PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMES
especially the King that now is, which is a very wicked man. He hath caused many to be whipped to death, for some small matter wherein they have offended him. Yet there are some of them good and discreet, which the King useth for dispatching of his businesse, and other matters [III. ii. 378.] of weight. Though the ordinarie wages which they have of the King bee small, yet it serveth them well to live of, and therefore they goe verie well apparelled in many Robes of Silke verie finely wrought of divers colours, and the manner of their Cap and Apparell differeth from all other peoples. There are of them in number, as they say, above sixteene thousand of them in the Kings palaces. Hereby your Worship may see what Examples and Education the King of China observeth, which spendeth all his time with these and with women.
Although it be the custome of these Kings, to shew The common people never see nor speake with the King. themselves from time to time to certaine of the greatest Mandarins: yet they never suffer the rest of the people to see them, nor to speake with them; and when he speaketh with any bodie, they enter not into the place where hee is; but the King commeth forth to a certaine place. If there be any Nation Law of Nations contemned. among whom the Law of Nations hath no place in many things it is this: for as they have no commerce with other Nations, so they have not the Law which is common to all men. And therefore they admit no Ambassadour in China, unlesse it be by the way of giving some Present, the King not acknowledging any; neither doe they thinke that there is any in the World, Embassages. which is able to deale with their King by way of an Embassadour. And if they bring any Message (as the Japons brought within these few yeares, who came to intreate of certaine agreements, by no meanes they are admitted to the sight of the King; neither doth he give them audience: but some Mandarin doth accompany them: and the entertaynment which they give them, and honour which they shew to all strangers which come unto them is verie small. But as for the most part they have no great conceit of strangers, so their entertaynment is like to their406
