Every Family Or Tribe Has Its Own Particular Place Of Burial, Which Are
All In The Fields.
The bodies are all deposited in graves, with the
heads laid towards Mecca, having a stone at the head, and another at the
feet, curiously wrought, so as to designate the rank and worth of each
person.
In the burial-place of the kings, as we were told, every grave
has a piece of gold at the head, and another at the feet, each weighing
500 pounds, curiously embossed and carved. I was very desirous to see
this royal cemetery, because of its great riches, but could not obtain
permission; yet am disposed to believe it to be true, as the reigning
king has made two such costly ornaments for his own grave, which are
almost finished. They are each of gold, a thousand pounds weight
a-piece, and are to be richly ornamented with precious stones.[41]
[Footnote 41: In the Portuguese Asia is a story which confirms this
report. George Brito, who went in 1521 to Acheen with six ships, and
three hundred men, having been informed, by an ungrateful Portuguese,
whom the king had relieved from shipwreck, that there was a great
treasure of gold in the tombs of the kings, and having made other
inquiries on this subject, picked a quarrel with the king, and landed
with two hundred men in order to seize it: But being opposed by the
king, at the head of a thousand men, and six elephants, he, and most of
his men, were slain; a just reward of injustice, ingratitude, and
avarice. - Astl. 1. 260. a.]
The people who trade to this port are from China, Bengal, Pegu, Java,
Coromandel, Guzerata, Arabia, and Rumos. Rumos is in the Red-Sea,
whence Solomon sent his ships to Ophir for gold; which Ophir is now
Acheen, as they affirm upon tradition; and the Rumos people have
followed the same trade from the time of Solomon to this day.[42] Their
payments are made in different denominations, called cash, mas, cowpan,
pardaw, and tayel. I only saw two sorts of coin, one of gold, and the
other of lead: The gold coin, or mas, is of the size of a
silver-penny, and is as common at Acheen as pence are in England. The
other, of lead, called cash, is like the little leaden tokens used in
London by the vintners: 1600 cashes make one mas; 400 cashes make
a cowpan, and four cowpans a mas; five mases are equal to four
shillings sterling; four mases make a pardaw, and four pardaws a
tayel. Hence one mas is 9-3/5d. sterling; one pardaw, 3s. 2-2/5d.;
one tayel, 12s. 9-3/5d.; one cowpan, 2-3/5d.; and one cash is a
two-hundredth part of a penny. Pepper is sold by the Bahar, which is
360 English pounds, for 3l. 4s. Their pound is called catt, being
twenty-one of our ounces; and their ounce is larger than ours in the
proportion of sixteen to ten.
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