The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [26]
In India also many ports are far inland on rivers, or at least a considerable distance from the coast. The Jatakas refer to a port near modern Varanasi,22 and at other times Patna and Allahabad have been major ports. Even Surat is three leagues from the sandbar at the mouth of the Tapti River. Deep sea vessels berthed some 10 or 20 miles away at places like Swally Hole, and discharged into lighters. A similar regime occurred at Cambay. On the west coast of India, the city of Cranganore was some fifteen miles inland from the seashore, located on several small rivers. Traders included Syrians, Egyptians, Persians, Arabs, Medes and many other races.23 On the Konkan coast indigenous ports are on navigable estuaries and creeks as these provide shelter against storms, protection from pirates, and possible inland water connections. Dabhol is two miles from the sea, Rajapur is at the head of a tidal creek and 20 km from the sea. Turning to the Indus river, the first major port there was Daybul, or Dewal, until Lahari Bandar took over in the late twelfth century, but there also was Thatta, which was nearly 200 km up river from the coast and was a major trade centre in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries at least.
Kolkata provides an excellent case study of the advantages and hazards of an estuarine or deltaic location. On the one hand, land transport in deltaic areas is very difficult. On the other, these lands are very fertile, being constantly replenished by floods. These lands were able to feed the city, and also grow the jute which was for long Kolkata's main export. Yet river navigation can be very difficult indeed, and their courses can move very often. Kolkata is about 80 miles from the sea, and has a tidal range of 22 feet. However, all these problems are outweighed by the advantage of a dense network of waterways giving access to the vast riparian hinterland. Hence through history, and long before Kolkata, there were major ports in this general area.24
In the locations of many of these port cities we have been seeing an interaction of geographical and human matters. Much of the time it is land influences which determine where a port is located. This explains the initially puzzling fact that many fine harbours have no ports, while many ports have miserable or no harbours. Again we have a caution against giving the sea and maritime matters too much agency. Gujarat in the sixteenth century provides an excellent case study. The area was incorporated into the major inland state, the Mughal empire, in 1572, and thus its hinterland was extended, and its ports were made responsive to the needs of the inner core of the empire, that is the Agra–Delhi doab region. The fate of the various ports in the Gulf of Cambay was also changed. Pre conquest, Cambay and its outer ports had been dominant, and the main route to the north went via Rajasthan, where hostile raiders were common and deserts were difficult to cross. After the conquest the main route to the north went east from Gujarat and then north to Agra. Traffic on this route passed through fertile lands, and the area was also much more closely controlled by the Mughal state and hence was safer. As a result Surat rose in importance, and Cambay fell.25
The locations the Portuguese chose for their main ports in the sixteenth century demonstrate the role of political and strategic factors. Many of them seemed on the face of it to be extremely unpromising. Hurmuz had to import all its water, and its climate was extreme. Mozambique Island similarly was extremely hot and unhealthy, and again had no local water. Aden yet again had a shocking climate, and was cut off from the