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CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
JULY, 1878.]
NOTES ON THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF CHAUL AND BASSEIN, by J. Gerson da Cunha, M.R.C.S., &c., &c. Bombay: Thacker, Vining, & Co.
"Save me from my friends," says a Spanish proverb, with which Dr. Da Cunha, as a member of a kindred race, is doubtless acquainted, and which must have recurred to him pretty often since the demand for his monographs upon the two most ancient ports of the North Konkan induced him (as he tells us in his preface) to unite them in a serious volume, apparently with some slight alterations, and the addition of 26 illustrations and a map. The result is that we have, in an unhandy and costly volume, a large amount of information upon the cities of C haul and Bassein, "and the domains which there adjacent lie," which would have been far more convenient to the few inquirers interested in the matter in the form of two octavo pamphlets. The illustrations might well have been left out. The photographs, as Dr. Da Cunha seems to be aware, are execrable; the engravings mostly very little better; and the map, with its orthography of no system (and generally different from that used in the body of the work), and its scanty and incorrect topography, is, if possible, worse; and there is no index.
The public (of Bombay at least) has heard so much, and yet so little that was pleasant, of Dr. Da Cunha's method of using his authorities, that we would not willingly enter upon the subject if we were not forced to do so by the fact that we have ourselves been worse handled by him than almost anybody else. A writer on scientific subjects necessarily, and by his own act of publication, places his ideas or opinions (let the value of the same be more or less) at the disposal of other inquirers; and a compiler who does not quote authorities wrongs rather his readers than his informants, though his conduct is reprehensible enough. But when the ipsissima verba of any writer are used by another, the former is entitled, by the courtesy of letters, to inverted commas and a marginal citation; nor is his right to be avoided by a mere mutilation or paraphrase of the passage. Of this rule, we regret to say, Dr. Gerson da 1 Our note runs as follows:A very large gun is said to have been given by the English Government to the Habshi of Zinjira from the Pusauti Burj or S.E. Bastion. The Patil family of Korlê still worship the remaining gune once a year," &c. Dr. da Cunha inserts as a present after 'given. Pusanti is a printer's-devilry for Pusauti.
Probably deeper water then rendered Thânê and Kalyan more approachable. Dr. Da Cunha falls into the common error of attributing the gradual shoaling of their approaches to silt'. But the fact is that the constant encroachment of man on the Koikan creeks has a tendency to narrow the channel, create scours,' and prevent 'silt." We have no scientific records as to the rise of the west coast by upheaval, though observations are now in progress; but that excellent observer Mr. Thomas, late Collector of Malabar (in his work on Indian angling), and most
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Cunha is either ignorant or negligent. To quote one instance out of many, an editorial note has been bodily conveyed,' including a misprint, from Ind. Ant. vol. III. p. 182, to his p. 88,1 and enriched with a pleonasm, but acknowledged in no way whatever.
There is some pleasure in turning from the demerits of an old contributor to his virtues, and there is no doubt that Dr. Da Cunha's work is a better guide to the Portuguese remains around Bombay than any other yet accessible. He troubles himself little with the Hindu period, of which we have, indeed, no very authentic records. The name of Bassein we know to have been from its earliest mention Wasai, which title it retains in modern Marathi. Nor does it appear at an earlier period to have been so well known or prosperous as might be expected from its position. Chaul, on the other, hand, has been known for about two hundred years as a great port, and apparently always under its present name. Dr. Da Cunha speaks of "the ancient city of Chaul, now called Rewa danda"; but the fact is that Chaul is still a recognized name for the whole ancient city, which encloses two sides of Rewadanda, as the sea does the other two, and is now chiefly covered with palm gardens. The relation between the two would seem in their best days to have been that of London in general to the parts below bridge.'
Chaul, says our author (restricting the name to the parts without Portuguesified Rewadanda), was originally called Champawati. Be this as it may, the Greek name was certainly Simylla"; the modern Marathi name (s) is (Jonesically transliterated) Chenwal: the local pronunciation may be best phoneticized to the English ear as Tsemwal'. It is impossible to conceive a modern Greek getting much nearer to the native orthoëpy than by using his ancestors' phrase; and the later writers who called it Chivil, Chivel, Cheul, &c., as exhaustively enumerated by Dr. Da Cunha, were evidently all aiming at the same pronunciation, and led Colonel Yule to an identification of which there can now be no doubt. The second syllable, wal or wali, is
coast officers, believe in it. From a letter of Mr. Farmer, Bo. C.S., dated from Poons, and quoted by Grant Duff, vol. II. p. 348, it may be concluded that about 1790 Chaul bar had 4 fathoms of water. Horsburgh in 1817 gives 3 only; and we think the present depth is 24 on rock.
Cl. Ptolem. Geog. VII. i. 6, VIII. xxvi. 3, and I. xvii. 3, 4. In the latter place, speaking of the mistakes of Marinus, Ptolemy says: "He places Simylla (rà EíuvλAλa), a seaport and commercial city of India, to the west, not only of Cape Komara, but even of the river Indus. Yet that city is mentioned only as south of the mouths of that river by those who have sailed to that country and spent much" time there in those parts, and by those who have returned we have been informed that the natives call it Timúla (Τίμουλα).”-ED.
See Ind. Ant. vol. IV. p. 282.
