As a proof of how strong the followers of Mohammed mustered on the Malabar coast, we may quote Barthema, who asserts, that when the Portuguese landed at Calicut, they found not less than fifteen thousand of them settled there. Camoens also tells us how the friendly and disinterested plans of his hero were obstructed and thwarted by the power and influence of these infidel Moors.
[63] Between September 1846 and May 1847, no less than eighty ships, besides an immense number of pattimars and native craft touched at Calicut.
[64] Arab and other valuable horses cannot stand the climate,—a Pegu pony is the general monture. The sheep intended for consumption are brought down from Mysore.
[65] Subterraneous streams are still as common in India as they were in heathen Greece and Italy.
[66] The dynastical name of the Samiry.
[67] Captain Hamilton mentions his ship striking in six fathoms at the mainmast on some of the ruins of “the sunken town built by the Portuguese in former times.” But he hesitates to determine whether the place was “swallowed up by an earthquake, as some affirm, or undermined by the sea.”
[68] A further account of Cherooman will be found in the twelfth chapter. Ferishteh, the celebrated Moslem annalist, informs us that the Rajah became a Mussulman in consequence of the pious exhortations of some Arab sailors who were driven into the port of Craganore. Captain Hamilton remarks that, “when the Portuguese first came to India, the Samorin of Calicut, who was lord paramount of Malabar, turned Moslem in his dotage, and to show his zeal, went to Mecca on a pilgrimage, and died on the voyage.” The tradition handed down amongst the Moslems is, that the Malabar Rajah became a convert to Islam in consequence of seeing the Shakk el-Kamar, or miraculous splitting of the moon by Mohammed, and that, warned by a dream, he passed over to Arabia.
[69] See [Chapter XII.]
[70] Surya, the Hindoo Phœbus.
[71] Go-karna, the “Cow’s-ear,” a celebrated place of pilgrimage in the Canara district.