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Mr. Hugh Murray, adopting the view of Count Baldello Boni in his edition of Marco Polo, considers that the place so-called by those travellers was on the east coast of the Peninsula. I have not time to seek for Baldello’s edition, and do not know his arguments; but I conceive that there is enough evidence to show that he is wrong.

The argument on which Murray rests is chiefly the position in which Polo introduces his description of Coilon, after Maabar, and before Comari; Maabar being with him an extensive region of Coromandel, and Comari doubtless the country about Cape Comorin. But, omitting detailed discussion of the value of this argument, which would involve a consideration of all the other difficulties in reducing to geographical order Polo’s notices of the kingdoms on the coast of India, his description of Coilon as a great port for pepper and brazil-wood, is sufficient to identify it as on the coast of Malabar. The existence of places called Coulan on the east coast in the maps of D’Anville, Rennel, and Milburn, is of little moment, for an inspection of the “Atlas of India” will show scores of places so-called on both sides of Cape Comorin, the word signifying, in the Tamul tongue, ‘an irrigation tank, formed by damming up natural hollows.’ Indeed, though I have found no trace of any well-known port on the east coast so-called, there were at least four ports of the name on the west coast frequented by foreign vessels, viz., Cote Colam, north of Cananore; Colam, called Pandarani, north of Calicut; Cai-Colam, or Kaincolam,ssss1 between Cochin and the chief place of the name; Coulam, or Quilon, the Columbum of our author.