certain fruits which are called chofole, which resemble a muscatel nut. He also eats certain leaves of herbs, which are like the leaves of the sour orange, called by some tamboli; and then he eats some lime of oyster shells, together with the above mentioned things. When he has masticated them well, and has his mouth full, he spurts it out upon that person whom he wishes to kill, so that in the space of half an hour he falls to the ground dead. This sultan has also three or four thousand women, and every night that he sleeps with one she is found dead in the morning. Every time that he takes off his shirt, that shirt is never again touched by any one; and so of his other garments; and every day he chooses new garments. My companion asked how it was that this sultan eats poison in this manner. Certain merchants, who were older than the sultan, answered that his father had fed him upon poison from his childhood.

Let us leave the sultan, and return to our journey, that

1 A similar account is repeated by Odoardo Barbosa, who appears to have visited Cambay shortly after Mahmûd Khân's death. He says: "I have heard that he was brought up from childhood to take poison; for his father fearing that, in accordance with the usage of the country, he might be killed by that means, took this precaution against such a catastrophe. He began to make him eat of it in small doses, gradually increasing them, until he could take a large quantity, whereby he became so poisonous, that if a fly lighted on his hand, it swelled and died incontinently, and many of the women with whom he slept died from the same cause." (RAMUSIO, vol. i. pp. 294-5.) Varthema seems to have believed further, that Mahmûd's spittle, after masticating the Betel leaf, in conjunction with the fruit of the Areca palm and fine lime, was fatal to any upon whom his Majesty might choose to eject it. Beyond the fact that he was an enormous eater, I can find nothing to substantiate these fabulous statements, which remind us of Mithridates, and of the Arabian Nights. The author of the Miraät Sikandari, quoted by 'Ali Muhammed Khân, says: Sultan Mahmûd was the best of all the Guzerat kings, on account of his great justice and beneficence, his honouring and observing all the Muhammedan laws, and for the solidity of his judgment, whether in great or small matters. He attained a great age, and was distinguished for strength, bravery, and liberality." BIRD'S Translation, p. 203.

is, to the men of the said city, the greater part of whom go about in a shirt, and are very warlike and great merchants. It is impossible to describe the excellence of the country. About three hundred ships of different countries come and go here. This city, and another of which I will speak at the proper season, supply all Persia, Tartary, Turkey, Syria, Barbary, that is Africa, Arabia Felix, Ethiopia, India, and a multitude of inhabited islands, with silk and cotton stuffs. So that this sultan lives with vast riches, and fights with a neighbouring king, who is called king of the Ioghe, distant from this city fifteen days' journey.

THE CHAPTER CONCERNING THE MANNER OF LIVING AND CUSTOMS OF THE KING OF THE JOGHE.

This king of the Ioghe1 is a man of great dignity, and has about thirty thousand people, and is a pagan, he and all his subjects; and by the pagan kings he and his people are considered to be saints, on account of their lives, which you shall hear. It is the custom of this king to go on a pilgrimage once in every three or four years, like a pilgrim, that is, at the expense of others, with three or four thousand of his people, and with his wife and children. And he takes

1 I am unable to identify this "king of the Ioghe" (Joghees), with whom Sultan Mahmûd is said to have been at war. No dependance can be placed on Varthema's names and distances when given on the report of others. In this instance he probably indicates the Rajah of Eedur in the Myhee Kanta, against whom Mahmûd marched with a large force in 1494, and between the Koolee Rajahs of which place and the sovereigns of Guzerat there was a succession of fierce contests from A.D. 1400 till the latter country became a province of Akbar's empire in 1583. (See BIRD's Translation of the Mirát Ahmadi, pp. 121, 137, 222, 266, 325. Also FORBES's Ras Mala, vol. i. pp. 378, 381, 385, et seq.)

Perhaps the place of pilgrimage referred to by Varthema was the famous Buddhist shrine (Boodkhâna) at Perwuttum, which Nikitin describes as "the Jerusalem of the Hindoos, where people from all parts of India congregate." India in the Fifteenth Century, iii. p. 16.

four or five coursers, and civet-cats, apes, parrots, leopards, and falcons; and in this way he goes through the whole of India. His dress is a goat skin, that is, one before and one behind, with the hair outwards. His colour is dark tawny, for the people here begin to be more dark than white. They all wear a great quantity of jewels, and pearls, and other precious stones, in their ears, and they go dressed à l'apostolica,1 and some wear shirts. The king and some of the more noble have the face and arms and the whole body powdered over with ground sandal-wood and other most excellent scents. Some of these people adopt as an act of devotion the custom of never sitting on any high seat; others, as an act of devotion, never sit on the ground; others adopt the custom of never lying at full length on the ground; others, again, that of never speaking. These always go about with three or four companions, who wait upon them. All generally carry a little horn at their neck; and when they go into a city they all in company sound the said little horns, and this they do when they wish alms to be given to them. When the king does not go, they go at least three or four hundred at a time, and remain in a city three days, in the manner of the Singani. Some of them carry a stick with a ring of iron at the base. Others carry certain iron dishes which cut all round like razors, and they throw these with a sling when they wish to injure any person; and, therefore, when these people arrive at any city in India, every one tries to please them; for should they even kill the first nobleman of the land, they would not suffer any punishment because they say that they are saints. The country of these people is not very fertile ;

We have here the same expression as in page 78. On second thoughts, I am inclined to think that Varthema borrows his figure from the Roman toga, in which the old Italian artists generally represent the Apostles. Not an inapt comparison with the manner in which the common people of India frequently wear the langhûti.

2 Zingani, gipsies (?).

By no means an exaggerated account of the austerities practised by

they even suffer from dearth of provisions. There are more mountains than plains. Their habitations are very poor, and they have no walled places.1 Many jewels come into our parts by the hands of these people, because through the liberty they enjoy, and their sanctity, they go where jewels are produced, and carry them into other countries without any expense. Thus, having a strong country, they keep the Sultan Machamuth at war.

THE CHAPTER CONCERNING THE CITY OF CEVUL, AND ITS CUSTOMs, and the BRAVERY OF ITS PEOPLE. Departing from the said city of Combeia, I travelled on until I arrived at another city named Cevul,2 which is distant some of the Joghee Fakîrs, and of the estimation in which they were held by their co-religionists. On this occasion, Varthema is more modest in his description than either Bernier or Hamilton, who descend to the most disgusting particulars in the habits of these filthy ascetics. See PINKERTON'S Voyages, vol. viii. pp. 180, 317-8.

1 This description of the country inhabited by Varthema's "Ioghe" confirms me in the impression that the Myhee Canta is indicated.

* Chaul, Choul, or Chowul, a town and seaport of the Northern Concan, in the British district of Tannah, twenty-three miles south of Bombay. It appears to have been a place of considerable trade in former times. Nikitin, the Russian traveller, who calls it Chivil, visited it about thirtyfive years before Varthema, and describes the manners of the inhabitants much as he does: "People go about naked, with their heads uncovered, and bare breasts... Their kniaz [prince] wears a fata [a large silken garment] on the head, and another on the loins; the boyars wear it on the shoulders and on the loins, [Varthema's alla apostolicha.] The servants of the kniaz and of the boyars attach the fata round the loins, carrying in the hand a shield and a sword, or a scimitar, or knives, or a sabre, or a bow and arrows; but all naked and barefooted." (India in the XVth. Century, iii. 8, 9.) Ralph Fitch, who was at Chaul in 1583, after its capture by the Portuguese, says: "Here is great traffic for all sorts of spices and drugs, silk and cloth of silk, sandals, and elephants' teeth." The trade had fallen off considerably in Hamilton's time, for he says: "the place is now miserably poor." PINKERTON's Voyages, ix. p. 408; viii. p. 351.

from the above-mentioned city twelve days' journey, and the country between the one and the other of these cities is called Guzerati. The king of this Cevul is a pagan. The people are of a dark tawny colour. As to their dress, with the exception of some Moorish merchants, some wear a shirt, and some go naked, with a cloth round their middle, with nothing on their feet or head. The people are warlike their arms are swords, bucklers, bows and spears made of reeds and wood, and they possess artillery.

:

This city is

extremely well walled, and is distant from the sea two miles. It possesses an extremely beautiful river, by which a very great number of foreign vessels go and return, because the country abounds in everything excepting grapes, nuts, and chestnuts. They collect here an immense quantity of grain, of barley, and of vegetables of every description; and cotton stuffs are manufactured here in great abundance. I do not describe their faith here, because their creed is the same as that of the king of Calicut, of which I will give you an account when the proper time shall come. There are in this city a very great number of Moorish merchants. The atmosphere begins here to be more warm than cold. Justice is extremely well administered here. This king has not many fighting men. The inhabitants here have horses, oxen, and cows, in great abundance.

THE CHAPTER CONCERNING DABULI, A CITY OF INDIA. Having seen Cevul and its customs, departing thence, I went to another city, distant from it two days' journey, which is called Dabuli,1 which city is situated on the bank of

1 Situated in the British district of Rutnagherry, in lat. 17° 34' N., long. 73° 16′ E., on the northern bank of the river Washishtee, (called Halewacko and Kalewacko by the earlier navigators), and about two miles from its mouth apparently a place of little consequence now, as it is