file led by a sergeant, a body of forty moormen and a flagman carrying St. George's colours swallow-tailed in silk fastened to a single partizan." The President was carried in a Palki emblazoned with the royal escutcheon and lined with rich silks, and his Council were "in large coaches drawn by stately oxen." Fryer gives us a sketch of the native coach in which the factors rode. He was one of the old travellers who describes things as exactly as they see them, and this is the virtue which causes them to defy the power of oblivion. The works of Bernier, Tavernier, Terry, Hamilton, and Fryer, though two centuries have lapsed since they were first printed, still contain the most accurate and graphic accounts of India that have ever been published. These men were shrewd observers, and they note with care the physical appearance of the land through which they pass, the customs of the people, the hovels of the poor, and the palaces of the great. By simple speech they make us their companions in their wanderings. The modern traveller discusses the ryotwari system and the salt tax. Fryer tells us that the "Combies till the land and dress the corn with no remarkable difference from other Nations, they plough with Oxen, their coulters unarmed mostly, Iron being scarce, but they have hard wood which will turn their light grounds." “Their oxen are Little but all have a Bunch on their neck," ""the women are Neat, well shaped and Affectionate to their children, Bearing them Naked on their Hips astraddle." By these touches he brings to our eyes and minds the ordinary life of the changeless East. His little sketch of the coach carries us into the very heart of a daily scene. "Two large Milk-white Oxen are putting in to draw it, with circling Horns as black as a Coal, each Point tipped with Brass, from whence come Brass Chains across to the Headstall, which is all of Scarlet, and a Scarlet Collar to each, of Brass Bells, about their Necks, their flapping Ears snipped with Art, and from their Nostrils Bridles covered with Scarlet. The Chariot it self is not swinging like ours, but fastened to the main Axle by neat Arches which support a Foursquare Seat, which is inlaid with Ivory, or enriched as they please; at every Corner are turned Pillars, which make (by twisted Silk or Cotton Cords) the Sides and support the Roof, covered with English Scarlet Cloth, and lined with Silk with Party-coloured Borders; in these they spread Carpets, and lay Bolsters to ride cross-legged, sometimes three or four in one : It is born on two Wheels only, such little ones as our Fore-wheels are, and pinned on with a Wooden Arch, which serves to mount them: The Charioteer rides before, a-straddle on the Beam that makes the Yoke for the Oxen, which is covered with Scarlet, and finely carved underneath; he carries a Goad instead of a Whip: In Winter (when they rarely stir) they have a mumjuma, or Wax-cloth to throw over it. Those for Journeying are something stronger than those for the Merchants to ride about the City or to take the Air on; which with their nimble Oxen they will, when they meet in the Fields, run Races on, and contend for the Garland as much as for an Olympick Prize; which is a Diversion, To see a Cow gallop, as we say in scorn; but these not only pluck up their Heels apace, but are taught to amble, they often riding on them." The merchants at home did not approve of the ostentation of their servants. They told the President that they would be better pleased if he would suppress his rising ambition and modify his inordinate love of display; and to enable him the more readily to renounce all pomps and vanities they ordered that he should only be styled Agent, and reduced his salary to £300 a year. When Surat was taken possession of by the English in 1759 the commercial period came to an end. Fifty years went on, and when the East India Company assumed the entire government of the city and its dependencies, the Chiefship and Council were abolished, and a Lieutenant-Governor of the Castle was appointed. Three years later the title was changed into "Agent of Government at Surat." Surat, from being the seat of power and government, became a mere district of Bombay. The old factory, the scene of so much revelry and splendour, was converted into a lunatic asylum and a refuge for the native sick. Briggs, the author of Cities of Gujarashtra, who visited Surat in 1847, speaks of it as "a noble pile." "Lusty timbers of huge dimensions, and walls intended to last as long as any of those of the old houses at home,' barred windows below and heavy gates without, tell of other and glorious times." Thirty years ago, when we first visited Surat, what was left of the old factory was only a portion of the original lodge, which had been converted into a private dwelling. The fragment, however, deserves to be maintained with pious care by the State as one of the most interesting relics of our race. The factory at Surat in less than a century expanded into an empire which in extent of territory and in multitude of subjects rivalled Rome. Leaving the English factory and proceeding to the north, we came to an open plot of ground with a cross which marked the site of the altar of the chapel of the Capuchins, who for a century, according to Hamilton in A New Account of the East Indies (1700-1720), "practised surgery gratis to the poor Natives of what Persuasion soever." Close to the church was the French lodge, of which only the lines of the foundations remain. Behind the French lodge are a few rooms of the Portuguese factory, "a fortification built for a never waning dominion; strong, durable, impregnable to the native host: a receptacle for the pomp and pageantry of life." The sepulchral ruins in the cemetery of Surat, massive and ponderous in their elaborate masonry, are all that is now left to remind the traveller of the pomp and show of former days. The old factors were of the same mind as poor Cleopatra : "Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, The most stately monument is that erected over those "most brotherly of brothers, Christopher and Sir George Oxinden." There is no weak affectation or sentimentalism in George Oxinden's tomb; but it is worthy of the man who, with a handful of Europeans, held his factory against the whole Mahratta army. It is forty feet in height and twentyfive in diameter, and includes two domes, with staircases and galleries, supported on massive pillars. It appears from the Latin inscription that the lower dome was first built to commemorate Sir George's brother Christopher, and was surmounted by one to commemorate himself. Christopher's epitaph has too much of the ledger about it to please. It laments his short life, for it was only possible to reckon his days, and not his years, before death required the account. "Do you ask, my masters, what is your profit and loss? You have gained sorrow, but he has lost his life; per contra let him write, Death to me is gain." We may quote one more from the many quaint epitaphs to be found in the Surat cemetery : 6 "In memory of Mary Price, wife of William Andrew Price, Esq., Chief for affairs of the British nation and Governor of the Moghul's Castle and Fleet of Surat, who, through the spotted veil of the small pox, rendered a pure and unspotted soul to God, expecting but not fearing death which ended her days. April the thirteenth, Anno Domini 1761. Aetatis suae 23. "The virtues which in her short life were shown Have equalled been by few, surpassed by none.' From the English cemetery we pass over, as Fryer did, to the Dutch tombs, "many and handsome, most of them Pargetted." They stand in a neglected patch of ground studded with fruit-trees, and some wild parasite is bursting asunder their walls. "Grand, noble, for the expanse of ground it covers, its height, its peculiar style of sculpture is the mausoleum erected over the last resting-place of Mr. Van Rheede, to whom Oriental history pays the tribute of eulogy in denominating the Maecenas of Malabar. At a period when European residents in India wholly directed their attention to mercantile adventure, or attempted political aggrandizement, he could spare the leisure to devote to scientific research; and his labours have provided Holland with many valuable manuscripts and other equally important curiosities, while some of his statements still challenge enquiry. His Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, a work in |