Chapter XXII: Of the Kingdom of Coilum

When you quit Maabar and go 500 miles towards the south-west you come to the kingdom of COILUM. The people are Idolaters, but there are also some Christians and some Jews. The natives have a language of their own, and a King of their own, and are tributary to no one.{1}

A great deal of brazil is got here which is called _brazil Coilumin_ from the country which produces it; ’tis of very fine quality.{2} Good ginger also grows here, and it is known by the same name of _Coilumin_ after the country.{3} Pepper too grows in great abundance throughout this country, and I will tell you how. You must know that the pepper-trees are (not wild but) cultivated, being regularly planted and watered; and the pepper is gathered in the months of May, June, and July. They have also abundance of very fine indigo. This is made of a certain herb which is gathered, and [after the roots have been removed] is put into great vessels upon which they pour water and then leave it till the whole of the plant is decomposed. They then put this liquid in the sun, which is tremendously hot there, so that it boils and coagulates, and becomes such as we see it. [They then divide it into pieces of four ounces each, and in that form it is exported to our parts.]{4} And I assure you that the heat of the sun is so great there that it is scarcely to be endured; in fact if you put an egg into one of the rivers it will be boiled, before you have had time to go any distance, by the mere heat of the sun!

The merchants from Manzi, and from Arabia, and from the Levant come thither with their ships and their merchandise and make great profits both by what they import and by what they export.

There are in this country many and divers beasts quite different from those of other parts of the world. Thus there are lions black all over, with no mixture of any other colour; and there are parrots of many sorts, for some are white as snow with red beak and feet, and some are red, and some are blue, forming the most charming sight in the world; there are green ones too. There are also some parrots of exceeding small size, beautiful creatures.{5} They have also very beautiful peacocks, larger than ours, and different; and they have cocks and hens quite different from ours; and what more shall I say? In short, everything they have is different from ours, and finer and better. Neither is their fruit like ours, nor their beasts, nor their birds; and this difference all comes of the excessive heat.

Corn they have none but rice. So also their wine they make from [palm-]sugar; capital drink it is, and very speedily it makes a man drunk. All other necessaries of man’s life they have in great plenty and cheapness. They have very good astrologers and physicians. Man and woman, they are all black, and go naked, all save a fine cloth worn about the middle. They look not on any sin of the flesh as a sin. They marry their cousins german, and a man takes his brother’s wife after the brother’s death; and all the people of India have this custom.{6}

There is no more to tell you there; so we will proceed, and I will tell you of another country called Comari.

NOTE 1.—Futile doubts were raised by Baldelli Boni and Hugh Murray
as to the position of COILUM, because of Marco’s mentioning it
before Comari or Cape Comorin; and they have insisted on finding
a Coilum to the _east_ of that promontory. There is, however, in
reality, no room for any question on this subject. For ages Coilum,
Kaulam, or, as we now write it, Quilon, and properly Kollam, was
one of the greatest ports of trade with Western Asia.[1] The
earliest mention of it that I can indicate is in a letter written
by the Nestorian Patriarch, Jesujabus of Adiabene, who died A.D.
660, to Simon Metropolitan of Fars, blaming his neglect of duty,
through which he says, not only is India, “which extends from
the coast of the Kingdom of Fars to COLON, a distance of 1200
parasangs, deprived of a regular ministry, but Fars itself is
lying in darkness.” (_Assem._ III. pt. ii. 437.) The same place
appears in the earlier part of the Arab _Relations_ (A.D. 851) as
_Kaulam-Malé_, the port of India made by vessels from Maskat, and
already frequented by great Chinese Junks.

Abulfeda defines the position of Kaulam as at the extreme end of
_Balad-ul-Falfal_, _i.e._ the Pepper country or Malabar, as you
go eastward, standing on an inlet of the sea, in a sandy plain,
adorned with many gardens. 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 and rich merchants, and was the
chief resort of the Chinese traders in India. Odoric describes it
as “at the extremity of the Pepper Forest towards the south,” and
astonishing in the abundance of its merchandise. Friar Jordanus
of Séverac was there as a missionary some time previous to 1328,
in which year he was at home; [on the 21st of August, 1329, he]
was nominated Bishop of the See of Kaulam, Latinised as _Columbum_
or _Columbus_ [created by John XXII. on the 9th of August of the
same year—H. C.]. Twenty years later John Marignolli visited “the
very noble city of Columbum, where the whole world’s pepper is
produced,” and found there a Latin church of St. George, probably
founded by Jordanus.[2] Kaulam or Coilon continued to be an
important place to the beginning of the 16th century, when Varthema
speaks of it as a fine port, and Barbosa as “a very great city,”
with a very good haven, and 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.
Indeed both it and Káyal were two out of the seven ancient churches
which Indo-Syrian tradition ascribed to St. Thomas himself.[3]

I have been desirous to give some illustration of the churches
of that interesting body, certain of which must date from a very
remote period, but I have found unlooked-for difficulties in
procuring such illustration. Several are given in the Life of Dr.
Claudius Buchanan from his own sketches, and a few others in the
Life of Bishop D. Wilson. But nearly all represent the churches
as they were perverted in the 17th century and since, by a coarse
imitation of a style of architecture bad enough in its genuine
form. I give, after Buchanan, the old church at Parúr, not far from
Cranganore, which had escaped masquerade, with one from Bishop
Wilson’s Life, showing the quasi-Jesuit deformation alluded to,
and an interior also from the latter work, which appears to have
some trace of genuine character. Parúr church is probably _Pálúr_,
or _Pázhúr_, which is one of those ascribed to St. Thomas; for Dr.
Buchanan says it bears the name of the Apostle, and “is supposed to
be the oldest in Malabar.” (_Christ. Res._ p. 113.)

[Quilon is “one of the oldest towns on the coast, from whose
re-foundation in 1019 A.D., Travancore reckons its era.” (_Hunter_,
_Gaz._, xi., p. 339.)—H. C.]

_How_ Polo comes to mention Coilum before Comari is a question that
will be treated further on, with other misplacements of like kind
that occur in succeeding chapters.

Kúblái had a good deal of diplomatic intercourse of his usual
kind with Kaulam. De Mailla mentions the arrival at T’swan-chau
(or Zayton) in 1282 of envoys from KIULAN, an Indian State,
bringing presents of various rarities, including a black ape as
big as a man. The Emperor had three times sent thither an officer
called Yang Ting-pi (IX. 415). Some rather curious details of
these missions are extracted by Pauthier from the Chinese Annals.
The royal residence is in these called _A-pu-’hota_.[4] The king
is styled _Pinati_. I may note that Barbosa also tells us that
the King of Kaulam was called Benate-deri (_devar_?). And Dr.
Caldwell’s kindness enables me to explain this title. _Pinati_
or _Benate_ represents _Venáḍan_, “the Lord of the Venáḍu,” or
_Venaṭṭu_, that being the name of the district to which belonged
the family of the old kings of Kollam, and _Venáḍan_ being their
regular dynastic name. The Rajas of Travancore who superseded the
Kings of Kollam, and inherit their titles, are still poetically
styled Venáḍan. (_Pauthier_, p. 603 _seqq._; _Ram._ I. f. 304.)

NOTE 2.—The brazil-wood of Kaulam appears in the Commercial
Handbook of Pegolotti (_circa_ 1340) as _Verzino Colombino_, and
under the same name in that of Giov. d’Uzzano a century later.
Pegolotti in one passage details kinds of brazil under the names
of _Verzino salvatico_, _dimestico_, and _columbino_. In another
passage, where he enters into particulars as to the respective
values of different qualities, he names three kinds, as _Colomni_,
_Ameri_, and _Seni_, of which the _Colomni_ (or Colombino) was
worth a sixth more than the _Ameri_ and three times as much as
the _Seni_. I have already conjectured that _Ameri_ may stand for
_Lameri_ referring to Lambri in Sumatra (_supra_ ch. xi., note 1);
and perhaps _Seni_ is _Sini_ or Chinese, indicating an article
brought to India by the Chinese traders, probably from Siam.

We have seen in the last note that the Kaulam brazil is spoken of
by Abulfeda; and Ibn Batuta, in describing his voyage by the back
waters from Calicut to Kaulam, says: “All the trees that grow by
this river are either cinnamon or brazil trees. They use these
for firewood, and we cooked with them throughout our journey.”
Friar Odoric makes the same hyperbolic statement: “Here they burn
brazil-wood for fuel.”

It has been supposed popularly that the brazil-wood of commerce
took its name from the great country so called; but the _verzino_
of the old Italian writers is only a form of the same word, and
_bresil_ is in fact the word used by Polo. So Chaucer:—

“Him nedeth not his colour for to dien
With _brazil_, ne with grain of Portingale.”
—_The Nun’s Priest’s Tale_.

The _Eastern_ wood in question is now known in commerce by its
Malay name of _Sappan_ (properly _Sapang_), which again is
identical with the Tamil name _Sappangi_. This word properly means
_Japan_, and seems to have been given to the wood as a supposed
product of that region.[5] It is the wood of the _Caesalpinia
Sapan_, and is known in Arabic (and in Hindustani) as _Băḳăm_.
It is a thorny tree, indigenous in Western India from Goa to
Trevandrum, and growing luxuriantly in South Malabar. It is
extensively used by native dyers, chiefly for common and cheap
cloths, and for fine mats. The dye is precipitated dark-brown with
iron, and red with alum. It is said, in Western India, to furnish
the red powder thrown about on the Hindu feast of the _Húli_. The
tree is both wild and cultivated, and is grown rather extensively
by the Mahomedans of Malabar, called _Moplahs_ (_Mapillas_, see p.
372), whose custom it is to plant a number of seeds at the birth of
a daughter. The trees require fourteen or fifteen years to come to
maturity, and then become the girl’s dowry.

Though to a great extent superseded by the kindred wood from
Pernambuco, the sappan is still a substantial object of importation
into England. That American dye-stuff which _now_ bears the name
of brazil-wood is believed to be the produce of at least two
species of Caesalpinia, but the question seems to partake of the
singular obscurity which hangs over the origin of so many useful
drugs and dye-stuffs. The variety called _Braziletto_ is from _C.
bahamensis_, a native of the Bahamas.

The name of Brazil has had a curious history. Etymologists refer it
to the colour of _braise_ or hot coals, and its first application
was to this dye-wood from the far East. Then it was applied to a
newly-discovered tract of South America, perhaps because producing
a kindred dye-wood in large quantities: finally the original wood
is robbed of its name, which is monopolised by that imported from
the new country. The Region of Brazil had been originally styled
_Santa Cruz_, and De Barros attributes the change of name to the
suggestion of the Evil One, “as if the name of a wood for colouring
cloth were of more moment than that of the Wood which imbues the
Sacraments with the tincture of Salvation.”

There may perhaps be a doubt if the Land of Brazil derived its
name from the dye-wood. For the Isle of Brazil, long before the
discovery of America, was a name applied to an imaginary Island
in the Atlantic. This island appears in the map of Andrea Bianco
and in many others, down at least to Coronelli’s splendid Venetian
Atlas (1696); the Irish used to fancy that they could see it from
the Isles of Arran; and the legend of this Island of Brazil still
persisted among sailors in the last century.[6] The story was no
doubt the same as that of the green Island, or Island of Youth,
which Mr. Campbell tells us the Hebrideans see to the west of their
own Islands. (See _Pop. Tales of West Highlands_, IV. 163. For
previous references, _Della Decima_, III. 298, 361; IV. 60; _I. B._
IV. 99; _Cathay_, p. 77; _Note by Dr. H. Gleghorn_; _Marsh’s ed. of
Wedgwood’s Etym. Dict._ I. 123; _Southey, H. of Brazil_, I. 22.)

NOTE 3.—This is the _Colombine_ ginger which appears not
unfrequently in mediæval writings. Pegolotti tells us that
“ginger is of several sorts, to wit, _Belledi_, _Colombino_,
and _Mecchino_. And these names are bestowed from the producing
countries, at least this is the case with the _Colombino_ and
_Mecchino_, for the _Belledi_ is produced in many districts of
India. The Colombino grows in the Island of Colombo of India, and
has a smooth, delicate, ash-coloured rind; whilst the Mecchino
comes from the districts about Mecca and is a small kind, hard
to cut,” etc. (_Della Dec._ III. 359.) A century later, in G. da
Uzzano, we still find the _Colombino_ and _Belladi_ ginger (IV.
111, 210, etc.). The _Baladi_ is also mentioned by Rashiduddin
as an export of Guzerat, and by Barbosa and others as one of
Calicut in the beginning of the 16th century. The _Mecchino_ too
is mentioned again in that era by a Venetian traveller as grown
in the Island of Camran in the Red Sea. Both Columbine (_gigembre
columbin_) and Baladi ginger (_gig. baladit_) appear among the
purchases for King John of France, during his captivity in England.
And we gather from his accounts that the price of the former was
13_d._ a pound, and of the latter 12_d._, sums representing three
times the amount of silver that they now indicate, with a higher
value of silver also, and hence equivalent to about 4_s._ and 4_s._
4_d._ a pound. The term _Baladi_ (Ar.), Indigenous or “Country”
ginger, indicated ordinary qualities of no particular repute. The
word _Baladi_ seems to have become naturalised in Spanish with the
meaning “of small value.” We have noticed on a former occasion the
decay of the demand for pepper in China. Ginger affords a similar
example. This spice, so highly prized and so well known throughout
Europe in the Middle Ages, I have found to be quite unknown by
name and qualities to servants in Palermo of more than average
intelligence. (_Elliot_, I. 67; _Ramusio_, I. f. 275, v. 323; _Dozy
and Engelm._ pp. 232–233; _Douet d’Arcq_, p. 218; _Philobiblon Soc.
Miscellanies_, vol. ii. p. 116.)

NOTE 4.—In Bengal Indigo factories artificial heat is employed
to promote the drying of the precipitated dye; but this is not
essential to the manufacture. Marco’s account, though grotesque in
its baldness, does describe the chief features of the manufacture
of Indigo by fermentation. The branches are cut and placed stem
upwards in the vat till it is three parts full; they are loaded,
and then the vat is filled with water. Fermentation soon begins and
goes on till in 24 hours _the contents of the vat are so hot that
the hand cannot be retained in it_. This is what Marco ascribes to
the sun’s heat. The liquor is then drawn off to another cistern
and there agitated; the indigo separates in flakes. A quantity of
lime-water then is added, and the blue is allowed to subside. The
clear water is drawn off; the sediment is drained, pressed, and cut
into small squares, etc. (See _Madras Journal_, vol. viii. 198.)

Indigo had been introduced into Sicily by the Jews during the time
of Frederick II., in the early part of Polo’s century. Jews and
Indigo have long vanished from Sicily. The dye is often mentioned
in Pegolotti’s Book; the finest quality being termed _Indaco
Baccadeo_, a corruption of _Bághdádi_. Probably it came from India
by way of Baghdad. In the Barcelona Tariffs it appears as Indigo de
_Bagadel_. Another quality often mentioned is Indigo _di Golfo_.
(See _Capmany, Memorias_, II. App. p. 73.) In the bye-laws of the
London Painters’ Guild of the 13th century, quoted by Sir F.
Palgrave from the _Liber Horne_, it is forbidden to paint on gold
or silver except with fine (mineral) colours, “_e nient de_ brasil,
_ne de_ inde de Baldas, _ne de nul autre mauveise couleur_.” (_The
Merchant and the Friar_, p. xxiii.) There is now no indigo made
or exported at Quilon, but there is still some feeble export of
sappanwood, ginger, and pepper. These, and previous particulars
as to the present Quilon, I owe to the kindness of Mr. Ballard,
British Resident at Trevandrum.

NOTE 5.—Black Tigers and black Leopards are not very rare in
Travancore (See _Welsh’s Mil. Reminiscences_, II. 102.)

NOTE 6.—Probably founded on local or caste customs of marriage,
several of which in South India are very peculiar; _e.g._, see
_Nelson’s Madura_, Pt. II. p. 51.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The etymology of the name seems to be doubtful. Dr. Caldwell tells
me it is an error to connect it (as in the first edition) with
the word for a Tank, which is _Kuḷam_. The apparent meaning of
_Kollam_ is “slaughter,” but he thinks the name is best explained
as “Palace” or “Royal Residence.”

[2] There is still a _Syrian_ church of St. George at Quilon, and
a mosque of some importance;—the representatives at least of
those noted above, though no actual trace of antiquity of any
kind remains at the place. A vague tradition of extensive trade
with China yet survives. The form _Columbum_ is accounted for
by an inscription, published by the Prince of Travancore (_Ind.
Antiq._ II. 360), which shows that the city was called in Sanskrit
_Kolamba_. May not the real etymology be Sansk. _Kolam_, “Black
Pepper”?

On the suggestion ventured in this note Dr. Caldwell writes:

“I fancy _Kôla_, a name for pepper in Sanskrit, may be derived from
the name of the country _Kôlam_, North Malabar, which is much more
celebrated for its pepper than the country around Quilon. This
_Kôlam_, though resembling _Kollam_, is really a separate word,
and never confounded with the latter by the natives. The prince
of Kôlam (North Malabar) is called _Kolastri_ or _Kolattiri_[A].
Compare also _Kôlagiri_, the name of a hill in the Sanskrit
dictionaries, called also the _Kôlla giri_. The only possible
derivations for the Tamil and Malayalim name of Quilon that I am
acquainted with are these: (1.) From _Kolu_, the ‘Royal Presence’
or presence-chamber, or hall of audience. _Kollam_ might naturally
be a derivation of this word; and in confirmation I find that
other residences of Malabar kings were also called Kollam, _e.g._
Kodungalur or Cranganore. (2.) From _Kolu_, the same word, but with
the meaning ‘a height’ or ‘high-ground.’ Hence _Kollei_, a very
common word in Tamil for a ‘dry grain field, a back-yard.’ _Kolli_
is also, in the Tamil poets, said to be the name of a hill in the
Chera country, _i.e._ the Malabar coast. _Kôlam_ in Tamil has not
the meaning of pepper; it means ‘beauty,’ and it is said also to
mean the fruit of the jujuba. (3.) It might possibly be derived
from _Kol_, to slay;—_Kollam_, slaughter, or a place where some
slaughter happened ... in the absence, however, of any tradition to
this effect, this derivation seems improbable.”

[3] Burnell.

[4] The translated passage about _’Apuhota_ is a little obscure. The
name looks like _Kapukada_, which was the site of a palace north of
_Calicut_ (not in Kaulam), the _Capucate_ of the Portuguese.

[5] _Dr. Caldwell_.

[6] Indeed, Humboldt speaks of Brazil Isle as appearing to the west of
Ireland in a modern English map—_Purdy’s_; but I do not know its
date. (See _Examen_, etc., II. 244–245.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [A] see II. 387.