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Updated: May 23, 2025
Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast, his rakish schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail, and he, by the blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful on the uproarious beach; such an one might realise a greater material spoil; he should have no more profit of romance than Pinkerton when he cast up his weekly balance-sheet in a bald office.
"The Indian population upon the coast of Coromandel," says the narrative, "is divided into two classes, the 'right-hand' and the 'left. This division originated under the government of a nabob against whom the people revolted; those who remained faithful to the prince being distinguished by the designation of 'right-hand, and the rest by that of 'left-hand. These two great tribes, which divide between them almost equally the entire population, are in a chronic state of hostility against the holders of the ranks and prerogatives obtained by the friends of the prince.
In the mean while Holland had been drawn into the war, and her stations, Negapatam on the Coromandel coast, and the very important harbor of Trincomalee in Ceylon, were both captured, the latter in January, 1782, by the joint forces of the army and navy.
The polished slabs were laid before him on the table in rows, as he had arranged them to show to a customer: wine-coloured mahogany, and golden satinwood; ebony black as jet; tulip-wood mottled like fine tortoiseshell; coromandel wood, striped black and white like the coat of a civet cat; ghostly basswood, shining white on dead white; woods of clouded grain, and woods of shining grain, grain that showed like the slanting, splintered lines of hewn stone, like moss, like the veins of flowers, the fringes of birds' feathers, the striping and dappling of beasts; woods of exquisite grain where the life of the tree drew its own image in its own heart; woods whose surface was tender to the touch like a fine tissue; and sweet-smelling sandalwood and camphor-wood and cedar.
When I say all the French went on shore, I should remember that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we were bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage with us, and to be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel; which I readily agreed to, for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, as will appear afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselves on our ship, and proved very useful fellows.
They were desirous to repair it, in memory of the holy apostle; and, as they were rummaging all about, even to the foundations of it, they drew out a white marble, whereon was a cross, with characters graved round about it, which declared, "That God was born of the Virgin Mary; that this God was eternal; that the same God taught his law to his twelve apostles; and that one of them came to Meliapor with a palmer's staff in his hand; that he built a church there; that the kings of Malabar, Coromandel, and Pandi, with many other nations, submitted themselves to the law preached by St Thomas, a man holy and penitent."
Once or twice we returned to the Hoogley to refit, and on one occasion we were sent round to Madras and Bombay on special service. We were running down the Coromandel coast; the wind fell, and we lay, rolling our lower yardarms under in a long heavy swell, which came moving onwards in giant undulations towards the coast.
"Why, in Havana," resumed Foucarmont, "they make a spirit with a certain wild berry; you think you're swallowing fire! Well now, one evening I drank more than a liter of it, and it didn't hurt me one bit. Better than that, another time when we were on the coast of Coromandel some savages gave us I don't know what sort of a mixture of pepper and vitriol, and that didn't hurt me one bit.
According to the Saxon chronicle, our own King Alfred sent alms to India in 883 for St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, and at that date there certainly existed, besides some small Christian communities on the Coromandel coast, two flourishing communities on the Malabar coast, where the so-called Syrian Church has maintained itself to the present day.
Pondicherry is a town of Hindostan, under the French government, and situated on the coast of Coromandel, seventy-five miles S. S. W. of Madras. On the following day we run into Cuddalore, a little above the first bar. Cuddalore is a town of Hindostan, one hundred miles S. S. W. of Madras.
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