The whole of this part of the coast acquired an early celebrity from the valuable exports[75] which it dispersed over the Western World. Nelkunda, the chief port, is mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny: and the author of the “Periplus” places it near Barake or Ela Barake, the roadstead where vessels lay at anchor till their cargoes were brought down to the sea. Major Rennell has identified the ancient Nelkunda with the modern Nelisuram, as the latter place is situated twelve miles up the Cangerecora River—a distance corresponding with that specified in the “Periplus.” Vincent acutely guesses Ela Barake to be the spot near Cananore, called by Marco Polo “Eli,” and by us Delhi[76]—the “Ruddy Mountain” of the ancients.
Malabar, from remote times, has been divided into two provinces, the northern and the southern: the Toorshairoo or Cottah River forming the line of demarcation. The general breadth of the country, exclusive of the district of Wynad, is about twenty-five miles, and there is little level ground. The soil is admirably fertile; in the inland parts it is covered with clumps of bamboos, bananas, mangoes, jacktrees, and several species of palms. Substantial pagodas, and the prettiest possible little villages crown the gentle eminences that rise above the swampy rice lands, and the valleys are thickly strewed with isolated cottages and homesteads, whose thatched roofs, overgrown with creepers, peep out from the masses of luxuriant vegetation, the embankments and the neat fences of split bamboo interlaced with thorns, that conceal them. Each tenement has its own croft planted with pepper, plantains, and the betel vine, with small tufts of cocoas, bamboos, and that most graceful species of the palm, the tall and feathery areca. These hamlets are infinitely superior in appearance to aught of the kind we have ever seen in India; the houses are generally built of brick or hewn stone and mortar, and those belonging to the wealthy have been copied from the Anglo-Indian bungalow. As the traveller passes he will frequently see the natives sitting at their doors upon chairs exactly as the rustics of Tuscany would do. The quantity of rain that annually falls[77] covers the ground with the bloom of spontaneous vegetation; cocoa-trees rise upon the very verge where land ends, and in some places the heaps of sand that emerge a few feet from the surface of the sea, look bright with a cap of emerald hue. In consequence of the great slope of the country the heaviest monsoon leaves little or no trace behind it, so that lines of communication once formed are easily preserved. Generally speaking the roads are little more than dykes running over the otherwise impassable paddy fields, and, during wet weather, those in the lower grounds are remarkably bad. Some of the highways are macadamised with pounded laterite spread in thin layers upon the sand; the material is found in great quantities about Calicut, and it makes an admirable monsoon road, as the rain affects it but little on account of its extreme hardness. The magnificent avenues of trees,[78] which shade the principal lines, are most grateful to man and beast in a tropical climate. On all of them, however, there is one great annoyance, particularly during the monsoon, namely, the perpetual shifting to and from ferries[79]—an operation rendered necessary by the network of lakes, rivers, and breakwaters, that intersects the country. A great public use could be made of these inconvenient streams: with very little cutting a channel of communication might be run down the coast, and thus the conveyance of goods would remain uninterrupted even during the prevalence of the most violent monsoons. Water transit, we may observe, would be a grand boon here, as carts are rare, cattle transport is almost unknown, and the transmission of merchandise by means of coolies or porters is the barbarous, slow, and expensive method at present necessarily in general use.
The practical husbandry of Malabar is essentially rude, and yet in few countries have we seen more successful cultivation. The plough is small, of simple form, and so light, that it merely scratches the ground; a pair of bullocks, or a bullock and a woman or two, are attached to the log, and whilst the labourer dawdles over his task, he chaunts monotonous ditties to Mother Earth with more pious zeal than industry. The higher lands produce the betel vine, cocoa, areca, and jack-trees,[80] together with hill rice: the latter article is sown some time after the setting in of the heavy rains, and reaped about September or October. The lower rice-fields, lying in the valleys between the acclivities, are laid out in little plots, with raised footpaths between to facilitate passage and regulate the irrigation. They generally bear one, often two, and in some favoured spots, three crops a year; the average is scarcely more than six or seven fold, though a few will yield as much as thirty. The south-west monsoon, which lasts from June to September, brings forward the first harvest: the second is indebted to the south-east rains which set in about a month later. The Sama (Panicum Miliaceum) requires the benefit of wet weather; it is therefore sown in May, and reaped in August. The oil plant Yelloo (Sesamum Orientale) and the cooltie or horsegram cannot be put into the ground till the violence of the monsoon has abated.
The annual revenue of Malabar is about thirty lacs of rupees (300,000l.), land is valuable, the reason probably being that it is for the most part private, not government property.
When the Hindoo law authorizes a twelfth, an eighth, or a sixth, and at times of urgent necessity even a fourth of the crop to be taken, specifying the Shelbhaga, or one-sixth, as the rulers’ usual share, it appears extraordinary that this province was exempted from all land-tax till 913,[81] or A.D. 1736-7. We may account for the peculiarity, however, by remembering that the country belonged, properly speaking, to the Brahmans, who were, in a religious point of view, the owners of the soil. Moreover, the avowed and legitimate sources of revenue were sufficient for the purposes of a government that had no standing army, and whose militia was supported chiefly by assignments of land. The rulers, however, were anything but wealthy: many of their perquisites were, it is true, by a stretch of authority, converted into the means of personal aggrandisement, but the influence of the Brahmans, and the jealousy of the chiefs, generally operated as efficient checks upon individual ambition.
Malabar has been subjected to three different assessments.
1st. That of the Hindoo Rajahs.
2dly. In the days of the Moslems, and,