‘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’ [‎431] (452/508)

A Voyage to EAST-INDIA, &€.
diately after the night coming cm, they begin their jollity. The
man on horfe-back, be he poororrich 3 with his kindred and
friends about him 3 many Lights before him, with Drums and
Wind-inftmments, and fome mixt paftimes to increafe the mer
riments. The Bride (he follows with her Women*friends in,
Coaches covered , and after they have thus pafled the mo;/
eminent places of the City, orTown theylivem, return to the
place of the married couples abode, where (they fay) if the par
ties be able, they make fome flight entertainment for them, im^
mediately after which, they all difperfe, and the (how is over.
Women there, have a very great'happinefs, above all! have
heard of 5 in their eafie bringing forth of Children into the worlds
for there it is a thing very common, for Women great with
Child, one day to ride, carrying their Infants in their Bodies,
and the next day to ride again, carrying them in their Arms.
Howthofeof the greater quality, order their little Children
when they are very young, I could not obferve, but thofe of the
meaner fort keep them naked for fome years after they are born,
covering them onely, and that but fometimes,with flight Callico-
Mantles.
The Mohometans ( as I have before obferved) who pleafe
(b to do, may take to themfelves each four Wives 5 and that filthy
liberty given unto them by their fleihly Mahomet, allows them in
it. I have heard of lome in this Nation ot lare times, who have
been married here to more than fo many at once, but that wick-
ednefs here is not (as an ongft them) committed by a Law, but
by Law made Capital, and fopunifhed.
The el deft Son they have by any of their married Wives., hath
a prerogative above all the reft, whom their other Children call
Budda, by their great Brother. And ib much of their Marriages, of
their Children, and of their Births. In the next place, I (halifpeak
SECTION XVIII.
Of their Burials, of their tnouming for their Dead, and
of their jiately Sepulchres and Munuments.
FOr the Mahometans, it is their manner to wafh the Bodies of
their Dead before they interr them. An ancient cuttom as it
(hould feem among the 'jevps } for it is faid ofDm^that after (he
was dead, they walhcd her Body, as a preparative to her Burial.
They lay up none of the Bodies of their Dead in their AdifquitSy
or Churches, (as before) but in fbme open place in a Grave,
which they dig very deep and wide, a Jewifhcuftom, likewise to
carry the Bodies of their Deadtobury them out of their Cities
and Towns. u
Their mourning over their Dead is moft immoderate: