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70. An Old Christian Cemetery in Haidarabad 



By Major T. W. Haig. 



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The following epitaphs, the dates of which range from 1645 

 to 1807, are from the old Armenian graveyard at Haidarabad. 

 One epitaph, as will be seen, is in Dutch. Dr. Daniel Havart in 

 his work Op en Ondergangh van Koroman del, iu forms us that 

 the English and Dutch merchants in Haidarabad originally had 

 but one cemetery between them, an hour's journey distant from the 

 Dutch factory, which stood near the Gar Minar, It is not easy 

 to verify this statement, for no English graves of the peventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries are known to exist in or near Haidarabad, 

 and from the fact that Stephen Visser's tomb is found in an 

 Armenian cemetery it appears that the Dutch shared with the 

 Armenians a cemetery which is still, as it was described by Havart, 

 an open field. From the same authority we leai-n that Johannes 

 van Nijendaal, chief of the Dutch factory, bettered this state of 

 affairs in 1678, when, at great cost, he surrounded the (new) 

 Dutch cemetery with a hedge of milk-trees with a stone gate, 

 and built a small house for the mourners. At the same time he 

 collected the bones of all the Dutch who had been buried in the 

 old (or Armenian) cemetery, and reinterred thenj in two stone 

 tombs. The book-keeper's t(»mbstone is particularly mentioned as 

 being too heavy to be carried far, and for this reason his remains 

 Were left undisturbed. 



In the immediate neighbourhood of tlie Armenian cemetery 

 is a plot of cultivated land surrounded by milk-trees, and it 

 appears highly probable that this is the "new " Dutch graveyard, 

 hut of the stone gate, the house for the'mouiners, and the tombs 

 no trace remains. These were, perhai>s, demolished after the 

 annexation of the kingdom of Grolkonda by Aurangzib in 1687, 

 shortly after whicli time the Dutch factory was removed from 



Haidarabad. 



For these references to Havart and for the reading of the 



am indebted to M Maurits Wagenvoort of 



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Dutch epitaph 



Amsterdam, and for the translations of the Armenian epitaphs to 



Mr. S. N. Pahlaw of Hiiidaiabad. 



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fl ^ 



STEVEN _ 



YS BRANTS 



VIS SER 



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8 



BOE CHOU 

 DER t^ 



OBYT, 20 



Stephen 

 Ysbrantson 



Visser ^ 



Book-keeper 



of the E'rist India Co. 

 Died 20th May, 1662. 



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MAY A° 1662. 



