Indian Antiquary Vol 56

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 231

NOVAMBER, 1927)
JEAN DE THEVIENOTS ACCOUNT OF SURAT
203
them out on their stomachs, and four men hold the victim by the arms and feet, and two others have each of them a long whip made of a stout, round plait of leather ; with this they strike the patient one after the other, after the fashion of marshals, until he has received two to three hundred strokes and is bleeding. If this person does not confess to the theft, they begin to whip him again the next morning, and they even continue this for some days, until he has confessed everything, or until the stolen goods have been recovered, and the strange thing about it is that the Coloual does not send anyone to inspect either his house or his clothes, and if after five or six days he confesses nothing, they let him off.
There is in Surat also a Provost known as the Foursdar13, who is obligod to keep the countryside free and secure, and who is responsible for all robberies committed there ; but I do not know whether he is as dishonest as the Cotoual. When they want to arrest a person, they merely cry Doa padecha": this cry is as powerful as that of "haro" in Normandy; and if they forbid a person to leave the place where he is, saying " Doa padlecha," he cannot depart without constituting himself a criminal, and he is bound to give an account of himself at the court.14 This cry is used all over India : as a matter of fact, outrages seldom occur in Surat, and one can live there with a fair amount of freedom.
THVINOT'S TRAVELS.
CHAPTER XI.
Foul play against the French Company at Surat. · When I arrived in India, the Governor of Surat was making extensive enquiries regarding the French Company. As he had at first enquired of other Frenchmen, and especially those in whose interest it was that the Company should not be received in Surat, many bad things had been told him about the French, and thus he had formed a bad opinion of them owing to the artifice of their enemies. He was already thinking of asking the Court to banish them, when Father Ambrose, the Superior of the Capuchins, who had been informed of the matter, went to him to undeceive him, and to warn him not to trust the enemies of the Company, who were in league to ruin it if they could. He liked this Father on account of his uprightness; and for this reason he did not repel him : he only adjured him to tell him the truth about this matter without dissimulation, and to tell him whether the French who were to come were not pirates, as was rumoured throughout the land, and as several Frenchmen had already assured him.16
This thought took hold of the minds of the inhabitants of Surat, as soon as it was known that people in France were intending to send vessels to India for trading purposes; and this sla nder, was easily believed, because a certain Lambert Hugo, a Dutchman, who had had some Frenchmen on his vessei, and who was now remembered, had been in Mocha two years before with the French flag, commissioned by Monsieur de Vendôme, the Admiral of France at that time, and had taken some vessels. But what shocked people more, was the history of the boat carrying the luggage of the Queen of Bijapur, which was stranded near Socotra Island, situated at eleven degrees and forty minutes latitude, at the entrance of the Red Sea. This queen, who was on her way to Mecca, was out of reach of the attacks of the pirate vergel, as she had fortunately crossed in a Dutch boat; but having contented herself with one of her own boats for the transport of her luggage, Hugo came up with it, and
13 Faus dr, an army officer.
14 Gujarati durdt padechhe "he recites duudi." Duvai is "a prohibition in the name of a Rajaor other high authority, implying' an imprecation of vengeance in case of disobedience." It is also a solemn appeal for the redress of a grievance, which it is a sin to resist, like the Norman-French appeal Haro! Haro, viens à mon aide, mon Prince, which was effootive in the Channel Islands till quito recently.
16 Bornior (p. 187) says that Sivaji spared the Capuchin onastery in 1664, saying "The Frankish Padry are good men and shall not be molested."