Travels in India (Tavernier) 154.3

154.3

Having arrived at Bantam we intended to go first to visit the English President, but, before we had done so, there came to us one of the King’s officers, who told us that he had been instructed that we should be lodged in one of the houses which the King has in the town. These houses are made of bamboos, which are, as I have elsewhere said, hollow canes, and which, though they are as hard as iron, nevertheless split like our osiers, and it is of them that the Indians make nearly everything. We had not spent more than half an hour in this house when the King sent us some pateches, which are very sweet water-melons, and are red as scarlet inside. There were also mangoes, of which I have elsewhere spoken, and another large fruit called pompone, which is also red inside, and the flesh is soft resembling a sponge, and is very good. He who brought these fruits told us that as soon as we had taken our repast we were to go to see the King; this we did, and we found him again in the same place with the old betel pounder, who from time to time made him open his mouth and then gave him some with her fingers in the way I have described. There were five or six captains seated round the room, who were looking at some fireworks which the Chinese had brought, such as grenades, fusees, and other things of that kind to run on the water; for the Chinese surpass all the nations of the world in this respect.