From the
middle downward they wear a _pintado_ of silk, trailing upon the ground,
in colour as they best like. The Maluccians hate that their women should
be seen of strangers; but these offer them of high courtesy, yea, the
kings themselves. The people are of goodly stature and warlike, well
provided of swords and targets, with daggers, all being of their own
work, and most artificially done, both in tempering their metal, as also
in the form; whereof we bought reasonable store. They have an house in
every village for their common assembly; every day they meet twice,
men, women, and children, bringing with them such victuals as they think
good, some fruits, some rice boiled, some hens roasted, some _sagu_,
having a table made three foot from the ground, whereon they set their
meat, that every person sitting at the table may eat, one rejoicing in
the company of another. They boil their rice in an earthen pot, made in
form of a sugar loaf, being full of holes, as our pots which we water
our gardens withal, and it is open at the great end, wherein they get
their rice dry, without any moisture. In the mean time they have ready
another great earthen pot, as set fast in a furnace, boiling full of
water, whereinto they put their pot with rice, by such measure, that
they swelling become soft at the first, and by their swelling stopping
the holes of the pot, admit no more water to enter, but the more they
are boiled, the harder and more firm substance they become.
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