s Shops, where with Herbs,
Leaves, and the Rinds of Trees they make all their Physic and
Plaisters, with which sometimes they will do notable Cures. I will not
here enter into a larger discourse of the Medicinal Vertues of their
Plants, &c. of which there are hundreds: onely as a Specimen thereof,
and likewise of their Skill to use them; I will relate a Passage or
two. A Neighbour of mine a Chingulay, would undertake to cure a broken
Leg or Arm by application of some Herbs that grow in the Woods, and
that with that speed, that the broken Bone after it was set should
knit by the time one might boyl a pot of Rice and three carrees,
that is about an hour and an half or two hours; and I knew a man who
told me he was thus cured. They will cure an Imposthume in the Throat
with the Rind of a Tree called Amaranga, (whereof I my self had the
experience;) by chawing it for a day or two after it is prepared,
and swallowing the spittle. I was well in a day and a Night, tho
before I was exceedingly ill, and could not swallow my Victuals.

[Their Flowers.] Of Flowers they have great varieties, growing wild,
for they plant them not. There are Roses red and white, scented like
ours: several sorts of sweet smelling Flowers, which the young Men
and Women gather and tie in their hairs to perfume them; they tie up
their hair in a bunch behind, and enclose the Flowers therein.

[A Flower that serves instead of a Dial.] There is one Flower
deserves to be mentioned for the rarity and use of it, they call it
a Sindric-mal, there are of them some of a Murry colour, and some
white. Its Nature is, to open about four a clock in the Evening,
and so continueth open all Night until the morning, when it closeth
up it self till four a clock again. Some will transplant them out
of the Woods into their Gardens to serve them instead of a Clock,
when it is cloudy that they cannot see the Sun.

There is another white Flower like our Jasmine, well scented, they call
them Picha-mauls, which the King hath a parcel of brought to him every
morning, wrapt in a white cloth, hanging upon a staff, and carried
by people, whose peculiar office this is. All people that meet these
flowers, out of respect to the King, for whose use they are, must turn
out of the Way; and so they must for all other things that go to the
King being wrapt up in white cloth. These Officers hold Land of the
King for this service: their Office is, also to plant these Flowers,
which they usu