296 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
gong, entirely inhabited by Portuguese. Here the 
finest mangoes in India are produced. So much 
esteemed are they that they are sent to all the south- 
ern parts of the peninsula sufficiently near to obtain 
them in good preservation. The Portuguese have 
been exceedingly successful in cultivating this fruit, 
as the mango of Goa, a Portuguese settlement on the 
Malabar coast, next to that of Mazagong, is the most 
highly prized. It is said that those mangoes produced 
in the neighbourhood of this village had attained such 
celebrity during the reign of the Emperor Shah Jelian, 
as to be regularly sent to Delhi for the imperial table. 
There are two plain but not inelegant Roman 
Catholic churches at Mazagong, and a convenient 
dock for vessels of small burthen. About eight miles 
from the capital, at the extremity of the island, is 
a small fort called Sion, built upon an elevation, 
which rises abruptly from the plain, something like a 
depressed sugar-loaf. This fort commands the frith 
between Bombay and Salsette, across which a cause- 
way was built under the direction of Mr. Duncan, 
when governor, with a drawbridge in the centre, but 
too narrow for carriages to pass except in fine wea- 
ther. 
There is another small native town on this island 
called Mehim, situated on the northern side ; it is 
chiefly distinguished by a Portuguese college for Roman 
Catholic priests, though nothing can be more con- 
temptible as a seat of learning. This town and the 
adjacent villages contain a population of near sixteen 
thousand souls. 
As the season had now advanced we engaged a 
