‘The travels of Sig. Pietro della Valle, a noble Roman, into East-India and Arabia Deserta. In which, the several countries, together with the customs, manners, traffique, and rites both religious and civil, of those Oriental princes and nations, are faithfully described: In familiar letters to his friend Signior Mario Schipano. Whereunto is added a relation of Sir Thomas Roe’s voyage into the East-Indies’ [‎414] (435/508)

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A Voyage to E A S T-IN DI A, fac.
ruled;, by the fecret , and unerring providence of Almighty
GoA, which frnfirateth the tokens of the Lyars, and maketh Di^
viners mad 5 that tnrneth wife men backward^ and makpth their
knotvledg foolifi 3 Efay 44. 25. Firft, thefe Diviners are mad
when things fall not out according to their bold predidHons 5
And fecondly 3 they have been, and not without caufe, efteem-
ed as mad-men, in foretelling things which they could not know,
and much lefs bring to pafs.
And therefore I have heard a great Matter in, and a publick
Profeffor of, Aftronomy, who could fee as far into Conftella-
tions, andobferve as much from them as any other, often fay,
that he would go by the very felf lame rules that others did, to
predid things to come^ and would write that which was<juite
contrary to what they obferved, yet what he wrote (hould as of
ten fall to be as true as what they foretold.
Yet notwithftanding the truth of thefe premifes, the great
Mogol puts fo much confidence in his Aftrologers, that he will
not undertake a journey, nor yet refolve to do any thing befides
of the leaft confequence, unlefs his Wizards tell him, it is a good
and a prolperous hour, to begin, and fet upon fuch an under
taking , and at the very inftant he hath his directions from
them, he fets upon the thing he undertakes, and not before.
SECTION XIII.
Of their Phyfitians, Difeafes, Cures, lVbe?t they begin
their year , How they meafnre their time, &c.
HEre arethofe which pretend unto much skill in Phyfick,
though (for ought I could ever there obferve) the people
make but little ufe of them, they fearing more Medicum quam
Morhum 5 and therefore do believe the Phyfitian to be the more
dangerous difeafe.
The common Difcafesof that Countreyare Bloody-Fluxes,
with others that come not to blood, Hot-Fevers, Calentures,
which feize on and fire the head and brain, more than other
parts. Thefe, many times put our men at Sea into very high di-
ftempers, efpecially while they are under the Torrid Zone,
which makes the poor creatures vifited with them, fbmetimes
to conceit the fpacious Sea and Waves therein to be great Fields
full of Haycocks 5 and if they were not fometimes happily pre
vented, would leap over-board to tumble in them.
For ordinary Agues, fuch as are fb common among us, and
forthofe two torments rather than difeafes(when they are felt
in extremity) the Gout and the Stone, they have the happinefs
to be ignorant of them. y
But fometimes they are vilited with an inflamination,or an ex-
tream
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