Always, a little before the shews began, the king was brought out from his palace, sitting on a man’s shoulders bestriding his neck, and the man holding him by the legs.  Many rich tirasols, [parasols or umbrellas,] were carried over and round about him.  His principal guard walked before him, and was placed within the rails, round about the pageant.  After the king, a number of the principal people followed, seeming to have their stated days of attendance.  The shews were in this manner:  First came a crew armed with match-locks, led by some gentleman-slave; then come the pike-men, in the middle of whom were the colours and music, being ten or twelve pans of tomback, carried on a staff between two people.  These were tuneable like a peal of bells, each a note above the other, and always two people walked beside them who were skilled in the country music, and struck upon them with something they held in their hands.  There was another kind of music, that went both before and after; but these pans or gongs formed the principal.  The pike-men were followed by a company of targeteers carrying darts.  Then followed many sorts of trees with their fruit hanging upon them; and after these many sorts of beasts and birds, both alive, and also artificially made, that they could not be distinguished from those that were alive, unless one were near.

Then came a number of maskers, who danced and vaulted before the king, shewing many strange tumbling tricks, some of these being men and others women.  After all these followed sometimes two hundred or even three hundred women, all carrying presents of some kind; only that every ten were headed by an old motherly woman empty handed, to keep them in order like so many soldiers.  These presents were commonly rice and cashes[129] on frames of split canes, curiously laid out for show, and adorned with gilt paper, but the present itself seldom exceeded the value of twelve-pence.  Then followed the rich presents, being commonly some rich tuck,[130] or some fine cloth of the country fashion, curiously wrought and gilded, or embroidered with gold, for the king’s own wearing.  These were also carried by women, having two pikes borne upright before them; and every present intended for the king’s wearing had a rich parasol carried over it.  Last of all followed the heir to the person sending the present, being his youngest son, if he had any, very richly attired after their fashion, with many jewels at gold, diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones, on their, arms and round their waists, and attended by a number of men and women.  After he has made his obeisance to the king, he sits down on the ground on a mat, and all the presents are carried past the king’s pageant into the palace, where certain officers are ready to receive them.

[Footnote 129:  A species of coin formerly explained.—­E.]

[Footnote 130:  Tuck, tuke, or tuque, the old term for a turban, worn by Mahometans, or for the sash of which it is made.—­ASTL.  I. 301. c.]