BEHRAMJI

MALABARI (1853– )  , Indian journalist and prisoners who all this time had remained in the hands of the social reformer, was born in 18J3 at Baroda, the son of a sultan . An attack was delivered by d'Alboquerque on the poor Parsi in the employment of the state, who died shortly 25th of July 1511, but it was only partially successful, and it after his birth . His mother took him to Surat, where he was was not until the 4th of August, when the assault was repeated, educated in a mission school, but he never succeeded in gaining that the place finally fell . Since that time Malacca has continued an academical degree . Coming to Bombay, he fell under the to be the possession of one or another of the European Powers. influence of Dr John Wilson, principal of the Scottish College . It was a Portuguese possession for 130 years, and was the head-As early as 1875 he published a volume of poems in Gujarati, quarters of their trade and the base of their commercial explorafollowed in 1877 by The Indian Muse in English Garb, which tions in south-eastern Asia while they enjoyed, and later while attracted attention in England, notably from Tennyson, Max they sought to hold, their monopoly in the East . It was from Muller, and Florence Nightingale . His life work began in Malacca, immediately after its conquest, that d'Alboquerque 188o when he acquired the Indian Spectator, which he edited sent d'Abreu on his voyage of discovery to the Moluccas, or for twenty years until it was merged in the Voice of India . Spice Islands, which later were the objective of Magellan's In 1901 he became editor of East and West . Always holding voyage of circumnavigation . During the Portuguese tenure of aloof from politics, he was an ardent and indefatigable advocate Malacca the place was attacked at least twice by the Achinese; of social reform in India, especially as regards child marriage its shipping was harried by Lancaster in 1592, when the first and the remarriage of widows . It was largely by his efforts, British fleet made its way into these seas; it was besieged by both in the press and in tours through the country, that the Age the Dutch in 16o6, and finally fell to a joint attack of the Dutch of Consent Act was passed in 1891 .

His

account of his visits and the Achinese in 1641 . It was under the Portuguese govern-to England, entitled The Indian Eye on English Life (1893), ment that St Francis Xavier started a mission in Malacca, the passed through three editions, and an earlier book of a somewhat first Christian mission in Malayan lands . satirical nature, Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1883), was equally The Dutch held Malacca till 1795, when it was taken from popular. them by Great Britain, and the Dutch system of monopoly in See R . P . Karkaria, India, Forty Years of Progress and Reform, the straits was forthwith abolished .