John Marshall in India
JOHN MARSUALL, a factor of the East India Company, who made the " Notes and Observations in Bengal," which are the matter of this volume, in the years between 1668 and 1672, and is known as "-the earliest Englishman who really studied Indian Antiquities," recorded them in a very haphazard manner. Shafaat Ahmad Khan endeavours in this book to group Marshall's data according to subjects, that they may be henceforth easily available to students of Indian lore, Marshall, from his diary, appears to have been a reserved, self-centred creature, with little interest in those with whom his lot was cast. He makes no mention of the fact that the Captain of the Blackmore,' a ship of the convoy he went East in, . carried the King's Commission to retake Fort St. George (Madras) which was in rebellion ; for the Company's late, agent, Sir Edward Winter, had deposed George Foxcroft, elected as his successor by the Court of Committees, and usurped his office. Each ship of the convoy carried (as the log of the Unicorn ' quaintly puts it) " 12 Soldiers and other Ammunition for the purpose." Neither does he note the surprising fact that it was Foxcroft who welcomed the new factors on their arrival.
One imagines his " modest, soft-speaking manner " must have been of the kind which is so unspeakably irritating to more outspoken men, for without record of anything to lead up to such a result, a note he makes on April 20th, 1670, says : " This day Gab (Townshend, a senior factor) fell from words to blows about .1 o'clock afternoon." Those who know Bengal in April will understand why Townshend's temper then proved incapable of further strain. Marshall served under Job Charnock at Patna, but although we should like to hear something of the personality of the founder of Calcutta he fails to satisfy our _curiosity. Singhya, some twelve miles from Patna, on the north bank of the Ganges, was the limit of his journeying from Balasore, and there he saw, away in the distance, what he calls the " Cathay or Caucasus Mountains," which shows that in the seventeenth century the Himalayas as such were unknown.
The most interesting part of the work is the introduction, in the production of which the author acknowledges the assist- ance of Miss Anstey, while Sir Richard Temple is responsible for many of the valuable notes to each of the chapters. - These cover a variety of subjects : Religion, folk-lore, mathe- matics, astronomy, &c., the first-mentioned containing, curiously, perhaps the most amusing note in the book
- 'Tie writ in the Arabian books that nothing is desirable but women, and what they cause desirable, for when the devill went first about to tempt Adam, he proffered him many things which he rejected, and when brought to him gold, Adam sleighted it; but when brought to him Eve, a woman, with her hee was much pleased and accepted of her. So the devill (was] going to carry away the gold again, but Adam told him that now hoe had got a woman, hee
could find use for the gold, which before hoe could not."
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