The town of Damaun, with its ramparts, gateways, and bastions, is picturesquely situated. There is on one side of it a fine old fortress baptized after a Christian saint and called the "Castle of St. Hieronymus," and on the other a deep, navigable river which still bears the favorite Hindoo name of Gunga. The country all round Damaun is well cultivated. The tara palm, the castor oil, the babool, or _Acacia arabica_,[80] were seen in the gardens and plantations. But the interior of the Portuguese town struck me as gloomy and exceedingly filthy, and, though it was full of people--Mohammedans, Hindoos, and Christians, with even Jews and Parsees--it lacked that air of sprightliness and vivacity so noticeable in a purely Hindoo population. It was neither one thing nor the other--not wholly pagan, and only partially Christian. The Roman Catholic chapel here was once a grand mosque. Through the kind introduction of a Portuguese friend we were most cordially received in the home of a venerable native Portuguese named Johnna Castello. The household consisted of himself and the families of two married sons; one of the ladies was indisposed, but the other, Donna Caterina, did the honors of hostess in a simple and unpretending manner. Our pundit had an outhouse placed at his disposal. The establishment did not boast of many rooms, and those in which we were lodged were rough and poorly built of wood. Our meals consisted of rice and curry, fish, _kabobs_,[81] kid and fowl pillau, with a variety of fine fruits and vegetables. Our meals were served apart and in European style, but the quantity of onion and garlic with which almost every dish was seasoned helped much toward shortening our stay here. Besides which, it seemed to me that everything was pickled, from the pork (of which the native Portuguese are very fond) to the young bamboo-shoots. At every fresh course some half a dozen hot, biting pickles were handed around.