where two Arabs, styled princes, were in waiting to pay their compliments to the Governor. The little respect paid to these royal personages, together with their want of attendants, shews the degradation to which they are now reduced, and strongly evinces the folly of the Portuguese in having ever conferred such titles. We returned in the evening by torch light, through a wild jungle, and as the bearers of our palanquins tossed their torches carelessly about, they set fire in many places to the long grass underneath, which, burning like a stream of wild-fire, threw a bright glare of light among the trees, that produced a very singular and striking effect. After our return, the Banians gave a nautch to the Governor, performed by two Indian girls, which seemed to afford amusement to the spectators, perhaps from their not having witnessed the superior mode in which these dances are conducted in India.
On the 10th I paid a visit to the Bishop, early in the morning, who, on my arrival at his house, was absent on a shooting excursion. The furniture of his rooms, in the mean time, afforded me no slight entertainment. Four cages containing different species of singing birds were fixed to the walls, and over the doors of the bed-rooms, two beautiful prints of St. Cecilia were suspended opposite each other, to which two English prints, one representing Cupid disarmed, and the other Cupid revenged, served as companions. A short time afterwards, the Bishop returned with his gun in one hand, and two partridges (perdrix rubricolla) and several turtle doves, which he had shot, in the other. He was booted as usual, but still wore the holy badge of his profession, a splendid diamond cross that hung sparkling in the folds of his waistcoat. As he was aware of my wish to collect the rarities of the place, he made me a present of the partridges, and also of a large sucking fish of a species not yet accurately described,[1] which had just been brought in by a fisherman; all the Portuguese gentlemen, whom I conversed with on this subject, agreed in
- ↑ It answers very nearly to the description of the Echineis Neuerates by Dr. Shaw, but the bars on the heads of many specimens, which I subsequently examined, differed from twenty-four to thirty-six in number, and their tails were invariably crescent-shaped.
