Goa and the Blue Mountains; or, Six months of sick leave

Evening is coming on, the sea-breeze (may it be increased!) is freshening fast, and Dan Phœbus has at last vouchsafed to make himself scarce. After watching his departure with satisfaction—with heartfelt satisfaction, we order our hookah up, less for the pleasure of puffing it, than for the purpose of showing you how our servant delights to wander through heaps of hay and straw, canvas, and coir rope, with that mass of ignited rice ball, rolling about on the top of our pipe. You are looking curiously at our culinary arrangements. Yes, dear sir, or madam, as the case may be, that dreadful looking man, habited in a pair of the dingiest inexpressibles only, excepting the thick cap on his furzy head—that is our cook. And we dare say you have been watching his operations. If not, you must know that he prepared for our repast by inserting his black claw into that hencoop, where a dozen of the leanest possible chickens have been engaged for some time in pecking the polls of one another’s heads, and after a rapid examination of breast-bone, withdrew his fist full of one of the aforementioned lean chickens, shrieking in dismay. He then slew it, dipped the corpse in boiling water to loosen the feathers, which he stripped off in masses, cut through its breast longitudinally, and with the aid of an iron plate, placed over a charcoal fire, proceeded to make a spatchcock, or as it is more popularly termed, a “sudden death.” After this we can hardly expect the pleasure of your company at dinner to-day. But never mind! you will soon get over the feeling nolens, if not volens. Why, how many Scinde “Nabobs” have not eaten three hundred and sixty-five lean chickens in one year?

We will not be in any hurry to go to bed. In these latitudes, man lives only between the hours of seven P.M. and midnight. The breeze gives strength to smoke and converse; our languid minds almost feel disposed to admire the beauty of the moonlit sea, the serenity of the air, and the varying tints of the misty coast. Our lateen sail is doing its duty right well, as the splashing of the water and the broad stripe of phosphoric light eddying around and behind the rudder, prove. At this rate we shall make Goa in three days, if kindly fate only spare us the mortification of the morning calms which infest these regions. And we being “old hands” promise to keep a sharp look out upon the sable commander of the “Durrya Prashad,” the “Joy of the Ocean,” as his sweetheart of a pattimar is called. Something of the kind will be necessary to prevent his creeping along the shore for fear of squalls, or pulling down the sail to ensure an unbroken night’s rest, or slackening speed so as not to get the voyage over too soon. As he is a Hindoo we will place him under the surveillance of that grim looking bushy-bearded Moslem, who spends half his days in praying for the extermination of the infidel, and never retires to rest without groaning over the degeneracy of the times, and sighing for the good old days of Islam, when the Faithful had nothing to do but to attack, thrash, rob, and murder, the Unfaithful.

Now the last hookah has gone out, and the most restless of our servants has turned in. The roof of the cabin is strewed with bodies anything but fragrant, indeed, we cannot help pitying the melancholy fate of poor Morpheus, who is traditionally supposed to encircle such sleepers with his soft arms. Could you believe it possible that through such a night as this they choose to sleep under those wadded cotton coverlets, and dread not instantaneous asphixiation? The only waker is that grisly old fellow with the long white mustachios flourishing over his copper coloured mouth like cotton in the jaws of a Moslem body. And even he nods as he sits perched at the helm with his half-closed eyes mechanically directed towards the binnacle, and its satire upon the mariner’s compass, which has not shifted one degree these last two years. However there is little to fear here. The fellow knows every inch of shore, and can tell you to a foot what depth of water there is beneath us. So as this atmosphere of drowsiness begins to be infectious, we might as well retire below. Not into the cabin, if you please. The last trip the Durrya Prashad made was, we understand, for the purpose of conveying cotton to the Presidency. You may imagine the extent of dark population left to colonise her every corner. We are to sleep under the penthouse, as well as we may; our servants, you observe, have spread the mats of rushes—one of the much vaunted luxuries of the East—upon our humble couches, justly anticipating that we shall have a fair specimen of the night tropical. Before you “tumble in” pray recollect to see that the jars of cold water have been placed within reach, for we are certain to awake as soon after our first sleep as possible, suffering from the torments of Tantalus. And we should advise you to restore the socks you have just removed, that is to say, if you wish the mosquitos to leave you the use of your feet to-morrow.

“Good night!”

The wish is certainly a benevolent one, but it sounds queer as a long grace emphatically prefixed to a “spread” of cold mutton or tough beefsteak, for which nothing under a special miracle could possibly make one “truly thankful.” However, good night!

From Bombay southwards as far as Goa, the coast,[4] viewed from the sea, merits little admiration. It is an unbroken succession of gentle rises and slopes, and cannot evade the charge of dulness and uniformity. Every now and then some fort or rock juts out into the water breaking the line, but the distance we stand out from land prevents our distinguishing the features of its different “lions,” such as Severndroog “the Golden Fortress,” Rutnageree “the Hill of Jewels,” and the Burnt Islands,[5] or Vingorla Rocks. The voyage, therefore, will be an uninteresting one—though at this season of the year, early spring, it will not be tedious.

The ancient Hindoos have a curious tradition concerning the formation and population of this coast. They believe that Parasu Rama, one of their demigods, after filling the earth with the blood of the offending Kshatriya, or regal and military caste, wished to perform an expiatory sacrifice. As, however, no Brahmin would attend, his demigodship found himself in rather an awkward predicament. At length, when sitting on the mountains of Concan (i.e. the Sayhadree Range, or Western Ghauts), he espied on the shore below, the putrefied corpses of fourteen Mlenchhas (any people not Hindoos), which had floated there borne by the tides from distant lands to the westward. Rama restored them to life, taught them religious knowledge, and, after converting them into Brahmins, performed his sacrifice. He afterwards, by means of his fiery darts, compelled Samudra, the Indian Neptune, to retire several miles from the foot of the Ghauts, and allotted to his protégés the strip of land thus recovered from the sea. From these fourteen men sprang the Kukanastha, or Concanese tribe of Maharattas, and the pious Hindoo still discovers in their lineaments, traces of a corpse-like expression of countenance inherited from their forefathers.

We remarked that it was a glad moment when we entered the pattimar. We will also observe that it was another when our sable Portuguese “butler,” as he terms himself, ecstasied by his propinquity to home—sweet home, and forgetting respect and self-possession in an élan of patriotism, abruptly directed our vision towards the whitewashed farol, or lighthouse, which marks the north side of the entrance to the Goa creek. And now, as we glide rapidly in, we will take a short military coup d’œil at the outward defences of the once celebrated Portuguese capital.