_partly on the west_ by portions of India. Kabul was still reckoned in
India. Chach, the last Hindu king of Sind but one, is related to have
marched through Mekran to a river which formed the limit between Mekran
and Kerman. On its banks he planted date-trees, and set up a monument
which bore: _"This was the boundary of_ Hind in the time of Chach, the son
of Sflaij, the son of Basabas." In the Geography of Bakui we find it
stated that "Hind is a great country which begins at the province of
Mekran." (_N. and E._ II. 54.) In the map of Marino Sanuto India begins
from Hormuz; and it is plain from what Polo says in quitting that city
that he considered the next step from it south-eastward would have taken
him to India (supra, I. p. 110).

["The name Mekran has been commonly, but erroneously, derived from Mahi
Khoran, i.e. the fish-eaters, or _ichthyophagi_, which was the title
given to the inhabitants of the Beluchi coast-fringe by Arrian. But the
word is a Dravidian name, and appears as Makara in the _Brhat Sanhita_ of
Varaha Mihira in a list of the tribes contiguous to India on the west. It
is also the [Greek: Makaraenae] of Stephen of Byzantium, and the Makuran
of Tabari, and Moses of Chorene. Even were it not a Dravidian name, in no
old Aryan dialect could it signify fish-eaters." (_Curzon, Persia_, II. p.
261, note.)

"It is to be noted that Kesmacoran is a combination of Kech or Kej and
Makran, and the term is even to-day occasionally used." (_Major P.M.
Sykes, Persia_, p. 102.)--H.C.]

We may add a Romance definition of India from _King Alisaunder_:--

"Lordynges, also I fynde,
_At Mede so bigynneth Ynde_:
Forsothe ich woot, it stretcheth ferest
Of alle the Londes in the Est,
And oth the South half sikerlyk,
To the cee taketh of Affryk;
And the north half to a Mountayne,
That is ycleped Caucasayne."--L 4824-4831.

It is probable that Polo merely coasted Mekran; he seems to know nothing
of the Indus, and what he says of Mekran is vague.

NOTE 2.--As Marco now winds up his detail of the Indian coast, it is
proper to try to throw some light on his partial derangement of its
geography. In the following columns the first shows the _real_
geographical order from east to west of the Indian provinces as named by
Polo, and the second shows the order as _he_ puts them. The Italic names
are brief and general identifications.

_Real order_. _Polo's order_.