dens ; the brazil tree grew there, and the Mahomedans had a fine mosque and square. Ibn Batuta also notices the fine mosque, and. says the city was one of the finest in Malabar, with splendid markets, rich merchants, etc. It continued to be an important place to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Varthema speaks of it as a fine port, and Barbosa as a "very great city," with a very good haven, with many great merchants, Moors, and Gentoos, whose ships traded to all the eastern ports as far as Bengal, Pegu, and the Archipelago. But after this its decay must have been rapid, and in the following century it had sunk into entire insignificance. Throughout the middle ages it appears to have been one of the chief seats of the St. Thomas Christians.
There were several ports between Quilon and Cape Comorin, but my information about them is too defective to carry the list further.
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