TRAVELS IN INDIA.
CHAPTER XXI.
MALABAR.
Calicut—Houses and gardens—Population of Malabar—Namburi Brahmins—Nairs—Tiars—Slaves—Moplahs—Assessment of rice-fields, of gardens, of dry crops—Other taxes—Voyage up the Beypoor river—The Conolly teak plantations—Wundoor—Backwood cultivation—Sholacul—Sispara ghaut—Black-wood—Scenery—Sispara—View of the Nellemboor valley—Avalanche—Arrival at Ootacamund.
He who would desire to receive the most pleasant impression of India, on a first arrival, must follow in the wake of Vasco de Gama, and land on the coast of Malabar, the garden of the peninsula. Here Nature is clad in her brightest and most inviting robes, the scenery is magnificent, the fields and gardens speak of plenty, and the dwellings of the people are substantial and comfortable.
As we steamed into the anchorage at Calicut, on board the little yacht 'Pleiad,' no appearance of any town was visible, and no building except a tall white lighthouse. Thick groves of cocoanut-trees line the shore, and are divided from the sea by a belt of sand; while undulating green hills rise up behind, and the background of mountains was hidden by banks of clouds. The whole scene bore a close resemblance to one of the Sandwich or Society Islands, down to the canoes which came off to us the moment the anchor was let go. They are hewn out of the trunk of the jack-tree, with an upper bulwark fastened with coir twine; and the canoe-men were naked athletic-looking fellows, with enormous hats made of a frond of the tallipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera). When we shoved off from the 'Pleiad' a handsome fish-hawk, with white head and breast, was perched on the fore-topsail yard-arm, and sea-snakes were playing in the water alongside. In-shore there were a few native craft, called pattamars, at anchor. Pattamars are the vessels which have carried on the coasting trade on the western side of India from time immemorial. As in the days of Sinbad the sailor, their planks are not nailed, but sewn together with coir-twine, and they have high sterns and bows sheering rapidly aft. The deepest part is at the stem, whence the bottom curves inwards to the stern. A pattamar has two masts raking forward, with long picturesque lateen yards slung with one-third part before the mast, and two-thirds abaft. They never attempt to tack, but always ware, and if taken aback there is no alternative but either to wait until she comes round, or to capsize.
On landing at Calicut, a carriage drawn by two white bullocks was, through the hospitality of Mr. Patrick Grant, the Collector of Malabar, waiting for us on the sandy beach, to convey us to his house; a drive of about two miles. The excellent road, of a bright red colour from the soil being composed of laterite, passes through groves of cocoanut-trees, interspersed with many houses, each surrounded by its garden of mangos, nux vomica trees, jacks with pepper-vines creeping over them, and palm-trees. The houses are all substantial and comfortable-looking, built of square blocks of laterite joined with chunam, or lime made from calcined sea-shells, and roofed with tiles. The laterite or iron-clay is a rock full of cavities and pores like coral, overlying the granite which forms the basis of Malabar. When excluded from the air it is so soft that any iron instrument can readily cut it, and is dug up in square masses with a pickaxe, and afterwards shaped into blocks with a knife or trowel. After exposure it soon becomes as hard, and is as durable as bricks. Each house has a cocoanut safe or store-room on one side, of open wood-work. Many people were walking along the road, naked men with huge tallipot-palm hats, and women with nothing on but bright-coloured petticoats, looking picturesque in the foreground and middle distance of the palm-shaded vistas. At intervals the cocoanut groves were broken by fields of vivid green paddy, and tanks filled with red lotus-flowers.
From Mr. Grant's house, on the top of a rounded grassy hill, there is an extensive and very beautiful view of the undulating hills and dales of Malabar, generally covered with forest; with the ocean on one side, and the Wynaad mountains on the other. Malabar is 188 miles long, 25 miles broad in the northern, and 70 in the southern half, and contains 6262 square miles. It is divided into 17 Talooks or districts, and has a population of 1,602,914 souls; of whom 1,165,174 are Hindus, 414,126 Moplahs, and 23,614 Christians.