Situation of Malabar—Signification of the name—First colonization according to the Native legends—Difference between the Highlands and Lowlands—The stone found in Highlands—Cheapness of provisions—Neither volcanoes to be found nor earthquakes ever experienced here.
THOUGH the broad ocean, which rolls between the Netherlands and Malabar, presents a barrier to my personal enjoyment of your delightful society, it can neither extinguish my affection nor prevent me from holding communication with you by letter. I therefore dispatch this, as the first tribute of our constant friendship, in which I propose to relate the origin of Malabar according to the tradition of the natives.
This country of Malabar is situated about 10 degrees north of the Equator, stretching from Cape Comorin in the south to Mount Delli in the north. The inhabitants are called by us Malabars, by the Portuguese, Malavares, and by themselves Mallealler.* This word properly signifies Mountaineers, not that they dwell amid lofty mountains, for the greater part of the country, stretching along the sea coast, is flat and marshy; but the name must be derived from the original colonists, who were a mountain race.
Their legend, doubtless embellished by fiction, is as follows:—In by-gone ages, the sea washed the foot of a mountain range, which now lies 7 or 8 miles inland. The men who dwelt in the neighbourhood gained their subsistence by fishing along the mountain shores. Now it happened that there dwelt at Gocarna near Goa, a certain prophet universally renowned for sanctity, whose name was Paroese Raman. He, discovering to his sorrow that his aged mother had acquired an evil notoriety in the neighbourhood for her misdeeds, felt unable to endure the public shame she had brought upon him. At length, inspired by a divine impulse, he seized a rice winnow, and hurled it with tremendous force from Gocarna right over the sea : by a wonderful miracle it was carried forward as far as Cape Comorin, upon which all the sea between the two places immediately dried up, and was transformed into that tract of level land, to which we now give the name of Malabar. The prophet resolved to take up his abode with his mother in this strange land, hoping here to find a hiding place for her disgrace. Meantime, the fishermen of the mountains, hearing of the miracle, flocked into these lowlands to seek for the seashore. The prophet met them, and, knowing that a land without inhabitants is waste and desolate, persuaded them to remain and settle there; and in order the more to attract them, he invested them with the dignity of Brahmins, promising at the same time to support them after his old custom, by which he was pledged to provide food daily for 3,000 of that caste. He then took the fishing nets with which they were laden, and tore them into strands, which he twisted together, to make the three cords which the Brahmins wear as a sign of their dignity tied in a knot on the shoulder, and falling down below the waist. These Brahmins of Malabar are called Namboories and are reproached by the other Brahmins, for their descent from fishermen.*
You will agree with me in treating this story as a mere fiction, but there is probably some foundation in fact for it, as there is for most fables : and any one who carefully examines these lowlands, will grant that formerly they must have been submerged under the sea. Not only do they lie so low, that like the coast of Holland they are under water in the rainy season, but they are in many parts broken up into islets by the waters of the sea, which flow in channels between them, and into which the rivers from the mountains empty themselves. May we not then suppose that this low and broken land is washed over entirely from time to time? We know that in some European countries the sea encroaches on the land, and in other places recedes. It is true, no doubt, that many parts of the shore are elevated. Nearly the whole coast from Kully Quilon to Ponany is low and broken up by numerous watercourses, but the coast of Quilon is steep and rocky, or rather it is merely a rock covered with a stratum of soil; so that here it would seem the land can never have been under water. While I am on the subject of this rocky district, I must add that the stone is very well adapted for building. There are quarries here from which the stones are hewn; and I have seen the stone when well cut from the rock, split like wood under the stroke of the axe. The stone is reddish yellow and spotted,* very porous and full of holes, in which the lime used in building, gets mixed up, and the whole becomes so well consolidated, that old stone is often preferred to new.
The East India Company find this stone very serviceable for erecting their fortresses and factories, and the inhabitants use it in building their houses.
But to return from this digression. I must inform you that the variety of soil here causes a marked difference in its fertility. It is true, generally speaking, that the pleasant champaigns and sweet clover fields with which Holland abounds, are not to be found here, nor is it the case that the fields are clothed with many coloured flowers, breathing sweet fragrance, as the poet Antonides has it, in his poem on the river Y†.
“The fruitful Cochin, where sweet blossoming May, “For ever decks the earth with livery gay.”
This is poetical license deviating far from the real truth, as, commonly, the vegetation is but thin and scanty, and the fields are any thing but rich in flowers. It is true, indeed, that the low sandy tracts are more fertile than the more elevated and rocky districts, for while these yield nothing but trees, and tree fruits, the former contain vast expanses of rice fields, which are so productive that they suffice to furnish rice not only for the whole of Malabar, but also for exportation. It is curious that so dry a plant as rice grows in the water. In fact, the natives sow the nely in the low lying meadows, at the time when they are a foot or two under water, scattering the seed in the water, through which it sinks to the earth, and there takes root; when about a foot high the seedlings must be transplanted.
Provisions are all cheap here, especially rice and meat. A pig can be bought for a dollar, a good calf for half a dollar, a fowl for 10 cents. This must be attributed to the habits of the natives, among whom it would be considered a sacrilege to eat beef—merely to kill a cow being a crime punished by death without mercy. Some castes are permitted to eat other meats, but it is little done; the Brahmins have a mortal abhorrence of animal food, and make use of nothing that has had life.
Upper Malabar is very elevated, and contains many mountain ranges rising one behind the other. It boasts few mineral productions, except iron, which is beat out in small bars and exported to Mocha. There are no volcanoes in this part of the world, nor are any serious convulsions of the earth known. Indeed there has never been an earthquake within the memory of man, while, in the countries lying further to the East, both volcanoes and earthquakes are most common.