WESTERN H I N D O O S T A N. 1-3 



occafion, " Kifig of the ijlands of the fea ;" and in their poems 

 placed him above Alexander and Tamerlane. Let me here fay, 

 that he had his poet-laureat ahvays refident, who had a ftipend 

 of a thoufand roupees a month, and the rank of a general of a 

 thoufand men *. 



Part of the inhabitants profefs Paganifm, part Mahometifmy 

 the firft retained from the original. Their language is Cingalefcj 

 or that of Ceylon \, which points out their primoeval ftock. 

 As to Mahometifjn it is a more modern, religion, derived from 

 the Moors. Some bury their dead, others burn them, hke the 

 Hindoos : but Knox, our belt authority, fays, that the poor only 

 inter; the rich commit them to the funeral pile 4:. Hamil- 

 ton faw, on one iiland, certain tombs, «' fculptured," fays he, 

 ** with as great variety of figures as he ever faw in Europe^ 



To return to the continent. A few leagues below Make, at Sacrifice 

 a fmall diftance from the coaft, is the Sacrifice Rock, fuppofed to 

 have received its name from certain Fortuguefe, taken by fome 

 of the neighboring cruizers of Cottica, and on that rock 

 made viiflims to the revenge of the Indians §. 



The city of Calicut, feated in Lat. 11° 18, ftands about eight City of Ca- 

 leagues to the fouth of the Rock of Sacrifice. This place is cele- 

 brated as being the firft land in India which the Europeans ever 

 faw, after the long interval of the Roman commerce. Here the 

 great Gama, on May 18, 1698, firft faw the fertile rifings and 

 plains of Malabar, backed by the lofty Ghauts, rife before him. 

 Kir. Dalrymple, in one of his plates, gives a vi-ew of what it now 



♦ Hift. Ayder Alii, i. 99. f Hamilton, i. 348. 



X Hift. Ceylon. 115. § HamiltoDj i. p. 304. 



Vol. I, X is, 



I.ICUT. 



