Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/516

JEW "The Jews, who still hold that the Malabar Israelites were in possession of an old copy of the Sepher Thora, say that this copy, and all other documents,got lost on the occasion when the Portuguese destroyed the Jewish quarters, but this is not likely. For, whereas they had time to save their most valuable property according to their own testimony, and to take it to the mountains, they would not have failed to take along with them these documents, which were to them of inestimable value. For it is related that for a new copy of the Pentateuch which at that time was in their synagogue they had so much respect, and took such great care of it, that they even secured this copy, and took it along, and (when they returned) carried it back with great rejoicing, as it was done in olden times with the Ark of the Covenant." Writing in the eighteenth century, Captain Hamilton states * that the Jews "have a synagogue at Cochin,not far from the King's palace, in which are carefully kept their Records, engraven on copper plates in Hebrew characters; and when any of the characters decay, they are new cut, so that they can show their own History from the Reign of Nebuchadnezzar to this present time. Myn Heer Van Reeda, about the year 1695, had an Abstract of their History translated from the Hebrew into low Dutch. They declare themselves to be of the Tribe of Manasseh, a Part whereof was, by order of that haughty Conqueror Nebuchadnezzar, carried to the easternmost Province of his large Empire, which, it seems, reached as far as Cape Comerin, which journey 200,000 of them travelled in three years from their setting out of Babylon."