On ceremonial occasions, the assembled people hire women and hermaphrodites who perform dances in honour of the gods of the Earth. The dancers bestir themselves so violently that they fall down in a swoon. It is after this fit that they prophesy the future which has been revealed to them by their gods.
The Priests vowed to celibacy, set a good example of abstemiousness to the populace. They eat but once a day and sobriety is their most prominent virtue. When the soil of the district to which they are assigned is insufficient to furnish to their needs, they send out young novices in search of alms and the credulous mob encourages idleness by liberal donations. The poorest citizens are always those who waste their property in pious offerings. Their morals are simple and it is by their studied mortifications that they impose on the populace whose ideal of the Sublime is the Extraordinary and the Peculiar.
They live far from the haunts of men, in the depths of forests in a sort of cage built in the upper parts of trees, so as to escape the dangers of wild beasts. The obscurity of their lives increases the veneration of superstitious folk who from the earliest times have believed that the deity prefers the silence of the forests or the fearsome solitude of a mountain peak. There are certain days on which they exhort the people to practise virtue. Simple as their preaching is they never argue on knotty points of doctrine. They believe that every religion is acceptable to God and that the observance of the laws of nature will always be worthy of a heavenly reward.
The nobility is noticeable in many ways. Though being in great honour, it nevertheless presents an example of the most abject servility and trembles before a despot who can either raise or degrade it. It consents to cringe in the most servile manner, but often it awakes from its slumber and cuts off the hand that strikes it. A proud race is always ready to take up arms for liberty and for the enjoyment of its rights. Thus it is the noble or the servile inclinations of his subjects, that a wise King ought to study so that he can extend or limit his authority.
The King never appears in public without great pomp and ceremony. Everything inspires a respect which would seem to exclude devotion. Seated on a car drawn by 16 horses, he never travels unless preceded by either the army or a crowd of nobles. Four of his favourites in gorgeous apparel are seated with him in this car. His ordinary progress is more magnificent than a Roman triumph. Although the Law, or rather custom only grants him a single wife, he has the right to keep 300 concubines.