["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.
1.  Mutfili (Telingana)        1.  Mutfili
MAABAR,    /  2.  St. Thomas’s (Madras).     2.  St. Thomas’s
including  |  3.  Maabar Proper, Kingdom of       (Lar, west of do.).
|     Sonder Bandi (Tanjore)     3.  Maabar proper, or Soli.
\  4.  Cail (Tinnevelly).         4.  Cail.
5.  Comari (C.  Comorin).       5.  Coilum. 
MELIBAR,   /  6.  Coilum (Travancore).       6.  Comari.
including  \  7.  Eli (Cananore).            7.  Eli. 
GUZERAT,   /  8.  Tana (Bombay).             8. (MELIBAR).
or LAR,    |  9.  Canbaet (Cambay).          9. (GOZURAT).
including  | 10.  Semenat (Somnath).        10.  Tana.
\ 11.  Kesmacoran (Mekran).      11.  Canbaet.
12.  Semenat.
13.  Kesmacoran.

It is difficult to suppose that the fleet carrying the bride of Arghun went out of its way to Maabar, St. Thomas’s, and Telingana.  And on the other hand, what is said in chapter xxiii. on Comari, about the North Star not having been visible since they approached the Lesser Java, would have been grossly inaccurate if in the interval the travellers had been north as far as Madras and Motupalle.  That passage suggests to me strongly that Comari was the first Indian land made by the fleet on arriving from the Archipelago (exclusive perhaps of Ceylon).  Note then that the position of Eli is marked by its distance of 300 miles from Comari, evidently indicating that this was a run made by the traveller on some occasion without an intermediate stoppage.  Tana, Cambay, Somnath, would follow naturally as points of call.