A Momentous Journey

167 The gentiles of this country deeply worship their idols. They go naked except for a cloth with which they cover their pudenda; they are not good warriors. They are very licentious. They wear very large round rattles on their members. They sew and weld them on inside, between their skin and flesh, to make them larger, and they wear up to five of them. Some of them are gold, others silver or metal, depending on who wears them. When they walk, they make a lot of noise, which they think provides them with great status, nobility, and the more distinguished they are, the more they wear. The women take such pleasure in this that do not want men who have not got them, and I will not say any more on this subject, owing to its indecency. The King of Pegu is known as the king of the white elephant and many wild elephants breed in the mountains of this kingdom. He has established a rule whereby one elephant is captured every day to be tamed, and thus he always has many which he sells to a variety of places, but mainly to the kingdoms of Vijayanagara; Malabar and Cambay. They also have a lot of hacks in this realm, which walk long distances, they use them a lot and many horses which they gallop on with long stirrups. They use the horses and elephants, as well as their many foot-soldiers to wage their wars. There are also many pigs and sheep, some are bred domestically, others are wild. These gentiles are great horsemen and hunters. Martaban Leaving the city of Pegu and heading towards Malacca, one comes to three or four seaports within the kingdom of Pegu itself. I do not know all their names, but one of them is Martaban, where many ships from various places come to trade and load up on provisions and many other commodities, especially the very fine lac produced here, which is much better than Vijayanagara’s. The Indians and Persians call it

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