What a glad moment it is, to be sure, when the sick and seedy, the tired and testy invalid from pestiferous Scinde or pestilential Guzerat, “leaves all behind him” and scrambles over the sides of his Pattimar. His what? Ah! we forget. The gondola and barque are household words in your English ears, the budgerow is beginning to own an old familiar sound, but you are right—the “Pattimar” requires a definition. Will you be satisfied with a pure landsman’s description of the article in question. We

Early in the morning, rudely roused by curiosity, we went on deck to inspect the celebrated view of the Rio de Goa. The air was soft and fragrant, at the same time sufficiently cool to be comfortable. A thin mist rested upon the lower grounds and hovered half way up the hills, leaving their palm-clad summits clear to catch the silvery light of dawn. Most beautiful was the hazy tone of colour all around contrasted with the painfully vivid tints, and the sharp outlines of an Indian view seen a few

“Señor,” said our cicerone, entering unannounced, at about ten A.M. , “it is time for your Excellency to prepare for an interview with his Excellency the Governor-General of all the Indies; and if it meet with your approbation, we can see the library, and the celebrated statue of Alfonso de Albuquerque on our way to the palacio.” The horses were soon saddled, and the Señor was with some difficulty persuaded to mount. En route his appearance afforded no small amusement to his fellow townsmen, who

The setting sun was pouring a torrent of crimson light along the Rio as the prow of our canoe bumped against the steps of the wharf, warning us that we had at length reached our destination. The landing-place is a little beyond the arsenal, and commands a full view of the cathedral and other conspicuous objects. The first glance around convinced us that we were about to visit a city of the dead, and at once swept away the delusion caused by the distant view of white-washed churches and towers, g

Once more the canoe received us under its canopy, and the boatmen’s oars, plunging into the blue wave, sounded an adieu to old Goa. After the last long look, with which the departing vagrant contemplates a spot where he has spent a happy day or two, we mentally reverted to the adventure of the Latin professor, and made all preparations for hearing it to the end. “Well, Sahib,” resumed Salvador, “I told you that my master’s known skill in such matters was at first baffled by the professor’s bashf

The black Christians, like the whites, may be subdivided into two orders; first, the converted Hindoos; secondly, the mixed breed of European and Indian blood. Moreover, these latter have another distinction, being either Brahman Christians, as they ridiculously term themselves, on account of their descent from the Hindoo pontifical caste, or common ones. The only perceptible difference between them is, we believe, a moral one; the former are justly renowned for extraordinary deceitfulness and t

After an unusually protracted term of isolation and friendlessness, we were agreeably surprised by meeting Lieutenants L⸺ and T⸺, walking in their shooting-jackets, somewhat slowly and disconsolately, down the dusty wharf of New Goa. It is, we may here observe, by no means easy for a stranger—especially if he be an Englishman—to get into Goanese society: more difficult still to amuse himself when admitted. His mother tongue and Hindostanee will not be sufficient for him. French, at least, or, wh

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 dialect

At a time when public attention is so deeply interested in the twin subjects of colonization and conversion, some useful lessons may be derived from the miserable state of the celebrated Portuguese settlement; even though our present and their past positions be by no means parallel in all points, and though a variety of fortuitous cases, such as the pestilence and warfare which led to their decadence, cannot or may not affect our more extended Indian empire. The Portuguese, it must be recollecte

Can those three or four bungalows, with that stick-like light-house between them and the half-dozen tiled and thatched roofs peeping from amongst the trees, compose Calicut—the city of world-wide celebrity, which immortalised herself by giving a name to calico? Yes; but when we land we shall find a huge mass of huts and hovels, each built in its own yard of cocoas with bazaars, vast and peculiar-looking mosques, a chapel or two, courts and cutcherries, a hospital, jail, barracks, and a variety o

The province, now called Malabar, is part of the Kerula Rajya, the kingdom of Kerula, one of the fifty-six deshas , or regions, enumerated in ancient Hindoo history as forming the Bharata Khanda or Land of India. It is supposed to have been recovered from the sea by the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, who in expiation of a matricidal crime gave over to the Brahmans, particularly to those of the Moonsut tribe, the broad lands lying between Go-karna [71] and Kanya Kumari, or Cape Comorin. The country

When Parasu Rama, the demigod, departed this transitory life, he left, as we said before, the kingdom of Malabar as a heritage to the priestly caste. For many years a hierarchy of Brahmans governed the land. [88] At length, finding themselves unable to defend the country, they established Nair chiefs in each Nad (province), and Desha (village), [89] called from their places of jurisdiction Nadwallee and Deshwallee. The main distinction between them seems to have been, that whereas the latter cou

We are informed by the Moslem historians that their faith spread wide and took deep root in the southern parts of Western India, principally in consequence of the extensive immigration of Arabs. It may be observed that the same cause which provided the Hindoos with serfs, supplied the stranger with proselytes: a Rajah would often, when in want of money, dispose of his outcastes to the Faithful, who, in such cases, seldom failed to make converts of their purchasers. The Moplahs, or Mapillahs, [11

Being desirous of seeing as much as possible of the country we preferred the route which winds along the sea-shore to Poonanee, and then striking westward ascends the Blue Hills, to the short mountain-cut up the Koondah Range. Our curiosity, however, more than doubled the length of the march. [133] No detailed account of the ten stages [134] will be inflicted upon the peruser of these pages. The journey as far as Poonanee was a most uninteresting one: we have literally nothing to record, except

The distance from Coonoor to the capital of the Neilgherries is about ten miles, over a good road. We propose, however, to forsake the uninteresting main line, and, turning leftwards, to strike into the bye way which leads to the Khaity Falls. Khaity is a collection of huts tenanted by the hill people, and in no ways remarkable, except that it has given a name to a cascade which “everybody goes,” &c. After six miles of mountain and valley in rapid and unbroken succession, we stand upon t

If a bachelor, you generally begin by depositing your household gods in the club buildings, or one of the two hotels [156] —there is no travellers’ bungalow at Ootacamund—if a married man, you have secured lodgings by means of a friend. The Neilgherry house merits description principally because it is a type of the life usually led in it. The walls are made of coarse bad bricks—the roof of thatch or wretched tiles, which act admirably as filters, and occasionally cause the downfall of part, or t

Speaking seriously, the dearth of diversion or even occupation at Ootacamund, considerably diminishes its value as a sanitary station. It is generally remarked, that a man who in other places drinks a little too freely, here seldom fails to bring on an attack of delirium tremens. After the first excitement passes away, it is apt to be succeeded by a sense of dreariness and ennui more debilitating to the system than even the perpetual perspirations of the plains. The chief occupations for a visit

There are five different races now settled upon the Blue Mountains:— The Bergers, Vaddacars, [180] or, as the Todas call them, the Marves, are an uninteresting race of Shudra Hindoos, that immigrated from the plains in the days of Hyder or Tippoo. They attempt to invest their expatriation with the dignity of antiquity by asserting that upwards of four centuries ago they fled to the hills from the persecutions of Moslem tyrants. This caste affects the Lingait or Shaivya [181] form of Hinduism, co

What a detestable place this Ootacamund is during the rains! From morning to night, and from night to morning, gigantic piles of heavy wet clouds, which look as if the aerial sprites were amusing themselves by heaping misty black Pelions upon thundering purple Ossas, rise up slowly from the direction of the much-vexed Koondahs; each, as it impinges against the west flank of the giant Dodatetta, drenching us with one of those outpourings that resemble nothing but a vast aggregation of the biggest