Hamilton’s account of the east indies.

357 "

About the year 1660, Aurengzeb came into Vifapore -with an army of 3 01-400,000men, and foon conquered the open country ; but the metropolis, called the city ofVifapore, took him feven or eight years to reduce it, for being built on a flat moun-tain of difficult accefs, and room enough to fow corn on it, obliged Aurengzeb tofurround it with his army, and make a blockade j but at lalt it yielded, and Aurengzebput the King in chains of filver, and carried him in triumph along with his victoriousarm}’ 1 ', near the fpace of thirty years, and then he died an inglorious captive. He wasreckoned a good Ample peaceable prince while he reigned, but was in no way related tothe god Mars.

The Sundah Rajah’s country is mountainous, and lies on both fldes of the moun-tains of Gatti. The vallies abound in corn and pepper, the belt in India - t and the woods,on the mountains, with many forts of wild beafts, as tigers, wolves, monkies, wild,hogs, deer, elks, and wild cattle of a prodigious large Aze. I have feen a wild bullkilled there, v/hofe four quarters weighed above a tun vceight, befides the hide,head and guts. I meafured his horns, which were not long in proportion to theirthicknefs, being twenty three inches in circumference about the roots, and his inar-row-bones fo large, that I took the marrow out with an ordinary fllver-fpoon. Thefleflt was not fo favoury as that of fmall tame cattle, nor would it take fait kindly, butgrew hard, dry and black when falted.

This country is fo famous for hunting, that two gentlemen of diftinction, viz. Mr.Lembourg, of the houfe of Lembourg in Germany , and Mr. Goring, a fon of MyLord Goring’s in England, went incognito in one of the Eaft-India company’s fhips,for India . They left letters directed for their relations, in the hands of a friendof theirs, to be delivered two or three months after their departure, fo that lettersof credit followed them by the next year’s fhipping, with orders from the Eaft-India Company to the chiefs of the factories, wherever they fhould happen tocome, to treat them according to their quality. They fpent three years at Carwar,viz. from anno 1678 to 1681 ; then, being tired with that fort of pleafure, they bothtook paffage on board a Company’s Ihip for England, but Mr, Goring died four daysafter the fhip’s departure from Carwar, and lies buried on the ifland St. Mary,about four leagues from the Ihore, off Batacola, and Mr. Lembourg returned fafe toEngland.

There are three fpecies of tigers in Carwar woods. The fmalleft is the fierceft.

It is not above two feet high when it w'alks. It is very cunning, and delights much inhuman flefli. The fecond fort is about three feet high, and hunts deer and wildhogs, and a little creature, called a piffay. Its body has the fliape of a deer, but itshead like a fvvine; and, as a boar has two long tulks growing upward from the netherjaw, fo it has two long fmall {harp teeth which grow downward from the upper jaw,and reach as low as the under part of the lower jaw. They are very harmiefs andfearful, and feed on grafs and herbs. They are hardly fo big. as a full grown cat,and their flefh is black, and taftes like an hare’s. The largeit Aze of the tigers isabove three foot and an half high, when they walk. They are lefs rapacious thanthe others, feldom greedy of human flefh, and fooner frightned. A poor peafant inthis country had a buffalo bemired in a bog, and while he went to his neighbours foraffiftance came a large tiger that faved them the trouble, for he pulled it out by hisown dexterity and ftrength, and when he had done, threw him over his fhoulder,as a fox does a goofe, and was carrying it, with its feet upwards, to his den, but, whenhe law the people, he let it fall, and went away 5 but he had killed the buffalo, and

8 had