Cap. xli.—How we departed from the church and houses of St. Michael, and went to Bacinete, and from there to Maluc; and of the monasteries which are near it.
We went away from the Church of St. Michael, with the country people who carried our baggage, and went to sleep at a town named Angueha, at a Beteneguz, which means a king’s house, as I have already said various times. And already in other towns we had halted in houses like these: no one uses them, except the lords of the country who at times hold the authority of the Prester John. They respect these houses so much that their doors are always open, and no one touches anything there, nor enters within, except when the lord is there; and when he goes away nothing remains inside except the open doors, and sleeping couches ready for use,[64] and the place for making a fire. We departed from this place with our baggage, and travelled three or four leagues, and went to sleep on a high hill, and above a large river, which is named Abacinete,[65] and so the country and lordship is named. They said that this lordship belonged to the grandmother of the Prester John; and whilst we were there it was taken away from her, because she was on bad terms with the country. This lordship lies in the kingdom of Tigrimahom, and it is a very populous country in all parts, and fertile, a country of mountains and rivers; all the towns are on heights, and away from the roads: this they do on account of the travellers, who take from them by force whatever they have. The people who carried our baggage made a great fence of thorny bushes for us, and for the mules, which was to defend us from the wild beasts; however, we neither heard nor perceived anything at night. We set out from this place, and went to sleep at a town which is named Maluche, which may be two leagues from where we had slept. This town was surrounded by very beautiful tilled fields of wheat, barley, and millet, the best and thickest we had seen yet. Close to this town is a very high mountain, not very broad at the foot, for it is as broad at the top as it is at the bottom, for it is all scarped like a wall, of sheer cliff, all bare, without any crops or verdure of anything. It makes like three divisions; two at the ends are pointed, that of the middle flat. In one of the pointed divisions, that is, ascending to the summit from the bottom, there is a monastery of Our Lady, named Abbamata. They say that they are friars leading a good life. The order of friars is all one and the same in all the dominions of Prester John. It is all of St. Anthony of the Wilderness, and from this proceeds another order, which they name estefarruz.[66] These hold the others as bad, and say that they burn many on account of there being many heresies among them, such as their not adoring the cross. These are the people who make the crosses which all the clergy and friars carry in their hands, and the laity at their necks, and their opinion is that we have only one cross to adore, and that it is that on which Jesus Christ suffered, and that the crosses which they make, and which other men make, are not to be adored, because they are the work of men’s hands; and there are other heresies which they say, hold, and do. Looking at this monastery where it appears in sight, it seems like a league. I wished to go there; they told me not to go, as it was a day’s journey, and that they could not go there except by clinging on with the hands, and otherwise it was not possible to go there. On the hill in the middle, which is like a table, there is another house of Our Lady, to which they say much devout visitation is made. On the other peak is a house of Holy Cross; it is a further distance of a league and a half or two leagues. On another hill, which is also scarped, like that of Abbamata, there is another monastery, which is named St. John. There is nothing on the top of this hill but the monastery and houses of the friars, without any verdure, as it appears to sight from below; and its officials live at the foot of the hill in fertile lands, and send thence what is necessary to those who live in the monastery. Already in these lands a great difference is seen from the lands left behind. In the countries and kingdom of the Barnagais, and in the commencement of that of the Tigrimahom, there are many beggars, cripples, blind men, and poor people; in this country there are not so many. The men wear different costumes; so also the women who are married or living with men. Here they wear wrapped round them dark coloured woollen stuffs, with large fringes of the same stuff, and they do not wear diadems[67] on their heads like those of the Barnagais. The girls go from bad to worse; there are women of twenty or twenty-five years old, who have the breasts coming to their waists, and their body bare and gaily covered with little beads. Some of the women of full size and age wear a sheep skin suspended to their shoulder, without its covering more than one side. In the parts of Portugal and Spain people marry for love, and on account of seeing beautiful faces, and the things inside are hidden from them; in this country they can well marry on account of seeing everything quite certain.
Cap. xlii.—Of the animals which are in the country, and how we turned back to where the ambassador was.
There are in this country tigers and other animals, which at night kill the cows, mules and asses, in the closed towns, which they did not do in the kingdom of the Barnagais which we had left behind. We departed from this place[68] on the 6th of August of 1520, and returned back to where we had left the ambassador, who was lodged by order of the Tigrimahom, and much to his satisfaction, with all the Portuguese who had started with him from Temei, a country in the kingdom of the Barnagais. In the said place a great lord was lodged, by order of the Tigrimahom, in order to protect and provide for the ambassador; and likewise other gentlemen were lodged in towns within sight of this, and many others who accompanied the Tigrimahom. He was lodged in a Beteneguz, and the ambassador was at the distance of a league from that place. On the day that we arrived the Tigrimahom sent to summon the ambassador; and he went at once, and all the Portuguese went with him. When we arrived at the Beteneguz where he was, they told us that he was in the church, he and his wife, to receive the Communion; and this was an hour before sunset, which is the hour for saying mass on fast days. We went towards the church, and met with him on the way. Each came on his mule, with very good state, like great gentlemen as they are; so they came accompanied by many great lords. This Tigrimahom is an old man, of a good and reverend presence: his wife came entirely covered up with blue cotton stuffs; we did not see either her face or her body, because it was all covered up. As soon as we came up to him, he asked me for a cross which I carried in my hand, and he kissed it and ordered it to be given to his wife to kiss it; she kissed it through her wrapper, and received us with a good welcome. This Tigrimahom keeps a very large household, both of men and women, and great state, in a great measure grander than the Barnagais. The ambassador and those that were with him told us that they had received great honour and hospitable reception from the Tigrimahom, both in favour and provisions. It is but a short time that this Tigrimahom has held this lordship, and as yet, he has not finished visiting all his lands which are under his orders and rule, and also those who have the title of kings, as well as the others underneath them in rank. The Prester John deposes them and appoints them whenever he pleases, with or without cause; and on this account there is no ill humour here, and if there is any it is secret, because in this period that we remained in this country I saw great lords turned out of their lordships, and others put into them, and I saw them together, and they appeared to be good friends. (God knows their hearts.) And in this country, whatever happens to them, of good fortune or of loss, they say of all of it, that God does it. These great lords, who are like kings, are all tributaries of the Prester John; those of this kingdom in horses, and those of the Barnagais in brocades, silks, and some cotton cloths; and those further on from this place (as they say) are tributaries in gold, silk, mules, cows, and plough oxen, and other things which there are at court. The lords who are beneath these, even though they hold their lordships from the hand of Prester John, pay their tribute to the other lords; and they account for all on delivering it to the Prester. The lands are so populous that the revenues cannot but be large; and these lords, even though they receive their revenues, eat at the cost of the people and the poor.
Cap. xliii.—How the Tigrimahom being about to travel, the ambassador asked him to despatch him, and it was not granted to him, and the ambassador sent him certain things, and he gave him equipment, and we went to a monastery, where the friars gave thanks to God.
As the Tigrimahom was about to set out for other countries we went to take leave of him, and ask him to give us a good equipment for our journey, and to this he answered us saying: that the goods which we were taking to the Prester John he would have them taken to him, and that our own goods which were our clothes, and pepper and cloths for our provisions, that we should take charge of them, and with this he dismissed us and went his way, and we went to where we were lodged. Seeing that we could not travel with so much baggage, we agreed to send again to the Tigrimahom, and Jorge D’Abreu and Mestre Joam went and took to him certain goods, that is to say, a rich dagger and a sword furnished with a velvet scabbard and gilt ends. There came a message that they should carry all our goods, and that in all his lands they should give us bread, wine, and meat to eat. As soon as this message arrived, the same day we departed, which was the 9th of August. We went to sleep at some small hamlets, fenced in like those we had passed from fear of the tigers. On the night that we slept here, when it was about two hours of the night, a little more or less, on two men of the country going outside of a yard the tigers attacked them, and wounded one of them in the leg. God protected him and we who hastened to him, because certainly they would have killed him, as they are such pestilent animals. In this country there are villages of Moors, separated from the Christians; they say that they pay much tribute to the lords of the country in gold and silk stuffs. They do not serve in the general services like the Christians; they have not got mosques, because they do not allow them to build or possess them. All these countries are great pasture lands, like those left behind, but not less of tilled land and mountain ridges (not very high), but rather undulating plains. From these small villages we went a distance of four leagues to sleep at another small village, and a little before coming to it we saw on the left hand on a high hill much green grass and woods, in which is another monastery of St. John, like the one seen before. They say that it is a monastery of many friars and much revenue. Close to the village where we halted is a church of St. George, a very well arranged building, almost in the fashion of our churches, small and vaulted, its paintings very well executed, that is, of apostles, patriarchs, prophets, Elias and Enoch. Ten priests and friars officiate in it. Up to this time we have not met with a church ruled by clergy, in which there are not friars, and in monasteries no priest. In truth the friars behave more honestly in their habits, and the priests behave as laymen, except that their lives are more honest. In the fairs priests and friars are all the same, and they are the merchants. Across this church of St. George, towards the east, at the foot of a mountain about a league from this church, there is a monastery on a river, named Paraclitos, which amongst us means Holy Ghost. There will be in it twenty or twenty-five friars, the house is very devout, and so the friars appear to be. When we came there, they gave great thanks to God for their having seen Christians of another country and language who had never come before: they showed us all their affairs. The house of the monastery is vaulted and small, and well painted, its cloisters and cells very well arranged, better than we had yet seen in this country. It has very good vegetable gardens, with many cabbages, garlic, onions, and other species of vegetables, many lemons, limes, citrons, peaches, grapes, figs, common nuts, and figs of India; many tall cypresses, and many other fruit trees and plants. After we had seen all, the friars were at their wits’ end, because it was Saturday, and they could not gather anything to give us, asking us to pardon them, and that they would give us of what they had in the house. Then they gave us dry garlic and lemons; last of all they took us to the refectory, and there gave us to eat boiled cabbage of the day before, hashed and salted, and mixed with garlic, without any other sauce, only boiled with water and salt. They gave us, besides, two rolls, one of wheat, the other of barley, and a jar of the beverage of the country, which they call cana, and it is made of millet. They gave it all with great good will, and we likewise received it in the same manner, giving thanks to God as they did. At a distance of two leagues from this place where we halted, there is a town named Agroo, where the Tigrimahom has a Beteneguz, to which we went on various occasions. Here there is a house of Our Lady, made in a rock, hewn and wrought with the pickaxe, very well constructed, with three naves, and their supports made of the rock itself. The principal chapel, the sacristy, and the altar, all is of the rock itself, and the principal doorway, with its supports, which could not be better if made of pieces. It has not got side doors, because both sides are of hewn rock, or of living rock. It is a beautiful thing, and to be rejoiced at to see, and hear the chaunt in it and the grand tone it gives. Mention of bells may be dispensed with, since they are all of stone, drums and cymbals generally and specially.