Madras fisheries bulletin

It was located at the mouth of the Tambraparni river
which then entered the sea some 12 miles southward of
Tuticorin, the present head-quarters of the fishery.
With the growth of the river's delta and the deflection of
the principal channel the city was shifted northwards
some 3 miles to Kayal, the Gael visited by Marco Polo
in the end of the thirteenth century (1292).
In turn,
Kayal ceased to exist as a seaport and Pinnacoil (Pinnai
Kayal, the town " behind " or across the Kayal or backwater
?) with Kayalpattanam and Tuticorin divided the
heritage of Kayal amongst them. This passing away of
Kayal as a commercial emporium took place probably
shortly after the arrival of the Portuguese about 1523,
the end hastened by the decay of Pandyan power which
subjected the district to the spoliation of Muhammadan
invasion and left it a prey to the viceroys of Vijayanagar.
For at least 200 years prior to the arrival of the
Portuguese in India, the growth of Muhammadan power
on the coast had been progressive ;
Arabs had long traded
with Kayal and Korkai and now, instead of returning
home periodically, they began to marry with the natives
and to settle in the seaports, where they and their
adherents entered into competition with the Parawas in
their hereditary occupations as pearl and chank fishers.
When the Portuouese Mission under Manuel de
Fries, sailing round Cape Comorin in *
1523—
1525 on
their way to search for the remains of St. Thomas on the
Coromandel coast, arrived off Kayal, they found the
Parawas hardpressed by the Arabs and their Muhammadan
converts obtained partly from the ranks of the
Parawas themselves. This antagonism was most opportune
for the Portuguese who had come with the express
intention of seizing the pearl fishery and had aboard Joao
Froles already appointed Captain and Factor of the Pearl
Fishery by the King of Portugal. The command of the
sea being with the Portuguese, they had no difficulty in
exacting a rent from the headmen of the coast of fifteen
hundred cruzados per annum, and Froles was left with a
small force to enforce due payment.
• According to Caspar Correa in "Lendas da India," it was in 1523 that King
John III of Portugal commissioned Manuel de Fries on this quest which brought
him evenUially to Mylapore, now a suburb of Madras, hence it probably would
not be till 1524 or 1525 that he actually reached the Gulf of Mannar.