Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/212

 IPG COMMERCE WITH graphy is given only incidentally. AVe may be sure, however, that during all this time the inter- course subsisted, and was probably the only chan- nel by which the peculiar products of the Indian islands were transmitted to the western nations. Even in later times, though not without compe- titors, the Hindus, or their converted descendants, conducted the same traffic, and, to this day, conduct it under the modifications which the competition of the Arabs, and both the violence and competition of Europeans, have brought about. The trade has always been chiefly conducted from the ports of Coromandel, and by the nation called Kalingay or Telinga, of which the word Chuliah, so often in the mouths of Europeans in the Archipelago, seems another corruption. A small traffic, much inferior to the other, is conducted from the ports of Mala« bar. Until the genius and enterprise of the Euro- pean character led the way, no direct intercourse appears to have existed with the unwarlike and un- enterprising inhabitants of the rich provinces lying on the Ganges. The shipping in which the trade is carried on by the people of the Peninsula, are vessels from one hundred to two hundred tons bur- den, with one or two masts. Whatever was the ancient construction of these vessels, they are at present built and equipped in rude imitation of the European model. They are navigated by natives of India, generally Mahomedans, with now and