Storia do Mogor 265.22
Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 265.22
- Language
- English
265.22.1
A propos of this case, I may mention that, on arriving in the town of Bassaim (Bassein) in one thousand six hundred and sixty-six (1666), I was sent for by the commissary of the Inquisition. He was the prior of the Franciscan convent, and three times over he examined me to find out about me and my life. Discovering nothing suspicious by his interrogatory, he made me swear upon a holy crucifix. Then, finding that there was nothing wrong in my replies, he embraced me, and treating me as an educated man with a clear conscience, he sent me away, saying that now I was free and he would not send for me any more. I came to discover [230], in the course of time, that my accuser was the father Damao Vieira, a man expelled from the Jesuit order. This is the man who came as an envoy to Rajah Jai Singh, and promised to reduce the city of Bijapur by miracle (see ante, Part II., 107).
265.22.2
Owing to the hatred in which he held me, he denounced me, and I was sent for by the commissary as I have just said. I was innocent, and could not make out why I had been sent for. As the friar found he could not harm me in this way, he came to Goa while I was living there, and urged a well-born man called Antonio de Couza Coutinho, who had once been governor of India, to put an affront on me. But, like a wise man, he would not consent; he invited me to his house, and in his conversation told me to live very cautiously, for the father in question was not fond of me. Thus I was far from secure, and for these and other reasons I quitted Goa.
265.22.3
The jack-fruit I spoke of is of three kinds—barca, papa, and pacheri jack-fruit. These fruits are very large; some weigh eighty pounds or thereabouts. The tree is of the size of a walnut-tree. The fruit referred to grows on the trunk and on the larger branches; some grow from the roots, and these are discovered by the earth being pushed up, also by the smell which the spot emits. This fruit has a green rind an inch in thickness with projections in the nature of thorns. It is known to be ripe by the smell it emits. Inside it is full of seeds, somewhat about the size of pears; these are very sweet, and on opening them, a juice issues sweet as honey, and in the middle are stones like the chestnuts of Europe. In these jack-fruit the seeds are sometimes white and sometimes red; some are hard, some are soft, and each variety has its special flavour. Of these seeds mixed with rice-flour they make a kind of fritters, which in India are called paniara. These, too, have their own flavour. When this fruit (the jack) is cut, a white liquid like bird-lime oozes from the rind, and sticking to the hand, it cannot be removed till it is anointed with oil. I will tell you a story of what I saw in the Carmelite convent.
265.22.4
I was walking up and down in the courtyard of the convent with the father prior, Frey Salvador de Nossa Senhora, when, as one of his servant boys passed below a jack-tree, one of the fruit fell and hit him on the forehead, flaying his whole face ; it swelled like a pot and he could not see, and even after the wounds were healed he remained disfigured. I must mention another fruit found in India called ananas (the pine-apple), which looks like a large pine-cone of Europe, and it has a corrugated rind. It is necessary to slice off this rind somewhat thickly to get rid of some natural depressions it has in it. The centre, when eaten, has a sweet, slightly acid, but very pleasant flavour. This fruit is heating, and if you leave a knife in it all night, the next day you will find it bitten into as if it had remained in aqua fortis. The distilled juice of this fruit is useful for dissolving stones in the kidneys and bladder, as I have found by experiment. The plant on which the fruit forms is a cubit in height ; it grows up like an ear of corn, each plant yielding no more than one fruit. The leaves are a cubit in length and two fingers in breadth, with prickly edges. In no part of India have I seen them in such quantities as in Bengal, where they were large and fine. The reason for this is that it is a low-lying and humid country.
265.22.5
In the Mogul kingdom at different places, such as in the province of Gujarat, the mountains of Srinagar (? Garhwal), and of Butando (? Bhutan), grows a wild fruit exported from India to Europe. They are called Mirobolanos quebulos (Chebulic Myrobalan), and are used in medicine. Among them, though rarely, are found some of greater size than the others ; these, if attached to the hand, are mildly purgative. They are valued for having this virtue, and great nobles give large sums to obtain them. In Hindustan they also sow a grain that in Italian is called cheche (? cece) and in French puee (? pois). Of this grain I have seen large quantities used in Europe, chiefly on ship-board. Upon this plant when it is green there collects a dew which is very acid. The great nobles use this liquid instead of vinegar; and to gather it men go out before sunrise and run a sheet over the plants until it is thoroughly steeped. The liquid is then wrung out and kept in well-closed bottles. I state this because in Europe I have neither seen nor heard of such a thing. At the actual moment of writing I have received a letter from a monk of the Franciscan order called Friar Boa Ventura de Roma, and another from his companion, Friar Antonio de Castro Ocaro, and three others of his company named Ludovico Antonio Apiani, Joao Donato Meza Falche, and Joao Muliner. These men travelled from Rome through Turkey and Persia, and came to anchor in the port of Madras.
265.22.6
Here they meant to take ship for China to carry on their mission. As they could not find a ship, they put up with me in my house [232]. After a year had elapsed there were some vessels sailing for Manila, and they embarked in these, meaning to continue thence the journey to their destination. On their arrival in Manila they encountered some other fellow-friars who had also left Rome for the same object. From that place (Manila) each went on his way as opportunity offered. The two friars above-named, together with Father Estevao Delicato, Antonio de Bareinome, and the illustrious lord Dom Alvaro de Benevento, of the order of St. Augustine, nominated as bishop for China, embarked in a Spanish ship of which the captain was Dom Joao Antonio Fernim de Andaya, nephew of the Maitre-de-Camp of Manila. Their destination was China, and setting sail, they made the harbour of Macao. The captain wished to land, and desired to take with him the lord bishop and the rest of the fathers. But they had been forewarned that if they went ashore on Portuguese territory they would be made prisoners and carried away to Portugal. They were thus unwilling to land, and made their excuses. The captain assured them that he would first sacrifice his life rather than that they should be touched. Confiding in him, but against their own desire, they disembarked. As soon as the Portuguese of Macao were informed, they made ready to apprehend them.
265.22.7
On hearing this report, the captain had recourse to the Mandarin, who is the Emperor of China's magistrate. This official reassured him, and said he might keep his mind at rest, pledging his word that no one in his government would dare to interfere with them. After the lapse of some days the captain with the rest of the priests returned to the ship escorted by a company of soldiers sent by the Chinese governor, and in this way they escaped. The Portuguese had tried to do the same at Saõ Thomé, under an order received from Goa, but they could not carry it out, that country and its government belonging to the Mogul king. There can be no doubt that something curious can be written about a tree which generally grows in India near the sea. It is called palm-tree or coco-tree. This tree has many roots about the thickness of the little finger, and it grows to a great height but increases very slowly. When seven years have passed it begins to yield fruit; ordinarily it occupies a circumference of two cubits and three-quarters, there or thereabouts, and it lives for a hundred years. At that age it grows to as much as ten arms' length; the stem is straight like the mast of a ship, with the branches [233] or palm-leaves at the summit about two arms in length. The leaves are two cubits long, lying close to one another like organ-pipes, three inches in breadth. In the middle of the leaf is a rib, of which they make brooms, et cetera.
265.22.8
They also make mats from the branches, and these serve as carpets to the natives of the country. They thatch houses with the leaves, and they are also used as decorations at festivals. Every month a new branch appears in the middle of the palm-tree, and the oldest one falls off. Each tree has about thirty branches, and amidst them comes out the flower, enclosed by nature in a shield about a cubit long, nearly ten inches in circumference, and coming to a sharp point. When it has reached its proper size, the covering opens and the flower shows in the shape of brooms. On each branch of the flower you see its fruit stuck on like buttons, and these, swelling until they are like nuts, are then called coquinhos (little coco-nut); they are used for many infantile complaints, such as diarrhoea and mouth-sores. When grown to the size of twenty-eight up to thirty inches round, and as much in length, they are called lanha. The nut is then full of a sweet water, a drink of which is very refreshing. It is used in inflammation of the liver, the kidneys, and the bladder, and increases urination. It is also good for excessive heat of the liver, pains in the bowels, or discharges of mucus or of blood ; it also refreshes in the season of great heat.