f they be noble men or
officers. The king looke what day he giueth sentence against any one, the
same day the partie, wheresoeuer he be, is aduertised thereof, and the day
told him of his execution. The condemned person asketh of the messenger
whether it may bee lawful for him to kill himselfe: the which thing when
the king doeth graunt, the partie taking it for an honour, putteth on his
best apparel and launcing his body a crosse from the breast downe all the
belly, murthereth himselfe. This kind of death they take to be without
infamie, neither doe their children for their fathers crime so punished,
loose their goods. But if the king reserue them to be executed by the
hangman, then flocketh he together his children, his seruants, and friends
home to his house, to preserue his life by force. The king committeth the
fetching of him out vnto his chiefe Iudge, who first setteth vpon him with
bow and arrowes, and afterward with pikes and swords, vntill the rebell and
family be slaine to their perpetuall ignominie and shame.

The Indie-writers make mention of sundry great cities in this Iland, as
Cangoxima a hauen towne in the South part thereof, and Meaco distant from
thence three hundred leagues northward, the royall seat of the king and
most wealthy of all other townes in that Iland. The people thereabout are
very noble, and their language the best Iaponish. In Maco are sayd to be
ninetie thousande houses inhabited and vpward, a famous Vniuersitie, and in
it fiue principall Colleges, besides closes and cloysters of Bonzi,
Leguixil, and Hamacata, that is, Priests, Monks and Nunnes. Other fiue
notable Vniuersities there be in Iapan, namely, Coia, Negru, Homi, Frenoi,
and Bandu. The first foure haue in them at the least three thousand and
fiue hundred schollers: in the fift are many mo. For Bandu prouince is very
great and possessed with sixe princes, fiue whereof are vassals vnto the
sixt, yet he himselfe subiect vnto the Iaponish king, vsually called the
great king of Meaco: lesser scholes there be many in diuers places of this
Ilande. And thus much specially concerning this glorious Iland, among so
many barbarous nations and rude regions, haue I gathered together in one
summe, out of sundry letters written from thence into Europe, by no lesse
faithfull reporters than famous trauellers. [Sidenote: Petrus Maffeius de
rebus Iaponicis.] For confirmation wherof, as also for the knowledge of
other things not conteyned in the pre