Road trip to Surat in the 17th century

How Thomas Coryate walked from England to Surat.


The state highway and NH 8 was set ablaze with star power last week. Keeping up with its ‘La Tomatino’ theme, the trendy team of the promising upcoming flick ‘Zindagi Na Mileygi Dobara’ painted Tapi town and other prime cities of Gujarat red. The superstars of present times made the journey short and sweet as they zoomed in and out on their fancy four wheel drives. Needless to say, by setting an example for freedom and adventure which is the theme of the movie, this innovative cinema promotion style will surely spur Surtis into taking road trips on paths less traveled.

While many travelers have sailed into Surat as well as driven in as a first, one of the most interesting characters to have come in stayed here for good, which is because he unfortunately died on Surat’s shore. He holds his place in history because of the fact that he began his journey from England to India entirely on foot. Till this date, a stone tablet etched with his shoes is displayed on the walls of the Somerset town that he hailed from.

Thomas Coryate was born in Odecombe, England. The Englishmen remember him as the court jester employed by Prince Henry, son of James I , he also holds the honour of introducing the table fork to England .Amongst many other nicknames that he acquired ,’Furcifer’ fork bearer rascal is one amongst the most popular.

Coryate studied at the Winchester College and later at Gloucester, Oxford. His passion for travel which he best preferred on foot began by a tour of Europe during which he penned “Coryate’s crudities’ an Odecombian buffet of witty verse from all around the continent. He was popular and well known through Europe for his adventures and book alike, although scholars often took jibes at his works and character. John Taylor described him as:

’ His head was a large pounding tub of phrases, whence men would pick delights as boys pick diseases, admired learning took his heads possession and turned his wit a wandering in progression’

With his head that has been described to look like an inverted sugar loaf, this learned man who could speak at least 8 different languages including Latin, Greek, Persian, Hindustani amongst others was known as ‘The eccentric fakir’ in India because he was known to climb up minarets of mosques and shout back at priests who called out the azaan .Coryate with his single soul, soles and shirt walked all the way from England to Greece to the Mediterranean to Persia and finally to India ,out of curiosity and to present himself before the great Mughal Emporer – Jehangir.

In Multan, Lahore, he upset many religious believers when he threw a ruckus outside the prime mosque of worship .Later, this leg stretcher visited Ajmer, Pushkar, Agra, and Haridwar and also presented his thoughts before Jehangir in Persian and English. He sent back images of himself riding an elephant in India of which historians have commented upon,’ His wit is so huge nought but an elephant could carry him’

This contemporary nomad unfortunately took ill and as he sought passage to return home, the end of his versatile and weary journey brought him to Surat. It was here that he hoped to sail home via a ship from Suvali.

But alas! That was not to be.

This long strider arrived in Surat on the 13th of November in 1617 and died of dysentery in December that year on the shores of Tapi. Literates believe that the flux of his poor health was further deteriorated by the consumption of ‘sack’ or Elizabethan alcohol which he took a shot at from a ship that had sailed in from England. Amongst his last known words were,’ Sack, sack, is there any such thing as sack? I pray give me some’

Coryate’s grave is believed to have been silted with the Suvali shore .A field of bones that lie in a graveyard long lost beneath its sands. Till date, though, this ‘fool of quality’ is remembered by many an English scholar , described as:

‘He was the imp, whilst he on earth survived, from whom this West world’s pastimes were derived; He was in city, country, field and court. The well of dry trimmed jests, the pump of sport.’

Voyage To Surat- J Ovington

Time Traveler In Surat

A good read in hand turns every travel trip into a two- fold adventure. Travelogues in particular, are perfect in providing the experience of a new culture. Such books encapsulate a different age in time while simultaneously enabling the reader to perceive it with the eyes of a writer.

Centuries since it was published in 1696, John Ovington’s travelogue-A Voyage To Surat in the year 1689, remains oft quoted a favourite and of the greatest possible value to historians and readers alike, who want a glimpse of Surat in the days of yore. Popular in the Australian National Library on one hand, this journal by an English Chaplain provides for case study to many Universities in the United States of America, on the other.

Considered one of the liveliest travel books, Ovington has been described as ‘a shrewd and practical observer of men and manners and by no means devoid of a sense of humour’, on his detailed account of Surat, as he saw it at the end of the 17th century.

Poet Laureate Naham Tate, famous author of the metrical paraphrase ‘The Psalms’, wrote a poetry on Ovington’s ‘Voyage to Surat ‘part of which reads,
’you have so lively Your Discoveries writ, We Read and Voyage with you as we sit, With you hoise Sail and reach the Indian shore; the real scene cou’d scarce delight us more.’

On 11th of April, 1689, Ovington set sail from Gravesend on East India Company’s vessel-Benjamin. While the first hundred odd pages provide for description of the exotic islands he visited en route from Madeira to Bombay, it is upon him embarking at Surat and the two and a half years that he spent there, that accounts for the true essence of the book.

Ovington’s profound and prolific proses provide a detailed and disciplined study of Surat’s contemporary life, customs, religious observances and politics. His diligent observation of the skilled commerce and cuisine that the town till date remains famous for, gives a picturesque glance of Surat city, whose bazaars, he wrote were ‘more populous than any part of London’.

Describing the Castle Green trade grounds and the ‘Kanchanis’-nautch girls who provided entertainment for traders by the river Tapi, John weaves the reader in the warp and weft of Surat’s rich silks, velvets, and taffeta. His text sparkles about the splendour of diamonds, rubies, sapphire and topazes; it is aromatic of spices that were shipped in and out namely nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon and mace.

It accounts how custom duty was charged at $ 1000 for an English ship of 400 tons. He describes how,’ Gold of Suratt is so very fine that 12 or 14 per Cent may be often gained by bringing it to Europe’, how silver had very little alloy in it, that 60 copper pice summed up to a Roupie and often bitter almonds were passed around as currency!


The crux of the commerce lay in the calm that the city functioned with.Ovington points out how despite of Surat being a conflux of several nations, this port from where Haj pilgrims sailed out, was a Mecca for universal merchants where foreign nationals such as Europeans, Arabs, Persian, Turks Armenians and locals merged in large numbers, yet, there was not a single capital punishment carried out in 20 years.