Six hours’ steaming and broiling under a sun which penetrated the matting of our slow conveyance, as if it had been water within a few degrees of boiling heat, brought us on towards evening. Seeing some difficulty in rowing against every disadvantage, we proposed to our rascally boatmen—native Christians, as usual—to land us at the most convenient place. Coming to a bluff cape, the wretches swore by all that was holy, that we were within a mile’s walk of our destination. In an evil hour, we believed the worse than pagans, and found that by so doing we had condemned ourselves to a toilsome trudge over hill and dale, at least five times longer than they had asserted it to be. Our patience being now thoroughly exhausted, we relieved our minds a little by administering periodical chastisements to the fellow whom our bad luck had sent to deceive and conduct us, till, at length, hungry, thirsty, tired, and sleepy, we found ourselves once more in the streets of Panjim.
Reader, we have been minute, perhaps unnecessarily so, in describing our visit to Seroda. If you be one of those who take no interest in a traveller’s “feeds,” his sufferings from vermin, or his “rows about the bill,” you will have found the preceding pages uninteresting enough. Our object is, however, to give you a plain programme of what entertainment you may expect from the famed town of the Bayaderes, and, should your footsteps be ever likely to wander in that direction, to prepare you for the disappointment you will infallibly incur.
CHAPTER VIII.
EDUCATION, PROFESSIONS, AND ORIENTAL STUDIES.
Panjim and Margao (a large town in the province of Salsette, about fifteen miles south-east of Goa), are the head-quarters of the Indo-Portuguese muses. The former place boasts of mathematical and medical schools, and others in which the elements of history, and a knowledge of the Portuguese, Latin, English, French, and Maharatta languages are taught gratis. The students are, generally speaking, proficients in the first,[49] tolerable in the second, and execrable in the third and fourth dialects above specified. As regards the Maharattas, the study of its literature has been rendered obligatory by government, which however, in its wisdom, appears to have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, that certain little aids called grammars and dictionaries are necessary to those who would attain any degree of proficiency in any tongue. For the benefit of the fair sex there is a school at Panjim. Dancing and drawing masters abound. Music also is generally studied, but the Portuguese here want the “furore,” as the Italians call it, the fine taste, delicate ear, and rich voice of Southern Europe.
At Panjim there is also a printing office, called the Imprensa Naçional, whence issues a weekly gazette, pompously named the Boletim do Governo do Estado da India. It is neatly printed, and what with advertisements, latest intelligence borrowed from the Bombay papers, and government orders, it seldom wants matter. At the Imprensa also, may be found a few Portuguese books for sale, but they are, generally speaking, merely elementary, besides being extravagantly dear.
Physic as well as jurisprudence may be studied at Margao. The same town also has schools of theology, philosophy, Latin, Portuguese, and the rude beginnings of a Societade Estudiosa, or Literary Society. The latter is intended for learned discussion: it meets twice a week, does not publish but keeps MS. copies of its transactions, and takes from each member an annual subscription of about 1l.
Upon the whole, education does not thrive in the Indo-Portuguese settlement. It seldom commences before the late age of nine or ten, and is very soon ended. After entering some profession, and coquetting a little with modern languages and general literature, study is considered a useless occupation. Moreover, if our observation deceive us not, the description of talent generally met with at Goa is rather of the specious and shallow order. A power of quick perception, an instinctive readiness of induction, and even a good memory, are of little value when opposed to constitutional inertness, and a mind which never proposes to itself any high or great object. Finally, the dispiriting influence of poverty weighs heavy upon the student’s ambition, and where no rewards are offered to excellence, no excellence can be expected. The romantic, chivalrous, and fanatic rage for propagating Christianity which animated the first conquerors of Goa, and led their immediate descendants to master the languages and literature of the broad lands won by their sharp swords, has long since departed, in all human probability for ever.