After stopping six days, I proceeded to Bombay, and on the 30th of May I arrived there. After delivering my passport, I made application for a ship for England, and was some time before I could get one; and the great expense I incurred in living at a tavern, made me entirely pennyless, so that I was forced to dispose of the shawls which I had presented me by the Rajah of Omrouty, and for which I received three hundred rupees each. But before I was finally settled, I had not above ten rupees left. Bombay is an island of Hindostan, on the west coast of the Deccan, seven miles in length, and about twenty-one miles in circumference; the ground is barren, and good water scarce; it was formerly considered very unhealthy, but by draining the swamps and bogs the air is much improved; the inhabitants are of several nations and very numerous, but are principally Persians. The religion of the Persians is, generally, Paganism, directed principally by the priests of magi, men of strict austere life, forbidding the use of either ornament or gold; making the ground their bed, and herbs their food. Their whole time is spent in offering to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of the people, as they only might be heard. The people are _Gentiles_; as to their religion, they worship the sun and moon, and various heavenly bodies, from whom they suppose they derive every blessing of light and warmth; and every morning they gather themselves round the beech and present their morning oblations, by pouring into the sea quantities of milk and odoriferous flowers, and prostrating themselves with their faces to the earth, as a mark of adoration to their rising deity (the sun.) Besides other gods which the Gentiles worship, they are great idolaters of fire, which they offer sacrifices to in time of peace, and carry it with them, as their tutelar deity in time of war. Their adoration is so great, that the first candle they see lighted, let it be in whose place it will, they immediately stop and repeat a prayer. In their habitation they never put it out after it is once lighted. Besides the town of Bombay, which is about a mile in length, with mean houses (a few only excepted), there is a capacious harbour or bay, reckoned the finest haven in the east, where all ships may find security from the inclemency of the different seasons. After remaining here for the space of three months, I was engaged as captain's clerk on board the Hon. Company's Ship Marquis of Huntly. We sailed from hence July 25, 1820, and arrived at the new anchorage in nineteen days' sail; soon after I went up to Calcutta on duty for the ship.