Can those three or four bungalows, with that stick-like light-house between them and the half-dozen tiled and thatched roofs peeping from amongst the trees, compose Calicut—the city of world-wide celebrity, which immortalised herself by giving a name to calico?
Yes; but when we land we shall find a huge mass of huts and hovels, each built in its own yard of cocoas with bazaars, vast and peculiar-looking mosques, a chapel or two, courts and cutcherries, a hospital, jail, barracks, and a variety of bungalows. Seen from the sea, all the towns on this coast look like straggling villages, with a background of distant blue hill,[58] and a middle space of trees, divided by a strip of sand from the watery plain.
Calicut is no longer the
Cidade—nobre e rica[59]
described by Camoens’ tuneful muse. Some, indeed, declare that the present city is not the one alluded to in the Lusiad. There is a tradition amongst the natives of the country, that the ancient Calicut was merged beneath the waves; but in the East, tradition is always a terrible romancer. So we will still continue to believe that here old De Gama first cast anchor and stepped forth from his weather-beaten ship, at the head of his mail-clad warriors, upon the land of promise.
D’Anville assigns two dates to the foundation of Calicut, the earlier one[60]—A.D. 805—will suit historical purposes sufficiently well. There is nothing to recommend the position selected. During the monsoon, no vessel can approach the anchorage-ground with safety, and even in the fine season many have been wrecked upon the reefs of rocks which line the coast. Very little wind suffices to raise the surf: Nature has made no attempt at a harbour, and the ships lying in an open roadstead, are constantly liable to be driven on the sand and mud-banks around them. Tippoo Sultan—a very long-headed individual, by the bye—saw the defects of the situation, and determining to remove the town about six miles southward to the mouth of the Beypoor, or Arricode river, where a natural port exists, adopted the energetic measure of almost destroying the old city, that the inhabitants might experience less regret in leaving their homes. The Moslem emperor regarded Calicut with no peculiar good-will. He and his subjects were perpetually engaged in little squabbles, which by no means tended to promote kindly feeling between them.[61] On one occasion, offended by the fanaticism of the Nair and Tiyar Hindoos, their ruler pulled down almost every pagoda in the place, and with the stones erected a splendid tank in the middle of the large open space where the travellers’ bungalow now stands. Tippoo unfortunately failed in this project of removal, and when the British became supreme in Malabar, the natives all returned to their ancient haunts. Calicut, for many reasons, is not likely to be deserted under the present rule: it is the point to which all the lines of road which intersect the country converge; besides it would now scarcely be worth our while to bring about so violent a change for the purpose of eventual improvement.
When old Nelkunda began to decline, Calicut rose to importance, probably in consequence of its being in very early times the metropolis of the Samiry Rajah (the Zamorin of Camoens), lord paramount of Malabar. Shortly after the origin of Islam, it was visited and colonised by thousands of Arabs,[62] who diffused energy and activity throughout the land. As trade increased, Calicut throve because of its centrical position between the countries east and west of Cape Comorin. Even in the present day, although Goa, and subsequently Bombay, have left the ancient emporium of Western India but little of its former consequence, commerce[63] still continues to flourish there. The export is brisker than the import trade: the latter consists principally of European piece goods and metals, the former comprises a vast variety of spices, drugs, valuable timber and cotton cloths.
We will now take a walk through the town and remark its several novelties. Monuments of antiquity abound not here: the fort erected by the Portuguese has long since been level with the ground, and private bungalows occupy the sites of the old Dutch, French, and Danish factories. We shall meet few Europeans in the streets: there are scarcely twenty in this place, including all the varieties of civilians, merchants, missionaries, and the officers belonging to the two seapoy companies detached from the neighbouring station—Cananore. Most of the residents inhabit houses built upon an eminence about three miles to the north of the town; others live as close as possible to the sea. A dreary life they must lead, one would suppose, especially during the monsoon, when the unhappy expatriated’s ears are regaled by no other sounds but the pelting of the rain, the roaring of the blast, and the creaking of the cocoa trees, whilst a curtain of raging sea, black sky, and watery air, is all that meets his weary ken.
The first thing we observe during our perambulation, is the want of the quadruped creation: there are no horses,[64] sheep, or goats, and the cows are scarcely as large as English donkeys. Secondly, the abundance of sore eyes, produced, it is supposed by the offensive glare and the peculiar effect of the sun’s rays, which in these regions are insufferable even to the natives of other Indian provinces. The population apparently regards us with no friendly feeling, Moslem and Hindoo, all have scowls upon their faces, and every man, moreover, carries a knife conveniently slung to his waistband. Those dark-faced gentlemen, in imitation European dresses, are familiar to our eyes: they are Portuguese, not, however, from Goa, but born, bred, and likely to be buried at Calicut. A little colony, of fifty or sixty families of the race is settled here; they employ themselves either in commerce, or as writers in the different government offices.