Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/543

Rh are very successful and prosperous. "In the realm of industry," it has been said, "the Moplah occupies a position, which undoubtedly does him credit. Poverty is confined almost exclusively to certain wild, yet picturesque tracts in the east of Malabar, where the race constitutes the preponderating element of the population, and the field and farm furnish the only means of support to the people. And it is just in those areas that one may see at their best the grit, laboriousness, and enterprise of the Moplah. He reclaims dense forest patches, and turns them into cultivated plots under the most unfavourable conditions, and, in the course of a few years, by hard toil and perseverance, he transforms into profitable homesteads regions that were erstwhile virgin forest or scrubby jungle. Or he lays himself out to reclaim and plant up marshy lands lying alongside rivers and lagoons, and insures them from destruction by throwing up rough but serviceable dykes and dams. In these tracts he is also sometimes a timber merchant, and gets on famously by taking out permits to fell large trees, which he rafts down the rivers to the coast. The great bulk of the Moplahs in these wild regions belong purely to the labouring classes, and it is among these classes that the pinch of poverty is most keenly felt, particularly in the dull monsoon days, when all industry has to be suspended. In the towns and coast ports, the Moplahs are largely represented in most branches of industry and toil. A good many of them are merchants, and get on exceedingly well, being bolder and more speculative than the Hindus of the district. The bulk of petty traders and shop-keepers in Malabar are also Moplahs, and, in these callings, they may be found at great distances from home, in Rangoon, Ceylon, the Straits and elsewhere, and generally prospering. Almost