"This they (the _Portugueze_) may justly boast, they have established a kind of _Lingua Franca_ in all the Sea Ports in _India_, of great use to other _Europeans_, who would find it difficult in many places to be well understood without it." (_An Account of the Trade in India_, 1711, p. 286.) The early Lutheran Missionaries in the South, who went out for the S.P.C.K., all seem to have begun by learning Portuguese, and in their diaries speak of preaching occasionally in Portuguese.[12] The foundation of this _lingua franca_ was the Portuguese of the beginning of the 16th century; but it must have soon degenerated, for by the beginning of the last century it had lost nearly all trace of inflexion.[13] It may from these remarks be easily understood how a large number of our Anglo-Indian colloquialisms, even if eventually traceable to native sources (and especially to Mahratti, or Dravidian originals) have come to us through a Portuguese medium, and often bear traces of having passed through that alembic. Not a few of these are familiar all over India, but the number current in the South is larger still. Some other Portuguese words also, though they can hardly be said to be recognized elements in the Anglo-Indian colloquial, have been introduced either into Hindustani generally, or into that shade of it which is in use among natives in habitual contact with Europeans. Of words which are essentially Portuguese, among Anglo-Indian colloquialisms, persistent or obsolete, we may quote _goglet_, _gram_, _plantain_, _muster_, _caste_, _peon_, _padre_, _mistry_ or _maistry_, _almyra_, _aya_, _cobra_, _mosquito_, _pomfret_, _cameez_, _palmyra_, still in general use; _picotta_, _rolong_, _pial_, _fogass_, _margosa_, preserved in the South; _batel_, _brab_, _foras_, _oart_, _vellard_ in Bombay; _joss_, _compradore_, _linguist_ in the ports of China; and among more or less obsolete terms, _Moor_, for a Mahommedan, still surviving under the modified form _Moorman_, in Madras and Ceylon; _Gentoo_, still partially kept up, I believe, at Madras in application to the Telugu language, _mustees_, _castees_, _bandeja_ ('a tray'), _Kittysol_ ('an umbrella,' and this survived ten years ago in the Calcutta customs tariff), _cuspadore_ ('a spittoon'), and _covid_ ('a cubit or ell'). Words of native origin which bear the mark of having come to us through the Portuguese may be illustrated by such as _palanquin_, _mandarin_, _mangelin_ (a small weight for pearls, &c.), _monsoon_, _typhoon_, _mango_, _mangosteen_, _jack-fruit_, _batta_, _curry_, _chop_, _congee_, _coir_, _cutch_, _catamaran_, _cassanar_, _nabob_, _avadavat_, _betel_, _areca_, _benzoin_, _corge_, _copra_.[14] A few examples of Hindustani words borrowed from the Portuguese are _chābī_ ('a key'), _bāola_ ('a portmanteau'), _bāltī_ ('a bucket'), _martol_ ('a hammer'), _tauliya_ ('a towel,' Port. _toalha_), _sābūn_ ('soap'), _bāsan_ ('plate' from Port.