We exchanged our tin dish for twenty skins, worth twenty crowns or
twenty nobles; and a copper kettle for fifty skins, worth fifty crowns.
They offered us good exchange for our hatchets and axes, and for knives,
and would have given anything for swords; but we would not depart with
any. After two or three days the King's brother came aboard the ships
and drank wine, and eat of our meat and of our bread, and liked
exceedingly thereof. And after a few days overpassed, he brought his
wife with him to the ships, his daughter, and two or three children. His
wife was very well favored, of mean stature, and very bashful. She had
on her back a long cloak of leather, with the fur side next to her body,
and before her a piece of the same, About her forehead she had a band of
white coral, and so had her husband many times. In her ears she had
bracelets of pearls hanging down to her middle, whereof we delivered
your worship a little bracelet, and those were of the bigness of good
peas. The rest of her women of the better sort had pendants of copper
hanging in either ear, and some of the children of the King's brother
and other noblemen have five or six in either ear; he himself had upon
his head a broad plate of gold, or copper; for, being unpolished, we
knew not what metal it should be, neither would he by any means suffer
us to take it off his head; but feeling it, it would bow very easily.
His apparel was as his wife's, only the women wear their hair long on
both sides, and the men but on one. They are of color yellowish, and
their hair black for the most part; and yet we saw children that had
very fine auburn and chestnut-colored hair.
After that these women had been there, there came down from all parts
great store of people, bringing with them leather, coral, divers kinds
of dyes very excellent, and exchanged with us. But when Granganimeo, the
King's brother, was present, none durst trade but himself, except such
as wear red pieces of copper on their heads like himself; for that is
the difference between the noblemen and the governors of countries, and
the meaner sort. And we both noted there, and you have understood since
by these men which we brought home, that no people in the world carry
more respect to their king, nobility, and governors than these do. The
King's brother's wife, when she came to us--as she did many times--was
followed with forty or fifty women always. And when she came into the
ship she left them all on land, saving her two daughters, her nurse, and
one or two more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account