Note 18 — Chapter I · The Exodus of the Parsis

Damman—A Portuguese town, about one hundred miles to the north of Bombay. Its superficial area is eighty-two square miles, comprising the pargana of Nagar Haveli. The population consists of about 40,980 souls. The settlement is composed of two distinct parts; Damman and the pargana of Nagar Haveli, separated by a territory belonging to the English and by a railroad running through Bombay, Baroda, and Central India. The town was sacked by the Portuguese in 1532, then rebuilt by the natives, and re-taken by the Portuguese in 1558, and made by them one of their settlements in India. They have converted the mosque into a church, and have built eight others. Commerce flourished there before the fall of the Portuguese power in India, and extended even as far as the African coasts, where ships carried the cotton stuffs manufactured at Damman. From 1817 to 1837 the trade in opium, brought from Karachi and imported into China, was prosperous; but since the conquest of Sind by the English the transport of opium has been prohibited, and Damman has thus been deprived of its greatest source of wealth. The soil is moist and fertile, specially in the pargana of Nagar Haveli; rice, wheat, and tobacco are grown there; but in spite of the facilities for agriculture, only a twentieth part of the territory is cultivated. (See Imp. Gaz. of India, vol. iii. p. 21.)