ABSTRACT
The said Pagans eat on the ground in a metal basin, and for a spoon make use of the leaf of a tree, and they always eat rice and fish, and spices and fruits. The two classes of peasants eat with the hand from a pipkin; and when they take the rice from the pipkin, they hold the hand over the said pipkin and make a ball of the rice, and then put it into their mouths. With respect to the laws which are in use among these people:— If one kills another, the king causes a stake to be taken four paces long and well pointed at one end, and has two sticks fixed across the said stake two spans from the top, and then the said wood is fixed in the middle o f the back of the malefactor and passes through his body, and in this way he dies. And this torture they call uncalvet. And if there be any one who inflicts wounds or bastinadoes, the king makes him pay money, and in this manner he is absolved. And when any one ought to receive money from another merchant, there appearing any writing of the scribes of the king, (who has at least a hundred of them,) they observe this practice :— Let us suppose the case that some one has to pay me twenty-five ducats, and the debtor promises me to pay them many times, and does not pay them; I, not being willing to wait any longer, nor to give him any indulgence, shall take a green branch in my hand, shall go softly behind the debtor, and with the said branch shall draw a circle on the ground surrounding him, and if I can enclose him in the circle, I shall say to him these words three times: tc Bramini raza pertha polle; ” that is, “ I command you by the
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head of the Brahmins and of the king, that you do not depart hence until you have paid me and satisfied me as much as I ought to have from thee.** And he will satisfy me, or truly he will die there without any other guard. And should he quit the said circle and not pay me, the king would put him to death.1
