Man Climbing Coconut Tree To Draw Toddy Bombay, 1834 Print
An 1834 print of a man climbing a coconut tree to draw toddy in Bombay (Mumbai). The print was originally drawn by James Forbes in 1768. It was engraved by J. Shury in 1834. The title reads Hindoo peasant ascending the cocoa nut tree to draw the tari or toddy. The coconut tree climber shown in the engraving was very likely a Bhandari.
The Bhandaris and the Kolis were said to be the original inhabitants of the island. The Bhandaris were generally more into farming and toddy tapping whereas the Kolis were mostly into fishing. Before Bombay’s radical transformation to a world city, it was a group of seven islands of agrarian settlement.
The most striking feature of Bombay’s physical appearance was its many thousands of coconut and date palms. The trade in coconuts at that time constituted the island’s main commodity in commerce. The islands abounded with fishing villages, coconut groves, rice fields, salt pans, vegetable plots, orchards, etc on the islands.
However, most of the area was thickly forested teeming with wild animals viz. tigers, hyenas, leopards, wolves, foxes, etc. Bombay was at that time in the control of the Portuguese. King Charles II of England received Bombay as a dowry on his marriage to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in 1661. The East India Company took control of the whole of the seven islands from the King on a yearly lease basis. Click image to enlarge.
Did you know – the reclamation of some land from the sea and the construction of causeways by the Portuguese had reduced the seven islands to four, by the time the British acquired them.
Past posts – Beautiful British India Era Oil Painting 1887., Ooty Town & Lake During The British Era, 1890 Photo., Basket Mart & Tram In Madras, 1900 Postcard.
