Whether that custom was a religious or a civil ceremony, I know not,
but it is now laid aside. And a new custom is followed by the modern
Samorins, that jubilee is proclaimed throughout his dominions, at
the end of twelve years, and a tent is pitched for him in a spacious
plain, and a great feast is celebrated for ten or twelve days, with
mirth and jollity, guns firing night and day, so at the end of the
feast any four of the guests that have a mind to gain a crown by a
desperate action, in fighting their way through 30 or 40,000 of his
guards, and kill the Samorin in his tent, he that kills him succeeds
him in his empire. In anno 1695, one of those jubilees happened, and
the tent pitched near Pennany, a seaport of his, about fifteen
leagues to the southward of Calicut. There were but three men that
would venture on that desperate action, who fell in, with sword and
target, among the guard, and, after they had killed and wounded
many, were themselves killed. One of the desperados had a nephew of
fifteen or sixteen years of age, that kept close by his uncle in the
attack on the guards, and, when he saw him fall, the youth got
through the guards into the tent, and made a stroke at his Majesty's
head, and had certainly despatched him if a large brass lamp which
was burning over his head had not marred the blow; but, before he
could make another, he was killed by the guards; and, I believe, the
same Samorin reigns yet.
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