isfied with one wife, but both nations marry
as many as they please, or can maintain. Rice is the common food of the
Indians, who eat no wheat; but the Chinese use both indifferently.
Circumcision is not practised either by the Chinese or Indians. The Chinese
worship idols, before whom, they fall down and make prayers, and they have
books which explain the articles of their religion. The Indians suffer
their beards to grow, but have no whiskers, and I have seen one with a
beard three cubits long; but the Chinese, for the most part, wear no
beards. Upon the death of a relation, the Indians shave both head and face.
When any man in the Indies is thrown into prison, he is allowed neither
victuals nor drink for seven days together; and this with them answers the
end of other tortures for extorting from the criminal a confession of his
guilt. The Chinese and Indians have judges besides the governors, who
decide in causes between the subjects. Both in India and China there are
leopards and wolves, but no lions. Highway robbers are punished with death.
Both the Indians and Chinese imagine that the idols which they worship
speak to them, and give them answers. Neither of them kill their meat by
cutting the throat, as is done by the Mahomedans, but by beating them on
the head till they die. They wash not with well water, and the Chinese wipe
themselves with paper, whereas the Indians wash every day before eating.
The Indians wash not only the mouth, but the whole body before they eat,
but this is not done by the Chinese. The Indies is larger in extent by a
half than China, and has a great many more kingdoms, but China is more
populous. It is not usual to see palm trees either in the Indies or in
China, but they have many other sorts of trees and fruits which we have
not. The Indians have no grapes, and the Chinese have not many, but both
abound in other fruits, though the pomegranate thrives better in India than
in China.

The Chinese have no sciences, and their religion and most of their laws are
derived from the Indians. They even believe that the Indians taught them
their worship of idols. Both nations believe the Metempsycosis, though they
differ in many of the precepts and ceremonies of their religion. Physic and
philosophy are cultivated among the Indians, and the Chinese have some
skill in medicine; but that almost entirely consists in the art of applying
hot irons or cauteries. They have some smattering of astronomy; but i