6 



"lowlands wronged the Parruas on all sides and diminished the right of the Torti!- 

 " guese, but at that time they had no means of preventing it, as the Dutch Company 

 <c was increasing in strength and were taking possession of their towns, forts and ships, 

 " and became daily more powerful, which caused them to bear much fioni the Naick 

 " with forbearance. 



(< Matters stood thus in the hands of the Naick of Madura * till 1658, when 

 " the town of Tutucoryn was taken by force of arms from the Portuguese and Parruas, 

 "by which success the Company succeeded to their rights over the coast, as well as to 

 "their authority over the sea-ports, the Christians, the pearl fisheries, and all there- 

 into appertaining ; in fact to all that the Pa ,v ruas first had, and the priests and 

 " Portuguese afterwards possessed." 



Of the prosperity and conduct of the fisheries under the Portuguese we know 

 nothing with exactitude — even the dates of the important fisheries are lost through the 

 disappearance of the official records. 



Fortunately many of the Portuguese soldiers of fortune have left memoirs of their 

 lives in the east, and several furnish interesting accounts of the conduct and manage- 

 ment of the fisheries at this time. The two most important are those left by Gaspar 

 Correa and by Juan Ribeyro ; the former dealing with the condition of the fishery at 

 the beginning of the Portuguese connection, the latter with an account of it in the 

 years when his nation was being dislodged foot by foot and fort by fort from Ceylon 

 and India by the Dutch. Both are worthy of being better known and therefore it will 

 be better to give the extracts in full. 



Gaspar Correa's account f tells us that in the year 1523 the King of Portugal 

 commissioned Manuel de Frias to make inquiries in India regarding the tomb of the 

 apostle Thomas, and it proceeds thus : — " And he commanded that with him should go 

 "Joao Froles, who had takjn part in the affairs in Ceylon when Lopo Soares went 

 " there, and who had been appointed by the King captain and factor of the pearl fishery 

 " which is carried on by the natives of the country between Ceylon and the Cape of 

 " Comoryn ; in former times the Moors of that coast had possession of this pearl 

 " fishery, for which they paid a large rent to the lords of the land, wherefore the 

 " Governors had a good right thereto, since they were rulers of the sea. Therefore 

 " now Joao Froles having come thus commissioned that he might take possession of 

 " and receive for the King this fishery, so that the Governor might not suffer loss by 

 " not being able to receive it for himself, he did not give Joao Froles the fleet and 

 •' men that the King had commanded, and in order to get from it whatever he could 

 " gain he ordered Manuel de Frias to go to the fishery, and to rent it for whatever 

 " the lords of the land would give, and this in order-that he might find out what it 

 " would yield, and having accomplished this that he should proceed to the coast of 

 " Choromandel as captain and factor." 



A little further on we read : — ■"Manuel de Frias, captain and factor of Choromandel, 

 " in accordance with the orders of the Governor, which he carried with him, placed 

 " Joao Froles over the fishery which he rented out to the digares,% of the country for 

 " one thousand five hundred cruzados per annum, and left there as factor Joao Froles, 



* Dravida, the country of the Tamils, was divided in the earliest days of which we have record and prior to the 

 Christian era, between three dynasties, the Pandyans, the Cheras, and the Cholas. The Pandyan kingdom, denying its 

 name from that of the founder of the first dynasty, comprised under normal conditions little more than the present 

 districts of Madura and Tinnevclly, the city of Madura heing the capital during the greater part of the continuance of the 

 kingdom, whii'h suffered the usual vicissitudes of Indian states, sometimes preponderating arid more frequently, in later 

 times, tributary to a neighbouring state, but always maintaining in Madura some semblance of sovereign authority. 



After the fall of the powerful Bilal Rajas, at the beginning of the fourteenth oentury"(A.D. 1310) ,a great Hindu state, 

 that of Vijayanagar, took shape in the centre of the Deecan. The Raja of this state became about the middle of the four- 

 teenth century the overlord of the states of Southern India including the Pandyan country, and the Princes of Madura 

 remained tributary till about the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in the Gulf of Mannar. 



The reigning dynasty at that time was that of the Nayaks, and while the Portuguese were busy making settlement 6 

 on the coast, the Nayak was making himself master of all the lower oountries from Cape Comorin to Tanjore, " expelling 

 and rooting out all the princes and land proprietors " who were living and reigning there. 



The battle of Talikota in 1565, in whioh the last Raja of Vijayanagar^fell before a great combination of Muhammadan 

 states, gave the Nayak complete independence, which his family retained till 1736 when the last of this house fell befoie 

 the power of the Nawah of the Carnatie, the ally of the British. 



f " Lendas da India." 



% Eridently Adigars are meant. At the present day the principal headman of the pearl fishery district in Oey] .n 

 (Musali) is officially known by this title of Adigar. It is this officer who is charged with the details incident to the 

 wection of the Sihery camp prior to each fishery. 



