CHAP. VIII. pirates. Every year a hundred corsair vessels went Malabar proper. Out to cruise. Twenty or thirty joined in one fleet

Konkana.

and formed a line a hundred miles in length, having a ship at every interval of five miles. This line scoured the seas. Whenever a corsair sighted a merchantman, he made a signal of fire and smoke which was repeated along the line. The whole fleet then bore down upon the ship, and plundered her of her cargo and then let her go. In Marco Polo's time, however, the merchants were sailing in such large vessels that they could set the pirates at defiance.40

The kingdom of Konkana lay to the north of Malabar. It apparently extended northward as far as Guzerat, and included the modern Bombay." Marco Polo describes the Bráhmans of this country as the best merchants in the world. Nothing would induce them to tell a lie. They would neither eat flesh nor drink wine. They were faithful to their wives, very honest, and distinguished by the thread. The king was rich and powerful. He was eager to purchase large pearls and precious stones. He sent his merchants to the Chola country to buy them, and paid them double the cost price. The people were great idolaters, and paid the utmost heed to signs and omens. They were very long lived. They never allowed themselves to be bled. They had capital teeth in consequence of the betel which they chewed. There was a class of people amongst them who were more properly Bráhmans, and were called

40 Marco Polo, Book iv., chap. 25. This kingdom was Malabar proper. 41 Marco Polo calls this region Lar. See Colonel Yule's notes on chap. 20. 42 Marco Polo has given the name of Brahmans to the Banians. The Banians of western India are treated as Vaisyas and wear the thread. The Banians of Bengal are treated as Sudras and do not wear the thread.

43

Yogis. They formed a religious order, and were CHAP. VIII. devoted to their idols. Every man lived to be a hundred and fifty or two hundred years old. They would only eat a little, but that little was good, and generally consisted of rice and milk. Every month they drank a strange mixture of sulphur and quicksilver, on the ground that it made them long lived. Certain members of this order led the most ascetic lives. They went stark naked and worshipped the ΟΧ. Most of them carried a little image of an ox in gold or brass upon their foreheads." They burnt cow-dung and reduced it to a white powder, and made an ointment with which they daubed themselves. They did not eat from bowls or trenchers, but from plantain leaves. They would not destroy the smallest insect. They admitted no novice into their order, until he had proved himself indifferent to every temptation which the temple women could offer. They burnt the bodies of their dead rather than buried them, as otherwise worms would have been generated, which would starve to death after the body was consumed.

45

The people of Guzerat were famous then, as they Guzerat are now, for their inlaid and embroidered leather work. They made beautiful cushions embroidered with gold; and exquisite mats, inlaid with figures of birds and beasts, and embroidered with gold and silver wire. 16 Marco Polo also mentions Tana near Bombay, and Cambay and Somnath in Guzerat, as separate kingdoms, and places of great trade.

46

43 Marco Polo spells the word Chughis.

44 This was the Nanda or bull, an emblem of Siva.

the linga. See ante, page 365.

The Smarta sect wear

45 This was part of the Tantric religion already noticed. See ante, page 364. 46 Marco Polo, Book iii., chap. 26. Also Sir Bartle Frere's note on the

passage.

CHAP. VIII.

Travels of Fitch is thrown upon Hindustan.

through Hindustan, 1585.

Agra.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century a light In 1585 an English merchant, named Ralph Fitch, made his way from Agra to the Bay of Bengal." At that time the whole of western Hindustan was included in the Mogul empire of Akber, excepting where the Rajpoots still maintained a sullen independence. The peninsula of Guzerat, and neighbouring territory on the continent, had long been in the possession of a separate Mussulman dynasty, and had only been recently conquered by Akber.49

49

At Agra Mr Fitch went on board a boat, which was one of a fleet of a hundred and eighty vessels which were laden with salt, opium, indigo, lead, carpets, and other commodities. The chief merchants on board were Mussulmans and Hindús. They were

47 Mr Ralph Fitch is a remarkable character. He possessed keen powers of observation, and great personal courage. General Fytche, the late chief commissioner of British Burma, is descended from him. Mr Fitch left London in company with two other adventurers in the year 1583, when Queen Elizabeth was on the throne of England. The little party embarked on board a ship bound for Syria; and subsequently made their way overland through western Asia to the Persian Gulf. There they were seized and imprisoned by the Portuguese governor of Ormuz, and sent on to the Viceroy at Goa; and must have reached that place about the same time that Lanschoten visited the island. (See infra, chap. ix.) On his way Mr Fitch landed at the Portuguese town of Chaul, and described the manners of the people of that neighbourhood, much as Marco Polo had described them two centuries before. He says:-" They worship the cow, and plaster the walls of their houses with its dung. They will kill nothing, not so much as a louse. They will eat no flesh, but live on roots, rice, and milk. When the husband dies, his wife is burnt with him; if she refuses, her head is shaved and she is held in no account. They will not bury their dead, because the body would generate worms, and when it is consumed the worms would starve." At Goa Mr Fitch was thrown into prison, but released on giving a money security. Having reason, however, to fear harder treatment, he escaped with his companions over the river to the main, and proceeded to Bijapúr, and thence to Burhanpur and Agra. The narrative of his travels before reaching Agra contains nothing of historical or geographical value.

48 The description of Mussulman India in the sixteenth century is reserved for the next volume, which will deal with Mussulman history.

49 Fitch spells the word "hinge." This is perhaps the old English word for indigo.

proceeding down the Jumna and Ganges to the old CHAP. VIII. port of Satgong on the Húghli.50 On the river after leaving Agra Mr Fitch saw the Bráhmans engaged in their religious bathings, praying in the water naked, and wearing the sacred thread. The Bráhmans of this country would not eat flesh, or kill anything. They lived on rice, butter, milk, and fruits. They marked themselves every morning on the forehead, ears, and throat with powdered sandalwood. Some old men also went about the streets with a box of the yellow powder, and marked men on their foreheads and necks as they met them. The women came to the river in tens, twenties, and thirties, and washed themselves, and performed certain ceremonies, marked themselves on their foreheads and faces, and then returned singing to their homes. Their daughters were married at the age of ten, and sometimes before. The people were even more crafty than the Jews. When they saluted they heaved up their hands to their faces and said, "Ráma," "Ráma." 52

51

From Agra Mr Fitch reached Prayága, which Prayaga. was not then known by its modern name of Allahabad. Here was the confluence of the Jumna and Ganges. In those parts there were many tigers, as well as numerous partridges, turtle-doves, and other fowl. Mr Fitch saw many naked mendicants. One

50 Satgong was a fort of considerable consequence in the sixteenth century; but the river has since deserted it, and it has dwindled to an inconsiderable village. The two famous forts in those days were Satgong on the Húghli and Chittagong on the Ganges.

51 The women singing the praises of Krishna are still to be seen in this neighbourhood. Indeed the scenes described by Fitch will be recognized by every Indian traveller.

52 Fitch's Voyage to Ormus and the East Indies. Pinkerton's Collection, vol. ix., page 406.

CHAP. VIII. in particular was a perfect monster. His hair and beard hung down to his knees. Some of his nails were two inches long. He would speak to no one, but was accompanied by eight or ten followers who spoke for him.

Benares.

The next place was Benares. This was a great town with large stores of cotton cloth. The people were all Hindús, and the worst idolaters that Mr Fitch had ever seen. Hindús of distant countries came here on pilgrimage. The houses on the banks were very fair, and most of them had images of stone or wood; some some were like leopards and monkeys; others were like men, women, and peacocks; and others were like the devil, with four arms and four hands. The chief idols were very illfavoured; their mouths were monstrous; their ears gilded and full of jewels; their teeth and eyes of gold, silver, or glass. The idols were black in colour, and had lamps continually burning before them. No one might enter a house or a temple without taking off his shoes. At daybreak, and often before, men and women came out of the town to bathe in the Ganges. Old men were sitting praying around, who gave the people straws to hold in their fingers whilst they bathed. Others were there to mark the foreheads of the people after bathing. In return the bathers gave the old men a little corn, barley, or money, which they carried in a cloth. The bathers then went to the images, and offered their sacrifices, whilst the old men continued to offer their prayers. Great stones were carved there,53 on which they poured water, and threw rice, wheat, barley, and

53 These were the Linga and Yoni. The act of worship is still practised as described by Mr Fitch.