for about a hundred years. In 1776 Hyder Ali of Mysore invaded
the state and forced the raja to acknowledge his suzerainty and pay
tribute. In 1791 Tippoo, son of Hyder Ali, ceded the sovereignty to the
British, who entered into a treaty with the raja by which he became
their vassal and paid an annual tribute of a lakh of rupees. On the 17th
of October 1809, in consequence of an attempt of the hereditary chief
minister Paliyath Achan, in 1808, to raise an insurrection against the
British without his master's knowledge, a fresh treaty was made, by
which the raja undertook to hold no correspondence with any foreign
state and to admit no foreigners to his service without the sanction of
the British government, which, while undertaking to defend the raja's
territories against all enemies, reserved the right to dismantle or to
garrison any of his fortresses. In 1818 the tribute, raised to 2-1/2 lakhs
in 1808, was permanently fixed at 2 lakhs. Since then, under the rule of
the rajas, the state has greatly advanced in prosperity, especially
under that of H. H. Sir Sri Rama Varma (b. 1852), who succeeded in 1895,
was made a K.C.S.I. in 1897, and G.C.S.I. in 1903.

COCHIN, a town of British India, in the district of Malabar, Madras.
Pop. (1901) 19,274. The town lies at the northern extremity of a strip
of land about 12 m. in length, but in few places more than a mile in
breadth, which is nearly insulated by inlets of the sea and estuaries of
streams flowing from the Western Ghats. These form the Cochin
backwaters, which consist of shallow lagoons lying behind the beach-line
and below its level. In the monsoon the Cochin backwaters are broad
navigable channels and lakes; in the hot weather they contract into
shallows in many places not 2 ft. deep. The town of Cochin is about a
mile in length by half a mile in breadth. Its first European possessors
were the Portuguese. Vasco da Gama founded a factory in 1502, and
Albuquerque built a fort, the first European fort in India, in 1503. The
British made a settlement in 1634, but retired when the Dutch captured
the town in 1663. Under the Dutch the town prospered, and about 1778 an
English traveller described it as a place of great trade, "a harbour
filled with ships, streets crowded with merchants, and warehouses stored
with goods from every part of Asia and Europe, marked the industry, the
commerce, and the wealth of the inhabitants." In 1795 Cochin was
captured from the Dutch by