The 2d We Travelled All Night Eighteen C.
The 3d, From Afternoon Till Midnight, We Went Ten C. The 4th Twelve C.
This Day I Fell Sick And Vomited, Owing To The Bad Water.
The 5th, after
seven c. we came to three wells, two of them salt and one sweetish.
The
6th, having travelled ten c. we came to Nuraquimire, a pretty town,
where our company from Rhadunpoor left us. We who remained were two
merchants and myself with five of their servants, four of mine, ten
camels, and five camel-drivers.
This town of Nuraquimire is within three days journey of Tatta, and to
us, after coming out of the desert, seemed quite a paradise. We agreed
with a kinsman of the Rajah, or governor, for twenty laries, or
shillings, to conduct us on the remainder of our journey. We accordingly
departed on the 8th, and travelled ten c. to Gaundajaw, where we had
been robbed but for our guard. The 9th we were twice set upon, and
obliged to give each time five laries to get free. We came to
Sarruna, a great town of the rajputs with a castle, fourteen coss
from Tatta. We visited the governor, Ragee Bouma, eldest son to sultan
Bulbul, who was lately captured by the Moguls and had his eyes pulled
out, yet had escaped about two months ago, and was now living in the
mountains inviting all his kindred to revenge. The Ragee treated me
kindly as a stranger, asking me many questions about my country. He
even made me sup with him, and gave me much wine, in which he so
heartily partook, that he stared again. A banian at this place told me
that Sir Robert Sherly had been much abused by the Portuguese and the
governor of Larry Bunder, having his house set on fire, and his men
much hurt in the night; and that on his arrival at Tatta, thirteen days
journey from thence, he had been unkindly used by the governor of that
city. He likewise told me of the great trade carried on at Tatta, and
that ships of 300 tons might be brought up to Larry Bunder; and advised
me to prevail upon Ragee Bouma to escort us to Tatta.
According to this bad advice, we hired the Ragee for forty laries to
escort us with fifty horsemen to the gates of Tatta. We departed from
Sarruna on the 11th January, and having travelled five coss we lay all
night by the side of a river. Departing at two next morning, the Ragee
led us in a direction quite different from our right road, and came
about daybreak into a thicket, where he made us all be disarmed and
bound, and immediately strangled the two merchants and their five men by
means of their camel ropes. After stripping them of all their clothes,
he caused their bodies to be flung into a hole dug on purpose. He then
took my horse and eighty rupees from me, and sent me and my men up the
mountains to his brothers, at the distance of twenty coss, where we
arrived on the 14th, and where I remained twenty days a close prisoner.
On the 7th February, an order came to send me to Parkar, the governor
of which place was of their kindred, and that I should be sent from
thence to Rhadunpoor; but I was plundered on the way of my clothes and
every thing else about me, my horse only being left me, which was not
worth taking away.
Arriving at Parkar on the 28th February, and finding the inhabitants
charitable, we were reduced to the necessity of begging victuals; and
actually procured four mahmoodies by that means, equal to as many
shillings. But having the good fortune to meet a banian of Ahmedabad,
whom I had formerly known, he relieved me and my men. We were five days
in travelling from Parkar to Rhadunpoor, where I arrived on the 19th
March, and went thence to Ahmedabad on the 2d April, after an absence of
111 days. Thence to Brodia and Barengeo, thence sixteen c. to Soquatera,
and ten c. to Cambay. We here crossed the large river, which is seven
coss in breadth,[100] and where many hundreds are swallowed up yearly.
On the other side of the river we came to Saurau,[101] where is a town
and castle of the razbootches or rajputs. The 16th of April I
travelled twenty-five coss to Broach. The 17th I passed the river
[Narbuddah], and went ten c. to Cossumba; and on the 18th thirteen c.
to Surat.
[Footnote 100: The great river in the text is assuredly the upper part
of the gulf of Cambay, where the tide sets in with prodigious rapidity,
entering almost at once with a vast wave or bore, as described on a
former occasion in the Portuguese voyages. - E.]
[Footnote 101: Probably Sarrode, on the south side of the entry of the
river Mahy. - E.]
According to general report, there is no city of greater trade in all
the Indies than Tatta in Sinde; its chief port being Larry Bunder, three
days journey nearer the mouth of the river. There is a good road without
the river's mouth, said to be free from worms; which, about Surat
especially, and in other parts of India, are in such abundance, that
after three or four months riding, were it not for the sheathing, ships
would be rendered incapable of going to sea. The ports and roads of
Sinde are said to be free. From Tatta they go in two months by water to
Lahore, and return down the river in one. The commodities there are
baffatys, stuffs, lawns [muslins], coarse indigo, not so good as
that of Biana. Goods, may be carried from Agra on camels in twenty days
to Bucker on the river Indus, and thence in fifteen or sixteen days
aboard the ships at the mouth of the Indus.
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