532 



brahmin. The public sale of the company's staple commodities 

 from Europe, consisting of the cargoes of all the Bombay ships of 

 the season, was then annually advertised to commence at a speci- 

 fied time, and to be continued during several successive days under 

 a large tent pitched for the purpose on Bombay-green, where the 

 governor and council always attended in person, with the ware- 

 house-keeper, and samples of the broad cloth and metals for sale. 

 Notice of these sales was sent to the principal trading towns on 

 the adjacent continent, and merchants resorted from thence and 

 many other parts of India. During the government of Mr. Hodges 

 I have known this sale deferred to a future period because the 

 day appointed was pronounced unlucky in the Hindoo calendar; 

 and the cause of the procrastination was thus registered in the 

 Bombay diary and consultations, and transmitted to Europe. 



In the third year of his government Mr. Hodges fell into a de- 

 clining stale of health ; a sea voyage being recommended as one 

 mean of his recoverv, I have seen him stand under a burning sun 

 at the water-side, with a stop-watch in his hand, wailing for the 

 lucky moment to set his foot in the boat which was to convey him 

 to the frigate in which he was to sail at some future period equally 

 propitious by the brahminical calculations. I must here remark, 

 that Mr. Ilodges's brahmin never promised him any thing beyond 

 the government of Bombay, he never foretold a return to his na- 

 tive country, nor the happiness which an exile naturally expects 

 after a long absence ; on the contrary, it was well known, dur- 

 ing his life, that a mysterious veil was said to obscure the 

 prospect after an era in the Hindoo calendar corresponding with 

 the beginning of A. D. 1771. 



