Chapter XXV: Appendix: IV

OLD AND NEW GOA AND MODERN GOA.

The Goa of our days is not that known to the visitors of the seventeenth century. The quarter which they called Old Goa has disappeared from the earth, and the splendid city of New Goa is the Old Goa of to-day. Its greatness began to decay with the decline of the Portuguese power in India, and the removal of the government to Panjim, nearer the mouth of the river, completed its ruin. Dr Claudius Buchanan, who visited it in 1808, describes it as a city of churches, but observes that there were seldom any worshippers besides the officiating priests. Since his day matters have gone steadily from bad to worse, and the population, thinned by pestilence and emigration, is now scarcely that of a small village. Churches and public buildings alike have fallen into decay, and the ruins are fast being overspread by the growth of tropical vegetation. Panjim, the “New Goa” of to-day, is about three miles from the mouth of the river, and enjoys the small remains of the state and commerce which once made Goa the chief city of the Indies.