of Canonor against the Portuguese. There is much traffic in this place, to which two hundred ships come every year from different countries. Having spent some days here we took our way towards the kingdom of Narsinga, and travelled on the mainland for fifteen1 days towards the east, and came to a city called Bisinegar.

THE CHAPTER CONCERNING BISINEGAR, A VERY FERTILE CITY OF NARSINGA IN INDIA.

The said city of Bisinegar2 belongs to the king of Narsinga, and is very large and strongly walled. It is situated

1 Abd er-Razzâk was eighteen days travelling between Bijayanagar and Maganor (Mangalore).

2 Narsinga or Bijayanagar, (I believe that to be the correct orthography of the latter name, but it is spelt in a great variety of ways by modern as well as by earlier writers,) now a ruined city, was formerly the capital of the ancient Brahminical kingdom of the Carnatic, which before the conquests of the Muhammedans extended over the greater part of the peninsula between the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. It is situated on the western bank of the river Toongabudra, in lat. 15° 19', long. 76° 32'. It was visited by Abd er-Razzâk and by Nicolò de' Conti A.D. 1442-1445, and described about twenty-five years later by Nikitin, and their several narratives, contained in the volume entitled India in the Fifteenth Century of the HAKLUYT SOCIETY'S Publications, concur in corroborating Varthema's brief sketch of the vastness and magnificence of this once famous metropolis, and the splendour of its court. The number of elephants, their strength and sagacity, and the large army of the Rajah, which Conti estimated at 90,000 men in the city alone, attracted the special attention of these early travellers. At the period of Varthema's visit, the administration of affairs was in the hands of Heemraj, one of the principal ministers of state, who on the death of See Rajah became regent on behalf of his son, a minor, who died shortly after, and Heemraj so disposed of his successors that he retained almost absolute sway for forty years, and was succeeded in office by his son Ramraj, during whose reign the power of the Bijayanagar state was broken by a confederacy of the Mussulman kings of the Deccan at the battle of Talikote in 1565. "Since that time," writes Ferishta, "the raj of Beejnugger has never recovered its ancient splendour; and the

on the side of a mountain, and is seven miles in circumference. It has a triple circle of walls. It is a place of great merchandise, is extremely fertile, and is endowed with all possible kinds of delicacies. It occupies the most beautiful site, and possesses the best air that were ever seen: with certain very beautiful places for hunting and the same for fowling, so that it appears to me to be a second paradise. The king of this city is a pagan, with all his kingdom, that is to say, idolaters. He is a very powerful king, and keeps up constantly 40,000 horsemen. And you must know that a horse is worth at least 300, 400, and 500 pardai, and some are purchased for 800 pardai, because horses are not produced there, neither are many mares found there, because those kings who hold the seaports do not allow them to be brought there. The said king also possesses 400 elephants and some dromedaries, which dromedaries run with great swiftness. It occurs to me here to touch upon a subject worthy of notice, viz., the discretion, the intelligence, and the strength of the elephant. We will first say in what manner he fights. When an elephant goes into battle he carries a saddle, in the same manner as they are borne by the mules of the kingdom of Naples, fastened underneath by two iron chains. On each side of the said saddle he carries a large and very strong wooden box, and in each box there go three men. On the neck of the elephant, between the boxes, they place a plank the size of half a span, and between the boxes and the plank a man sits astride who city itself has been so destroyed, that it is now totally in ruins and uninhabited; while the country has been seized by the zemindars, each of whom hath assumed an independent power in his own district." After this disaster, the court was removed to Pennaconda, about ninety miles to the southward of Bellary, where the ruins of this once powerful dynasty continued to cast a lingering look at its former greatness till the country was subjected by Aurungzîb in 1685. Bijayanagar, however, was still a large city when visited by Cæsar Fredericke in 1567. See SCOTT's Ferishta, vol. i. pp. 262, 295-298. WILKS'S Historical Sketches of the South of India, Calcutta, pp. 4-15.

speaks to the elephant, for the said elephant possesses more intelligence than any other animal in the world; so that there are in all seven persons who go upon the said elephant; and they go armed with shirts of mail, and with bows and lances, swords and shields. And in like manner they arm the elephant with mail, especially the head and the trunk. They fasten to the trunk a sword two braccia long, as thick and as wide as the hand of a man. And in that way they fight.1 And he who sits upon his neck orders him: "Go forward," or "Turn back," "Strike this ""Strike that one,' one,' ""Do not strike any more," and he understands as though he were a human being. But if at any time they are put to flight it is impossible to restrain them; for this race of people are great masters of the art of making fireworks, and these animals have a great dread of fire, and through this means they sometimes take to flight. But in every way this animal is the most discreet in the world and the most powerful. I have seen three elephants bring a ship from the sea to the land, in the manner as I will tell you. When I was in Canonor, some Moorish merchants brought a ship on shore in this manner, after the custom of Christians. They beach ships the prow foremost, but here they put the side of the vessel foremost, and under the said ship they put three pieces of wood, and on the side next the sea I saw three elephants kneel down and with their heads push the ship on to dry land. Many say that the elephant has no joints, and I say that it is true that they have not the joints so high as other animals, but they have them low. I

1 Nikitin's description is very similar. He says: "Elephants are greatly used in battle. Large scythes are attached to their trunks and tusks, and the animals are clad in ornamental plates of steel. They carry a citadel, and in the citadel twelve men in armour with guns and arrows." India in the Fifteenth Century, iii. p. 12.

* Turpin mentions that the Siamese make use of the elephant "to shove vessels into the water, which he does with his back." PINKERTON'S Voyages, vol. i. p. 615.

tell you, moreover, that the female elephant is stronger and more proud than the male, and some of the females are mad. The said elephants are as large as three buffaloes, and they have a skin like that of the buffalo, and eyes like those of a pig, and a trunk reaching to the ground, and with this they put their food into their mouth as also their drink; for their mouth is situated beneath their throat, and almost like a pig or a sturgeon. This trunk is hollow within, and I have many times seen them fish up a quattrino from the ground with it. And with this trunk I have seen them pull down a branch from a tree which twenty-four of our men could not pull to the ground with a rope, and the elephant tore it down with three pulls. The two teeth which are seen are in the upper jaw. The ears are two palmi every way, some more, some less. Their legs are almost as large at the lower extremity as at the upper. Their feet are round like a very large trencher for cutting meat on, and around the foot there are five nails as large as the shell of an oyster. The tail is as long as that of a buffalo, about three palmi long, and has a few scattered hairs. The female is smaller than the male. With respect to the height of the said elephant, I have seen a great many thirteen and fourteen palmi high, and I have ridden on some of that height; they say, moreover, that some are found fifteen palmi high. Their walk is very slow, and those who are not accustomed to it cannot ride them, because it upsets their stomach, just as it does in travelling by sea. The small elephants have a pace like that of a mule, and it is a pleasure to ride them. When the said elephants are to be ridden, the said elephant lowers one of the hind legs, and by that leg it is mounted; nevertheless, you must help yourself or be helped to mount. You must also know that the said elephants do not carry a bridle or halter, or anything bound on the head.

THE CHAPTER SHOWING HOW ELEPHANTS GENERATE.

The said elephant, when he wishes to generate, goes into a secret place, that is, into the water in certain marshes,1 and they unite and generate like human beings. In some countries, I have seen that the finest present which can be made to a king is the parts of an elephant, which said king eats the said parts; for in some countries an elephant is worth fifty ducats, in some other countries it is worth one thousand and two thousand ducats. So that, in conclusion, I say that I have seen some elephants which have more understanding, and more discretion and intelligence, than any kind of people I have met with. This king of Narsinga is the richest king I have ever heard spoken of. This city is situated like Milan, but not in a plain. The residence of the king is here, and his realms are placed as it might be the realm of Naples and also Venice; so that he has the sea on both sides. His Brahmins, that is, his priests, say that he possesses a revenue of 12,000 pardai per day. He is constantly at war with several Moorish and pagan kings. His faith is idolatrous, and they worship the devil, as do those of Calicut. When the proper time comes we will state in what manner they worship him. They live like pagans. Their dress is this: the men of condition wear a short shirt, and on their head a cloth of gold and silk in the Moorish fashion, but nothing on the feet. The common people go quite naked, with the exception of a piece of cloth about their middle. The king wears a cap of gold brocade two spans long, and when he goes to war he wears a quilted dress of cotton, and over it he puts another garment full of golden piastres, and having all around it jewels of various kinds. His horse is worth more than some of our cities, on account of the ornaments which it wears. When he rides for his pleasure he is always accompanied by three

This peculiarity is also noticed by Turpin. Id. p. 614.

K