ion on this subject. He writes:

"There are no relics of ancient greatness in Kayalpattanam, and no
traditions of foreign trade, and it is admitted by its inhabitants to be a
place of recent origin, which came into existence after the abandonment of
the true Kayal. They state also that the name of Kayalpattanam has only
recently been given to it, as a reminiscence of the older city, and that
its original name was Sonagarpattanam.[1] There is another small port in
the same neighbourhood, a little to the north of Kayalpattanam, called
Pinna Cael in the maps, properly Punnei-Kayal, from _Punnei_, the Indian
Laurel; but this is also a place of recent origin, and many of the
inhabitants of this place, as of Kayalpattanam, state that their ancestors
came originally from Kayal, subsequently to the removal of the Portuguese
from that place to Tuticorin.

"The Cail of Marco Polo, commonly called in the neighbourhood _Old Kayal_,
and erroneously named _Koil_ in the Ordnance Map of India, is situated on
the Tamraparni River, about a mile and a half from its mouth. The Tamil
word _kayal_ means 'a backwater, a lagoon,' and the map shows the
existence of a large number of these _kayals_ or backwaters near the mouth
of the river. Many of these kayals have now dried up more or less
completely, and in several of them salt-pans have been established. The
name of Kayal was naturally given to a town erected on the margin of a
_kayal_; and this circumstance occasioned also the adoption of the name of
Punnei Kayal, and served to give currency to the name of Kayalpattanam
assumed by Sonagarpattanam, both those places being in the vicinity of
kayals.

"KAYAL stood originally on or near the sea-beach, but it is now about a
mile and a half inland, the sand carried down by the river having silted
up the ancient harbour, and formed a waste sandy tract between the sea and
the town. It has now shrunk into a petty village, inhabited partly by
Mahommedans and partly by Roman Catholic fishermen of the Parava caste,
with a still smaller hamlet adjoining inhabited by Brahmans and Vellalars;
but unlikely as the place may now seem to have been identical with 'the
great and noble city' described by Marco Polo, its identity is established
by the relics of its ancient greatness which it still retains. Ruins of
old fortifications, temples, storehouses, wells and tanks, are found
everywhere along the coast for two or three miles north of the village of
Kayal,