Both men and women hideously slash their flesh in sundry forms; their brows, noses, cheeks, arms, breasts, back, belly, thighs and legs, are pinkt, and cut in more admirable (than amiable) manner. They contemn apparel, and indeed, the heat of the Climate will not permit them to wear any; very few have nothing on to cover their secrets. Most have but one stone, the other is forced away in their infancy, that _Venus_ may not too much allure them from Martial exploits: wherefore the women take great delight in strangers. One of them so strongly besieged my modesty, that more for fear than love, I yielded to her incontinency: I was displeased at nothing but the sight of her; for her flesh, no Velvet could be softer. There are in this place great quantity of Lions, which in dark weather use great subtility to catch and eat some Savages: They again in the day-time dig pits, and covering them with boughs, do train the couragious Lions thither, where they receive destruction, eating them to day, who perhaps were Sepulchres to their friends or parents the day before. I have seen these well-bred people descend in a morning from the Mountains, adorned with the raw guts of Lions or other wild beasts, serving for an hour or two for chains or neck-laces, and afterwards for their breakfast; of which good chear, if I would not participate, I might fast for them: so that my squeamish stomack was forced to give entertainment to that unwelcome guest, to keep starving out of doors. The Ship that brought us hither, was now ready to set sail, being bound for _Goa_, the Master whereof was a _Portugal_, who understood Latine and French very well, of which I was not ignorant: I addrest my self to him in the French tongue, desiring him to accept of mine and my Comerades service; which he condescended to with much willingness. At _Goa_ we stayed not long, but from thence passing towards _Surrat_, a vehement and unexpected storm overtook us, for three days raging incessantly, so that those which were acquainted with those parts, very much feared an _Hero-cane_, a tempest commonly of thirty days continuance, and of such fury, that Ships, Trees, and Houses perish unavoidably in it: once in nine years, it seems, it fails not to visit them. It chanc’d that my Comerade being heedless and unexperienc’d in Sea-affairs, was washt off by a wave into the Sea, and so was buried in the large & deep grave of the vast Ocean; a sure treasury for the resurrection. The foulness of the weather forc’d a _Junk_-man of War, full of desperate _Malabars_, a bloody and warlike people, in view of us; but the Seas were too lofty for them to board us. After three watches, the Sea changed colour, and was calmer; and by the swimming of many snakes about our Vessel, the Sea-men knew we were not far from shore, landing shortly after safely at _Surrat_. CHAP. LXIX.