o the king, had occasioned these
friendly offers. My man Wengali had been in the presence of the king,
and even had spoken with him, the king having laid his hand on his head,
and presented him with a _tesseriffe_.[393] I kept the ambassadors with
me, allowing their daily charges, till the ship might come into the
road, and that I had time to consider the proposals.

[Footnote 392: Narsinga appears at this place equivalent to the
Carnatic, and Velore seems to have been the residence of the king.--E.]

[Footnote 393: In all probability a dress, the ordinary mark of honour
given by princes in the east.--E.]

In August there was a greater flood at Narsipoor than had ever been
known, at least for the last twenty-nine years. So much so, that whole
hills of salt, many towns, and vast quantities of rice, were swept away,
and many thousands of men and cattle drowned. In this great inundation,
the water was three yards deep on the common highways. In Golconda,
which has a branch of this river that is dry in summer, above 4000
houses were washed away. Two stone bridges, one of nineteen and the
other of fifteen arches, as artificially built in my judgment as any in
Europe, which are ordinarily at least three fathoms above the water,
were three feet under water on this occasion, and six arches of the
nineteen were washed away. This bridge might well compare with the one
at Rochester in England.

The 4th October, our ship having been new sheathed, came over the bar
without hurt, being hitherto detained by foul weather. I now called
loudly for payment of the debts due me, and wrote on the subject the
third time to the court, insisting to be paid both principal and
interest. Upon this they wrote to Mir Mahmud Rasa and the Sabandar to
satisfy me. The 23d the ship came into the road of Masulipatam, and I
took order for having our goods shipped. On the 25th, news came of the
death of Wencatad Rajah, king of Narsinga, after having reigned fifty
years, and that his three wives, of whom Obyama, queen of Pullicatt,
was one, had burned themselves alive along with his body. Great troubles
were dreaded on this occasion, and the Hollanders were much afraid of
their new-built castle at Pullicatt; but soon afterwards there came a
reinforcement to its garrison of sixty-six soldiers, by a ship named the
Lion. She arrived from Bantam on the 1st November, bringing news that
the Dutch ship called the Bantam had been cast away in the Texel, as
likew