MADRAS JOURNAL 



OF 



LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 



No. 33. July— December, 1847. 



I. Description of the Laecadive Islands. By W. Robin- 

 son, Esq., of the Civil Service. 



[The following interesting account of these little known Islands has 

 been transmitted to us for publication by order of Government . In or= 

 der to render the paper as complete as possible, we have prefixed an 

 abstract of such notices of their early history as have been discovered in 

 the few works of reference accessible. 



The Laecadive Islands or according to Lieutenant Wood as the name 

 is pronounced by the islanders, " Lakera deevh" [^Lak'h or Lahsha dwijpa 

 quasi " Myriad Isles"] from the most northerly group of that extensive 

 chain in the Indian ocean extending from about 10® N. Lat. to S*' S. Lat. 



By the ancients they were little known. Ptolemy* mentions them un- 

 der the name of Dimurce Insulse [the detached isle of Minicoy, being 

 probably that distinguished by the appellation of Zibula,] to the South- 

 ward of which, he adds, lay a multitude of islands reckoned at 1,378 in 

 number, — evidently referring to the Maldives. The author of the Peri- 

 plus of the Erythraean Sea in enumerating the exports from the port of 

 Barake or Nelcyndaf (NeXktv i/2a) specifies a particular kind of tortoise- 



♦ Lib. vii. 4. 



t Vincent. Perip. p. 459. Nelcynda or more properly Nelcoonda, described as a town 

 of consequence on the river Baris, has generally been identified with Neleseram but ap- 

 pears to correspond better with Neelcoond on the Tadry river, the mouth of which not 

 only forms the best harbour on that part of the coast, but is to this day the main outlet 

 to the trade of the interior through the parts of Coompta and Mirjan. The Neelcoond 

 ghat or pass also leads to Banawassi, formerly a city known to Ptolemy, and now super- 

 Beded by Sircy. 



