through from sea to backwater and harbor works constructed. (Imp. Gaz., XX, 188.) The Portuguese, and subsequently the Dutch, had settlements at Porakād. It is mentioned by Varthema (1503) as Porcai, and by Tavernier (1648) as Porca. The remains of a Portuguese fort and factory are now covered by the sea, being visible at low water. (Ball, in his edition of Tavernier, I, 241.)
Here also is the mouth of the Achenkoil river, which rises in the Ghāts near the Shencottah pass, the main highway between Travancore and Tinnevelly.
According to Menon (Notes on Malabar and its place-names), the settlements were nearly all east of the backwaters at the Christian era, and the present beaches existed only as tide-breaks. During the middle ages there was a period of elevation, which led to the formation of new islands, while floods from the mountains changed the courses of the rivers, and the location of the inlets. At present the tendency is toward subsidence, houses built at Cochin a century ago being now under water. About 800 B. C., according to local tradition, the sea reached the hills.
Megasthenes, in the 4th century B. C., mentioned as "on the sea-coast" the town of Tropina (Tripontari) now on the mainland side of the backwaters; Ptolemy's three shore towns between Muziris and Barkarē are likewise on the land side.
56. Large ships.—The increase in the size of shipping following the discovery of Hippalus is referred to also in § 10. Pliny speaks of
