I. 



HISTORICAL REMARKS 



ON THE 



COAST OF MALABAR. 



WITH 



SOME DESCRIPTION OF THE MANNERS OF 

 ITS INHABITANTS. 



By Jonathan Duncan, Efquire. 



SEC- 

 TION. 



' L |N the book called Kerul Oodputte, or, " The 

 JL emergingof the Country of Kerul y " (of which, 

 during my flay at Calicut, in the year 1793, ^ ma ^e 

 the belt tranflation into Englifh in my power, through 

 the medium of a vernon firft rendered into Perfian, 

 under my own inflection, from the Malabar ic copy 

 procured from one of the Rajahs of the Zamorin's 

 family,) the origin of that coaft is afcribed to the 

 piety or penitence of Purefeu Rama y or Purefram y (one 

 of the incarnations of Vishnu,) who, flung with re- 

 morfe for the blood he had fo profufely fhed in over- 

 coming the Rajahs of the Khetry tribe, applied to 

 Varuna, the God of the Ocean, to fupply him with 

 a tract of ground to beftow on the Brdbmens; and Va- 

 runa having accordingly withdrawn his waters from 

 the Gowkern (a hill in the vicinity of Mangalore) to 

 Cape Comorin, this ftrip of territory has, from its 

 fituation, as lying along the foot of the Sukhien (by the 

 Europeans called the Ghaut) range of mountains, ac- 

 quired the name of Mulyahm, (i. e. Skirting at the Bot- 

 tom of the Hills,) a term that may have been fhortened 

 into Maleyam, or Maleam ; whence are alfo probably 



A its 



