Travels in India (Tavernier) 138: Concerning the Kingdom of Tipperah
Travels in India (Ball) 138
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- English
Concerning the Kingdom of Tipperah
138.1
Some persons believe up to this hour that the Kingdom of Pegu bounds China, and I myself shared this error until three merchants of the Kingdom of Tipperah drew me out of it. They made themselves pass as Brahmins in order that they might be treated with special respect, but they were in truth only merchants who came to Patna and Dacca, where I saw them, to buy coral, yellow amber, tortoise-shell, and sea-shell bracelets, and other toys which, as I have said in the preceding chapter, are made in these two towns of Bengal. I saw one of them at Dacca, and met the two others at Patna, and had them to dine with me. They were people who spoke but little, whether because it was their own particular nature, or was the usual custom of their country; one of them knew the Indian language. When they bought anything they made their calculations with small stones resembling agates, and of the size of the finger nail, upon which there were figures. They each had scales made like steelyards. The arms were not of iron, but of a kind of wood as hard as bresil, and the ring which held the weights, when put in the arm to mark the livres, was a strong loop of silk. By this means they weighed from a dram up to ten of our livres. If all the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Tipperah resemble these two merchants whom I met at Patna, one might conclude that this nation loves drinking very much;
138.2
and I experienced a pleasure in giving them sometimes spirits, sometimes Spanish wine, and other kinds of wines, as those of Shiraz, Rheims, and Mantua, never having been without a supply in all my journeys, except during the last, in the deserts of Arabia, which I was unable to traverse in less than sixty-five days, for the reasons I have elsewhere stated. I should have been able to learn many things from these merchants of Tipperah in reference to the nature and extent of their country if they had known how to give me as good an account of it as they did of my good wine when I proposed a health. For my interpreter had scarce finished paying them a compliment, on my behalf, before the wine was drunk, and they gazed at one another while smacking their lips, and striking their hands two or three times on their stomachs with a sigh. These merchants had, all three, come by way of the Kingdom of Arakan, which lies to the south and west of that of Tipperah, which is partly bounded by Pegu in the direction of winter sunset, and they told me that they were about fifteen days in traversing their country, from which one cannot very well estimate its extent, because the stages are unequal, being sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, according as water is to be found. For the conveyance of goods they use, as in India, oxen and horses, which are similar to those I have described above, low in stature, but otherwise excellent.
138.3
As for the King and the great nobles, they travel in pallankeens, and have elephants which have been trained for war. The inhabitants of Tipperah are not less troubled by goitre than are those of Bhutan. I was told that it attacked some of the women on the breasts. Of the three men from Tipperah whom I saw in Bengal, the one who was at Dacca had two goitres, each of the size of the fist; they are caused by the bad water, as in many other countries of Asia and Europe. Nothing is produced in Tipperah which is of use to foreigners. There is, however, a gold mine, which yields gold of very low standard; and silk, which is very coarse. It is from these two articles that the King’s revenue is derived. He levies no revenue from his subjects, save that those below the rank, corresponding to that of the nobility of Europe, have to work for him for six days every year either in the gold mine or at the silk. He sends both the gold and silk to be sold in China, and receives silver in return, with which he coins money of the value of 10 sols. He also coins small gold money like the aspres of Turkey, and has two kinds of them, of one of which it takes four to make an écu, and of the other it takes a dozen. This is all I have been able to ascertain concerning a country which has been unknown to us up to the present, but about which we shall hereafter have more information, as also of others which the accounts of travellers have made known to us, all not having been discovered in a day.