Travels in India (Tavernier) 149.2
Travels in India (Ball) 149.2
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- English
149.2.1
Among our sailors there was, by chance, one who had served for many years in the same vessel, who said that certainly there was at the bottom of the hold a very heavy anchor, but that it had only one arm. Although we desired to get it, we foresaw great difficulty on account of the quantity of goods which were in the vessel. Nevertheless it was resolved to move the whole, and four or five very skilful carpenters, who had worked at the house at Gombroon for the Company, and were returning to Batavia, said that if they could only get up the anchor they would fix it so as to work as well as if it had two arms. This they did, and in two days both the anchor and the rudder were in a condition to serve us. It cost three or four cases of Shiraz wine, which were distributed to all those who assisted in removing the goods and getting out the anchor—for the purpose of inciting them to work well.
149.2.2
Eight days afterwards we found that we were off Point de Galle, and we took in some of our sails in order to gain the port, one of the worst in all India, on account of the rocks, which are at a level with the water in many places. It is for this reason that as soon as a vessel is sighted at sea the Governor-General sends two pilots to direct and bring her into port. But as we had both weather and sea sufficiently favourable, the captain and pilots, who had never been there before, not realising that we had passed the reefs, which they thought were nearer to land, and seeing that no pilot came to bring the vessel into port, turned to sea again ; this caused much surprise to the Governor and the pilots, who did not come out because they saw that we had passed the danger. The wind then commencing to change, drove us 9 or 10 leagues out to sea, and consequently we were two or three days beating about before we could remake the port. If the wind had driven us a little farther to sea we should have been obliged to go to winter at Masulipatam, in the Gulf of Bengal. At length the pilots of Point de Galle having come out for us, we entered the port and landed on the 12th of May. I immediately went to visit the Governor Madsuere, who is at present General at Batavia, and he did me the honour to invite me to eat always with him during the sojourn which I made there.
149.2.3
I did not find anything remarkable in this town, and there remains scarcely anything but the ruins, and mines, and the marks which the cannons made when the Dutch besieged it and drove away the Portuguese. The Company gave land and sites for building to those who wished to dwell there, and had already erected two good bastions, which command the port. If it had accomplished the design which it then formed, it would have made of this town a fine place. The Dutch, before they had captured all the settlements which the Portuguese had in the Island of Ceylon, from whence they have been entirely driven, persuaded themselves that the trade of this island would yield them enormous sums if they were sole masters. This might have happened if they had kept to the agreement which they had made with the King of Kandy — who is the King of the country — when they began to make war with the Portuguese. But they broke faith with him, and that gave them a very bad character in these parts.
149.2.4
The treaty with the King of Kandy was so drawn that this King was always to be in charge of the passes, with 18,000 or 20,000 men, to prevent the reinforcements which might come from Colombo, Negombo, Manar, and many other places which the Portuguese held along the coast. And the Dutch were to bring in their large vessels as many troops as were sufficient to besiege Point de Galle both by sea and land. They agreed, also, with the King of Achin that he should hold the coast with a sufficient number of small armed frigates, as he always maintained a good number of them. The Dutch, having taken the town, began to repair some breaches, seeing which the King of Kandy sent to know when he might come there to receive possession of it. For it had been agreed in the event of the Dutch taking the town that they would give it back to the King, who by way of recompense was to give them a certain quantity of cinnamon every year, and, in case of necessity, to aid them as far as he was able. The Dutch replied to what the King had communicated to them, that they were willing to hand over the town to him provided he paid them the costs of the war, which they said amounted to many millions; but if he had possessed three kingdoms like his own he could not have paid half the sum. In truth money is scarce in that country, and I do not believe that the King has ever seen a sum equal to 50,000 écus at one time. His whole trade consisted in cinnamon and elephants;
149.2.5
but since the Portuguese have been in India he has derived no profit from either. As for the elephants, that is a small matter, for only five or six are captured in a year; but at the same time those of Ceylon are more highly esteemed than all the elephants of other countries, because they are more courageous in war; and there is not a King in India who does not desire to have one. There should be related here a thing which it is possible one may have a difficulty in believing, but it is nevertheless quite true; it is that when any king or noble possesses one of these Ceylon elephants, and when there is brought into its presence some other one from the places where the merchants obtain them, as Achin, Siam, Arakan, Pegu, the Kingdom of Bhutan, the Kingdom of Assam, the territories of Cochin and the coast of Melinda, as soon as these latter elephants see one of Ceylon, by a natural instinct they pay it reverence by placing the ends of their trunks on the ground, and then elevating them. It is true that the elephants which the great nobles keep, when brought before them to be examined whether they are in good condition, make a sort of salute thrice with their trunk. This I have often seen ; but they are trained to it, and their masters teach them to do so when young.
149.2.6
The King of Achin, with whom the Dutch failed to keep their promise, had other means for revenging himself than the King of Kandy, because the Dutch were not allowed to ship the pepper which comes from his territories ; for a long time he refused them permission, and even declared war upon them ; and without this pepper their trade could not prosper. It is the kind of pepper which we call “small,” and all Orientals prefer it, because without skinning or crushing they place it whole on their plates of rice, as I have elsewhere said. At length the Dutch were compelled to agree with the King of Achin, and ambassadors were sent from one side and the other for this purpose. He who arrived on behalf of the King at Batavia, was treated with much magnificence. When he was about to depart the General and all his Council entertained him splendidly, and the ladies sat at table — this surprised this Muhammadan ambassador very much, who was not accustomed to see women drink and eat with men. But that which astonished him still more was that at the end of the repast, after having drunk many healths, they drank that of the Queen of Achin, who ruled the state during the minority of the King, her son. And in order to honour him still more, the General desired Madame la Generale to kiss the ambassador. The King and Queen of Achin did not receive the ambassador who was sent to them from Batavia less well. He was M. Croc, who for fifteen years suffered from a languishing sickness ;
149.2.7
and it was believed that some one had administered to him some kind of slow poison. On the occasion of the third audience which he had with the King, who knew that he had lived for so long a time in languor and without appetite, he asked him if he had ever formerly kept any girl of the country, and how he had left her, if by mutual agreement or whether he had sent her away by force. He admitted that he had left one in order to get married in his own country, and that since that time he had always been languishing and indisposed, upon which the King said to three of his physicians, who were by his side, that having heard the cause of the ambassador’s sickness he would give them fifteen days to cure him, and that if they did not accomplish it in that time he would cause them all to be executed. These physicians having replied that they would answer to him for the cure of the ambassador, provided he consented to take the remedies which they would give him, M. Croc resolved to consent. They gave him in the morning a decoction, and in the evening a small pill, and at the end of nine days a great fit of vomiting seized him. It was thought he would die of the strange efforts which he made ; and at length he vomited a bundle of hair as large as a small nut, after which he was at once healed. Subsequently the King took him to a rhinoceros hunt, and invited him to give the mortal shot to the animal.
149.2.8
As soon as it was killed they cut off the horn, which the King also presented to the ambassador; and at the conclusion of the hunt there was a great feast. At the end of it the King drank to the health of the General of Batavia and his wife, and ordered one of his own wives to kiss the ambassador. On his departure he presented him with a pebble of the size of a goose’s egg, in which large veins of gold were to be seen as you see the tendons in the hand of a man, and it is thus that gold occurs in this country. M. Croc, when at Surat as chief of the factory, broke the pebble in two, and gave half to M. Constant, who, subordinate to him, held the highest authority there, to whom, when he was returning to Holland, I offered 150 pistoles for it in order to present it to the late Monseigneur le Due d’Orleans, but he would not consent to part with it.