Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/350

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PYRARD DE LAVAL'S DESCRIPTION OF BENGAL

they have no clergy among them. There is one of them named Jean Garie, who is greatly obeyed by the rest; he commands more than ten thousand men for the King of Bengal, yet he makes not war against the Portuguese, seeing they are friends.

THE BANK OF THE GANGES AT BENARES.

In this land is the great river Ganga, otherwise called the Ganges, the most renowned in the world. The natives hold that it comes from the Earthly Paradise; their kings have been curious to have its source discovered, but they have never discovered it, for all their journeys and expense. Its mouth is at twenty-three degrees from the equinoctial, toward our pole; but whether this is the famous Ganges of the ancients, or that of Canton in China, as some will have it nowadays, I leave to the discussion and decision of the learned in such things; anyhow, the common opinion of the Portuguese and many others is that this is the

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