The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 10 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 429 pages of information about The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 10.

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 10 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 429 pages of information about The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 10.

I went from Pegu to Iamahey [Marginal note:  Iamahey fiue and twenty dayes iourney Northeastward from Pegu.] which is in the countrey of the Langeiannes, whom we call Iangomes; it is fiue and twenty dayes iourney Northeast from Pegu.  In which iourney I passed many fruitfull and pleasant countreys.  The countrey is very lowe, and hath many faire riuers.  The houses are very bad, made of canes, and couered with straw.  Heere are many wilde buffes and elephants.  Iamahey is a very faire and great towne, with faire houses of stone, well peopled, the streets are very large, the men very well set and strong, with a cloth about them, bare headed and bare footed:  for in all these countreys they weare no shoes.  The women be much fairer then those of Pegu.  Heere in all these countreys they haue no wheat.  They make some cakes of rice.  Hither to Iamahey come many marchants out of China, and bring great store of muske, golde, siluer, and many other things of China worke.  Here is great store of victuals:  they haue such plenty that they will not milke the buffles, as they doe in all other places.  Here is great store of copper and beniamin.  In these countreys when the people be sicke they make a vow to offer meat vnto the diuell, if they escape:  and when they be recouered they make a banket with many pipes and drummes and other instruments, and dansing all the night, and their friends come and bring gifts, cocos, figges, arrecaes, and other fruits, and with great dauncing and reioycing they offer to the diuell, and say, they giue the diuel to eat, and driue him out.  When they be dancing and playing they will cry and hallow very loud; and in this sort they say they driue him away.  And when they be sicke a Tallipoy or two euery night doth sit by them and sing, to please the diuell that he should not hurt them. [Sidenote:  They burne their dead.] And if any die he is caried vpon a great frame made like a tower, with a couering all gilded with golde made of canes caried with foureteene or sixteene men, with drummes and pipes and other instruments playing before him to a place out of the towne and there is burned.  He is accompanied with all his friends and neighbours, all men:  and they giue to the tallipoies or priests many mats and cloth:  and then they returne to the house and there make a feast for two dayes:  and then the wife with all the neighbours wiues and her friends go to the place where he was burned, and there they sit a certaine time and cry and gather the pieces of bones which be left vnburned and bury them, and then returne to their houses and make an end of all mourning.  And the men and women which be neere of kin do shaue their heads, which they do not vse except it be for the death of a friend:  for they much esteeme of their haire.

Caplan [Marginal note:  Caplan is the place the rubies and other precious stones are found.] is the place where they finde the rubies, saphires, and spinelles:  it standeth sixe dayes iourney from Aua in the kingdome of Pegu.  There are many great high hilles out of which they digge them.  None may go to the pits but onely those which digge them.

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The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 10 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.