A.D. 

 1565. 



A warrelike 

 people 300 

 leagues to the 

 North of 

 Meaco. 



The Japanish 

 funerals. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



of children all tricks & sleights of guile & theft : whom 

 they do find to be of great towardnes, those do they 

 instruct in al the petigrues of princes, and fashions of the 

 nobilitie, in chivalrie and eloquence, and so send them 

 abroad into other provinces, attired like yong princes, to 

 this ende, that faining themselves to be nobly borne, they 

 may with great summes of money borowed under the 

 colour and pretence of nobilitie returne againe. Where- 

 fore this place is so infamous in all Japan, that if any 

 scholer of that order be happily taken abroad, he incon- 

 tinently dieth for it. Neverthelesse these cousiners leave 

 not daily to use their woonted wickednesse and knaverie. 



North from Japan, three hundred leagues out of 

 Meaco, lieth a great countrey of savage men clothed in 

 beasts skinnes, rough bodied, with huge beards and mon- 

 strous muchaches, the which they hold up with litle 

 forkes as they drinke. These people are great drinkers 

 of wine, fierce in warres, and much feared of the Japans : 

 being hurt in fight, they wash their wounds with salt 

 water, other Surgerie have they none. In their breasts 

 they are sayd to cary looking glasses : their swordes they 

 tie to their heads, in such wise, that the handle doe rest 

 upon their shoulders. Service and ceremonies have they 

 none at all, onely they are woont to worship heaven. To 

 Aquita a great towne in that Japonish kingdom, which we 

 call Gevano, they much resort for marchandise, and the 

 Aquitanes likewise doe travell into their countrey, how- 

 beit not often, for that there many of them are slaine by 

 the inhabiters. 



Much more concerning this matter I had to write : but 

 to avoyd tediousnesse I will come to speake of the Japans 

 madnesse againe, who most desirous of vaine glory doe 

 thinke then specially to get immortall fame, when they 

 procure themselves to be most sumptuously and solemnly 

 buried : their burials and obsequies in the citie Meaco 

 are done after this maner. About one houre before the 

 dead body be brought foorth, a great multitude of his 

 friends apparelled in their best aray goe before unto the 



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