The recent instructions issued by the Board of Admiralty would
have gratified Captain Hall had he lived to read them; harmonizing as
they do with the system he so earnestly advocates.

CHAPTER XVI.

BOMBAY.

Early on the morning of the 11th of August, 1812, we first made the
coast of Asia; and, on steering towards the shore, discovered, close
under the land, a single sail, as white as snow, of a cut quite new to
our seamanship, and swelled out with the last faint airs of the
land-breeze, which, in the night, had carried us briskly along shore.
As we came nearer, we observed that the boat, with her head directed
to the northward, was piled half-mast high with fruits and vegetables,
cocoa-nuts, yams, plantains, intended evidently for the market of
Bombay. The water lay as smooth as that of a lake; so we sheered close
alongside, and hailed, to ask the distance we still were from our
port. None of the officers of the Volage could speak a word of
Hindustanee; and I well remember our feeling of humiliation when a
poor scullion, one of the cook's assistants, belonging to the
governor's suite, was dragged on deck, with all his grease and other
imperfections on his head, to act as interpreter. Sad work he made of
it; for, though the fellow had been in the East on some ten or twelve
former voyages, the languages of the countries he visited had not
formed so important a part of his studies as the quality of the arrack
and toddy which they produced. The word Bombaya, however, struck the
ear of the native boatmen, who pointed in the direction which they
themselves were steering, and called out "Mombay! Mombay!" This word,
I am told by an oriental scholar, is a corruption of Moomba-devy, or
the Goddess of Moomba, from an idol to which a temple is still
dedicated on the island. Others, less fanciful in their etymology, say
that the Portuguese gave it the name of Bom-Bahia, on account of the
excellence of its Port. That nation held possession of Bombay from the
year 1530 to 1661, when it was ceded by the crown of Portugal in full
sovereignty to Charles II.

It was not long before we came in sight of several headlands. When the
next day broke, and the sun rose upon us over the flat topped Gauts or
mountains of the Mahratta country, I remember feeling almost at a loss
whether I had been sleeping and dreaming during the night. But the
actual sight of the coast gave reality to pictures which, for many a
long year before, I had