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d for their sorcerers, and put the question to them, whether the sick man shall recover of his sickness or no. If they say that he will recover, then they let him alone till he gets better. But if the sorcerers foretell that the sick man is to die, the friends send for certain judges of theirs to put to death him who has thus been condemned by the sorcerers to die. These men come, and lay so many clothes upon the sick man's mouth that they suffocate him. And when he is dead they have him cooked, and gather together all the dead man's kin, and eat him. And I assure you they do suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them; for they say that if any nourishment remained in the bones this would breed worms, and then the worms would die for want of food, and the death of those worms would be laid to the charge of the deceased man's soul. And so they eat him up stump and rump. And when they have thus eaten him they collect his bones and put them in fine chests, and carry them away, and place them in caverns among the mountains where no beast nor other creature can get at them. And you must know also that if they take prisoner a man of another country, and he cannot pay a ransom in coin, they kill him and eat him straightway. It is a very evil custom and a parlous.[NOTE 5] Now that I have told you about this kingdom let us leave it, and I will tell you of Lambri. NOTE 1.--I have little doubt that in Marco's dictation the name was really _Samatra_, and it is possible that we have a trace of this in the _Samarcha_ (for _Samartha_) of the Crusca MS. The _Shijarat Malayu_ has a legend, with a fictitious etymology, of the foundation of the city and kingdom of _Samudra_, or SUMATRA, by Marah Silu, a fisherman near Pasangan, who had acquired great wealth, as wealth is got in fairy tales. The name is probably the Sanskrit _Samudra_, "the sea." Possibly it may have been imitated from Dwara Samudra, at that time a great state and city of Southern India. [We read in the Malay Annals, _Salalat al Salatin_, translated by Mr. J.T. Thomson (_Proc.R.G.S._ XX. p. 216): "Mara Silu ascended the eminence, when he saw an ant as big as a cat; so he caught it, and ate it, and on the place he erected his residence, which he named Samandara, which means Big Ant (_Semut besar_ in Malay)."--H.C.] Mara Silu having become King of Samudra was converted to Islam, and took the name of Malik-al-Salih. He married the daughter of the
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