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spirits to the Brahmins; whether extracted from the dregs of sugar, from rice, and from the flowers of the madhuca.

In most of the Guzerat villages, and in every part of India where I travelled, are usually one or more potters, who manufacture pots, dishes, and other utensils, from the argillaceous earth: these are turned by the wheel, with the usual simplicity of oriental artificers. Some of the superior workmen manufacture idols, in the Hindoo mythology, of clay, baked and painted, in imitation of those formed of prepared rice, alabaster, and different metals, which were annually imported to a considerable amount at the Baroche Phoorza, when I was custom-master at that settlement; and transported from thence into the interior of Guzerat and Malwa. At the Baroche Phoorza I frequently purchased specimens of Ganesa, and other Hindoo deities, on a small scale, both in rice and alabaster: and the Brahmins at Dhuboy liberally and kindly superintended the silversmith, who made me a set of images, cast in tuthenaque, or Chinese white copper, with the ornaments and utensils of the temple, in gold and silver, of a reduced size. A particular part of the bed of the Nerbudda, not far from Chandode, as also some places at a greater distance in that river, were famous for producing stones exactly resembling the idol appropriated for the worship of Seva. They are formed into this shape by the action of the water, and on that account are deemed particularly holy by the Brahmins in the sect of Seva.

The gencral velocity of the Nerbudda, where the stream is confined to a narrow channel, occasions the friction of the stones to produce a great variety of

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forms, consequently some of the shapes alluded to. Those are all produced in the upper parts of the river; for its bed, in the Baroche and Zinore districts, is entirely of mud, clay, or sand; not the smallest pebble is to be met with. Like most rivers in Hindostan, the Nerbudda overflows its banks in the rainy season, when its limits are confined; a number of large trees and animals are then brought down by the floods from the mountains: some of the former different from those in the plans of Guzerat. These floods seem to be very little influenced by the rain which falls on the plains; they are always occasioned by mountain torrents. There certainly is not so great a fall of rain during the wet season in Guzerat as on the island of Bombay, and the southern parts of the Malabar coast; where the periodical rains generally commence and terminate at the same period, as we experienced at Surat and Baroche. The falls of rain are unequal for almost four months, but the largest quantity always falls in July. From a calculation made and published, it appears that on the island of Bombay, for eight successive years, from 1780, the general average of rain in July, was twenty-two inches, and the most that fell in any one day was six inches. The quantity

of rain which fell in each of those years at Bombay, being thus ascertained, may serve as an estimate for ten degrees of latitude, from 10° to 20° on the west side of the Gaut mountains:

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From May 29th, to October 27th,
From June 12th, to October 12th, 1786 .
From June 11th, to October 12th, 1787 .

General average 63 96

1785.

. 70 2

. 74

. 70 4

CESSION TO THE MAHRATTAS.

337

CHAPTER XI.

Cession of the English Purgunnas in Guzerat to the Mahrattas and Mahdajee Sindia, at the Peace in 1783-Sorrow of the Inhabitants of Baroche, and their behaviour on giving it up to the Mahratta Governor-Noble behaviour of the Inhabitants of Dhuboy on the report of its being restored to the MahrattasPresent of Hindoo Images brought to England-Events of the day on which Dhuboy was to have been delivered up to the Mahratta Pundit-Paper presented by the Elders of Dhuboy, stating their Happiness under the English Government, and their Misery at its being withdrawn-Divination of the Gracia Soothsayers-Departure from Dhuboy-Attack of the Gracias on my Escort-My narrow Escape from the Ambuscade-Poisons among the Ancients-Another Scheme of the Gracias frustrated.

I Now enter upon the painful subject of my last letter from India; it was written from Bombay at the end of the year 1783, when I had taken a final leave of Baroche, Dhuboy, and all the interesting scenes in Guzerat. They then no longer belonged to the English: the British flag, the security of liberty and property in that delightful province, no more waved on her ramparts, and the peasants on her luxuriant plains were abandoned to Mahratta despotism. Ill-fated people, who only experienced the mildness of our

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338

TREATY OF PEACE.

laws, and tasted the sweets of freedom, to find the cup of slavery more bitter!

I shall not discuss the oriental politics at that period. The East India Company had been engaged for several years in an expensive war with the Mahrattas, and Hyder Ally Khan, the two most formidable powers in Hindostan. In the beginning of 1783 the Supreme Government of Bengal concluded a treaty of peace with the Peshwa of the Mahrattas, through the mediation of Mhadajee Sindia, one of the great sirdars, or chieftains, of the empire.

By this treaty, among the purgunnas in Guzerat ceded to the Mahrattas, were those of Dhuboy, Zinore, and the other districts under my jurisdiction; which I was directed to surrender to such officer as might be deputed by the Mahratta state to receive them, agreeably to the terms of the treaty.*

At the same time the Chief and Council of Baroche were ordered by the Governor and Council at Bombay to deliver up that important city and its valuable purgunna, to Bascar Row, agent for Mhadajee Sindia; to whom it had been presented by the Governor-General and Supreme Council of Bengal, " in testimony of the "in sense which they entertained of the generous conduct manifested by the said Mhadajee Sindia, to the government of Bombay, at Wargaum, in January 1779; and of his humane treatment and release of the English gentlemen, who had been delivered as hostages on that occasion." These were the reasons assigned by the

* All the possessions of Mhadajee Sindia, Holcar, &c. in the province of Malwa, have since the year 1818 become British dependencies.-NOTE OF THE EDITOR.

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