ied vpon a stang betweene 3. or 4. men: we came to Pegu the same day.
Pegu is a citie very great, strong, and very faire, with walles of stone,
and great ditches round about it. There are two townes, the old towne and
the newe. In the olde towne are all the marchants strangers, and very many
marchants of the countrey. All the goods are sold in the olde towne which
is very great, and hath many suburbes round about it, and all the houses
are made of Canes which they call Bambos, and bee couered with strawe
['srawe' in source text--KTH]. In your house you haue a Warehouse which
they call Godon, which is made of bricke to put your goods in, for
oftentimes they take fire and burne in an houre foure or fiue hundred
houses: so that if the Gordon [sic--KTH] were not, you should bee in danger
to haue all burned, if any winde should rise, at a trice. In the newe towne
is the king, and all his Nobilitie and Gentrie. It is a citie very great
and populous, and is made square and with very faire walles, and a great
ditch roundabout it full of water, with many crocodiles in it: it hath
twenty gates, and they bee made of stone, for euery square fiue gates.
There are also many Turrets for Centinels to watch, made of wood, and
gilded with golde very faire. The streets are the fairest that euer I saw,
as straight as a line from one gate to the other, and so broad that tenne
or twelue men may ride a front thorow them. On both sides of them at euery
mans doore is set a palmer tree which is the nut tree: which make a very
faire shew and a very commodious shadow, so that a man may walke in the
shade all day. The houses be made of wood, and couered with tiles. The
kings house is in the middle of the city, and is walled and ditched round
about: and the buildings within are made of wood very sumptuously gilded,
and great workmanship is vpon the forefront, which is likewise very costly
gilded. And the house wherein his Pagode or idole standeth is couered with
tiles of siluer, and all the walles are gilded with golde. Within the first
gate of the kings house is a great large roome, on both sides whereof are
houses made for the kings elephants, which be marveilous great and faire,
and are brought vp to warres and in seruice of the king. [Sidenote: Foure
white elephants.] And among the rest he hath foure white elephants, which
are very strange and rare: for there is none other king which hath them but
he: if any other king hath one, hee will send vnto h