Page:History of the Portuguese in Bengal.djvu/126

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MINOR SETTLEMENTS OF THE PORTUGUESE 89 in Dacca a Church of the Augustinians, built of brick, and of a very fine workmanship.* These Portuguese settlers did not belong to the other section of the Portuguese who were powerful in Sandwip and in Arakan and who during Shaista Khan's viceroyalty settled in Dacca at a place called Feringhi Bazar. In fact, when Shaista Khan was bent upon the conquest of Chittagong he sent Shaikh Ziauddin Yusuf to the original Portuguese settlers trading in salt in Loricul near Dacca asking their country- men in Chittagong to abandon the King of Arakan and enter the Mughal service.f They having agreed to do so, were given by Shaista Khan the land known as Feringhi Bazar. About twelve miles from the city, springing from the banks of the Ishamutti, lies this Feringhi Bazar calling to mind the days of the Portuguese domination in Bengal. Dacca posses- ses another relic of the Portuguese. Though every trace of the factories of the Dutch, of the French and even of the English is gone,} a part of the Portuguese factory, beautiful in its ruins, still exists in Dacca close to the Church of O. L. Rosary. Bradley-Birt remarks§ "All that remains to-day of the vari- ous factories (in Dacca) is a portion of the house which the Portuguese once made their headquarters. It must have been in those days a fine commodious building, but like every thing else in this city of the long sleep it is sadly fallen and decayed retaining but a memory of its better days." Many, many of the early European archaeological remains are so ignominously disappearing and crumbling into dust that a

  • Tavernier, Ball's, Ed. Vol. I, p. 128.

t Shiabuddin Talish, The Conquest of Chatgaon % J. A. S. B. 1907 p. 407.

The Dacca College stands on the site of the English Factory ; the 

Salace of the Nawab of Dacca covers the French factory ; and the lilford Hospital tends to suffering humanity where the Dutch factory once stood. § F. Bradley-Birt, Romance of an Eastern Capital^ p. 286.