irs, who come in place of our
gentlemen, and go out to war with swords and bucklers, lancet, bows,
and other weapons. The third order consists of mechanics and handicrafts
of all kinds. In the fourth are victuallers, or those that make
provision of fish and flesh. Next to them are those who gather pepper,
cocoa nuts, grapes and other fruits. The baser sort are those who sow
and gather rice, who are kept under such subjection by the bramins and
nairs that they dare not approach nearer to them than 50 paces under
pain of death and are therefore obliged to lurk in bye places and
marshes; and when they go anywhere abroad they call out continually in a
loud voice, that they may be hoard of the bramins and nairs otherwise if
any of these were to come near they would certainly put these low people
to death.

The dress of even the king and queen differ in little or nothing from
the other idolaters, all going naked, barefooted, and bareheaded, except
a small piece of silk or cotton to cover their nakedness; but the
Mahometans wear single garments in a more seemly manner, their women
being dressed like the men except that their hair is very long. The king
and nobles eat no kind of flesh, except having first got permission of
the priests; but the common people may eat any flesh they please except
that of cows. Those of the basest sort, named _Nirani_ and _Poliars_,
are only permitted to eat fish dried in the sun.

When the king or zamorin dies, his male children, if any, or his
brothers by the fathers side, or the sons of these brothers, do not
succeed in the kingdom: For, by ancient law or custom, the succession
belongs to the sons of the kings sisters; and if there be none such, it
goes to the nearest male relation through the female blood. The reason
of this strange law of succession is, that when the king takes a wife,
she is always in the first place deflowered by the chief bramin, for
which he is paid fifty-pieces of gold. When the king goes abroad, either
in war or a-hunting, the queen is left in charge of the priests, who
keep company with her till his return; wherefore the king may well think
that her children may not be his; and for this reason the children of
his sisters by the same mother are considered as his nearest in blood,
and the right inheritors of the throne. When the king dies, all his
subjects express their mourning by cutting their beards and shaving
their heads; and during the celebration of his funerals,