and set fire to the town.  The Dutch general not only granted them all they asked, but even offered to take those who had a mind into the Dutch pay, to which many of them assented.  The very day after the surrender, a frigate came from Goa, with the articles of peace, and the Portuguese loudly complained of having been unfairly dealt with by Van Chowz; but he answered, that the Portuguese had acted in the same manner with the Dutch, only a few years before, in the capture of Pernambuco in Brazil.  The English had at that time a factory in Cochin, but the Dutch ordered them immediately to remove with all their effects, which they accordingly did to their factory at Paniany.

On gaining possession of Cochin, the Dutch thought it too extensive, and therefore contracted it to the size it is now, being hardly a tenth part of what it was before.  It measures about 600 paces long, by 200 in breadth, and is fortified with seven large bastions and intermediate curtains, all the ramparts being so thick that they are planted with double rows of trees, to give shade in the hot season.  Some of the streets built by the Portuguese still remain, together with a church, which is now used for the Dutch worship, the cathedral being converted into a warehouse.  The house of the commandant is the only one built in the Dutch fashion, which is so near the river that the water washes some part of its walls.  The flag-staff is placed on the steeple of the old cathedral, on a mast seventy-five feet high, above which is the staff, other sixty feet in length, so that the flag may be seen above seven leagues off at sea.  The garrison of Cochin usually consists of three hundred men; and from Cape Comoras upwards, in all their forts and factories, they have five hundred soldiers, and an hundred seamen, all Europeans, besides some topasses and the militia.  They procure their store of rice from Barcelore, because the Malabar rice will not keep above three months out of the husk, though it will keep twelve with the husk on.  This part of the country produces great quantities of pepper, but it is lighter than that which grows more to the northwards.  The forests in the interior affords good teak-wood for ship-building, and two woods, called angelique and prospect, which make beautiful chests and cabinets, which are sent all over the coasts of western India.  They have also iron and steel in plenty, and bees-wax for exportation.  The sea and the rivers afford abundance of excellent fish of various kinds, which are sold very cheap.

Cranganore, a little to the north of Cochin, stands upon a river about a league from the sea, and at this place the Dutch have a fort.  This place is remarkable for having formerly been the seat of a Jewish government, and that nation was once so numerous here as to consist of 40,000 families, though now reduced to 4000.  They have a synagogue about two miles from the city of Cochin, not far from the palace of the rajah, and in it they carefully