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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. X. 



which attracted traders from Arabia from the earliest times, 

 but the Mapillas, previous to the seventh century, saw nothing 

 in their tenets or practices worthy of acceptance or imitation, 

 for, like themselves, the foreigners were idolatrous and exclu- 

 sive. Indeed, up to the ninth century the Mapillas do not 

 appear to have come in contact with Muhammadans. As 

 already stated, it was only since A.C. 844 that the Arab 

 Muhammadans who were wrecked at Chaliyam, and the 

 missionaries who followed them, were able to offer to intends 

 ing proselytes freedom from the trammels of caste, assurances 

 of esteem, and protection and the privilege of messing together 

 at the same board. From that time forward Quilon, called 

 Kollam by the natives, and Calicut (properly Koli K6dda% 

 "cockfort") 1 opened up to their inhabitants adventurous 

 careers on the sea, through which alone in those days a com- 

 petency was possible to those who held no lands of their own. 

 The people had also the example of their Raja, Cheruman 

 Perumal, 2 who espoused the new religion, and, giving up 

 kingdom and family, retired to Mekka. The converts, high 

 and low, though devoted to Islam, adhere more or less to the 

 present day to their own native customs and speak the 

 Malaiyalam language. 



Some centuries later we observe another town full of 

 Muhammadans risen into importance on the south-eastern 

 sea-board of the Tamil country, some five and twenty miles 

 below the modern Tuticorin. Its name w^Kdyal-paddanam^ 

 or " the town Kayal," which is of special interest to us, because 

 not only has it been the principal city of the Lebbes, but the 



1 But see Hobson Jobson, " Quilon." 



2 He was a Tamil, and Viceroy of the Pandiyan king for the country 

 along the western coast of India, from Cape Comorin to G-okarna in the 

 South Canara District. In his day the people of Malaiyalam were Tamils, 

 who so loved Cheruman that he had no difficulty in proclaiming his own 

 independence. The work entitled Keraldlpatti refers to his times. See 

 also Mr, Logan's Manual of Malabar, published recently, and believed to 

 be a work of high authority, the author having been Collector of the 

 District for many years. 



