When I came across that word in the many pages of the 1913 book “ Vestiges of Old Madras 1640-1800 Volume 1 ” by Henry Davison Love, I was confused. How can there be Nari (Fox) in Madras? That too close to the shore on a sand dune! The location where the present St.George Fort stands was known as Narimedu (High Ground of Fox or the Dune of the Fox) and was given to the British East India Company by the Naik King Damarla Venkatadri in the year 1639. Love writes: “ We may conclude, then, that the boundary of Madras depicted in the map of 1733 coincided with that of the Naik ’ s grant, save that the former included an undefined area called “ Narimedo ” , which was added in 1645, or earlier. The boundary passed through a point on the coast 300 yards north of the river outlet, and travelled across the Island to the cut uniting the two rivers. It then followed the Elambore River for a distance of 1000 yards, curved inland, but subsequently met the r...