Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/118

 76 FIRST STRUGGLE FOR THE INDIAN SEAS may be inferred from the legend that it took its name, Koli-Kukkuga, " Cock-crowing," or Koli-kotta, " Cock- Fort," because its limits had been fixed at the dis- tance at which the crowing of a cock in the chief tem- ple could be heard. Its ruler, although supported by allies or mercenaries dwelling among the hills, derived his importance from ocean commerce, and bore the title of Zamorin, literally the Sea-Raja, Zamorin being a European form of the Tamil Sdmiirl, which is still used in official addresses to the Calicut chief, and is traceable to a Sanskrit patronymic Samudri, meaning " Son of the Sea." The Portuguese might have searched India in vain for a spot better suited to their purpose. Their three objects were conquest, commerce, and conversion. For each of these three objects, the Malabar coast-strip afforded free scope. Its chiefs were too petty to resist even a small European Power. They welcomed foreign merchants, as the greater part of their revenues con- sisted of dues on sea-trade. They allowed liberty of religion in their little shore domains, and they were accustomed to a local population of Jews and Christians whose political existence in India dated from a period more ancient than their own. As regards the power of the coast-rajas, even the most important of them, Calicut and Cochin, were merely two among half a dozen patches of the Malabar strip; all Malabar had formed but one-eighth of the single kingdom of Kerala; and the entire kingdom of Kerala was only one of the fifty-six countries of India