Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/52

Rh from Ariake (Aryakam) and by the Greeks from Egypt. It lies upon a river, but at a distance of 20 stadia: and five hundred from Tundis (Thondi) the intermediate space is equal whether you measure by land from river to river or take the passage by sea. (Naoora, Tundis and Mooziris) are succeeded by Nelkunda which is in another province under the Government of Pandion. This mart is again five hundred stadia from Mooziris by measurement between the two rivers or by the road on shore or by the course of the vessel along the coast.

“Nelkunda (Nirkunram) lies on a river at the distance of a hundred and twenty stadia from the sea: but at the mouth of the river there is a village called Bakare (Vaikkarai near Kottayam) and here the vessels which come down from Nelkunda lie in an open road to receive their cargoes, for the river is full of shoals or mud banks and the channel between them is not deep. Both Nelkunda and Bakare are subject to a king who resides in the interior.

“There is a great resort of shipping to this port for pepper and betel: the merchants bring out a large quantity of spice and their other imports are topazes, a small assortment of plain cloth, stibium, coral, flint, glass, brass and lead, a small quantity of wine as profitable as at Barugaza, cinnabar, fine cloth, arsenic and wheat, not for sale but for the use ef the crew.

“The principal article obtained here is pepper, which is the staple of the country as growing in the interior; it is brought down to this port in preference to all others, and is of that species called Cottonarikon (Kuddanâdan); great quantities of the best pearl are likewise purchased here, ivory, silk in the web, spikenard from the Ganges, betel from the countries further to the east, transparent stones of all sorts. diamonds, rubies and tortoise shell from the golden Chersonese or from the islands off the coast of Limurike.

“The best season for the voyage is to leave Egypt in the month of July or Epiphi : and the voyage was originally performed in small vessels from Xane and Endaimon in Arabia which followed the coast during the whole passage. But Hippalos was the first navigator who discovered the direct course across the