[1] The Town of Monte d’Ely appears (Monte Dil) in Coronelli’s Atlas (1690) from some older source. Mr. Burnell thinks Baliapatan (properly Vaḷarpaṭṭanam) which is still a prosperous Máppila town, on a broad and deep river, must be Hili. I see a little difficulty in this. [Marabia at Monte Dely is often mentioned in Correa, as one of the ports of the Kingdom of Cananor.]
[2] Mr. Burnell thinks Kachchilpaṭṭanam must be an error (easy in Malayálim) for Kavvilpaṭṭanam, i.e. Kavváyi (Kanwai in our map).
[3] As printed by Rowlandson, the name is corrupt (like many others in the book), being given as Hubaee Murawee. But suspecting what this pointed to, I examined the MS. in the R. A. Society’s Library. The knowledge of the Arabic character was quite sufficient to enable me to trace the name as هيلي ماراوي, Hílí Máráwi. (See Rowlandson, pp. 54, 58–59, and MS. pp. 23 and 26; also Indian Antiquary, III. p. 213.)
CHAPTER XXV.
Concerning the Kingdom of Melibar.
Melibar is a great kingdom lying towards the west. The people are Idolaters; they have a language of their own, and a king of their own, and pay tribute to nobody.[{1}]
In this country you see more of the North Star, for it shows two cubits above the water. And you must know that from this kingdom of Melibar, and from another near it called Gozurat, there go forth every year more than a hundred corsair vessels on cruize. These pirates take with them their wives and children, and stay out the whole summer. Their method is to join in fleets of 20 or 30 of these pirate vessels together, and then they form what they call a sea cordon,[{2}] that is, they drop off till there is an interval of 5 or 6 miles between ship and ship, so that they cover something like an hundred miles of sea, and no merchant ship can escape them. For when any one corsair sights a vessel a signal is made by fire or smoke, and then the whole of them make for this, and seize the merchants and plunder them. After they have plundered them they let them go, saying: “Go along with you and get more gain, and that mayhap will fall to us also!” But now the merchants are aware of this, and go so well manned and armed, and with such great ships, that they don’t fear the corsairs. Still mishaps do befall them at times.[{3}]
There is in this kingdom a great quantity of pepper, and ginger, and cinnamon, and turbit, and of nuts of India.[{4}] They also manufacture very delicate and beautiful buckrams. The ships that come from the east bring copper in ballast. They also bring hither cloths of silk and gold, and sendels; also gold and silver, cloves and spikenard, and other fine spices for which there is a demand here, and exchange them for the products of these countries.
Ships come hither from many quarters, but especially from the great province of Manzi.[{5}] Coarse spices are exported hence both to Manzi and to the west, and that which is carried by the merchants to Aden goes on to Alexandria, but the ships that go in the latter direction are not one to ten of those that go to the eastward; a very notable fact that I have mentioned before.