54 



banks, and covered the adjacent fields. One of the company's 

 armed vessels lately arrived from Bombay was lost in die river, 

 together with a great number of large cotton boats and other craft, 

 richly laden. 



The effects of this storm at Surat were still more dreadful ; 

 many ships foundered at the bar, or were driven on shore; the 

 banks of the Tappee were covered with wrecks, which the violence 

 of the wind and swelling floods carried to a great distance inland; 

 the river flowed into the city, covered the surrounding country, and 

 did incalculable damage. I will not give the melancholy detail 

 which at the time interested every feeling heart, though one cir- 

 cumstance must not be entirely passed over. The English being 

 at war with the Mahrattas, large detachments of their cavalry were 

 then in the vicinity of Surat, committing their usual depredations. 

 About three thousand inhabitants, to avoid their cruelty, deserted 

 the villages, and took refuge on an island in the Tappee, with their 

 wives, children, cattle, furniture, looms, spinning wheels, and stock 

 of grain for the rainy season. There they anticipated an asylum 

 until the setting in of the monsoon should drive the Mahrattas from 

 the country, and allow them to return home. They had, alas! a 

 more formidable enemy to contend with ; on that fatal night the 

 river entirely overwhelmed the island, and carried off every indi- 

 vidual ! 



My palanquin- bearers now found no difficulty in fording the 

 stream of the Dahder; the last time I crossed it was with some 

 danger, on a raft placed over earthen pots, a contrivance well 

 known in modern Egypt, where they make a float of earthen pots 

 tied togellier, covered with a platform of palm leaves, which will 



