127 



when the travelled monk, Cosmas Indico-Pleustes, alter 

 mentioning the island ofGeylon, proceeds to say "and 

 then again on the continent and further back is Marallo 

 which exports conch shells (a:o;3^X<ol'9)." Sir J. Emer- 

 son Tennent in his "Sketches ot the Natural History 

 of Ceylon" (London, 1861) misses the significance of 

 the expression " on the continent " and identifies 

 Marallo with Mant«^tte near Mannar on the north-west 

 coast of Ceylon, where chanks are collected in the 

 neighbourhood in large quantities even at the present 

 day. Yule '"' with closer adherence to the old text would 

 place this ancient chank-fishery on the Indian coast {i.e., 

 on the continent opposite Ceylon), and he suggests 

 that Marallo is a corrupted form or misrendering of 

 Marawar, the name of the chief caste livino- in the 

 coastal district of Ramnad, now the location of one 

 of the most productive and accessible present day 

 chank-fisheries. The name of the local people 

 not infrequently was applied by old travellers to the 

 chief town in their territory and so, very reasonably, 

 we may identify Marallo generally with the Maravan 

 coast and particularly with either the town of Rameswa- 

 ram or of Pamban situated at the western extremity of 

 Adam's Bridge and directly opposite to Mantotte and 

 Mannar at the western extremity. 



Ma'bar or Maabar, the Arab name for the western 

 coast of the Pandiyan country, has probably a parallel 

 derivation, Maabar being indeed a very fair rendering 

 by gutteral Arab lips of the Tamil term Maravar. 



The next writer to mention the chank is the Arab 

 Abouzeyd, who in 851 A.D. stated that " they find on the 

 shores of Ceylon the pearl and the shank, which serves 

 for a trumpet and which is much sought after. "t 



A long gap occurs in references by travellers to chank- 

 fisheries till the days of the Portuguese and Dutch when 

 they become fairly frequent, A few years before the 

 establishment of the former jowerin the Gulf of Mannar, 

 the traveller Barbosa visited tl.e old town of Kayal, and 

 from him we learn that it was then still sn important 

 seaport where many ships from Malabar, Coiomandel 



* " Cathav and the Way Thither," Vol. I, p. clxxviii, London, 1866. 

 t Fide Yule's " 11 obson-Jobson," 



