l8 HISTORICAL REMARKS ON 



17th. " If a fione light from a Polere on a woman 

 cc of a fuperior rank on a particular night, which is 

 <( marked out for this in the year, then that woman 

 <c muft be excluded from her rank ; and although fhe 

 <c fhall not have feen the faid man, nor been touched 

 " by him, yet ftill her lord fhall make a conveyance 

 « e of her by fale ; or fhe fhall become a Mqflem> or a 

 " Chriftiariy or a female Jogui ; and this cuftom is ge- 

 " neral.* 



1 8th. <f In cafes of fornication (or what is locally 

 <c deemed the illicit intercourfe between the fexes) if 

 (t the parties differ much in degree, the higher lofes 

 " his or her rank ; nor has he or fhe any other refource 

 " than the one above-mentioned : yet, if a Brahmen 

 €< fornicate with a Nayr woman, he mall not thereby 

 S{ lofe his caft; there being between thofe two old 

 " tribes that anciently eftablifhed connection which 

 <f hath been already noticed. 



19th. " Such are the painful obfervances which 

 cc they have entailed on themfelves, through their own 

 " ignorance and want of knowledge, which God Al- 

 " mighty hath, however, in his mercy, rendered the 

 " means of encreafing the number of the faithful. f" 



XV. Our Mahommedan author then proceeds to 

 mention, that the towns built along the coaft of Ma- 

 labar owed their origin to, and were principally con- 



itruded 



* I have allowed this paragraph of Zeirreddie n's text to 

 Hand inferted in the order of his own enumeration, becaufe it is 

 connected with the one that follows ; though the cuftom it refers 

 to feems fo unreafonable, that, as I never hadoccafron to hear it 

 corroborated by the report of the natives, I cannot vouch for its 

 being well founded. 



+ In the manner adverted to in the fecond note page ir. And 

 here clofes, for the prefent, the literal extraft I have made from 

 'L . i r red d ie n's performance, which, for diftinction fake, I have 

 •marked with inverted commas. 



