In Summer They Only Wear A Single Garment Of Silk, Or Some
Such Light Dress, But They Have No Turbans.
Their common food is rice,
which they eat frequently with a broth made of meat or fish, like that used
by the Arabs, and which they pour upon the rice.
Their kings eat wheaten
bread, and the flesh of all kinds of animals, not excepting swine, and some
others not used by us. They have several sorts of fruits, as apples,
lemons, quinces, moulats, sugar canes, citruls, figs, grapes, cucumbers of
two sorts, trees, which produce a substance like meal, walnuts, almonds,
filberts, pistachios, plumbs, apricots, services, and cocoa nuts, but no
store of palms, of which they have only a few about private houses. Their
drink is a kind of wine made of rice, having no other wine in the country,
neither is any other imported by them. They do not even know what wine is,
nor will they drink of it. They have vinegar also, and a kind of comfit,
like that called Natef by the Arabs and some others.
The Chinese are by no means nice in point of cleanliness, not washing with
water when they ease nature but only wiping with paper. They do not scruple
to eat of animals which have died, and they practise many other things like
the Magians[9]; and in truth, the two religions are much similar. Their
women appear uncovered, and adorn their heads with many small ivory combs,
of which they wear sometimes a score at one time.
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