And In These Shells Are
Found Pearls, Great And Small, Of Every Kind, Sticking In The Flesh Of The
Shell-Fish.
In this manner pearls are fished in great quantities, for thence in fact
come the pearls which are spread all over the world.
And I can tell you
the King of that State hath a very great receipt and treasure from his
dues upon those pearls.
As soon as the middle of May is past, no more of those pearl-shells are
found there. It is true, however, that a long way from that spot, some 300
miles distant, they are also found; but that is in September and the first
half of October.
NOTE 1. - MAABAR (Ma'bar) was the name given by the Mahomedans at this
time (13th and 14th centuries) to a tract corresponding in a general way
to what we call the Coromandel Coast. The word in Arabic signifies the
Passage or Ferry, and may have referred either to the communication with
Ceylon, or, as is more probable, to its being in that age the coast most
frequented by travellers from Arabia and the Gulf.[1] The name does not
appear in Edrisi, nor, I believe, in any of the older geographers, and the
earliest use of it that I am aware of is in Abdallatif's account of Egypt,
a work written about 1203-1204. (De Sacy, Rel. de l'Egypte, p. 31.)
Abulfeda distinctly names Cape Comorin as the point where Malabar ended
and Ma'bar began, and other authority to be quoted presently informs us
that it extended to Nilawar, i.e. Nellore.
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