[Footnote 422: Perhaps Pucouloe, a place of some size near Davas between the Ganges and Burhampooter rivers.--E.]
[Footnote 423: Serampoor on the Hoogly river agrees at least in sound with the Serrepore of the text; but, from the context, I rather suspect Serrepore to have stood among the numerous islands of the great eastern Ganges, in the province of Dava, and near the junction of the Ganges and Burhampooter or Megna rivers. Of Sinnergan I can make nothing, only that it must have stood in the same district.--E.]
I went from Serrepore the 28th of November 1586 for Pegu, in a small ship or foist, commanded by one Albert Caravallos, and sailing down the Ganges, we passed by the island of Sundiva, Porto grande, or Chittigong, in the country of Tiperah, and the kingdom of Recon and Mogen[424], leaving all on our left hand, our course being south by east, with the wind at north-west, which brought us to the bar of Negrais in Pegu. Had we met with a foul wind, we must have thrown many things overboard, for we were so lumbered with people and goods, even on the deck, that there was scarce a place to sit down upon. From Bengal to Pegu is 90 leagues. We entered the bar of Negrais, [at the mouth of the western branch of the river of Ava], which is an excellent bar, having four fathoms water where shallowest. Three days afterwards we came to Cosmin, a very pretty town, pleasantly situated and abounding in all things. The people are tall and well disposed; the women white, round faced, and having small eyes. The houses are high built, set upon great high posts, and they go up to them by means of ladders for fear of the tigers, which are very numerous. The country is very fertile, abounding in great figs, oranges, coconuts, and other fruits. The land is very high on the sea coast, but after getting within the bar, it is very low and much intersected with rivers, so that they go everywhere in boats, which they call paraos, in which many of them dwell with their wives and children.
[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 passing 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 ships from Mecca, Malacca, Sumatra, and other places; and there the ships 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 godown, 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 godowns are very useful to save your goods. The king with all his nobility 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 workmanship, all gilded in a very costly manner. The pagoda, 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 titles, 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 horsemen 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 nobles, 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 nobles, 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 ships. 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 pagod 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 brass, 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 pagodas 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.