Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/318

 260 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.ix. SEPT. 24, 1021. What is there to prevent us from supposing that he vaguely no doubt imagined the life and exploits of Beowulf to be contemporaneous with Old Testament times, belonging to the days be- fore Christ and His saints were there for men to call upon ? His sense that what he had been taught about God was actual truth would force him to bring his heroes into some relation with it they would have been unreal to his mind without that. The Christian ethic, too received as independent of history would inevitably tinge his judgment and his conception of heroism. But the mention of Christ and Christian dogma might well have been excluded by the very conception on which the poet worked. Mr. Chambers's book has sent us back once more to the poem as a whole with the result that it makes upon us a clearer im- pression of a personality behind it, and of choice and design, than many of its critics seem inclined to allow it. A discussion of the ever-fascinating problems which ' Beowulf ' presents would be much beyond the compass of a review in these columns. Our remarks are aimed, on the one hand, at drawing our readers' attention to a fine piece of work, and, on the other, at conveying to Mr. Chambers our con- gratulations on what he has achieved. We must not omit to mention that in the way of references, footnotes, bibliography and index, the book leaves nothing to be desired. The Book of Duarte Barbosa. Vol. ii. Including the Coasts of Malabar, Eastern India, Further India, China and the Indian Archipelago. Translated from the Portuguese text, and edited and annotated by Mansel Longworth Dames. (Hakluyt Society.) THIS second instalment of the Book of Duarte Barbosa contains his remarkable description of the kingdom of Malabar. He had resided in this country for a considerable time, had mastered the language and carefully studied the customs of the inhabitants, and was therefore able to compose such an account of the structure of their society, and in particular of their caste- system which is exceedingly complicated, as few other early travellers have been able to give us either of this or of any other country. Both the monarchy and the order of the higher classes of the people are based upon matriarchal institu- tions. A man's heirs are his brothers or nephews, and marriage is unknown except in a few of the lower castes. The most important caste, and that upon which Barbosa expends the greatest time and pains, is the Nayres, who are warriors forming a comitatus to the kings and great lords, and bound to die with or avenge the chief whom they serve by much the same code as we are familiar with in the early history of the Teutonic nations. An additional interest is lent to Barbosa' s story from the fact that in essentials the native social organization of Malabar has persisted to the present day, so that the statements of the old Portuguese traveller have been copiously elucidated and confirmed by reference to con- ditions actually existing. The Camidre of Barbosa is the direct predecessor of the Zamorin of Calicut of to-day ; and what may be said of the one may with little alteration be said of the other. The Editor of this volume has derived much information in regard to this comparison from Mr. J. A. Thome of Tellicherry, who has been in charge of the estates of the late Zamorin of Calicut, and who, besides much else, would seem to have settled the puzzle of the derivation of the title Zamorin. This has been explained to mean " lord of the sea " against all probability, seeing that the original and principal dominion of the Zamorin was over the land, and that a fanciful title of this kind is not consonant with the usages of Malabar. Mr. Thome derives it from the Sanskrit words Svdmi and S'ri, which would give it the meaning of " the great Lord." Barbosa, when he deals with the Coromandel Coast, has not so much information to impart. It is to be supposed that he compiled this part of his book from the reports of others. Ceylon, however, he would seem to have visited himself. He relates the legend of St. Thomas as con- nected both with Quilon on the Malabar coast and with Mailapur giving us several grotesque particulars, such as the Saint's being shot in the form of a peacock, which seem to be accretions from local beliefs. The priest-king of Quilicare, who, after a reign of twelve years, is solemnly immolated to the idol of his people, while his successor takes part in the sacrifice, will interest readers of ' The Golden Bough,' though the circumstances are more pompous and the pro- ceedings more barbarous than those upon the scene of Aricia. Mr. Longworth Dames, it goes without saying, has annotated his text with great fullness and care, of which a signal example is his note on the identification of the city of Bengala. He gives two curious maps by Lavanha from de Barros's ' Decadas da Asia,' published at Madrid in 1615 the one of Bengal, the other of Java and a portrait of the Rajah who was Zamorin of Calicut from 1912 to 1915. 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