South-east Asia

We embarked and after fifteen days we arrived at the country of the Barahnakāve mouths like those of dogs. ¹ They are sottish and do not adhere to the religion of the Indians or to any other. They live in houses of reeds roofed with dried grass on the seashore. They have many bananas, areca palms and betel bushes. Their men are like us except that their mouths are like those of dogs. Their women are not like that and are of outstanding beauty. The men are naked with no covering except that some of them put their male organs and testicles in a painted holder made of reeds and attached to their bellies. The women cover themselves with tree leaves. |225 There is a community of Muslims among them. They are people from Bengal and at Jawa and live in a separate quarter. They told us that they copulate like beasts and do not hide what they are doing. A man has thirty wives, more or less, and they do not commit adultery. If one does commit adultery the penalty for the man is that he is fixed to a cross till he dies, unless his friend or slave is fixed to the cross in his stead, when he is freed. The penalty for the 875woman is that the Sultan orders all his household attendants to copulate with her, one after the other till she dies, in his presence. Then they throw her into the sea. This is why they do not allow anyone from the ships to stay among them unless he is settled there. They buy and sell only on the shore. They bring water for the traffickers on elephants because |226 it is to be had a long way from the shore. They do not allow strangers to draw it themselves, being nervous about their women who are attracted by handsome men. Elephants are plentiful among them but only their Sultan can sell them; they are bought from him for pieces of cloth. They have a strange language which nobody understands unless he has lived among them and revisited them often. When we reached the shore they came to us in little boats each of which was a single log hollowed out. They brought bananas, rice, betel, areca nuts and fish.