Accordingly we landed and proceeded to make our observations there.
That Panjim is a Christian town appears instantly from the multitude and variety of the filthy feeding hogs, that infest the streets. The pig here occupies the social position that he does in Ireland, only he is never eaten when his sucking days are past. Panjim loses much by close inspection. The streets are dusty and dirty, of a most disagreeable brick colour, and where they are paved, the pavement is old and bad. The doors and window-frames of almost all the houses are painted green, and none but the very richest admit light through anything more civilized than oyster-shells. The balcony is a prominent feature, but it presents none of the gay scenes for which it is famous in Italy and Spain.
We could not help remarking the want of horses and carriages in the streets, and were informed that the whole place did not contain more than half a dozen vehicles. The popular conveyance is a kind of palanquin, composed of a light sofa, curtained with green wax cloth, and strung to a bamboo pole, which rests upon the two bearers’ heads or shoulders. This is called a mancheel, and a most lugubrious-looking thing it is, forcibly reminding one of a coffin covered with a green pall.
At length we arrived at the Barracks, a large building in the form of an irregular square, fronting the Rio, and our British curiosity being roused by hearing that the celebrated old thief, Phonde Sawunt,[9] was living there under surveillance, we determined to visit that rebel on a small scale. His presence disgraces his fame; it is that of a wee, ugly, grey, thin, old and purblind Maharatta. He received us, however, with not a little dignity and independence of manner, motioned us to sit down with a military air, and entered upon a series of queries concerning the Court of Lahore, at that time the only power on whose exertions the agitators of India could base any hopes. Around the feeble, decrepit old man stood about a dozen stalworth sons, with naked shoulders, white cloths round their waists and topknots of hair, which the god Shiva himself might own with pride. They have private apartments in the barracks, full of wives and children, and consider themselves personages of no small importance; in which opinion they are, we believe, by no means singular. Their fellow-countrymen look upon them as heroes, and have embalmed, or attempted to embalm their breakjaw names in immortal song. They are, in fact, negro Robin Hoods and Dick Turpins—knights of the road and the waste it is true, but not accounted the less honourable for belonging to that celebrated order of chivalry. The real Maharatta is by nature a thorough-bred plunderer, and well entitled to sing the Suliot ditty—
“Κλεφτες ποτε Παργαν,”[10]
with the slight variation of locality only. Besides, strange to say, amongst Orientals, they have a well-defined idea of what patriotism means, and can groan under the real or fancied wrongs of the “stranger” or the “Sassenach’s” dominion as loudly and lustily as any Hibernian or Gael in the land.
We now leave Phonde Sawunt and the Barracks to thread our way through a numerous and disagreeable collection of yelping curs and officious boatmen.
“Would your Excellency prefer to visit the hospital, the churches of St. Sebastian and Conceição, the jail, the library, the printing-house, and the bazaars now or to-morrow morning?”
“Neither now nor ever—thank you—we are going to the promenade.”