“First kidney-eating and now chamber-pots!” exclaimed Surendranath from his palanquin. “Why this keen curiosity concerning all matters related to urine?”
“Maybe we will have better luck in Diu,” Jack said enigmatically.
THAT RIVER-CROSSING MARKED THE BEGINNING of a long, slow climb up into some dark hills to the south. Surendranath assured them that it was possible to circumvent the Gir Hills simply by following the coastal roads, but Jack insisted that they go right through the middle. At one point he led them off into a dense stand of trees, and spent a while tromping around in the undergrowth hefting various branches and snapping them over his knee to judge their dryness. This was the only part of the trip when they were in anything like danger, for (a) Jack surprised a cobra and (b) half a dozen bandits came out brandishing crude, but adequate, weapons. The Hindoo whom Surendranath had hired finally did something useful: viz. pulled a small dagger, hardly more than a paring-knife really, from his cummerbund and held it up to his own neck and then stood there adamantly threatening to cut his own throat.
The effect on the bandits was as if this fellow had summoned forth a whole artillery-regiment and surrounded them with loaded cannons. They dropped their armaments and held forth their hands beseechingly and pleaded with him in Gujarati for a while. After lengthy negotiations, fraught with unexpected twists and alarming setbacks, the Charan finally consented not to hurt himself, the bandits fled, and the party moved on.
Within the hour they had passed over the final crest of the Hills of Gir and come to a height-of-land whence they could look straight down a south-flowing river valley to the coast: the end of the Kathiawar Peninsula. At the point where the river emptied into the sea was a white speck; beyond it, the Arabian Sea stretched away forever.
As they traveled down that valley over the next day, the white speck gradually took on definition and resolved itself into a town with a European fort in the middle. Several East Indiamen, and smaller ships, sheltered beneath the fort’s guns in a little harbor. The road became broader as they neared Diu. They were jostled together with caravans bringing bolts of cloth and bundles of spices towards the waiting ships, and began to meet Portuguese traders journeying up-country to trade.
They stopped short of the city wall, and made no effort to go in through those gates, guarded as they were by Portuguese soldiers. The Charan said his farewell and hunkered down by the side of the road to await some northbound caravan that might be in need of his protection. Jack, Padraig, Mr. Foot, Surendranath, and their small retinue began to wander through the jumbled suburbs, scattering peacocks and diverting around sacred cows, stopping frequently to ask for directions. After a while Jack caught a whiff of malt and yeast on the breeze, and from that point onwards they were able to follow their noses.
Finally they arrived at a little compound piled high with faggots of spindly wood and round baskets of grain. A giant kettle was dangling over a fire, and a short redheaded man was standing over it gazing at his own reflection: not because he was a narcissist, but because this was how brewers judged the temperature of their wort. Behind him, a couple of Hindoo workers were straining to heave a barrel of beer up into a two-wheeled cart: bound, no doubt, for a Portuguese garrison inside the walls.
“It is all as tidy and prosperous as anything in Hindoostan could be,” Jack announced, riding slowly into the middle of it. “A little corner of Amsterdam here at the butt-end of Kathiawar.”
The redhead’s blue eyes swivelled up one notch, and gazed at Jack levelly through a rising cataract of steam.
“But it was never meant to last,” Jack continued, “and you know that as well as I do, Otto van Hoek.”
“It has lasted as well as anything that is of this earth.”
“But when you make your delivery-rounds, to the garrisons and the wharves, you must look at those beautiful ships.”
“Then of ships speak to me,” said van Hoek, “or else go away.”
“Tap us a keg and dump out that kettle,” Jack said, “so we can put it to alchemical uses. I have just ridden down out of the Hills of Gir, and firewood is plentiful there. And as long as you keep peddling your merchandise to the good people of Diu, the other thing we need will be plentiful here.”
The Surat-Broach Road, Hindoostan
A MONTH LATER (OCTOBER 1693)
For the works of the Egyptian sorcerers, though not so great as those of Moses, yet were great miracles.
—HOBBES,
Leviathan