But Providence, Which Had
Already Saved Us From The Shipwreck, Would Not Now Suffer Us To Fall
Into The Hands
Of our enemies the Portuguese, who then lay off the bar
of Surat with five frigates to take us and
Our boats, as they had
intelligence of the intended coming of our ill-fated ship; for, contrary
to our wish and intention, we fell in with the river of Gundavee, about
five leagues to the southward of the bar of Surat, where we were kindly
entertained by the governor of the town. We here learnt that our pinnace
had come into the same river, and had been taken possession of by the
Portugueze, but all her men got ashore, and were gone by land to Surat.
[Footnote 293: Purch. Pilgr. I.228. Astl. I.344. We have here given only
so much of the narrative of Jones as supplies additional circumstances
after the end of that by Coverte. - E.]
[Footnote 294: This surely is a gross error, as they could hardly exceed
the distance of a league or two from shore, though the shore is said in
the former narrative to have been twenty leagues from where the ship was
lost. - E.]
The governor of this town of Gundavee is a Banian, and one of those
people who observe the law of Pythagoras. They hold it a great sin to
eat of any thing that hath life, but live on that which the earth
naturally produces. They likewise hold the cow in great honour and
reverence, and also observe the ancient custom of burning their dead.
It has also been an ancient custom among them, for the women to burn
themselves alive along with the bodies of their deceased husbands; but
of late years they have learnt more wisdom, and do not use this custom
so commonly; yet those women who do not, have their hair cut out, and
are ever afterwards held as dishonoured, for refusing to accompany their
husbands into the other world.
On the 7th of September, we left Gundavee to travel by land to Surat,
which might be some thirty or forty miles distant, and we arrived there
on the 9th, where we were met by William Finch, who kept the English
factory at that place. Captain Hawkins had gone up to Agra, which is
about thirty days journey up into the interior country from Surat, and
at which place the King, or Emperor of the Moguls, resides. Our general,
Captain Alexander Sharpey, remained at Surat with his company till the
end of September, when he and the rest of our people went from Surat to
Agra, intending to go by land through Persia in the way to England. But
I, holding this to be no fit course for me, determined to try some other
method of endeavouring to get home. While I was in much uncertainty how
to proceed, it pleased God of his infinite goodness to send a father of
the order of St Paul, who was a Portuguese, who came from Cambaya to
Surat by land, and with whom I became acquainted.
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