d
especially in Chepauk and the adjoining Triplicane and Royapettah; and
this is due to the fact that in later days Nawab Walajah of Arcot, who
was friendly to the English, came and settled down in Madras. He built
Chepauk Palace for his residence, and the many Mohammedans who
followed him into the city formed the nucleus of a large Mohammedan
colony.

The name 'China Bazaar' appears early in the Madras Records; and it
would seem to have been the place where Chinese crockery was on sale.
Whether or not the salesmen were Chinese immigrants I cannot say; but
the fact that another street in Madras bears the name of 'Chinaman
Street' suggests that there was at one time a colony of pig-tailed
yellow-men in the city. The supposition is not unlikely, for China was
included within the sphere of the Company's commercial operations,
with Madras as the head-quarters of the trade, and ships of the
Company plied regularly between China and Madras. Tea was one of the
articles of trade, but Chinese crockery was in great demand in India,
and ship-loads of cheap China bowls and plates and dishes were
imported; and valuable specimens of Chinese porcelain were highly
esteemed by wealthy Indians--so much so that it is on record that one
of the Moghul emperors had a slave put to death for having
accidentally broken a costly China dish which the emperor particularly
admired.

As the Company's trade was very largely in cloth, it can be understood
that the Company's agents were eager to induce spinners and weavers to
settle in Madras, so that cloth might be bought for the Company at the
lowest possible prices from the weavers direct. Elihu Yale, who was
one of the early Governors of the Fort, imported some fifty
weaver-families and located them in 'Weavers' street', the street that
is now known as Nyniappa Naick Street, in Georgetown. Some twenty-five
years later, Governor Collet established a number of imported weavers
in the northern suburb of Tiruvattur, in a village that was given the
name 'Collet Petta' in the Governor's honour--a name that degenerated
into 'Kalati Pettah'--'Loafer-land'--its present appellation. There
was still a demand for more weavers, and eventually a large vacant
tract was marked out as a 'Weavers' Town,' under the name of Chindadre
Pettah--the modern Chintadripet. In order to attract weavers, houses
were built at the Company's expense, which weavers were permitted to
occupy as hereditary possessions. It was forma