ers of many
sects, and by many Moorish merchants, some of whom were so rich as to be
owners of fifty ships. These ships are made without nails, their planks
being sewed together with ropes of _cayro_, made of the fibres of the
cocoa-nut husk, pitched all over, and are flat-bottomed, without keels.
Every winter there are at least six hundred ships in this harbour, and
the shore is such, that their ships can be easily drawn up for repairs.

"The subjects of the following digression are so intimately connected
with the first establishment of the Portuguese in India, as to justify
its introduction in this place, which will greatly elucidate the
narrative of Castaneda; and its length did not admit of being inserted in
the form of notes. It is chiefly due to the ingenious and Reverend James
Stanier Clarke, in his Origin and Progress of Maritime Discovery,
extracted by him from various sources."

"The name of this country, Malabar, is said to be derived from _ulyam_,
which signifies, in the original language of that part of India,
_skirting the bottom of the hills_, corrupted into Maleyam or Maleam,
whence probably came Mulievar, and Mala-bar. In a MS. account of Malabar,
it is said that little more than 2300 years ago, the sea came up to the
foot of the _Sukien_ mountains, or the western _gauts_. The emerging of
the country from the waters is fabulously related to have been occasioned
by the piety or penitence of Puresram Rama, who prayed to _Varauna_, the
God of the ocean, to give him a track of land to bestow on the Bramins.
Varauna accordingly commanded the sea to withdraw from the _Gowkern_, a
hill near Mangalore, all the way to Cape Comorin; which new land long
remained marshy and scarcely habitable, and the original settlers were
forced to abandon it on account of the numerous serpents by which it was
infested: But they afterwards returned, being instructed to propitiate
the serpents by worshipping them."

"At first this country was divided into four _Tookrees_ or provinces,
these into _Naadhs_ or districts, and these again into _Khunds_ or small
precincts. The Bramins established a kind of republican or aristocratical
government, under a few principal chiefs; but jealousies and disturbances
taking place, they procured a _Permaul_ or chief governor from the prince
of Chaldesh, a sovereignty in the southern Carnatic: Yet it is more
likely that this sovereign took advantage of the divisions among the
chiefs of Malabar,