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Such enervating drugs and deleterious potions were well known in ancient Rome. Numantina, the divorced wife of Plautius Sylvanus, a prætor of Rome, was accused of having distempered his brain by drugs and magic spells. Syanus procured a poison to destroy Drusus, which, operating as a slow corrosive, brought on the symptoms of a natural disorder. Piso, and his wife Plancina, were both accused of effecting the death of Germanicus by the same means. Martina, the confidante of Plancina, was notorious for her practices in this diabolical profession; and was sent for from Syria to Rome, to be tried with her employers for the murder of Germanicus; Claudia Pulchra, the friend of Agrippina, widow of Germanicus, was accused of an attempt to poison Tiberius by spells and incantations; and a case still more in point with the modern Asiatic poisons, is the conduct of the second Agrippina, the infamous mother of the infamous Nero, both the unworthy offspring of the virtuous Germa

nicus.

I formerly mentioned the cruel sheep-skin death, sometimes practised by the Mahrattas, which was not forgotten among the various tortures meditated against me by those merciless chieftains. Perhaps, after all, the misery of perishing by thirst in the torrid zone is one of the most dreadful deaths that can be inflicted.

Whether I was to have been taken off by poison, by hunger, or by thirst, is now of little consequence : my destruction was determined, and I escaped. When I reflect on this momentous crisis of my fate, I am naturally led into solemn and grateful contemplation. Near thirty years are elapsed, but the images are not effaced, and the retrospection creates sensations which

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MYSTERIOUS CONDUCT.

I cannot describe. I, who appeared to be the sole object of their revenge, came off unhurt. But their machinations did not end in the wilds of Zinore, that disappointment only increased their resentment, and engaged them in new stratagems.

On the civil and military establishments being withdrawn from Baroche and its dependant purgunnas, our family passed the rainy season at Surat, and, for some time, resided at an English garden-house, without the Veriow-gate, at some distance from the city walls. After living there a few weeks, we observed every evening several persons lurking under the garden hedges, and concealing themselves in the adjoining fields: being strangers in the country, we did not at first attend to them; but a constant repetition of such mysterious conduct at length excited suspicion. I was, at that time, extremely ill of a fever; and never left the house, except to walk in the garden, before sun-set, which was rather earlier than these persons generally appeared. As they seemed to be in pursuit of an object which eluded their vigilance, it at length occurred, that possibly they might be some kind of spies or agents employed by the Gracias to carry me off. On an investigation by the Surat police, this proved to be the fact; and Mr. Callander afterwards obtained certain intelligence of the plot by means of his correspondents in Guzerat. The Gracia rajah of Ahmood informed him, that the Mandwa and Veloria chieftains had again summoned the soothsayers, and made sure of my capture. I was once more destined to a hill fortress, and the emissaries were to have been handsomely rewarded.

Finding their last plot discovered, the Gracia hire

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lings left the Surat districts; but, from an apprehension of similar attempts, we immediately repaired to a house within the city. Having neither health nor spirits to encounter fresh difficulties, I embarked on the first vessel bound to Bombay, on the breaking up of the monsoon. Incantations and ceremonies were performed in the Hindoo temples, to propitiate Ganesa, the god of wisdom and policy, with other deities, in favour of Baroche. Similar supplications were offered up in the Mahomedan Musjids, and at the sacred fires of the Parsees. They speak highly in praise of British administration in India.

Charms, talismans, and magical ceremonies of various descriptions, were said to have been practised by different castes, in hopes of producing the same effect.

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EVACUATION OF BAROCHE.

CHAPTER XII.

Final Departure from Baroche-Arrival at Surat-Abolition of the Nabob's Authority-Consequent Happiness of Surat-Gloomy Aspect of the Company's Affairs in 1783-Effects of a dreadful Storm-Character of Avyar, a celebrated Female PhilosopherPulparra-Introduction of Vaccination in India-Statement of Medical Practice in India-Arrival at Bombay-Excursion to the Islands of Salsette and Elephanta.

THE last chapter concluded with the evacuation of Baroche, Dhuboy, and all the valuable districts belonging to the East India Company in Guzerat. When the yacht on which the chief and council embarked from Baroche arrived on the southern banks of the Nerbudda, we had the mortification to behold the Mahratta flag waving over the ramparts. It was the first time the natives had witnessed that standard of oppression. Their tears and other expressions of sorrow on that sad occasion have been recorded; some of them accompanied us to Surat in hopes of procuring situations under the English Government, either there or at Bombay.

Thus were the civil and military servants on the Baroche establishment, obliged to leave that once happy settlement, in the midst of the rainy season, and to seek an asylum at Surat, until the navigation

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opened to Bombay at the breaking up of the southwest monsoon in October. The three months now spent there afforded but little novelty or interest to a former description in 1772, and several subsequent visits.

The double government which had then existed in Surat, from the conclusion of the treaty entered into by the East India Company with the nabob's father, Moyen Odeen, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was attended with many inconveniences. The firmaun obtained at that time from the Mogul emperor vested the English Company with the government of Surat castle, and the command of the imperial fleet stationed at that emporium. It also gave them power to appoint a naib, or deputy, to the nabob, for the administration of affairs in that city. This mingled government of the English and nabob continued during the reign of Moyen Odeen, who died in 1763, and of his son Cootub Odeen, who filled that station during the whole of my residence in India, and died in 1790. Nizam Odeen succeeded his father in the nabobship, but the authority of the Mogul emperor being at that time dwindled to a name, this title was never confirmed by the court of Delhi. Nizam Odeen dying in 1799, the government of Bombay very properly interfered in the appointment of a successor, with a view of putting an end to tumults, confusion, and mischief, which on various occasions had molested the peace of Surat, occasioned by the exactions, oppressions, and corrupt administration in the nabob's durbar; especially in collecting the revenues and conducting the police of the city. This mal-administration had so often disturbed the happiness of the inhabitants, the walls and