taken, being extremely wild. It is efteemed as fine eating as
the laft.
I s h a l l quit the fubjedt of this part of natural hiftory with
a few mifcellaneous remarks. The antients had very extravagant
notions o f the animals o f this country, yet (amidft the
wild and exaggerated accounts) have preferved fome indifpu-
table truths; among them we find, in Pliny, lib. vii. c. a, confirmed
to us, that the Ourang Outang, or great ape, was found
in the -forefts'of Hindoojlan, and formed what the, Roman natu-
ralift fuppofed to have been a people called Choromanda. The
fame fpecies, under the notion of Satyrs, was met with among
the Cartaduli; and the little kind, the famous Pygmai Spitha-
mcei, the fame with thofe celebrated by Homer for their annual
wars with the cranes, are no other than the little men I
mentioned to be found in the forefts of the Carnatic.
T h e infedls o f Hindoojlan baffle all numeration. A few of
the .moft ufeful only may be mentioned. At the head of them
I ihall here only fpeak o f the filk-worms. I begin with the
Phalana mori, and even at this outfet declare it to have been
very long indeed before the infedl itfelf found its way into India.
The Bengalefe, and the people of the adjacent AJJam, had
long a commercial intercourfe, by which the laft received fait,
and the former a vaft quantity of filk. This, i f we may credit
Raynal, grew fpontaneoufly on the trees, as Pliny * fays it did
among the antient Seres, Lanicio Sylvarum nobiley, The Hindoos,
happy in their manufactures fuited to their climate, wifely
left to their neighbors, the Perjians, the cultivation of the
mulberry-trees, and its infeil inhabitant. For the fake of
* Lib, vi. c. 17.
variety
variety and extent o f commerce, we find that in the time o f
Akbar, certain of his dominions took to the weaving of filk
from the raw material imported from AJJdm, Bengal, and perhaps
other places. There were manufactures o f velvets and
filks in Guzerat and Laboor ; but the Hindoos at the fame period
had velvets and fattins from Europe, and the laft from
China.
I t does not appear to me that the infecSts had been domefti-
cated in Hitidobjlan, as they have from early times in China. It
is conjeilured that filk was firft known at Rome, brought di-
reaiy from the Seres, A. D. 17, and that Tiberius cenfured the
wear as effeminate. It muft have been manufactured in the
country in which it was produced, and not in any intermediate
kingdom.
Akbar finifhed his glorious reign in 1605. After the turbulent
reigns of Shah Jehan and Aurengzebe in that and the next
century, and the fhort reigns which preceded the total diffolu-
tion o f thq Mogul empire, no time was given for the cultivation
Of the arts of peace. After the great fabric fell to pieces, the
leffer parts retained vigour enough to acit againft each other, of
incited by profpeit of fuccèfs courted the alliance of thé Europeans,
ready to join that power which they hoped might affift
to cruih their rivals.
O u r Codiés, our Lawrences, our Pordes, fought our detailed
battles, and at length cleared the plains o f Hindoojlan from a
brave and able foe. The genius of tht French funk Under the
fuperior guardian o f the BtMj¥. Cîkii, by Serious great actions,
decided the fate; foine druggies bcfwüen 'E'àfrob and
V o l. II. • '. c (! N n Kdhlb