[13] “Certainly,” says De Bernier, “if one may judge of the beauty of the sacred women by that of the common people, met with in the streets, they must be very beautiful.” P. 96
“The beauties of Cashmire, being born in a more northern climate, and in a purer air, retain their charms as long, at least, as any European women.”—Grosse, p. 239.
[14] The women are so sacred in India, that even the common soldiery leave them unmolested in the midst of slaughter and desolation.—Dow, History of Hindoostan, vol. iii. p. 10.
[15] “The process of the saint’s canonization,” says the biographer of Xavier, “makes mention of four dead persons, to whom God restored life at this time by the ministry of his servant.”
[16] “Cet excès de chaleur vient de la situation de ces hautes montagnes qui se trouvent au nord de la route, arrêtent les vents frais, reflechissent les rayons du soleil sur les voyageurs, et laissent dans la campagne un ardeur brulante.”—Bernier.
[17] “Il (Bernier) n’eut plutôt monté ce qu’il nomme l’affreuse muraille du monde (parce-qu’il regard Cashmire un paradis terrestre), c’est à dire une haute montagne noire et pelée, qu’en descendant sur l’autre face il sentoit un air plus frais et plus temperé: mais rien ne se surprise tant, dans ces montagnes, que de se trouvir, tout d’un coup, transporté des Indes en Europe.”—Histoire Generale des Voyages, livre ii. p. 301.
[18] According to Forster, the utmost extent of this delicious vale from S.E. to N.W. is scarcely 90 miles; other travellers assert, it to be but 40 miles from east to west and 25 from north to south.
[19] So called by the Hindus and by the ancient annals of India; but Bernier and Forster denominate the capital and its district by the same name as the kingdom or province.
[20] The confluence of streams is sacred to the followers of Brahma.
[21] “L’Eternel, absorbé dans la contemplation de son essence, resolut dans la plenitude des tems de former des êtres participants de son essence et de sa beatitude.”—Shastar, traduit en François.