are among us, and are considered as the order of highest dignity.  The second order among them are the nairs, who come in place of our gentlemen, and go out to war with swords and bucklers, lancet, bows, and other weapons.  The third order consists of mechanics and handicrafts of all kinds.  In the fourth are victuallers, or those that make provision of fish and flesh.  Next to them are those who gather pepper, cocoa nuts, grapes and other fruits.  The baser sort are those who sow and gather rice, who are kept under such subjection by the bramins and nairs that they dare not approach nearer to them than 50 paces under pain of death and are therefore obliged to lurk in bye places and marshes; and when they go anywhere abroad they call out continually in a loud voice, that they may be hoard of the bramins and nairs otherwise if any of these were to come near they would certainly put these low people to death.

The dress of even the king and queen differ in little or nothing from the other idolaters, all going naked, barefooted, and bareheaded, except a small piece of silk or cotton to cover their nakedness; but the Mahometans wear single garments in a more seemly manner, their women being dressed like the men except that their hair is very long.  The king and nobles eat no kind of flesh, except having first got permission of the priests; but the common people may eat any flesh they please except that of cows.  Those of the basest sort, named Nirani and Poliars, are only permitted to eat fish dried in the sun.

When the king or zamorin dies, his male children, if any, or his brothers by the fathers side, or the sons of these brothers, do not succeed in the kingdom:  For, by ancient law or custom, the succession belongs to the sons of the kings sisters; and if there be none such, it goes to the nearest male relation through the female blood.  The reason of this strange law of succession is, that when the king takes a wife, she is always in the first place deflowered by the chief bramin, for which he is paid fifty-pieces of gold.  When the king goes abroad, either in war or a-hunting, the queen is left in charge of the priests, who keep company with her till his return; wherefore the king may well think that her children may not be his; and for this reason the children of his sisters by the same mother are considered as his nearest in blood, and the right inheritors of the throne.  When the king dies, all his subjects express their mourning by cutting their beards and shaving their heads; and during the celebration of his funerals, those who live by fishing abstain from their employment during eight days.  Similar rules are observed upon the death of any of the kings wives.  Sometimes the king abstains from the company of women for the space of a year, when likewise he forbears to chew betel and areka, which are reckoned provocatives.