Some Even Will
Take A Burning Wick, And Apply It To Some Member, Till The Scent Of The
Burnt Flesh Is Felt All Around, While The Stoic Continues To Play, Without
Betraying The Least Sense Of Pain.
Both men and women are so exceedingly
addicted to debauchery, that a foreign merchant has been known to send even
for a king's daughter, to attend him at the fishing grounds, in quality of
mistress; wherefore the Mahomedan doctors at Siraff, strictly warn young
people not to go there.
In the Indies there are heavy rains, called jasara, which last
incessantly day and night, for three months every year. The Indians prepare
against these to the best of their power, as they shut themselves up in
their houses during the whole time, all work being then performed within
doors; and during this time, they are subject to ulcers in the soles of
their feet, occasioned by the damps. Yet, these rains are of indispensable
necessity; as, when they fail, the Indians are reduced to the utmost want,
as their rice fields are watered only by the rains. It never rains during
summer. The Indians have doctors, or devout men, named Bramins. They have
poets also, who compose poems filled with the grossest flattery to their
kings and great men. They have also astrologers, philosophers, soothsayers,
men who observe the flight of birds, and others who pretend to the
calculation of nativities, particularly at Kaduge, a great city in the
kingdom of Gozar[11]. There are certain men called Bicar, who go all
their lives naked, and suffer their hair to grow till it hides their hinder
parts.
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