Sailing from Cambay, in 20 days he
arrived at two cities on the sea-shore, Pacamuria (Faknur, of Rashid
and Firishta, Baccanor of old books, and now Barkur, the Malayalim
Vakkanur) and HELLI. But we read that in 1527 Simon de Melo was sent to
burn ships in the River of Marabia and at Monte d'Elli.[1] When Da
Gama on his second voyage was on his way from Baticala (in Canara) to
Cananor, a squall having sprung his mainmast just before reaching Mt.
d'Ely, "the captain-major anchored in the Bay of Marabia, because he saw
there several Moorish ships, in order to get a mast from them." It seems
clear that this was the bay just behind Mt. d'Ely.
Indeed the name of Marabia or Marawi is still preserved in Madavi or
Madai, corruptly termed Maudoy in some of our maps, a township upor the
river which enters the bay about 7 or 8 miles south-east of Mt. d'Ely, and
which is called by De Barros the Rio Marabia. Mr. Ballard informs me
that he never heard of ruins of importance at Madai, but there is a place
on the river just mentioned, and within the Madai township, called
Payangadi ("Old Town"), which has the remains of an old fort of the
Kolastri (or Kolatiri) Rajas. A palace at Madai (perhaps this fort) is
alluded to by Dr. Gundert in the Madras Journal, and a Buddhist Vihara
is spoken of in an old Malayalim poem as having existed at the same place.
The same paper speaks of "the famous emporium of Cachilpatnam near Mt.
d'Ely," which may have been our city of Hili, as the cities Hili and
Marawi were apparently separate though near.[2]
[Illustration: Mount d'Ely, from the Sea, in last century.]
The state of Hili-Marawi is also mentioned in the Arabic work on the
early history of the Mahomedans in Malabar, called Tuhfat-al-Mujahidin,
and translated by Rowlandson; and as the Prince is there called
Kolturee, this would seem to identify him either in family or person
with the Raja of Cananor, for that old dynasty always bore the name of
Kolatiri.[3]
The Ramusian version of Barbosa is very defective here, but in Stanley's
version (Hak. Soc. East African and Malabar Coasts, p. 149) we find the
topography in a passage from a Munich MS. clear enough: "After passing
this place" (the river of Nirapura or Nileshwaram) "along the coast is the
mountain Dely (of Ely) on the edge of the sea; it is a round mountain,
very lofty, in the midst of low land; all the ships of the Moors and
Gentiles that navigate in this sea of India sight this mountain when
coming from without, and make their reckoning by it; ... after this, at
the foot of the mountain to the south, is a town called Marave, very
ancient and well off, in which live Moors and Gentiles and Jews; these
Jews are of the language of the country; it is a long time that they have
dwelt in this place."
(Stanley's Correa, Hak.
