and this difference all
comes of the excessive heat.

Corn they have none but rice. So also their wine they make from [palm-]
sugar; capital drink it is, and very speedily it makes a man drunk. All
other necessaries of man's life they have in great plenty and cheapness.
They have very good astrologers and physicians. Man and woman, they are
all black, and go naked, all save a fine cloth worn about the middle. They
look not on any sin of the flesh as a sin. They marry their cousins
german, and a man takes his brother's wife after the brother's death; and
all the people of India have this custom.[NOTE 6]

There is no more to tell you there; so we will proceed, and I will tell
you of another country called Comari.

NOTE 1.--Futile doubts were raised by Baldelli Boni and Hugh Murray as to
the position of COILUM, because of Marco's mentioning it before Comari or
Cape Comorin; and they have insisted on finding a Coilum to the _east_ of
that promontory. There is, however, in reality, no room for any question on
this subject. For ages Coilum, Kaulam, or, as we now write it, Quilon, and
properly Kollam, was one of the greatest ports of trade with Western
Asia.[1] The earliest mention of it that I can indicate is in a letter
written by the Nestorian Patriarch, Jesujabus of Adiabene, who died A.D.
660, to Simon Metropolitan of Fars, blaming his neglect of duty, through
which he says, not only is India, "which extends from the coast of the
Kingdom of Fars to COLON, a distance of 1200 parasangs, deprived of a
regular ministry, but Fars itself is lying in darkness." (_Assem._ III. pt.
ii. 437.) The same place appears in the earlier part of the Arab
_Relations_ (A.D. 851) as _Kaulam-Male_, the port of India made by vessels
from Maskat, and already frequented by great Chinese Junks.

Abulfeda defines the position of Kaulam as at the extreme end of
_Balad-ul-Falfal_, i.e. the Pepper country or Malabar, as you go eastward,
standing on an inlet of the sea, in a sandy plain, adorned with many
gardens. The brazil-tree grew there, and the Mahomedans had a fine mosque
and square. Ibn Batuta also notices the fine mosque, and says the city was
one of the finest in Malabar, with splendid markets and rich merchants, and
was the chief resort of the Chinese traders in India. Odoric describes it
as "at the extremity of the Pepper Forest towards the south," and
astonishing in the abundance of its merchandise. Friar Jordanus of Severac
was there