IV. CONCERNING INDIA THE LESS.[71]

IV. CONCERNING INDIA THE LESS.[71]

1. In the entrance to India the Less are [date] palms, giving a very great quantity of the sweetest fruit; but further on in India they are not found.[72]

2. In this lesser India are many things worthy to be noted with wonder; for there are no springs, no rivers, no ponds; nor does it ever rain, except during three months, viz., between the middle of May and the middle of August; and (wonderful!) notwithstanding this, the soil is most kindly and fertile, and during the nine months of the year in which it does not rain, so much dew is found every day upon the ground that it is not dried up by the sun’s rays till the middle of the third hour of the day.[73]

3. Here be many and boundless marvels; and in this First India beginneth, as it were, another world; for the men and women be all black, and they have for covering nothing but a strip of cotton tied round the loins, and the end of it flung over the naked back. Wheaten bread is there not eaten by the natives, although wheat they have in plenty; but rice is eaten with its seasoning,[74] only boiled in water. And they have milk and butter and oil, which they often eat uncooked. In this India there be no horses, nor mules, nor camels, nor elephants; but only kine, with which they do all their doings that they have to do, whether it be riding, or carrying, or field labour. The asses are few in number and very small, and not much worth.[75]

4. The days and nights do not vary there more than by two hours at the most.

5. There be always fruits and flowers there, divers trees, and fruits of divers kinds; for (example) there are some trees which bear very big fruit, called Chaqui; and the fruit is of such size that one is enough for five persons.[76]

6. There is another tree which has fruit like that just named, and it is called Bloqui, quite as big and as sweet, but not of the same species. These fruits never grow upon the twigs, for these are not able to bear their weight, but only from the main branches, and even from the trunk of the tree itself, down to the very roots.

7. There is another tree which has fruit like a plum, but a very big one, which is called Aniba. This is a fruit so sweet and delicious as it is impossible to utter in words.[77]

8. There be many other fruit trees of divers kinds, which it would be tedious to describe in detail.

9. I will only say this much, that this India, as regards fruit and other things, is entirely different from Christendom; except, indeed, that there be lemons there, in some places, as sweet as sugar, whilst there be other lemons sour like ours.[78] There be also pomegranates, but very poor and small. There be but few vines, and they make from them no wine, but eat the fresh grapes; albeit there are a number of other trees whose sap they collect, and it standeth in place of wine to them.

10. First of these is a certain tree called Nargil;[79] which tree every month in the year sends out a beautiful frond like [that of] a [date] palm-tree, which frond or branch produces very large fruit, as big as a man’s head. There often grow on one such stem thirty of those fruits as big as I have said. And both flowers and fruits are produced at the same time, beginning with the first month and going up gradually to the twelfth; so that there are flowers and fruit in eleven stages of growth to be seen together. A wonder! and a thing which cannot be well understood without being witnessed.[80] From these branches and fruits is drawn a very sweet water. The kernel [at first] is very tender and pleasant to eat; afterwards it waxeth harder, and a milk is drawn from it as good as milk of almonds; and when the kernel waxeth harder still, an oil is made from it of great medicinal virtue. And if any one careth not to have fruit, when the fruit-bearing stem is one or two months old he maketh a cut in it, and bindeth a pot to this incision; and so the sap, which would have been converted into fruit, drops in; and it is white like milk, and sweet like must, and maketh drunk like wine, so that the natives do drink it for wine; and those who wish not to drink it so, boil it down to one-third of its bulk, and then it becometh thick, like honey; and ’tis sweet, and fit for making preserves, like honey and the honeycomb.[81] One branch gives one potful in the day and one in the night, on the average throughout the year:[82] thus five or six pots may be found hung upon the same tree at once. With the leaves of this tree they cover their houses during the rainy season.[83] The fruit is that which we call nuts of India; and from the rind of that fruit is made the twine with which they stitch their boats together in those parts.[84]

11. There is another tree of a different species, which like that gives all the year round a white liquor pleasant to drink, which tree is called Tárí.[85] There is also another, called Belluri, giving a liquor of the same kind, but better.[86] There be also many other trees, and wonderful ones; among which is one which sendeth forth roots from high up, which gradually grow down to the ground and enter it, and then wax into trunks like the main trunk, forming as it were an arch; and by this kind of multiplication one tree will have at once as many as twenty or thirty trunks beside one another, and all connected together. ’Tis marvellous! And truly this which I have seen with mine eyes, ’tis hard to utter with my tongue. The fruit of this tree is not useful, but poisonous and deadly.[87] There is [also] a tree harder than all, which the strongest arrows can scarcely pierce.

12. The trees in this India, and also in India the Greater, never shed their leaves till the new ones come.[88]

13. To write about the other trees would be too long a business, and tedious beyond measure; seeing that they are many and divers, and beyond the comprehension of man.

14. But about wild beasts of the forest I say this: there be lions, leopards, ounces, and another kind something like a greyhound, having only the ears black and the whole body perfectly white, which among those people is called Siagois.[89] This animal, whatever it catches, never lets go, even to death. There is also another animal, which is called Rhinoceros,[90] as big as a horse, having one horn long and twisted; but it is not the unicorn.

15. There be also venomous animals, such as many serpents, big beyond bounds, and of divers colours, black, red, white, and green, and parti-coloured; two-headed also, three-headed, and five-headed. Admirable marvels![91]

16. There be also coquodriles, which are vulgarly called Calcatix;[92] some of them be so big that they be bigger than the biggest horse. These animals be like lizards, and have a tail stretched over all, like unto a lizard’s; and have a head like unto a swine’s, and rows of teeth so powerful and horrible that no animal can escape their force, particularly in the water. This animal has, as it were, a coat of mail; and there is no sword, nor lance, nor arrow, which can anyhow hurt him, on account of the hardness of his scales. In the water, in short, there is nothing so strong, nothing so evil, as this wonderful animal. There be also many other reptiles, whose names, to speak plainly, I know not.

17. As for birds, I say plainly that they are of quite different kinds from what are found on this side of the world; except, indeed, crows and sparrows;[93] for there be parrots and popinjays in very great numbers, so that a thousand or more may be seen in a flock. These birds, when tamed and kept in cages, speak so that you would take them for rational beings. There be also bats really and truly as big as kites. These birds fly nowhither by day, but only when the sun sets. Wonderful! By day they hang themselves up on trees by the feet, with their bodies downwards, and in the daytime they look just like big fruit on the tree.[94]

18. There are also other birds, such as peacocks, quails, Indian fowls,[95] and others, divers in kind; some white as white can be, some green as green can be, some parti-coloured, of such beauty as is past telling.

19. In this India, when men go to the wars, and when they act as guards to their lords, they go naked, with a round target,—a frail and paltry affair,—and holding a kind of a spit[96] in their hands; and, truly, their fighting seems like child’s play.

20. In this India are many and divers precious stones, among which are the best diamonds under heaven. These stones never can be dressed or shaped by any art, except what nature has given. But I omit the properties of these stones, not to be prolix.

21. In this India are many other precious stones, endowed with excellent virtues, which may be gathered by anybody; nor is anyone hindered.

22. In this India, on the death of a noble, or of any people of substance, their bodies are burned: and eke their wives follow them alive to the fire, and, for the sake of worldly glory, and for the love of their husbands, and for eternal life, burn along with them, with as much joy as if they were going to be wedded; and those who do this have the higher repute for virtue and perfection among the rest. Wonderful! I have sometimes seen, for one dead man who was burnt, five living women take their places on the fire with him, and die with their dead.

23. There be also other pagan-folk in this India who worship fire; they bury not their dead, neither do they burn them, but cast them into the midst of a certain roofless tower, and there expose them totally uncovered to the fowls of heaven. These believe in two First Principles, to wit, of Evil and of Good, of Darkness and of Light, matters which at present I do not purpose to discuss.[97]

24. There be also certain others which be called Dumbri, who eat carrion and carcases; who have absolutely no object of worship; and who have to do the drudgeries of other people, and carry loads.[98]

25. In this India there is green ginger, and it grows there in great abundance.[99]

There be also sugar-canes in quantities; carobs also, of such size and bigness that it is something stupendous.[100] I could tell very wonderful things of this India; but I am not able to detail them for lack of time. Cassia fistula is in some parts of this India extremely abundant.[101]

26. The people of this India are very clean in their feeding; true in speech, and eminent in justice, maintaining carefully the privileges of every man according to his degree, as they have come down from old times.[102]

27. The heat there is perfectly horrible, and more intolerable to strangers than it is possible to say.[103]

28. In this India there exists not, nor is found, any metal but what comes from abroad, except gold, iron, and electrum. There is no pepper there, nor any kind of spice except ginger.

29. In this India the greater part of the people worship idols, although a great share of the sovereignty is in the hands of the Turkish Saracens, who came forth from Multán, and conquered and usurped dominion to themselves not long since, and destroyed an infinity of idol temples, and likewise many churches, of which they made mosques for Mahomet, taking possession of their endowments and property. ’Tis grief to hear, and woe to see![104]

30. The Pagans of this India have prophecies of their own that we Latins are to subjugate the whole world.[105]

31. In this India there is a scattered people, one here, another there, who call themselves Christians, but are not so, nor have they baptism, nor do they know anything else about the faith. Nay, they believe St. Thomas the Great to be Christ!

32. There, in the India I speak of, I baptized and brought into the faith about three hundred souls, of whom many were idolaters and Saracens.[106]

33. And let me tell you that among the idolaters a man may with safety expound the Word of the Lord; nor is anyone from among the idolaters hindered from being baptized throughout all the East, whether they be Tartars, or Indians, or what not.

34. These idolaters sacrifice to their gods in this manner; to wit, there is one man who is priest to the idol, and he wears a long shirt, down to the ground almost, and above this a white surplice[107] in our fashion; and he has a clerk with a shirt who goes after him, and carries a hassock, which he sets before the priest. And upon this the priest kneels, and so begins to advance from a distance, like one performing his stations; and he carries upon his bent arms a tray of two cubits [long], all full of eatables of different sorts, with lighted tapers at top; and thus praying he comes up to the altar where the idol is, and deposits the offering before it after their manner; and he pours a libation, and places part [of the offering] in the hands of the idol, and then divides the residue, and himself eats a part of it.

35. They make idols after the likeness of almost all living things of the idolaters; and they have besides their god according to his likeness.[108] It is true that over all gods they place One God, the Almighty Creator of all those.[109] They hold also that the world has existed now xxviii thousand years.[110]

The Indians, both of this India and of the other Indies, never kill an ox, but rather honour him like a father; and some, even perhaps the majority, worship him. They will more readily spare him who has slain five men than him who has slain one ox, saying that it is no more lawful to kill an ox than to kill one’s father. This is because oxen do all their services, and moreover furnish them with milk and butter, and all sorts of good things.[111] The great lords among the idolaters, every morning when they rise, and before they go anywhither, make the fattest cows come before them, and lay their hands upon them, and then rub their own faces, believing that after this they can have no ailment.

36. Let this be enough about Lesser India; for were I to set forth particulars of everything down to worms and the like, a year would not suffice for the description.

37. But [I may say in conclusion] as for the women and men, the blacker they be, the more beautiful they be [held.][112]