4 
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 Cael 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 tothe 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 Portuguese 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 Gaspar 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 eventually 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. 
