You May Not Enter Into The Houses Where They Stand With Your Shoes On.

In these houses there are lamps continually burning before the idols.

[Footnote 408: This tying of new married folks together by the clothes, was used by the Mexicans in old times. - _Hakluyt_.]

From Benares I went down the Ganges to _Patenaw_, [Patna] passing many fair towns and a very fertile country, in which way many great rivers enter the Ganges, some as large as itself, by which it becomes so broad that in time of the rains you cannot see across. The scorched bodies which are thrown into the water swim on the surface, the men with their faces down, and the women with theirs up. I thought they had tied some weight to their bodies for this purpose, but was told no such thing was done. There are many thieves in this country, who roam up and down like the Arabs, having no fixed abode. Here the women are so decked with silver and copper that it is strange to see them, and they wear so many rings on their toes that they cannot use shoes. Here at Patna they find gold in this manner: They dig deep pits in the earth, and wash the earth in large holes, and in these they find gold, building the pits round about with bricks, to prevent the earth from falling in.

Patna is a long and large town, being formerly a separate kingdom, but is now under subjection to the great Mogor. The men are tall and slender, and have many old people among them. The houses are very simple, being made of earth and covered with straw, and the streets are very large. There is here a great trade in cotton and cotton cloth, likewise great quantities of sugar, which is carried to Bengal and India, much opium, and other commodities. He that is chief here under the king is called _Tipperdas_, and is held in much estimation by the people. Here in Patna I saw a dissembling prophet, who sat on a horse in the market-place, making as if he were asleep, and many of the people came and touched his feet with their hands, which they then kissed. They took him for a great man, but in my opinion he was only a lazy lubber, whom I left sleeping there. The people of these countries are much given to these dissembling hypocrites.

From Patna I went to _Tanda_ in the land of _Gouren_[409], which is in the country of Bengal. This is a place of great trade in cotton and cotton cloth, formerly a kingdom, but now subject to the great Mogor. The people are great idolaters, going naked with only a cloth about their middles, and the country hath many tigers, wild buffaloes, and wild fowl. _Tanda_ is about a league from the river Ganges, as in times past the river flowed over its banks in the rainy season, and drowned a considerable extent of country with many villages, and so it yet remains, and the old bed of the river still remains dry, by which means the city now stands at a distance from the water.

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