chap, xix JESUITS DISGUISED AS FAKIRS 239
in
the garb of Fakirs or Indian pilgrims ; this was easy for them to do,
because there are among them fathers born in the country, who know the
Indian language perfectly. The garb of Fakirs consists of the skin of a
tiger, worn on the back, and one of a goat which covers the waist and
hangs down to the knees. For cap they have the skin of a lamb or a kid,
the four feet of which hang on the forehead, and neck, while their ears
are pierced, and in them are inserted large rings of crystal. Their
legs are naked, and they have large wooden sandals on the feet, and
carry a bundle of peacocks' feathers to fan themselves with, and drive
away the flies. One day as I was dining in company with MM. L'Escot and
Raisin,1 at the house of the Augustin fathers who reside at
the Court of the King of Golkonda, one of these Jesuit fathers who had
come from Goa entered the chamber clothed in the manner I have
described. He told us that he was going to St. Thome on the business of
the Viceroy of Goa ; upon which I remarked that to travel through India
it was not necessary to disguise himself, and that other religious
persons, to whatever order they belonged, did not disguise themselves
in that manner.
The
chief of the Vengurla factory then seized his opportunity to revenge
himself on the Jesuit fathers, and having learnt that two of them were
going to the mines to buy 400,000 pardos 2 worth of
diamonds, he gave orders to two men who purchased some for him, that as
soon as the fathers had completed their purchase they should give
notice of it to the master of the customs at Bicholim.3
Bicholim is a large town on the frontier, which separates the
territories of the King of BJjapur from those of the Portuguese, and
there is no other road but by this place, because one cannot elsewhere
pass the river which forms the island of Salsette where the town of Goa
is built. The Jesuit fathers, believing that the officer of customs
knew nothing of the purchase which they had made, embarked in the boat
to cross the water, and they
1 Manucci (ii. 344) tells how M. Raisin presented an emerald to Shahjahan ; for L'Escot, see p. 356 below.
2 This, with the pardao at 2a., would represent a sum of £40,000.
3
Bieholi in the original, Bicholly in vol. i, p. 146, is now known as
Bicholim, and the District bearing the name is included judicially in
Bardez in the ' old conquests' (Fonseca, Goa, 1).
