a settlement on the coast of Malabar, in N. Lat. 10. 0. E. Long. 76. 8. The town is not unpleasant. The fortification is irregular, but strong enough to resist any of the Indian powers, and has 40 or 50 cannon facing the sea. The people in this town and the country adjacent are subject to a strange disorder of the legs, called Cochin or elephant legs, in which the swelled limb is sometimes of such an enormous bulk as to have greatly the appearance both in shape and size of the leg of an elephant. According to Mr Ives, this disorder seems to be merely an edematous swelling, occasioned by an impoverished state of the blood and juices. The persons afflicted with this distemper very seldom apply to European surgeons, and thus are rarely, if ever, cured. Indeed, our author observes, that their application would probably be of little avail, as the only thing that could be prescribed would be an alteration from the poorest to the most cordial and nutritious diet; and the Indians are so invincibly wedded to their own customs, that they would sooner die than break through them. Of this he says there were several several instances in their long passage to Bengal, during which some of the Sepoys perished for want of food, rather than save themselves by partaking of the ship's provisions after their own had been expended. Most of those afflicted with the disorder we speak of, are unable to call any assistance, being the very poorest of the people, who live entirely upon a kind of fish called sardines, without being able to purchase even the smallest quantity of rice to eat along with it; their drink is also mere water, unless they sometimes procure a draught of the simple unfermented juice called toddy. Cochin was first occupied by the Portuguese, from whom it was taken by the Dutch. It remained in the hands of the latter till 1795, when it was taken by the British.