1563.—"R. Let us get on horseback and go for a ride; and as we go you shall tell me what is the meaning of Nizamosha ([Nizamaluco]), for you often speak to me of such a person.
"O. I will tell you now that he is King in the Bagalate (misprint for Balagate), whose father I have often attended medically, and the son himself sometimes. From him I have received from time to time more than 12,000 [pardaos]; and he offered me a salary of 40,000 pardaos if I would visit him for so many months every year, but I would not accept."—Garcia de Orta, f. 33v.
1598.—"This high land on the toppe is very flatte and good to build upon, called Balagatte."—Linschoten, 20; [Hak. Soc. i. 65; cf. i. 235].
" "Ballagate, that is to say, above the hill, for Balla is above, and Gate is a hill...."—Ibid. 49; [Hak. Soc. i. 169].
1614.—"The coast of Coromandel, Balagatt or Telingana."—Sainsbury, i. 301.
1666.—"Balagate est une des riches Provinces du Grand Mogol.... Elle est au midi de celle de Candich."—Thevenot, v. 216.
1673.—"... opening the ways to Baligaot, that Merchants might with safety bring down their Goods to Port."—Fryer, 78.
c. 1760.—"The Ball-a-gat Mountains, which are extremely high, and so called from Bal, mountain, and gatt, flat [!], because one part of them affords large and delicious plains on their summit, little known to Europeans."—Grose, i. 231.
This is nonsense, but the following are also absurd misdescriptions:—
1805.—"Bala Ghaut, the higher or upper Gaut or Ghaut, a range of mountains so called to distinguish them from the Payen Ghauts, the lower Ghauts or Passes."—Dict. of Words used in E. Indies, 28.