LETTER XLIV.
After eight or ten as disagreeable days as I remember to have spent in my life, weakened with incessant watching, harassed with bodily fatigue, and melted with the excessive heat of the sun, I arrived at the city of Bassora, where I was received with the utmost hospitality by Mr. Latouche, the Company’s Resident from Bombay, who did every thing possible for my accommodation, and procured me every instruction respecting my further progress.
This city, as well as Bagdad, is famous in marvellous story. The country about it is considered by the natives as the best spot in Asia, though the burning winds annoy and frequently destroy travellers, overwhelming them with mountains of hot sand, driven, like waves of the sea, before the tempest out of the neighbouring deserts. It carries on a great trade, and is inhabited by vast numbers of Christians and Jews. The English and Dutch have factories here, as well for the purpose of commerce, as the transit of dispatches, by way of Damascus and Aleppo, to Europe. The richest merchandise of India and Europe are brought here in caravans; and its opulence is greatly increased by the caravans of Pilgrims, who pass through it on their way to Mecca, and pay great duties, bartering for many rich commodities. The horses of this place are celebrated for their superior excellence: it is said that they will run thirty hours without meat or drink; I doubt the fact, and should be sorry to see so inhuman an experiment tried.
One comfortable circumstance attending Bassora is, that at night the streets may be walked with perfect safety at all hours. It is subject to an Arab Prince, who is tributary to the Turk, and whose revenue is very great, as well from the above-mentioned causes, as because he gives full liberty to all Nations to come and trade to his capital.
From Bassora I took my passage in a date-boat going to Muskat, expecting to get from thence a speedy passage to Bombay; but the boat sprung a leak at sea, and we were obliged to run into Busheer, where I was very hospitably received and entertained by Mr. Galley, the Company’s Resident.
There really seemed to be an unusual fatality attending me throughout the whole of my journey. You will recollect, in the first instance, I was prevented, by the war with France, from going by the direct route which I should otherwise have taken, and obliged to pass through the Low Countries and Germany——In the next place, at Venice I was disappointed in obtaining a passage to Latachæa; and, immediately on the heels of that, lost my servant at Trieste, by sending him for letters to Venice——Afterwards, when I had gone to Alexandria with expectation of travelling through Egypt, and viewing that interesting part of the world, I found myself prevented by the unhappy circumstances of the country——the plague raging in Alexandria, and all the roads being blocked up by an incursion of the Arabs. Thus mortified and disappointed, I turned about, in order to make my way in another direction; and arriving at Cyprus, found, to my infinite surprise and regret, that an epidemic disease, little short of the plague, prevailed there, and swept off the inhabitants in great numbers: when, after surmounting all those obstacles, I arrived at Aleppo, the first information I got was, that the caravan was gone, and that it would be a long time before another would be ready; and my departure from Aleppo was attended with circumstances no less inauspicious than my entrance——At Mosul I experienced another disappointment, by the river’s being dried up, and rendered impracticable by boats——My passage from Bassora to Muskat was impeded by the vessel springing a leak——And now, when at last I hoped to get from Busheer to Bombay, I was stopped by the intelligence that the Gulph was blocked up by French privateers, insomuch as no vessel could hope to escape. I was therefore obliged to remain at Busheer, till a Company’s frigate, commanded by Captain Hardy, and soon expected, should afford me an opportunity of proceeding to Bombay. Time, however, brought that period about; and I took my passage, and arrived safe at Bombay, where I soon after embarked on board a Portuguese vessel, being the only conveyance that offered for me to proceed to Madras: she was first bound to Goa, and we arrived safely at that island, where I was received with great politeness, and treated with the most friendly attention, by Mr. Henshaw, the English Resident.
Goa belongs to the Portuguese: the Viceroy of that Nation lives there in great pomp. It was once the scene of the most abominable cruelties, exercised by that flagitious people on the natives, under pretended zeal for Christianity——I had read the Abbé Raynal’s glowing description of it; and as I trod the ground, my frame trembled at the thoughts of the massacres perpetrated there.
I was impatient to get from Goa, and yet I looked forward to my departure with a secret uneasiness, for which I was entirely unable to account——I wished to proceed, and yet some secret foreboding whispered to my heart that I was on the verge of calamity: so powerful was it, and so obstinate, that I could neither reason away its admonitions, nor resist its impressions; and something incessantly told me, in as plain language as if a human being spoke, that I should suffer a dreadful misfortune. As I had all my life been an enemy to superstition, I felt my spirit insulted, and my understanding degraded, by the involuntary victory which I allowed to this impression——I combated it with reason, with ridicule, with self-contempt——all in vain: in spite of me, I became the very slave of gloomy presentiment; and in order to get the succedaneous aid of a friend’s reason, as well as to be prepared, I communicated the state of my feelings to Mr. Henshaw. In vain he endeavoured to cheer me: all he could do was to give me his counsel; in consequence of which I actually settled all my affairs up to that day, made my will, left it with Mr. Henshaw, and, full of dreadful forebodings of shipwreck, went on board a Portuguese snow bound to Madras.
It was now the eighteenth day of May when we sailed from Goa. The hemisphere had been for some days overcast with clouds: some light showers of rain had fallen; and you may conclude that it did not tend to raise my spirits, or free me from my ominous apprehensions, to hear that those circumstances indicated an approaching gale of wind. I observed, moreover, that the vessel was much too deep in the water, being greatly overloaded——that she was in many respects defective, and, as the seamen say, ill-found, and in short very unfit to encounter a gale of wind of any violence. I scorned, however, to yield to those united impressions, and determined to proceed.