PLACES

CHEUL

Ceul (Alibag taluka, 18° 33' N, 73° 00' E, p. 6,751 RS. Bombay,35 m.) formerly known as Ceul or Revdanda on the coast about thirty miles south of Bombay, lies at the west end of the right or north bank of the Kundalika river or Roha creek. From the harbour, the whole site of the former cities of Portuguese and Musalman Ceul is hid by thick orchards and palm groves, which, from the sea on the west and the river on the south, stretches about three miles north-east to a range of low rocky hills. The rich groves of fruit trees, the shady lanes, the numerous wells and the double-storied garden-houses have an air of comfort and prosperity. Ceul formerly was divided into upper and the lower Ceul. At present, however, it is only a single inhabitation.

The following table shows the chief forms under which the name Ceul has appeared:-

The Name of Ceul.

History.

Ceul is a place of great antiquity. Under the names of Campavati and Revatiksetra, local Hindu traditions trace it to the times when Krsna reigned in Gujarat (B. C. 1200)[The name Champavati is derived either from the champa tree, the champa fishing net, or from a king named Champa. The name Revatikshetra is said to come from Revati, the wife of Balaram, Krishna's brother. (Da Cunha's Chaul, 4). The primeval city is said to have had 1,600,000 buildings, 360 temples and 360 ponds. It is said to have been divided into sixteen wards or pakhadyas, three of which Dod, Dakhavada and Murad afterwards formed Portuguese Chaul. Da Cunha's Chaul 106-109.].This Revatiksetra was visited by the third Pandav, viz., Arjuna during his forced pilgrimage. The Raivatak mountain is the same hill where the temple of Dattatraya is situated. It seems probable that Ceul is Ptolemy's (A. D. 150) headland and emporium of Semulla or Timulla, between the Binda river or Bassein creek and Balipatna that is Palepattan or Mahad.

The place has a special interest as Ptolemy mentions that he gained information about Western India from people who had come from Semulla to Alexandria and had been acquainted with the country for many years [The passage in Ptolemy (Lib. I. Cap. XVII) runs 'The Indian emporium of Symulla is placed by Marinus to the west not only of Cape Comorin but even of the river Indus, though it is stated to lie to the south of the river by those who have sailed to it and from it, and who have for long been familiar with those parts, and by those also who have come to us from there and who say that the place is locally called Timula. From these people we have learnt other things about India especially about its provinces as well as of the inland parts of that country as far as the Golden Chersonese. Bertius' Ptolemy, pp. 19, 198. The possibility of Chemul being Pliny's (A.D. 77) Perimula, the greatest emporium in India half way between Trb-pina or Cochin and Haidarabad in Sindh (see McCrindle's Megasthenes, 142), has been suggested in the History Chapter. Also that it may be Automula 'a noble' emporium on the coast belonging to the Horatae'. (Ditto 146).]. About the same time (A.D. 130) the name appears in two Kanheri cave inscriptions as Cemula[Bombay Gazetteer, XIV, 172, 173.], the residence of two brothers who made gifts to the monastery. About a hundred years later (A.D. 247) it appears in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, as Semulla the first local mart south of Kalliena [McCrindle's Periplus, 129.].

In the fifth century it again occurs as Cemula in one of the Kanheri cave inscriptions [Bombay Gazetteer, XIV, 189. The Greeks Symulla and the Kanheri Chemul were till lately identified with Cheul. But the discovery of the village Chembur sometimes pronounced Chemud, in Trombay island in Bombay harbour has made it doubtful whether the old trade centre was there or at Cheul. The following reasons seem to favour the view that Cheul, not Chembur, was the Greek Symulla First it is unlikely that two places so close and so completely on the same line of traffic as Kalyan (the Kalliena of the Periplus) and Chembur, should have flourished at the same time. Second, the expression in the Periplus 'below (weta) Kalliena other local marts are Semulla' points to some place down the coast rather than to a town on the same harbour as Kalliena, which according to the author's order, north to south should have been named before it. Third, Ptolemy's point of headland of Symulla has no meaning if the town was Chembur in Bombay. But it fits well with Cheul as the headland would then be the south shore of Bombay harbour, one of the chief capes in this part of the coast, the south head of the gulf or bay whose north headland is at Bassein. The identification of Simulla point with the south shore of Bombay harbour is borne out by Fryer (1675) (New Account 52) who talks of Bombay facing Cheul and notices the gulf or hollow in the shore stretching from Bassein Cheul point. The old (1540) Portuguese name, Cheul Island, for the Isle of Khanderi off the south point of Bombay harbour, further supports this view. See Dom Joa Castro Primeiro Roteiro de Costa da India, 56.]. It is perhaps mentioned early in the sixth century (A.D. 525) by the Greek merchant and monk Kosmas Indikopleustes as Sibor, a leading place of trade between Kalyan and the Malabar ports [Topographia Christiana in Migne's Bibloitheca Cleri Universe, I, 446, 450.], and perhaps, about a hundred years later (642) as Cimolo by the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang [Foe Koue Ki, 391. The following is Hiuen Tsang's account of Tchirrilo. Tchimilo is also called Molokiutho. It is in Southern India and has circuit miles (5000 lis). Great riches come from the sea. The people are black and savage. To the east (south in Julien's Hiuen Tsang, I, 193) of the town are burial mounds built by Ashoka and his younger brother. The kingdom is bordered on the south by the sea. To the east is the mountain of Moloye and to the east of that is the mountain of Pon-tha-lo-kia. From this rises a river which encircles the hill and falls into the southern sea. To the north-east of that hill on the seashore is a city from which they sail to the south sea and Ceylon. Ceylon is 500 miles (3000 lis) to the east.].

Several points in this account though they are very vague, support the view, which the close resemblance of name suggests that Chimolo is Chemula or Cheul. The other name Molokiutho, or may also be Malakuda the hill of Kuda, about twenty miles south of Cheul famous for its Buddhist caves. These identifications are very doubtful. According to General Cunningham (Ancient Geography, 549-552), Hiuen Tsang's route brings Malakuta to the south-east of the continent. He identifies Molokiucha or Malakuta with Madura; and Chimola or Jhi-mu-ra with Ptolemy's Limurike or Damurike that is the Tamil country. Sain-Martin (Julien's Hiuen Tsang, III, 399) states that Hiuen Tsang knew of Malakuta and Chimolo by hearsay only. He identifies Malakuta with the Malabar coast and Chimolo with Kumari that is Cape Comorin.

Ceul next appears; under the names Saimur and Jaimur in the writings of the Arab travellers of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries [Masudi (915), Muhalhil (941), Al Biruni 1030), and Al Idris (1130) call it Saimur. Elliot and Dowson, I, 24, 27, 30, 66, 85. Like the Greek name the Arab name comes almost as close to Chembur as it comes to Cheul. At the same time it seems probable that Cheul not Chembur was the Arab Saimur. Thana was at this time one of the chief towns, if not the chief town in the Konkan (Masudi Prairies d'Or, I. 381 ; Al Biruni Elliot, I. 66 ; Jaubert's Al Idris (172), and it seems unlikely that Chembur in Trombay and Thana were places of importance at the same time. Beside,  Masudi speaks of Saimur as a province as well as a town (Prairies d'Or, I. 381), and Al Biruni, the best authority, after, naming the ports in order southwards to Thana goes on, "There you enter the country of Laran where is Jaimour, Malia, and Kanji, ' (Elliot, I, 66). This phrase could hardly have been used of a town on the same side of the same harbour as Thana.].

It is described (915) as in the province of Lar, the most southern coast town in the dominions of the Balhara Emperors, probably the Rathods of Malkhet near Hyderabad [Masudi writes it Mankir. He correctly describes it as far inland though his distance (640) miles is too great. Prairies d'Or, I, 178.].

In the beginning of the tenth century (915), when visited by Masudi the Arab traveller, Saimur was under the government of a local prince called Djandja, that is Jhanjha the fifth of the northern branch of the Silaharas who ruled the Konkan from about A.D. 820 to 1260 [See Thana Statistical Account, Bombay Gazetteer, XIII, 422, note I, 424, 435 and note 1.]. Besides Hindus the town had a Musalman population of about 10,000 some of them country-born, others immigrants from Siraf, Oman, Basrah and Bagdad who had married and settled in Ceul. They were very prosperous, some of them distinguished merchants, well cared for by the Emperor who let them build mosques and had chosen one of their number to settle their disputes [Prairies d'Or, I, 381; Elliot and Dowson, I, 24. Masudi has a curious passage about the self-sacrifice which he says was then common among the people of the Konkan. When a man wished to burn himself he had first to get the king's leave. When leave was granted, while the pyre was being prepared, the victim passed through the streets with the sound of timbrels and cymbals, clad in silk, and attended by friends. His head was crowned with tuhi or sweet basil and shaved, and on it were placed burnt pieces of sulphur and gum sandarach. As he went he chewed betel-nut and betle-leaves. When he had made the circuit of the town he came back to the fire and threw himself into it. In one case of which Masudi was an eye-witness a young man, after making the round of the town, on coming to the fire stood before it without a sign of fear or uneasiness. He then seized a knife and ripped open his belly, put his left hand into the wound, grasped his liver, drew it out, cut it with the knife, handed it to one of his brothers, and leaped into the fire. It was usual, when a king died or was killed, for a number of persons who were known as 'Friends of the King' to burn themselves alive. It made one shudder to hear the stories that were told of the tortures and punishments which the Indians had imagined. They underwent these tortures because for every pain here they looked for a pleasure hereafter. Masudi Prairies d'Or, II, 85, 87. In connection with this passage of Masudi it is worthy of note that in some battle scenes, probably of about the same date, or a little later, near Shahapur in Thana men are shown leaping into a blazing fire.]. The language of the people was said to be Lari that is Gujarati [Gujarati may have then been the language of trade in Cheul as it now is in Bombay. References to Lar or Lat are given in Bombay Gazetteer, XII 57, note 1. The name survives in the Lad division of Vanis, Vanjaris and other castes, and perhaps in the local Maratha phrases Var-lat for inland Konkan, and Khallat for coast Konkan.].

Some years later (942), though this is less trustworthy, the people are described as very beautiful, born of Indian and Turkish and Indian and Chinese[Kawini(1263), from Ibn Mubalhil, (941) Elliot's History, I, 97; Yule's Cathay, I, cxcii. The Chinese element in the population is not impossible.] parents, eating neither flesh, fish, nor eggs. Besides the Hindus there were Musalmans, Christians, Jews, and Parsees or fireworshippers. On a high place was a temple with very holy images adorned with turquoises and rubies, and the strangers had mosques, churches, synagogues, and fire temples. The Turks brought merchandise; and certain kinds of aloes and wood, though not grown there, were called Saimuri from its fame as a market. A few years later (970) Saimur is described as a great strong city with abundance of mangoes, coconuts, onions, and rice, but no dates [Ibn Haukal (943-976) Elliot, I, 38.]. At the end of the eleventh century (1094), in a copper plate grant of the fourteenth Silahara king Anantdev, under the form Cemuli, it is mentioned as a port like Shurparak (Sopara) and Shristhanak (Thana [ Indian Antiquary, IX, 38.]). In the twelfth century it was a large well built town with coconut trees and henna in abundance and on the hills many aromatic plants [Al Idrisi (1153) in Elliot, I, 85. Idrisi is confused placing Saimur five days from Sanjan and only two from Broach and in a different 'climate' from Thana. See Elliot and Dowson, I. 85-87.].

In the thirteenth century, according to a local story, Ceul was under a chief of the Devgiri family of Yadavas, who attacked and defeated the ruler of Mahim or Bombay [Trans. Bom. Geog. Soc. VI, 132.]. Early in the fourteenth century (1312) it is mentioned as one of the centres of Yadav power in the Konkan, which were brought to subjection by Malik Kafur, the general of Ala-ud-din Khilji (1297-1351[Brigg's Ferishta, I, 379; Nairne's Konkan, 24.]). The discovery of a stone with a Kanarese inscription near the Ramesvar temple suggests that the early Musalmans did not maintain their hold on Ceul, and that, with the Southern Konkan, Ceul passed for a time under the Goa Viceroy of the Vijayanagar or Anegundi kings (1336--1587). If the Vijayanagar kings held Ceul their power did not last long. In 1357 it is mentioned as the chief town of one of the Bahamani provinces (1347-1490)[Scott's Ferishta, I, 10, 13; Briggs's, II. 295; Jervis's Konkan, 62, 63.]; in 1378 as a town in which Muhammad, the nephew of Alla-ud-din Bahamani I (1347-1358), a most just and kindly ruler, established rich schools for orphans [Da Cunha's Chaul, 13.]; in 1380 Ferishta noticed it as great town apparently the chief port of the Bahamanis [Scott's Deccan, I, 56, 73.]; and, at the close of the century (1398), as one of the chief ports of the Konkan, from which the Bahamani king Firuz (1397-1422) sent ships to bring the manufactures and curious wares of all parts of the world, and talented men the choicest of all products [Brigg's Ferishta, II, 368. The only notice of Cheul traced in the 14th century travellers is in Mandeville (1322-1356) who speaks of the. island or province of Chhava or Chava, and gives the same details about idolatrous natives and big rats as Friar Oderic (1321) gives of Thana. Hakluyt's Voyages, II, 143. Yule (Cathay 27-28) shows reasons for believing that Mandeville was not a real traveller.]. The Russian traveller Athanasius Nikitin (1470) calls it Civil. He does not seem to have been struck with the riches or trade of the place. Except a few of the upper classes who wore silk, the people went naked with uncovered heads and bare breasts. They were black and many followed to stare at the white man [Major's India in the 1 5th Century; Nikitin, 8, 9.]. About twenty years after Nikitin's visit (1490), Ceul passed from the Bahamani to the Ahmadnagar dynasty (1490- 1595), and, as their chief port, was well cared for. Shortly after the beginning of the sixteenth century Varthema (1503-1508) describes Cevul as on a beautiful river about two miles from the sea, well walled with a warlike population whose arms wore swords, bucklers, bows, spears, and artillery. The country between Cevul and Combeia (Cambay) was called Gujarati. The king was a pagan who administered justice well but had not many fighting men. The country was rich in horses, oxen, and cows and in everything except grapes, nuts and chestnuts. There were many Moorish merchants, and there was a large export of grain, barley, vegetables, and cotton stuffs. The air was more warm than cold and the people were of a dark tawny colour. Except the Moorish merchants, they wore a shirt, and some went naked with a cloth round the middle but nothing on their feet or head. Their creed was the same as the creed of the king of Kalikat[Badger's Varthema, 114. This Hindu governor of Cheul may have been either an officer appointed from Ahmadnagar or a local tributary chief. The father of Malik Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadnagar dynasty, was a Brahmin, and Ahmad employed Brahmins in the highest posts (Elphinstone's History, 669). 0n the other hand, at this time (Bom. Gaz. XIII, 411, 450) the ruler of Thana seems to have been a tributary not an officer of the Gujarat king.].

About this time (1505) the Portuguese first appeared at Ceul [Ferishta, II, 706.]. Knowing that the Sultans of Egypt and Gujarat had bound them-selves to drive them out of the Indian seas, the Portuguese at first treated all Musalmans as enemies. A young Portuguese Commander, Dom Lourenco de Almeida, the son of the Viceroy, cruising in search of the enemy's fleet, anchored off Ceul with a squadron of ten ships, and attacking all Musalman vessels caused great destruction [Da Cunha's Chaul, 23.]. This display of strength induced the Ahmadnagar king to come to terms with the Portuguese and agree to pay them a yearly sum of £600 (2,000 gold pardaos) for the protection of Ceul ships [Da Cunha's Chaul, 23-30.].

Towards the close of 1508 an Egyptian fleet of twelve sail, commanded by Amir Husain, a Persian noble, and with 1,500 Mamelukes on board, arrived of Diu. They were joined by Malik Eiaz, the Gujarat governor of Diu, with a fleet of forty small vessels, and together sailed south in search of the Portuguese [4 With the help of the Venetians, their partners in loss, the Egyptians brought timber from the Dalmatian hills to Alexandria, and, taking it across the desert, built their ships at Suez. Kerr's Voyages, VI, 111.]. Dom Lourenco was waiting for reinforcements in Ceul harbour with a squadron of eight ships. Most of his men were ashore when news came that a great unfriendly fleet was coming from the north. Before the enemy's fleet entered the harbour, Lourenco brought his ships to a strong position for defence, and though Husain pressed them with his whole strength the attack failed. During the night the Egyptian fleet retired across the river behind the shelter of the shallows, and waited for Malik Eiaz and the Gujarat squadron. At daybreak Lourenco renewed the fight, bearing down on the enemy with such skill and vigour that he captured two galleys and all but boarded Husain's ship. This, the strength of the tide and the courage of the Mamelukes prevented, and, shortly after, just before evening, Malik Eiaz appeared with his fleet of forty sail. A skilfull movement by some of the Portuguese ships prevented the union of the Egyptian and Gujarat squadrons. As he was badly wounded, and as the enemy were strong enough to block the whole river mouth, his Captains advised Lourenco to make his way to the open sea under cover of night. But he refused to slink away and ordered them to be ready next morning to force the enemy's line. At daybreak, seeing the Portuguese ready to start, Malik Eiaz, though his vessels were small, came out against them, and, in spite of heavy loss, blocked the passage. Most of the Portuguese forced their way through, but the Admiral's ship, still commanded by the wounded' Lourenco, ran foul of some fishing stakes, and went on the rocks. Lourenco, though again wounded, cheered on his men, and the crew kept the Gujarat ships at bay till Lourenco was kill-ed by a bullet in the breast. The ship was then taken and sunk [Malik Eiaz saved twenty of the prisoners, treated them with kindness, and wrote to condole with the Viceroy on the death of his son. The loss was according to the Portuguese in killed and wounded 264 on their side, and 600 of the Turks. According to Ferishta 400 Turks went to heaven and 4,000 Portuguese went to hell. DaCunha'sChaul,29.]. Shortly after this, their victory over the Egyptian fleet at Diu (February 1509[The Portuguese were much helped by the conduct of Malik Eiaz who, probably with good reason, fearing the Egyptians little less than he feared the Portuguese gave them scanty assistance and entered into a treaty with the Portuguese.]), more than made up to the Portuguese for their reverse at Ceul. Their position as Lords of the Sea was establish-ed; Malik Eiaz courted their alliance, and the Viceroy, on his way south, stopped at Caul (April 1509), and, on the basis of the former engagement, entered into a formal treaty with Burhan Nizam Shah (1508-1553) the Ahmadnagar king, promising to protect his port and trading vessels on condition that the Portuguese were acknowledged rulers of the Sea and received a yearly payment of £600 (2,000 gold pardaos [Da Cunha's Chaul, 32.]).

Under the Portuguese, who, though most destructive to the ports that refused to acknowledge them as lords of the sea, were very careful to protect Ceul, the trade of the port rapidly increased.

In 1514, when Barbosa visited Ceul, the governor, a Moorish gentleman with the title of Xech or Shaikh, was a vassal of the king of Decani, that is the Ahmadnagar king, and collected his revenues and accounted to him for them. He kept the country in good order, was a great friend of the Portuguese, and treated strangers with kindness. There was always a Portuguese factor in Ceul appointed by the captain of Goa whose chief duties were to send supplies to Goa and to the Portuguese fleet. Ceul was not a large town. Its houses were well built, but all were thatched. In the rainy season there were few inhabitants, but, by December, numbers began to pour in, bringing their goods in great caravans of oxen, one man for about thirty or forty beasts, with packs like donkeys' packs and on the top long sacks placed crosswise. They stopped about three miles from the town, set up their shops, and during December, January, February, and March the place was like a fair [In 1514 Cheul was the only great trade centre between Surat and Goa. Thana though a pleasant well built town had little trade, and was troubled by pirates; and Dabul and the other Bijapur ports were depressed by the Portuguese. Stanley's Barbosa, 68.]. By sea there was a great trade with the Persian Gulf and Arabia, cocoanuts being exported and dates and horses imported [Stanley's Barbosa, 16, 28, 31, 42.]. There was also a great coasting traffic with Malabar and Goa to the south and with Gujarat to the north. Some of the ships belonged to Gujarat, but the bulk of the trade seems to have been in the hands of the Malabar vessels. During the busy months December, January, February and March, many ships came from Malabar laden with cocoanuts, betelnuts, spices, drugs, palm-sugar and emery. They also brought from the factories of the king of Portugal much copper, quicksilver, and vermilion, all of which were largely used both inland and in Gujarat. From Gujarat there came copper, quicksilver and vermilion by way of Mekka and Diu, cotton stuffs, and many other goods. From Ceul the Malabar boats took wheat, vegetables, millet, rice, sesame, sesame oil, pieces of fine muslin for women's head-dresses, and many cotton stuffs called beranis. Malabar boats that went on to Guja-rat took with them from Ceul chiefly muslins and cotton cloths; and Gujarat boats, on their return voyage, took copper, quicksilver, vermilion, muslin, and cotton stuffs, much of the muslins and cotton stuffs going by Diu to Arabia and Persia. [Stanley's Barbosa, 60, 69-71. The author of the Mohit (1540), or Arab Voyages, speaks of Shiul as a port of the Deccan, exporting muslins from Kendhar, Daulatabad, and Burhanpur. Jour. Beng. As. Soc. V.-2, 461.] In his account of the exports from Ceul, Barbosa does not distinguish between local products and articles brought from the Deccan. It seems probable that the vegetables, rice, some of the sesame, and some of the cotton cloths were local, and that the wheat, millet, a share of the cotton cloth and the bulk of the muslins came from the Deccan. [Barbosa notices that the people wore the cotton cloths for a few days and then bleached them very white, gummed them and exported them. Thus it came, he adds, that some were found torn. Stanley's Barbosa, 70.]

In 1516 Burhan (1508-1553), the Ahmadnagar king, allowed the Portuguese to build a factory at Ceul and to have freer access than before to the harbour. In 1521 Ceul was burnt by the Bijapur fleet, and, in spite of a Portuguese defeat off the mouth of the river the Ahmadnagar king remained friendly to them allowing them, or according to another account pressing them to build a fort at Lower Ceul, one of his chief objects being to secure a supply of horses. [Faria in Kerr, VI-191.] In spite of the treachery of Shaikh Muhammad, the Musalman governor of Ceul and the opposition of Malik Eiaz of Diu, who lay off the river for three weeks and harassed the builders, the fort was finished in 1524[Da Cunha's Chaul, 35, 37.]. In 1528 the Gujarat fleet, aided by some Turkish ships, attacked Ceul, but were scattered by a joint Portuguese and Ahmadnagar squadron. Next year (1529) hostili-ties were renewed and Ceul was plundered by a party of Gujarat troops.[Bird's Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 237.] This campaign closed unfortunately for the Portuguese. Burhan Nizam of Ahmadnagar was defeated by Bahadur Shah (1526-1536) the Gujrat king. He was forced to acknowledge Gujarat supremacy, and by the gift of a scarlet umbrella of royalty became Bahadur's closeally. [Scott's Deccan, I. 370.] Under Gujarat influence the Ahmadnagar king seems to have picked a quarrel with the Portu-guese and done them much harm. [In 1530 the Portuguese suffered a repulse at Cheul. Briggs' Fer'shta, III. 531.] On Bahadur's death in 1535 the frendship between Ahmadnagar and the Portuguese was renew-ed, and in 1538 Ceul was a great and illustrious city, the emporium of the largest part of the east [Bom Joao de Castro Primeiro Roterio, 50. The following is a summary of De Castro's account of the Cheul river. It is a great river made noble by the deeds of Dom Lourenco, and well provided with food, four leagues from Danda Rajpuri and fifty-seven from Goa. Within the bar to the south of the river is a great and beautiful hill which, from outside, appears to be an island. To the north of the hill are two sand banks one of which runs straight to the bar and the other meets the river. To the south of the hill is a long 1ow tongue of sand, which is the reason why the rock has been thought to be an island. From the place where this tongue ends]. In 1545 its people distinguished themselves by their zeal in supplying funds for the relief of Diu then hard pressed by a great Gujarat army. [Diu was twice besieged, in 1538 (September-November) by a strong fleet of Turks, and in 1545 (March-November) by a great Gujarat army. The defence in both cases was conducted with the most distinguished bravery and resource. See Kerr's Voyages, VI. 268, 400. The ladies of Cheul offered to send their earrings, necklaces, bracelets and other jewellery. There are jewels in Cheul, wrote one lady, enough to carry on the war for ten years. Da Cunha's Chaul, 43, 44.] Till 15.S7 peace continued unbroken. Then the Portuguese, on the accession of Husain Nizam Shah (1553-1565) of Ahmadnagar, sent to propose the cession of Korle, the isolated high ridge that lies across the mouth of the river. To this Husain would not agree, and. to pre-vent any attempt of the Portuguese to seize the hill, he sent some of his best officers with orders to build a strong fort at Korle.[One of the officers was Chulabi Rumi Khan, a distinguished soldier from Asia Minor who had served in Europe and was the maker of the great Bijapur bronze gun. Briggs' Ferishta, III. 239-248. Compare Waring's Marathas 47.] The Portuguese did their best to prevent this. The Goa fleet came to their help. And, after some fighting, the dispute was settled by an agreement that the point should remain unfortified. In 1570:[At his time in the Gujarat accounts (Bird's Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 129) Cheul, or Chaiwal, is entered as one of the ports of the Europeans which yielded revenue to Gujarat. This revenue was not tribute; it was perhaps some cess levied on Gujarat ships trading with Cheul.] Ahmadnagar and Bijapur combined against the Portuguese, and, in 1571 (16th February), the Ahmadnagar king, with an enormous force and very strong and well served artillery, laid siege to Portuguese Ceul. [According to Portuguese writers Murtuza had 34,000 horse, 100,000 foot, 30,000 pioneers, and 4,000 artisans some of them Europeans. He had 300 elephants and 40 pieces of artillery of enormous size able to throw stone balls of 100, 200, and 300 pounds weight (Kerr, VI. 430-432). On the march some of these guns could be taken in pieces. Their shooting is described as wonderfully accurate. [Caesar Frederick, (1583), Hakluyt II. 345]. The Portuguese had nicknames for each of the big guns, the Cruel, the Devourer, the Butcher. Kerr's Voyages, VI. 432; Da Cunha's Chaul, 49.] For such an attack the Portuguese were badly prepared. The town was defended by a single wall, a fort not much larger than a house, and a handful of men [Da Cunha's Chaul, 48.]. Acting with Murtuza's land force the fleet of the Zamorin of Kalikat blockaded the river mouth. But the Kalikat fleet was soon dispersed, and the Portuguese received such strong reinforcements of rises a high rugged hill which to the north falls abruptly and throws out a narrow point, in which, at the foot of a great green tree, is a well of water. Inside of the hill, the land along the river is low untill it meets a very long point behind which the river disappears. The other or north bank of the river is one beautiful shore. Facing the hill, a spit of sand runs into the river and from it the shores stretch in different directions. The sea or outer shore runs to the north-west, but that which goes inside the river takes a turn to the east. The Portuguese fortress stands on the spit of sand. A little to the east the shore begins to bend and the river forms a great bay on the north of which is the city of Cheul. The bar of the river has one sandbank. At low tide there are standing pools on it, and at high tide the depth is 2½ fathoms. The channel is wide. It runs from south-east to north-west and on both sides are great banks where the sea continually breaks. These sandbanks run north-east and south-east to north and south. The larger one is in the channel. The other which comes from the side of the hill and enters by the river is small. About a gunshot from the point of sand at the foot of the hill, where the shores turn in different directions, banks stretch in two long arms. One runs straight to the point of the hill which is over the bar and the other along the coast men and ammunition, that they were able to break the force of the siege, by holding some of the outlying fortified buildings, among which are mentioned the Franciscan monastery, the Church of the Dominicans, and the Misericordia. The Francis-can monastery was the first to be attacked and after standing a five days' bombardment the garrison was safely withdrawn. For a month the siege was closely pressed, the walls were breached in many places, and the garrison reduced to defend themselves in separate houses. Still they were reinforced from time to time, and kept tip so lively a defence, that for five months the siege made little progress. At last, on the 29th of June, a general assault was ordered. Many of the outworks were taken, but they were recovered and, after lighting till evening, the enemy had to retire with the loss of 3,000 men. As both sides were anxious for peace, a treaty was made and the Ahmadnagar king withdrew. [According to Ferishta the Ahmadnagar king had to raise the siege owing to the treachery of his officers who were bribed especially by presents of wine (Briggs, III. 254). According to Faria-y-Souza the Moors feared a woman who went before the Portuguese in the fight, so bright that she blinded them. Many went to see her image in the church in Cheul and were converted and stayed there. Da Cunha's Chaul,54.]

After the siege (1577) the Portuguese repaired their defences and raised fortifications along the southern shore. At this time the prosperity of the city was at its highest. Of all places on the coast Ceul had the greatest number of ships from the Red Sea and Ormuz as well as coasting traders. [Fitch in Harris, II. 207.] In 1583 the Dutch traveller Jean Hugues de Linschot described 'Chaul' as a fortified city with a good harbour and famous for trade. It was well known to the merchants of Camhay, Sind, Bengal, Ormuz, Maskat and the shores of the Red Sea. The merchants were rich and powerful owning a great number of ships. Rice, peas and other pulses butter, oil. and cocoanuts were plentiful, also ginger but of a kind little esteemed. There were also some but not many cotton fabrics. Many Gujaratis and Cambav Banias had settled in Ceul. They dealt in rice, cotton and indigo, especially in precious stones in which they were very skilful. In arithmetic the Banias surpassed all Indians and even the Portuguese. Near Ceul was a city inhabited from ancient times by the people of the country, which had a great manufacture of silks. The raw silk was brought from China and worked into robes. Beds, chairs, and cabinet were also made in this city in admirable style and a covering given them with lac of all colours. The air was good, the climate cool and the most healthy in the whole of India [Navigation, 17, 20-21, 73.]. About 1586, the Venetian traveller. Caesar Frederick [Caesar Frederick was in India for over twenty years, from about 1563 to 1585. He was in Cambay twelve years after the conquest of Gujarat by Akbar (1573) and, came from Gujarat to Cheul. Hakluyt's Voyages, II, 344,], noticed the two cities of Ceul, the Portuguese city at the mouth of the harbour very strongly walled, and the Moor city a mile and a half up the river. Both were sea ports with great trade. The imports were, from the Indian coast, coconuts [Frederick (Hakluyt's Voyages, II. 344-345) enlarges on the coco palm the most useful tree in the world. Of its timber they built houses and ships, and of its branches bedsteads, its nuts yielded from the outer rind oakum, from the inner shell spoons, and from the kernel wine, sugar and oil, its bark yielded cord, and its leaves sails and mats. There was a great number of cocoa-palms in the country between Cheul and Goa, and from Kochin and Kananor there came to Cheul every year fifteen large ships laden with cured nuts and sugar.], spices, and drugs;. and from Portugal, Mekka, and China, sandals, raw and manufactured silk, velvet, scarlet cloth, and porcelain. The exports were to other parts of India, Malacca, Macao in China, Ormuz, East Africa, and Portugal, iron, borax, assafoetida, corn, indigo, opium, silk of all kinds, and an infinite quantity of cotton goods, white, painted, and printed. Of local industries there was the weaving of great quantities of silk cloth, and the manufacture of paltry glass beads which were sent in large numbers to Africa. [Kerr's Voyages, VI 153, 206, 474. About the same time (November 1584 Cheul was visited by Ralph Fitch, John Newbury, William Leeds the jeweller, and James Story the painter, the first English merchants who came to India. Fitch's account is much the same as Frederick's. He speaks of a great trade in all kinds of spices, drugs, silk raw and manufactured, sandals, ivory, much China work, and a great deal of cocoanut sugar. (Hakluyt, II. 382). Besides the Portuguese traffic there was a large Musalman trade with Mekka bringing many European goods and sending away opium, indigo and other articles (Ditto, 384-398). The trade is horses, though not noticed by these travellers, was still important. Do Coute's XIII. 165.

There would seem to have been a strong Jain and Gujarat Wani element among the merchants of Cheul as Fitch describes the Gentiles as having a very strange order among them. They worshipped the cow and greatly esteemed the dung and the cow to paint the walls of their houses. They killed nothing, not so much as louse, for they deemed it a sin to kill anything. They ate no flesh, but lived upto roots, rice, and milk. When the husband died the widow was burned with him she was alive; if she refused to burn her head was shaven and there was never as account made of her after. They say, if they should be buried, it were a great sin for, of their bodies, there would come many worms and other vermin, and when their bodies were consumed those worms would lack sustenance which were a sin, therefore they will be burned. In Cambay, he adds, they will kill nothing, nor have anything killed; in the town they have hospitals to keep lame dogs and cats and for birds. They will give meat to the ants. Fitch in Hakluyt's Voyages, II. 384. ]

In 1592 (A. H. 1000)[Some Portuguese authorities give 1594, Da Cunha's Chaul, 42; Faria-y-Souza gives 591. Kerr, VI. 474.] Burhan Nizam II (1590-1594) of Ahmadnagar, who seems to have had some dispute with the Portuguese Viceroy, sent a force to Ceul and ordered a fort to be built at Korle [Briggs' Ferishta, III. 284.]. When the fort was finished his troops began to annoy the Portuguese, battering the walls of the Portuguese fort from across the river. At the same time the country to the north of Portuguese Ceul was invested, and, in spite of brilliant sallies, the Ahmadnagar guns made great breaches in the Ceul walls. But, as before, the garrison received constant supplies and reinforce-ments from sea. On the 4th of September 1594 the governor, Alvarode Abranches, at the head of 1,500 Portuguese and as many trusty natives, crossed over in small boats, and landing on the Korle shore, pressed on, and aided by the lucky chance of a dead; elephant blocking the gate took the fort [Details are given under Korjai. In 1590 Ismael of Ahmadnagar sustained severe defeat at the hands of the Portuguese. Waring's Marathas, 49,]. This brilliant success raised the name of the people of Ceul high among the Portuguese. They were granted the right to choose their judge or Ouveidor, and had other municipal powers conferred on them.

In spite of the decline of the Portuguese, Ceul was still prosper-ous. Its power at sea was unchallenged, its trade was great and gainful, and the city was safe from attack and full of magnificent buildings [Almost all of the buildings, were finished before the close of the sixteenth century. The chief dates are: the Castle 1524; the Cathedral, 1534; the Church of the Franciscans, 1534; the Church and convent of the Dominicans, 1549; the House of Mercy, 1550; the south face of the Town Walls, 1577; and the Church, convent, and college of Jesuits, 1580.]. Soon after the beginning of the seventeenth century Ceul was visited by the French traveller Francois Pyrard (1601-1608 [In 1599 Foulke Grevil in his Memoir mentions Choule as one of the five kingdoms of Malabar. Bruce's Annals, I. 125.]). He described the town and fortress of Portuguese Ceul as quite different from Daman and Bassein, because the country was extremely rich, abounding in valuable goods, which merchants from all parts of India and the east, chiefly Hindus and idolators, came to seek. The climate was healthy and living was cheap. Portuguese Ceul was very strong, and Upper Ceul was a great centre of manufacture with very deft and hard working craftsmen who made a great number of chests and chinese-like cabinets very rich and well wrought, and beds and couches lacquered in all colours. There was also a great weaving industry, abundance of beautiful cotton fabrics, and a still more important manufacture of silk, far better than China silk, that supplied both the Indian and Goa markets, where it was highly appreciated and made into fine clothing [Viagen de Francisco Pyrard, Nova Goa, 1862, II. 227. About this time Keel-ing, captain of the third voyage of the East India Company, heard at Socotra that Chaul was a good safe port and a rich trading town. Kerr, VIII. 208.]. On the fall of Ahmadnagar in 1600 upper Ceul passed to the Emperor Akbar and was called Mamale Mortezabad. Three years later Malik Ambar regained the bulk of the Ahmadnagar dominions for the young king, Murtuza Nizam Shah II. But his power did not pass within sixteen miles of Ceul. The Muhammedan city remained for some years longer in the hands of a governor or malik, who held it from the Moghal [Briggs' Ferishta, III. 315; Viagen de Francisco Pyrard, II. 227; Voyage de Francois Pyrard, II. 165, 166.]. Pyrard describes the Prince or Malik of Musalman Ceul as a good friend to the Portuguese, very strong and famous, with a great number of elephants. When he wished to eat he summoned a number of beautiful women, some of whom sang and played, while others took a piece of coloured cloth and tore it into shreds, each taking a shred and wearing it as a sash After these pleasures the Prince made them all withdraw and set himself to sleep by deeply meditating on the emptiness and uncertainty of life.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century the effect of the passing of the rule of the sea from the Portuguese to the Dutch was soon felt at Ceul. In 1609 the governor of Upper Ceul was bold enough to fit a fleet of thirty padavs to cruise against the Portuguese, and in 1611 some Musalman outlaws found their way into Ceul, and murdered the Captain, Baltazar Rebello d' Almeide. In 1612, in revenge for the injury done to their fleet near Surat, a Moghal force laid waste the country round Ceul, besieged the town, and had to be fought off at considerable cost. The succession of Ruy Freire d' Andrade, a judicious and popular Governor, for a time repaired the fortunes of Ceul, and two favourable treaties were made with the Moghal and with Nizam Shah. During this time Malik Ambar had succeeded in regain-ing Upper Ceul. In 1615 a treaty of friendship was concluded with the Portuguese, and promises passed that neither the English nor the Dutch should be allowed to settle at Ceul. In January 1617 the treaty was renewed, and it was agreed that the gardens between the towns should belong to the Portuguese [O. Chronista de Tissuary, IV. 6-7.].

A few years later the Italian traveller, Pietro Delia Valle, twice visited Ceul, in March-April 1623 and in November-December 1625. He described the entrance as commanded on the right by the famous hill known as II Morro de Chaul or the hill of Ceul, which had originally been a Musalman fort and since its capture had been greatly strengthened by the Portuguese. Inside of the rock the river wound among hills and between low shores. Near the city it formed a safe roomy port with deep water so close to bank that from a small galley you could step a shore by a gang-way[Viaggi di Pietro Delia Valle, Venice 1667, part III. pp. 133, 136.]. Of the fortifications or of the size and condition of the town Delia Valle gives little information. He notices that the Cathedral in the south-east corner of the Portuguese settlement was not enclosed within the walls. The Portuguese were still on friendly terms with Nizam Shah and his governor Malik Ambar, the rulers of Upper Ceul. But the sea was infested by Malabar pirates who crowded round the mouth of the Ceul river in such numbers that even Portuguese ships of war were afraid to face them [The Italian traveller Gemelli Careri (1695) has the following note on the Malabar pirates or Malabars as they were generally called. These pirates who belong to several nations, Moors, Gentiles, Jews, and Christians, fall upon all they meet with a great number of boats full of men. They live under several monarchs in the country that stretches from Mount Delhi in the south of Kanara, to Madras-apatam. They take poor passengers, and, lest they should have swallowed their gold, give them a potion, which makes them digest all they have in their bodies, which done they search the stinking excrements to find the precious metal. Churchill's Voyages IV. 201.]. Ceul had lately (1623) suffered a severe blow by the destruction of Portuguese power at Ormuz. Delia Valle gives no details about the trade of the port, but has passing reference to fleets of small vessels from Goa and Bassein and larger vessels from the Persian Gulf[Viaggi, III. 409.].

On the 2nd of December 1625 Delia Valle went to see the town of the Moors subject to Nizam Shah and his officer Malik Ambar. It was called Chaul de Riba or Upper Ceul. There were two ways of going from Portuguese to Musalman Ceul. One way was by and along a beautiful road between palm-trees, meadows, and forests of fruit trees; but this was long way round to the market and more thickly built parts of Musalman Ceul. The other way was across a tongue of water that ran inland from the main creek. At high tide it was easy to pass in a canoe or almadia dug out of a single piece of timber. At low tide you had to cross on men's shoulders who were stationed there for the purpose and were called Horses. The market was on the further shore of this water. Close to the market the ground was thickly peopled by Musalmans and Hindus, but chiefly by Hindus. There were many shops where could be had all the necessaries of life, country cloth, and fine muslins, and other articles which came to Ceul from many parts of the interior. Beyond the neighbourhood of the market and the shop the houses were scattered, surrounded by gardens or rather groves of palms and other fruit trees. The trees were tall and handsome, covering beautiful wide roads with delightful shade. At a little distance from the market was a large pound surrounded by flights of stone steps and called the Nave Nagher pond; Taule Nave Nagher. The Musalman quarter was close to the market along the river bank. There they had mosques, hot baths which the Hindus did not use as they washed in the ponds in the sight of all, graveyards, a custom house, a court of justice or divan, and all other Government buildings. Most of the Hindus lived at some distance from the market among the trees. They had several temples, one of the chief of which was dedicated to Jagadamba (the World Mother) said to be the same as Laksmi. Another temple was dedicated to Amrlesvar who was said to be the same as Mahadev, and, as in Cambay. was worshipped under the form of a Ling or a sort of a round stone. There were other temples, among them one of Narayan, but the most highly esteemed temple was one of Ramesvar far from the market wrere the thickly peopled tract being along the land route to Portuguese Ceul [Details are given below under objects.].

This was a fine temple with a large masonry pond where the people used to come to bathe and play and worship. Many women washed in the pond, some of them young and handsome, and took no pains to hide themselves from passersby. Many washermen and women also used to come to the pond and wash clothes. Between Ramesvar temple and Lower or Portuguese Ceul, the road lay through beautiful fields, gardens, and palm groves belonging to the Portuguese. It then passed close to the sea-shore where were hamlets of fishers. The country was level and very pleasant for travelling, either on foot or in carriages like those of Surat[Delia Valle stayed in Cheul from November 25th to December 17.]. At the back of Upper Ceul by the way that led to the inland parts, were some not very high hills.

In 1631, according to Portuguese accounts, Adil Khan of Bijapur took possession of Upper Ceul, and soon after gave it to the Moghals [Chron. de Tis, I. 95.].

In 1634, Antonio Bocarro, the King's Chronicler [O. Chron. de Tis. IV. 17-21.], described the mouth of the river as blocked with a sand-bank to the north, but with a channel to the south-east which at low water had a depth of not more than seven feet and at high water about thirteen feet and a half[Seven feet is eight to nine palms, the palm being either nine or ten inches, the Portuguese inch being larger than the English inch. Thirteen and a half feet is three brasses of eighteen palms each. This makes the brass about four feet; in other passages the brass is six feet or a fathom. Dr. G. Da Cunha.]. Inside of the bar there was depth and room for many barks to enter without fear of damage. Portuguese Ceul was surrounded by a wall with nine bastions four of them with redoubts (revezes). The northern suburbs were also able to defend themselves.

The commandant of the fort lived in an enclosure with dressed stone walls in which also was the jail. Besides the citadel there were 200 Portuguese and fifty Native Christian houses, good upper storied buildings of stone and mortar. Each of these families had one slave able to carry arms. Formerly there had been more slaves, but they had fled to the land of the Moors [Probably from fear of the Inquisition. The Jesuits were then all-powerful in Cheul]. Outside the walls, in some coco gardens and plantations, were 500 married men of black Christians and Gentiles. Some of them were skilled craftsmen and others were Caudris who went up palm-trees and took the fruit; these had greatly helped the Portuguese in their wars with the Musalmans. In the city were two magazines, a state magazine and a city magazine, with stores of powder, balls. and other munitions, enough for any trouble, and to spare for Goa and all other cities. The State establishment in Ceul included the Captain, a European nobleman, with a sergeant and eight privates and two torch-bearers, a factor who was also sea-sheriff and commissary-general with four messengers and a torch-bearer, a factor's clerk, a judge, a police superintendent with six constables, a master of the watch, a magistrate with six messengers, a jailor, a porter, a high constable, and six bombardiers. Inside the walls of Ceul were seven religious buildings, the Cathedral, the Hospital or Misericordia, the Jesuit church of St. Paul's and the Jesuit monastery, and the churches and monasteries of the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians. Outside of the walls were three churches, the church of St. Sebastian, the parish church of St. John, and a Capuchin church of the Mother of God. Towards the support of these religious establishments the king paid about Rs. 2,448, (Xeraphins 4,897) a year [The details are to the seven religious buildings inside the walls, the Cathedral Rs. 260, the House of Mercy Rs. 283, the King's hospital Rs. 333, the Jesuit's monstry Rs. 420, the Augustinian's Rs. 250, the Franciscan's Rs. 185, and the_; Domican's Rs. 513. To the three churches without the walls, Rs. 132, St. John's Rs. 60, St. Sebastian's Rs. 60, and the Mother of God Rs. 12.].

Against expenses amounting to about Xeraphins 13,882 there was a revenue of about Xeraphins 70,000 chiefly from taxes on foreign merchants, shroffage and brokerage, excise duties on opium, tobacco and spirits, and the tribute of Upper Ceul [The details were from Ormuz and Cambav merchants Rs. 1,400 (Patakoes 700) opium Rs. 1,120 (Patakoes 560) markets Rs.670 (Patakoes 325), brokerage and measuring Rs. 6,000 (Patakoes 3,300) tobacco Rs. 19.226 (Patakoes 9,613) spirits Rs. 2,000 (Patakoes 1,000) and tribute from Upper Cheul Rs. 4,650 (Larines 28 000). O. Chron. de. Tis IV. 17-21.]. The finances were not nourishing. The Upper Ceul tribute of Rs. 4,650 was badly paid. The Moghals had taken most of the kingdom of the Malik, that is, of Malik Ambar the Ahmadnagar minister, and as the Ceul people had revolted, there was no one from whom the Portuguese could recover their tribute. The other revenues were also failing: trade was declining and the Dutch were masters of the sea. It was proposed to introduce fresh customs rates estimated to yield a yearly revenue of Xera-phins 25,000. This after meeting Xeraphins 13,882 the cost of Ceul and of the Korlai garrison, would leave a balance of Xeraphins 27,716 to be sent to Goa' [O. Chron. de Tis. IV. 35.] Unlike the Portuguese of Daman and Bassein, whose wealth was almost all in land, the Portuguese of Ceul lived by trade and shipping. The chief ports to which the vessels of Ceul traded were, besides the Portuguese settlements, Cambay in Gujarat, Maskat and Basrah in the Persian Gulf, Mozambique in East Africa, Manilla in the Philippine Islands, and Chinese ports. The chief articles of trade were fine goldbordered Deccan cloth for which there was much demand in Persia, glass beads, iron, silk, rice, wheat and vegetables[O. Chron. de Tis. III. 221.]. As far as weather went their small trading craft or row-boats might have traded with Cambay at any time during the fair season. But the sea was so infested by pirates that Ceul vessels never sailed except in large companies and under the escort of ships-of-war. They did not make more than two voyages in the season. To Cambay they took cocoanuts, betelnuts, cinnamon, pepper. and all the other drugs of the south, cloves, nutmeg and mace, besides such Chinese products as pao the great bamboo, porcelain, and tutenag. From Cambay they brought cotton cloth, opium, and indigo. They also traded with Maskat and Basrah, leaving Ceul at any time between October and the end of April, and returning generally in September and October, or in March, April and May [This is for Daman which he savs is the same as Cheul. O. Chron. de Tis, III. 196.]. The vessels were pinnaces or pataxos and galliots. They took rice, Cambay cloth, cocoanuts, and cocoa kernels, and brought horses, almonds, and dates. To Mozambique a pinnace went every January laden with Cambay cloth, black kanakins, and a great quantity of glass beads from the Deccan or Bala Ghat. It brought back ivory, gold and Kafir slaves. The export, of glass beads yields a high profit and was a monopoly of the captain of Ceul. To China there went Cambay cloth, linch, almonds and raisins from Maskat frankincense and pucho [Pucho, better known as Putchuk, is the fragrant rcot of the Aucklandia costus which is exported from Calcutta and Bombay to China, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf where it is used as a medicine and as incense. The plant is a native of Kashmir and was well known to the Greeks and Romans as Kostus (Sanskrit Kushta). The author of the Periplus (A. D. 247) calls it by that name and notices that it was exported both from Barbarikon on the Indus and through Ujjain from Barygaza or Broach. (McCrindle's Periplus, 20,122). It probably went to Rome as both Propertius (B. C. 51) and Horace (B. C. 651 B C. G) notice kostus as a valuable incense (Balfour's Encyclopaedia of India, IV. 739). In 1583 Linschot (Navigation, 135) identifies pucho with kostus and notices that pucho is a Malay word. He says that it came to Cambay from Sitor and Mandor, apparently Chitor and Mandu in Malwa, where it was probably brought, as to Ujjain in earlier times, from Kashmir and the Indus Valley, From Cambay it was exported to Malacca and China. In the beginning of the present century Milburn (Oriental Commerce, I. 290) notices putchuk as an article sent in large quantities from Western India to China. The plant, Aucklandia costus, of which putcho or putchok is the root, has been identified by Drs. Boyle and Falconer. Balfour's Encyclopaedia, IV 738-739, Yule's Marco Polo, II. 332. ] and a Cambay wood that served for many purposes, and to Manilla, besides the articles sent to China much wheat Hour and iron. This iron came in large quantities to Ceul from the Deccan. It was so thick that it served for heavy articles such as anchor, the small guns called falcons, and for nails. The time for starting for Manilla and China was between the end of March and the end of May [O. Chron. de Tis. IV. 33.].

Upper Ceul, on the mainland about a quarter of a league east of Portuguese Ceul, was a city of the Moors without walls of fortifications. There were about 3,000 fighting men, many of them Moors. The chief craftsmen were silk-weavers who made silks of all kinds. There were also cabinet makers and makers of inlaid work [O. Chron. de Tis. IV. 35.].

Shortly after this (1636) in concluding a treaty of peace with the king of Bijapur, the Moghal Emperor handed over all the Ahmadnagar possessions in the Konkan. Upper Ceul did not long remain under Bijapur. About ten years later (1648) Sivaji overran the Kohkan, and though in 1655 he had to give up his conquests, he soon recovered them, and by 1672 had reduced Musalman Ceul to ruin and finally taken possession of it [Elphinstone's History, 566. In 1666 Thevenot (Voyages, V. 243-9) describes Cheul as hard to enter but very safe, sheltered from every kind of weather. The town was pretty and defended by a strong citadel on the top of a hill called by the Europeans II Morrode Ciaul. Ogilby's (Atlas, V. 243) account (1670) is taken from Varthema (1503) who described it as a country yielding everything except raisins,, nuts, and chestnuts,and with numerous oxen, cows, and horses.]. Mean-while, by the decay of Portuguese power and the establishment of the English at Bombay (1666) Portuguese Ceul had lost almost all its trade and wealth. In 1674 Oxenden, the English ambassador to Sivaji at Raygad, stopped at Ceul, but as he arrived during the night he could not enter the Portuguese city as the gates were shut and a watch set. He passed the night in the small church of St. Sebastian's in the suburbs. Next afternoon about three he went to Upper Ceul, a town belonging to the Raja, that is, to Sivaji. In former times this city had been a great mart of all Deccan commodities, but it was totally ruined in the late wars between the Moghals and Sivaji whose arms had plundered and laid it waste. Still it was the seat of a Maratha Subhedar, a person of quality, who commanded Nagothana, Pen, Thal and the other countries opposite Bombay [Fryer's New Account, 77.]. As late as 1668 the weavers of Ceul are mentioned as making 5,000 pieces of taffaties a year [Bruce's Annals, II, 241.]. The want of security at Ceul was of great ad-vantage to Bombay. Efforts were made to induce the silk-weavers and the other skilled craftsmen of Ceul to settle in Bombay: the first street in Bombay was built to receive them; and their des-cendents of several castes, coppersmiths, weavers, and carpenters are still in Bombay, known as Cevulis, thus preserving the correct name of their old home. In 1681, Upper Ceul was pillaged by the Sidi, and Sambhaji, enraged that the Portuguese had made no effort to stop him, attacked Portuguese Ceul, but was powerless against its strong guns and walls[Bruce's Annals, II. 60.]. Not daunted by the failure, he constructed a fort which came to be known as Rajkot and at the same time assembled a fleet to protect the place from enemy's attack. In spite of his efforts the Portuguese succeeded in landing reinforcements, and, on Decem-ber 24, 1683, Sambhaji had to raise the siege. In 1694 some of the Portuguese were driven out of the open country by the Moghal army, and forced to seek shelter in Ceul. It was enclosed by good walls and other works and furnished with excellent cannon, but it had lost its trade and was miserably poor [Hamilton's New Account, I. 243, and Gemelli Careri (1695) in Churchill's Voyages, IV. 200. Hamilton notices that it had, formerly been a noted place of trade especially for fine embroidered quilts.]. In spite of its poverty, the constant danger of a Maratha attack forced the Portuguese to strengthen their fortifications and maintain an efficient garrison. The report of Andre Ribeiro Countinho, who in 1728 made an official inspection of Portuguese Ceul, shows that since 1634 the fortifications had been so improved as to be practically rebuilt, and, except that the sea bad caused some damage to the west face, the works were in excellent order. Ceul was the most considerable fort in the province of the north. In shape it was fifteen sided and had eleven bastions and four outworks. It was armed by fifty-eight three to forty pounder guns besides pedrciors which threw stone shot. The garrison consisted of three companies of sixty-two men each. These were nominally soldiers but there were many fishing boat captains, palm-tappers, and artillery-men who were paid Rs. 2 (Xeraphins 4) a month and ranked as soldiers. The rich well-peopled suburb to the north of the town-wall had been strengthened by an outwork armed with nineteen guns and garrisoned by two companies of the same style of men as the fort garrison. There were also 234 Bhandari or palm-tapper soldiers, deserving men who had shown the greatest bravery in the late war with Angres [O. Chron, de Tis. (1866) I. 35, 59.].

When Bassein fell to the Marathas in 1739 the Portuguese were unable to hold Ceul. They offered Ceul and Korlai fort to the English, who, though they had been unfriendly before the siege of Bassein. had helped the Portuguese with money during the siege, and, at considerable expense, had maintained the Bassein garrison during the rains of 1739 in Bombay. The English had no troops to garrison Ceul, but they accepted the Portuguese offer, trusting by the cession of those places to gain the goodwill of the Marathas, and hoping to be able to arrange terms between the Marathas and the Portuguese. The Portuguese placed their interests in the hands of the English, and though the Marathas were exacting and demanded extreme concessions, it was arranged, mainly through the efforts of the Anglo-Portuguese representative Captain Inchbird, that the Marathas should leave the Goa district of Salsette, and that, till they left, Ceul should be held by the Portuguese. The articles of peace were signed on the October 14, 1740, and Ceul was finally given over to the Marathas in November when all Christians who could afford to move went to Goa [Bombay Quarterly Review, IV. 87-88, Da Cunha's Chaul and Bassein, 71' Low's Indian Navy, I. 112.].

Under the Marathas, Ceul in no way regained its former importance. In 1750 Tieffenthaler calls it Tschaul and notices it as a city and fortress once Portuguese, that went to the Marathas in 1739 [Description Historique et Geographique de 1' Inde, I. 412.]. About the same time Gross notices that there was a Dutch factory at Ceul[Voyage, I. 305.]. In April 1777 a French ship came to Ceul with Chevalier de St. Lubin. He received a handsome escort and went to Poona where he was well treated. The ship's loading, consisting of artillery, fire-arms, copper, and cloth, was landed at Ceul, and the French were allowed free use of the port [Account of Bombay (1781), 116, 120.]. In 1778 (19th January) it was further agreed that the French should hold Ceul, that they might introduce troops and artillery [Account of Bombay, 143. In Bombay much uneasiness was caused by this cession of Cheul to the French. That the treaty was no light affair appears from Nana Fadnis' letter, dated 13th May 1778, in which he procured the French alliance 'to punish a nation who had raised an insolent head and whose measure of injustice was full'. St. Lubin was promised an estate in the Deccan, and the French were to, get 20 lakhs and 10 ships, and, if they attacked Bombay, Rs. 20 lakhs more.]. Even as late as 1781 Upper Ceul-is called a considerable seaport [Account of Bombay, 23.], and in 1786 negotiations were renewed for its transfer to the French[ Grant Duff's Marathas 399].

Description.

Ceul is among the prettiest and most interesting places in the district. It lies close to the coast, on the north or right bank of the Roha or Kundalika river. It is bounded by a broken range of low hills on the north-east, by the sea on the west, and by the Roha river on the south and south-east. Almost the whole of Ceul is a great shady palm grove. It is beautifully wooded and well water-ed, with a row of ponds at the foot of the hills, and, in the palm gardens, numerous wells worked by Persian wheels. About halt a mile from the extreme west of the Revdanda shore a short creek runs north from the Roha river, and forms a salt swamp, thickly covered with mangrove bushes, about half a mile broad and half. a mile long, and seamed by one or two winding muddy channels.

Ceul lies about seven miles to the south-east on Alibag-Revdanda Road, which is regularly served by State Transport Service. Most of the way lies through shady palm groves, about a mile from the coast. Viewing Ceul from sea, to the south of Alibag there stretches on the left a line of white sand with a deep fringe of palms, and behind the palms a broken range of low bare bills roughly lying as high as 553 to the east and 423 in the west. To the east, the highest point, is crowned by the shrine of Dattatraya, and the white temple of Hinglaj shines half way up the south-east face. To the south, from the sea, rises the square fortified top of the Korlai rock (271) stretching in front of the river mouth, and sheltering it from south-west storms. In 1959 a lighthouse was constructed at the foot of this hill to guide steamers passing by Nearing the Roha river, on the left, two lines of high stone walls mark the north and west faces of the great fort of Portuguese, which is also known as the Agar Kot or Palm garden Fort. The space enclosed by the walls is a mass of green palms. Near the north-west corner of the walls a gray mound of sea sand is heaped to the battlements by the strong northerly breezes of the dry season. The west wall is breached by the sea at many places. At the mouth of the river the channel keeps to the right close under the Korle, which with steep bare sides rises to the south, its narrow northern slope being flanked with walls and crossed by three lines of fortifications between the sea and the cenfral fortified top. Beyond the Korle rock lies a low belt of rice and palm land in which is hid the village of Korle. Behind Korle village the Janjira hills rise over 800 feet from the river bank steep and richly wooded. The river mouth at first stretches to the south-east, it then slightly bends to the east, and again winds to the south-east, passing out of sight behind the Jahjira and Roha hills. To the south stretches a hank of brown sand covered above high tide with sand, bind-weed (Heremitus arenarius) and low bushes. Above the bushes runs the long south face of the fort wall covered, in many places, with figs and other climbing shrubs. Near the centre at the Sea Gate rise the massive ruins of the citadel or Ceul castle. Further east outside of the wall is the tiled roof of the Customs House. Most of the larger fishing and trading craft are drawn close to the beach, round the point of sand, which forms the western bank of the Ceul swamp. Recently the construction of a Jetty has been undertaken that will provide landing facilities to boats of small tonnage.

Except the Portuguese ruins in Ceul, the Musalman mosque, baths, and castle of Rajkot and the Buddhist caves in the south and south-west faces of the Ceul hills, for so historic a place, Ceul has few objects of interest. The scantiness of old remains is due to three causes. Most of the buildings were probably of timber and have disappeared. The old stone Hindu buildings have been destroyed by the Musalmans and by the Portuguese and in both cases the latter buildings are so overlaid with mortar that it is difficult to discover even the fragments of the old masonry. The third reason is that Ceul, though a leading centre of trade, was gene-rally, as described by Barbosa (about 1514), an emporium or a fair rather than a capital. Still, though its remains are neither numerous nor important, the sea and the sandy beach, the winding palm-fringed river, the Korlai rock and the wooded Janjira hills are so beautiful, and the palm groves and gardens are so fresh, cool and shady, that it all goes to make a very lovable sight.

Portuguese Ruins.

The walls of the Portuguese or Agar Fort had a circuit of one and a half miles and an average height of about twenty feet, with a parapet about twelve feet broad and a curtain wall about six feet high. They enclosed a fifteen-sided space about 220 yards from north to south and 330 yards from east to west. There were two double gateways, the Land Gate on the north and the Sea Gate on the south. A third gate was added later by opening a passage for the Alibag road through the north wall. All of these but the sea gate to the south are in dilapidated condition. Besides the curtain wall which was pierced for musketry, there are the remains of nine semicircular towers. On the north or land face, there were two large corner towers and two great outworks about thirty feet high which flank the north or Land Gateway.

As rulers of the sea the Portuguese had little to fear from an attack from the west or the south. The walls and towers along those two sides, except at the south entrance gate, were therefore of no great strength. The east being sheltered by the salt marsh, very massive fortifications were required. It was from the north that an enemy must attack. To protect the north side a great moat, about seven feet deep and seventeen paces wide, was dug across from the sea to the north-west corner of the Ceul creek; two massive corner towers strengthened the east and west ends of the north wall; and two great works, parallel to the north wall, flank-ed the north or Land Gateway

These walls meant to defend the fort from the attacks of enemy have fallen down at many places. The damage done is so extensive that looking to the heaps, of stones, one is liable to overlook the work they have done of braving the attacks of Muhammedans.

Though the dates of the building of the different parts of the fortifications of Ceul are not all known, inscriptions and other records show that the buildings extended over more than 200 years, from about 1520 to 1721. The earliest piece of work was the fortifying of the factory or citadel between 1521 and 1524. The next was the building of the fortified religious houses of the Franciscans in 1534 and of the Dominicans in 1549. Then follow-ed the fortifications along the south beach in 1577. The south-east corner of the wall was completed sometime between 1625 when the Cathedral was outside of the wall, and 1634 when it was inside of the wall. In December 1634 Antonio Bocarro, the King's Chronicler, described [O. Chron. de Tis IV. 17-61.] the walls as containing nine bastions, Sam Pedro, Santa Cruz, Sam Paulo, Sanctiago, an unnamed bastion facing Sam Paulo, Sam Dinis, Sam Francisco, Sam Domingos, and a bastion over the Cazados or Married Men's Gate. Sam Pedro, over the river, had a large gun called a camel and a pedreiro which threw stone balls weighing eighteen pounds; Santa Cruz and S. Paulo had no guns and were being filled with sand; Sancti-ago had a gun which threw sixty-five pound iron shot and a camel which threw eighteen pound stone shot. This bastion had a redoubt (revez) armed with one iron piece. Another bastion in front of S. Paulo had a brass colubrina coated inside with iron, which threw balls of sixteen pounds. This bastion had two redoubts, one which commanded the ground towards Sanctiago the other covering (facing?) the great gate. It had two places from which bombards were thrown in one of which was a bronze piece. S. Dinis, the next bastion, had no artillery, but in a re-doubt facing the seashore was an iron pedreiro which threw stones of fourteen pounds weight. The bastion Sam Francisco which faced the sea had three metal pieces, an eagle throwing balls of forty pounds, a fifty-pounder cannon (called a reforced cannon), and a fifty-pounder lion, all throwing iron balls. The next bastion S. Domingos had no pieces. The bastion over the Married Men's Gate or Cazados had a cannon which threw twenty-four-pound iron shot. Lastly in the landing place near the Cathedral were two fourteen-pound guns. These thirteen guns were all uncovered. Dom Martim Affonso had carried many of the guns to Malacca and the blanks were never filled. The walls were much under-armed. They were in the charge of the Jesuits, and additions seem to have been lately made as the city wall is said to enclose the Cathedral, which, nine years before, Delia Valle noticed was outside of the walls. The walls were higher on the land side, that is to the north where there was the risk of attack, than either on the seaside, the west, or on the river side, the south and east. The height of the land wall varied from twenty-eight to thirty-two feet 4½ to 5 brasses of ten palms each), and that of the sea and river walls from twenty to twenty-three feet (3-3½ brasses). The wall was topped by between five and seven feet of parapet. The thickness of the walls varied from ten feet at the base to six feet across the top. There was no ditch because there were large suburbs which could defend themselves. The form of the bastions varied and was not very perfect.

After 1634 much was done to improve and strengthen the fortifications. The north gate was made by the Jesuits in 1635 and 1636; the south gate was repaired in 1638; a small outwork was raised in front of the south gate about 1656; and the great north-west tower was built in 1688. Several other additions were made, including the great outworks at the north-east and the north-west corners of the wall and on each side of the north gate. The north wall was protected by a great moat and the north suburb was secured by a strong outwork. When and by whom these additions were made is not known. Probably some of them, like the north gate, were the work of the Jesuits about 1636, when the part known as upper Ceul passed from friendly Ahmadnagar to hostile Bijapur. Other changes perhaps date, like part of the north-west tower, from 1688, when the Marathas were supreme on land and most dangerous rivals to the Portuguese at sea. Additions to the north-west corner were made as late as 1721. All the fortifications were completed sometime before 1728. On the fifth of December of that year Andre Ribeiro Coutinho, who was sent by the Portuguese Government to examine their forts, described the construction of the complete walls. The fortress had been rebuilt in modern style. It was fifteen-sided, the corners fortified by eleven bastions and four redoubts, armed with fifty-eight three to forty pounders besides pedreiros or stone-shot guns. Though the fortifications were in good order the sea was damaging the west wall. Between Sam Jacinto and Sam Luiz, apparently two bastions A-206I-47-A at the north-west corner which had been added since 1634, the walls were in need of repairs; the ditch probably on the north-west was in places filled with sand, and required an outwork or stockade on the seaside to prevent further encroachment [O. Chron. de Tis. I. (1866) 35, 59.].

Frequent wars in and around Ceul had pulled down nearly all structures and buildings. Since the time it was finally captured by the British in the first half of the last century these structures are lying uncared for. Invariably all the buildings are in a state of ruin.

However, their description makes an interesting reading and hence their account has been given below as described about 1870.

In examining the remains of Portuguese Ceul from the south or sea gateway, the first object of interest is a small ruined outwork in front of the walls. At the south-east corner of this low wall, on a slab about 4' 3" x 2' 3", is carved the figure of a warrior in military uniform, wearing the insignia of the order of Christ, and a rich sash or baldric over a coat of plaited mail, and, on his head, a plumed morion or open helmet. The face is broken. Under the figure are the letters EL REI DO JOAO COARTO, that is the King Dom Joao the Fourth. This fixes the date at about 1656[A rough drawing of the figure is given in Bom. Gov. Sel. (New Series) VII, 110.]. On the right, over the fort walls, rises the massive ruined tower of Ceul castle. A few paces further is the circular arch of the outer gateway. Over the centre of the arch, is a slab with a crown and armorial bearings. Inside of the outer gate the entrance turns to the left through an oblong space enclosed by high walls. On the right-hand wall is a slab about two feet three inches square, with a coat of arms of three stars and a mace, with the legend Ave Maria Grasia Pea, apparently for Ave Maria Gratia Plena, Hail Mary full of grace. Below this coat of arms is an inscription, stating that the whole of the fortification along the beach was built in 1577 when Alexandre de Souza Freire was Captain of the fort [The Portuguese runs, NAER AD 1577 I SEDO CAPITAO ALIXANDREDE SOVSA FREIRE, DAESTA FO RTALEZA i SEFASTO DAESTA FORTIFICASAO ADDAADDAPRAIAHDLOMAR.]. The arch of the inner gateway, like all other arches in the fort, is round. Over the centre of the arch are carved a Maltese cross, and, under the cross, the Royal Arms of Portugal, with a globe about two feet in diameter on the (visitor's) left symbolising the extent of Portugal's power, and on the right three tied arros symbols of peace [Da Cunha's Chaul, 80.]. On the north wall, over the inner face of the second gateway, to the east (visitor's left) is a clab (about 1'6'' square) with a broken inscription apparently stating that the gate was under the protection of Our Lady of Sorrow [The Portuguese runs, ESTA PORTA COARDANS DOROVE HF SVA.]. On the right on a part of the wall which has since been destroyed, was a stain with an inscription stating that the gate was repaired in 1638[The Portuguese runs, NAER A DE 1638 SERE DEFICOV ESTA PORTA.] Close to the right a steep paved way leads about fifteen feet to the rampart where are three old guns. The top of the wall is 10' 6" broad and has a five feet high curtain pierced for musketry at intervals of about six feet. The height of the top of the curtain from the outside sand is about 22' 6". From the top of the wall can be seen the Alibag road, with the small thatched houses of Agar Kot on either side. Except the large ruined castle, close on the right, all the remains of Portuguese buildings are hid in a great grove of coco and betel-palms, mixed with plantains, custard-apples and mangoes, and, at intervals, overtopped by huge banyan and pipal trees.

The Castle.

Besides, by the winding Alibag road, the fort is intersected by many lanes and pathways, and is divided into numerous enclosures by irregular lines of loose stone walls. Each enclosure or garden has one or more wells, whose water is raised by a Persian wheel, and Tarried along masonry channels. About thirty yards north of the Sea Gate, a little to the south of a great banyan tree, a path to the right leads to a handsome gateway, over which is a cross and under the cross the Royal Arms of Portugal, and, in niches on either side, figures of St. Peter and St. Paul. This hand-some gateway gives entrance to a space about forty paces east and west by fifty-six paces north and south, enclosed by ruined walls about twenty-five feet high which rise in the south-west in a massive ruined tower about fifty feet high. This walled enclosure is the factory of Ceul, built in 1516 and fortified between 1521 and 1524, the eldest Portuguese building out of Goa. It is known as Chauvkoni Buruj or Four-cornered Tower. It was the Captain's residence, half fortress, half palace; and included a jail, which is still known as Turung, the Portuguese tronko, now a common Indian word.

The Cathedral.

Passing back through the castle gateway, a path to the east, along the north wall of the castle, leads to the south-east corner of the fort. Outside of the east end of the castle, much overgrown with trees, are the ruins of a magnificent church, a stretch about 150 yards from east to west. The nave which is about 35 paces long and 13 broad is enclosed by walls about 30 feet high. No trace of the roof remains, and a raised water channel runs down the centre of the nave. At the east end of the nave are the remains of channels about eight paces broad, and beyond the channels on the east rises the altar a ruined heap in a space about twelve yards square. These seem to be the ruins of the cathedral or Matriz of Ceul. Dr. Da Cunha notices that the Matriz was one of the earliest religious buildings in Ceul. It dates from 1534, and was the work of the famous Franciscan Friar Antonio do Porto [Several details about the Apostle of Salsette are given in the Thana Statistical Account, Bombay Gazetteer, XIII, 201, 460. 461 note l.], who built it on the eastern margin of the river and called it Igreja de Nossa Sen-hora do Mar, Church of 'Our Lady of the Sea'. It was at first a small church affiliated to St. Barbara's, the church and convent of the Franciscans. Afterwards it was separated from the Franciscan church, was increased in size, and raised to the dignity of the Matriz or Sea of Ceul. In 1623 Delia Valle notices that the first thing he saw on landing was the great church or cathedral, outside the walls on the seashore. He went to hear a sermon in the Cathedral, which was the seat of a Bishop and a Vicar who had lately been driven from Ormuz [Viaggi di Pietro Delia Valle, Venice 1667. Part III, 133-136.]. The south-east end of the fortifications were completed before 1634, as, in that year, the Cathedral is described as within the town wall. In 1634 the Cathedral staff included the Vicar of the Sea who received Rs. 33 (Xer. 66) a year; four canons each paid Rs. 20 (Xer. 40); a treasurer on Rs. 10 (Xer. 20); two choir boys each on Rs. 32 (Xer. 64) and a beadle, on Rs. 7 (Xer. 14). The sacristan got Rs. 62 (Xer. 124), for the expenses of the church; and every Easter Day all the members of the Cathedral staff were given a new surplice at a cost of Rs. 4 (Xer. 8)[O. Chron, de Tis. IV, 17-21.].

The Hospital.

Close to the east wall of the Cathedral the south-east corner of the fort ends in a round tower on which lies an old gun. About 150 paces north-east along the top of the wall, the eastern tower, with two old cannons commands a view of the Revdanda landing to the south, and, across the mangrove swamp, about half a mile to the north-east the Ceul landing. At some distance from the east wall and to the north of the Cathedral, is a ruined fortification, apparently the remains of the walls which were built round the castle between 1521 and 1524, and of which the rest was perhaps used in building the new wall in 1577 or 1638. To the north of this old wall is a building with a round western doorway surmounted, by a cross. The building is plain and has large side windows. It has a vaulted roof, and is full of stones and rubbish as if of a ruined upper storey. The people call it the Kothi or granary. But its large windows show that it was not a granary, and the cross over the door seems to show that it was a religious building. It seems probable that it was the House of Mercy or Misericordia. Dr. Da Cunha mentions that Hospitals or Houses of Mercy were introduced into Goa by Albuquerque in 1514, and were patronised by Nuno da Cunha in 1532. Ceul had one of the oldest Houses of Mercy, and had a chapel attached to it. The state contributed money and rice, and supported a physician, a surgeon, and a barber [The details were, 13 khandis of rice, or lb. 28 (566 pardaos) in cash, and lb. 33 (666 pardaos) in salaries. Dr. Da Cunha, 93.]. In 1546, it is mentioned as receiving an allowance of £100 (200 pardaos), in consequence of the number of wounded and sick that were brought to it from Diu after the second famous siege of that fort. It was first under the charge of the Franciscans and in 1580 passed to the Jesuits [Da Cunha's Chaul, 94.]. In 1634 the House of Mercy received thirteen khandis of rice a month in alms. This was paid in cash [Chron, de Tis. IV. 17-21.]. In a direct line this building is about 100 paces east of the great banyan tree in Agar Kot.

About 150 yards to the north-east of the Kothi or hospital, the north-east corner of the fort is protected by a strong tower or re-doubt, which overlooks a small landing known as Pagareka Bandar or Upper Revdanda. To the north, the moat winds from the end of the creek westwards to the sea. About 100 yards north-west of the north-east tower, one of the great northern works stands out from the line of the walls. In its inner face are some large vaulted buildings apparently either quarters or storehouses. Through one of these rooms a scrambling passage leads to the top of the outwork on which trees and vegetables now grow. Passing back into the fort, about twenty yards to the west, an opening about four feet high, leads into the wall and passes inside of the wall to the north-west outwork. According to the people one branch of the passage strikes north under the moat to the outside. About 110 paces west, along the foot of the wall, lead to the hole in the north wall through which the Alibag road passes.

Jesuit Monastery.

Within the fort, about sixty yards south of the Alibag road, are the lofty and handsome remains of the Church of the Jesuits. The entrance is by a round arched doorway with side pilasters. Dr. Da Cunha notices that this front is the same as the front of the Jesuit church of the Holy Name in Bassein and of the Jesuit church of the good Jesus at Goa, and that all three are on the model of the mother-church of the Jesuit in Rome. This Jesuit church at Ceul was built in 1580 and was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. As early as 1552 the people of Ceul prayed St. Francis Xavier to found a Jesuit College. But Xavier was not able to spare men, and the first Jesuits to arrive were two Fathers Pe. Christovao de Castro and Pe. Miguel Leitao, and two brothers who came in 1580. On their arrival the Jesuits were placed in charge of the House of Mercy and their preaching drew crowds. The jealousy of the older orders of priests at first prevented" the Jesuits from preaching in the Cathedral. Afterwards they were allowed to preach, but they met with much opposition till, chiefly through the kindness of the Prior of the Dominicans, Father Christovao collected funds and built a home for the Jesuits, to which soon after a church and a college attended by about 300 students were added. The number of the fathers was raised from two to seven and their college was divided into two sections, the upper which taught Latin, logic and theology to forty youths, and the lower which taught, 300 boys Portuguese grammar, music, and the simpler Christian doctrines. The Jesuits of Ceul were under the Jesuits College of Bassein. The plain ruined building across the road from the church, and a few yards further to the south, is perhaps the remains of the Jesuit House or monastery. On the 1st of April 1623 Delia Valle visited the college and church of the Jesuits. He noticed that like the Jesuit churches in Daman and Bassein it was called St. Paul's[Viaggi, III, 133-136. Jesuit churches in India were called after St. Paul because it was on the day of St. Paul's conversion that the foundation stone of the first Jesuit church in Goa was laid. The Jesuits probably chose that day for laying the foundations of their first church because it was on an altar in St. Paul's. Bazilisk in Rome that St. Ignatius of Loyola took the vow to found the Society of Jesus. Dr. Gerson Da Cunha.].

Beyond the archway in the north wall, the Alibag road crosses the moat which is about six feet deep and seventeen paces broad, the sides lined with stone. As has been noticed the moat was made sometime between 1634 and 1728.

To the west of the archway, through which the Alibag road passes the great north-west stretches outside of the line of wall, from thirty to forty feet high, with a north face about fifty-six and a west face about sixty-four paces long. At the northwest end of the outwork the moat is heaped nearly to the top of the wall by loose sand, blown off the beach during the strong northerly gales of the dry months. Between this sand drift and the west end of the outwork is the main Land Gate, a double round-arched gateway the same as the Sea Gate. Above the lintel of the outer gate are carved a crown and other emblems with an oblong empty niche, to which it is believed that a slab (2' 6" x 2' 2") now in the Bombay Asiatic Society's Museum, originally belonged. The inscription runs:

This work was done at the end of the year 1635 and the beginning of 1636, when Joao de Thobarde Velasoo was Captain of the fortress of Chaul. The glorious Father St. Francis Xavier of the Society of Jesus was taken as patron of this city. [The Portuguese is, ESTAOBRA SEFES NOREMA TE DOANNO 635 EPRI NCIPODE 636 SENDO CAPITA ODESTA FORTALEZA DCH AVL IOAO DE THOBAR DE VE LASCOESETO MOVRORPAD ROEIRODESTACIDE OGLO RIZOPE SFRANCISCOXA VIER. DACOMPA DEIESVS.]

Along the foot of the inner or south face of the wall the distance from the modern Alibag archway to the Land Gate is about 150 yards. To the east of the Land Gate in the inner face of the outwork are the remains of houses or military quarters, and, as in the north-east outwork, there is an opening to a passage inside of the wall, and a path leading to the top of the outwork which like the top of the other outwork is now a vegetable garden.

The Church of the Augustmians.

For about eighty-five yards west of the Land Gate the road runs close to the fort wall. It then turns to the south, where, about thirty yards on the left, are the remains of an immense pile of buildings two-storied and over forty feet high, whose west front is about fifty-five paces long. From the west front the line of buildings stretches east about fifty paces, the south-east corner ending close to the modern temple of Samb or Mahadev. This great building was the church and monastery of the Augustinians. The church was built in 1587 by F. Luis de Paraiso under the name of Our Lady of Grace. Nossa Senhora da Graca. The monastery had room for sixteen monks. In 1634 the monks of St. Augustine were paid by the State Rs. 250 (Xer. 500) a year.[ O Chron. de Tis. IV. 21. ] In 1741, when Ceul was handed to the Marathas, the church of the Augustinians was one of its best preserved buildings.

Returning to the west front of the Augustinians' church, the ruins on either side of the road about thirty-six yards to the south, are identified by Dr. Da Cunha with the Ceul court house. It is interesting to remember that, in reward for their valour in capturing Korlai Fort in 1592, the people of Ceul were allowed to choose their own judge or Ouvidor [ OChron.de Tis. IV. 17-21. In 1634 the pay of the judge was Rs. l66(Xer. 333).]

Near the northwest corner of the north wall are more outworks and another passage inside of the wall. In the floor of the verandah of a house, near the north-west corner, is a large slab of stone (6'-9" x 3') with the words,[The Portuguese letters are: (SEPOLTURA) DELVIS ALVARESCA MEIO E DE SEVS ERDEIRO (S).] 'The Grave of Luis Alvares Camillo and his heirs.' Further to the north-west a path leads to the great north-west tower. The lower part of the tower has been eaten away by the Sea, and the upper platform and the walls are split in great rents. A small gate opens west on the sand. On this north-west tower summounted by a coat of arms is a somewhat confused and inaccurate inscription which Dr. Da Cunha has translated:

When Francisco de Tavora was Viceroy of India, Conde d'Alvor Joao de Melo de Brito commanded this tower to be built at his expense while Chief Captain of this Camp in the year 1688. [The Portuguese is: SEMDO VR. DA INDIA FRCD. DE TAVOUR, CONDE DE AIVOR MDO. IOM DE LEMO DE BRITO FZEO EST A ATALAIA ASVACVSTA SENPO CAPAM., MOH DESTA CANPO NAER AD 1688.]

Another inscription on a stone (2' 1" x 1' 9") with a cross on the top, refers to part of this north-west wall which was known as N. S. da Conceicao. Dr. Da Cunha, who notices that it is the worst engraved inscription in Ceul, translates it:

In 1721 when Antonio de Souza de Lemos, a nobleman of the household of His Majesty, whom may God always guard, was Captain and Governor of the Fortress of Chaul, under orders sent by his Excellency Senhor Francisco Jose de Sampaio de Castro, Viceroy and Captain General of Portuguese India, commanded that this fortification named N. S. da Conceicao should be built on the 25th March of the above-mentioned year. [The Portuguese is: No ANO DE 1721, SENDO CAPITAO E. GOVOR DEIA FORTZA CHAVL ANTONIO DE S, DE LEMOS, FlDALGO DA CAZA DE SA MSc. QVE DS. SP. POR ORDEM QUE IEVE DO XMO. SOR, FRANSO. JOZEPE DE SAMPG E CATRO, VREI E. CA ITAO-GRFA DA INDIA PA. LEVANTAR ESA FORTICACAO CHAMADA N- S. DA CONCEICAO A08 25 DE MARCO DA. DlA HE. RA. A IMA.]

St. Barbara's Tower.

About fifty yards south-east of the small gateway, near the north-west tower, opposite a large breach in the west wall, stands the great Seven-storied Tower, Satkhani Buruj, the centre of the Franciscan buildings. Some ruined buildings to the west were used as a distillery. The tower is about twenty feet square inside and ninety-six feet high. It has six stories of windows, the seventh story being the top of the tower. The walls seem strong and in good order, and one or two of the beams of the fourth and fifth floors still hang overhead. In the east face of the tower there is a handsome round arch. A number of buildings seem to have clustered round the tower, as high on the west and south faces are marks of peaked roofs. To the west behind the distillery arc remains of a large building with round widows. To the north is a ruined two-storied wall about fifty paces long. To the east traces of a large building pass forty paces from the tower and to the south they stretch nearly to the south-west corner of the fort. These are the remains of the fortified church and monastery of the Franciscans which played an important part in the great siege of Ceul in 1577. The church which was begun in 1534 by the great Antonio de Porto was dedicated to St. Barbara. In 1634 the Franciscan church and monastery received from the king yearly gifts of rice, cloth, oil, raisins, almonds and medicines worth about Rs. 185 (Xer. 371).[The details are 8 khandis of wheat, 6 khandis of rice, two bundles of sugar, 50 pieces of cotton cloths, one piece of linen, 6 mans of butter, 6 mans of cocoa oil, 6 mans of wax, 2 mans of raisins, 1 man of almonds, ¹/₄ man of pistachio-nuts, and 6000 reis (Rs. 40) for medicine; total Rs. 185 or Xer. 371. O Chron. de Tis IV.; 17-21.] According to Mr. Hearn, as late as 1847, the church was perfect and many little figures of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Ascension stood out in relief from the roof. By 1854 it was completely choked with ruins. In the chief arched door of the church was a niche from which a stone now in the Museum of the Bombay Branch of the Asiatic Society was taken. This stone, which measures about 5' 11" by 2' 2", is broken into three parts. It bears the inscription:

Consecrated to Eternity. Dom Joao IV King of Portugal in the Cortes which he assembled in 1646 made himself and his Kingdom tributary for a yearly pension, to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Lady. Under a public oath he promised to maintain that the same Lady, the elect Patroness of his empire, was free from the stain of original sin. To preserve Portuguese piety he ordered that this lasting memorial should be carved in the 15th year of his reign and in the year of Christ 1655. This was done in the year 1656.[The Portuguese runs: CONSACRA DA ETERNIDA DE IOAM IV. REI DE PORTUGAL, EXAM CORTS Q CELEBROV NO ANNO De 1646 FES TRIBVTARIO ASI E A SEVS REINOS O OANNVA PENCAM A IMMACVLA DA CONCEIOAM DA VIRGEM SENHORA E COM PVBLICO IVRAMENTO PROMOTED DEFENDER QA MESMA SENHORA ELEITA PADROEIRA DM SEV IMPEHO FOI PRESERVADA DE TODA A MACVLA DE PECCADO ORIGINAL EPERA QA PTEDADE PORTVGEZA VIVESSE MANDOV ABRIR NESTA PEDRA ESTA PERPETVA LEM BRANCA NO 1 5 ANNO D SEV IMPERIO E NO DE CHRISTO 1 655. FRSE ESTA OBRA N A E B DE 1656.]

Dominican Church.

About sixty paces east of the south-west corner of the fort are the remains of the church and monastery of the Dominicans. These were built in the year 1549 by Friar Diogo Bermudes and dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. The monastery was the richest and largest religious establishment in Ceul. [O. Chron. de Tis. IV. 17-21.] (In 1634, it received from the state, 23 khandis of wheat, 8 khandis of rice, 2 pipes of Portuguese wine, Rs. 100 (Xer 200) in cash, and seven gallons of oil, altogether worth Rs. 470 (Xer. 940.) The head of the Dominicans held the high post of Father of Christians in Ceul, an officer who is described as 'set over the rest for furthering Christianity, fostering Christians, and bringing others to Christ'. The ruins are very extensive. To the south of the main church, in what seems to have been a separate chapel, is a rounded stone with the broken inscription 'Tomb of Antonio Alaide Menezes and of his heirs, who died in the year (1601)'[Tne Portuguese runs: SEPVLTVRA D (E) (A) NTONIO ATAIDE (?) MENSESES(?) E DE SEV (S) ERDEIROS, QUE FALECEO A DEM-(!) DC (?). I.]. North from this chapel is the main church, whose floor, according to Dominican usages, rises in the west and to a ruined altar. A portion of the building, about twenty-five paces by fifteen, is roofed, the only one of the larger ruins in which any trace of a roof remains. The walls are about forty feet high, and the roof is vaulted, rising about ten feet higher than the side walls and divided into square panels. To the east the buildings are completely ruined, except some remains of a chancel or side chapels with vaulted roofs panelled like the roof of the main building. Cloisters stretch sixty or seventy yards further east and command a view of the peaked outer roof of the church. Lines of ruins stretch to the south as far as to the east. The courtyard floors of the old buildings are full of trees and the ground is quarried for stones. At the east end of the roofed building is a large slab (6' x 2' 6") with a coat of arms. In the middle of the coat of arms is the figure of an eagle, and above the eagle are the letters I.H.S., Jesus Hominum Salvator 'Jesus the Saviour of Men'. Round the eagle is the motto 'Dominvm (est) spes mea' 'The Lord is my Hope'. Below the coat of arms is an inscription which Dr. Da Cunha translates, 'This is the tomb of Manoel Saldanha and of his heirs, who died on the 20th of December of the year 1636'.[The Portuguese runs: ESTA SEPVLTVRA HEDE MANOEL SALDANHA E DE SEVS ERDEIROS QUE MORREO: A-20 DE DEZEMBRO DE (I) 636 ANOS.] Manoel Saldanha was one of the sons of the Viceroy Ray Lourenco de Tavora who governed from 1609 to 1612. Near this is another broken slab with an inscription, of which '(Tomb) of Diogo Goes, and of (hisheirs) died on 2nd of October of...........' (can be made out).

St. Xavier's Chapel.

Forty or fifty yards east of the Dominican monastery are the ruins of some small buildings, and there are more ruins about sixty yards further. On the right, after about sixty yards more, are the ruins of St. Xavier's Chapel, about forty-five feet from east to west and twenty feet broad. It is a plain building with remains of a vaulted roof. Its chief interest is an inscribed tablet of white marble (4' x 2'9") over the east doorway. The inscription runs:

St. Francis Xavier having lived in this place on his way to the north, this chapel was built by Dom Gilianes Noronha Captain of this Fort to the memory and praise of the saint in the year 1640.[The Portuguese runs: POR HAVER MORALO NESTE LVGAR SAO FRANCISCO XAVIER OCO PASSOV AO NORTE LHE FES ESTA ERMIDA, DO GILIANES DBNRA. SENDO CAPITAO DESTO FORTALEZA. PA MOMORIA E LOVVCR DO SANCTO O ANO DE 1640.]

Portuguese Ruins.

There is no other object of interest between St. Xavier's Chapel and the great banyan tree in the hamlet of Agar Kot from which the examination of the ruins was begun. The ground on which the hamlet stands is said to have originally been occupied by the store-rooms or almazens, of which Bocarro in 1634 mentions two, a state magazine and a city magazine.[O Chron. de Tis. 17-21.]

Of the buildings outside of the wall the chief were customs house which was on the south face near the site of the present customs house. In 1623 Delia Valle mentions a customs house outside of the walls. [Viaggi, III, 133.] Besides the customs house there were, outside of the walls, a church of St. Sebastian, built early in the seventeenth century. In 1634 the vicar of St. Sebastian's received Rs. 50 (Xer. 100) as vicar and Rs. 30 (Xer. 60) as sacristan. [O Chron. de Tis. IV 17-21. The amount is then evacuated at Xer, 120, but Xer. 140 is on the usual basis of Reis 300-Xer..1.] In this church, in April 1674, the English ambassadors who went to see Sivaji crowned at Rayagad, passed the night, as they could not enter the city because the gates were shut and a watch set. [Fryer's New Account, 77.] A ruined church, about 200 paces east of the sea gate is probably this St. Sebastian's. It is entered by four gateways, one to the north, one to the west and two to the south. A small chapel, twelve paces from east to west by eight from north to south of the same name, Sanjav, is still in use, about a quarter of a mile to the north of the fort. There was also, outside of the wall to the north, a fortified camp called the camp of St. John, O Campo de. Sam Joao, which is mentioned in 1728 as garrisoned and equipped with nineteen cannon. [O Chron. de Tis, I., 35.] In 1634 Bocarro states that the fort had no ditch because the large suburbs to the north could defend themselves.[ OChron.de Tis. IV. 17-21.] This completes the details of the ruins of Portuguese Ceul.

Objects of Interest.

Leaving the Revdanda Sea Gate the road to Geul, which is the same as the Alibag road, winds north across the fort enclosure, past the Jesuit monastery and church and out through the archway in the north wall and across the moat. Beyond the moat the road passes through the large village of Revdanda with many well-built two-storied houses. Further to the north, among the palm groves, is the chapel of St. John, or Sanjav, and some ruined walls which seem to belong to the Fortified Camp of St. John. After about a mile and a quarter, almost all through shady palm gardens, the Ceul road leaves the Alibag road and strikes To the east, across the head of the Ceul creek, through the. Ceul palm woods, about three-quarters of a mile east, to the Bhavale lake close to the south of the Ceul or Hinglaj hills. The palm gardens through which the road winds are richer and more varied than the gardens in the Agarkot. Even without the help of mangoes, tamarinds, karanj and jack trees, a help which is seldom wanting, the tall palms bend over the road and keep it in constant shade, damp enough to be almost free from dust till far on in the cold weather. Thorn hedges take the place of dykes, there are more betel palms, and the growth of under-wood is richer. The houses arc sometimes in rows, sometimes by themselves in gardens. There are wells in every garden and occasionally small ponds, and the air is full of the groaning hum of the Persian wheels.

From the north bank of the Bhavale lake, the Ceul hills, with steep bare sides, rise from 300 to 550 feet high, and form an irregular horse-shoe or semicircle. Some trees on the south-west point mark the site of a Musalman tomb and the eastern spur has on its crest the shrine of Dattatraya, and near the foot of its southern face the white temple of Hinglaj. On a knoll, on the west bank of the Bhavale lake, is a domed Musalman tomb about thirty-seven feet square. The sides are of dressed trap built with mortar, and the whole is plain except three recesses with pointed arches on each side. The central recess in the south wall is the main door and the central recess in the west face is now a smaller door, though it seems originally to have been a prayer niche. Round the top of the outside walls runs a row of rough brick and cement panels, and above the panels rises a brick dome about ten feet high. Inside, the floor is bare with no trace of a tomb. The inner walls are plain for about twelve feet, when there is a cornice, and, above the cornice, a row of shield-shaped ornaments about a foot apart. Above these shields, is a row of niches (about 2'6" x 14"), and, about four and a half feet above the lower cornice, a second and deeper cornice. Above the upper cornice is a row of flowered panels, about a foot square, at the sides and two feet high at the corners. Above the north-east, south-west, and northwest panels is a circle of plaster tracery. The main door in the south face (5' 10" x 4' broad) has on each side a double pilaster, with hour-glass shaped ornaments, and over the door, some rough open stone tracery. The people call the building the Masjid or mosque, but it seems to have been a tomb, and there are several Musalman graves close by. About half a mile further east, to the south of the Hinglaj spur, on the top of mound about fifty feet high, is a small-rudely carved Hindu image. Bits of brick are scattered over the mound and there are several Musalman graves at its west foot. About 200 yards east of the mound is a heap of old stones and dressed pillars, with one or two roughly carved human figures. They are rude memorial stones, which, according to a local story, were raised in honour of a wedding party whom the earth swallowed. A little further to the south is a small shrine to the spirit of a Mang woman. Several old half-buried stones seem to show that this was once a site of a Hindu temple.

The Dancing Girl's House.

Through the Somesvar pass, about one and a half miles to the north-east, was the Dancing Girl's House or Kalavantinica Vada, a ruined building of stone and mortar in Musalman style. The front is of dressed stone with three-peaked arches and three brick domes. The hall, which has three domes and two end recesses, is fifty-seven feet long by fourteen and a half broad. To the west of the hall is a walled enclosure about fifty paces by seventy, and. at the further end a mosque forty-six and a half feet long by thirteen and a half broad, with a praying recess in the west wall. Behind the mosque is a large pond. In the village of Sarai about a quarter of a mile further is a small step-well with an inscription, dated 1782.[ The inscription runs: Shri Shak 1704, Shubhakrit nam Samvatsare, Shri .Vithal Charani Shamji Trimbak Prabhu Soparkar, Vaishakh Shuddha 15.]

Someshwar Temple.

On the hills to the east of Sarai village, is an old building near Vaghdevi's temple. On the way back to Ceul in the Somesvar Pass, the tombs on the left are sati tombs, and those beyond arc said to be tombs of Maratha nobles. In a hollow across the road is the temple of Somesvar. It has a broken bull in front and appears as a pair of Musalman domes built one to the west of the other. The outer dome is eight-sided and about twenty-five feet square. On the floor is a large broken ling which seems to belong to the ling socket in the shrine. The basement of the inner dome is square and its centre is filled by a shrine about twenty feet square. It has been much mended with but the inside of the dome is in the cross-corner style, and is perhaps older than the Musalmans. The walls are about eleven feet high and the centre of the dome about four feet higher. The shrine is dark and its floor is about six feet below the level of the floor of the dome. The inner measurement of the shrine is about eleven feet square. The walls are plain surrounded by a shelf about four feet from the ground. The only object of worship is an empty ling case.

Buddhist Caves.

Returning to near the foot of the Hinglaj spur, twenty or thirty yards south-east of the wedding stones, is a domed Musalman tomb (about 24" square) near the north-east end of a pond. An old spire stone seems to show that the tomb stands on the site of a Hindu temple. Some yards back, near the highroad, is a temple of Maruti. The Maruti is famous for giving responses. When the God is to be consulted the temple servant sets a betelnut in each of two holes on the God's breast. If the nut in the right hole falls first, the wish of the person consulting the God will be granted. If the left nut falls first the wish will not be granted. The nuts are dipped in water before they are laid in the holes.

In the south-east face of the Hinglaj spur, about a hundred feet from the foot of the hill, is a small cell (11 x 5' 10" x 5' 6" high). It is entered by a door three feet two inches by five feet and a half and there is a verandah outside, eleven feet by five with holes for a shade or front scaffolding. The cell is without ornament or writing. It is in good repair. About a yard to the west is a second cell (7' 7" x 4' 4" x 8' high) with a broken front and the remains of a narrow verandah. The work seems to have been stopped by the roughness of the rock. The cells are high enough to have a beautiful view, south, over the green palm tops, across the Roha river to Korlai and the Janjira hills, and south-east up the windings of the broad Roha river to the distant Roha hills.

Passing round to the west face of the spur, about the same level as the south-east cells, a path leads to the temple of Hinglaj. The temple faces west and is reached from the south-west by a flight of 158 steps. At the top of the steps, to the right, is rock-cut cave (I) about 17' 3"x 15' 5" and from 6' to 6' 8" high. Part of the north-west corner is cut off by a shrine of Asapuri Devi. In the south wall of the cave are two cells, the east cell 4' 6" x 3' 4" and the west cell four feet square. In the front or west wall of the cave is a window. Outside of the cave, to the right, a flight of thirty steps leads up to two open rock-hewn water cisterns (II), the upper cistern 18' 6" x 14' 5" and the lower cistern 16'x 18' 6". At the foot of the cistern steps, a little to the north, inside of a gateway is a temple of Hinglaj (Hingulja Bhavani). In front of the temple is an open space with tulsi and lamp pillars, and a view of the sea over the Revdanda palms. A narrow passage runs round the temple between it and the scarped rock behind. Inside of the temple, below the image is a rock-cut apparently ancient cistern (III), about four feet square and two and a half feet deep. Dr. Da Cunha notices that there used to be an inscription over the cistern which has been recently defaced. The Shrine of the temple measures 8' 6" x 7' 10" x 6' 9", and the hall 16' 11"x 11' 10" x 6' 10". The object of worship is an image of a woman.

About ten paces beyond the temple is a row of small Buddhist caves. The first (IV) is divided by a wall of rock into a hall and an inner shrine. The hall measures 13' 8" x 7' 8" x 5' 9", and, an opening (1' 8" x 3' 10") in the back wall, leads into a shrine or cell (7' 10" x 6' 3" x 5' 5") with a stone bench at the side. In the back wall is an image niche (1' 8"x3") with a modern image of Astbhuja Devi or Catursinghi. The next cutting is a passage (V) or narrow recess (11' 9"x3' 5"x4' 3") with two old Brahmanical images at the end. The next (VI) is an open cell seven feet square and four feet high. The next (VII) is 20' x 8' 10" x 5' 5"; in the back wall is a stone bench 6' 8" x 2' 8"; and in front there has been a verandah 7' 6" broad. At the west end is a cell 6' 9" x 6' 3" x 6' 5". The rock is bad and much of the roof has fallen in. On the north-west wall outside of this cave is carved a relic shrine daghoba caitya (VIII), semicircular in form, and surrounded by a belt of carving in the Buddhist rail pattern. The tee rises in a pile of five plates, each larger than the plate below it, and over the tee is an umbrella. The dome is 3' 6" high and two feet broad, and the tee and umbrella rise a foot and a half above the dome. From its shape the daghoba appears to belong to about 150 A.D.

A few feet in front of the last cave (VII), a hole in the rock leads, by some rough steps, about twelve feet down into a chamber (IX) 5' 2" x 6' 8" x 7' 7". A slightly ornamented cornice runs round the top of the wall. Inside is an empty shrine 4' 10" x 2' 9" x 6'.

Dattatraya's Shrine.

Beyond cave VII, a path, through a gateway leads up the hill-side to the shrine of Dattatraya. [On the top of the hill about 1870 were several small houses, in which lived one or two ascetics, and a family of Brahmans who shared in the worship of the God.]

The shrine of the God stands on high ground in the middle of the houses at the top of a flight of six steps. The chief object of worship is a statue of Dattatraya, carved in stone, with the three heads and six hands of Brahma, Visnu and Siv. In front of the figure are the prints of two feet said to be old. The fair is held for five days around Margasirsa Suddha 15 or full moon of the December and is attended in very large numbers by the people. People worship God by offering him coins and flowers. Gifts in charity are given to poor and disabled.

Well in advance, traders from different places install temporary shops wherein along with the articles of worship are sold fancy articles and cloth. Entertainment booths are opened and the whole atmosphere bubbles with enthusiasm and gaiety.

On the east slope of the hill is a hut, where a fair or urus in honour of a Musalman saint is held after the great Dattatraya fair is over. The main approach to Dattatraya's shrine is from the north-west by a flight of steps with low parapets, which have been built at intervals within the last forty years by different worshippers, as thanks-offerings or in fulfilment of vows. There are about 700 steps. At the top of the steps is an ascetic's house in which is worshipped the hollow stem of a dead umbar tree, (Ficus Glomerata), an emblem of the three-headed Dattatraya. In a slab let into the right parapet, on one of the steps near the top, a Marathi inscription gives the date Samvat 1905 and Sak 1770, that is A.D. 1848, and the name Savitribfri Ksatri. [The Marathi runs; Sau. Savitribai, Kshatri, Samvat 1905 Shak 1770, Kilak nam Samvatsar, Kartik vadya Pratipada.] At a hundred steps from the top, a second inscription states that in Sak 1776 that is A. D. 1854, Mahadoba Laksman, a Sonar, the servant of Lord Dattatraya, built fifty steps.[The Marathi run-: Shri. Shri Dattatraya Svamicha Paduka dasanudas Mahadoba Lakshmanji Sheth Sonaryani bandhle, pairya 50, Shak 1776, Anand nam Samvat-sare tnahe Chaitra shuddha tritiya var. Som, Shri Samvat 1910-] At the 248th step from the top another inscription states that five steps were built by Krsna Narayan in Sak 1790, that is 1868 [The Marathi is: Shri Guru Dattatraya Charani Krishna Narayan Kshatri Mtikadam, pairya panch, Shak 1 790, Vibhunam Samvatsar, Mahe Paush.] On the face of the 290th step is carved Narayan Bhau Bhore, and at the 296th step in the parapet are two little plates with rough unreadable plaster letters.

Temple of Bhagwati Devi.

From the end of the steps, a path, across the shoulder of the hill to the west leads down a central spur, to some knolls or hillocks over the Bhavale lake, where are foundations of stone and mortar buildings. From the Bhavale lake, a winding lane leads about a mile south-east to a large temple of Bhagvati Devi, in a walled enclosure with a splendid pipal tree on a plinth in front of the temple. Above the shrine door, five lines of Sanskrit state that the temple was repaired in 1751.[The Sanskrit runs: (I) Shri Ganeshaya nam(h); (2) Shake 1673, Prajapati nama; (3) Samvatsare Falgunanam sapta; (4) myam devyalayasya jirnodharatya (5) prarambh kritah samaptistu angira (?).] Though in places as much as twelve yards broad, they are arched over with trees. The gardens are very rich and have a great variety of foliage, an undergrowth of bushes, and, among the coco and betel palms, many tamarind, karahj and Calophyllum or undi trees, with patches of bamboos and plantains, and occasionally an open rice field with a tall brab paim or tasselled forest palm, behrli mad.

Hamam Khana.

About a mile south of Bhagvati Devi's temple is a low and ruined mound and a pond known as the Pokharn. The mound is covered with Musalman graves, some with inscriptions, on finely dressed slabs and blocks of black basalt or trap, which belonged to an old temple of Samb or Mahadev. To the west is the walled tomb of Pir Sayyad Ahmad, about fifty yards to the south-east are the ruins of a Musalman Bath or Hamam Khana. Along the north wall is a row of six cells or rest-places with arched roofs, each about 9'6" x7' 6" x 12', and the whole face about seventy feet long. At the east end, a doorway about nine feet broad, leads, through a double arch, into a central hall about twenty-two feet square, with three recesses, that on the north about ten feet deep, that on the east about twelve feet, and that on the south about seven feet. The hall is covered with a fine domed roof about thirty feet high. From the north-west of the hall short crooked passages lead to two bathing-rooms, the north bath about 16'x13' 6" and the south bath about 26' x 13'.

Mosque.

On raised ground on the bank of the river, hidden among trees, about a quarter of a mile to the mouth of the baths, is a ruined mosque, with an outer dome in the centre of the roof, and a minaret in the north-east corner. It is about ninety feet long by forty broad. The west of the building and most of the south have disappeared, destroyed by banyan and other climbing trees, helped according to some accounts, by Portuguese cannon. There remain three sets of four six-foot high pillars, the east row square, the two other rows eight-sided. From the tops of the pillars spring arches whose peaks are about six feet six inches higher, and from the arch peak rises a dome about five feet deep. Of the original sixteen domes only central one has remained. To the north-east are a pair of tombs with two inscriptions on the east wall, one apparently referring to H. 915 (A. D. 1507) and the other to H. 1034 (A. D. 1623 [The inscriptions are much weather-worn and one of them is broken. Prof. Rehatsek has kindly supplied the following translation of such fragments as can he made out of the first inscription. The numbers show the lines of the inscriptions, (1) Our lord commands the arrangement, (2) Diligently of the Sunni mosque, (3) With a priest and pond,.. (4) Whom we may love according to the ordinance of Muhammad the Apostle, and in (5) Khaul we command you to prohibit intoxication (and) (6) Infidelity like companies (of you), (7) Our prophet, (8) Muhammad had striven, (9) and (10), (11) Mosque with propriety, (12), (13), (14), (15), (date), (16) year 915 (?). Of the second inscription he has made out (I) As was the edifice of the house of God, (2) Date of mosqueyear....(3) Handallanu (orbu or yu), (4) year 103 (?). Mr. Ghulam Muhammad Munshi deciphers the doubtful figure in the fourth line as 4, that is 1034, or AD. 1623.]). The raised ground on which the mosque stands has many fragments of old bricks, but as far as was seen no further signs of old building. To the south of the mosque, along the edge of a long stretch of mangrove bushes, are some remains of an old wall or jetty.

Rajkot.

About a quarter of a mile to the east of the mosque, on the shore of the creek, are the remains of Rajkot, the citadel of Musalman Ceul. If Bocarro is correct in stating that in 1634, Upper Ceul had no fortifications Rajkot must have been built during the ten years (1636-1646) of Bijapur rule.[ O Chronista de Tissuary, IV. 35, but Mr. Avlaskar states that Sambhuji,built it in '683. Angrekalin Ashtgav, Introduction, p. 15.] It is mentioned in the Maratha wars in 1691 and 1731. Rajkot has corner towers about fourteen feet high, and, on the top, thirty-three feet by forty. The north-west and the south-west towers are joined by a wall about sixty paces long, twenty feet broad and six feet high. Through an inner wall a path leads to a walled courtyard about forty-five paces square, the south end filled with the ruins of a large two-storied palace, with peaked arches and eight-sided pillars. The walls are overgrown with a gigantic lacework of tree roots. The building was about twenty paces broad and was divided lengthways by a central wall. In front of the palace is a fountain, and at the east end a row of houses and a well. To the east is another walled enclosure about forty paces square filled with coco-palms. Outside on the creek face are large black stones laid without mortar, which look like the remains of an older Hindu fort.

About a quarter of a mile further east is an old jetty of large black stones set out into the mud, known as Girice Dhond Bandar. A little further are some Musalman tombs, and, about a quarter of a mile beyond, at the east end of the Ceul palm groves, is the landing place and village of Agra. Returning to Rajkot, outside of the fort to the east, is the lower half of a broken Hindu image (2' x 1' 3") of a male figure with a bull at his feet. It is well carved and has a sacred thread or strap hanging below the knee. It is of about the eleventh or twelfth century. About half a mile west of Rajkot is the Patil's creek, crossed by a paved causeway or dadar. On the west side is a large Musalman graveyard. About a quarter of a mile further is Ceul landing, an open green covered with fishing nets and stake with lines of rope for drying fish and nets. To the west a narrow muddy channel about five feet deep winds south to the Roha river, with, at high tide water enough for craft of about three tons (10 khandis). Across the mangroves swamp are the palms and sandy beach of Lower Ceul or Revdanda. At the foot of a tree is the head of an old Hindu figure, about two feet by one foot four inches, and, in front of a small temple at the east end of the green, is an old land grant stone (4'x 1') with the ass-curse and letters too worn to be read. If the tide serves it is easy to get to Revdanda down the creek. But as a rule, the way back is round the head of the creek, along the road from Revdanda to Bhavale lake.

One day may be spent in north Ceul and Revdanda, seeing Ramesvar's temple and Angre's tomb, the remains on the western top of the Ceul hills, some Hindu battle-stones to the north, and a Musalman garden or water-house to the south of the Male causeway, on the Alibag road. From the Sea Gate about four miles through the woods of Revdanda and north Ceul, lead to the mouth of the Varanda pass. By the dome shaped hillock of Cenca, a natural mound apparently with no trace of building, a tract leads south-east, past the Moti pond, up the western shoulder of the Ceul hills. The hill sides and the hill top are bare strewn with black boulders, with, in hollows or sheltered slopes patches of thorns and brushwood and one or two stunted teak.

Near the end of the south-west spur are the remains of two ruined buildings. One, about 100 yards from the end of the spur is the ruined temple of Mahalaksmi (23'x19') with broken walls of rough stone work and no roof. In the centre is a ruined shrine and a small old-looking image. The goddess is much; feared. As her temple is ruined, she wanders about, and is believed to have dragged under water and drowned three men who lost their lives in the Narayan pond at the foot of the hill. Close to the ruined shrine is a dry pond. And, on rising ground at the south-west end of the hill, among trees and brushwood, stands a ruined Musalman dome, on a plinth of rough stone work about fifty feet square. The dome is thickly covered with trees and bushes. The walls are of stone and mortar, about 26 feet square outside and 21 feet square inside, and the rounded dome is of brick. There are recesses in the corners, doors in the east, north and south faces, and a prayer niche in the west face. The wall is about ten feet high and the dome about twenty feet more. The whole is plain, except a cornice which runs round the top of the wall inside, and some rough cement panelling above the cornice. The site seems a likely place for a Buddhist stupa and the bricks and plinth may have belonged to some old Hindu work. In places on the south face of the hill are said to be fragments of stone steps built without mortar, but on the hill top there seems no certain trace of anything old.

The hill top commands a fine view of the rice lands and palm groves of Ceul, the mangrove bushes of the Ceul creek, the Roha river, the Janjlra hills, and the sea. Close by the foot of the hill was a row of ponds, the Moti pond in the west, then the Setripal and the Narayan pond, and the Paul's pond. Hill side tracts ead to the knob that crowns the hill top to the west of the Dattatraya steps. This knob or knoll is covered with prickly-pear bushes and has no signs of buildings.

Pir Pass.

Looking north from the top of the hill, it is worthy of note, that, in a line with the Somesvar pass to the east of the Ceul hills, there is in the Sagargad range, a great dip or gap, known as the Pir pass, which must have been one of the highways of traffic when Ceul was a great port. It seems probable that the place which Barbosa (1514) describes as the great fair, three miles out of Ceul, was in the open land beyond the Somesvar pass close to the Dancing Girl's mansion and the village of Sarai. [Stanley's Barbosa, 70-71.]

Mahalakshmi Temple.

From the hill top a tract may be taken, either back to the west mouth of the Varanda pass, or to the crest of the pass, a little beyond which, by the roadside, is an old Hindu land-grant stone (5' 7" x 1' 3") with an inscription in four lines of about twelfth century. About half a mile north of the Varanda pass, on rising ground, is a temple of Mahalaksmi. At the foot of the rising ground is a fragment of an old land-grant stone and a carved pillar top, probably part of a ruined temple of Mahalaksmi. The temple has like the Somesvar temple two domes side by side, the eastern dome 20'x 18" and the western dome 16' 8" square. The corners of the outer dome are in the hollow or honeycombed cement work which is common in the Musalman buildings of Ahmadnagar. The shrine which is surrounded by a passage four feet wide, is plain, and is apparently of later date, though it has old Hemadpanti-like knobs at the corners and in the middle of each step in the roof. To the south of the temple is a lamp-pillar about twenty-two feet high. Down the east face are six or seven sati stones.

Battle-Stones.

About a quarter of a mile south, about 100 paces east of the north end of the Male causeway, are five Hindu battle-stones, perhaps of the tenth or eleventh century. They are much like the battle pillars and slabs at Eksar in Salsette and at Atgahv near Sahapur in Thana.[ Bombay Gazetteer, XIV, 57-59, 309-312.] The largest stone is seven feet long by a foot and a half broad. At the top was said to have a funeral urn with an attendant on each side holding a fly-whisk over her shoulder. Below are three panels each about ten inches broad full of deeply cut figures and, under the lowest panel, is an empty space about a foot and a half broad. In the lowest of the three panels on the (Visitor's) left, are the two rows of three men in each row armed with swords, fight two archers on the right. In the central panel the swordsmen drive off the archers, and, in the top panel which is all broken and the figure perhaps is a chief, with an umbrella over his head and two followers, worships the ling. On the (Visitor's) right is a defaced and broken stone (3'x 1'5") in the same style. Above are figures worshipping the ling. To the visitor's left a smaller stone (2'10" x 1') shows a man brandishing a sword. On the top is a funeral urn, and, between the urn and the warrior a ling and a bull. These stones are worshipped by the villagers as the Sat Virs or Seven Heroes, and are much dreaded, being believed to scour the fields and gardens at night.

Water-Palace.

About a quarter of a mile from these battle-stones, two hundred yards south of the Male causeway and about forty yards west of the road, in a thickly wooded palm garden, are the ruins of an arched garden house in the centre of a built pond. It was known as the Jala Mandir or Water-Palace. Though nothing remains of the palace at present as per the old account it stands in the centre of a pond, about thirty-six paces square and five feet deep, with sides and bottom lined with cement. The central building, which is covered by the roots of a large banyan tree and by bushes, stands on a plinth about five feet high and twenty-five feet square. It is entered from the east by a broken flight of steps. It is of stone and mortar and consists of four large pointed archways with corner pillars. There is no trace of the domed roof, and the walls seem kept in their place by the network of banyan roots. It is said to be a Portuguese building, but the style of arch and the position point to a Musalman origin.

Rameshwar Temple.

About a mile nearer Revdancla, is a large modern temple of Ganapati with a small step well and a large basil pillar. In front of the temple was a lamp-pillar bearing an inscription dated-1858.[ The Marathi of the inscription runs: Charani tatpar Lakshmi Ayal Raghav Baku Naik Bohite putra Kalu jat Mali Pachkalshi Rahnar Cheul, Shak 1780, Kalayukt nam Samvatsare, miti Vaishakh Suhddha 8 Saumyavar.] About half a mile" further is a great temple of Ramesvar,. with a handsome masonry pond in front. In the temple are said to be three kunds or pits which are paved over. The central pit in front of the god Siv, or Samb, is the Fire-pit or Agni Kund; the pit on the visitor's right, in front of Ganapati, is the Wind-pit or Vayu Kund; and the pit in front of Laksmi-Narayan is the Rain-pit or Parjanya Kund. When heat fails the fire-pit should he opened, when wind fails the wind-pit should be opened, and when rain fails the rain-pit should be opened. The only times within the memory of the people of the temple, when one of the pits was opened, was the opening of the rain-pit in the dry seasons of 1876 and 1941. In 1876 a hole five feet deep was found with some Maratha coins. The coins were taken away and set apart to be worshipped.

In December 1625, the Italian traveller Delia Valle gave the following detailed account of the Ramesvar temple and pond. On the land road, between Portuguese and Musalman Ceul, where the thick houses begin, is a temple of Ramesvar, the finest temple in Ceul. It is built on the bank of a large square pond, each side seventy-three paces, surrounded by banks and flights of stone steps with wide passages or platforms at the sites, shaded by beautiful tall trees. Above the pond, facing the chief door of the temple, under a dome supported by four pillars, is a figure of a bull with all the four feet bent the same way. It is called Nandi and is the same as the Kanarese Basua (Basava). The people say it is a male, different from Gayati the wife of Ram. which is a female. The face of the bull is turned round fronting the temple, while the back and the tail stretch towards the pond. The people who come to visit the temple first wash their face, hands, and feet in the pond, then touch the bull with their forehead and hands, making a reverence, and grasping the tail. Then some enter the temple, while others first go round it, beginning their round from the right side to one coming out from the temple. In the temple, they spread fruit and rice before the idol, and also before the bull, and before a basil plant in a pillar vase near the bull's shrine. In several places round the temple are shrines facing the pond, with different idols, in one of which is the God Hanuman who helped Ram to win back his wife.[Viaggi di Pietro Delia Valle, III. 411-415. Delia Valle's account is accompanied by a plan of the pond, temple, and other buildings.]

Angre's Tomb.

In a large block of stone, to the north-west of the temple, were nine holes, about two inches square, which are said to be the navagraha or nine planets. In front to the east is a platform, the side walls of dressed stone about two feet high, and enclosing a space of thirty feet by twenty-four.

To the west of the platform, on a plinth about four feet high and thirty-two feet square, is an eight-sided building of dressed stone (about 12'6" x 15'8"), with a door in the east face, and windows in the other three sides with open stone trellis work and tracery. The sides are about nine feet high and there is no roof. It is an unfinished tomb said to have been built by one of the Angres. Between the Ramesvar temple and Angre's tomb a stone inscribed with Kanarese writing was found by Mr. W. F. Sinclair, C.S., in 1874. The Ramesvar temple is about two and a half miles north-east of the Sea Gate of the Revdanda fort.

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