71 



I expected to find more remains of antiquity in these districts, 

 because in the essays on the Sacred Isles of the West, we are informed 

 that in the fifth century of the christian era, Cambat, or Cambay, 

 was " the metropolis of the Bala-rayas, and perhaps of the empe- 

 rors of the west also, when these two dignities happened to be 

 united in the same person; and it was also the place of residence 

 of Tamra-Sena, so called from his metropolis, Tamra-pura, signi- 

 fying the Copper-city, which is supposed to have been entirely 

 built of that metal ; but, if I may offer my opinion, it received its 

 name from the domes and spires of the temples being covered with 

 copper. This city was near Cambat, but tradition says that it was 

 swallowed up by the sea ; and Cambat was a famous place of wor- 

 ship, called in the puranas Shambhast'ha-Tirt'ha, from a shambha or 

 column close to the sacred pool. Now a column is called camba 

 in the spoken dialects, and from cambasta is derived its present name 

 of Cambat. Shambhast'ha and Tamra-pura are called Asia and 

 Trapera, by the author of the Periplus; but Ptolemy, considering 

 these two places as one only, for they were close to each other, 

 calls it Asiacarnpra, or Astacapra; and instead oiTamra, which sig- 

 nifies copper, he writes Campra, or Capra. The reason why he has 

 carried this place so far inland, on the banks of the Mahi is, that 

 either he or some other writer misunderstood the natives, who have 

 no word for a bay or gulph, and use generally the word river in- 

 stead of it, particularly when there is one at the bottom of the 

 gulph, as in the present case. Osorio, a Portugueze writer, says 

 that when Francis D'Almeida landed near Cambat, in the year 

 1519, he saw the ruins of sumptuous buildings and temples, the 

 remains of an ancient city ; the history of which was connected 



