Photo 146/1(218)

Genre: Landscape Photography

Vengurla is of some historical importance and ends the stony aridity of the Konkun coast below Janjira to this point. Several travellers of old time to the East Indies write of Vengurla and of the jovial drinking habits of the Dutch factors there. They were given concessions here by the Moghuls because the Dutch, too, were at war with the Portuguese in the adjacent province of Goa. Their fortified house within a square of walls with a bastion at each corner is still in a fair state of preservation, though the most is filled in and the draw bridge removed; and the alcoves on each side of the heavy doors are chowkies for police prisoners. The place was however never intended to be more than some protection against local disturbances. The building itself is the taluk offices of the District Collectorate. It’s chief apartment has a ‘barrel’ roof, and there is still some stucco panelling , a blend of the decorous with the convivial, giving the impression that when in use by its first occupants it was the facsimile of a European civic guild hall.

Manucci, an Italian traveller of repute was at Vengurla when Prince Akbar (Eggbert, ye Moghuls son’ in Bombay records) the undutiful 2nd son of the Emperor Aurunzebe, had taken asylum with his father’s enemy Sambajee, son of Shivajee. The Dutch, it is said, pandered to the vicious habits of both of them. Tavernier was here in 1649. Dr Fryer also (about 1675) was well entertained by the factors – “The Dutch”, he said, “treated us with dancing wenches and good soups of Brandy and Delft’s beer till it was late enough.”

Shah Allum, eldest son of Aurunzebe, sent an expedition to regain the Konkun to his allegiance to Delhi and to seize the person of his attained brother, but he escaped by sea. Vengurla was then laid waste and the country desolated.

The Dutch had packed up and gone before the Bombay Presidency sent down a punitive expedition in 1765 to exact reparation for the piratical attacks upon shipping under their colours and possessing their passes. By which time Savantwadi was ruled by the Bhonsle, a descendant of the great Shivajee.

The description continues on the next page.