The government of the area was shared for centuries with these dynasties by numerous independent or semi-independent chiefs, evidence of whose perennial internecine conflicts is preserved in the multitudes of forts and fortresses, the deserted ruins of which crown almost all the elevated points. In spite, however, of this passion of the military classes for war, the Tamil civilization developed in the country was of a high type. This was largely due to the wealth of the country, famous in the earliest times as now for its pearl fisheries. Of this fishery Korkai (the Greek KhXxot), now a village on the Tambraparni River in Tinnevelly, but once the Pandya capital, was the centre long before the Christian era.