[54] Ferdinand, the second Duke of Tuscany, was the munificent patron of the father of Western Orientalism.
[55] When Vasco de Gama returned to India, part of his freight was “eight Franciscan friars, eight chaplains, and one chaplain major, who were instructed to begin by preaching, and, if that failed, to proceed to the decision of the sword.”
[56] The curious reader will find the subject of Jesuitical conversion in India most ably treated in Sir J. E. Tennent’s late work on “Christianity in Ceylon.”
[57] A common term of insult.
[58] The mountains distinctly visible from the sea off Calicut, in clear weather, are the Koondah range of the Neilgherries, or Blue Hills.
[59] “Noble and wealthy city.”
[60] The later is A.D. 907.
[61] In 1788, Tippoo was induced by ill-timed zeal or mistaken policy to order the circumcision and conversion of the Malabar Hindoos, and compelled the Brahmans to eat beef, as an example to the other inferior castes. A general insurrection of the oppressed was the natural consequence of the oppressive measure.
Tradition asserts that there was a forcible but partial circumcision of the natives of Malabar by the people of Arabia long before Hyder’s time. So the grievance was by no means a new one.
[62] Who, it may be observed, are the navigators and traders par excellence of the Eastern world. The Jews and Phœnicians generally confined themselves to the Mediterranean and the parts about the Red Sea. The Turks were an inland nation; the Hindoos have ever been averse to any but coasting voyages, and the religion of Zoroaster forbade its followers to cross the seas. But the Arab is still what he was—the facile princeps of Oriental sailors.