WESTERN H I N D O O S T A N. lo; 



lb that the commerce was then carried on, as it is in many 

 places to this day, in fmall boats, which convey the merchan- 

 dize to the fhips, which are obliged to anchor at a diftance from 

 land. Ptolemy alfo mentions the ports of thefe pirates, or the 

 'aJ^wi/ TTnoaTuVf and gives a lift of them. It is not improbable, 

 but that thefe pefts of the fea continued from that time to the 

 prefent : but certain it is, that Vafco de Gama found them on 

 this coaft in full force, in his fii it voyage to India. Marco Folo^ 

 who travelled in 1269, defcribes, at p. 145, their piracies in thofe 

 days, both in the feas of Guzerat and Malabar. He fays they 

 took their wives and children with them, and pafTed the whole 

 fummer on the fea. They commonly had twenty fliips in a 

 fleet, which they ranged at the diftance of five miles from 

 each other, making a line of a hundred miles. As foon as any 

 one defcried a merchant fliip it made a fignal, by fmoke, to the 

 reft; fo there was no poffibility of efcape. They offered no 

 violence to the crew ; they only plundered the velTel, and fet 

 the people on fhore. 



In our days many of the ports of the modern pirates have 

 been brought into notice, by the attempts to extirpate thefe 

 nefts of thieves, and with a temporary fuccefs. Their principal 

 faftneffes were in Fi&oria, Severn-droog, Sunder doo, Vlngorla 

 rocks, in Lat. 15" 22' 30", fix or feven miles from the fliore; 

 and I ftiould have given particular pre-eminence to Gheriaby Ghbriah, 

 the port of the chief pirate Angria, nearly midway between . . 



Bombay and Goa. 



Vicloria is the name we beftowed on one of thefe faftneffes. 

 The Indian one was Bancoote. This we retain, not only becaufe 



P 2 it 



