The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [143]
These could well be extreme examples. We have to assume that most voyages were more or less routine, with boredom the main hazard for the passengers. Jean Aubin recreated such a voyage from Goa to Hurmuz in the early sixteenth century, which may stand as a pattern of a 'normal' passage. The ship concerned was a cranky old tub which had belonged to the Bijapuri governor of Goa. It was captured in 1510 when the Portuguese took the city, and renamed Santa Maria do Monte. With a cargo of rice and iron it took seventy-seven days to get to Hurmuz, and then had to wait for the right monsoon to get back to Goa. The whole, rather minor, voyage took a year. On the outward voyage there were 140 on board, six cows, and 174 tons of cargo. It brought back seventy-one horses. The captain was Italian, most of the crew Muslim, including the pilots and the bombardiers, and even the musicians. There were several passengers, some Portuguese and some Armenian. The Portuguese had nine slaves with them, who helped on the ship. There were also four women, and with them seven servants and family members. All in all it was a very normal and undramatic voyage.48
Voyages on the rivers of northern India could even be quite relaxing and pleasant. In the 1740s a French visitor to Bengal travelled up river on a bazara, a long and light boat with a roof covering the passengers. His one had sixteen oars. They were shaped like a balloon, that is lower in the middle and high at both ends, this being so that when they ran aground on the shallow parts of the river they could be easily refloated. 'These kinds of boats are extremely convenient. In this one there was a quite spacious room where two of us slept in comfort, and another in the rear where the third person slept. A boat with kitchen arrangements followed us', and he also had his interpreter with him, and someone to carry his parasol. They proceeded at a leisurely average of six leagues, about twelve miles, a day.49
So agreeable was river travel that some people, both Indians and Europeans, actually went boating for fun. The Portuguese in Macau and Goa sometimes set off in the evening for a cruise. Dean Mahomet arrived at Dacca, and noticed
the residence of a grand Nabob, who, at his accession to the throne, conformable to an old custom, something similar to that of the Doge of Venice on the Adriatic, enjoys a day's pleasure on the river, in one of the most curious barges in the world, called a samsundar [a processional barge]. It is sheathed with silver, and in the centre is a grand eminence of the same, on which his crown is placed on the day of coronation; nearer the stern is a brilliant seat encompassed with silver rails, and covered with a rich canopy embroidered with gold, under which he reclines in easy majesty. This boat and another of considerable value, that conveys his attendants, are estimated at a lack [100,000] of rupees. He is accompanied by a number of the most distinguished personages, and there are no bounds to the lavish waste of money expended on this occasion, in order to aggrandize the pomp of this ancient ceremony.50
The information that we have on ship sizes at this time is rather patchy. The Surat fleet around 1700 included over 100 vessels, mostly medium size of perhaps 200 or 300 tons. Some Indian ships, especially those owned by the political elite, seem to have been much bigger. Saris in the Red Sea in 1612 measured two ships belonging to the great Mughal noble Abdur-Rahim. The Rahimi was 153 feet from stem to stern post, and her rake from the post aft was 17 feet. From the top of her sides in breadth was 42 feet, and her depth 31 feet. The Muhammadi was 136 feet long, with a rake of 20 feet, breadth of 41, and depth of 291½2. Her main mast was 108 feet, and her main yard 132 feet.51 By comparison