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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 23, p. 166.

r66 SURAT CITY total loss to property, but the housés alone represented an approximate value of 45 lakhs. Towards the close of the rainy season in the same year, the T āpti rose to tire greatest height ever known, flooded almost the whole city, and covered the surrounding country for miles like a sea, entailing a further loss of about z 7 lakhs. This second calamity left the people almost helpless. Already, aftc;r the fire, many of the most intelligent merchants, both Hindu and P~rsS, no longer bound to home by the ties of an establishment, had deserted Surat for Bombay. In x838 it remaiped `but the shadow of what it had been, two-thirds to three-fourths of the city having been annihilated.' From r84o onward, however, affairs began to change for the better. 'Trade improved and increased steadily, till in x858 its position as the centre of railway operations in Gujarāt brought a new influx of wealth and importance. 'l'he high prices which ruled during the American Civil War again anade Surat a wealthy city. The financial disasters of 1865-6 in Bombay somewhat affected all Western India, but Surat nevertheless preserved the greater part of its wealth. Ira r86g the municipality undertook a series of works to protect the city against floods. In x883 Surat was again inundated, and damage caused to the extent of zo lakhs. The loss of human life, however, was small. The city suffered from another extensive fire in r88g, At the present day, though the fall of prices has reduced the value of property, the well- kept streets, the public buildings, and large private expenditure, stamp the city, which has benefited by the construction of the Tāpti Valley Railway, with an unmistakabae air of steady order and prosperity. The English church, built in r8zo and consecrated by Bishop Heber on April rq, r8z5, stands upon the river bank, between the castle and the custom-house, and has seats for about roo persons. Buildings and The l'ortul;uese or Roman Catholic chapel occupies tombs. a site near the old Dutch factory. The Armenians once had a large church, now in ruins. T he :Musalmāns have several mosques, of which four are handsome buildings. T he Nav Saiyid Sāhib's mosque stands on the bank of the Gopi lake, an old dry tank, once reckoned among the finest works in Gujarāt. Beside the mosque rise nine tombs in honour of nine warriors, whose graves were miraculously discovered by a local Muhammadan saint. The Saiyid Edroos mosque, with a minaret, which forms one of the most conspicu- ous buildings in Surat, was built in r63g by a rich merchant, in honour of an ancestor of Shaikh Saiyid Husain Edroos, C.S.L, who died in r88z. The Mirza Sāmi mosque and tomb, ornamented with carving and tracery, was built about r54o by Khudāwand Khān. The Pārsļs have two chief fire-temples for their two subdivisions. The principal Hindu shrines perished in thE; fire of r83q, but have since been rebuilt by pious inhabitants. Gosāvi Mahārājā's temple, built in r6g5, was