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ON THE ANCIENT 



Arabian travellers, whose valuable descriptions have come 

 down to us, we are enabled to form a pretty correct idea of the 

 commercial relations between both nations. 



The Arabs were next, to the conquest of Sindh, indebted 

 to a lucky incident for a favorable turn in their connection 

 with India. It was at the commencement of the ninth 

 century that an Arabian shij), full of pilgrims on their way 

 to Ceylon, was driven to the Malabar Coast. The then reigning 

 Zamorin of Kalikut, Ceruman Perumal, received them kindly, 

 and becoming acquainted through intercourse with the ship- 

 wrecked people with the tenets of Islam, turned Mahomedan 

 himself and went on a pilgrimage to Mekka. There he died. 

 But before his death, he enjoined his successor to treat with 

 hospitality the Arabian merchants, to allow them to erect 

 mosques and to be under the jurisdiction of their own judges. 

 This request was granted, and a regular • intercourse and 

 commerce between both parties ensued. The Mussulmans 

 who settled in the domains of Ceruman Perumal, were called 

 Mapilla or Moplai by the Hindu inhabitants, and many of 

 these immigrants, and their descendants, became in after times 

 industrious husbandmen. 



The extent of the Arabian trade is best illustrated, by their 

 geographical system, and as our attention is now directed, to 

 the sea trade, a few remarks respecting the former will be 

 appropriate. The Arabs divided the Eastern Ocean into seven 

 seas, the first was called the Bahr Faris (Persian sea), our 

 Persian Gulf. On its coast lay the harbour Siraf, which was 

 visited by Chinese vessels. These Chinamen were much 

 stronger built than the ships of the Arabs. The latter were 

 built with the planks of cocoapalms which were fastened 

 together by wooden nails, as iron nails were considered to be 

 unsuitable for the Indian Ocean. For in the Middle Ages it 

 was generally believed that at the bottom of that sea a large 

 magnet attracted the iron floating on it, and that as soon as 



