37^ 



G A N G E T I C H I N D O O S T A N. 



other animals, which they find dead. The carcafes or limbs 

 they dry, and eat them occafionally *. 



Chittigong. Chittigong is the laft diftri(St in that province ; it is a narrow 



territory running along the fliore of the bay of Bengal^ about 

 a hundred miles in length, bounded to the eaft by a range of 

 mountains, which extend as high as Lat. 24° 50'. Abulfazel, 

 ii. 13, fpeaks of it as a city fituated amongft trees, and f:iys, that 

 it was in his time a great emporium^ the refort of Ghriftian and 

 other merchants. The Portugueje afterwards called the city 

 and province Chattingam and Xatigan. M. d'Anville thinks 

 that the river it ftands on was the Catabeda of Ptolemy. The 

 city is placed in Lat. 22° id. 



V151TED EARLY The firft Europeans who vifited thefe parts were the Portu- 



BY THE A ORTU 



GUESE. " giieje. John Sylveira was fent there with four fhips about the 



year 15 18, by Lopez Soarez, governor of the Indies. He arriv- 

 ed, fays Offbrio, ii. 250, at the port of Chattingam, or what we 

 call Chittigong, and met with (apparently) the moil friendly re- 

 ception from the inhabitants, who, at that very time, were 

 plotting the deftrudtion of the ftrangers ; fkirmilhes enfued, 

 with vidory to the Portugueje. During their flay at that port, 

 they received an invitation from the governor of Daraca (Ara- 

 can, a potent kingdom adjoining to Chittigong, on the fouth) 

 to bring his fhips before that city. Sylveira complied with the 

 requeft, and failed up the river, but on difcovering that the 

 friendly countenance Ihewn to him by the governor, was the 



• Of the Cuci, or mountaneers of Tipra, Afiatic Refearches, ii, p. 187. 



refult 



