411 
under the English government, and by that means many new 
channels of information, which could not have been accessible 
forty years ago, will be attainable. A faithful narrative of the civil 
and natural history of Malabar will be a valuable acquisition to 
the northern Asiatic Researches: it is a country which affords an 
ample field for such investigation, especially in botanical pursuits: 
in that respect the copious descriptions and accurate plates of the 
Hortus Malabaricus, are truly valuable; but it is a very volumi- 
nous, expensive, and scarce work; and, being written in Latin, 
cannot be generally read. Dr. Roxburgh’s beautiful collection of 
Coromandel plants contains many of those common in Malabar; 
but others, indigenous to the mountains and vallies of Travencore, 
are not introduced into that elegant and classical work. 
I now close my own account of this singular country, and its 
more singular inhabitants, with a few very curious remarks by 
Lewis Vertomannus, a gentleman of Rome, who visited it in 1503, 
and published his travels in Arabia, Persia, and India, “ contain- 
ing many notable and strange things,” upwards of three hundred 
years ago. His descriptions in Malabar are so curious, lively, and 
interesting, that I give them in the old English, into which they 
were soon after translated from the Latin. 
“ The chiefest idolaters, and of the greatest dignity in Malabar, 
are the Bramini. They of the second order are named Nairi; 
whose office it is when they go abroad to bear swords, targets, 
bows, and lances: the third order consisteth of mechanics or 
handy-craft men; with those that gather pepper, fruits, and spices. 
The basest sort of all are in such subjection to the Bramini and 
Nairi, that on pain of death they may approach no nearer unto 
