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garment with his feet and hands. I had seen some such representations of Cupids and Venuses on gems," adds the Bishop, "but little thought that the thing had its prototype in real life, and was the practice of any modern boatmen." They now entered the river of Jaffiergunge,* the banks of which are populous, and highly cultivated with rice, sugar, cotton, and indigo. The stream became broader till they entered on an immense extent of flat and flooded country, stretching as far as the eye could reach to the north-west, without even trees or any similar object to break the line of horizon. The stream was now in their favour, but the wind, shifting to the S.E., became so strong in their teeth, that the pinnace was at length obliged to be brought to, and the Bishop resolved to hasten forward to Dacca in the jolly-boat. The remainder of his voyage was rapid and easy. As the towers of Dacca rose to sight, the Bishop was surprised at the extent of the place, and the stateliness of the ruins of which the city seemed chiefly to consist. On approaching the shore, while yet at the distance of half a mile from its desolate palaces, a sound struck his ear, as if proceeding from the water, of the most solemn and singular description. "It was long, loud, deep, and tremulous, something between the bellowing of a bull and the roaring of a whale; or, perhaps, most like those roaring buoys which are placed at the mouths of some English harbours, in which the winds make a noise to warn ships off them." It proved to be the bellowing of elephants, of which the Company have here a stud of between two and three hundred. The

• "Called Comercolly in Rennell's map, which here, however, as in other places, probably from some alteration in the course of the stream, is utterly useless."

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whole voyage from Calcutta to Dacca had occupied eighteen days.*

DACCA.

DACCA, the name at least of which is modern,† appears to have succeeded to the honours of Soonergong, a town thirteen miles to the S.E., where Fakher-uddeen, the first independent Mohammedan monarch of Bengal, fixed his residence, A.D. 1340, but which has now dwindled to a village. In the reign of Akbar, Rajmahal was the capital of Bengal; but in 1608, the soubahdar, Islam Khan, made Dacca the seat of his government, changing its name, in honour of the reigning emperor, to Jehanguire-nuggur. Here he built a palace and fort, of which the ruins form an imposing object. Sultan Sujah, in 1639, again transferred the government to Rajmahal; but in 1657, Meer Jumla, the great general of Aurungzebe, again made Dacca the metropolis. It appears to have attained its greatest splendour during this reign; and judging from the magnificence of its ruins, it must have vied in extent and wealth with the greatest cities of India. Under the Moguls, a naval establishment was maintained here, consisting of 768 armed cruizers, designed to guard the southern coast against the ravages of the Arracanese pirates. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Dacca was the residence of Azim Ooshaun, the grandson of Aurungzebe, who

According to Hamilton, Dacca is about 100 miles above the mouth of the Ganges, and 180 by road from Calcutta: by water, owing to the windings of the river, the distance is supposed to exceed 400 miles, and "the journey occupies from one to two weeks."

† It is not mentioned by Abulfazel. It stands in lat. 23° 42′ N., long, 90° 17′ E.

commenced and nearly finished a magnificent palace, now in ruins. It began to decline in consequence of the disorders which followed the invasion of Nadir Shah, and remained in a state of decay until, in 1744, the temporary establishment of a provincial council restored it for a time to a measure of its former importance. Hamilton says, that it suffered greatly, remote as it is, by the French revolution; he means in its commerce, "its beautiful fabrics having been held in great estimation at the old French court." In 1801, although its trade had greatly stagnated, the population was estimated by the magistrates to exceed 200,000 souls, the proportion of Mohammedans to Hindoos being 145 to 130.* The present magistrate, Mr. Master, rates the population at 300,000, having ascertained that there are above 90,000 houses and huts. Including the suburbs, the town extends six miles along the banks of the river. Like other native towns, it is a mixture of brick and thatch dwellings, with very narrow and crooked streets. Bishop Heber describes it as very like the worst part of Calcutta near Chitpoor, but with some really fine ruins intermingled with the mean huts which cover three-fourths of its space. The castle is of brick, yet shewing some traces of the plaster with which it has been covered: the architecture is "precisely that of the Kremlin of Moscow," of which city the Bishop was repeatedly reminded in his drive through the town. pagodas are few and small, owing to the ascendancy of Mohammedism, and almost every brick building has its Persian or Arabic inscription. Most of these

The

* Hamilton, vol. i. p. 186. In the Missionary Register for February 1828, the inhabitants are stated at only 150,000, of whom more than one-half are Mohammedans ; Bishop Heber was informed, three-fourths.

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look very old, but none are of great antiquity. The European houses are mostly small and poor, compared with those of Calcutta; and such as are out of the town, are so surrounded with jungle and ruins as to give the idea of desolation and unhealthiness. cultivation was visible, nor any space cleared, except an area of about twenty acres for the new military lines. Some ruined houses of Grecian architecture, which have a handsome appearance from the river, were the favourite residence of the late Nabob, and were ruined a few years ago, by the encroachments of the river. What the Bishop mistook at first for the spire of a church, proved to be a mut, or obelisk, erected as an act of piety by a Hindoo who, about thirty years ago, accumulated a large fortune in the service of the Company. Another mut, of a similar form, stands a little way out of the town. The castle, the noble mosque, and the palaces of the ancient Nabobs, the factories and churches of the Dutch, French, and Portuguese, are all sunk to ruin and overgrown with jungle. Mr. Master, the British judge, had been present at a tiger-hunt in the court of the old palace, during which the elephant of one of his friends fell into a well overgrown with weeds and bushes. "There are still a few Armenians resident in the town; some of them are wealthy, who have a church with two priests. There are also a few Portuguese, very poor and degraded. Of Greeks, the number is considerable; and they are described as an industrious and intelligent people, mixing more with the English than the rest, and filling many of the subaltern situations under Government." 99 #

There is a very small but pretty

* Heber, vol. i. p. 185. In another place, however, the Bishop says, the English, Armenian, and Greek Christians are not altogether more than sixty or eighty persons.-Vol. iii. p. 297.

Gothic English church, the clerk at which is a Greek. Of English, there are none, except a few indigoplanters in the neighbourhood, and those in the civil or military service. The Serampore Mission has, however, had a station here since 1816. The missionaries conduct religious services in English, Hindoostanee, and Bengalee, and with their preaching connect the superintendence of a large and interesting circle of schools. The trade of Daccå "is reduced to the sixtieth part of what it was." The cotton grown in this district is mostly sent to England raw, and English manufactures are preferred by the inhabitants themselves for their cheapness.*

Dacca is reckoned one of the healthiest stations in Bengal. The climate is mild, the heat being always tempered by the vast rivers flowing near it; and the rapidity of their current carries off the putrid matter brought down by the inundations, more rapidly than is ever the case in the Hooghly. As it enjoys a much more temperate summer than Calcutta, so it is not subject to the offensive fogs which attend the winter and rainy season at Chittagong.+ It is sometimes visited with earthquakes. The river upon which it stands, has greatly altered its character since Major Rennell drew his map. It was then narrow, but is now, even during the dry season, not much less broad

The striped and flowered muslins of Dacca were formerly regarded as inimitable. These delicate fabrics were in such estimation at the Mogul court and among the higher classes of India, as to render it difficult to supply the demand. The manufacture was hereditary in several families. Dimities, and cloths resembling diaper and damask-linen, were also made in this district.

+ Dacca is not exempt, however, from the dire visitations of the scourge of India. More than 1500 persons were carried off by the cholera in the autumn of 1826. The city was quite deserted by the natives, and the courts were closed for between two and three months.

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