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city, where the Zamorine, the sovereign of the country, held a 
splendid court, and merchants resorted from Persia, Arabia, Africa, 
and different parts of India, to purchase pearls, diamonds, spices, 
ivory, and other costly articles. From thence the persevering Vasco 
freighted the first ship to Europe, and introduced those oriental 
luxuries in much greater abundance, and at a cheaper rate, than 
they had been imported formerly by the Greeks of Constantinople, 
or the Venetians, who succeeded them in that valuable com- 
merce. 
Every vestige of that magnificent city is now whelmed beneath 
the sea, which flowed beyond its bounds, and no more receded : 
at very low water I have occasionally seen the waves breaking 
over the tops of the highest temples and minarets, but in general 
nothing is to be distinguished of this ancient emporium. 
“ The face of places, and their forms decay, 
“ And that is solid earth which once was sea $ 
<( Seas in their turn, retreating from the shore, 
“ Make solid land what ocean was before: 
“ So Zancle to the Italian earth was ty’d, 
<( And men once walk’d where ships at anchor ride j 
“ And cities that adorn’d the Achaian ground 
“ Now whelm’d beneath the sea are sunk and drown’d: 
And boatmen there, through crystal surface show 
“ To wondering passengers the walls below.” Dryden’s Ovid 
Dr. Fryers visit to Calicut, a century before I saw it, is plea- 
santly described, and his account of the interior part of this coun- 
try is very interesting. 
“ In November 1673, we anchored against that anciently 
