178 It is said that the island of Java is the most fertile town, or rather, island in the entire world. There is a lot offine rice here, an abundance of different meats; many sheep; cows; chickens; goats; many large domestic pigs; wild ones, and they usually cure and salt venison and beef. A lot of pepper; cinnamon; ginger, and cassia fistula grow here and there is gold. The local inhabitants are stout, broad-chested men, with broad faces, most go naked above the waist, others wear light silk coats which come halfway down their thighs. They are clean-shaven for appearance’s sake, their heads are half shaven and their hair tied up. They do not wear anything on their heads, stating that nothing should stand on them. The gravest offence to them is for someone to put their hand on another’s head, nor do they build houses with an upper floor, so that nobody should walk on anybody else. They are very proud and very strong-tempered men, treacherous and above all, very resourceful. There arefine cabinet-makers among them and craftsmen who make muskets and musketoons and all other sorts offirearms; they are highly valued as gunners in all places. In addition to the junks, which I have already mentioned in several places, they have well-crafted and swift oared ships, which some use to steal, as some of them are terrible pirates; there are alsofine smiths among them, who make all sorts of very solid and strong weapons and excellent steel blades. They are also great sorcerers and necromancers and they make weapons at exact times and moments so that they say that the bearers cannot die by the sword and that they will kill as soon as they draw blood; others whose owners carry two of them cannot be defeated, and sometimes they spend ten or twelve years with these weapons waiting for the right time and constellation for this, thus the kings value them highly and keep them. Some of them are also great mounted huntsmen and hunters, they have many fine horses and harriers for hunting and
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