127 
when the travelled monk, Cosmas [ndico-Pleustes, after 
mentioning the island of Ceylon, proceeds to say ‘and 
then again oz the continent and {further back is Marallo 
which exports conch shells {xoydcovs).” Sir J, Emer- 
son Tennent in his ‘“Sketches of the Natural History 
of Ceylon” (London, 1861) misses the significance of 
the expression ‘on the continent” and _ identifies 
Marallo with Mantutte 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 -(z.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 living 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.”f 
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 - ower in the Gulf of Mannar, 
the traveller Barbosa visited the old town of Kayal, and 
from him we learn that it was then still an important 
seaport where many ships from Malabar, Coromandel 
* «¢ Cathay and the Way Thither,” Vol. J, p. clxxviii, London, 1866, 
+ Fide Yule’s 6 Hobson-Jobson,” 
