The King Possesses Vast Treasures, And Wears Upon His Person Great Store
Of Rich Jewels.
He maintains great state and administers his kingdom with
great equity, and extends great favour to merchants and foreigners, so
that they are very glad to visit his city.[NOTE 2]
This King has some 300 wives; for in those parts the man who has most
wives is most thought of.
As I told you before, there are in this great province of Maabar five
crowned Kings, who are all own brothers born of one father and of one
mother, and this king is one of them. Their mother is still living. And
when they disagree and go forth to war against one another, their mother
throws herself between them to prevent their fighting. And should they
persist in desiring to fight, she will take a knife and threaten that if
they will do so she will cut off the paps that suckled them and rip open
the womb that bare them, and so perish before their eyes. In this way hath
she full many a time brought them to desist. But when she dies it will
most assuredly happen that they will fall out and destroy one
another.[NOTE 3]
[All the people of this city, as well as of the rest of India, have a
custom of perpetually keeping in the mouth a certain leaf called
Tembul, to gratify a certain habit and desire they have,
continually chewing it and spitting out the saliva that it excites. The
Lords and gentlefolks and the King have these leaves prepared with camphor
and other aromatic spices, and also mixt with quicklime. And this practice
was said to be very good for the health.[NOTE 4] If any one desires to
offer a gross insult to another, when he meets him he spits this leaf or
its juice in his face. The other immediately runs before the King, relates
the insult that has been offered him, and demands leave to fight the
offender. The King supplies the arms, which are sword and target, and all
the people flock to see, and there the two fight till one of them is
killed. They must not use the point of the sword, for this the King
forbids.][NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - KAIL, now forgotten, was long a famous port on the coast of what
is now the Tinnevelly District of the Madras Presidency. It is mentioned
as a port of Ma'bar by our author's contemporary Rashiduddin, though the
name has been perverted by careless transcription into Bawal and
Kabal. (See Elliot, I. pp. 69, 72.) It is also mistranscribed as
Kabil in Quatremere's publication of Abdurrazzak, who mentions it as "a
place situated opposite the island of Serendib, otherwise called Ceylon,"
and as being the extremity of what he was led to regard as Malabar (p.
19). It is mentioned as Cahila, the site of the pearl-fishery, by Nicolo
Conti (p. 7). The Roteiro of Vasco da Gama notes it as Caell, a state
having a Mussulman King and a Christian (for which read Kafir) people.
Here were many pearls. Giovanni d'Empoli notices it (Gael) also for the
pearl-fishery, as do Varthema and Barbosa. From the latter we learn that
it was still a considerable seaport, having rich Mahomedan merchants, and
was visited by many ships from Malabar, Coromandel, and Bengal. In the
time of the last writers it belonged to the King of Kaulam, who generally
resided at Kail.
The real site of this once celebrated port has, I believe, till now never
been identified in any published work. I had supposed the still existing
Kayalpattanam to have been in all probability the place, and I am again
indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Dr. Caldwell for conclusive and most
interesting information on this subject. He writes:
"There are no relics of ancient greatness in Kayalpattanam, and no
traditions of foreign trade, and it is admitted by its inhabitants to be a
place of recent origin, which came into existence after the abandonment of
the true Kayal. They state also that the name of Kayalpattanam has only
recently been given to it, as a reminiscence of the older city, and that
its original name was Sonagarpattanam.[1] There is another small port in
the same neighbourhood, a little to the north of Kayalpattanam, called
Pinna Cael in the maps, properly Punnei-Kayal, from Punnei, the Indian
Laurel; but this is also a place of recent origin, and many of the
inhabitants of this place, as of Kayalpattanam, state that their ancestors
came originally from Kayal, subsequently to the removal of the Portuguese
from that place to Tuticorin.
"The Cail of Marco Polo, commonly called in the neighbourhood Old Kayal,
and erroneously named Koil in the Ordnance Map of India, is situated on
the Tamraparni River, about a mile and a half from its mouth. The Tamil
word kayal means 'a backwater, a lagoon,' and the map shows the
existence of a large number of these kayals or backwaters near the mouth
of the river. Many of these kayals have now dried up more or less
completely, and in several of them salt-pans have been established. The
name of Kayal was naturally given to a town erected on the margin of a
kayal; and this circumstance occasioned also the adoption of the name of
Punnei Kayal, and served to give currency to the name of Kayalpattanam
assumed by Sonagarpattanam, both those places being in the vicinity of
kayals.
"KAYAL stood originally on or near the sea-beach, but it is now about a
mile and a half inland, the sand carried down by the river having silted
up the ancient harbour, and formed a waste sandy tract between the sea and
the town. It has now shrunk into a petty village, inhabited partly by
Mahommedans and partly by Roman Catholic fishermen of the Parava caste,
with a still smaller hamlet adjoining inhabited by Brahmans and Vellalars;
but unlikely as the place may now seem to have been identical with 'the
great and noble city' described by Marco Polo, its identity is established
by the relics of its ancient greatness which it still retains.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 189 of 360
Words from 191951 to 192990
of 370046
