ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 75 



was of ivory, cushioned with red silk, and a palanquin 

 lay to hand. This was very gorgeous ; all gold and silver 

 and red silk curtains, and having ivory poles tipped with 

 gold elephants. 



Images stood about in niches, decked with necklaces of 

 huge sapphires and pearls. Fruit and sherbet were served, 

 and then, after an interchange of compliments through an 

 interpreter, the audience was at an end. 



Calicut was a busy trading port long before the great 

 Portuguese admiral, Vasco da Gama, came to an anchor 

 on the coast of Malabar, a few miles from the town, on the 

 20th of May 1498. He found it full of Moors and Arabs, 

 who were the traders of the then known world ; and their 

 descendants have adopted the land as their own, har- 

 monising, but never inter-marrying, with the original in- 

 habitants, who are called Thears. Theans is the proper 

 plural, I believe. These last are a handsome race, with 

 straight hair and pale olive complexions — wonderfully pale 

 for natives of India — and with features so regular as to 

 become almost monotonous, for all look alike. There is 

 not a hooked nose to be seen among them, whereas that 

 is a very usual trait with the Moplahs, who are of Arab 

 extraction. The men are very tall ; the women are pretty 

 up to the age of fifteen or so, but they age and fade rapidly, 

 as do all native women ; their blue-black shining hair is 

 very loosely gathered into a knot on the top of the head, 

 whence it falls round the ears and neck in a very graceful 

 way, and is secured with long silver, or perhaps only 

 wooden, skewers. They adopt no two ways of dressing their 

 hair, so every woman's head is alike. The men's heads 

 are shaved almost bare. 



On this west coast, whilst going about their business out 

 of doors, the people may be seen wearing an ingeniously 

 simple protection from the sun, and rain, too, in its season 

 — a sort of round tray made of palm leaves stitched together, 



