158 
Having now given an account of the natural history of Bombay, 
and of its native and European inhabitants, towards the conclusion 
of the eighteenth century, it may not be uninteresting to contrast, 
it with a few particulars respecting that island about an hundred 
years before, from the letters of Dr. Fryer, who went there in l6‘73, 
ten years after it had been ceded to the English, as part of the 
marriage portion of Catharine of Portugal. 
“ On the English taking possession of Bombay in 1664, they 
found a pretty well seated, but ill fortified house; four brass guns 
being the whole defence of the island; unless a few chambers 
housed in small towers in convenient places, to scour the Malabars, 
who heretofore have been more insolent than of late; adventuring 
not only to seize their cattle, but depopulate whole villages by their 
outrages; either destroying them by fire and sword, or compelling 
to a worse fate, eternal and intolerable slavery. 
“ About the house was a large garden, voiced to be the plea- 
santest in India, intended rather for wanton dalliance, love’s artii- 
leiy, than to make resistance against an invading foe: for, the 
Portugals generally forgetting their pristine virtue, lust, riot, and 
rapine, the ensuing consequences of a long undisturbed peace, 
where wealth abounds, are the only remarkable reliques of their 
ancient worth; their courages being so much effeminated, that it 
is a wonder to most how they keep any thing; if it were not that 
they have lived among mean-spirited neighbours. But to return 
to this garden of Eden, or place of terrestrial happiness, it would 
put the searchers upon as hard an inquest as the other has done 
its posterity. The walks which before were covered with nature’s 
verdant awning, and lightly pressed by soft delights, are now open 
