THE COASr OF MALABAR. IQ 



ftructed by, the Mahommedan traders,* who, though 

 not then amounting to a tithe of the general popula- 

 tion, were much courted by the feveral Rajahs, and 

 more efpecially by the Zamorin, to frequent his port 

 of Calicut, on account of the duty of ten per cent, that 

 was levied on their trade. 



XVI. The arrival of the fleets of the Portuguefe, 

 the firft under Vafco de Gama, in the 904th year of the 

 Higeree, (correfponding with the year of our Lord 

 149 8, J and of that conducted by Cabral> a few years 

 thereafter, with the negociations, jealoufies, and wars 

 that enfued thereon, are next related by our author, in 

 a manner eafily enough reconcileable to the accounts 

 of the fame tranfactions already publifhed throughout 

 Europe. He afcribes the Europeans reforting to In- 

 dia, to their defire to purchafe pepper and ginger. 

 Nor does he feek to conceal that, between them and 

 the Mahommedan traders, a commercial jealoufy imme- 

 diately fprang up, which proved the caufe of all the 

 bitter wars that were afterwards carried on, by fea and 

 land, by the Z amor ins and Mahommedan s on the one 

 part; and the Rajah of Cochin (to whofe port the Por- 

 tuguefe had failed, on their breach with the former 

 Prince) and his European allies on the other ; the for- 

 mer being afterwards reinforced from the Arabian 

 Gulph by a large fleet fitted out under the command 

 of Ameer Hofaine, an officer in the fervice of Kaunis al 

 Ghowry, the then reigning Sultaun of Egypt j but thefe 

 armaments failed of their object ; and the Ghowry 

 Prince was foon afterwards himfelf fubdued by Selim> 

 the Turkifh Emperor: and of the treatment which the 

 Mahommedan traders continued, in the mean time, to 



B 2 experience 



* The principally current Malabar sera is ftated in the account 

 afcribecrto the Bifhop of Verapoli (as already quoted in the note 

 page 2) to have been fixed from the building of the city of Cm- 

 ium, (by us called Quiloan.) about twenty-four cadums (Malabar 

 leagues) or eighty Britiih miles, fouth of Cochin. It was for- 

 merly very famous as the emporium of the coatt. : and founded m 

 the 825th year of the Chriftian sera. 



