They use to marry there very young—their sons at sixteen and eighteen years old, and the daughters at twelve or thirteen years, or younger. They use to keep their wives very closely—I mean, those that be of any reputation; so that a man shall not see one of them but at a chance, when she goeth to church at Christmas or at Easter, or else going to visit some of her friends. The most part of the women use to ride astride in saddles with stirrups, as men do, and some of them on sleds, which in summer is not commendable. The husband is bound to find the wife colours to paint her withal, for they use ordinarily to paint themselves; it is such a common practice among them that it is counted for no shame. They grease their faces with such colours that a man may discern them hanging on their faces almost a fight-shot off. I cannot so well liken them as to a miller’s wife, for they look as though they were beaten about the face with a bag of meal; but their eyebrows they colour as black as jet. The best property that the women have, is that they can sew well, and embroider with silk and gold excellently. _Of their Burial_. When any man or woman dieth, they stretch him out, and put a new pair of shoes on his feet, because he hath a great journey to go; then do they wind him in a sheet, as we do; but they forget not to put a testimony in his right hand, which the priest giveth him to testify unto St. Nicholas that he died a Christian man or woman. And they put the corse always in a coffin of wood, although the party be very poor—and when they go towards the church, the friends and kinsmen of the party departed carry in their hands small wax candles, and they weep and howl and make much lamentation. They that be hanged or beheaded, or such-like, have no testimony with them; how they are received into heaven, it is a wonder, without their passport. There are a great number of poor people among them who die daily for lack of sustenance, which is a pitiful case to behold; for there hath been buried in a small time, within these two years, above eighty persons young and old, who have died only for lack of sustenance; for if they had straw and water enough, they would make shift to live; for a great many are forced in the winter to dry straw and stamp it, and to make bread thereof—or, at the least, they eat it instead of bread. In the summer they make good shift with grass, herbs, and roots; barks of trees is good meat with them at all times. There is no people in the world, as I suppose, that live so miserably as do the poor in those parts; and the most part of them that have sufficient for themselves, and also to relieve others that need, are so unmerciful that they care not how many they see die of famine or hunger in the streets.