Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 5.3
Travels in the Mogul Empire (Constable) 5.3
- Language
- English
5.3.1
In summer the melons of the country are cheap, but they are of an inferior kind: there are no means of procuring good ones but by sending to Persia for seed, and sowing it in ground prepared with extraordinary care, in the manner practised by the grandees. Good melons, however, are scarce, the soil being so little congenial that the seed degenerates after the first year. Ambas, or Mangues, are in season during two months in summer, and are plentiful and cheap; but those grown at Dehli are indifferent. The best come from Bengale, Golconda, and Goa, and these are indeed excellent. I do not know any sweetmeat more agreeable. Pateques, or water-melons, are in great abundance nearly the whole year round; but those of Dehli are soft, without colour or sweetness. If this fruit be ever found good, it is among the wealthy people, who import the seed and cultivate it with much care and expense.
5.3.2
There are many confectioners' shops in the town, but the sweetmeats are badly made, and full of dust and flies. Bakers also are numerous, but the ovens are unlike our own, and very defective. The bread, therefore, is neither well made nor properly baked. That sold in the Fort is tolerably good, and the Omrahs bake at home, so that their bread is much superior. In its composition they are not sparing of fresh butter, milk, and eggs; but though it be raised, it has a burnt taste, and is too much like cake, and never to be compared to the Pain de Gonesse, and other delicious kinds, to be met with in Paris. In the bazars there are shops where meat is sold roasted and dressed in a variety of ways. But there is no trusting to their dishes, composed, for aught I know, of the flesh of camels, horses, or perhaps oxen which have died of disease. Indeed no food can be considered wholesome which is not dressed at home.
5.3.3
Meat is sold in every part of the city; but instead of goats' flesh that of mutton is often palmed upon the buyer; an imposition which ought to be guarded against, because mutton and beef, but particularly the former, though not unpleasant to the taste, are heating, flatulent, and difficult of digestion. Kid is the best food, but being rarely sold in quarters, it must be purchased alive, which is very inconvenient, as the meat will not keep from morning to night, and is generally lean and without flavour. The goats' flesh found in quarters at the butchers' shops is frequently that of the she-goat, which is lean and tough. But it would be unreasonable in me to complain; because since I have been familiarised with the manners of the people, it seldom happens that I find fault either with my meat or my bread. I send my servant to the King's purveyors in the Fort, who are glad to sell wholesome food, which costs them very little, at the high price I am willing to pay. My Agah smiled when I remarked that I had been for years in the habit of living by stealth and artifice, and that the one hundred and fifty crowns which he gave me monthly would not otherwise keep me from starving, although in France I could for half a roupie eat every day as good meat as the King.
5.3.4
As to capons, there are none to be had; the people being tender-hearted toward animals of every description, men only excepted; these being wanted for their Seraglios. The markets, however, are amply supplied with fowls, tolerably good and cheap. Among others, there is a small hen, delicate and tender, which I call Ethiopian, the skin being quite black. Pigeons are exposed for sale, but not young ones, the Indians considering them too small, and saying that it would be cruel to deprive them of life at so tender an age. There are partridges which are smaller than ours, but being caught with nets, and brought alive from a distance, are not so good as fowls. The same thing may be remarked of ducks and hares, which are brought alive in crowded cages. The people of this neighbourhood are indifferent fishermen; yet good fish may sometimes be bought, particularly two sorts, called sing-ala and rau. The former resembles our pike; the latter our carp. When the weather is cold, the people will not fish at all if they can avoid it; for they have a much greater dread of cold than Europeans have of heat. Should any fish then happen to be seen in the market, it is immediately bought up by the eunuchs, who are particularly fond of it; why, I cannot tell. The Omrahs alone contrive to force the fishermen out at all times by means of the korrah, the long whip always suspended at their door.
5.3.5
You may judge from what I have said, whether a lover of good cheer ought to quit Paris for the sake of visiting Dehli. Unquestionably the great are in the enjoyment of everything; but it is by dint of the numbers in their service, by dint of the korrah, and by dint of money. In Dehli there is no middle state. A man must either be of the highest rank or live miserably. My pay is considerable, nor am I sparing of money; yet does it often happen that I have not wherewithal to satisfy the cravings of hunger, the bazars being so ill supplied, and frequently containing nothing but the refuse of the grandees. Wine, that essential part of every entertainment, can be obtained in none of the shops at Dehli, although it might be made from the native grape, were not the use of that liquor prohibited equally by the Gentile and Mahometan law. I drank some at Amed-abad and Golkonda, in Dutch and English houses, which was not ill-tasted. If wine be sometimes found in the Mogol empire, it is either Chiras or Canary. The former is sent by land from Persia to Bander-Abasy, where it is embarked for Sourate, from which port it reaches Dehli in forty-six days. The Canary wine is brought by the Dutch to Sourate; but both these wines are so dear that, as we say at home, the taste is destroyed by the cost. A bottle containing about three Paris pints cannot be purchased under six or seven crowns. The liquor peculiar to this country is Arac, a spirit drawn by distillation from unrefined sugar;
5.3.6
the sale of which is also strictly forbidden, and none but Christians dare openly to drink it. Arac is a spirit as harsh and burning as that made from corn in Poland, and the use of it to the least excess occasions nervous and incurable disorders. A wise man will here accustom himself to the pure and fine water, or to the excellent lemonade, which costs little and may be drunk without injury. To say the truth, few persons in these hot climates feel a strong desire for wine, and I have no doubt that the happy ignorance which prevails of many distempers is fairly ascribable to the general habits of sobriety among the people, and to the profuse perspiration to which they are perpetually subject. The gout, the stone, complaints in the kidneys, catarrhs and quartan agues are nearly unknown; and persons who arrive in the country afflicted with any of these disorders, as was the case with me, soon experience a complete cure. Even the venereal disease, common as it is in Hindoustan, is not of so virulent a character, or attended with such injurious consequences, as in other parts of the world. But although there is a greater enjoyment of health, yet there is less vigour among the people than in our colder climates; and the feebleness and languor both of body and mind, consequent upon excessive heat, may be considered a species of unremitting malady, which attacks all persons indiscriminately, and among the rest Europeans not yet inured to the heat.
5.3.7
Workshops, occupied by skilful artisans, would be vainly sought for in Dehli, which has very little to boast of in that respect. This is not owing to any inability in the people to cultivate the arts, for there are ingenious men in every part of the Indies. Numerous are the instances of handsome pieces of workmanship made by persons destitute of tools, and who can scarcely be said to have received instruction from a master. Sometimes they imitate so perfectly articles of European manufacture that the difference between the original and copy can hardly be discerned. Among other things, the Indians make excellent muskets, and fowling-pieces, and such beautiful gold ornaments that it may be doubted if the exquisite workmanship of those articles can be exceeded by any European goldsmith. I have often admired the beauty, softness, and delicacy of their paintings and miniatures, and was particularly struck with the exploits of Ekbar, painted on a shield by a celebrated artist, who is said to have been seven years in completing the picture. I thought it a wonderful performance. The Indian painters are chiefly deficient in just proportions, and in the expression of the face; but these defects would soon be corrected if they possessed good masters, and were instructed in the rules of art.