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Orissa is six days journey south-westwards from Satagan.
This necessarily implies the western branch of the Ganges, or Hoogly river, on which the English Indian capital, Calcutta, now stands. Satagan is said to have been 100 miles up the river, which would carry us up almost to the city of Sautipoor, which may possibly have been Satagan.
In this place there is much, rice, and cloth made of cotton; likewise great store of cloth made of grass, which they call Yerva, resembling silk, of which they make excellent cloth, which is sent to India and other places . To this haven of Ingelly there come many ships every year out of India, Negapatnam, Sumatra, Malacca, and many other places, and load from hence great quantities of rice, much cotton cloths, sugar and long pepper, and great store of butter and other provisions for India . Satagan is a very fair city for one belonging to the Moors, and is very plentiful in all things.
The city of Satagan is tolerably handsome as a city of the Moors, abounding in every thing, and belonged formerly to the king of Patane or Patna, but is now subject to the great Mogul. I was in this kingdom four months, where many merchants bought or hired boats for their convenience and great advantage, as there is a fair every day in one town or city of the country.
This circumstance seemed very strange to me; for as I passed up the river to Satagan, I saw this village standing, having a great multitude of people with many ships and bazars; and at my return along with the captain of the last ship, for whom I tarried, I was amazed to see no remains of the village except the appearance of the burnt houses, all having been razed and burnt.
At the distance of a good tide rowing before reaching Satagan we come to a place called Buttor, which ships do not go beyond, as the river is very shallow upwards. At Buttore a village is constructed every year, in which all the houses and shops are made of straw, and have every necessary convenience for the use of the merchants.
The entire distance from Balasore, or the port of Orissa, to Piqueno is stated at 170 miles, of which 154 have been already accounted for, so that Piqueno must have been only about 16 miles above Satagan, and upon the Ganges ." ED. Of Tanasserim and other Places.
Small ships go up to Satagan where they load and unload their cargoes. In this port of Satagan twenty-five or thirty ships great and small are loaded yearly with rice, cotton cloths of various kinds, lac, great quantities of sugar, dried and preserved mirabolans, long pepper, oil of Verzino, and many other kinds of merchandise.
From the mouth of this river to a place called Satagan, where the merchants assemble with their commodities, are 100 miles, to which place they row up the river along with the flood tide in eighteen hours.
"Of Satagan, Buttor, and Piqueno, in the kingdom of Bengal, no notices are to be found in the best modern maps of that country, so that we can only approximate their situation by guess. Setting out from what the author calls the port of Orissa, which has already been conjectured to be Balasore, the author coasted to the river Ganges, at the distance of 54 miles.
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