Volume 1

The East-India gazetteer; containing particular descriptions of the empires, kingdoms, principalities, provinces, cities, towns, districts, fortresses, harbours, rivers, lakes, &c. of Hindostan, and the adjacent countries, India beyond the Ganges, and the eastern archipelago; together with sketches of the manners, customs, institutions, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, revenues, population, castes, religion, history, &c. of their various inhabitants / By Walter Hamilton.

  • Hamilton, Walter, M.R.A.S.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The East-India gazetteer; containing particular descriptions of the empires, kingdoms, principalities, provinces, cities, towns, districts, fortresses, harbours, rivers, lakes, &c. of Hindostan, and the adjacent countries, India beyond the Ganges, and the eastern archipelago; together with sketches of the manners, customs, institutions, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, revenues, population, castes, religion, history, &c. of their various inhabitants / By Walter Hamilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    665/712 (page 643)
    adyentures by sea. Tlie three great articles of general importation by the Greeks and Romans were, first, spices; secondly, precious stones and pearls ; thirdly, silk. Their exports to India were woollen cloth of a slight fabric, linen in chequer-work, some precious stones, and some aromatics unknown in India, coral, storax, glass vessels of diiFerent kinds, wrought silver, Italian, Greek, and Arabian wines, brass, tin, lead, girdles, sashes, melilot, white glass, red arsenic, black lead, and gold and silver. Of the last-mentioned metal the influx to Hindostan has always been very great, as the inhabitants have always sold much and purchased little: the balance has consequently always been in their favour. A great deal of bullion is supposed to be annually lost by being concealed un¬ der ground by the natives, many of whom die without revealing the site of their hidden treasure, and the practice of hoarding is among all ranks of Hindoos almost universal. During many centuries, cotton piece- goods were the grand staple of Hin¬ dostan ; but latterly, owing to the great improvements in Europe, the quantity exported has considerably diminished. The various sorts fabricated in dif¬ ferent provinces from Cape Comorin to the northern mountains, are too numerous to admit of particular de¬ tail ; and for further information re¬ garding the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of Hindostan, the reader is referred to the provinces and cities respectively. In the mean time it may safely be asserted, that with so vast an extent of fertile soil, peopled by so many millions of tract¬ able and industrious inhabitants, Hin¬ dostan is capable of supplying the whole world with any species of tro¬ pical merchandize, the production, in fact, being only limited by the demand. India was very little known to the Greeks until Alexander’s expedition, about 327 years before Christ. The following particulars, selected from the ancient descriptions of India by Arrian and other authors, will show how nearly the ancient inhabitants resemble the present. 1. The slender make of their bodies. 2. Their living on vegetable food. 3. Marriage at seven years of age, and the prohibition of marriage be¬ tween different castes. 4. The men wearing ear-rings and party-coloured shoes, also veils cover¬ ing the head and part of the shoul¬ ders. 5. Daubing their faces with co¬ lours. 6. Only principal persons having umbrellas carried over them. 7. Two-handed swords, and bows drawn by the feet. 8. The manner of taking elephants the same as the present. 9. Manufactures of cottons of ex¬ traordinary whiteness; and the plant named carpas-us as at present. 10. Monstrous ants, by which the termites or white ants are meant. 11. Wooden houses on the banks of large rivers, to be occasionally removed, as the river changes its vcourse. 12. The tala or tal tree,, a kind of palm. 13. The banyan trees, and the In¬ dian devotees sitting under them. A greater degree of similarity ex¬ ists betw^een the East-Indian meta¬ physical doctrines and that of the earlier rather than the later Greeks; and, as it is scarcely probable that the communication should have taken place, and the knowledge been im¬ parted at the precise interval of time which intervened between the earlier and later schools of Greek philosophy, and especially between the Pythago¬ reans and Platonists, there is reason to believe that, in this instance, at least, the Indians were the teachers, instead of the scholars, as some have asserted. The Greeks have not left us any means of knowing with accuracy what vernacular languages were pre¬ valent in India on their arrival. The radical language of India is the San¬ scrit, of which such is the antiquity, that neither history nor tradition has 2 T 2