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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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MARCO POLO I3ooK III.
386
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God has sent you hither to us, so we have a right to all
your goods." And they think it no sin to act thus.
And this naughty custom prevails all over these
provinces of India, to wit, that if a ship be driven by
stress of weather into some other port than that to which
it was bound, it is sure to be plundered. But if a ship
come bound originally to the place they receive it with
all honour and give it due protection.4 The ships of
Manzi and other countries that come hither in summer
lay in their cargoes in 6 or 8 days and depart as fast as
possible, because there is no harbour other than the
river-mouth A mere roadstead and sandbanks, so that it
is perilous to tarry there. The ships of Manzi indeed
are not so much afraid of these roadsteads as others are,
because they have such huge wooden anchors which
hold in all weather.'
There are many lions and other wild beasts here and
plenty of game, both beast and bird.
NOTE I.—No city or district is now known by the name of ELY, but the name survives in that of Mount Dely, properly Monte d'ELY, the Yeli-mala of the Malabar people, and called also in the legends of the coast Sapta-sliaila, or the Seven Hills. This is the only spur of the Gháts that reaches the sea within the Madras territory. It is an isolated and very conspicuous hill, or cluster of hills, forming a promontory some 16 miles north of Cananore, the first Indian land seen by Vasco da Gama, on that memorable August morning in 1498, and formerly very well known to navigators, though it has been allowed to drop out of some of our most ambitious modern maps. Abulfeda describes it as " a great mountain projecting into the sea, and descried from a great distance, called Ras Haili " ; and it appears in Fra Mauro's map
as Cavo de Eli. .
Rashiduddin mentions " the country of Hili," between 11lanjarzír (Mangalore) and Fandaraina (miswritten in Elliot's copy Sadarsa). Ibn Batuta speaks of Hili, which he reached on leaving Manjarúr, as " a great and well-built city, situated on a large estuary accessible to great ships. The vessels of China come hither ; this, Kaulam, and Kalikut, are the only ports that they enter." From Hili he proceeds 12 miles further down the coast to for fattan, which probably corresponds to Baliapatan. ELLY appears in the Carta Catalana, and is marked as a Christian city. Nicolo Conti is the last to speak distinctly of the city. Sailing from Cambay, in 20 days he arrived at two cities on the sea-shore, Pacamuuria (Faknúr, of Rashid and Firishta, Ba:caner of old books, and now Bárkúr, the Malayálim Vákkanzír) 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. * When Da Gama on his second voyage was on his way from
* The Town of Monte d'Ely appears (Monte Dil) in Coronelli's Atlas (169o) from some older source. Mr. Burnell thinks Baliapatan (properly Valarpaítanam) which is still a prosperous Máppila town, on a broad and deep river, must be Hili. I see a little difficulty in this. [Marabia at Monte Eely is often mentioned in Correa, as one of the ports of the Kingdom of Cananor. ]
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