History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c37.104

v2.c37.104

an account of an episcopal visitation of the Bishop of St. Thome, mentions it as a place where Topasses or Portuguese mercenaries congregated....The most credible account is that near the village of Manuagar, on the right bank of the river, there formerly existed a great settlement of Firinghis (Europeans) and Mughals, whose ships used to sail from the sea right up to the spot; and that the Firinghis had a cemetery with masonry tombs, but the site of the whole has been washed into the river."¹ In Balasore town there was a Portuguese church with a wooden cross over the principal doorway. Stirling saw it in the beginning of the last century but it has disappeared long ago.²