e southward, along the shore of the ocean, when I came to a
country called Lamouri[2], in which, owing to the extreme heat, the whole
inhabitants go stark naked, both men and women, and they derided me for
wearing clothes, saying, that Adam and Eve were created naked. In this
country the women are all common, so that no one has a wife; and when a
child is born, the mother gives it to any of the men she pleases, who may
have been connected with her. The whole of the land, likewise, is possessed
in common, but everyone has his own house. Human flesh, if fat, is used as
commonly in that country as beef with us; and though the manners and
customs of the people are most abominable, the country is excellent, and
abounds in flesh and corn, gold and silver, aloes-wood, and camphor, and
many other precious commodities. Merchants who trade to this country,
usually bring with them fat men, among their other commodities, which they
sell to the natives as we do hogs, and these are immediately slain and
devoured.

In this region, toward the south, there is an island or kingdom called
Symolora[3], where both the men and women mark themselves with a hot iron
in twelve different parts of their faces[4]; and this nation is continually
at war with a certain naked people in another region. I then went to
another island named Java, the coast of which is 3000 miles in circuit; and
the king of Java has seven other kings under his supreme dominion. This is
thought to be one of the largest islands in the world, and is thoroughly
inhabited; having great plenty of cloves, cubebs, and nutmegs, and all
other kinds of spices, and great abundance of provisions of all kinds,
except wine. The king of Java has a large and sumptuous palace, the most
lofty of any that I have seen, with broad and lofty stairs to ascend to the
upper apartments, all the steps being alternately of gold and silver.

The whole interior walls are lined with plates of beaten gold, on which the
images of warriors are placed sculptured in gold, having each a golden
coronet richly ornamented with precious stones. The roof of this palace is
of pure gold, and all the lower rooms are paved with alternate square
plates of gold and silver. The great khan, or emperor of Cathay, has had
many wars with the king of Java, but has always been vanquished and beaten
back.

[1] More recent and more accurate travellers have informed us, that this
profusion of gold, on the idols and temples