Storia do Mogor 354.10.5

354.10.5

Meanwhile, until something new comes to pass, let us divert ourselves. In the year 1706 there arrived at Madras two ambassadors from the King of Pegu, on their way to the court of the Mogul. They were, to tell the truth, two men of strange appearance, both youths, of complexion not entirely black ; their eyes were rather small, as also their nostrils. Their dress was a piece of cloth folded several times round the waist, and hanging down to the middle of the leg. They went barefooted, and had a fine shirt which covered [178] the breast and came half-way down the arm. The chief of the two men wore on his head a cap of scarlet cotton-cloth. The other man covered his head with a cap resembling a long funnel. On their waists they bore a mark in the flesh, which lasted for the whole of their life, and it was a sign of their nobility, in the fashion of us Christians who have been to Jerusalem and bear on the arm the mark of that place. These people passed most of their time in smoking tobacco through a long cane.