Cananor, a squall having sprung his mainmast just before reaching Mt.
d'Ely, "the captain-major anchored in the Bay of Marabia, because he saw
there several Moorish ships, in order to get a mast from them." It seems
clear that this was the bay just behind Mt. d'Ely.
Indeed the name of Marabia or Marawi is still preserved in Madavi or
Madai, corruptly termed Maudoy in some of our maps, a township upor the
river which enters the bay about 7 or 8 miles south-east of Mt. d'Ely, and
which is called by De Barros the Rio Marabia. Mr. Ballard informs me
that he never heard of ruins of importance at Madai, but there is a place
on the river just mentioned, and within the Madai township, called
Payangadi ("Old Town"), which has the remains of an old fort of the
Kolastri (or Kolatiri) Rajas. A palace at Madai (perhaps this fort) is
alluded to by Dr. Gundert in the Madras Journal, and a Buddhist Vihara
is spoken of in an old Malayalim poem as having existed at the same place.
The same paper speaks of "the famous emporium of Cachilpatnam near Mt.
d'Ely," which may have been our city of Hili, as the cities Hili and
Marawi were apparently separate though near.[2]
[Illustration: Mount d'Ely, from the Sea, in last century.]
The state of Hili-Marawi is also mentioned in the Arabic work on the
early history of the Mahomedans in Malabar, called Tuhfat-al-Mujahidin,
and translated by Rowlandson; and as the Prince is there called
Kolturee, this would seem to identify him either in family or person
with the Raja of Cananor, for that old dynasty always bore the name of
Kolatiri.[3]
The Ramusian version of Barbosa is very defective here, but in Stanley's
version (Hak. Soc. East African and Malabar Coasts, p. 149) we find the
topography in a passage from a Munich MS. clear enough: "After passing
this place" (the river of Nirapura or Nileshwaram) "along the coast is the
mountain Dely (of Ely) on the edge of the sea; it is a round mountain,
very lofty, in the midst of low land; all the ships of the Moors and
Gentiles that navigate in this sea of India sight this mountain when
coming from without, and make their reckoning by it; ... after this, at
the foot of the mountain to the south, is a town called Marave, very
ancient and well off, in which live Moors and Gentiles and Jews; these
Jews are of the language of the country; it is a long time that they have
dwelt in this place."
(Stanley's Correa, Hak. Soc. pp. 145, 312-313; Gildem. p. 185;
Elliot, I. 68; I.B. IV. 81; Conti, p. 6; Madras Journal, XIII.
No. 31, pp. 14, 99, 102, 104; De Barros, III. 9, cap. 6, and IV. 2, cap.
13; De Couto, IV. 5, cap. 4.)
NOTE 2. - This is from Pauthier's text, and the map with ch. xxi.
illustrates the fact of the many wide rivers. The G.T. has "a good river
with a very good estuary" or mouth. The latter word is in the G.T.
faces, afterwards more correctly foces, equivalent to fauces. We
have seen that Ibn Batuta also speaks of the estuary or inlet at Hili. It
may have been either that immediately east of Mount d'Ely, communicating
with Kavvayi and the Nileshwaram River, or the Madai River. Neither could
be entered by vessels now, but there have been great littoral changes. The
land joining Mt. d'Ely to the main is mere alluvium.
NOTE 3. - Barbosa says that throughout the kingdom of Cananor the pepper
was of excellent quality, though not in great quantity. There was much
ginger, not first-rate, which was called Hely from its growing about
Mount d'Ely, with cardamoms (names of which, Ela in Sanskrit, Hel
Persian, I have thought might be connected with that of the hill),
mirobolans, cassia fistula, zerumbet, and zedoary. The two last items are
two species of curcuma, formerly in much demand as aromatics; the last
is, I believe, the setewale of Chaucer: -
"There was eke wexing many a spice,
As clowe gilofre and Licorice,
Ginger and grein de Paradis,
Canell and setewale of pris,
And many a spice delitable
To eaten when men rise from table." - R. of the Rose.
The Hely ginger is also mentioned by Conti.
NOTE 4. - This piratical practice is noted by Abdurrazzak also: "In other
parts (than Calicut) a strange practice is adopted. When a vessel sets
sail for a certain point, and suddenly is driven by a decree of Divine
Providence into another roadstead, the inhabitants, under the pretext that
the wind has driven it thither, plunder the ship. But at Calicut every
ship, whatever place it comes from, or wherever it may be bound, when it
puts into this port, is treated like other vessels, and has no trouble of
any kind to put up with" (p. 14). In 1673 Sivaji replied to the pleadings
of an English embassy, that it was "against the Laws of Conchon"
(Ptolemy's Pirate Coast!) "to restore any ships or goods that were
driven ashore." (Fryer, p. 261.)
NOTE 5. - With regard to the anchors, Pauthier's text has just the opposite
of the G.T. which we have preferred: "Les nefs du Manzi portent si grans
ancres de fust, que il seuffrent moult de grans fortunes aus plajes" De
Mailla says the Chinese consider their ironwood anchors to be much better
than those of iron, because the latter are subject to strain. (Lett.
Edif. XIV. 10.) Capt. Owen has a good word for wooden anchors. (Narr. of
Voyages, etc., I. 385.)
[1] The Town of Monte d'Ely appears (Monte Dil) in Coronelli's Atlas
(1690) from some older source.
