OLDEST RECORDS OF SEA-ROUTE TO CHINA FROM WESTERN ASIA. 349 



We next come to the Arab vojagers of the 8th and 9th centuries. 

 The most material difference between them and the navigators of the 

 first century is that the latter, though acquainted with the direct monsoon 

 courses, and sometimes using these for the voyage from the Red Sea and 

 its vicinity to Guzerat and Malabar, did not apparently yet venture on 

 the direct voyage across the Bay of Bengal. 



But the nature of the trade, and the pick-up cargoes which are 

 indicated in the Periplus, probably made the coasting voyage more usual 

 even on this side of Cape Comorin. 



Let us follow the Greek or Persian navigator from the Persian. Gulf, 

 taking him up where he first comes into Indian waters. He passes the 

 low flat coast into which Sinthos (the Sind or Indus) discharges by seven 

 mouths, touching at a port called Barbaricon, represented by the Ltiri 

 Bandar of later days. He then passes the dangerous shallows of the Gulf 

 of Irivoih (the Irina or Rinn of Cutch) and Baraliu (or Dvaraka), and 

 coasting Syrastrij.nc. (Sorath, or Peninsular Guzerat), enters that other 

 gulf by which he passes the island Baioncs (or Peram, famous in recent 

 times for its extraordinary mammalian fossils), and so to the mouth of 

 the Namadus (Narmada or Nerbudda) and its great port of Baryrjaza 

 (Bhrignkachchha, Bharakachcha, or Baroch). Then coasting LdrikS 

 (continental Guzerat, the ancient Hindu Lata, and touching, among other 

 marts, at Siq^para (Supara near Bassein — properly Wasai — north of 

 Bombay, and where Mr. J. Campbell has lately been making excavations 

 with interesting archajological results) ; at Kalliena, mentioned by 

 Cosmas as well as the Periplus writer (Kalyani, the chief town and port 

 of Tanna district near Bombay, and the point where the Great Indian 

 Peninsular Railway bifurcates after crossing the Tanna Strait), at Semylla 

 or Timiila (Saii)iur or Chaimur of the Arabs, i.e. Chenwul or Chaul,' a 

 port famous down to the beginning of the seventeenth century, and still 

 existing,^ too much reduced apparently to have a place in the ' Imperial 

 Gazetteer,' though it has two or three lines in ' Thornton's'), and so forth 

 along the coast of Bachanahades (i.e. of Bakshindpatha, the ' southern 

 region,' the Beccan), and beyond that to Bimyrike. (or the Tamil country) 

 i.e. Malabar, in which the chief ports were Naura (i.e. Honawar), Niiria 

 (Mangalore on the Netravati R., the Mangaruth of Cosmas), Tyndis 

 (Tiuidi near Beypore), Muzlris (Muyiri Kodu or Cranganore) and Nel- 

 kynda. The absolute identification of the last is not easy, but it was pro- 

 bably Kalhula, on a river of the same name entering the backwaters, the 

 only navigable river south of the Berridr at Cranganore. This is pro- 

 bably the same place as Kanetti, famous in the legendary history of 

 Malabar ; and it is still a great entrrpol for Travancore pepper, which is 

 sent hence to the ports on the coast for shipment. That Nelliyuda can- 

 not have been far from this is clear from the vicinity of the T[vpf>i)r 

 opi'C or ' Red HiJl ' of the Periplus, which is mentioned in immediate 

 succession to the mouth of the river of Nelkynda. Thei-e can be no 

 question that this is the bar of red laterite which a short distance south 

 of Quilou cuts short the backwater navigation, and is thence called 



' In foreign names the .s (swat/ of the Arabs constantly, as may be seen in Prof. 

 Sprenger's Post- nnd licise- Houtcn den Orients, represents ch, a sound absent fi-om 

 Arabic. 



'- !Mr. Burgess thinks Semj-lla may be a place called Cliemvla. which is said to 

 have existed on Trombay Island, adjoining Bombay. But of this there seems to be 

 little or nothing known. 



