It is given in No. II. of Selections from the Records of S. Arcot District, p. 107.
In a letter from poor Arthur Burnell, on which this paragraph is founded, he adds: "It is sad that the most Philistine town (in the German sense) in all the East should have such a name."
This perhaps implies an earlier spread of northern influence than we are justified in assuming.
"The Portuguese ... sailing from Malabar on voyages of exploration ... made their acquaintance with various places on the eastern or Coromandel Coast ... and finding the language spoken by the fishing and sea-faring classes on the eastern coast similar to that spoken on the western, they came to the conclusion that it was identical with it, and called it in consequence by the same name—viz. Malabar.... A circumstance which naturally confirmed the Portuguese in their notion of the identity of the people and language of the Coromandel Coast with those of Malabar was that when they arrived at Cael, in Tinnevelly, on the Coromandel Coast ... they found the King of Quilon (one of the most important places on the Malabar Coast) residing there."—Bp. Caldwell, u.s.
This Port was immediately outside the Straits, as appears from the description of Dom João de Castro (1541): "Now turning to the 'Gates' of the Strait, which are the chief object of our description, we remark that here the land of Arabia juts out into the sea, forming a prominent Point, and very prolonged.... This is the point or promontory which Ptolemy calls Possidium.... In front of it, a little more than a gunshot off, is an islet called the Ilheo dos Roboeens; because Roboão in Arabic means a pilot; and the pilots living here go aboard the ships which come from outside, and conduct them," &c.—Roteiro do Mar Roxo, &c., 35.