ABSTRACT
Having remained in this island o f Giava altogether four teen. days, we determined to return back, because, partly through the fear of their cruelty in eating men, partly also through the extreme cold, we did not dare to proceed far-^ ther, and also because there was hardly any other place known to them [the Christians]. Wherefore we chartered a large vessel, that is, a giunco, and took our way outside the islands towards the east; because on this side there is no archipelago, and the navigation is more safe. W e sailed for fifteen days and arrived at the city o f Malacha, and here we stopped for three days, where our Christian companions re mained, whose bewailings and lamentations it would be impossible shortly to describe; so that, truly, if I had not
1 Barbosa attributes a similar inhuman practice to the Mussulmans o f B engal:— “ Li Mori mercatanti di questa cittH vanno fra terra a comprar garzoni piccolini dalli lor padri e madri gentili, e da altri, che gli rubbano, e li castrano, levandogli via il tut to, di soxte che restano rasi* come la palma della mano : e alcuni di questi moiono, ma quelli che scampano, gli allevano molto bene, e poi li vendono per cento e ducento ducati l ’uno alii Mori di Persia, che gli apprezzano molto, per tenerli in guardia delle lor donne, e della lor robba, e per altre dishonest^.” Pigafetta also mentions the kingdom o f Cirote in Burmah as the place “ dove si fanno tutti li Eunuchi che sono condotti di Levante.” (R a m u s io , vol. i. pp. 316, 391.) It is a well known fact, that the excision described was at one time extensively practised in Upper Egypt, and that rumour, whether true or false I know not, attributed the horrible operation to certain Coptic monks.
