Travels in India (Tavernier) 14.1.2

14.1.2

There are two or three boats, but one cannot make use of them, save when the water ceases to be so rapid, and it takes much time to cross. The peasants do not stand on ceremony, and in order to go from one bank to the other only make use of the skin of a goat, which they fill with air and tie on between the chest and the abdomen. It is thus, by swimming this river, that the poor, both the men and women, cross, and when they wish to take their children across also they employ certain round earthen pots, which have mouths four fingers in width, and having placed their child in one of these pots they push it before them while swimming. This brings to mind a circumstance which happened at Ahmadābād, while I was there in the year 1642, which is too remarkable to pass by in silence. A peasant and his wife were crossing the river one day in the manner I have just described, and having an infant of about two years, they placed him in one of these pots, so that only his head, which was outside, could be seen. Having reached the middle of the river, they encountered a small bank of sand where there was a large tree, which the water had carried down, and the father pushed the pot containing the infant on to this place, to rest himself a little. As he approached the foot of the tree, the trunk of which was somewhat elevated above the water, a snake came out from between the roots, and jumped into the pot where the infant was.