C A L 



219 



C A L 



Calicut, schemes, massacred fifty of the Portugneic. Cabral, 

 '" *J however, soon revenged their barbarous treatment. 

 He burned all the Arabian vessels that were in the 

 harbour, battered the city, and repaired to Cochin 

 and Cananore. The kings of these two cities gave 

 him spices, gold, and silver, and proposed to niter 

 into an alliance with him against the Samorin, to 

 whom they were tributary. The kings of Oner 

 and Coulan, and several other princes, joined in this 

 proposal, with the hopes of freeing themselves from 

 their tribute, and drawing to their harbours a por- 

 tion of the commerce of Asia. Blinded by these 

 views, the infatuated sovereigns of the East surren- 

 dered themselves, in a great measure, into the hands 

 of the Portuguese. In every part of Malabar, the 

 Portuguese obtained such influence, that they built 

 a fort in every city, and compelled every sovereign 

 to acknowledge himself a vassal of the court of Lis- 

 bon. The other nations of Europe, imitating the 

 adventurous spirit of the Portuguese, sent out ves- 

 sels to bring home the merchandise of the East ; and 

 such was the contempt and obscurity into which the 

 Portuguese had fallen, that scarcely one of their 

 ships was to be seen in the ports of the Samorin, 

 where the English, Dutch, French, and Danes, had 

 considerable factories. The Dutch established them- 

 selves here in 1604 ; the English followed them soon 

 after ; but the French did not establish their trade 

 till about sixty years after the Dutch. 



When Malabar fell into the hands of Tippoo, in 

 1789, he destroyed Calicut, and removed the inhabi- 

 tants to Nelluru, the name of which he changed 

 to Furruckabad. He razed the city to the ground, 

 destroyed its trade, banished the merchants and fac- 

 tors of the foreign commercial houses. He cut down 

 all the cocoa-nut and sandal trees, and ordered the pep- 

 per plants in the surrounding district to be torn up by 

 the roots, and cut to pieces. His cruelty to the inhabi- 

 tants of Calicut, was marked by the most dreadful bar- 

 barity. Great numbers of them, both male and female, 

 were put to death. The mothers were first tied up, and 

 then the children suspended from their necks. Several 

 Christians and heathens, were brought out naked, and 

 tied to the feet of elephants, which dragged them about, 

 till they were torn limb from limb. All the churches 

 and temples were burned or pulled down. Christian and 

 Pagan women were compelled to marry Mahometans, 

 and Mahometan women to marry heathens and Chris- 

 tians. The Pagans were deprived of the token of 

 their nobility, which is a lock of hair named cudumi, 

 and every Christian who was seen on the streets was 

 either circumcised or hanged on the spot. About 

 fifteen months after the inhabitants were removed to 

 Furruckabad, the province was conquered by the 

 English ; and the inhabitants returned with transport 

 to their old place of residence. Before the town wa? 

 destroyed by Tippoo, it contained about six or seven 

 thousand houses. It now contains about five thousand 

 houses, and is rapidly recovering its importance. The 

 inhabitants are principally Moplays, a stout and in- 

 dustrious, but villanous race of men, who settled in 

 this country about 400 years ago, and are nearly as nu- 

 merous as the Nairs, whose authority over them they 

 dispute. East Long. 75 52', North Lat. 11 12'. 

 See Nouvelle Relation d'nn Voyage fail aux Indcs 



VOL. V. PART I. 



Orirtitalft conlfnant la I)e$cription de$ ilei de Bo*r- 

 oon, et de Madagascar de tiurale de la, Cote de Mala- 

 bar, de Calicut, &c., par M. Dollon. Aract. 1699. 

 ]>. 178. ThU work was translated into English under 

 the title of Drllon's Voyait to the Eait I, 

 Loi. liartolumeo'i Vvyapt In the l.att Indict, 



Chap. vi. p. 139; Dairy mple's Oriental lltjtosilory, 

 vol. i. p. 288, vol. ii. HJ5 168 ; and Dr Francis Bu- 

 chanan's Journey from Madrat through the Countries 

 of Mysore, Catutra, and Malabar, vol. ii. p. 474, and 

 ol. lii. Appendix, (o) 



CALIFORNIA, an extensive country in North 

 America, reaching from Cape San Lucaon the South, 

 to Cape Mendocino on the north, it washed by the 

 Pacific Ocean, or Great South Sea on the west, and 

 is separated from the continent by the gulf of Cali- 

 fornia, the river Colorado, and the Sierra Azul. It 

 liesbetween 22^ and 40 degree* of N. Lat. and, accord* 

 ing to M. Hurabnldt, its extent of surface is 9400 

 square leagues. This country it divided in the Spa- 

 nish maps into old and new California, their boundary 

 being the Bay of Todos los Santos, a little south from 

 the port of San Diego. It has, however, been distin- 

 guished in various desariptionsby different name*. The 

 northern part of it, or New California, received the name 

 of New Albion, from Sir Francis Drake, who touch- 

 ed here in 1577 ; and Old California, so late as the 

 middle of the 17th century, it being then supposed 

 to be a large island surrounded with several small 

 ones, was called Islas Carolina*, in honour of Charles 

 II. of Spain, who had sent out a strong armament* 

 to subjugate and take possession of the country. This 

 expedition, however, having failed in itsobject, the name 

 was soon dropt. It received its present name when 

 first visited by Hernando de Grixalva, by the direc- 

 tion of Hernan Cortes in 1534 ; but the origin and 

 etymology of this word has never been accurately 

 ascertained. In all the various dialects of the natives, 

 no trace of such a name has ever been discovered ; 

 and though some writers have had recourse to con- 

 jecture, and suppose that California is compounded of 

 c alida and fornax, a hot furnace, and was derived 

 from the sultriness of its climate ; yet we do not End 

 that any of the Spanish captains ever took this me- 

 thod of giving names to their conquests. Father 

 Venegas is rather inclined to think, that it owed its 

 origin to some accident ; possibly to some words 

 spoken by the natives, and misunderstood by the 

 Spaniards, as happened, according to a very learned 

 American, in the naming of Peru. Be this as it may, 

 it is distinguished among the inhabitants of the coun- 

 try by no general denomination, but is divided into 

 a variety of tribes or hordes, each having a separate 

 name and language peculiar to themselves. The Ca- 

 lifornians of the peninsula, according to Father Ta- 

 raval, are divided into three distinct nations, whose 

 languages bear no affinity to one another } the Peri- 

 cues on the south, the Meuquis in the centre, and 

 the Cochimies on the north, each of whom are sub- 

 divided into several branches, distinguished by consi- 

 derable variations in their dialect. In New Califor- 

 nia, the distinctions are still more numerous, and Fa- 

 ther Lasuen has observed, that on an extent of 180 

 leagues from San Diego to the bay of San Francisco, 

 no fewer than seventeen languages are spoken, which 

 2i 



