24 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN [VOL. XVI, 



and sending priests to Mannar at the earnest solicitation of the 

 inhabitants.* 



That the fisheries were then ilourishing is betokened by the fine 

 churches and great monasteries that rose at the three centres 

 named from the offerings and profits of the divers and merchants 

 during the second half of the sixteenth century. 



The Portuguese appear to have kept well in hand the petty 

 Chiefs whose territories abutted on the fishery coast and to have 

 been able to afford efficient protection to the Paravas. They were 

 fortunate in arriving in India at a time when the native states were 

 in the crucible of change, when internecine warfare left the chiefs 

 neither time nor power to cope effectually with a more highly 

 organized foe from oversea. Old states were in the melting pot of 

 invasion and insurrection and especially was this true of Southern 

 India, where political paralysis began to affect Vijayanagar — 

 beginning, as is usual, in those provinces furthest from the centre 

 of the state. 



The latest dynasty — the Nayakkan — occupying the tributary 

 throne of Madura was beginning to assert independence of the 

 central Government from which it became virtually free when the 

 battle of Talikota in 1 565 completed the destruction of the 

 Suzerain Hindu State of Vijayanagar, 



The Paravas as already mentioned, although the original holders 

 of the fishery rights, had begun prior to the arrival of the Portu- 

 guese to feel the competition of the restless Muhammadan settlers 

 on the coast, who, coming as many must have done, from the coasts 

 of the Persian Gulf knew already all there was to know of pearl 

 fishing. The descendants of these Arabs and their proselytes, 

 known as Moros to the Portuguese, are the Moormen or Lebbais of 

 to-day. f 



Hating the Moormen with all the fanatical intolerance which 

 was their curse and the chief cause of their eventual ruin, the 

 Portuguese as we have seen took the part of the Paravas. Accord- 

 ingly the Nayak of Madura, Hindu though he was, habitually lent 

 his influence to the Moors in the hope of eventually being in a 



* According to St. Francis Xavier drunkenness among the Paravas was gross in 

 his time ; he was furious with the headmen or ■pattangattis for them free indulgence in 

 arrack. He threatened to have them sent in chains to Cochin if they did not reform. 



f Moormen is the appellation used in Ceylon, whereas Lebbais is commonly used on 

 the Indian Coast for the same people. 



