Kasimbazar, Remarkable case of Suttee.

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Charnock he married a Hindoo, and she made a Hindoo of him.'

It was at Berhampore that the Sepoy Mutiny first sounded its note of alarm. On the 26th of February, 1857, the Nineteenth Bengal Native Infantry, quartered at this station, being directed to parade for exercise with blank ammunition, refused to obey the command, and in the course of the following night turned out with a great noise of drumming and shouting, broke open the bells of arms, and committed other acts of open mutiny. By order of the Governor-General, the regiment was disarmed, marched down to Barrackpore, and there disbanded and sent about their business.'

Kasimbazar, the great silk mart of Bengal, is now three miles from the river, and a wilderness. The Dutch, the French, and the English, all had factories here in the last century. The filature and machinery of the East India Company were worth about twenty lacs. In 1677, Mr Marshal, employed in the factory at Kasimbazar, was the first Englishman who learnt Sanscrit, and translated the Sree Bhagbut into English, the manuscript of which is preserved in the British Museum. Job Charnock was chief here in 1681. There occurred here a very remarkable instance of Suttee witnessed by Mr Holwell in 1742, when Sir F. Russell was chief at Kasimbazar. The woman was the relict of a respectable Mahratta. Her friends, the merchants, and Lady Russel, did all they could to dissuade her but to show her contempt of pain, she put her

finger in the fire and held it there a considerable time, she then with one hand put fire in the palm of the other, sprinkled incense on it and fumigated the Brahmins, and as soon as permission to burn arrived from Hosseyn Shah, Fouzdar of Moorshedabad, she mounted the pyre with a firm step.' The great GovernorGeneral, Warren Hastings, was in 1753 a commercial assistant at Kasimbazar, where he devoted much of his time to the study of Persian and Arabic.

Moorshedabad, originally called Mooksoodabad, is said by Tieffenthaler to have been founded by Akber. Though not spoken of in the Ayeen Akberry, the fact does not seem to be improbable. The central position, and its local advantages, may have recommended the spot to the notice of that far-seeing emperor to lay the foundations of its future greatness. Mooksoodabad remained a small place, but on the removal of the seat of Government by Moorshud Cooly Khan in 1704, when its name was changed into Moorshedabad, and when that Governor erected a palace and other public offices, and established the mint, the town rapidly grew in size and importance, rose to be the first place in Bengal, and attracted all eyes as the source of favour, and the centre of wealth and splendour. Including Kasimbazar, Saidabad, Mooteejheel, Jeagunge, and Bhogwangola, it acquired a circumference of thirty miles, and eclipsed Dacca and Rajmahal in their most palmy days.

Of Moorshedabad Proper, the highest size was 5 miles long and 2 miles broad. This was in 1759, only two years after the battle of Plassey, when it had already at

tained its greatest magnitude. To speak of its greatness and opulence in the words of Clive:-The city of Moorshedabad is as extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London, with this difference, that there are individuals in the first possessing infinitely greater property than in the last city.' The population was so swarming, that when Clive entered Moorshedabad at the head of 200 Europeans and 500 Sepoys, he remarked, 'the inhabitants, if inclined to destroy the Europeans, might have done it with sticks and stones.' There was then at the entrance to the town a large and magnificent gateway, and a parapet pierced with embrasures for cannon,' probably erected with other fortifications by Ali Verdi in 1742, when the Mahrattas had spread their inroads up to the suburbs of Moorshedabad, and when the English obtained permission to build a brick wall round their factory at Kasimbazar, with bastions at the angles.'

Up to 1770, Moorshedabad is described by Tieffenthaler as having an immense number of brick stucco houses, adorned with a great number of gardens and fine buildings, and that the Ganges there had an astonishing number of barks and boats on it.' In 1808, Mr Ward thus writes of it: Moorshedabad is full of Moors, very populous, very dusty, except a few large houses and a few mosques, the rest of the town consists of small brick houses or huts into which an European creeps: for two miles the river was lined with trading vessels.' It seems that Mr Ward took Moorshedabad to be a place of the Moors, and states it to have been full of those people.

The fall of the Mussulman dynasty was the first cause of the decay of Moorshedabad. The change of the course of the Ganges, which, deserting Kasimbazar, Mooteejheel, and Kalkapur, ruined the trade of those places, and turned them into 'impervious jungles denying entrance to all but tigers,' forms the second. The third cause must be traced to the dreadful havoc made by the famine of 1770, when desolation spread through the provinces: multitudes fled to Moorshedabad; 7000 people were fed there daily for several months; but the mortality increased so fast that it became necessary to keep a set of persons constantly employed in removing the dead from the streets and roads. At length those persons died, and for a time, dogs, jackals, and vultures were the only scavengers. The dead were placed on rafts and floated down the river, the bearers died from the effluvia, whole villages expired, even children in some parts fed on their dead parents, the mother on her child. Travellers were found dead with money-bags in their hands, as they could not purchase corn with them.' The mortality was so great at Moorshedabad that whole quarters were left haunted, and sojourners returning to their homes found none of their relatives or friends to be living,-and they gave birth to tales of vampires and goblins that yet amuse children in native

nurseries.

The fourth cause must be assigned to the removal of the capital, the Revenue Board, and the Adauluts to Calcutta in 1772. The reason of the removal was-that appeals were thus made to Calcutta direct, and only one

Moorshedabad,-The Punya.

73

establishment kept up; the records and treasure were insecure in Moorshedabad, which a few dacoits might enter and plunder with ease. Hastings also assigned a reason that thereby Calcutta would be increased in wealth and inhabitants, which would cause an increase of English manufactures, and give the natives a better knowledge of English customs.' The abolition of the Punya may be taken into the account as another cause. 'The Punya was the annual settlement of Bengal, when the principal Zemindars and all the chief people of the country assembled at Moorshedabad in April and May: it was abolished in 1772, because it was found that the amils or contractors rack-rented. The Zemindars used to come to the Punya with the state of omrahs, it was viewed as an act of fealty or homage to the Nabob of Moorshedabad, and the annual rent-roll of the provinces was then settled. Khelats were distributed each year in 1767 the Khelat disbursement amounted to 46,750 Rs. for Clive and his Council; 38,000 Rs. for the Nizamut; 22,634 Rs. for the people of the treasury; 7,352 Rs. to the Zemindar of Nuddea; to the Rajah of Beerbhoom 1,200 Rs. ; of Bishenpore 734 Rs.: the sum expended on Khelats that year amounted to 2,16,870 Rs. The practice of distributing these Khelats was of long standing, as they were given to the Zemindars on renewal of their sunnuds, and as a confirmation of their appointment; to the officers of the Nizamut they were an honorary distinction. The people held the Punya in great esteem, and Clive, regarding it as an ancient institution, raised a special revenue col