In this country they have many strange ceremonies. The bramins, who are their priests, come to the water having a string about their necks, and with many ceremonies lave the water with both their hands, turning the string with both their hands in several manners; and though it be never so cold, they wash themselves regularly at all times. These gentiles eat no flesh, neither do they kill any thing, but live on rice, butter, milk, and fruits. They pray in the water naked; and both dress and eat their food naked. For penance, they lie flat on the earth, then rise up and turn themselves round 30 or 40 times, lifting their hands to the sun, and kiss the earth with their arms and legs stretched out; every time they lie down making a score on the ground with their fingers, that they may know when the prescribed number of prostrations is finished. Every morning the Bramins mark their foreheads, ears, and throats, with a kind of yellow paint or earth; having some old men among them, who go about with a box of yellow powder, marking them on the head and neck as they meet them. Their women come in troops of 10, 20, and 30 together to the water side singing, where they wash themselves and go through their ceremonies, and then mark themselves, and so depart singing. Their daughters are married at ten years of age, and the men may have seven wives each. They are a crafty people, worse than the Jews. When they salute one another, they say, Rame, rame.

From Agra I came to Prage409, where the river Jumna enters into the mighty Ganges, and there loses its name. The Ganges comes out of the north-west, and runs east to discharge its waters into the gulf of Bengal. In these parts there are many tigers, and vast quantities of partridges and turtle-doves, besides many other kinds of birds. There are multitudes of beggars in these countries, called Schesche, which go entirely naked. I here saw one who was a monster among the rest. He had no clothes whatever, his beard being very long, and the hair of his head was so long and plentiful, that it covered his nakedness. The nails on some of his fingers were two inches long, as he would cut nothing from him; and besides he never spake, being constantly accompanied by eight or ten others, who spoke for him. If any one spoke to him, he laid his hand on his breast and bowed, but without speaking, for he would not have spoken to the king.

We went from Prage down the Ganges, which is here very broad, and abounds in various wild-fowl, as swans, geese, cranes, and many others, the country on both sides being very fertile and populous. For the most part the men have their faces shaven, but wear the hair of their heads very long; though some have their crowns shaved, and others have all their heads shaven except the crown. The water of the river Ganges is very sweet and pleasant, having many islands, and the adjoining country is very fertile. We stopt at Bannaras [Benares], a large town in which great quantities of cotton-cloths are made, and sashes for the moors. In this place all the inhabitants are gentiles, and the grossest idolaters I ever saw. To this town the gentiles come on pilgrimages out of far distant countries. Along the side of the river there are many fair houses, in all or most of which they have ill favoured images made of stone or wood; some like lions, leopards, or monkeys; some like men and women; others like peacocks; and others like the devil, having four arms and four hands. These all sit cross-legged, some with one thing in their hands, and others with other things; and by break of day or before, numbers of men and women come out of the town to these places, and wash in the Ganges. On mounds of earth made for the purpose, there are divers old men who sit praying, and who give the people three or four straws, which they hold between their fingers when they bathe in the Ganges; and some sit to mark them in the forehead: And the devotees have each a cloth with a small quantity of rice, barley, or money, which they give to these old men when they have washed. They then go to one or other of the idols, where they present their sacrifices. When they have finished their washings oblations and charities, the old men say certain prayers by which they are all sanctified.

In divers places there stand a kind of images, called Ada in their language, having four hands with claws; and they have sundry carved stones on which they pour water, and lay thereon some rice, wheat, barley and other things. Likewise they have a great place built of stone, like a well, with steps to go down, in which the water is very foul and stinking, through the great quantity of flowers which are continually thrown into the water: Yet there are always many people in that water, for they say that it purifies them from their sins, because, as they allege, God washed himself in that place. They even gather up the sand or mud from the bottom, which they esteem holy. They never pray but in the water, in which they wash themselves over head, laving up the water in both hands, and turning themselves about, they drink a little of the water three times, and then go to the idols which stand in the houses already mentioned. Some take of the water, with which they wash a place of their own length, and then lie down stretched out, rising and lying down, and kissing the ground twenty or thirty times, yet keeping their right foot all the time in the same place. Some make their ceremonies with fifteen or sixteen pots, little and great, ringing a little bell when they make their mixtures, ten or twelve times. They make a circle of water round about their pots and pray, divers sitting by them, and one in particular who reaches the pots to them; and they say certain words many times over the pots, and when they have done, they go to their idols, before which they strew their sacrifices, which they think very holy, and mark many of those who sit by in the foreheads, which they esteem highly. There sometimes come fifty or even an hundred together, to wash at this well, and to sacrifice to these idols.

In some of these idol houses, there are people who stand by them in warm weather, fanning them as if to cool them; and when they see any company coming, they ring a little bell which hangs beside them, when many give them alms, particularly those who come out of the country. Many of these idols are black and have brazen claws very long, and some ride upon peacocks, or on very ill-favoured fowls, having long hawks bills, some like one thing and some like another, but none have good faces. Among the rest, there is one held in great veneration, as they allege be gives them all things, both food and raiment, and one always sits beside this idol with a fan, as if to cool him. Here some are burned to ashes, and some only scorched in the fire and thrown into the river, where the dogs and foxes come presently and eat them. Here the wives are burned along with the bodies of their deceased husbands, and if they will not, their heads are shaven and they are not afterwards esteemed.

The people go all naked, except a small cloth about their middles. The women have their necks, arms, and ears decorated with rings of silver, copper, and tin, and with round hoops of ivory, adorned with amber stones and many agates, and have their foreheads marked with a great red spot, whence a stroke of red goes up the crown, and one to each side. In their winter, which is in May, the men wear quilted gowns of cotton, like to our counterpanes, and quilted caps like our grocers large mortars, with a slit to look out at, tied beneath their ears. When a man or woman is sick and like to die, they are laid all night before the idols, either to help their sickness or make an end of them. If they do not mend that night, the friends come and sit up with them, and cry for some time, after which they take them to the side of the river, laying them on a raft of reeds, and so let them float down the river.