8 HISTORICAL REMARKS ON 



refidence ; and fo rivettcd had, through thefe long ha- 

 bits of intercourfe, become the connexion between 

 them and the Samoory's government, that the latter 

 continued, after the arrival of the Portuguese, molt 

 pertinacioufly to adhere to, and fupport, them again ft 

 thefe new rivals in the gainful commerce which they 

 had hitherto driven; a predilection that as naturally 

 lead the Rajahs of Cochin, and of other petty (rates, 

 that flood always in fear of the ambition and fuperior 

 power of the Samoories, to afford to the Portugueje a 

 kind reception in their ports; from which collifions of 

 interefts a very cruel warfare, by fea and land, was for 

 many years carried on between the Samoories, or Za- 

 morins, and their fubjects, Hindus and Mahommedans, 

 aided occafionally by the Egyptians and Turks, on the 

 one part, and the Portuguese, with the Cocbin^nd other 

 Rajahs as their allies, on the other; of the various fuc- 

 ceiles and reverfes in which, the only Jfiatick relation 

 I have met with, is contained in a work, with which, 

 during my ftay in Malabar, I was obligingly favoured 

 by my then colleague, Major (now Lieutenant-Colo- 

 nel] Dow, who had traced and obtained it in the courfe 

 of the extenfive intercourfe that, on terms the molt 

 amicable, and in views the moft falutary and benign, 

 he had long cultivated with the Mahommedan part of 

 the Malabar community. This book, written in the 

 Arabic language, is faid to have been compofed by 

 Zeirreddien Mukhdom, an Arab, Egyptian, or fub- 

 ject of the Turkifh empire; who is thought to have 

 been one of thofe difpatched to aflift the Mahommedan 

 Princes of India, and the Zamorin, againft the Portu- 

 guefe; and to have, during his fray in India, compofed 

 this hiftorical account (which 1 have tranflated into 

 Englijh) of the warfare in which he bore a part, pre- 

 ceded by (what by many will be confidered as the molt 

 interefting part of his work) a defcription of the man- 

 ners and cuitoms of the natives of Malabar at the 

 period of his vifit to it more than two centuries agoj 

 relative to both which articles, I fhall here infert fome 



of 



