ADVENTURERS

Evening Star, Issue 19550, 7 May 1927, Page 14

ADVENTURERS

VII.—PIONEERS IN INDIA [Written by N. E. Goad, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] . Keep not standing, fixed and rooted; Briskly venture, briskly roam, Head and hand, wher’er thou footrit. And stout heart are still at home. —Goethe. A little ship'with white sails gleaming in the sun is skimming like 3 great bird over the blue-sunlit waters of the Mediterranean—year" 1583. A group of keen English merchants are standing on the deck, eagerly discussing the prospects of the new business venture they are initiating. The party consists of John Eldred, Ralph Fitch, John Newbery, and others, and they are having the romance of their lives. Sent out by two of the merchant princes of England to open up a direct trade with India, they were positively the first Englishmen to travel thither by the overland route. It was a great venturi, an exhilarating experience. They felt more like bold and dashing cavaliers than prosaic British merchants. Hitherto Englishmen had been content to import their spices, silks, and other luxuries of the East by Venetian and Genoese ships, but recently they had woke up to the fact chat the banners of Venice and Genoa were becoming too common in the ports and harbors of Europe. Moreover, Englisn curiosity bad been aroused. Merchants had heard strange tales of burning deserts of sand; of caravans, of monstrously tall camels with soft padded feet and great lunging stride. Why should not Englishmen go and see these things for themselves? But that was not all. At the othei end of the caravan routes—what was there? What strange cities, what strange ships came in to unload the precious bales which the camels were wait ing to receive? And the people^-what were they like? All these topics the merchants on the ship were discussing on that bright sunny morning in the Mediterranean. But the little ship was now approaching the land. The shores of ancient Syria could be seen sleeping in the sun, and the comely outline of distant mountains was just suggested through the soft morning haze. A little while and the ship had arrived. Low shores of golden sand, cloudless blue skies, gardens, mulberry trees, silkworms, merchants in queer national dress from every corner of the globe. Such was Tripohs, the seaport town of Syria. ALEPPO AND THE EUPHRATES. From this town our friends departed, not by motor car or aeroplane, hut by caravan, for Aleppo. The journey was over historic ground—over the famous Lebanon Mountains, which are mentioned in the Scriptures. Aleppo was reached after an uneventful journey, and our hones!* British merchants were amazed at the great quantities of merchandise in the city, innocents abroad —they should have known that Aleppo was then one of the greatest commercial centres in the world, a meeting place for all the caravans from the south.

From Aleppo our merchants and their merchandise proceeded down the Euphrates in hired boats. Never before -had they seen such a country—dry desert, sun, silence. They passed low houses of sun-baked brick; they saw women with huge noso rings and ankle rings; and all the way they encountered thieving Arabs. At night the merchants slept on the boats to guard their goods, no doubt; the mariners slept on shore. Imagine the scene. Deep silence all round, a broad silver river, tall palm trees standing breathless on the low banks. Above the Oriental stars with their shining eyes, the same stars that had looked down on Abraham in his wanderings, on Joseph travelling as a slave to Egypt. Yes, and that would look on Cobnam, in the year 1926 a.d., winging his way to the uttermost parts of the earth. The very same stars. But our honest British merchants, being practical men of strong character, would not indulge in useless reminiscences. Their thoughts would be occupied more with the price of wool, tin, and haberdashery, the goods that they had bought to sell. After a few days on the river they at last reached the town of Felugia, where they were obliged to transfer their goods from the boats to asses, and cross a burning desert for about eighteen weeks. Transport in those days, you see. had its little limitations; but the merchants managed to reach Bagdad safe and sound all the same, AT BAGDAD.

They found this a city of mosques and ancient shrines, a famous caravan centre through which passed “ all the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind ” on its way to the markets of Europe. But even of greater interest, perhaps, were the ancient ruins nearby; the ruins of ancient Babylon, the city of Nebuchadnezzar, where Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den. Once the centre of commerce, art, and civilisation, “that great city” is now nothing but masses of rubble and mud bricks. “Where Nebuchadnezzar sat and feasted, the jackals and foxes now roam undisturbed. And here, too, are the ruins of the Tower of Babel Amid such scenes one begins to moralize. But there, it’s all right, we shall refrain.

But Bagdad itself, what a contrast I Here all is animation and life. Merchants arrive and depart. Ships, or rather boats, ply busily up and down the river, carrying on a brisk trade with the coast. And here our friends again took to the boats and sailed on the waters of Babylon—that is, on the Tims River—right down to the town of Bussorah, on the Persian. Gulf. Once more they were astonished at the merchandise—spices from the Indies, silks, rubies, and diamonds from India. What dazzling wealth! But the merchants all gave them cold looks, especially the Venetians. IMPRISONMENT AND ESCAPE. While John Eldred stayed at Buesorah to transact business, .Npwbery and Fitch pushed on to Ormuz, an island in the Persian Gulf. Their object was to establish an English trading station there. The Venetians, who had held a monopoly of the Eastern trade for many years, were up in arms at, once. They resented the intrusion of the English, and persuaded the Portuguese Government to imprison them on a trumped-up charge. The Portuguese, in fact, imprisoned them because Drake bad fired two, shots at one of their galleons when he was visiting the Moluccas in the year 1580. A trumped-up charge indeed. Heedless of the unfortunate Englishmen’s protests they sent them to Goa, the capital of Portuguese India, where they were again imprisoned. However, after a month or so they were released from the prison through the kind offices of an English Jesuit, called Stevens, who went hail for the amount 3,000 ducats. They were not, of course, permitted to leave Goa. Newbery, Fitch, and their companions, like the good business men that they were, 'adapted themselves to cir cumstances very well indeed- They behaved like good Catholics; they ate tended Mass regularly, and used their rosaries with great gusto. As a result their business thrived, for they had set up a shop in which they sold their English wares. But they soon grew tired of this life, and having disarmed suspicion by their pious oon-

duct, they managed to escape with very little difficulty—all except one man called John Story, who preferred to enter a monastery , in Goa. VISIT TO THE GREAT MOGUL.

In their travels Newbery and. Fitch fell in with an ambassador of Akbar. the great Mogul, and ho persuaded them to visit his court at Agra. They consented, and saw for the first time a sacred city of the Hindoos. They saw the Ganges swarming with people who had come to worship' in its sacred waters, Thew saw minarets, and mosques, religious devotees, strange religious customs. They saw people worshipping the cow, and this divinity placidly chewing the cud look it all as a matter of course. They saw people who would not take life, who literally would not harm a fly or kill an ant. And yet, they saw women being burnt to death when their husbands died. It appeiars that in a bygone age Indian women had engaged in an extensive, system of husband poisoning, and it was to check the genial practice that this barbaric custom was introduced by law. It proved most effective. And Agra itself : The distant mountains lifted , their snowy crests to a flaming sky; the white houses blazed in the tropical sun; so many elephants whose broad backs looked like a veritable sea; so many people as numerous as the sands on the shore. India.

■ The English stayed some weeks at the court of the Great Mogul, seeking, no doubt, further opportunities for English trade. But at Agra the party separated. Newbery set out for Lahore in the north-west," intending to travel via Persia to England. He was never heard of again. Fitch journeyed down the Ganges to Bengal and visited Pegu and Malacca. From Malacca he, set out on his return journey with a full report of his wonderful adventures and of the marvellous things he had seen. He described ttrange peoples, fierce animals, wonderful vegetation, rich resources, and the unimaginable wealth of the East; and last, but not least, ho pointed out the golden opportunities for English trade. And so, travelling by way of India and Mesopotamia, he reached England in the year 1591 after an absence of eight years. The mission had been a success; and the merchant princes who had financed the undertaking gained great wealth. Fitch returned with valuable commodities and a report which was a complete eye-opener to English commercial -men. Eldred had returned, some time previously in.a merchant ship that was ‘ one of the richest that had ever reached England.” These travellers had broken entirely new ground, and as a result of* their work powerful chartered companies arose, which increased the wealth and the influence of England. Such has always been the story of English trade expansion.