A History of Agriculture in India v2.c83.s3.t2.3

v2.c83.s3.t2.3

‘The three or four sorts of vegetables which, together with rice and butter, form the chief food of the common people, are purchased for the merest trifle, and for a single roupie twenty or more good fowls may be bought. Geese and ducks are cheap. There are also goats and sheep in abundance; and pigs are obtained at so low a price that the Portuguese settled in the country live almost entirely upon pork. This meat is salted at a cheap rate by the Dutch and English, for the supply of their vessels. Fish of every species, whether fresh or salt, is in the same profusion. In a word, Bengal abounds with every necessary of life; and it is this abundance that has induced so many Portuguese, half-castes, and other Christians, driven from their different settlements by the Dutch, to seek an asylum in this fertile kingdom. The rich exuberance of the country, together with the beauty and amiable disposition of the native women, has given rise to a proverb in common use among the Portuguese, English, and Dutch, that the Kingdom of Bengal has a hundred gates open for entrance, but not one for depature.