Note 37 — PREFACE.

In Keith Johnstone’s new and beautiful atlas Quilon is identified with Kayan or Kain-Kulam. This, I have no doubt, is quite a mistake. The places, though near, are quite distinct, and in the beginning of the sixteenth century were under distinct sovereigns. I may here notice what I venture, with respect, to think is an error in Mr. Major’s edition of Conti (India in the Fifteenth Century). Conti, on his first arrival in Malabar, lands at “Pudefitania,” and, after describing his visit to Bengal, and his ascent of the Ganges, returns to Pudefitania. Mr. Major interprets this in the last place Burdwan. But, apart from other arguments, it is evidently in both passages the same place, i.e., Pudipatanam, one of the old forgotten ports on the coast of Malabar, but mentioned by Barbosa and the Geographer in Ramusio. Other names mentioned by Conti are in need of examination. Maarazia, the great city on the Ganges which he visits, is certainly not Muttra, as the editor has it, but Benares. The Braminical name, Baranási, is near enough to Conti’s.