[Footnote 258: This is very singular, to find liberty and equality in the mouths of Indian despots and slaves.--E.]
Between Ahmedabad and Trage, there is a rajah in the mountains, who is able to bring 17,000 horse and foot into the field, his people, called Collees or Quuliees, inhabiting a desert wilderness, which preserves him from being conquered. On the right hand is another rajah, able to raise 10,000 horse, who holds an impregnable castle in a desert plain. His country was subject to the government of Gidney Khan, but he has stood on his defence for seven years, refusing to pay tribute. This rajah is reported to have a race of horses superior to all others in the east, and said to be swifter than those of Arabia, and able to continue at reasonable speed a whole day without once stopping; of which he is said to have a stud of 100 mares. From Jalore to the city of Ahmedabad, the whole way is through a sandy and woody country, full of thievish beastly men, and savage beasts, as lions, tygers, &c. About thirty coss round Ahmedabad, indigo is made, called cickell, from a town of that name four coss from Ahmedabad, but this is not so good as that of Biana.
Cambaya is thirty-eight coss from Ahmedabad, by a road through sands and woods, much infested by thieves. Cambay is on the coast of a gulf of the same name, encompassed by a strong brick wall, having high and handsome houses, forming straight paved streets, each of which has a gate at either end. It has an excellent bazar, abounding in cloth of all kinds, and valuable drugs, and is so much frequented by the Portuguese, that there are often 200 frigates or grabs riding there. The gulf or bay is eight coss over, and is exceedingly dangerous to navigate on account of the great bore, which drowns many, so that it requires skilful pilots well acquainted with the tides. At neap tides is the least danger. Thieves also, when you are over the channel, are not a little dangerous, forcing merchants, if not the better provided, to quit their goods, or by long dispute betraying them to the fury of the tide, which comes with such swiftness that it is ten to one if any escape. Cambay is infested with an infinite number of monkies, which are continually leaping from house to house, doing much mischief and untiling the houses, so that people in the streets are in danger of being felled by the falling stones.
Five coss from Cambay is Jumbosier, now much ruined, and thence eighteen coss to Broach, a woody and dangerous journey, in which are many peacocks. Within four coss of Broach is a great mine of agates. Broach is a fair castle, seated on a river twice as broad as the Thames, called the Nerbuddah, the mouth of which is twelve coss from thence. Here are made rich baffatas, much surpassing Holland cloth in fineness, which cost fifty rupees the book, each of fourteen English yards, not three quarters broad. Hence to Variaw, twenty coss, is a goodly country, fertile, and full of villages, abounding in wild date trees, which are usually plentiful by the sea-side in most places, from which they draw a liquor called Tarrie, Sure, or Toddic, as also from a wild cocoa-tree called Tarrie. Hence to Surat is three coss, being the close of the itinerary of Nicolas Ufflet.
The city of Agra has not been in repute above 50 years,[259] having only been a village till the reign of Akbar, who removed his residence to this place from Futtipoor, as already mentioned, for want of good water. It is now a large city, and populous beyond measure, so that it is very difficult to pass through the streets, which are mostly narrow and dirty, save only the great Bazar and a few others, which are large and handsome. The city is somewhat in the form of a crescent, on the convexity of a bend of the Jumna, being about five coss in length on the land side, and as much along the banks of the river, on which are many goodly houses of the nobles, overlooking the Jumna, which runs with a swift current from N.W. to S.E. to join the Ganges. On the banks of the river stands the castle, one of the fairest and most admirable buildings in all the East, some three or four miles in circuit, inclosed by a fine and strong wall of squared stones, around which is a fair ditch with draw-bridges. The walls are built with bulwarks or towers somewhat defensible, having a counterscarp without, some fifteen yards broad. Within are two other strong walls with gates.
[Footnote 259: This of course is to be understood as referring back from 1611, when Finch was there. We have here omitted a long uninteresting and confused account of many parts of India, which could only have swelled our pages, without conveying any useful information.--E.]
There are four gales to the castle. One to the north, leading to a rampart having many large cannon. Another westwards, leading to the Bazar, called the Cichery gate, within which is the judgment-seat of the casi, or chief judge in all matters of law; and beside this gate are two or three murderers, or very large pieces of brass cannon, one of which is fifteen feet long and three feet diameter in the bore. Over against the judgment-seat of the casi, is the Cichery, or court of rolls, where the grand vizier sits about three hours every morning, through whose hands pass all matters respecting rents, grants, lands, firmans, debts, &c. Beyond these two gates, you pass a third leading into a fair street, with houses and munition along both sides; and at the end of this street, being a quarter of a mile long, you come to the third gate, which leads to the king's durbar. This gate is always chained, all men alighting here except the king and his children. This gate is called Akbar drowage; close within which many hundred dancing girls and singers attend day and night, to be ever ready when the king or any of his women please to send for them, to sing and dance in the moholls, all of them having stipends from the king according to their respective unworthy worth.
The fourth gate is to the river, called the Dersane, leading to a fair court extending along the river, where the king looks out every morning at sun-rising, which he salutes, and then his nobles resort to their tessilam. Right under the place where he looks out, is a kind of scaffold on which the nobles stand, but the addees and others wait in the court below. Here likewise the king comes every day at noon to see the tamashan, or fighting with elephants, lions, and buffaloes, and killing of deer by leopards. This is the custom every day of the week except Sunday,[260] on which there is no fighting. Tuesdays are peculiarly the days of blood both for fighting beasts and killing men; as on that day the king sits in judgment, and sees it put in execution. Within the third gate, formerly mentioned, you enter a spacious court, with atescannas all arched round, like shops or open stalls, in which the king's captains, according to their several degrees keep their seventh day chockees.[261] A little farther on you enter through a rail into an inner court, into which none are admitted except the king's addees, and men of some quality, under pain of a hearty thwacking from the porter's cudgels, which they lay on load without respect of persons.
[Footnote 260: Probably Friday is here meant, being the Sabbath of the Mahometans.--E.]
[Footnote 261: Mr Finch perpetually forgets that his readers in England were not acquainted with the language of India, and leaves these eastern terms unexplained; in which he has been inconveniently copied by most subsequent travellers in the East. Chockees in the text, probably means turns of duty on guard.--E.]