Having Very Little Left To Give Away,
Shermanoo Made Him A Grant Of His Own Place Of Abode At Calicut,
And gave
him his sword; ankle-rings, and other insignia of command, and presented
him with water and flowers, the
Ancient symbols of a transfer of property.
It is said that this cowherd rajah was ordained principal sovereign over
the other petty princes among whom Malabar was divided, with the title of
Zamorin, and was authorized by Shermanoo to extend his dominion over all
the other chieftains by force of arms. His descendants have ever since
endeavoured, on all occasions, to enforce this pretended grant, which
they pretend to hold by the tenure of possessing the sword of Shermanoo
Permaloo, and which they carefully preserve as a precious relic."
"From the period of the abdication of Shermanoo, to that of the arrival
of the Portuguese at Calicut, the Mahomedan religion had made
considerable progress in Malabar; and the Arabian merchants received
every encouragement from the Samoories or Zamorins, as they made Calicut
the staple of their Indian trade, and brought large sums of money yearly
to that place, for the purchase of spiceries and other commodities. As
the rajahs of Cochin and other petty sovereignties on the coast, were
exceedingly jealous of the superior riches and power of the zamorins, and
of the monopoly of trade enjoyed by Calicut, they gave every
encouragement to the Portuguese to frequent their ports; from whence
arose a series of warfare by sea and land, which has finally reduced them
all under subjection to the Europeans."
"According to an Arabian author, _Zeirreddien Mukhdom_, who is supposed
to have been sent to assist the zamorins and the Mahomedans in India, in
their wars with the Portuguese, Malabar is then said to have been divided
among a multiplicity of independent princes or rajahs, whom he calls
_Hakims_, some of whom commanded over one or two hundred men, and others
one, ten, fifteen, or even as high as thirty, thousand, or upwards.
The three greatest powers at that time were, the _Colastrian_[53] rajah
to the north, the zamorin of Calicut in the centre, and a rajah in the
south, who ruled from Coulan, Kalum, or Coulim, to Cape Comorin,
comprehending the country now belonging to the rajah of Travancore."
"We now return from this digression, to follow the narrative of the
Portuguese Discovery and Conquest of India, as related by Castaneda."
So great was the trade and population of Calicut and the surrounding
country, and the revenues of its sovereign through these circumstances,
that he was able to raise a force of thirty thousand men in a single day,
and could even bring an hundred thousand men into the field, completely
equipt for war, in three days.
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