Volume Vii Part 34 (2/2)

[Footnote 424: Recon has already been supposed to be Aracan, which is now quite obvious; but in what manner Mogen may refer to Ava, the next country to the south, does not appear.--E.]

From the bar of Negrais to the city of Pegu, is ten days journey by the rivers. We went from _Cosmin_ to Pegu in paraos or boats, and pa.s.sing up the river we came to _Medon_, a very pretty town, having a wonderful number of paraos, for they dwell in them, and hold markets on the water.

In rowing up and down with their commodities in these boats, they have a great _sombrero_ or umbrella over their heads, to defend them from the sun, as broad and round as a great cart wheel, made of the leaves of the coco or the fig tree, which are very light. From Medon we went to Dela, where there are 18 or 20 great long houses, where they tame and keep many elephants belonging to the king, as elephants are caught in the wilderness near this place. From Dela we went to _Cirian_, [Siriam] a good town having an excellent sea-port, to which come many s.h.i.+ps from Mecca, Malacca, Sumatra, and other places; and there the s.h.i.+ps discharge their cargoes, and send up their goods in paraos to Pegu. From Siriam we went to _Macao_, a pretty town, where we left the boats, and in the morning taking _delingeges_, which are a kind of couches made of cords and quilted cloth, carried on a _stang_, or long pole, by three or four men, we came to Pegu the same day.

Pegu is a great strong and fair city, having walls of stone and great ditches all round about. It consists of two towns, the old and the new.

In the old town dwell all the stranger merchants, and very many native merchants, and all the goods are sold in the old town, which is very large, and hath many extensive suburbs all round about it, all the houses being of bamboo canes and covered with straw. In your house, however, you have a warehouse, which they call a _G.o.down_, built of bricks, in which to keep your goods, as often the city takes fire, and four or five hundred houses are burnt down, so that these _G.o.downs_ are very useful to save your goods. The king with all his n.o.bility and gentry dwell in the new town, which is a great and populous city, entirely square with fair walls, and a great ditch all round about full of water, in which are many crocodiles. It has twenty gates, five on each side of the square, all built of stone. There are also many turrets for centinels, made of wood and splendidly gilded. The streets are the handsomest I ever saw, all as straight as a line from one gate to the other, and so broad that ten or twelve men may ride abreast through them. On both sides, at every door, there are palmer trees planted, which bear coco-nuts, and which make a fine shew as well as a commodious shade, so that the people may walk all day in the shade. The houses are of wood, covered with tiles.

The palace of the king stands in the middle of this city, and is walled and ditched all round, all the houses within being of wood very sumptuously gilded, and the fore-front is of very rich workmans.h.i.+p, all gilded in a very costly manner. The paG.o.da, or house in which his idols stand, is covered with tiles of silver, and all the walls are gilt over with gold. Within the first gate of the palace is a very large court, on both sides of which are the houses for the king's elephants, which are wonderfully large and handsome, and are trained for war and for the king's service. Among the rest, he has four white elephants, which are a great rarity, no other king having any but he; and were any other king to have any, he would send for it, and if refused would go to war for it, and would rather lose a great part of his kingdom than not have the elephant. When any white elephant is brought to the king, all the merchants in the city are commanded to go and visit him, on which occasion each individual makes a present of half a ducat, which amounts to a good round sum, as there are a vast many merchants, after which present you may go and see them at your pleasure, although they stand in the king's house. Among his t.i.tles, the king takes that of king of the white elephants. They do great honour and service to these white elephants, every one of them having a house gilded with gold, and getting their food in vessels of gilt silver. Every day when they go to the river to wash, each goes under a canopy of cloth of gold or silk, carried by six or eight men, and eight or ten men go before each, playing on drums, _shawms_, and other instruments. When each has washed and is come out of the river, he has a gentleman to wash his feet in a silver basin, which office is appointed by the king. There is no such account made of the black elephants, be they never so great, and some of them are wonderfully large and handsome, some being nine cubits high.

The king has a very large place, about a mile from Pegu, for catching wild elephants, in a great grove or wood, having a fair court in the middle. There are many huntsmen, who go into the wilderness with she-elephants, trained for the purpose, each huntsman having five or six which are anointed with a certain ointment to entice the wild males to follow them. When they have brought a wild elephant within their snares, the hunters send word to the town, on which many hors.e.m.e.n and footmen go out, and force the wild elephant to enter into a narrow way leading to the inner inclosure, and when the he and she are in, then is the gate shut upon them. They then get the female out, and when the male finds himself alone and entrapped, he cries out and sheds tears, running against the enclosure, which is made of strong trees, and some of them break their tusks in endeavouring to force their way out. The people then goad him with pointed canes, till they force him into a narrow stall, in which he is securely fastened with strong ropes about his body and legs, and is left there for three or four days without food or drink. Then they bring a female to him, with food and drink, and unbind the ropes, and he becomes tame in three or four days. When they take the elephants to war, they fix a frame of wood on their backs with great ropes, upon which sit four or six men, who fight with guns, bows and arrows, darts, and other weapons; and it is said that the elephant's hide is so thick that a musket ball will not pierce them, except in some tender place.

The weapons of these people are very bad, their swords being short and blunt at the points. They have arquebusses also, but they shoot very badly with them. The king keeps great state, sitting in public twice every day, having all his n.o.bles, which they call _shemines_, sitting on each side at a good distance, and a numerous guard on the outside of all, so that the hall, or court is very large. If any one wish to speak to the king, he maketh three profound reverences, when he enters, in the mid way, and when he comes near the king; at each of these he kneels down, holds his hands above his head, and bows with his head to the ground three times. He then sits down to speak to the king, and if favoured is allowed to come near, within three or four paces, but otherwise is made to sit at a greater distance. When the king goes to war he is accompanied by a great military force. While I was in Pegu, he went to Odia, in the kingdom of Siam, with 300,000 men and 5000 elephants. His particular guard was 30,000. When the king rides abroad, he is accompanied by a strong guard and many n.o.bles, and often rides on an elephant having a great castle on its back superbly gilded; sometimes he travels on a great frame of wood like a horse-litter, having a small house or canopy upon it, covered over head, and open at the sides, which is all splendidly gilded with gold, and adorned with many rubies and sapphires, of which he hath an infinite store, as a vast many of them are found in this country. This couch or litter is called _serrion_ in their language, and is carried on the shoulders of 16 or 18 men. On these occasions, there is much triumphing and shouting made before the king, by great numbers of men and women.

This king has little force by sea, having very few s.h.i.+ps. He has houses quite full of gold and silver, both of which are often coming in to him, but very little goes out again, so that he makes little account of it, and this vast treasury is always open to inspection, in a great walled court with two gates, which are always open to all men. In this court there are four houses very richly gilded and covered with leaden roofs, in each of which is a paG.o.d or idol, of huge stature and vast value. In the first of these houses is the image of a king, all in gold, having a golden crown on his head richly set with large rubies and sapphires, and round about are the images of four children all in gold. In the second house is the image of a man in silver, of prodigious size, as high as a house, insomuch that the foot is as long as the stature of a man. This figure is in a sitting posture, having a crown on its head, richly adorned with precious stones. In the third house is the statue of a man in bra.s.s, still larger than the former, with a rich crown on its head.

In the fourth house is another brazen statue, still larger than the former, having also a crown on its head richly adorned with jewels. In another court not far from this, there are four other paG.o.das or idols of wonderful size, made of copper, which were formed in the places in which they now stand, being of such enormous size that they could not be removed. These stand in four separate houses, and are gilded all over except their heads, which resemble black-a-moors. The expences of these people in gilding their images are quite enormous. The king has only one wife, but above 300 concubines, by whom he is said to have 80 or 90 children. He sits in judgment every day, on which occasion the applicants use no speech, but give up their supplications in writing, being upon long slips of the leaves of a tree, a yard long and about two inches broad, written with a pointed iron or stile like a bodkin. He who gives in his application, stands at some distance carrying a present. If his application is to be complied with, his present is accepted and his request granted; but if his suit be denied he returns home with his present.

There are few commodities in India which serve for trade at Pegu, except opium of Cambaia, painted cottons from San Thome or Masulipatam, and white cloth of Bengal, vast quant.i.ties of which are sold here. They bring likewise much cotton yarn, dyed red with a root called _saia_, which never loses its colour, a great quant.i.ty of which is sold yearly in Pegu at a good profit. The s.h.i.+ps from Bengal, San Thome, and Masulipatam, come to the bar of Negrais and to Cosmin. To Martaban, another sea-port in the kingdom of Pegu, many s.h.i.+ps come from Malacca, with sandal-wood, porcelains, and other wares of China, camphor of Borneo, and pepper from Acheen in the island of Sumatra. To Siriam, likewise a port of Pegu, s.h.i.+ps come from Mecca with woollen cloth, scarlet, velvets, opium, and other goods.

In Pegu there are eight brokers called _tareghe_, which are bound to sell your goods at the prices they are worth, receiving as their fee two in the hundred, for which they are bound to make good the price, because you sell your goods on their word. If the broker do not pay you on the day appointed, you may take him home to your house and keep him there, which is a great shame for him. And, if he do not now pay you immediately, you may take his wife, children, and slaves, and bind them at your door in the sun; for such is the law of the country. Their current money is of bra.s.s, which they call _ganza_, with which you may buy gold, silver, rubies, musk, and all other things. Gold and silver is reckoned merchandise, and is worth sometimes more and sometimes less, like all other wares, according to the supply and demand. The ganza or bra.s.s money goes by weight, which they call a _biza_; and commonly this biza is worth, in our way of reckoning, about half a crown or somewhat less. The merchandises in Pegu are, gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, spinels, musk, benzoin, frankincense, long pepper, tin, lead, copper, _lacca_, of which hard sealing-wax is made, rice, wine made of rice, [_aruck_,] and some sugar. The elephants eat sugar canes in great quant.i.ties, or otherwise they might make abundance of sugar.

They consume many canes likewise[425], in making their _varellas_ or idol temples, of which there are a prodigious mult.i.tude, both large and small. These are made round like a sugar loaf, some being as high as a church, and very broad beneath, some being a quarter of a mile in compa.s.s. Within these are all of earth, faced round with stone. In these _varellas_ they consume a vast quant.i.ty of gold, as they are all gilded aloft, and some from top to bottom; and they must be newly gilded every ten or twelve years, because the rain washes off the gold, as they all stand exposed to the weather. Were it not for the prodigious quant.i.ties of gold consumed in this manner, it would be very plentiful and cheap in Pegu. About two days journey from Pegu there is a _varella_ or paG.o.da called _dogonne_, of wonderful bigness, gilded all over from top to bottom, to which the inhabitants of Pegu go in pilgrimage; and near it is a house where their talapoins or priests preach to the people. This house is fifty five paces long, and hath three _p.a.w.nes_ or covered walks in it, the roof being supported by forty great gilded pillars, which stand between the walks. It is open on all sides, having a vast number of small gilded pillars, and the whole is gilded both within and without. Round about this there are many fair houses for the pilgrims to dwell in, and many goodly houses in which the talapoins preach, which are all full of idols or images, both male and female, all gilded with gold. This, in my opinion, is the fairest place in the world. It stands very high, having four roads leading to it, all planted on each side with fruit-trees, so that the people walk in the shade in all these avenues, which are each above two miles long. When the grand festival of this varella approaches, one can hardly pa.s.s any way, on account of the great throngs of people, both by land and water, as they flock from all parts of the kingdom of Pegu to be present at the festival.

[Footnote 425: Surely the bamboo, not the sugar cane. It may be noticed, that almost the whole of this account of Pegu seems to have been borrowed from the relation of Cesar Frederick.--E.]

In Pegu, there are many priests or talapoins, as they are called, who preach against all abuses, and many people resort to hear them. When they enter into the _kiack_, that is to say the holy place or temple, there is a great jar of water at the door, having a c.o.c.k or ladle, and there they wash their feet. They then walk in, and lift their hands to their heads, first to the preacher, and then to the sun, after which they sit down. The talapoins are strangely apparelled, having a brown _cambaline_ or thin cloth next their body, above which is another of yellow many times doubled or folded over their shoulders, and these two are girded round them by a broad girdle. They have a skin of leather hung by a string round their necks, on which they sit, bare headed and bare footed, as they wear no shoes. Their right arms are all bare, and they carry a large _sombrero_ or umbrella over their heads, which protects them from the sun in summer, and from the rain in winter.

Before taking their orders, the talapoins go to school till, twenty years old or more, and then go before a head talapoin appointed for the purpose, called a _rowli_, who is the most learned of the order, who examines them many times, whether they will leave their friends, foregoing the company of women, and a.s.sume the habit of a talapoin. If any one be content, he is made to ride through the streets on a horse, very richly apparelled, accompanied by many drums and trumpets, to shew that he is about to quit the riches and vanity of the world. A few days afterwards, he is again carried through the streets, on a thing like a horse litter, called _serion_, mounted on the shoulders of ten or twelve men, and dressed in the habit of a talapoin, preceded by drums and instruments of music, and accompanied by many talapoins and all his friends. He is thus carried to his house without side of the town, and is there left.

Every individual talapoin has his own house, which is very small, set upon six or eight posts, and to which they have to go up by a ladder of twelve or fourteen staves. Their houses are mostly by the road sides, and among the trees in the woods. They go about, having a great pot of wood or fine earthen ware covered, and hung by a broad belt from their shoulder, with which they beg their victuals, being rice, fish, and herbs. They never ask any thing, but come to the doors, when the people presently give them, some one thing and some another, all of which they put into their pot, saying they must feed on their alms and be contented. Their festivals are regulated by the moon, their chiefest being at the new moon, when the people send rice and other things to the _kiack_ or church which they frequent, where all the talapoins belonging to it meet and eat the victuals that are sent. When the talapoins preach, many of their hearers carry gifts to them in the pulpit, while preaching, a person sitting beside the preacher to receive these gifts, which are divided between them. So far as I could see, they have no other ceremonials or religious service, except preaching.

From Pegu I went to _Jamahey_, in the country of the _Langeiannes_, whom we call _Jangomes_, which is twenty-five days journey north from Pegu[426], in which journey I pa.s.sed through many fertile and pleasant countries, the whole being low land, with many fine rivers; but the houses are mean and bad, being built of canes and covered with straw.

This country has great numbers of wild elephants and buffaloes.

_Jamahey_ is a large handsome town, well peopled, and the houses are well built of stone, with broad streets. The men are strong and well made, having a cloth about their middles, bareheaded and with bare feet, as in all these countries they wear no shoes. The women are much fairer than those of Pegu. In all these countries they have no wheat, living entirely on rice, which they make into cakes. To Jamahey there come many merchants out of China, bringing great store of musk, gold, silver, and many Chinese manufactures. They have here such great abundance of provisions, that they do not take the trouble to milk the buffaloes as they do in other places. Here there is great abundance of copper and benzoin.

[Footnote 426: The names here used are so corrupted as to be utterly unintelligible. Twenty-five days journey north from the city of Pegu, or perhaps 500 miles, would lead the author into the northern provinces of the Birman empire, of which the geography is very little known, perhaps into a.s.san: Yet the _Langeiannes_ may possibly refer to _Lang-shang_ in Laos, nearly west from Pegu. _Jamahey_ may be _Shamai_, in the north of Laos; near the N.W. frontier of China.--E.]

In these countries, when people are sick, they make a vow to offer meat to the devil in case of recovery; and when they recover, they make a banquet, with many pipes and drums and other musical instruments, dancing all night, and their friends bring gifts of coco-nuts, figs, arecas, and other fruits, and with much dancing and rejoicing they offer these to the devil, giving him to eat, and then drive him out.

While dancing and playing, they often cry and hallow aloud, to drive the devil away. While sick, a talapoin or two sit every night by the sick person, continually singing, to please the devil, that he may not hurt them. When any one dies, he is carried on a great frame of wood like a tower, having a covering or canopy made of canes all gilded, which is carried by fourteen or sixteen men, preceded by drums, pipes, and other instruments, and being taken to a place out of the town, the body is there burned. On this occasion, the body is accompanied by all the male friends, relations, and neighbours of the deceased; and they give the talapoins or priests many mats and much cloth. They then return to the house, where they feast for two days. After this, the widow, with all her neighbours wives, and female friends, goes to the place where her husband was burnt, where they sit a certain time lamenting, and then gather up all the pieces of bones which have not been burnt to ashes, which they bury; they then return home, and thus make an end of mourning. On these occasions, the male and female relations shave their heads, which is only done for the death of a friend, as they greatly esteem their hair.

_Caplan_, the place where the rubies, sapphires and spinels are found, is six days journey from Ava in the kingdom of Pegu. There are here many great hills out of which they are dug, but no person is allowed to go to the pits, except those employed in digging. In Pegu, and in all the countries of Ava, Langeiannes, Siam, and of the Birmans, the men wear little round b.a.l.l.s in their privities, some having two and some three, being put in below the skin, which is cut for that purpose, one on one side and another on the other, which they do when 25 or 30 years of age.

These were devised that they might not abuse the male s.e.x, to which shocking vice they were formerly much addicted. It was also ordained, that the women should not have more than three cubits of cloth in their under garments, which likewise are open before, and so tight, that when they walk they shew the leg bare above the knee.

The _bramas_, or birmans of the kings country, for the king is a birman, have their legs or bellies, or some other part of their body according to their fancy made black by p.r.i.c.king the skin, and rubbing in _anile_ or indigo, or some other black powder, which continues ever after; and this is considered as a great honour, none being allowed to do this but the birmans who are of kin to the king. Those people wear no beards, but pull out the hair from their faces with small pincers made for the purpose. Some leave 16 or 20 hairs growing together, some on one part of the face and some on another, and pull out all the rest; every man carrying his pincers with him, and pulling out the hairs as fast as they appear. If they see a man with a beard they wonder at him. Both men and women have their teeth black; for they say a dog has white teeth, and therefore they have theirs black. When the Peguers have a law-suit that is difficult to determine, they place two long canes upright in the water where it is very deep, and both parties go into the water beside the poles, having men present to judge them; they both dive, and he who remains longest under water gains his suit.

The 10th of January, I went from Pegu to Malacca, pa.s.sing many of the sea-ports of Pegu, as Martaban, the island of _Tavi_ whence all India is supplied with tin, Tanaserim, the island of Junkselon, and many others.

I came on the 8th of February to Malacca, where the Portuguese have a castle near the sea. The country without the town belongs to the Malays, who are a proud kind of people, going naked with a cloth about their waists, and a small roll of cloth round their heads. To this place come many s.h.i.+ps from China, the Moluccas, Banda, Timor, and many other islands of the Javas, bringing great store of spices, drugs, diamonds, and other precious stones. The voyages to many of these islands belong to the captain of Malacca, so that no one can go there without his licence, by which he draws large sums of money every year. The Portuguese at Malacca are often at war with the king of Acheen in the island of Sumatra; from whence comes great store of pepper and other spices yearly to Pegu, Mecca, and other places.

<script>