A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
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. One may travel as soon from
Agra to Sinde as to Surat, but there is more thieving on the Sinde road,
in spite of every effort of the Mogul government to prevent it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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