AD. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1563-81. 

 A ceremony of a heape of stickes and boughes and lay the dead bodie 

 ^\ ^^"[^^^^ thereon, and putting fire thereunto, they let the bodie 

 X/J ^"^ ^^^ alone untill it be halfe rosted, and then they take it 

 off from the fire, and make an emptie Jarre fast about 

 his necke, and so throw him into the river. These 

 things every night as I passed up and downe the river 

 I saw for the space of two moneths, as I passed to the 

 fayres to buy my commodities with the marchants. And 

 this is the cause that the Portugales will not drinke of 

 the water of the river Ganges, yet to the sight it is 

 more perfect and clearer then the water of Nilus is. 

 From the port Piqueno I went to Cochin, and from 

 Cochin to Malacca, from whence I departed for Pegu 

 being eight hundred miles distant. That voyage is 

 woont to be made in five and twentie or thirtie dayes, 

 but we were foure moneths, and at the ende of three 

 moneths our ship was without victuals. The Pilot told 

 us that wee were by his altitude not farre from a citie 

 called Tanasary, in the kingdome of Pegu, and these 

 his words were not true, but we were (as it were) in 

 the middle of many Hands, and many uninhabited 

 rockes, and there were also some Portugales that affirmed 

 that they knew the land, and knewe also where the citie 

 of Tanasari was. 



This citie of right belongeth to the kingdome of Sion, 

 which is situate on a great rivers side, which commeth 

 out of the kingdome of Sion : and where this river 

 runneth into the sea, there is a village called Mirgim, 

 Marchandise \^ whose harbour every yeere there lade some ships with 

 camming pom y^j-^^ina, Nypa, and Benjamin, a few cloves, nutmegs 

 and maces which come from the coast of Sion, but the 

 greatest marchandise there is Verzin and Nypa, which 

 is an excellent wine, which is made of the floure of a 

 tree called Nyper. Whose liquour they distill, and so 

 make an excellent drinke cleare as christall, good to the 1 

 mouth, and better to the stomake, and it hath an ex- ' 

 cellent gentle vertue, that if one were rotten with the 

 french pockes, drinking good store of this, he shall be 



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