History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

30 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. I.

Romer, judge of Surat, bestowed on him in public darbar a costly dress of honour and a richly caparisoned charger, besides a handsome acknowledgment in writing of his daring and meritorious activity during a period of general calamity. But water was not the only foe from whose ravages Ardeshir exerted himself, and not unsuccessfully, to rescue his unfortunate fellow-citizens. Fire and water have for many decades past been alternately desolating the ancient city of Surat, and the extensive conflacration of 1837 would have proved much more disastrous in its consequences than it was had it not been for the indefatigable energy and timely efforts of this distinguished public servant.

Besides combating these dangers and mitigating their evils the subject of our sketch had to organise means, in conjunction with his British superior, for the destruction of a vast and skilfully conducted confederacy of pirates and plunderers who intested the city and river of Surat. We quote here some remarks which occur in this connection in Briggs’s

Cities of Gujarashtra :-—

“To form any idea of the state of Surat at this time, and to appreciate the exertions of Ardeshir, it must be borne in mind that both the city and the river were plagued with robbers and pirates equally daring and adroit. The indolent ayvariciousness of the citizen was exposed to the rapacity of his needy neighbour, at whose means the villainous Koli of Gujarat could be introduced into his dwelling; and the nature of such felonies was