he Portuguese.

It is of interest to note that there are those who say that a Mylapore
church gave its name to the city of Madras. They say--not, I believe,
without evidence--that the rural village of Madraspatam, where Mr.
Francis Day selected a site for the Company's settlement, had been
colonized by fisherfolk from the parish of the Madre-de-Deus
Church--the Church of the Mother of God--and that the emigrant
fisherfolk called their village by the name of their parish, and that
the name was eventually corrupted into 'Madras.' The origin of the
name 'Madras' is uncertain; and the explanation is at any rate
interesting and not unlikely to be true.

CHAPTER X

CHEPAUK PALACE

Among the interesting buildings in Madras must be included Chepauk
Palace, which was built about a century and a half ago as a residence
for the Nawab of the Carnatic, and which is now the office of the
Board of Revenue. The high wall that enclosed the spacious Saracenic
structure in its palace days has been pulled down, and the public can
now gaze at a building that was once carefully screened from the
public eye, and can enter at will without having to satisfy the
scrutiny of armed men at the gate. A change indeed--from the sleepy
residence of a Muhammadan ruler, with his harem and his idle crowd of
retainers, to bustling offices where a multitude of officials and
clerks are working out the cash accounts of the Government of Madras!

The 'Carnatic' was a dominion that extended over the territory that is
now included in the Collectorates of Nellore, North Arcot, South
Arcot, Trichinopoly, and Tinnevelly. The town of Arcot was the capital
of the dominion, and the Nawab of the Carnatic was sometimes spoken of
as the Nawab of Arcot. Chepauk Palace belongs to the history of the
Carnatic, and a few historical notes will make things clear.

In our first chapter we intimated that Madras, when Mr. Francis Day
acquired it, was within the domain of the disappearing Hindu Empire of
Vijianagar, of which the living representative at the time was the
Raja of Chandragiri, from whom Mr. Francis Day accordingly obtained a
deed of possession. Seven years afterwards, the Raja of Chandragiri
was a refugee in Mysore, driven from his throne by the Muhammadan
Sultan of Golconda, who assumed the sovereignty of Hyderabad and the
Carnatic. The Sultan of Golconda thus became the recognized overlord
of Madras; and the Company were careful to secure from their n