170 



Proceedings of Societies, 



['July 



subdivisions of Nestorians, Catholics, and Protestants. Of the institutions, that 

 which paiticularly attracts the attention of the statesman and the moralist, is the 

 division of caste, which, whatever merit or demerit it may possess, must he looked 

 Upon as a great moral and political engine by which an able statesman may pro- 

 duce the greatest moral and political changes amongst the Hindiis of India. 

 There is a complete system of literature in the Tamil language, quite independent 

 of that which belongs to the Sanskrit, containing works of its own on logic, meta- 

 physics, ethics, and physics. A system of agriculture has been maintained from 

 time immemorial, with the greatest care, by the construction of magnificent tank* 

 or reservoirs for receiving and distributing the rain-water where there are no per- 

 manent rivers ; and by the erection of stupendous artificial mounds for directing 

 and changing the course of rivers, and distributing their waters in those parts of 

 the country through which the great rivers take their course in their progress from 

 the mountains to the sea. Barnard's map of the Jaghfr affords a fine illustration 

 of the first ; and the map in this Society of the course of the Caveri, through the 

 Tanjore country, of the latter. The muslins, and various other articles, shew 

 to what perfection the people of the country can attain in their manufactures ; the 

 quantity of coarse cloths formerly made in the southern provinces shew to what 

 extent the demand may exist for the manufactures of those provinces, even in the 

 most distant parts of the world; for, in former days, the Dutch brought gold dust 

 from Sumatra, and other places to the eastward, then coined it into pagodas at 

 Tutakorm, and with them purchased the cloths of the southern provinces, which, 

 after being conveyed to Holland, and sold at Amsterdam, were painted at Basle, 

 and other places in Switzerland, and then conveyed from Barcelona and Cadiz to 

 all the Spanish colonies in South America. 



" From the eastern coast, the people of the Peninsula carried on a trade with 

 all the places in the Bay of Bengal, with all the eastern islands, and even with 

 China ; from the western coast, they carried on a trade with the Persian and 

 Arabian gulphs, and through them with all the countiies in Asia Minor and in 

 Europe. This trade was coveted by every nation in Europe from the most ancient 

 times, and was the object which, by leading Columbus to look for a short passage 

 to the East, led him to the discovery of America ; and that which, by leading 

 Vasco de Gama to seek for a passage round the Cape of Good Hope, led him to the 

 discovery of the passage by sea from Europe to India ; and the great navigators 

 who succeeded him, to the discoveiy of New Holland and ail the places that have 

 been since discovered in those regions. 



• £ It was in consequence of the great importance that attached to an authentic 

 history of this part of India, that the late Colonel Mackenzie first determined to 

 make his collection. The following are the circumstances which led him to turn 

 his mind to the subject. The present province of Madura, known in the days of 

 the Romans by the appellation of the Regio Pandionis, had attracted great notice 

 in those days, and an embassy was sent from the Pandyan kings to Augustus Caesar 

 at Rome. Even at that time the people of that country had a general system of 

 education, a very extensive Tamil literature, and a college of great celebrity ; 

 literary merit was so highly esteemed by them as to overcome the feeling of caste ; 

 for Tiruvaluver, the author of many distinguished works in that language, though 

 a Pariah by birth, was, owing to his literary attainments, elected, not only a 

 member, but even the president of the college at Madura, of which men of the 

 highest caste and highest distinction, were proud to belong. The same province 

 became equally well known in Europe in the end of the sixteenth, and beginning 

 of the seventeenth century, by the proceedings of the celebrated J esuit mission, 



