punishments are very severe Creditours may by right take their Debtors for slaves when they have not wherewithall to pay them and if they will may sell them at the price of their debt and sometimes sell their wives and children by Port-sale till they are fully satisfied The charge of suit amounts to little or nothing They all live in good awe and all apply themselves to labour who hath no meanes of his own betakes himself to Mills Buildings and Mines where the King entertains them so as no one wants a way to live Poor orphans are brought up at the Kings charge There are diverse enclosed places for girles where they are employed in working silk and many other ingenuous arts A stranger passing through the country may be employed if he will or they will give him a passe to another town The King hath four hundred slaves but they are only for the service of the houshold without regard to either Nation or Religion so they are
them when their keeper speaks to them they will moove their great ears to understand what he sayes They are decently lodg'd and as at Pegu fed in silver vessels The better sort of people live after the Persian way their houses ennobled with gold and azure They have onely one lawfull wife but divers concubines who go richly apparelled their face vail'd in the streets as in Spain and Italy but within door their faces are uncovered and are very sociable They are Gentiles and Idolaters and easie to be dealt withall If a Merchant make stay in Town he shall have a couple of young women will furnish him with a house and all necessaries and serve him like slaves nay 't is lawfull to beat and chastize them if they do not what they are commanded having once submitted to it They go well apparelled and decent as may be are very affable dance and sing well preserve a Merchants goods with great care Larceny amongst them being held a notorious ignominy Almost all the women are clothed in white as all the Inhabitants men and women in Arabia Felix We lay in the Town of Canarena at one Chamuts a Brokers house who had two Unicorns horns one whereof had half the head remaining to it We put the end in water to see if 't would make it boyle as the horn doth but I thought it boyled more vivaciously and it came out like pearle I asked him if he ever saw of these creatures alive he told me he never saw but two which were very young and not come to have hornes That the King going a hunting took one of them but they could not take the damme whatsoever they could do because as they say they shun and fly from the aspect and presence of a man and the places where the Serpents haunt whereof we spoke before who make a cruel warre upon them for greedinesse of their blood which is said to be of excellent scent as it hath been divers times proved particularly when one was sent by their Prince to the King of Pegu which stung by a fly the bloud which issued out was put in a bottle and brought to the King who made no great esteem of it not finding the scent agreeable though notwithstanding he found it more odorous then Civet This the Sensal or Broker told us I my self saw a perfect Unicorn in the King of Regues Seraglio who had the tongue differing from other beasts very long and jagged the head more like a horse then a hart and there are of several haires The Keeper said 't is but an uncleanly beast delights in his own soyle and that having often seen him drink he never observed him to put his horn in the water The Indians report many other things of them but so strange and various there is no great assurance as that they breed but once in their life-time and like Elephants go two yeares with their young and the like A Bramin an order Kings themselves hold it an honour to be of told me once with a protestation laying his hand on the wreath of his order that he was present with the King of Casubi at the taking of one of these Unicorns which was all white and very old the chops so hanging down all her teeth were seen that she was so fierce in her owne defence she broke her horn amongst the boughs that being taken they brought her bound to the Kings Pallace but being so bruised with blowes for having hurt the Kings Nephew she would not eat and so died within five dayes which shewes she is a cholerick and sullen beast The Queens had bracelets made of the bones as Indian Ladies have a curiosity in wearing bracelets of Ivory and the like The King of Casubi reserved the horne of this beast to himselfe about five moneths after being at this Princes Court who was both courteous and curious I desired the Sieur de la Courb one of our own company to request the favour we might see this horne which he did and the King immediately sent for it and gave it him and the Sieur in requital gave him a delicate watch This horne was of different colour to those I had seen in the Sultan of Mecaes Serallio and other places for this drew neare a white gray whereas the other were of a black gray I have been told that Lewis de Bartheme in his travailes recounts how he saw at the Seldans of Meca in Arabia two of these Unicornes which were sent him by the King of Aethiopia high as a two year old colt of a dark colour the head like a Hart the horne three fathome long a little Mane small legges cloven feet and a Goats cley likewise the English and the Hollanders report that in their last voyage towards Spiteberg in a place called Horendsond they found Unicornes hornes not knowing of what beast they were The Prince of Casubi moreover shewed us his Ladies bracelets made of the other piece of this horn which had a very sweet scent He shewed us likewise the bones of an intire head which one of his Princes kept in a Cabinet and divers other curiosities amongst the rest an Estrif that which we call a Griffin but the head was wanting because at the time it was killed it fell amongst brakes so thick and thorney they could not finde it till the morrow by which time the Marmosets had eaten the whole head the feet were of strange length and the Tallons would well have seized a bushel his plume was white and reddish upon the brest they have but two feet and a Tallon is a good halfe ell long from one end to the other I have seen of them of prodigious strength and furiously ravenous that would have carried away a calfe of six moneths old and eaten him There are abundance of them about the lake Chiammay whereof we spoke before From Canarana we made some dayes to Mandranella a fair Town fifty leagues from Tasatay upon Zingis a large and deep river that bears great vessels They traffick with the Tabins or Chineses and the people of Bugazan come thither for all necessaries This is the residence of the grand Caleferech of Pegu whereof we spoke before All persons of quality that passe this way go kisse the Princes buskin who is as affable and courteous as may be There is another Town of the same name in Indostan towards Persia above six hundred leagues from this In this countrey there is a sort of domestical fowle they call Bouiagui which live for the greater part in the water and feed on what is thrown them such as have house and lands upon the river keep abundance of them being of little charge and great profit he who can get two hundred of them thinks himself wealthy for he needs no more then one little lad to drive them a field with a basket to gather up the eggs whereof he will not loose one for they sit down to
say the earth were higher then the heavens which notwithstanding must needs be if we allow Antipodes That the Poles held immovable are not so but that these two starres turn within two degrees round the Pole That 't is an errour the Sun should by night go hide himself under us that the two Poles are not diametrically opposite since as they say they may be seen at the same time upon sea and land though very low neverthelesse That if there were Antipodes that must be the bottom of the earth and all rivers would naturally run thither contrary to experience and a thousand other opinions as strange as absurd for want of knowledge in the spheare and Astronomy So they laugh as at a thing childish and fabulous at the opinion of the Ancients and Moderns on this side of the rotundity of the earth in the middle of the world and the Ubiquitary habitation and that the Sun turns quite round from East to West They hold for certain that the Sunne rises in all other points as they observe in Tazatay where they imagine it to rise as 't were North and North-West They think to prove their phantastical imaginations when they describe the Iliaca a bright starre in the West and opposite to that Biliaca which appears beyond the Line and is that the shepheards fear so much by the Persians called Zobona so mortiferous to cattle for which cause they house them while that starre raignes and the better to preserve them they make them turn tayle to the starre for if they face it it makes them languish and dye in the end They say that these two opposite starres may be seen in a Line at the same time through a trunck and that each moves about his Pole in twenty four houres but that these are not the same as the North and the Crusero The North being no more distant from the Pole then two degrees and a quarter and one of the other two a degree and a half onely And whereas the ancients observed onely two Poles each in his Hemisphere they make six Poles in the same Hemispheare which are Casara the pole of the World that of the Zodiack the Artick and Antartick and these two starrs and a thousand other fancies as incomprehensible as they are farr from the sence of reason and experience And that which confirmes them in their errors is that they can discerne the two polar starrs from the same place as in Japaca seven degrees beyond the Line in Java and the like in Sumatra and other parts and accordingly in travell they make a strange calculation of the distances of places They jeer likewise at the frame of our spheare and the division of the Zodiack into twelve signes some to the North some to the South and understand not this but after their own way They call the Zodiack Cazatoni that is Significator The signes they call Ant Ronia Amiessem Emisen Courpsa Cheoser Irat Metrias Escorgat Tamasee Besir Bizihir Azourac Persan the highest spheare Birquen Emine the Ecliptick Zoberna that is obscurity because Ecclipses proceed thence That the Zodiack is an oblike circle and that from thence and the Region of fire the Sun takes his course and thence makes generation of all inferiour things Like some of the ancients likewise they hold that the Heaven stands like a vault over the earth and floates and swimmes upon the waters In breife I shewed them the work of Paul Rao the Italian who speakes of all this Astronomy of the Ancients which supposes the Equinoctiall divides the Zodiack in two parts South and North at which they scoffed and grew cholerick saying so base a book was fit for the fire that held nothing but errors and wondered our Prince would suffer such frauds and impostures as they called them to be published in his Dominions they believing as well the lands inhabited from East to West as from South to North are in view of the pole Artick and that it is false there should be any part of India under the Antartick since as they think they have the North as much elevated as we in Europe and many extravagancies hereupon which I leave to be argued and confuted by the learned in Astronomy and Cosmography Hearkning to these Indian opinions I have been told that the Chineses that speculative Nation hold the Heavens to be round but the Earth square and the Empire of China stands punctually in the middle as being the excellence and Principality of the World other parts being but as the skirts and accessaries so as they were a little cholerick when they saw our cards designe their Countrey in the extremity of the East as an indignity to the Grandeur and Majesty of their Country and King whom they call the sonne of the sun And truly these poore Indians wanting the knowledg of sciences and experience are not so much to be blamed for their opinions since in the middle of sage and learned Greece there were of the ancient Philosophers that maintained almost the same that the earth was not round but some as Lucipus that it was like a drum others that it was hollow like a barke as Heraelitus others like a Cilinder or Roler as Anaximandrus and Democritus others that it was absolutely flat as Empodocles and Anaximines some have wandered as far as this Paradox to release it from the center and make it run in the heavens about the immovable sun which with no less extravagancy hath been renewed in our times But for the Antipodes they who held the rotundity of the earth allowed them not for all that holding those parts inhabitable either for being covered with innavigable seas or for the insupportable heats of the Torrid Zone even some of the ancient fathers have for other considerations been taken with this opinion as Lactantius St. Augustine and others and they say a learned Germane Bishop was accused of Heresie for maintaining there was Antipodes But besides the reasons of science experience of Navigation and modern voyages shewes sufficiently the truth of this matter whereof I leave the large discourse to the more learned CHAP. XXXVII Of Tartary Frightfull deserts fierce dogs a strange History of two lovers the Empire of the Tartars and their Religion OF Grand Tartary which lies on the North of all the Provinces I have spoken of I know nothing but by the relation I received in these parts and by the Memorialls of a certain Hollander who was at Pegu. The Inhabitants of these Countreys then tould me that beyond the Kingdom of Tazatay Mandranella Transiana and Casubi towards the North are vast solitudes and sandy deserts which you must travell for many dayes before you can arrive at a Kingdom called Sinabo which at one end towards the East confines with Cochinchina subject to the great King of Tabin or China To passe these vast sands there must be made good provision of victualls water and beast for as
in such esteem were it for the goodnesse or for Religion that here they would celebrate their Deities festivals and inthrone Alemnon Cephee and Perset mighty and illustrious Kings of this Countrey There was one Melilec who holds the chief renown amongst them who they report to have been the son of Salomon and Mecheda Queen of Saba and of whose race by lineal descent from Father to Son all their Kings to this day report themselves descended I know not how justly it can be proved Howsoever it be the most ancient Histories attest that about the year 521. in the time of Justin the Emperour there was one Elesbaan King of Ethiopia a Christian who subdued Dunaam a Jew King of Arabia the happy who infesting the Homerites being Christians Elesbaan he freed them and being returned into his Countrey became Hermite Afterwards there was another King named Hellisteus a Christian also who entred confidence with Justinian the Emperour and brought famous victories from the Infidels in Arabia These kings made the royal town of Cachumo sometimes called Aucumo their mansion which stil holds the name since those times by reason of the length and difficulty of roads we have had little or no intelligence of the Ethiopian Kings the Turks and Saracins having constant possession of the passages til the voyages of the Portuguese who have given us some light since this latter age As to spiritualty this Countrey hath ever submitted to the direction of the Patriarch of Alexandria who for the danger of coming thither by reason of the Saracins who ruled in Egypt sent them a Prelate called Abuma for Governor as the Patriarch of Antioch sends one into the East called Catholica Some say that in the year 1439. the Abissins came to render obedience and to acknowledge Pope Clement 5. at Auignon that they sent since to the Council of Florence in the year 1439. But 't is more certain that since the Portuguese conversed with them the Kings have made a fuller acknowledgement of the Romane Church As to their Religion though it be Christian yet they retain divers Jewish ceremonies and other heresies received as wel from Pagans as from the heretical Eutiches and Dioscorus sent to them by schismatical Patriarchs from Alexandria whereof at present they begin to be purged and better instructed by the Jesuite Fathers and the Patriarks sent to them from Rome as we find in modern relations For a long time there have regular Religious been in the Countrey and Anchorites of the order of St. Anthony St. Macharius and St. Basile but no Dominicans as some would have us believe From St. Anthonies order is proceeded another they call Estefarrus which must be St. Stephen For the nature of the people they have a strong propensity to vertue and orthodox religion render exact obedience to their Prince and most high veneration to Church and Clergie are severely chast and addicted to pennance and austerity of life very charitable and very hospitable Priests while they celebrate mass are covered with a vail after the Greek manner and the men divided a part from the women in the Church The whole Court lodges alwaies under pavilions in the field rang'd in the form of a Town for places and streets drawn to a direct line where there is assigned for every one a Captain or Justiciar to prevent tumults 't is of great circuit sometimes containing two leagues of land with twelve ports in honour of the Apostles within this circuit there are two Churches one for the Emperour and Nobility of seven or eight hundred paces in circumference the other for the vulgar Within there is one Altar onely and upon it the figure of a Crosse of a gray colour shadowed with a vail of white silk on the middle of the Altar stands a picture of the blessed Virgin in colours betwixt two more of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul upon solemn Feasts the Emperours white tent is changed for a red through all the Churches there is said but one Masse a day where there is observed such reverence that 't is not lawfull to spit speak or sit down upon any occasion whatsoever the Temple of our Lord as they say being a place neither for uncleanness nor discourse If one be constrained to passe by on horseback he alights and walks with hat in hand When the Sacrament is elevated one rings a bell of stone the clapper of wood as are all the bells in Ethiope and immediately all fall upon their knees The Emperour himself if he be on horseback alights in haste and continues on his knees till another sign be given The Priest is never seen while he consummates because he is covered and surrounded with a white vail as likewise the people never behold the blessed Sacrament but they bow their face to the ground jogging their bodies in a dancing manner and standing on their toes The Offertory is made at the end of Masse They give the Sacrament to little children as well as others causing them to abstain before The Negus never eats in gold or silver but in vessels of Euate onely which endures no poyson but breaks immediately For wine there is none made but in his Palace or in the Abuma's house As for the Abissine or Nubian language 't is a distinct tongue but much compounded as they say with Hebrew Chaldean Syriack and Arabick words which reaches to the very East by reason of the soft and sweet pronunciation and because 't is plain and easie to learn So the Abissins when they travel as I have often mark'd make themselves easily understood with the Guinoii themselves They use the Chaldaick for sacred matters and sciences in which all their books are written and Masse celebrated as the Abissins do in their Church of St. Stephen of India at Rome in like manner as the Maronites and other Syrians Now for the Rivers in this Countrey there are many very great ones but the principal is the so famous Nile which cuts it from one end to the other sallying as some say out of an unsoundable lake in the Country of Guyame others will have it from the Mountains of the Moon or Cafartes and from Befsi or Zech whence likewise issues the Zaire and the Aquilonde which run Westward and the Zuama southward But the Nile towards the West falls into the lake of Zambra or Zaire and from thence passing betwixt the Kingdoms of Damus and Ambea inclining towards the East then on the other side the Equinoctial enters Beleguanza corporates with another River flowing from the lake Zanflan likewise called the Nile and thence betwixt Bagamidri Vangue and Abiancantiva it visits Tigremabon and having swallowed the Tagazzi or Tecassin and other Rivers swel'd with so many flouds it creates the famous Isle of Meroe with two arms by the Ancients called Astapus and Astaboras at this time Tecassin and Ahambi afterwards re-uniting passes the Tropick Cancer and at Siena or Asma makes the renowned Cataracts
dayes to refresh himself then took his journy towards the Court whither from that place he had 4. or 500. leagues of land to crosse and yet 't was a fortune to him that the Court was no further remov'd for as it might have happened he might have had above 700. leagues before he reacht thither Being furnished with horses at this Monastery for himself and his company who were some fourteen or fifteen in number he came as he since told us to another Church or Monastery some seven or eight leagues from thence but with extream trouble his horses so tiring that the servants were fain to carry the baggage themselves for two leagues together At length he got to the Monastery of St. Dominick as he called it where he found good entertainment and changed his horses which were for no further service being so extreamly beaten out with travailing unshod as they use in those parts because they have not the art of shooing As he was upon the point to depart thence there fell such an excesse of rains that the Rivers were so broken out that he was constrained to stay near a month longer and expect till they retir'd within their banks Then he continued his journey and having crossed a vast Countrey came to Mongibir where he made a visit to the King who was then sick but used him with great civilities The Embassadour offered him the advice of his Physician but he told him our Lord who had sent his grief should cure it He furnished him with horses and appointed his own Son to conduct him even to the Court. By the way he met with many other Monasteries and mountainous and unpleasant Countries thence he came to the Province of Tigremahon subject to the Negus who hath five kingdoms under his dominion here 't was he first drunk the honied wine kept in great ox-horns From thence he travailed to Culusen and many other Countries till he arrived near Barra where the Court lay As soon as we had notice of it we failed not to present our respects to him and he returned many civilities to the Sieur de lu Courb as the principal amongst us but neverthelesse with a Sossiego and Spanish gravity of which the Sieur seemed to take no notice for that we designed by his mediation to see the Negus at table which as yet we had not compassed though for his own part out of the gravity or vanity of his Countrey he disdained to see it yet by reason of his quality he might have done it without difficulty This being observed by the Sieur de la Courb he so well feasted a Master of houshold to the Abuma that he promised us we should see him at supper as we did two dayes after but I believe he first demanded his Masters licence then he brought us to the Monastery of Atania for the Negus seldom lodges in tents where he finds Monasteries or Churches as there are plenty in this Countrey 'T was there we saw the Prince sup in the manner I spoke of As concerning the Embassadour the Negus having intelligence of his coming sent a handsom company of Cavaliers to receive him and some eight dayes before had sent a grand Serami to conduct him which Serami was not sparing of his cudgell to any upon the way that gave not the Embassadour honour who being met by these Cavaliers many salutes and complements were interchanged Being arrived at the Camp they presented him a tent of Canvas which was something disliked by the Embassadour as being unsuitable to his quality neverthelesse he seemed to take no notice of it but the Serami perceiving something told him for excuse they used him no courser than the Prince himself who had no better which gave satisfaction to the Embassadour then they brought him in provision of victuals for him and his retinue 'T was three dayes before he had audience then some principall Gentlemen and Officers came for him by night and conducted him to the Court which was then at a goodly Monastery and being brought into the chamber of presence he found the Negus sitting on a bed of raz'd gold and silver tissue four pages in the same stuff standing bare at the bedâ— feet with lighted Flambeaus in their hands The Embassadour made him a most respectfull reverence at seven or eight paces distance bowing exceeding low whereas others kisse the ground and the Negus unvailing a little one side of his face demanded the Presents the King of Spain had sent him where the other being ready to answer supposing he should have a compleat audience the person that brought him in told him at present it might not be and that the King had seen him was sufficient for the first time and so without further ceremonies he delivered his letters which were read by an Interpreter On the morrow about midnight the Embassadour was sent for again in the same sort and ceremony then the Embassadour carried the Present which was in pieces of silk spices and some rich and well-wrought arms The Negus received them then dismis'd him causing one to tell him he should shortly be dispatch'd The next day he was sent for again to Court where he dined with the King and Queen the King a little remov'd at some distance from them The first service was three gold dishes the first full of fire the second of ashes and the third of the miraculous pears I spoke of in which being cut there appears a perfect naturall crosse representing our Redemption as the other eternall pains and death Afterwards came all sorts of exquisite and delicate meats The Embassadour having staid some months in the Court the Negus sent him a letter for his Master though letters are not in use with them content onely to send their messengers who deliver their missives by vocal relation but this letter was at the proper instance of the Embassadour himself as he told me a good while after when I met him at Grenada in Spain When I mentioned the Army of the Negus I forgot to tell you 't is ranged in such sort that the Lanciers are quarter'd outmost round the Camp lined with the Cavalry and musqueteers within them all quarter'd in order and streets as in a Town the Souldiers apart by themselves Merchants on one side and Artificers on the other six or seven thousand tents will serve for fourscore thousand men The Cavalry most commonly consists of thirty thousand horse all unshod for they have not the art to shooe them stout and indefatigable being brought up by Cowes from which they take the calfs and put colts in their places To conclude the Emperour ordinarily depends not upon his proprietary possessions for bedes the gold and silver his people pay as tribute they pay him amber musk civet stones and all sorts of victuals and sustenance so as he hath not much use of money more then to pay his Officers and servants who are paid their stipend in gold or silver uncoin'd in gobbets exactly
himself to his bed whence he never rose again Thus was the good man abused by the knavish cheats To second this I shall tell you of an exploite was put upon me in this very voyage I intended for Naples to buy some horses for which purpose I had a good handsom sum of money I had taken for pearls I brought from Lisbone and sold to the Marquesse of Oraison which I had put in two bags whereof one I ever carried about me One day passing through the market Colonna I observed a Goldsmith well furnished with jewels and having cheapned a good diamond of about four or five carrats weight and a good luster by reason the Bishop of Marseills desired me to buy him one if I met with a good bargain we agreed for threescore and odd pistols which I laid down but he recanting and demanding more I withdrew my money Upon this comes in a man in good fashion his beard white and a black velvet cap and told me in private if I would buy a good diamond or other jewels he would shew me those were good and at a reasonable rate I took the man for some Senatour or person of quality and followed him though the Goldsmith pulled me by the sleeve to come into his shop again As we went along my Gentleman entertained me with discourse of severall jewels he had at his Chamber without Port Popolo at last he had brought me to a place out of all wayes near the Palle Malle by the wall side I began to suspect some mischief when I heard a Faquin by the way bid farewell such a one calling him by his name and as I was thinking to take my leave of him and go back again I was seized upon by four or five Ruffians who set a dagger to my breast and made me deliver my purse and the bag I had about me and my guide vanished so as I could see him no more In this miserable condition I came back to Rome full of shame and sadnesse and though I spoke not a word of it yet my misfortune was immediately divulged through all Rome how I had been cheated by one in such cloaths who was known and famous for such a one he was not long after apprehended and meeting me I knew him not at all having cut his hair and changed his cloathes and stoutly denyed the fact They shewed me some pieces of gold which I claimed as my own but that was all I could get Notwithstanding he was within few dayes after with two of his Comrades hanged convicted of divers other robberies Being upon return to Marseills I made a digression towards the river Genes and Malta and by reason the plague was at Martigues I could not without difficulty be admitted into Ville Franche to take a bill of health to crosse the River Genes where they are exceeding severe upon such occasions The day after I arrived coming abroad two houres before day to take fresh ayr I heard a doleful voyce coming as I thought from Capo Ferino that cryed Alas kill me not and take all I have and after some profound groanes cease The day brought the matter to light and it appears a poor man was murthered by some of Nice persons of quality and free from suspition For these people with the Castle-Frigot went aboard a Bark and having put all to the sword and pilladged sunk it but God for his just judgement permitted him who sate at helme to leap into the water and being ignorant of swimming they say a Dolphin came betwixt his legges and carried him to shore then knocking at the Castle Gate he was brought wet as he was before the Governour to whom he related that some with the Castle Frigot had boarded their vessell and used them as I told you The Governour amazed at the matter called for him who had charge of the Frigot to know to whom he had delivered it who told him that such and such had taken it without asking because he had ever allowed them the priviledge The Governour put on his clothes and went to the shore where he found his Frigot drawn on land and a boy washing away some blood which was in it for it seems one of the Bark endeavouring to escape they took him killed him and threw him into the sea The Governour quietly asked what he was doing he cunningly answered they had in the night taken a great Fish and that he was washing away the blood In the instant came he who had taken away the Frigot to give good morrow to the Governour whom the Marriner immediately knew and cryed out that was he who had done the fact whereupon the Gentleman with two others were brought to the Castle and upon triall executed two more escaped but being taken afterwards paid the same rates confessing many more murthers and vessels sunk amongst others one wherein were 22. Religious Jesuits and Capucins whom they wrapt all in a saile and cast into the sea having pilladged what they had Thence we went to the Town of Genes in company of one Alari who had brought Hawkes to the King and was going towards the Dutchy of Vrbina and being at Vay about three or four miles from Savona they would not suffer us on any conditions to passe further and of necessity we must turn our course to the mountains of Mountferrat a country pester'd with Bandits and such other in which passage we were rob'd and poor Alari lost above two thousand franks which he had in his Valice We met with many difficulties in this passage crossing through narrow passages fill'd up with snow by Alcare to Casoanta Alexandria Placenta Parma Bolonia Florence and Rome where we arrived against the canonization of some Saints I got Letters from Sieur Guileo Falio Embassadour of Malta for some of the money owing me by the Grand Master Thence we came to Naples where such a famine raigned that the women in mutiny threw stones at the Governour in his Coach the Cardinal and Sapata whose heeles saved his life Then we took a Frigot for Messina and by edict we were to take no more bread aboard then for half a day I brought halfe a crowns worth which I hid under the Planks we had been undone if it had been found and the souldiers were exact searchers we suffer'd some hardship when we had no bread to our meat yet so we passed two dayes intire and putting in at the Pouilla we could not amongst all the Fisher-men for any money buy a morsel nor could have any thing amongst them but fish which we afterwards trucked with a youth for bread he had in reserve coming to Asilla there we got bread thence to Messina through the Straight so dangerous for three or four leagues where violence of the winde cast us on the Rocks I got as well as I could to land but seeing some women left in the Bark and ready to perish I perswaded a young shoomaker to assist me nnd in
Cambinga or Jordan and 70. to the Cape St. Helen in 32. degrees to Rio secco 40. to La Croix 20. Berugon in the Indies thence to Cagnoval or Cannaveral 40. leagues People of Cano or Cagnoval the point of Cagnoval in 28. degrees and to Florida 40. leagues the tongue of Land extending it self 100. leagues by Sea over against Caba on the East Behame or Lucaros the point of Florida in 15. degrees thence to the Angle di Baccho 100. leagues Ancon du Baxos and to Rio Nives and Rio di Flores 20. leagues and 20. to the harbour of Spirito Sancto by the Indians called Caulatan 70. leagues in 28. degrees and from thence 200. leagues to the River di Palmo 30. leagues over thence to the River of Pescadoros Ind. Sotassi under the Tropick thence to Panonco 35. leagues to villa ricca 70. to San Jouan de Loua a famous port 5. leagues from the Shallous of Vega to the river Aluarado 40. leagues Ind. Papa Jouapan to Cauacalo fl 50. and to Guisalua fl 50. 18. degrees thence to Cape Rotundo 80. leagues by the way stand Chagraton and Lazaro thence to Cape Catuco 90. leagues Jacatan 21. degrees thence to Florida 900. leagues from the gulf of Mexico 60. leagues where there are strange currents and falls of water from the edg of the gulph to Rio grande 120. leagues passing by Punto di Mugeres and the harbour di la Ascension Rio grande bosomes it self in the Sea in 17. degrees thence to Cape Cameroze 150. leagues thus 30. to Queras 30. to Caualles thirty to Trionfada 30. to Honduma and 20. to Camzone thence to Agata or Gratia dios 70. leagues in 14. degrees Cartago is in the middle of the coast of Gratia a dios to di San Guadero 60. leagues which is a great waste out of the Lake Nicaraga thence to Zanbara 40. leagues and to Nombre di dios 60. Vetagua is the mid-way From Nombre de dios to Sucatan is good 500. leagues the Isthmus is but 5. leagues but from Escarpoucos 't is 17. from Nombre de dios to Faralones 70. leagues 8. degrees there was a design to cut this Isthmus but some were of opinion that the South-sea lying higher would fall in and drown all By the way we meet with Aola and the Porto de Missa so called for that the Prince that discovered it caused Masse to be said there in thanks for the success The harbour of Ordea thence to Carthagena 70. thence to St. Martha 50. leagues by the Port of Zembra and Rio grande thence to Cape de vello 50. leagues and thence to Sancto Domingo 100. leagues from Cape de vello to Guiboucas 40. leagues then the Gulph of Venusuela extending it self 80. leagues to Cape St. Romano thence to Gulph Tuste 50. leagues in the middle of the Gulph is Curiana thence to the Gulph Cariari 100. leagues the coast is in 10. degrees There is Porto di Cassia Tistula Chiribichi and Cumana fl the point of Areya Cubaga or the Isle of Pearle or the Margarite from this point to the Salines is 60. leagues thence to Cape Anegades 8. degrees 80. leagues where in a bosome lies the harbour of Paria from Anegades to Ric dolee 50. leagues six degrees thence to Oreglane or di Amazonas fl 110. leagues from Nombre di dios to Oreglane 800. leagues a river that in the mouth is 50. leagues over there the first that arrived to traffick were massacred by the women Douglane and Onaragnen which is 15. leagues broad in 4. degrees are held 100. leagues distant thence 't is 100. leagues to the Angla di S. Luca and a hundred to Cape Promero thence to Cape St. Augustine in 8 degrees 70 leagues the next land to Vfo for from thence to Cape Verde is 500 leagues thence to the Gulph di ' Todos Sanctos 100 leagues in 13 degrees by the way is the river St. Francesco and the river Reali thence to Cape Abralosoios 100 leagues a Coast full of shelves conceal'd rocks and bars of sands very dangerous wherefore they must hold 20 miles off to sea in 13 and 18 degrees from de Fue to the point bono Abrigo thence to the Point St. Michael 50 leagues and 60 to the river St. Francisco six and twenty degrees thence to Tibiquiri one hundered leagues in the road the Port Patos Port Fariol Sigaro Toubanaco c. Thence to Plata fifty leagues five and thirty degrees from St. Augustino there is six hundered and sixty leagues from the Mouth of it to the Point St. Helen sixty five leagues thence to Arenas Gordas thirty leagues to low Anegado fourty to Tierrabaxa fifty to Baya sin fondo sixty a Gulfe in one and fourty to Arifices de Loubos fourty to Cape Saint Domingo five and fourty to Chiquera or Cape Bianco twenty to the river Saint John Serran twenty called Agova de Trabaios nine and fourty degrees thence to the Promont at the thousand Virgins the Streight ends The summe is twelve hundered leagues from Venosuela to Desrado a Cape in the Mouth of the Streight from North to South From Cape Desrado to the mouth of the Straight not far from the Bell a Rock which seems to cover the mouth of it to the South sea 70. leagues the bounds are first Cape Promero 49. degrees thence to Salmas 44. degrees and 165. leagues from Salmas to Cape Hermoso 110. leagues and 44. degrees thence to the River S. Francesco 60. to Rio Sancto 120. leagues to Chirinaca 100. leagues 31. d. not farre off Gest and Rio de Plata◠to Chinca or Rio de Plobados 200. leagues 22. degrees to Arequippa 18. degrees 90. l. to Lima 12. degrees 140. leagues to Cape Anguilla 100. leagues Truxillo and other Ports are upon this coast Thence to Cape Bianco 40. leagues and 60. to Cape Helena 2. degrees thence to Guegemir 70. leagues the Cape Saint Laurenzo They finde it to be thence to Cape S. Augustine 1000. leagues thence to the River of Peru 100. leagues the way lyes by the Gulf S. Matthew the River S. James and S. John of Peru to the gulf S. Michael 70. leagues 6. degrees extending 50. leagues from thence to Panama 8. degrees 155. leagues the 17. of Novemb. de dios Perou of 1000. in breadth and 1200. in length Corrcalatron 4065. leagues from Panama to Teouentepée 650. leagues adding 70. leagues from the coast of Panama to the Point of Aguera From the Bruche 100. leagues from thence 100. to the Cape Bianco where the Port Heiradura and 100. to the Port of the possession of Niqueraga 12. degrees thence to the gulf Fonseca 15. to Cortega 20. to Rio grande 30. to the River of Guali-Mala 45. to Sitoula 50. joyning to the Lake of Cortes which is twenty five long and eight broad from this Lake to Porto Pourado 100. and 40. to Crantepee which runnes from North to South with the River Coasacalco in 13. degrees and there compleat the 650.
time he got to the middle of the Mast the winde had seiz'd him and he cryed out Juro a mi vida Senior que el Viente me despega las manos de las cuerdas I sweare to you Sirs the winde teares my hands from the ropes and with that crying Santiago he fell down upon the Deck he had better have falne besides it for he dyed within three houres after The Tempest continu'd and the Vessell being light could not uphold the Mast against the stupendous force of the storme and the waves which took some of our men over-board whereupon we down with the main Mast but in the fall the cordage broke and is tumbled into the sea and carried some men along with it the vessel reeling quite down on one side with the weight of the mast was immediately filled with water and recoyling to the other side very many were lost without possibility to relieve them the rest of us left desolate to sorrow and distresse The vessel being assaulted by so many several winds cannot move any way except some one wind be mightier than the rest For these vessels are not by half so able as ours are Besides these winds cause so unsufferable a frigidity that one cannot endure to look into the air cut like a razor and make ones limbs stiffe and immoveable as a piece of wood For my part my face was hard and strark as any stone I am of opinion the Devill comes in it for I believe that naturally no wind can break a strong cable as 't were a thread At last as it pleased our good God the tempest ceased and the ordinary Breezes return By good fortune we had one sayle left in reserve which we used to our advantage in the best manner we could scarce finding rope sufficient for it the tempest had so broken our cordage so we then sayled on 'T is true the sea was yet so turbulent and contumacious that we were as fearful as ever for this kind of storm is more dangerous in the end then the begining and we might behold the waves like two engaged armies plying one another with continual assaults without intermission But in fine it became a little calmer and we came in view of Cape S. Anthony a point of the Isle of Cuba discoverable a long way off till we arrived there the storm left us not nor do I know that I had so famous an encounter in all my voyages in Asia and Africa though in my travail to Alexandria three leagues off Candia our ship sunk in the depth of Winter and about mid-night which was nothing compar'd to these diabolical Vracanes for there we contest but with one wind here we are surrounded with all the winds at once whence it comes that few escape Cuba is one of the principal Islands of the Indies in 22. d. in circuit 630. miles 120. miles over 'T is the most fruitful in all America full of fruits of all sorts Mines of gold and brasse and hath Ravana one of the fairest and securest Havens of the world the coming in being narrow flanked on both sides with strong Towers and a town with an impregnable Cittadel Where the Fleets of Peru and Nombre de Dios put in for provisions the Isle abounding in all commodities and plentiful of all properties for maritime travail 'T is as 't were a suburbs to the Indies having not above 130. leagues off sea to S. John de Loua on the firm land in Nova Spania The Island abounds particularly in fish and amongst the rest in a sort of sea Breezes which Spaniards call Besée Espada who is very sanguinary and greedy of mans flesh So as no man dare bathe himselfe for fear of these ravenous creatures the teeth whereof cut like any rasor and upon their back have three Pikes like Partisans He is so greedy of mans flesh that he will follow a vessell three hundred leagues outright without appearing in hope of a corps They likewise call them Taburintes or Tiburins a Captain told me that coming from Florida one followed him 500. leagues without appearing and that arriving at Porâ—o Rico the fish was taken with a sheeps head horns in his belly which he had brought from Florida where 't was cast into the sea They go likewise up into the rivers As to their Crocodiles they are covered with skin so firm 't is impossible to pierce it except under the belly where he is easily vulnerable As I said before in the East Indies Ethiopia they make meat of them the flesh being very good but here they do not In like manner here is abundance of all other sorts of fish as well such as breed in our seas as others This Island was discovered by Columbus in his second navigation and called Juane afterwards Ferdinand and Isabella from Ferdinand King of Spain as before of Juane his daughter 'T is in length 230. leagues on the East it hath the Isle of Hispaniola or Hairi on the West Jucatan and the Gulf of Mexio on the South Jamaica or S. James and Northward the Lucayes and the channel of Bahama There we finde many townes and habitations of Spaniards who began to plant or rather to supplant in the year 1511. For they used such abominable cruelties that in a short time they almost extirpated all the Natives beginning with the King or Catique Haiuey whom they burnt alive for publishing to his subjects the cruelty used by the Spaniards in the Isle of Hairy or Hispaniola The Mines destroyed many of them and Las Cafas sayes that being there he saw in four moneths seven thousand children starved to death for both their fathers and mothers were held so strictly to their labour in the Mines they had not freedom to look after their families The Isle Hispaniola was discovered by the same Columbus in his first navigation in the year 1492. began to be inhabited in 1494. and was otherwise called Hairy Quisquera and Cipaugi or Cibai being in circuit about 400. leagues It abounds in fruit sugar cattle and Mines of gold and copper This Island had many Caciques or potent Kings amongst them the King of Magna or Magana that is Champion or the field was Paramount who is called Guarionexi These Kings lived peaceably without any great State Their chiefest expense was in Dancers Musicians and Wrestlers who were for his Majesties recreation both in his Palace and progresse He was carried by men upon a frame set with feathers of divers fine colours and those dancers danced before him The people held their King for a God and the meanest of them could raise an Army of sixteen thousand men armed with skins of wild beasts Clubbes of wood with a keen stone at the end which they called Courcoumachi they had likewise bows and arrows pil'd with bone Together they were able to raise fourscore thousand men holding good correspondence with one another interchanging visits at 80. or a hundred leagues distance without other
theirs and betake themselves to their Canoes or Piragoâ—a upon the water like Ducks and returne not till the floud is sunk so that the extreamest heats of the Torrid produce their rains and when the heate slackens it rains not at all But out of the Torrid and the Tropick these qualities change their raine coming together with the cold of winter as here with the heat of summer For the Sun where 't is most forcible exhales vapours in more abundance which breaking fall in plentifull showers They who live in towns and plantations built on grounds of advantage pass these flouds and rains with satisfaction and their fruits of the earth no more than in Egypt are not destroyed and lost But the more vulgar and savage sort who live in the Countrey that can neither sow nor plow retreat to their barks with a heap of roots and such fruit as the earth affords them naturally They have abundance of Cattle likewise which they feed with the Josni they call Tortora which they eat also themselves cover their houses with it make their boats and fewell of it True the air throughout the torrid is not of one quality there being some places burnt for want of lakes fountains or rivers or by reason of the huge barren mountains as in other parts of Ethiopia Guiney deserts of Africa the Andes mountains of Peru and other places And hence it comes that according to the diverse constitutions under the same line you have blacks in one place and whites in another and as the extremity of these qualities hot and dry render some places dis-inhabitable so the abundance of water lakes marshes and great rivers with their constant inundations render others as little habitable as in the greatest part of America where this inconvenience is such that the rivers swel'd with the summer rains at every turn break out of their limits with such impetuosity and violence they force and carry all before them nor can one travaile for dirt and mud of marshes CHAP. V. Of South and North America The Qualities and Discovery AMerica for the greatest part is not inhabited by reason of the huge barren and cold mountains and little plain for a long way abundance of sandy and barren forrests as in Egypt and Lybia where there is neither habitation nor commodity of living huge trees bearing nourishment neither for man nor beast onely in some parts there are trees yeild some refreshment to passengers with a leaf like the vine and fruit like the Quince but more soft and in taste like the apples of Italy called Mele Rose but sweeter The tree is high and fair like a mulberry The fruit never heats upon the tree and very little being gathered but quenches thirst and refreshes more than any fruit in the world wherefore the Indians will go fifteen or twenty leagues to look it and being extream hot lay pieces of it on their forehead and cheeks which refreshes as well as eating it be the heat never so violent But 't is exceeding dangerous for strangers for the Indians are so jealous of this fruit that they will suffer no others to eat it but beat their brains out as they did at Curaufour where they killed a number of Spaniards for eating them which they after eat themselves To conclude the fruit how long soever it continues in the sun looses not its freshnesse Of the three Regions America may be divided into there are the two outmost the high and the low and the interiour The lower is along the Sea coast hot and moist having few or no rains in many places unpeopled by reason of the deep sands marshes and standing waters which make the Countrey unwholsome But the plains from Peru to Chila are more temperate by reason of the fresh and fruitfull vales whereof there are store The second is the land of Hamen cold and dry well peopled plentifull in herbage and rich in mines The interiour is the best and 't was the Spaniards kind fortune or rather Providence that landed them there at first for had it been any where else they had never or with more difficulty attained their design for the scarcity of commodities to live upon after their diet very different from that of the Natives But at the very first they fell upon the best parts as the Isles of Hispaniola and Cuba and on the continent on the one side new Spain on the other Peru and many other all good Countries full and temperate which yeilded them such plenty of commodities for livelihood and rich mettals For this middle division abounds corn fruit cattle pastures and forrests the air wholsome and the Countrey pleasant and commodious They have cattle in great abundance as sheep goats beeves horses and others They preserve a stock of wild beeves for their hides wherewith they lade ships for Europe and make a good traffick of them to supply our vanity for coaches boots and other uses of leather The soyle in some parts is proper enough for vines but the Spaniards will admit no plantation of them for taking away the profit of the wine brought from Spain for which they carry back good gold and silver But notwithstanding their prohibitions in New Spain they have planted them for ease of their burthensome tributes for they made no conscience to impose fifty or sixty crowns upon a tun of Spanish wine which they get at a better rate upon the place where they prosper excellently well Mexico or New Spain where one still ascends unperceivably is a good and fruitful Countrey rather better than Peru towards Cusco and Gouamanga and Aroquipa which is likewise very fertile but this is without comparison and would be yet better if the Mountaines were nearer to mitigate the excessive heat Notwithstanding the Spanish women affect it so much that they will come two thousand leagues by sea leaving their Native Countrey to settle here and this in no small number For in the Fleet that went one thousand five hundred ninety two they reckon that in thirty vessels that were cast away there perished above 800. women and many small infants Some were going with their husbands others with their friends and others of their own inclination and not a year but they transport a great number And 't is no wonder they expose themselves to this danger living exceeding miserably in Spain where there are abundance of single women that work or worse for their living America the new world is divided into two principall parts North and South both as 'twere Peninsula's fastened to by the streight or neck of land of Nombre di dios and Panama and betwixt them is comprized the great Archipelagus of all those Islands Antillias Luccaes Barlouente Sotauente and others whereof we spoke already towards the great Mexican gulph The North part might be taken to begin very near the North pole and according to some at Groenland which they will have to be upon the Continent of America from thence we
Dominion in North America as Peru in the South Betwixt both lyes Jucatan Hondura Nicaragua Veraga or Nombre de Dios Panama which chain them together Jucatan is a point of land which extends to the 21. degree like a peninsula being in the streightest place from Xicalanco to Chotemal some hundred leagues over the country was first discovered by one Fernandez in one thousand five hundred and seventeen afterwards by Grisalua who came from Cuba to the Isle of Cosumel or Saint Crois thence to Campechia Champatron and Tauasco Hondura was first discovered by Columbus in his last voyage 1502. last by one Casan who setled the Plantation of Tucillo in 1515. Pedrarias d' Avila in 1519. planted the Colonies in Nombre de Dios and Panama towards the South Sea the first discoverer of that sea was Vasco Muntz coming from Dariana in 1513. who with great joy rendred thanks to God and took possession for the King of Spain Betwixt Nombre de Dios and Panama 't is 17. or 18. leagues of Marshes Mountains and craggy asperous rocks full of fierce wild beasts of all kinds and a multitude of Apes that make a very troublesome noyse They transport their Merchandise from sea to sea either by land with convoyes or by the river Chagra to about five leagues from Panama and then by land with Convoy They have often thought of cutting this Isthmus in the streightest place but the difficulty of the Rocks and Mountains by the way besides the doubt if the seas are levell as at the Egyptian Isthmus hindred the proceeding A Colony at Sancta Maria Antiqua in Dariana displanted for the unsoundnesse of the ayre for but throwing warm water on the ground toads and other venemous creatures would engender Advancing towards the East we came to the Provinces of Vraba S. Martha Cartagena Popayan Dorado new Estramadora new Granada Venecuela Castilia Doro Bagota new Andolousia Paria Cahaqua Cumana c. South lyes Dariana then the great kingdome of Peru then Chila to the Streight Dariana was planted by one Anchisa there are Cowes with feet like Mules and hornlesse Peru according to some extends from Dariana to Chila others clipping it from Popayan North to Chila South It took name from the River Peru in two degrees Northward the Provinces thereof are Quito Quixos Popayan Canela Pacamores Gualsonge then Collao Carchas Anedas Tecuman to Chila Popayan is about two hundred leagues in length and forty in breadth lying upon new Granada towards the East The Provinces are Antioch Tataho Anserma Arma Pacoura Catapa Quinhaya Calix and Pasto Anserma 70. leagues from Antioch is called by the Indians Ombra but the Spaniards seeing the Inhabitants hold salt in their hand and call it Anser thought the town had been so called and continued that name there is a passage over the river Saint Martha at that town Arma is of note for rich Mines Parmoura hath also silver Mines the Province of Arbi extends to the Mountains of Cordilleras which runs a thousand leagues Southward on that side which stretches to the sea they never have raines by reason the South and South-West winds blowing continually drive the clouds away whereby this part is barren without tree fruit or grasse but the other side onely a league distant by reason of the rains abounds in fruits and all commodities In Quinbaya at the end of the Cordilleras over against Andes there is a famous burning mountain In the Province of Pastro there is a large valley called Arris ever cold both winter and summer All these parts are well peopled and the Inhabitants not so bloody nor man-eaters as in other parts living under a government and obedience to their Prince and believe in the resurrection after death and that they shall live in fields of peace with all sorts of delights Peru extends from Pasto to Chila ends Southward at the River Manto North at Augar Mayo here are vast sandy Plains as far as the Indies where the heat is extreme while snow lyes on the Mountains and the like diversity of the seasons I remember when I went to Sicily walking on the coast of Calabria in the beginning of March winter was so sharp there was not the least sprout of a Vine to be seen whereas in Sicily I found them a span high young beanes good Artichocks and they mowed green corn to give the blades to horses In this part between the sea and the Codilleras called Sanaria for want of wood they get a certain earth out of the water which they dry and make turfes like those in the low countreys the Mountains are the most desert and arduous in the world of long extent running from Panama to the streight they throw down divers Rivers and compose very fertile Valleys At the point of Sagotta at the entrance into those vast plains betwixt the Mountains and the Sea lyes a wide countrey covered with nothing but sand like the deserts of Arabia but not so white some shrubs there are or rather stalks strong as the Caper sprigges in the deserts of Palestine the same we call salt grasse which refreshes the passengers exceedingly and continues till May. The seasons differ but little in Quito Cagnales Santiago de porto Vieio Cusco Cagnata Collao Charcas The Province of Quito is called by the Spaniards Poblada de San Francesco and the capitall town S. Francis of Quito The length of Peru from Quito to Chila is some six hundred leagues the breadth about fifty The countrey is divided into three parts the Plaines upon the sea side about ten leagues over the Mountains and Valleys twenty leagues the Forests and Lawns twenty leagues within which little space of fifty leagues there is such difference that it rains as 't were alwayes in one part in another not at all and in the middle upon the mountaines seldome The Cordileras which run from Pole to Pole by the names of Andes and Sierra are very different though in the same elevation one side covered with woods where it rains and is ever hot the other side bare and cold winter and summer These mountains go for a thousand leagues in view of one another dividing at Cusco where they inclose the Province of Collao a Champaign countrey full of Lakes and Rivers Next Collao lyes Charcas a mountanous countrey rich in Mines Quito is under the Equinoctial abounding in all sorts of fruit whereof they make two harvests in the year The spring lasts from Aprill to November and from October to March their rains which they esteem their winter Here they have of those famous sheep called Pacos which serve as properly for carriage as horses of the height of an ordinary asse long legges deep belly long and risen neck and the head like ours in Europe They draw and do any work the flesh is wholesome and savory fresh or salt these beasts are tame and apt to be brought to labour Out of the Province of Cognata towards the
springs that condense to stone whereof they build their houses but the water drunk is mortall wherefore they stop up all high-wayes to it for it causes a present heavinesse and then they die immediately They have many other fountains hot and cold close together some whereof cure the French disease though never so confirmed by reason of the Sassaparilla that grows in them In Peru there is a sheam red as bloud for that called Rio Vermeio In Caramel they have another Fountain cures all feavers and purges like Rhubarb the water is brackish and salt at the first taste but afterwards one feels nothing but may drink his fill without dammage it drives through the body all that is malignant then passes clear I thought I should have vomited my bowels up but afterwards I found my self sound and cheerfull and cured of a Rhume in my teeth I had been troubled with for a long time I drunk three flagons a day and still it provoked me to drink more They come to it from all parts and for all diseases even for wounds And the place is made so necessary one may bath in it 'T is onely hurtfull to hot livers Round about it are tents of straw and beds of cotton and sheep-skins where you shall have all accomodation for a small matter and they will officiously fetch and furnish you with any thing you want amongst others they bring us a fowle called Magnota more delicate than a patridge another that is white and black and eats like a capon and abundance of turtles But of Lakes where is there any so admirable as that whereon the Towne of Mexica is seated whereof one part by reason of Salt-peter at the bottome is salt as the Sea the other by reason of the Rivers that fall into it fresh as any Fountaine each division being ten leagues in length and five in breadth and three dayes journey in circuite with a delightfull Mountain in the middle and a bath hot as that at Baleru In the middle of the Lake is the Charnell of green Tombs ever covered with herbs and flowers The Spaniards have laid most of the Town dry being before in the manner of Venice and have made conduits that convey water throughout the Towne and chiefly round the walls Out of avarice the new Conquerours admit not the Indians to fish on the Lake without license who now contrary to Articles enjoy not their ancient liberties neither in this nor other things There are three Causwayes lead to the Town of halfe a league long They account upon 4000. houses of Spaniards and thirty thousand Indians For Rivers you have there spacious Lakes or rather Seas as the Magdala in the Province of St. Martha called Rio grande then the Orenoque towards Castilia of gold and Venesuela The silver River in Brasile coming from Mountaines far remote from Peru above all the great Ozeilliana or Maragnon and Amasones which cuts through the South America from Chachaneyas and Quito through infinite Territories and Dominions to the Northern Sea This River comes from the Province of Araquixo or de los Quixos near to Popayan and thirty leagues from the South-Sea discovered first by Francisco Orellano a Spanish Captain sent thither by Gonzala Pizarra who had sought a long this River for the land of Canela and missing the wealth he sought for and finding the trees few in number and of small value not lighting on the Country of the Prince surnamed Dorado in 1562. he sent Orellano with fifty men to seek provision view the Countrey and attend his coming in an appointed place The Captain following the stream which still grew wider by the Rivers that every where augmented it going fifty leagues a day without oar or labour for a long while he discovered no habitations go up again he could not and by land there was nothing but woods and bushes after he had suffered plenty of hunger he met with severall people and of severall tongues and conditions some mild and courteous others fierce and savage pursuing his way without card compasse or guide by many Islands and populous Countryes amongst others of Amazons the female Archers of whom there are some Curtisans at Brasile not much discrepant from those Antiquity renowns in Asia who co-inhabit not with men and at certain times have Neighbours come over to them for procreation to whom again they transmit the Males and keep the Girles After a tedious Navigation and many turns and compasses for above seventeen hundred leagues upon this River he came to the confusion of it in the North Sea fourty leagues over following the Coast he arrived at Cubaga or the Isle of Pearles which is above four hundred leagues whence Orellano with 14. of his men being recruited came to S. Domingo afterwards made an ample relation to the Emperour where Ouiede took his instructions and inserted it in his History Meanwhile Pizarra expected and having suffered extream hunger seeing Orellanio came not he returned to Quito much troubled he found not the sought for Dorado a golden Prince indeed who wore no other garment but pulverized Gold lay'd on with gumme with which he goes dayly covered To conclude this is one of the greatest and longest rivers on the earth and washes more lands and people than any other Afterwards many other Spaniards sailed it as Salinas Orhia and others Adde hereto the great Lake or Ocean Guiana Parimi and Manoa in Countries discovered by the English Sir Walter Rawley in 1595 who equals it with the Caspian Sea that containes many Islands The capital Town is Manoa a Countrey rich in gold fruit and cattle North lies Castile of gold Paria and Caribana West new Andalousia and Peru South Omaga Pegu Picora Paguana East Tisnado Brasile c. Concerning beasts in America there are great numbers as well the naturall of the Countrey as Europian transported which are multiplyed exceedingly Amongst others in Mexico there is one the Spaniards call an Armadillo armed with scales like the Rhinocerot in shape like a little pig about the size of a Cat and lives in Burroughs like a Rabbet The Pacacou like a fox that preys on dead mens carcases and digs them up how deep soever I have seen of them in Asia and Africa where they call them Chicali There are the Birds called Conderos which the Chaca poyas of Peru adore these will carry away a sheep tear in pieces and eat him they are ash-coloured like a Sea-Crowâ— others again so minute they seeme rather Flyes or Gnats Another sort that is as 't were all feathers and none or little flesh and as they say never comes upon the earth Their feathers are of various colours in perfection beautifull when they rest they hang on a bough by the tayle clasped round it their plumes are worn and much esteemed In Marseills I saw one sold for 500. crowns in Portugall they come at 60. The Indians of these curious feathers make Pourtraicts as artificiall as
Saint Vincent Upon the North-side the streight of Magellan are abundance of winglesse birds that live in holes in the ground fat and good meat they called Pinguins Sir Francis Drake found many good Harbours in the Streight where good fresh waters came but they are not easy to enter for the strong and turbulent windes that raigne there The Land on both sides lies exceeding high and banked with inaccessible Mountains particularly on the South and East where they are ever covered with snow The breadth in some places is of two three or foure leagues in the narrowest of one or of two musket shots 'T is excessive cold and never without snow and ice the trees notwithstanding ever green and laden with fruit From this Streight by Cape Foendo and the White Cape they ascend again into the silver river where begins Brasile in 35 degrees beyond the line reaching to the River of Amazons under the Line This silver river or Paravai Parana and Paraguay disgorging altogether like Cordillera de serra Muada in Peru and Charcas over-flow the whole Countrey so as the Inhabitants for that time live in Canoes fastned to Trees till the floud be retired within the banks At the mouth t is about 35. leagues over but further within the Land fifty being streightened towards the Mouth by reason of the Mountains and compassing a number of Islands this River rises near the Town of Plata towards Potossi whence it takes name Others derive it from the great lake called Eupania where the other Rivers take birth as Maragnon but it should rather be Parana which afterwards falls into the silver River The first that came within the mouth of this River was Americus Vesputius sent by the King of Portugall to discover Brasile in the yeare fifteen hundered and one and supposing it a passage from the South sea to the Moluccas satisfied himselfe and returned without looking farther After that in the yeare fifteen hundered and twelve the King of Spain sent one John Solis who named it Solis In fifteen hundered twenty five Sebastian Ganor made a farther advance up the River and by reason of the silver he found amongst the people or rather because the head of it lies near the Town Plata towards Potossi called it the silver River or Plata The Inhabitants along the River are of large stature long-lived light and nimble of foot use bows and slings in warr and speak the Patagonick Language or the Chicaan of later times the Spaniards have ascended this River as farr as Charcas and Colao The other river I mentioned is above fifty leagues in the mouth and rises amongst the Mountains of Cuntisuya near Cusco the Indians call it Apurimac principall and Capacmaya the Prince of Rivers It runs from South to North above five hundred leagues from his source at the equinoctiall Then it turns to the East for 650. leagues in a right line and goes with windings and turns for above a thousand five hundred leagues two miles to the league This is the greatest River upon the earth which at his infusion keeps the Sea fresh for many leagues first discovered by the Pinsons of Siville in the year 1500. then Orellana sailed it from the source almost to the end in 1543. 't is filled with severall Islands and the Tide mounts above a hundred leagues They find Meragnon to be seventy leagues Southward distant from Orellana that rises from the great Peruian lakes which descend from the Mountains covered with snow others put them both in one it may be falling so close together into the Sea they may joyn waters and Orellana bear the name of both CHAP. XVI Of Brasile the Conquest of it and of the Brasilians c. BRasile is a large Province of America appertaining to the Crown of Portugall extending from 25. degrees to the second from North to South some ten degrees in breadth from East to West from fort Para in the mouth of the great River of Amazons to Plata Maragnon bounds it Northward in two degrees Plata South in thirty five on the East the excelse and inaccessible Mountains of Peru and on the East the Ethiopian or Atalantick Sea as likewise on the North. For the Country the benignity and sweetnesse of the air and water and the fertility of soyle is a miracle in such a Climate and temperature which renders the Inhabitants of so healthfull and long life and though the Climate be under the Torrid there come freshgales from the Sea that moderate it so as it becomes a delicate habitation having every morning some mists and dews which the Sun afterwards dissolves into air Here you meet with nothing but fair open fields pleasant hills fertile mountains fresh valleys green meadows abundance of woods rivers and fountains of excellent waters with infinite plenty of all sorts of trees plants fruits grain cattle sugar balm In a word 't is for necessaries and delights the fullest Country on the earth Of strange Creatures there is the Cerigon in shape and bigness like a Fox betwixt yellow and gray whose belly is like a purse or pocket wherein she saves her young ones when she is hunted another the Portuguese call Pereza for his slow gate in fifteen dayes not going a stones cast nor can any force drive him faster he feeds on nothing but leaves of trees and 't is some dayes work for him to climb up and come down There are Camelions whereof I have spoken in another place Betwixt Brasile and the Cape of bona Esperanza there is a Gulph of 1200. leagues formidable and furious for winds and tempests The Countrey is divided into nine Governments or Captainships wherein are 7. Colonies of Portugueses along the coast that is Tamaraco Pernanbuco Todos santos or San Saluador Puerto seguro espiritu santo Paraibi Genero and others the Capes of S. Augustine and St. Vincent the River St. Francis c. The first discoverers were Vespusius the Pinions Lopez and Cabral about 1500. Pedro Aluarez Cabral made the principall discovery in 1500. being sent by King Emanuel for the East Indies but a tempest cast him here and he named it the countrey of St. Chrosse and the place he landed on Porto Seguro Cabral for that time contented himself with taking possession and the Kings of Portugall being full of concernments in Africa and the East neglected new conquests till Emanuell not long before his death sent thither one Gonzalo Cotello who sailed on along the coast not without trouble and danger and returned without any advantage Afterwards King John the â— sent Christopher Jago who discovered about 1100. leagues upon the coast amongst others the Bay of Todos Santos where in the River Paraguasu he found two French vessels traficking with the Natives which shewes the French men traded with this Nation before the Portugueses had any knowledge of it This Jago barbarously sunk their vessels and murthered all the men done like the Spaniard who though he cannot
tastes like turned milk but in some places for a dainty the maids chew the root then boyle it and make a most exquisit drink In some parts there is a sort of root called Elcout of the taste of a nut which I hold the best amongst them 't is of great vertues but the excesse dries infused with another called Monqueil it purges without violence they have an herb that growes low with leaves a hand-broad that cures all sorts of soares and wounds of which I had once a triall For falling from a rock I got seven or eight very troublesome hurts and an Indian with this leafe cured me in three dayes I have seen the same in Egypt in Italy also and believe 't is in France Another root they have called a Jehearit that purges like Rhubarbe but more gently I believe 't is the same that comes from new Spain called Mechouacan Another that purges being laid Emplaister-wise on the stomack women lay it on the heads of their daughters to emit their Mestruits making them stand with their feet together upon a stone and a sleight incision to draw that blood without pain Brasilians and chiefly the Toupinaâ—ba are kinde to strangers specially the French and freely part with their victuals to them A woman when she would be kinde or entertain one she seats her self on the ground and weeps as she had been beaten then on a suddain addresses her self with a thousand blandishments inviting him freely to the pleasure of her daughters I have knowne some so base amongst us that buckled with these idolatrous girles a thing most detestable They are absolutely without letters or characters and in pronunciation use not F. L. R. So as we may thence derive they are without Faith without Law and without Royalty They are addicted to Divinations and superstitions and their Priests are sorcerers by an ancient tradition they have some obscure knowledge of the deluge some believe reward and punishment of good and evill after death others not but all believe the immortality of the soule and that they shall remain the same they were in this life and at the houre of their death they interre their dead and for several dayes lay meat in the Sepulcher with a cotton bed they have no King nor superiour to command them every linage living apart in a several valley and change their habitation according to fancy many families living under the same roof great hunters fishers and swimmers exceeding vindicative of a turbulent spirit and inclined to Warre the same in prosperity and adversity endure hunger with patience when they have nothing to eat and when they have they gourmandize and drink drunk after their fashion The good or evill that befalls them some attribute to destiny others to fortune or chance They are divided into several nations and for the most part enemies as the Sourons and the Carmils and the Tapus whom they call Savages who are enemies to all as more wilde and bloody then the rest The Cariges are more soft and humane who inhabit beyond the Winter Tropick two leagues from the Sea they inhabit on high ground and sow the Mandior then there are the Oeuetacas Margaiars Toupinanbas and others these last are those our French have had commerce withall of whom we have ample printed relations and there might have had good plantations had we made use of our time and moderated our passions CHAP. XVII The Isle of S. Thomas according to a description made to the Authour by Sieur de la Courb and Cassis THis Island is under the Equinoctiall between the Isles of Prince and Anchan discovered by the Portuguese in their first navigation to the East The Isle of Saint Thomas hath fifty leagues of sound land was discovered on Saint Thomas day that gave name of it It beares little more then Sugar-Canes planted by the Portuguese but the trees are ever green The Portuguese built here the town Pauoazan The Haven whereof looks towards Ethiopia At first all Nations inhabited there but at present the Portuguese will have none but themselves and the French who are exceedingly beloved for a French Jesuite who propagated Religion exceedingly in this Isle The natives are some white some black and marry still in their own colour The town is pleasant and the whole land is full of Sugar-Canes which fill the Island with flyes as Arabia is infested with the same creatures by reason of the Cassia there Sugar is so cheap that for eight Realls you may have a hundred weight but it has this fault 't will not easily dry in exchange they carry thither Wines Cheese Leather Clothes because neither Vine nor Corne will prosper there Upon a Vine there the grape will be green on one side and ripe on the other and blossoms at the same time Their Gardens produce all sorts of herbes and fruit but stone-fruit but above all Figges and Melons The root Igname growes there in abundance very wholesome boyled or raw Likewise Millet which they call Zaboucou whereof they make excellent things with Sugar the soyle is strong inclining to a yellow and in some parts reddish where the dew of the night tempers it like waxe so as it never comes to dust They bend their Sugar-Canes to the East and say they prosper best then they may have there some seventy Sugar-mills These Engines or Mills resemble the Samaritane at Pont-neuf in Paris easily rising and falling That which displeases is they pour it into great caldrons and it is like honey then they make it in loaves hardly dry you never seeing any so solid from thence as from Madero nor is it worth so much though they use all possible art to refine it They purify it with cindars At the plantations far from water the Blacks fetch water to set the mills at work The sugar being drawn they give the canes to the swine which fattens them and makes the flesh of excellent taste and wholsome from mid-May to mid-August they have Eastern winds wherewith they dry their Sugars without which they could never do it for all other windes are adversaries to them because of the raines they stirr up in the other months The Island is unhealthfull by reason of the corrupted ayr their houses are good built and covered with timber out of the abundance of huge high trees All nations heretofore went thither by reason of franck traffick but now they must pay tribute all but the French who enjoy the same immunities as the Portuguese They have many slaves from Guinea brought by the Corsairs to be sold Captain Ribaut Diepois took a vessell with diverse whole families men women and children whom he set free on land but caused two Blacks to hang the Master and five Marriners 'T is a cruell inhumanity to carry the Father away by violence into perpetuall slavery while his poor family is exposed to misery and starving They marry the slaves amongst themselves for breed like a race of horses who continue slaves by inheritance