Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 6.8.3

6.8.3

In geography they are equally uninstructed. They believe that the world is flat and triangular; that it is composed of seven distinct habitations, differing in beauty, perfection, and inhabitants, and that each is surrounded by its own peculiar sea; that one sea is of milk; another of sugar; a third of butter; a fourth of wine; and so on; so that sea and land occur alternately until you arrive at the seventh stage from the foot of the Someire mountain, which is in the centre. The first habitation, or that nearest to the Someire, is inhabited by Deutas who are very perfect; the second has also Deutas for inhabitants, but they are less perfect; and so it is with the rest, whose inhabitants are less and less perfect, until the seventh, which is our earth, inhabited by men infinitely less perfect than any of the Deutas; and finally that the whole of this world is supported on the heads of a number of elephants, whose occasional motion is the cause of earthquakes.