In this country you see more of the North Star, for it shows two cubits above the water.  And you must know that from this kingdom of Melibar, and from another near it called Gozurat, there go forth every year more than a hundred corsair vessels on cruize.  These pirates take with them their wives and children, and stay out the whole summer.  Their method is to join in fleets of 20 or 30 of these pirate vessels together, and then they form what they call a sea cordon,[NOTE 2] that is, they drop off till there is an interval of 5 or 6 miles between ship and ship, so that they cover something like an hundred miles of sea, and no merchant ship can escape them.  For when any one corsair sights a vessel a signal is made by fire or smoke, and then the whole of them make for this, and seize the merchants and plunder them.  After they have plundered them they let them go, saying:  “Go along with you and get more gain, and that mayhap will fall to us also!” But now the merchants are aware of this, and go so well manned and armed, and with such great ships, that they don’t fear the corsairs.  Still mishaps do befall them at times.[NOTE 3]

There is in this kingdom a great quantity of pepper, and ginger, and cinnamon, and turbit, and of nuts of India.[NOTE 4] They also manufacture very delicate and beautiful buckrams.  The ships that come from the east bring copper in ballast.  They also bring hither cloths of silk and gold, and sendels; also gold and silver, cloves and spikenard, and other fine spices for which there is a demand here, and exchange them for the products of these countries.

Ships come hither from many quarters, but especially from the great province of Manzi.[NOTE 5] Coarse spices are exported hence both to Manzi and to the west, and that which is carried by the merchants to Aden goes on to Alexandria, but the ships that go in the latter direction are not one to ten of those that go to the eastward; a very notable fact that I have mentioned before.

Now I have told you about the kingdom of Melibar; we shall now proceed and tell you of the kingdom of Gozurat.  And you must understand that in speaking of these kingdoms we note only the capitals; there are great numbers of other cities and towns of which we shall say nothing, because it would make too long a story to speak of all.

NOTE 1.—­Here is another instance of that confusion which dislocates Polo’s descriptions of the Indian coast; we shall recur to it under ch. xxx.

Malabar is a name given by the Arabs, and varies in its form:  Ibn Batuta and Kazwini write it [Arabic], al-Malibar, Edrisi and Abulfeda [Arabic], al-Manibar, etc., and like variations occur among the old European travellers.  The country so-called corresponded to the Kerala of the Brahmans, which in its very widest sense extended from about lat. 15 deg. to Cape Comorin.  This, too, seems to be the extension which Abulfeda gives to Malabar, viz., from Hunawar to Kumhari; Rashiduddin includes Sindabur, i.e.  Goa.  But at a later date a point between Mt. d’Ely and Mangalore on the north, and Kaulam on the south, were the limits usually assigned to Malabar.