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him to recover St. Thomé from the French. At the CHAP. IX. same time the French were requesting supplies of provisions and money from the English governor of Madras by virtue of the English alliance with France. If Sir William Langhorn assisted the Sultan of Golkonda, he violated the treaty with France which had recently been concluded at Dover between Charles the Second and Louis the Fourteenth. If he assisted the French, he violated his engagements with the Sultan of Golkonda. At one time he contemplated leaving Madras altogether, and migrating to some place farther south out of reach of either the Sultan or the French.56 It is, however, unnecessary to dwell upon these complications; it will suffice to show what was going on in 1673, when Dr. Fryer arrived at Madras.

in a Mussula

Dr. Fryer was paddled over the surf in a Mussula Dr. Fryer lands boat. Ordinary boats fastened with nails would have boat. been wrenched to pieces by the violence of the surf; but the planks of the Mussula boat were sewn together by cocoa-nut ropes, which yielded to the force of the waves, but let in considerable quantities of water.

Fort St. George.

Dr. Fryer landed in a wet condition, but the beach Description of was scalding hot from the burning sun, and he hastened to the shelter of the Fort. Looked at from the water, Fort St. George was a place of great strength. It was oblong, about four hundred yards in length from north to south, and one hundred yards from east to west. There was a bastion at each corner of the walls mounted with guns, and the banner of St. George waved bravely over the whole. The streets inside were sweet and clean. The houses

56 Madras Records.

CHAP. IX. were about forty or fifty in number; and every house had an Italian portico, battlements on the roof, and a terrace walk; and there were rows of trees before the doors. There were no public structures within the fortress, except the governor's house in the centre, and a small chapel where the Portuguese celebrated mass.

Extensive

powers of Sir

horn.

Sir William Langhorn was governor of Madras, William Lang- but in those days Madras was the chief settlement of the English in the Eastern seas, and consequently his jurisdiction extended to Bengal. In mercantile phrase he was Superintendent over all the English factories on the coast of Coromandel and the banks of the Hughli and Ganges, as far as Patna.57 He had a mint at Madras with privileges of coining. He had appointed English justices at Madras, with power of life and death over the native population, but not over the king's liege people of England. His personal guard consisted of three or four hundred "blacks;" besides a band of fifteen hundred ready to serve when occasion required. He never went abroad without fifes, drums, trumpets, and a flag with two balls on a red field; and at such times he was accompanied by his council and factors on horseback, and their ladies in palanquins.

English and Portuguese popula

George.

The English population of White-town scarcely tion of Fort St. numbered three hundred souls. The Portuguese population of White-town numbered three thousand; for they had taken refuge in Fort St. George when driven out of St. Thomé some ten years previously, and were welcomed at the time as adding to the security and prosperity of the settlement.

57 The English had no settlement at Calcutta for some years after Dr. Fryer left India.

CHAP. IX.

Black-town.

Black-town was distributed into long streets crossed by others. There were choultries, or places for the Description of administration of justice; an exchange for merchants and money-changers; and one pagoda enclosed in a large stone wall, with different chapels for the several castes. One part of the pagoda was closed up with arches and kept continually shut and here it was said that many natives kept their treasures. Other chambers were open; they were smaller, with flat roofs, having planks of stone laid across, like the wooden planks laid on rafters in English houses. There were hieroglyphics along the cornices, and indecent images sculptured on the walls. The outsides were wrought round with monstrous effigies, and the gates were the highest part of the buildings.

tion thirty

to forty Mulam

The native population of Madras was of the same Native populamixed character as at Masulipatam. The Hindus, thousand Hindus however, were not under the bondage of the Muham- madans. madans; they were protected by the English, who commanded the whole country within the reach of their guns. The East India Company had thirty thousand Hindus in their employ at Madras, whilst there were hardly forty Muhammadans in the whole settlement.

country.

The country round about Madras was sandy, yet Surrounding plentiful in provisions. Rice was grown without the town, and was nourished by the letting in of water. The English also had many gardens, where they grew gourds of all sorts for stews and pottage, herbs for salad, flowers, including jessamine, and fruits of many kinds. There were topes of plantains, cocoanuts, guavas, jack fruit, mangoes, plums, and pomegranates.

There were also groves of betel, consisting of green Groves of betel. and slender trees about twelve or fourteen feet

CHAP. IX. high, jointed like canes, with spreading boughs. The betel-tree brought forth clusters of green nuts, like walnuts in green shells; but the fruit was different, being hard when dried, and looking like nutmegs. The natives chewed the betel-nut with a lime made of calcined oyster-shells, called chunam, The nut and chunam were wrapped up in a leaf known as areka. Thus mixed, the betel-nut, chunam, and areka leaf formed the Indian entertainment called pán.

Policy of the Sultan of Golkonda.

Hindu worship at Madras,

58

Dr. Fryer had his own views respecting the political complications at St. Thomé. He was at first surprised that a potent sovereign, like the Sultan of Golkonda, should permit the forts on his coast, such as Madras, St. Thomé, and some others, to be garrisoned by foreigners. Subsequently he saw that the Sultan of Golkonda, like all native princes in India, was weak at sea. It was, therefore, wise policy on the Sultan's part to commit the strongholds on the coast to the charge of those European settlers whom he called his friends, as thereby the foreigners would defend his dominions from invasion, and also furnish places of retreat in the event of his being defeated by the Moghul."

Dr. Fryer witnessed the same kind of Hindu ceremonies at Madras as those described by Della Valle;

58 Pán and betel are familiar terms to every European in India. Pan is served up at the close of every reception of natives. It is supposed to strengthen the digestion, to stimulate the system like tobacco, and to sweeten the breath; but the red liquor colours the teeth, pervades the saliva, and oozes out between the lips. It is accordingly a most unsightly practice in the eyes of Europeans, and especially destructive to the ideal of Oriental beauty. 59 Dr. Fryer was no doubt correct in his conclusions, but it would have been a most unpleasant complication for the English if the Sultans of Golkonda or Bijapur had condescended to take refuge at Madras when pressed at a later period by the armies of Aurangzeb.

but he expressed surprise that a people, so apt as the Hindus were in all that pertained to profit and gain, should never have advanced one step out of the rudiments of the religion and civilisation of the ancient world, but continue to practise the old worship of Pan, Ceres, and Flora.

CHAP. IX.

In October 1673 Dr. Fryer left Madras in the Eng- Bombay harbour. lish fleet, and coasted round Cape Comorin and northward along Malabar, towards the new English settlement at Bombay. The harbour at Bombay was a magnificent expanse of water, capable of containing a thousand of the best ships in Europe. As the English fleet sailed towards Bombay Castle, Dr. Fryer saw three Moghul men of war, each of three hundred tons. burden, besides many smaller vessels. There were also three English men of war, with pennants at every yard-arm.

Bombay under

Bombay, poor as it was when Fryer saw it, was Weakness of already a very different place from what it had been the Portuguese. under the Portuguese. When the English took possession there was a Government House, pleasantly situated in the midst of a garden with terrace walks and bowers, but very poorly fortified. Four brass guns were mounted on the house, and a few small pieces were lodged in convenient towers to keep off the Malabar pirates. But there was no protection for the people. The Malabars often ravaged the coasts, plundered the villages, and carried off the inhabitants into hopeless slavery.

cations.

The English speedily effected an entire change. English fortifiThey loaded the terraces with cannon, and built ramparts over the bowers. When Dr. Fryer landed, ten years after the British occupation, Bombay Castle was mounted with a hundred and twenty pieces of ord

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