These People Have Many Fine Carts, Many Of Which Are Richly Carved And Gilt, Having Two Wheels, And Are Drawn By Two Little Bulls, Not Much Larger Than Our Biggest English Dogs, Which Run With These Carts As Fast As Any Horse, Carrying Two Or Three Men In Each Cart:

They are covered with silk or fine cloth, and are used like our coaches in England.

There is a great resort of merchants to this place from Persia and all parts of India, and vast quantities of merchandise, such as silks, cloths, and precious stones, diamonds, rubies, and pearls. The king is dressed in a white _cabie_ made like a shirt, and tied with strings on one side, having a small cloth on his head, often coloured red and yellow. None enter into his apartments, except the eunuchs who have charge of his women.

[Footnote 405: Futtipoor, certainly here meant, is now a place of small importance about 20 miles west from Agra. - E.]

We remained in Fatepore till the 28th of September 1585, when Mr John Newbery took his journey towards Lahore, intending to go from thence through Persia to Aleppo or Constantinople, whichever he could get the readiest passage to; and he directed me to proceed to Bengal and Pegu, promising me, if it pleased God, to meet me at Bengal within two years with a ship from England[406]. I left William Leades the jeweller at Fatepore, in the service of the king Zelabdim Achebar, who gave him good entertainment, giving a house and five slaves, with a horse, and six S.S. in money daily. I went from Agra to _Satagam_ in Bengal, in company with 180 boats loaded with _salt_, opium, _hinge_, lead, carpets, and various other commodities, down the river _Jemena_, [Jumna]; the chief merchants being Moors.

[Footnote 406: In Purchas his Pilgrims, I. 110, is the following notice respecting Mr Newberry: "Before that," meaning his journey along with Fitch, "he had travelled to Ormus in 1580, and thence into the Continent, as may appear in fitter place by his journal, which I have, passing through the countries of Persia, Media, Armenia, Georgia, and Natolia, to Constantinople; and thence to the Danube, through Walachia, Poland, Prussia, and Denmark, and thence to England."]

In this country they have many strange ceremonies. The bramins, who are their priests, come to the water having a string about their necks, and with many ceremonies lave the water with both their hands, turning the string with both their hands in several manners; and though it be never so cold, they wash themselves regularly at all times. These gentiles eat no flesh, neither do they kill any thing, but live on rice, butter, milk, and fruits. They pray in the water naked; and both dress and eat their food naked. For penance, they lie flat on the earth, then rise up and turn themselves round 30 or 40 times, lifting their hands to the sun, and kiss the earth with their arms and legs stretched out; every time they lie down making a score on the ground with their fingers, that they may know when the prescribed number of prostrations is finished. Every morning the Bramins mark their foreheads, ears, and throats, with a kind of yellow paint or earth; having some old men among them, who go about with a box of yellow powder, marking them on the head and neck as they meet them.

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