city or country of this name. The naine has continued to attach itself to a remarkable isolated or partially isolated mountain and promontory on the coast, first in the forms of Cavo de Eli (Fra Mauro), Monte d'Ili (lira Paolino), Monte de Lin (DEB), Monte di Li (P. Vincenzo), and then in the corruption Mount Delly, or, as Rennell has it, Dilla. The name was also, perhaps, preserved in the RAMDILLY of Rennell, a fort on the same river as Nileshwaram, but lower in its course, which, before debouching near the north side of the mountain, runs parallel to the coast for ten or twelve miles. There is also a fort of Deela mentioned by P. Vincenzo and Rennell, immediately north of Nileshwaram. But all these features and names have disappeared from our recent maps, thanks, probably, to the Atlas of India, in which, if I am not mistaken, Mount Delly even has no place. However correct may be the trigonometrical skeleton of those sheets of that publication which represent the coast in question, I think no one can use them for topographical studies of this kind without sore misgivings as to the filling in of details. The mountain is mentioned by Abulfeda as " a great hill projecting into the sea, visible to voyagers a long way off, and known to them as Ras Haili," but he does not speak of the city or country. Barbosa says " Monte D'Ely stands in the low country close by the shore, a very lofty and round mountain, which serves as a beacon and point of departure for all the ships of Moors and Gentiles that navigate the Indian sea. Many springs run down from it, which serve to water shipping. It has also much wood, including a great deal of wild cinnamon" (BL). Marco Polo calls Ely an independent kingdom, 300 miles west of Comari (C. Comorin) ; it had no harbour but such as its river afforded ; the king was rich, but had not many people ; the natives practised piracy on such ships as were driven in by stress of weather ; the ships of Manzi (S. China) traded thither, but expedited their lading on account of the insufficiency of the ports. Ibn Batuta speaks of Hili as a large city on a great estuary, frequented by large ships, and as one of the three (four) ports of Malabar which the Chinese junks visited. Pauthier observes in his Marco Polo, Ely est nomée par Ptolemée'AAo' ". But the Aloe of Ptolemy is an inland city, which must make the identification very questionable. If Nileshweram be Nelcynda, then probably we have a trace of Ely in the ELAbacare of the Periplus. But the passage seems defective (see Hudson, i, 33).
Mount Delly is mentioned by several authors as in their time the solitary habitat of the true cardamom. Can there be a connexion between the name Hili, Ely, and the terms Elachi, Ela, and Hil (the form in Gujarat and the Deccan according to Linschoten) by which the cardamom is known in India ?
Maranel, a very old place, peopled with Moors, Gentoos, and Jews, speaking the country language, who have dwelt there for a very long time (BL), Marabia (DEB, P. Vincenzo), The Heribalca of (s) appears to be the same place, but the name looks corrupt. It is probable that the balca (for Balea) belongs to the next name, and then the Heri may be
a trace of the lost Hilt.
Balaerpatam, where the King of Cananor resided and had a fortress
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