The History of the late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogol: together with the most considerable passages for 5 years following in that Empire. To which is added, a letter to the Lord Colbert, touching the extent of Indostan ... (A continuation of the Memoires of Monsieur Bernier,...

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TRAVELS IN THE MOGUL EMPIRE TRAVELS IN THE MOGUL EMPIRE, BY FRANCIS BERNIER. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY IRVING BROCK. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : WILLIAM PICKERING, CHANCERY-LANE. 1826. Thomw While, Priuter, Crane Court. TRAVELS IN THE MOGUL EMPIRE. A LETTER TO MR. CHAPELAIN ON THE SUPERSTITIONS AND ON THE SINGULAR CUSTOMS AND OPINIONS OF THE HINDOOS OR PAGANS OF HINDOSTAN. SIR, Schiraz, in Persia, 10 June, 1668. I have witnessed two solar eclipses which it is scarcely possible I should ever forget. The one I saw from France in the year 1654 ; the other from Delhi in India in 1666. The sight of the first eclipse was impressed upon my mind by the childish credulity of the French people, and by their groundless and unreasonable alarm ; an alarm so excessive, that some bought drugs as charms to defend themselves against the eclipse ; some kept themselves closely shut up, and ex cluded all light, either in carefully-barred apart ments or in cellars ; while thousands flocked to their respective churches : some apprehending and dreading a malign and dangerous influence : VOL. II. b others believing that the last day was at hand and that the eclipse was about to shake the foundations of the world.

Such were the absurd notions entertained by our countrymen, notwithstanding the wi kings of Gassendi, Roberval and other celebrated astronomers and philosophers, which clearly demonstrated that the eclipse was only similar to many others which had been productive of no mischief; that this obscuration of the sun was known and predicted, and was without any other peculiarity than what might be found in the reveries of ignorant or designing astrologers. The eclipse of 1666 is also indelibly imprinted on my memory by the ridiculous errors and strange superstitions of the Indians. At the time fixed for its appearance I took my station on the terrace of my house, situated on the banks of the Jumna ; when I saw both shores of the river, for nearly a league in length, covered with pagans or idolaters, who stood in the water up to the waist, their eyes rivetted to the skies, watching the commencement of the eclipse, in order to plunge and wash themselves at the very instant.

The little boys and girls were quite naked ; the men had nothing but a scarf round their mid dle and the married women and girls of six or seven years of age were covered with a sin gle cloth. Persons of rank or wealth, such as rajahs (pagan sovereign princes, and generally courtiers in the service and pay of the king) errafs or money-changers, bankers, jewellers and other rich merchants crossed from the opposite side of the river with their families, and pitching their tents, fixed kanates or screens in the water within which they and their wives washed and performed the usual ceremonies without any exposure. No sooner did these idolaters perceive that the obscuration of the sun was begun, than they all raised a loud cry, and plunged the whole body under water several times in quick succession ; after which they stood in the river, lifted their eyes and hands toward the sun, muttered and prayed with seeming devotion, filling their hands from time to time with water, which they threw in the direction of the sun ; bowing their heads very low and moving and turning their arms and hands, sometimes one way, sometimes another.