Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 23: Answer to the fourth Inquiry, as to the fertility, wealth and beauty of the Kingdom of Bengale.
Travels in the Mogul Empire (Constable) 23
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Answer to the fourth Inquiry, as to the fertility, wealth and beauty of the Kingdom of Bengale.
23.1
Egypt has been represented in every age as the finest and most fruitful country in the world, and even our modern writers deny that there is any other land so peculiarly favoured by nature : but the knowledge I have acquired of Bengale, during two visits paid to that kingdom, inclines me to believe that the pre-eminence ascribed to Egypt is rather due to Bengale. The latter country produces rice in such abundance that it supplies not only the neighbouring but remote states. It is carried up the Ganges as far as Patna, and exported by sea to Maslipatam and many other ports on the coast of Koromandel. It is also sent to foreign kingdoms, principally to the island of Ceylon and the Maldives. Bengale abounds likewise in sugar, with which it supplies the kingdoms of Golkonda and the Karnatic, where very little is grown, Arabia and Mesopotamia, through the towns of Moka and Bassora, and even Persia, by way of Bender-Abbasi. Bengale likewise is celebrated for its sweetmeats, especially in places inhabited by Portuguese, who are skilful in the art of preparing them, and with whom they are an article of considerable trade. Among other fruits, they preserve large citrons, such as we have in Europe, a certain delicate root about the length of sarsaparilla, that common fruit of the Indies called amba, another called ananas, small mirobalans, which are excellent, limes, and ginger. Bengale, it is true, yields not so much wheat as Egypt;
23.2
but if this be a defect, it is attributable to the inhabitants, who live a great deal more upon rice than the Egyptians, and seldom taste bread. Nevertheless, wheat is cultivated in sufficient quantity for the consumption of the country, and for the making of excellent and cheap sea-biscuits, with which the crews of European ships, English, Dutch and Portuguese, are supplied. The three or four sorts of vegetables which, together with rice and butter, form the chief food of the common people, are purchased for the merest trifle, and for a single roupie twenty or more good fowls may be bought. Geese and ducks are proportionably cheap. There are also goats and sheep in abundance; and pigs are obtained at so low a price that the Portuguese, settled in the country, live almost entirely upon pork. This meat is salted at a cheap rate by the Dutch and English, for the supply of their vessels. Fish of every species, whether fresh or salt, is in the same profusion. In a word, Bengale abounds with every necessary of life; and it is this abundance that has induced so many Portuguese, Half-castes, and other Christians, driven from their different settlements by the Dutch, to seek an asylum in this fertile kingdom.
23.3
The Jesuits and Augustins, who have large churches and are permitted the free and unmolested exercise of their religion, assured me that Ogouli alone contains from eight to nine thousand Christians, and that in other parts of the kingdom their number exceeded five-and-twenty thousand. The rich exuberance of the country, together with the beauty and amiable disposition of the native women, has given rise to a proverb in common use among the Portuguese, English, and Dutch, that the Kingdom of Bengale has a hundred gates open for entrance, but not one for departure. In regard to valuable commodities of a nature to attract foreign merchants, I am acquainted with no country where so great a variety is found. Besides the sugar I have spoken of, and which may be placed in the list of valuable commodities, there is in Bengale such a quantity of cotton and silks, that the kingdom may be called the common storehouse for those two kinds of merchandise, not of Hindoustan or the Empire of the Great Mogol only, but of all the neighbouring kingdoms, and even of Europe. I have been sometimes amazed at the vast quantity of cotton cloths, of every sort, fine and coarse, white and coloured, which the Hollanders alone export to different places, especially to Japan and Europe. The English, the Portuguese, and the native merchants deal also in these articles to a considerable extent. The same may be said of the silks and silk stuffs of all sorts.
23.4
It is not possible to conceive the quantity drawn every year from Bengale for the supply of the whole of the Mogol Empire, as far as Lahor and Cabol, and generally of all those foreign nations to which the cotton cloths are sent. The silks are not certainly so fine as those of Persia, Syria, Sayd, and Bairut; but they are of a much lower price; and I know from indisputable authority that, if they were well selected and wrought with care, they might be manufactured into most beautiful stuffs. The Dutch have sometimes seven or eight hundred natives employed in their silk factory at Kassem-Bazar, where, in like manner, the English and other merchants employ a proportionate number. Bengale is also the principal emporium for saltpetre. A prodigious quantity is imported from Patna. It is carried down the Ganges with great facility, and the Dutch and English send large cargoes to many parts of the Indies, and to Europe. Lastly, it is from this fruitful kingdom that the best lac, opium, wax, civet, long pepper, and various drugs are obtained; and butter, which may appear to you an inconsiderable article, is in such plenty, that although it be a bulky article to export, yet it is sent by sea to numberless places.
23.5
It is fair to acknowledge, however, that strangers seldom find the air salubrious, particularly near the sea. There was a great mortality among the Dutch and English when they first settled in Bengale; and I saw in Balasor two very fine English vessels, which had remained in that port a twelvemonth in consequence of the war with Holland, and at the expiration of that period, were unable to put to sea, because the greater part of the crews had died. Both the English and Dutch now live with more caution and the mortality is diminished. The masters of vessels take care that their crews drink less punch; nor do they permit them so frequently to visit the Indian women, or the dealers in arac and tobacco. Good Vin de Grave or Canary and Chiras wines, taken in moderation, are found excellent preservatives against the effects of bad air, therefore I maintain that those who live carefully need not be sick, nor will the mortality be greater among them than with the rest of the world. Bouleponge is a drink composed of arac, a spirit distilled from molasses, mixed with lemon juice, water and nutmeg; it is pleasant enough to the taste, but most hurtful to body and health.
23.6
In describing the beauty of Bengale, it should be remarked that throughout a country extending nearly an hundred leagues in length, on both banks of the Ganges, from Raje-Mehale to the sea, is an endless number of channels, cut, in bygone ages, from that river with immense labour, for the conveyance of merchandise and of the water itself, which is reputed by the Indians to be superior to any in the world. These channels are lined on both sides with towns and villages, thickly peopled with Gentiles; and with extensive fields of rice, sugar, corn, three or four sorts of vegetables, mustard, sesame for oil, and small mulberry-trees, two or three feet in height, for the food of silk-worms. But the most striking and peculiar beauty of Bengale is the innumerable islands filling the vast space between the two banks of the Ganges, in some places six or seven days' journey asunder. These islands vary in size, but are all extremely fertile, surrounded with wood, and abounding in fruit-trees, and pine-apples, and covered with verdure; a thousand water-channels run through them, stretching beyond the sight, and resembling long walks arched with trees. Several of the islands, nearest to the sea, are now abandoned by the inhabitants, who were exposed to the attacks and ravages of the Arracan pirates, spoken of in another place.
23.7
At present they are a dreary waste, wherein no living creature is seen except antelopes, hogs, and wild fowls, that attract tigers, which sometimes swim from one island to another. In traversing the Ganges in small rowing boats, the usual mode of conveyance among these islands, it is in many places dangerous to land, and great care must be had that the boat, which during the night is fastened to a tree, be kept at some distance from the shore, for it constantly happens that some person or another falls a prey to tigers. These ferocious animals are very apt, it is said, to enter into the boat itself, while the people are asleep, and to carry away some victim, who, if we are to believe the boatmen of the country, generally happens to be the stoutest and fattest of the party. I remember a nine days' voyage that I made from Pipli to Ogouli, among these islands and channels, which I cannot omit relating, as no day passed without some extraordinary accident or adventure. When my seven-oared scallop had conveyed us out of the river of Pipli, and we had advanced three or four leagues at sea, along the coast, on our way to the islands and channels, we saw the sea covered with fish, apparently large carp, which were pursued by a great number of dolphins. I desired my men to row that way, and perceived that most of them were lying on their side as if they had been dead; some moved slowly along, and others seemed to be struggling and turning about as if stupefied.
23.8
We caught four-and-twenty with our hands, and observed that out of the mouth of every one issued a bladder, like that of a carp, which was full of air and of a reddish colour at the end. I easily conceived that it was this bladder which prevented the fish from sinking, but could never understand why it thus protruded, unless it were that having been long and closely pursued by the dolphins, they made such violent efforts to escape, that the bladder swelled, became red, and was forced out of the mouth. I have recounted this circumstance to a hundred sailors, whom I found incredulous; with the exception, indeed, of a Dutch pilot, who informed me that, sailing in a large vessel along the coasts of China, his attention was arrested by a similar appearance, and that putting out their boat they caught, as we did, with only their hands, many of the fish.
23.9
The day following we arrived, at rather a late hour, among the islands; and having chosen a spot that appeared free from tigers, we landed and lighted a fire. I ordered a couple of fowls and some of the fish to be dressed, and we made an excellent supper. The fish was delicious. I then re-embarked, and ordered my men to row on till night. There would have been danger in losing our way in the dark among the different channels, and therefore we retired out of a main channel in search of a snug creek, where we passed the night; the boat being fastened to a thick branch of a tree, at a prudent distance from the shore. While keeping watch, I witnessed a Phenomenon of Nature such as I had twice observed at Dehli, I beheld a lunar rainbow, and awoke the whole of my company, who all expressed much surprise, especially two Portuguese pilots, whom I had received into the boat at the request of a friend. They declared that they had neither seen nor heard of such a rainbow. The third day, we lost ourselves among the channels, and I know not how we should have recovered our right course, had we not met with some Portuguese, who were employed in making salt on one of the islands. This night again, our boat being under shelter in a small channel, my Portuguese, who were full of the strange appearance on the preceding night, and kept their eyes constantly fixed toward the heavens, roused me from my sleep and pointed out another rainbow as beautiful and as well defined as the last.
23.10
You are not to imagine that I mistake a halo for an iris, I am familiar with the former, because during the rainy season at Dehli, there is scarcely a month in which a halo is not frequently seen round the moon. But they appear only when that luminary is very high above the horizon: I have observed them three and four nights successively, and sometimes I have seen them doubled. The iris of which I speak was not a circle about the moon, but was placed in an opposite direction, in the same relative position as a solar rainbow. Whenever I have seen a night iris, the moon has been at the west and the iris at the east. The moon was also nearly complete in its orb, because otherwise the beams of light would not, I conceive, be sufficiently powerful to form the rainbow; nor was the iris so white as the halo, but more strongly marked, and a variety of colours was even discernible. Thus you see that I am more happy than the ancients, who, according to Aristotle, had observed no lunar rainbows before his time.
23.11
In the evening of the fourth day we withdrew, as usual, out of the main channel to a place of security, and passed a most extraordinary night. Not a breath of wind was felt, and the air became so hot and suffocating that we could scarcely breathe. The bushes around us were so full of glow-worms that they seemed ignited; and fires resembling flames arose every moment to the great alarm of our sailors, who did not doubt that they were so many devils. Two of these luminous appearances were very remarkable. One was a great globe of fire, which continued longer than the time necessary to repeat a Pater, the other looked like a small tree all in flames, and lasted above a quarter of an hour.
23.12
The night of the fifth day was altogether dreadful and perilous. A storm arose so violent, that although we were, as we thought, in excellent shelter under trees, and our boat carefully fastened, yet our cable was broken, and we should have been driven into the main channel, there inevitably to perish, if I and my two Portuguese had not, by a sudden and spontaneous movement, entwined our arms round the branches of trees, which we held tightly for the space of two hours, while the tempest was raging with unabated force. No assistance was to be expected from my Indian boatmen, whose fears completely overcame them. Our situation while clinging for our lives to the trees was indeed most painful; the rain fell as if poured into the boat from buckets, and the lightning and thunder were so vivid and loud, and so near our heads, that we despaired of surviving this horrible night. Nothing, however, could be more pleasant than the remainder of the voyage. We arrived at Ogouly on the ninth day, and my eyes seemed never sated with gazing on the delightful country through which we passed. My trunk, however, and all my wearing-apparel were wet, the poultry dead, the fish spoilt, and the whole of my biscuits soaked with rain.