Indian Antiquary Vol 49

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 95

MAY, 1920)
ANDAMANESE IN PENANG
reached Bidar he collected his own haram, which had been left in the capital until then, Malik Naib's haram, and the harams of those amira who were in his service, and returned by another way.
When the king reached the neighbourhood of Junnâr and learnt of the prince's flight he set his heart on capturing the fortress of Shivner, and laid siege to it. The kotwal of the fort prepared to defend it, and removed from his mind any thought that he was bound by ties of duty to the king. The king sent a message to the kotwdl to say that all forts and districts were in his hands and that the young prince himself was no more than one of his servants. He said that the Kotwal was committing an error in refusing to submit to him. The kotuál replied that the prince had entrusted the fort to him, and that if he were false to the prince and surrendered the fort to the king, the latter could thenceforth have no confidence in him.
In the meantime the news of the prince's raid on Bidar reached the king's army, and the king was perturbed by the thought that the prince might have seized the capital and placed him in great straits. He set out for Bidar by the road by which the prince was returning, but the prince, turning aside, avoided him. The king then issued a farmán summoning the prince to court, and attempted to satisfy him by means of a safe conduct, but the prince sought refuge in plausible excuses and avoided attendance on the king. After this the king molested the prince no more till the day of his death.
It is clear that this story is more probable than the other, for it is more credible that it was in the king's absence, rather than when he was in the capital, that the prince ventured to go to Bidar and carry off the haram.31
(To be continued. )
ANDAMANESE IN PENANG, 1819.
BY SIR R. C. TEMPLE.
Prefatory Note. The two following accounts of the same event, namely a visit to Penang of two Andamanese captured by a Chinese junk in 1819, are taken respectively from the Prince of Wales Island Gazette of the 3rd April 1819 and from the May 1867 number of a now extinct journal called Indian Society, published in Calcutta.
Both accounts purport to relate the circumstances of the capture and the visit, embellished by remarks from Hamilton's article on the Andamans in his East India Gazetteer, published in 1815, his information in its turn being based on Colebrooke's paper on the Andaman Islands, No. 27 of vol. IV, Asiatic Researches, ed. 1799 and on Symes' Embassy to Ava, published in 1800. The later version of the story has also further details of the Andamanese taken from Mouat's Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders, published in 1863.
The first account was written by John Anderson, Secretary to Government, Prince of Wales Island, and the second by his son, Captain T. C. Anderson, Bengal Staff Corps.
The footnotes to the accounts will show where they are in error.
31 In spite of Sayyid 'All's estimate of its probability, this story is incorrect, and Mahmud Shah was in the capital when Ahmad made his daring raid.