The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-01-09
INDIAN ANTIQUITIES.
VISIT OF The PRINCE OF WALES TO THE RUIN.
OF OLD GOA.

i
VISIT OF The PRINCE OF WALES TO THE RUINS
OF OLD GOA.
| Inc correspondent of the London Ne1cs
writing from Goa Roads, Nov. q, says /: " In
cia nas ior the European visitor what one may
call two series If antiquities. There are the
Eastern remains, the relics of successive
oriental races and dynasties, which indeed
are full OF deep interest of their own but
linked to which are none Of the associations
which more warmly and personally interest
men Of other blood
These present a field of study for the COS
mopohSan antiquarian; but there are other
remalns which speak to us eloquently of the
trlumphs and earlier vicissitudes of Western
pioneers IN this vast continent, ere yet the
western dominance had asserted itself. VI
Surat, with its tombs of English governors
and factors who ruled and traded there while
as yet Bombay was jungly swamp; the ruins
OF its English and Dutch factories, empo-
RUINS of Western commerce, while as yet
John Company" was not thought Of the
ancient castle overhanging the Taptee, on
whose bastion the Moghul flag was wont to
float side by side with the British ensign, l
shall take an opportunity Of writing later
with greater detail.
| short coasting voyage from Bombay
brings the traveller to Bassein, that strange
town ilderness of deserted ruins, where, in
closed within the debris Of fort, moul Ter
noble churches, long abandoned alike by
clergy and congregations. A few wild hunts
men and fishermen now Turk about spot
once the seat of luxury and power. Market
place, cloisters, and churches are abandoned
to ruin and desolation, overgrown with grass
and garlanded with parasytical plants. Silence
reigns Throughout, and the travellers step
startles the owl and the liz .rd. or makes the
cobra dart forth with iLh .ted hood. Among
the rubbish the Way farer casually comes on
the richly -chiseled tombs of men Of Western
blood who have made their mark on the broad
page Of the worlds history-such men as Don
Lorenzo, who encountered the Turkish Ar
mazda near Diu; and Alfonso Albuquerque
who first took Goa.
As for Goa ITSELF that last sfoothold OF the
Portuguese on a coast where once their power
was wide, its aspect, too, is that OF atrophy
and decay, although to use military phrase,
it still "shows good front" as we approach
| it from the sea. The Goa we first visited to-
day is not the Goa of Albuquerque aud Mas
icareguas-of that but the liteless carcase now
remains some five miles off the present capt.
tai, if the term is applicable. Under series
of able viceroys OLD Goa rose to great power
and spiendor, but it sank as the Portuguese
empire decayed. 1t became so unhealthy that
|
querque transferred the seat Of government to
the present Goa, and the expulsion OF the
Jesuits, and thu deser ion of their magnificent
churches and converts gave the fnal stroke
to the once splendid city.
Magnificent as is the first sight Of the grand
wreck it soon becomes evident that nothing
now remains but the churches and some
public buildings Of the city, where once ruled
the Vceroy M4scareguas, the richest Portu-
guese noblemA Al who ever left the East. The
visitor walks up the moldering wharf to the
arch of the palace gateway, which towers IN
its dilapidatlon over huge mass OF ruins,
! tianking the entrance to the Sterda Dlrettd.
| Under this arch the viceroys, on the day OF
their investiture, passed in pomp 10 the
palace. But neither viceroys nor palace now
remain to OLD Goa. Of the once noble palace,
that covered two acres Of ground, there liter
ally remains not one stone upon another-lts
side is marked but by waste OF excavations,
covered by a wilderness of thorns and poison
Gus shrubs, in which Turk the jackal and the
venomous snake.
But their rem aims still, although dismally
moldering, the church Of the palace, or ST.
Caistan, an exact model of St. Peters at
Rome. II belonged, saith the authority to
which / have access, to the Thetins, or order
| Of St. Cajetan, which Was Instituted in Italy
by ST. Cajstan, of Thiena, and John Caratfa
Paul ". }, Bishop Of Theato. 1t was estab-
lished at Goa in the middle of the seven
teenth century, and was soon joined by many
natives, those of Brahminical descent alone
being admitted. For long time there have
been no Europeans in the convent, but the
services Of the church, curious to relate, are
conducted by Brahmin friars, who are sud to
be the most popular father colfessors in the
colony.
Without guide stranger would search in
vain for the faint traces OF the Casa Santa, or
Inauisition, on the grim debris of which,
broken and black with age, there grows not
even shrub. So Oh .stly is the spot one
Nigh fancy there rested upon it the curse of
the shedding of innocent blood. But the
Cathedral still remains-a structure, 1t has
been said, .'worthy OF one Of the principal
cities of Europe"--a cathedral, 1t Is true, In
its interior at least, with soft light streaming
through it's mother of-pearl windows, with its
richly adorned high altar, and the dusky
glitter of its recessed side chapels, cathe-
dral with an archbishop, clergy ana assistants,
but cathedral whose only congregation are
its own priests
From the nunnery of St. Monica whose
nuns the natives call "madres, the visitors
were led on to the Augustinian convent,
where there is a slowly rotting library and a
collection Of portraits of mar :yr-monks; and
still persevering in the ecclesiastic perigrina-
ton, were conducted by the Church OF Bon
Jesus, noble ediice, built in the form OF a
cross. There was inspected the splendid
shrine of St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle OF
the ,st. L is Of copper, richly gilt and or
namented. and placed within silver in
closure. It rests upon hghly-wrought altar
of Italian marble, and the life and miracles of
the saint are represented around ia compart-
ments of basso relieve.
This sube1b shrine and the silver orna.
ments were presented to the church by the
Queen Of Portugal. Xavier died in the Island
OF Santian, in the Chinese seas, in 1852 His
embalmed body was brought to Goa in 1854,
and exposed to public view till 1870, when it
was immured in its present receptacle. Old
Goa was abandoned, and the seat of govern