Note {1} — Chapter XVI

Note 1.—Maabar (Ma’băr) was the name given by the Mahomedans at this time (13th and 14th centuries) to a tract corresponding in a general way to what we call the Coromandel Coast. The word in Arabic signifies the Passage or Ferry, and may have referred either to the communication with Ceylon, or, as is more probable, to its being in that age the coast most frequented by travellers from Arabia and the Gulf.[1] The name does not appear in Edrisi, nor, I believe, in any of the older geographers, and the earliest use of it that I am aware of is in Abdallatif’s account of Egypt, a work written about 1203–1204. (De Sacy, Rel. de l’Egypte, p. 31.) Abulfeda distinctly names Cape Comorin as the point where Malabar ended and Ma’bar began, and other authority to be quoted presently informs us that it extended to Niláwar, i.e. Nellore.