at night; the other parts of the day being too hot for those great confluences of people to meet together; and thofe are the feafons we Englishmen there make use of to ride abroad and take the air, the rest of the day we usually fpend in our houfes. The people there fell almost all their provisions, as very many other things, by weight.

For the foreign trade of this people, it is usually once a year into the Red Sea to a city called Moha, in Arabia the happy, about thirty leagues from the mouth of it: It is a principal mart for all Indian commodities, but the ftaple and most principal there vended is their cotton cloth, either white or stained, and their cotton wool. Hither they come from Grand Cairo, in Egypt, as from many other parts of the Turk's dominions, to traffick. Hither they come from Prefter John's country, which lies on the other fide of the Arabian gulf, for fo the Red Sea is there called, and not above fourteen leagues over at the city Moha.

The fhip or junk, for fo it is called, that usually goes from Surat to Moha, is of an exceeding great burden, fome of them I believe fourteen or fifteen hundred tons, or more, but those huge vessels are very ill built, like an over-grown lighter, broad and short, but made exceeding big, on purpose to waft paffengers forward and backward; which are Mahometans, who go on purpose to vifit Mahomet's fepulchre, at Medina, near Mecca,

but

but many miles beyond Moha. The paffengers, and others, in that moft capacious veffel, that went and returned that year I left India, (as we were credibly told) amounted to the number of feventeen hundred. Those Mahometans that have vifited Mahomet's fepulchre, are after called Hoggees, or holy men.

This junk, bound from Surat to the Red Sea, as the hath many people in her, so hath the good ordnance, but thofe navigators know not well how to use them for their defence. She begins her voyage about the twentieth of March, and finisheth it about the end of September following. The voyage is but short, and might eafily be made in less than three months, but the fhip is very flow, and illbuilt to abide foul weather, and in a long feafon of the rain, and a little before and after it, the winds upon thofe coafts are commonly fo violent, that there is no coming but with much hazard into the Indian fea. This fhip returning is ufually worth (as I have heard it faithfully reported, and if my credit given to that report make me not to abufe my readers) two hundred thousand pounds fterling, and moft of it brought back in good gold and filver; fome fine camlets they bring with them home likewife; but that huge mafs of wealth thus brought home into India, is another efpecial thing, and might have been added to that I fpake of before towards the continual enriching of this great monarchy; where, in the next place I fhall fpeak, SECTION

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Of the Care and Skill of this People in keeping and managing their excellent good Horfes. Of their Elephants, and their ordering and managing them. And bow the People ride and are carried up and down from Place to Place.

T

HE foldiery here, and fo many of the gentry and better fort of the people, who live at court, fhew excellent good skill in riding and managing of their well turn'd, high metall'd choice horfes, which are excellent good at mounting up, bounding and curvet→ ting, and when they run them at their full swifteft fpeed will stop them at a foot's breadth; for the fcantling of thofe creatures, they are in proportion like ours, but excellently well ey'd, headed, limbed; for their colours, there are fome of them raven black, but many more of them white, curiously dappled; and a very great number pied and spotted all over, and there are fome of other bright colours. But it is a ufual custom there amongst gallants, who ride upon the bright coloured horfes, to have their legs and lower parts of their bellies and breafts dyed into a faffron colour, of which they have much there, which makes them look as if they had stood in a dyer's vate, juft up to fuch an heighth of their bodies.

The hair upon their horfes, whom they keep plump and fat, is very short, foft, and lies fleek

fleek upon them; and I wonder not at it, they are kept fo daintily, every horfe being allowed a man to drefs and feed him, and to run by him when he is rode forth; and this is all his work.

They tie not down their horfe-heads, when they ftand ftill, as we do, with halters, but fecure each horfe with two ropes, faftened to their bind feet, which ropes are somewhat long, to be staked down behind them in tents, or other places wherein they are kept.

They cut grafs for them green or withered on the earth as they have occafion to use it, never mowing their ground and making hay as we do. But that which keeps their horfes in heart, and in fleth, is the provender they eat, which is a kind of round grain they call donna, fomewhat bigger than our tares, which they give not unto them dry, but boiled, and mingled with fome coarfe fugar amongft it, and when it is cold give it them made up in round balls, which they put into their mouths as if they cramm'd them; and fometimes they put a little butter into these balls to fcour their bodies.

Their choice good horses are valued there at as dear, if not an higher rate, than those we esteem most of in England are prized with us. They make excellent faddles, and fome of them of great value, adorned with handsome and rich trappings, all of them very eafy both for the horfe and his rider. They manage

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their

their horses with strong fnaffles, whose reins and head-ftalls are made fuitable to their faddles and trappings.

The elephants in this vaft monarchy are very numerous, and though they be the largest, and that by far, of all the creatures the earth brings forth, yet are they fo tractable, unless at fome times when the males are mad, (of which more afterward) as that a boy of twelve years old is able to rule the biggest of them; in which we may in a 'fpecial manner read a comment on that truth which tells us how that the Lord hath put "the fear of man upon all the creatures here below," even upon the greatest of them as well as the least. "Thou makeft him (faith David, Pfal. viii. 6, 7.) to have dominion over the works of thy hands thou haft put all things under his feet; all fheep and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field, &c.") Now if almighty God should let loose the creatures upon man, if he should

let

;

go thofe reins by which they are restrained, and fuffer the creatures to renounce their obedience to man, when man throws off his yoak of obedience to God, what mischief might not thofe vaft overgrown creatures do in those parts where there are so many of them? nay, what mischief might not any other creatures do, even the leaft of them, as the locuft, the canker-worm, and caterpillar, &c. which are called "God's great army," Joel ii. 25. if God fhould give them commiffion