Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c10.32

c10.32

³ Ibid., 307-08. Father F. Fernandus, the Jesuit missionary who was sent to Bengal in 1598, speaks of the danger when his ship ran aground in the Portus Parvus; but it was afloat and, after sailing for eight days within the Portus, it reached the Portuguese station of Hooghly. By *Potrus Parvus* therefore Fernandus meant the Hooghly river and not any port. He next went to the Portus Magnus and first reached Śrīpur which he describes as a station in the Portus Magnus. Śrīpur was an important port on the Padmā about 18 miles from Sonāragāon, the eastern capital of Bengal. The Father then arrived at Chittagong which was also a station belonging to the Portus Magnus. According to Fernandus therefore the Great Port extended from the Karṇaphuli river to the immediate neighbourhood of Dacca. By the word *porto* some writers however actually meant a port; Fitch, *e. g.*, identifies Porto Pequeno with Sātgāon. According to Moreland, the change in the meaning may be attributed to the fact that ‘the Portuguese did not to any great extent trade directly with Śrīpur; their communications were with either Hooghly or Chittagong, that is, with only one *Station* in each *Porto*, and, in these circumstances, the transfer of the name from the *Porto* to the *Station* might easily take place, just as the *Mersey* has become a synonym for Liverpool’ (*op. cit.*, p. 309).