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JENKINSON, LINSCOUTEN AND FINCH.   145

Most of the travellers to India visited only the sea ports and had nothing to do in the northern parts of Hindostan; therefore the Indus often escaped their attention, while the more famous Ganges is remembered in their narratives. Thus for instance, CÆSAR FREDERICKE (1563-1581), has a good deal to say of the Ganges,' and RALPH FITCH, who in 1583-1591 travelled to Goa, Bengal and Pegu, even knows that the Ganges comes from the N.W., and runs eastwards to the Gulf of Bengal after receiving many tributaries as large as the main river itself.2 JAN HUYGHEN VAN LINSCOUTEN, 1583, devotes a special chapter to Bengal and the river Ganges, in which he says that the source of the river is unknown, and where we believe we recognise a reference to Emperor Akbar's exploring expedition to the source, mixed up with the old legend of the Pison of Paradise, and some classical notion of the Ganges.3

On his journey round the world from 1586 to 1605 PEDRO TEIXEIRA visited Goa, the capital of Portuguese India, where Linscouten, who visited many places on both Indian peninsulas had been residing some years. In his chapter on the »Kings of Persia», Teixeira has a digression on India, in which he refers to the Indus and its affluents, and enumerates various kingdoms in the N.W. of India. He mentions the crocodiles of the Ganges, and has heard that »the most and best of the rhubarb comes from Gax Ghar or Kax Ghar (Kashgar), a city of Usbek, a province near Kethao Kothan ...D

WILLIAM FINCH, the merchant, knew, in 161o, that Ravi is »a goodly River which falleth into Indus», and that the Ganges is three quarters of a mile broad, receives 3o tributaries, swells over its banks after heavy rains and falls into the Gulf of Bengal. 5 Of Kashmir he has learnt that it is a strong city on the river Bahat, and that the country is a goodly plain, lying on the mountains. »This Country is cold, subject to frosts, and great snowes, neare to Cascar, but separated with such mountaines, that there is no passage for Caravans: yet there commeth oft-times Musk, with Silke and other merchandize this way by men and goods ... Upon

I HAKLUYT, op. cit. Vol. V, p. 365.

2 Ibidem, p. 476.

3 Navigatio ac itinerarium Johannis Hugonis Linscotani in Orientalem sive Lusitanorum Indiam. Hage-Comitis 1599. The passage about the Ganges runs as follows (p. 18) : Ad finem regionis Orixe tractusque Choroinandel, flumen Ganges incipit in regno Bengalæ. Hoc fluentum inter orbis aquas clarissimum est. Origo ignoratur, quam quidam ex Paradiso repetunt fabul intuitu, quam Bengal homines referunt. Rex quidam (ita ajunt) cupidus cognoscendi ortus, quosdam educari jussit pisce crudo, ut its commodius uteretur. Hos navibus impositos adverso flumine exploratores misit, qui demum post quorundam mensium navigationé devenêre in loca, ubi odore suavissimo aër mitissimus luceret, aquis leniter stagnantibus, impletâ fide Paradisi. Cum autem ulterius tendere conarentur, ipsi quidé nihil profecerùt, repugnante valido fluminis cursu: Ideoque reversi ad Regem, que visa fuerant exposuerunt, simulque creditum est, Gangem ex Paradiso aquas in nostrum orbern ferre.

4 The Travels of Pedro Teixeira; with his »Kings of Harmuz», and extracts from his »Kings of Persia». Transi. and annotated by W. F. SINCLAIR. London, Hakluyt Society 1902, p. 209 et seq. Some of the passages which would have been most interesting to us are missing in this edition.

5 Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, by SAMUEL PURCHAS. Vol. IV. Glasgow 1905, p. 52.

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