It was located at the mouth of the Tambraparni river 

 which then entered the sea some 12 miles southward of 

 Tuticorin, the present head-quarters of the fishery. 

 With the growth of the river's delta and the deflection of 

 the principal channel the city was shifted northwards 

 some 3 miles to Kayal, the Gael visited by Marco Polo 

 in the end of the thirteenth century (1292). In turn, 

 Kayal ceased to exist as a seaport and Pinnacoil (Pinnai 

 Kayal, the town " behind " or across the Kayal or back- 

 water ?) with Kayalpattanam and Tuticorin divided the 

 heritage of Kayal amongst them. This passing away of 

 Kayal as a commercial emporium took place probably 

 shortly after the arrival of the Portuguese about 1523, 

 the end hastened by the decay of Pandyan power which 

 subjected the district to the spoliation of Muhammadan 

 invasion and left it a prey to the viceroys of Vijayanagar. 



For at least 200 years prior to the arrival of the 

 Portuguese in India, the growth of Muhammadan power 

 on the coast had been progressive ; Arabs had long traded 

 with Kayal and Korkai and now, instead of returning 

 home periodically, they began to marry with the natives 

 and to settle in the seaports, where they and their 

 adherents entered into competition with the Parawas in 

 their hereditary occupations as pearl and chank fishers. 



When the Portuouese Mission under Manuel de 

 Fries, sailing round Cape Comorin in 1523 — 1525 * on 

 their way to search for the remains of St. Thomas on the 

 Coromandel coast, arrived off Kayal, they found the 

 Parawas hardpressed by the Arabs and their Muham- 

 madan converts obtained partly from the ranks of the 

 Parawas themselves. This antagonism was most oppor- 

 tune for the Portuguese who had come with the express 

 intention of seizing the pearl fishery and had aboard Joao 

 Froles already appointed Captain and Factor of the Pearl 

 Fishery by the King of Portugal. The command of the 

 sea being with the Portuguese, they had no difficulty in 

 exacting a rent from the headmen of the coast of fifteen 

 hundred cruzados per annum, and Froles was left with a 

 small force to enforce due payment. 



• According to Caspar Correa in "Lendas da India," it was in 1523 that King 

 John III of Portugal commissioned Manuel de Fries on this quest which brought 

 him evenUially to Mylapore, now a suburb of Madras, hence it probably would 

 not be till 1524 or 1525 that he actually reached the Gulf of Mannar. 



