In this calculation the windings and turnings of the roads have been taken into account; for none of them proceed in a straight line. The post, called in the Malabar language _Angela_[83], travels indeed along the high road, in the interior part of the country, which is the shortest and straightest; but the Europeans dare not use it, lest the Brahmans should be polluted by them. For this reason the Europeans must pass along the sea-coast, which is inhabited only by fishermen, and people of the lowest casts. Hence it happens, that few Europeans have the least knowledge respecting the interior part of the country, though they talk a great deal of their travels in India. The European missionaries, however, besides other privileges and advantages, have a right to employ umbrellas of as large a size as those used by the Indian princes; and by means of this privilege they may go over the whole interior part of the country; only they must take care not to approach too near to a temple where a festival is celebrated in honour of any deity. CHAPTER VII. _Population of Malayala--Manners, Customs and Industry of the Inhabitants--Political State of the Country._ The inhabitants of _Malayala_, which, comprehending all its provinces from Cape _Illi_ to _Tovala_, is 120 Indian miles in length; and from the Gauts to the sea, between twenty-five and thirty in breadth, consist, besides the native Indians, who are partly Pagans and partly Christians, of Arabs, black and white Jews, Canarians, and Europeans of different nations, who have there formed establishments. In the year 1771, the Christians of St. Thomas, according to M. Florentius à Jesu, the bishop and apostolic vicar on the coast of Malabar, amounted to 94,600. In the year 1787, when a poll-tax was about to be imposed on them by the king of Travancor, they estimated their number themselves at 100,000 persons. Ten thousand of them, I confess, lost their lives during the war against Tippoo Sultan; but still there will remain 90,000 Catholic Christians, who follow the Syrio-Chaldaic ritual. They have in their possession sixty four churches, some of which however were destroyed by Tippoo. The Jacobites have thirty-two churches, to which belong 50,000 Schismatics. These, therefore, form all together 140,000 Christians, who adhere to the Syrio-Chaldaic rites. There are likewise seventy-five churches of the _Mucoas_ and _Paravas_ on the coast of Travancor; and twenty churches belonging to the Latin ritual, which lie in the district between _Porrocada_ and Cape _Illi_. All these churches can muster more than 100,000 Christians, newly converted to the Romish faith. The number of the Jews who reside at _Mattincera_, _Muttam_, and _Cayamcolla_, may be about from 15 to 20,000. To these must be added 100,000 Arabs, established there since the ninth century; also the _Canarians_, _Banians_, _Cettis_, and _Cumuttis_, who together amount to 30,000