NOTE 2.—I have not been able to ascertain with any precision what animal is meant by Gat-paul. The term occurs again, coupled with monkeys as here, at p. 240 of the Geog. Text, where, speaking of Abyssinia, it is said: "Il ont gat paulz et autre gat-maimon si divisez," etc. Gatto maimone, for an ape of some kind, is common in old Italian, the latter part of the term, from the Pers. Maimun, being possibly connected with our Baboon. And that the Gat-paul was also some kind of ape is confirmed by the Spanish Dictionaries. Cobarrubias gives: "Gato-Paus, a kind of tailed monkey. Gato-paus, Gato pablo; perhaps as they call a monkey 'Martha,' they may have called this particular monkey 'Paul,'" etc. (f. 431 v.). So also the Diccion. de la Lengua Castellana comp. por la Real Academia (1783) gives: "Gato Paul, a kind of monkey of a grey colour, black muzzle and very broad tail." In fact, the word is used by Columbus, who, in his own account of his third voyage, describes a hill on the coast of Paria as covered with a species of Gatos Paulos. (See Navarrete, Fr. ed. III. 21, also 147-148.) It also occurs in Marmol, Desc. General de Affrica, who says that one kind of monkeys has a black face; "y estas comunemente se llaman en Espana Gatos Paules, las quales se crian en la tierra de los Negros" (I. f. 27). It is worth noting that the revisers of the text adopted by Pauthier have not understood the word. For they substitute for the "Il hi a gat paul si divisez qe ce estoit mervoille" of the Geog. Text, "et si a moult de granz paluz et moult grans pantains a merveilles"—wonderful swamps and marshes! The Pipino Latin has adhered to the correct reading—"Ibi sunt cati qui dicuntur pauli, valde diversi ab aliis."

[1] Ind. Alt. 1st ed. I. 158.

[2] Id. 564; and 2nd ed. I. 103.



CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF ELI.

Eli is a kingdom towards the west, about 300 miles from Comari. The people are Idolaters and have a king, and are tributary to nobody; and have a peculiar language. We will tell you particulars about their manners and their products, and you will better understand things now because we are drawing near to places that are not so outlandish.[NOTE 1]

There is no proper harbour in the country, but there are many great rivers with good estuaries, wide and deep.[NOTE 2] Pepper and ginger grow there, and other spices in quantities.[NOTE 3] The King is rich in treasure, but not very strong in forces. The approach to his kingdom however is so strong by nature that no one can attack him, so he is afraid of nobody.

And you must know that if any ship enters their estuary and anchors there, having been bound for some other port, they seize her and plunder the cargo. For they say, "You were bound for somewhere else, and 'tis God has sent you hither to us, so we have a right to all your goods." And they think it no sin to act thus. And this naughty custom prevails all over these provinces of India, to wit, that if a ship be driven by stress of weather into some other port than that to which it was bound, it is sure to be plundered. But if a ship come bound originally to the place they receive it with all honour and give it due protection.[NOTE 4] The ships of Manzi and other countries that come hither in summer lay in their cargoes in 6 or 8 days and depart as fast as possible, because there is no harbour other than the river-mouth, a mere roadstead and sandbanks, so that it is perilous to tarry there. The ships of Manzi indeed are not so much afraid of these roadsteads as others are, because they have such huge wooden anchors which hold in all weather.[NOTE 5]

There are many lions and other wild beasts here and plenty of game, both beast and bird.

NOTE 1.—No city or district is now known by the name of ELY, but the name survives in that of Mount Dely, properly Monte d'ELY, the Yeli-mala of the Malabar people, and called also in the legends of the coast Sapta-shaila, or the Seven Hills. This is the only spur of the Ghats that reaches the sea within the Madras territory. It is an isolated and very conspicuous hill, or cluster of hills, forming a promontory some 16 miles north of Cananore, the first Indian land seen by Vasco da Gama, on that memorable August morning in 1498, and formerly very well known to navigators, though it has been allowed to drop out of some of our most ambitious modern maps. Abulfeda describes it as "a great mountain projecting into the sea, and descried from a great distance, called Ras Haili"; and it appears in Fra Mauro's map as Cavo de Eli.

Rashiduddin mentions "the country of Hili," between Manjarur (Mangalore) and Fandaraina (miswritten in Elliot's copy Sadarsa). Ibn Batuta speaks of Hili, which he reached on leaving Manjarur, as "a great and well-built city, situated on a large estuary accessible to great ships. The vessels of China come hither; this, Kaulam, and Kalikut, are the only ports that they enter." From Hili he proceeds 12 miles further down the coast to Jor-fattan, which probably corresponds to Baliapatan. ELLY appears in the Carta Catalana, and is marked as a Christian city. Nicolo Conti is the last to speak distinctly of the city. Sailing from Cambay, in 20 days he arrived at two cities on the sea-shore, Pacamuria (Faknur, of Rashid and Firishta, Baccanor of old books, and now Barkur, the Malayalim Vakkanur) and HELLI. But we read that in 1527 Simon de Melo was sent to burn ships in the River of Marabia and at Monte d'Elli.[1] When Da Gama on his second voyage was on his way from Baticala (in Canara) to Cananor, a squall having sprung his mainmast just before reaching Mt. d'Ely, "the captain-major anchored in the Bay of Marabia, because he saw there several Moorish ships, in order to get a mast from them." It seems clear that this was the bay just behind Mt. d'Ely.

Indeed the name of Marabia or Marawi is still preserved in Madavi or Madai, corruptly termed Maudoy in some of our maps, a township upor the river which enters the bay about 7 or 8 miles south-east of Mt. d'Ely, and which is called by De Barros the Rio Marabia. Mr. Ballard informs me that he never heard of ruins of importance at Madai, but there is a place on the river just mentioned, and within the Madai township, called Payangadi ("Old Town"), which has the remains of an old fort of the Kolastri (or Kolatiri) Rajas. A palace at Madai (perhaps this fort) is alluded to by Dr. Gundert in the Madras Journal, and a Buddhist Vihara is spoken of in an old Malayalim poem as having existed at the same place. The same paper speaks of "the famous emporium of Cachilpatnam near Mt. d'Ely," which may have been our city of Hili, as the cities Hili and Marawi were apparently separate though near.[2]



The state of Hili-Marawi is also mentioned in the Arabic work on the early history of the Mahomedans in Malabar, called Tuhfat-al-Mujahidin, and translated by Rowlandson; and as the Prince is there called Kolturee, this would seem to identify him either in family or person with the Raja of Cananor, for that old dynasty always bore the name of Kolatiri.[3]

The Ramusian version of Barbosa is very defective here, but in Stanley's version (Hak. Soc. East African and Malabar Coasts, p. 149) we find the topography in a passage from a Munich MS. clear enough: "After passing this place" (the river of Nirapura or Nileshwaram) "along the coast is the mountain Dely (of Ely) on the edge of the sea; it is a round mountain, very lofty, in the midst of low land; all the ships of the Moors and Gentiles that navigate in this sea of India sight this mountain when coming from without, and make their reckoning by it; ... after this, at the foot of the mountain to the south, is a town called Marave, very ancient and well off, in which live Moors and Gentiles and Jews; these Jews are of the language of the country; it is a long time that they have dwelt in this place."

(Stanley's Correa, Hak. Soc. pp. 145, 312-313; Gildem. p. 185; Elliot, I. 68; I.B. IV. 81; Conti, p. 6; Madras Journal, XIII. No. 31, pp. 14, 99, 102, 104; De Barros, III. 9, cap. 6, and IV. 2, cap. 13; De Couto, IV. 5, cap. 4.)

NOTE 2.—This is from Pauthier's text, and the map with ch. xxi. illustrates the fact of the many wide rivers. The G.T. has "a good river with a very good estuary" or mouth. The latter word is in the G.T. faces, afterwards more correctly foces, equivalent to fauces. We have seen that Ibn Batuta also speaks of the estuary or inlet at Hili. It may have been either that immediately east of Mount d'Ely, communicating with Kavvayi and the Nileshwaram River, or the Madai River. Neither could be entered by vessels now, but there have been great littoral changes. The land joining Mt. d'Ely to the main is mere alluvium.

NOTE 3.—Barbosa says that throughout the kingdom of Cananor the pepper was of excellent quality, though not in great quantity. There was much ginger, not first-rate, which was called Hely from its growing about Mount d'Ely, with cardamoms (names of which, Ela in Sanskrit, Hel Persian, I have thought might be connected with that of the hill), mirobolans, cassia fistula, zerumbet, and zedoary. The two last items are two species of curcuma, formerly in much demand as aromatics; the last is, I believe, the setewale of Chaucer:—

"There was eke wexing many a spice, As clowe gilofre and Licorice, Ginger and grein de Paradis, Canell and setewale of pris, And many a spice delitable To eaten when men rise from table."—R. of the Rose.

The Hely ginger is also mentioned by Conti.

NOTE 4.—This piratical practice is noted by Abdurrazzak also: "In other parts (than Calicut) a strange practice is adopted. When a vessel sets sail for a certain point, and suddenly is driven by a decree of Divine Providence into another roadstead, the inhabitants, under the pretext that the wind has driven it thither, plunder the ship. But at Calicut every ship, whatever place it comes from, or wherever it may be bound, when it puts into this port, is treated like other vessels, and has no trouble of any kind to put up with" (p. 14). In 1673 Sivaji replied to the pleadings of an English embassy, that it was "against the Laws of Conchon" (Ptolemy's Pirate Coast!) "to restore any ships or goods that were driven ashore." (Fryer, p. 261.)

NOTE 5.—With regard to the anchors, Pauthier's text has just the opposite of the G.T. which we have preferred: "Les nefs du Manzi portent si grans ancres de fust, que il seuffrent moult de grans fortunes aus plajes" De Mailla says the Chinese consider their ironwood anchors to be much better than those of iron, because the latter are subject to strain. (Lett. Edif. XIV. 10.) Capt. Owen has a good word for wooden anchors. (Narr. of Voyages, etc., I. 385.)

[1] The Town of Monte d'Ely appears (Monte Dil) in Coronelli's Atlas (1690) from some older source. Mr. Burnell thinks Baliapatan (properly Valarpattanam) which is still a prosperous Mappila town, on a broad and deep river, must be Hili. I see a little difficulty in this. [Marabia at Monte Dely is often mentioned in Correa, as one of the ports of the Kingdom of Cananor.]

[2] Mr. Burnell thinks Kachchilpattanam must be an error (easy in Malayalim) for Kavvilpattanam, i.e. Kavvayi (Kanwai in our map).

[3] As printed by Rowlandson, the name is corrupt (like many others in the book), being given as Hubaee Murawee. But suspecting what this pointed to, I examined the MS. in the R.A. Society's Library. The knowledge of the Arabic character was quite sufficient to enable me to trace the name as [Arabic], Hili Marawi. (See Rowlandson, pp. 54, 58-59, and MS. pp. 23 and 26, also Indian Antiquary, III. p. 213.)



CHAPTER XXV.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF MELIBAR.

Melibar is a great kingdom lying towards the west. The people are Idolaters; they have a language of their own, and a king of their own, and pay tribute to nobody.[NOTE 1]

In this country you see more of the North Star, for it shows two cubits above the water. And you must know that from this kingdom of Melibar, and from another near it called Gozurat, there go forth every year more than a hundred corsair vessels on cruize. These pirates take with them their wives and children, and stay out the whole summer. Their method is to join in fleets of 20 or 30 of these pirate vessels together, and then they form what they call a sea cordon,[NOTE 2] that is, they drop off till there is an interval of 5 or 6 miles between ship and ship, so that they cover something like an hundred miles of sea, and no merchant ship can escape them. For when any one corsair sights a vessel a signal is made by fire or smoke, and then the whole of them make for this, and seize the merchants and plunder them. After they have plundered them they let them go, saying: "Go along with you and get more gain, and that mayhap will fall to us also!" But now the merchants are aware of this, and go so well manned and armed, and with such great ships, that they don't fear the corsairs. Still mishaps do befall them at times.[NOTE 3]

There is in this kingdom a great quantity of pepper, and ginger, and cinnamon, and turbit, and of nuts of India.[NOTE 4] They also manufacture very delicate and beautiful buckrams. The ships that come from the east bring copper in ballast. They also bring hither cloths of silk and gold, and sendels; also gold and silver, cloves and spikenard, and other fine spices for which there is a demand here, and exchange them for the products of these countries.

Ships come hither from many quarters, but especially from the great province of Manzi.[NOTE 5] Coarse spices are exported hence both to Manzi and to the west, and that which is carried by the merchants to Aden goes on to Alexandria, but the ships that go in the latter direction are not one to ten of those that go to the eastward; a very notable fact that I have mentioned before.

Now I have told you about the kingdom of Melibar; we shall now proceed and tell you of the kingdom of Gozurat. And you must understand that in speaking of these kingdoms we note only the capitals; there are great numbers of other cities and towns of which we shall say nothing, because it would make too long a story to speak of all.

NOTE 1.—Here is another instance of that confusion which dislocates Polo's descriptions of the Indian coast; we shall recur to it under ch. xxx.

Malabar is a name given by the Arabs, and varies in its form: Ibn Batuta and Kazwini write it [Arabic], al-Malibar, Edrisi and Abulfeda [Arabic], al-Manibar, etc., and like variations occur among the old European travellers. The country so-called corresponded to the Kerala of the Brahmans, which in its very widest sense extended from about lat. 15 deg. to Cape Comorin. This, too, seems to be the extension which Abulfeda gives to Malabar, viz., from Hunawar to Kumhari; Rashiduddin includes Sindabur, i.e. Goa. But at a later date a point between Mt. d'Ely and Mangalore on the north, and Kaulam on the south, were the limits usually assigned to Malabar.

NOTE 2.—"Il font eschiel en la mer" (G.T.). Eschiel is the equivalent of the Italian schera or schiera, a troop or squadron, and thence applied to order of battle, whether by land or sea.

NOTE 3.—The northern part of Malabar, Canara, and the Konkan, have been nests of pirates from the time of the ancients to a very recent date. Padre Paolino specifies the vicinity of Mt. d'Ely as a special haunt of them in his day, the latter half of last century. Somewhat further north Ibn Batuta fell into their hands, and was stripped to his drawers.

NOTE 4.—There is something to be said about these Malabar spices. The cinnamon of Malabar is what we call cassia, the canella grossa of Conti, the canela brava of the Portuguese. Notices of it will be found in Rheede (I. 107) and in Garcia (f. 26 seqq.). The latter says the Ceylon cinnamon exceeded it in value as 4:1. Uzzano discriminates canella lunga, Salami, and Mabari. The Salami, I have no doubt, is Sailani, Ceylonese; and as we do not hear of any cassia from Mabar, probably the last was Malabar cinnamon.

Turbit: Radex Turpethi is still known in pharmacy, at least in some parts of the Continent and in India, though in England obsolete. It is mentioned in the Pharmacopoeia of India (1868) as derived from Ipomoea Turpethum.

But it is worthy of note that Ramusio has cubebs instead of turbit. The former does not seem now to be a product of Western India, though Garcia says that a small quantity grew there, and a Dutch report of 1675 in Valentyn also mentions it as an export of Malabar. (V., Ceylon, p. 243.) There is some ambiguity in statements about it, because its popular name Kabab-chini seems to be also applied to the cassia bud. Cubeb pepper was much used in the Middle Ages as a spice, and imported into Europe as such. But the importation had long practically ceased, when its medical uses became known during the British occupation of Java, and the demand was renewed.

Budaeus and Salmasius have identified this drug with the [Greek: komakon], which Theophrastus joins with cinnamomum and cassia as an ingredient in aromatic confections. The inducement to this identification was no doubt the singular resemblance which the word bears to the Javanese name of cubeb pepper, viz., Kumukus. If the foundation were a little firmer this would be curious evidence of intercourse and trade with Java in a time earlier than that of Theophrastus, viz., the 4th century B.C.

In the detail of 3 cargoes from Malabar that arrived at Lisbon in September 1504 we find the following proportions: Pepper, 10,000 cantars; cinnamon, 500; cloves, 450; zz. (i.e. zenzaro, ginger), 130; lac and brazil, 750; camphor, 7; cubebs, 191; mace, 2-1/2; spikenard, 3; lign-aloes, 1-1/3.

(Buchanan's Mysore, II. 31, III. 193, and App. p. v.; Garcia, Ital. version, 1576, f. 39-40; Salmas. Exerc. Plin. p. 923; Bud. on Theoph. 1004 and 1010; Archiv. St. Ital., Append. II. p. 19.)

NOTE 5.—We see that Marco speaks of the merchants and ships of Manzi, or Southern China, as frequenting Kaulam, Hili, and now Malabar, of which Calicut was the chief port. This quite coincides with Ibn Batuta, who says those were the three ports of India which the Chinese junks frequented, adding Fandaraina (i.e. Pandarani, or Pantalani, 16 miles north of Calicut), as a port where they used to moor for the winter when they spent that season in India. By the winter he means the rainy season, as Portuguese writers on India do by the same expression (IV. 81, 88, 96). I have been unable to find anything definite as to the date of the cessation of this Chinese navigation to Malabar, but I believe it may be placed about the beginning of the 15th century. The most distinct allusion to it that I am aware of is in the information of Joseph of Cranganore, in the Novus Orbis (Ed. of 1555, p. 208). He says: "These people of Cathay are men of remarkable energy, and formerly drove a first-rate trade at the city of Calicut. But the King of Calicut having treated them badly, they quitted that city, and returning shortly after inflicted no small slaughter on the people of Calicut, and after that returned no more. After that they began to frequent Mailapetam, a city subject to the king of Narsingha; a region towards the East, ... and there they now drive their trade." There is also in Caspar Correa's account of the Voyages of Da Gama a curious record of a tradition of the arrival in Malabar more than four centuries before of a vast merchant fleet "from the parts of Malacca, and China, and the Lequeos" (Lewchew); many from the company on board had settled in the country and left descendants. In the space of a hundred years none of these remained; but their sumptuous idol temples were still to be seen. (Stanley's Transl., Hak. Soc., p. 147.)[1] It is probable that both these stories must be referred to those extensive expeditions to the western countries with the object of restoring Chinese influence which were despatched by the Ming Emperor Ch'eng-Tsu (or Yung-lo), about 1406, and one of which seems actually to have brought Ceylon under a partial subjection to China, which endured half a century. (See Tennent, I. 623 seqq.; and Letter of P. Gaubil in J.A. ser. II. tom. x. pp. 327-328.) ["So that at this day there is great memory of them in the ilands Philippinas, and on the cost of Coromande, which is the cost against the kingdome of Norsinga towards the sea of Cengala: whereas is a towne called unto this day the soile of the Chinos, for that they did reedifie and make the same. The like notice and memory is there in the kingdom of Calicut, whereas be many trees and fruits, that the naturals of that countrie do say, were brought thither by the Chinos, when that they were lords and gouernours of that countrie." (Mendoza, Parke's transl. p. 71.)] De Barros says that the famous city of Diu was built by one of the Kings of Guzerat whom he calls in one place Dariar Khan, and in another Peruxiah, in memory of victory in a sea-fight with the Chinese who then frequented the Indian shores. It is difficult to identify this King, though he is represented as the father of the famous toxicophagous Sultan Mahmud Begara (1459-1511). De Barros has many other allusions to Chinese settlements and conquests in India which it is not very easy to account for. Whatever basis of facts there is must probably refer to the expeditions of Ch'eng-Tsu, but not a little probably grew out of the confusion of Jainas and Chinas already alluded to; and to this I incline to refer Correa's "sumptuous idol-temples."

There must have been some revival of Chinese trade in the last century, if P. Paolino is correct in speaking of Chinese vessels frequenting Travancore ports for pepper. (De Barros, Dec. II. Liv. ii. cap. 9, and Dec. IV. Liv. v. cap. 3; Paolino, p. 74.)

[1] It appears from a paper in the Mackenzie MSS. that down to Colonel Mackenzie's time there was a tribe in Calicut whose ancestors were believed to have been Chinese. (See Taylor's Catal. Raisonne, III. 664.) And there is a notable passage in Abdurrazzak which says the seafaring population of Calicut were nicknamed Chini bachagan, "China boys." (India in XVth Cent. p. 19.)



CHAPTER XXVI.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOZURAT.

Gozurat is a great kingdom. The people are Idolaters and have a peculiar language, and a king of their own, and are tributary to no one. It lies towards the west, and the North Star is here still more conspicuous, showing itself at an altitude of about 6 cubits.[NOTE 1]

The people are the most desperate pirates in existence, and one of their atrocious practices is this. When they have taken a merchant-vessel they force the merchants to swallow a stuff called Tamarindi mixed in sea-water, which produces a violent purging.[NOTE 2] This is done in case the merchants, on seeing their danger, should have swallowed their most valuable stones and pearls. And in this way the pirates secure the whole.

In this province of Gozurat there grows much pepper, and ginger, and indigo. They have also a great deal of cotton. Their cotton trees are of very great size, growing full six paces high, and attaining to an age of 20 years. It is to be observed however that, when the trees are so old as that, the cotton is not good to spin, but only to quilt or stuff beds withal. Up to the age of 12 years indeed the trees give good spinning cotton, but from that age to 20 years the produce is inferior.[NOTE 3]



They dress in this country great numbers of skins of various kinds, goat-skins, ox-skins, buffalo and wild ox-skins, as well as those of unicorns and other animals. In fact so many are dressed every year as to load a number of ships for Arabia and other quarters. They also work here beautiful mats in red and blue leather, exquisitely inlaid with figures of birds and beasts, and skilfully embroidered with gold and silver wire. These are marvellously beautiful things; they are used by the Saracens to sleep upon, and capital they are for that purpose. They also work cushions embroidered with gold, so fine that they are worth six marks of silver a piece, whilst some of those sleeping-mats are worth ten marks.[NOTE 4]

NOTE 1.—Again we note the topographical confusion. Guzerat is mentioned as if it were a province adjoining Malabar, and before arriving at Tana, Cambay, and Somnath; though in fact it includes those three cities, and Cambay was then its great mart. Wassaf, Polo's contemporary, perhaps acquaintance, speaks of Gujarat which is commonly called Kambayat. (Elliot, III. 31.)

NOTE 2.—["The origin of the name [Tamarina] is curious. It is Ar. tamar-u'l-Hind, 'date of India,' or perhaps rather, in Persian form, tamar-i-Hindi. It is possible that the original name may have been thamar, ('fruit') of India, rather than tamar, ('date')." (Hobson-Jobson.)]

NOTE 3.—The notice of pepper here is hard to explain. But Hiuen Tsang also speaks of Indian pepper and incense (see next chapter) as grown at 'Ochali which seems to be some place on the northern border of Guzerat (II. 161).

Marsden, in regard to the cotton, supposes here some confused introduction of the silk-cotton tree (Bombax or Salmalia, the Semal of Hindustan), but the description would be entirely inapplicable to that great forest tree. It is remarkable that nearly the same statement with regard to Guzerat occurs in Rashiduddin's sketch of India, as translated in Sir H. Elliot's History of India (ed. by Professor Dowson, I. 67): "Grapes are produced twice during the year, and the strength of the soil is such that cotton-plants grow like willows and plane-trees, and yield produce ten years running." An author of later date, from whom extracts are given in the same work, viz., Mahommed Masum in his History of Sind, describing the wonders of Siwi, says: "In Korzamin and Chhatur, which are districts of Siwi, cotton-plants grow as large as trees, insomuch that men pick the cotton mounted" (p. 237).

These would appear to have been plants of the species of true cotton called by Royle Gossipium arboreum and sometimes termed G. religiosum, from its being often grown in South India near temples or abodes of devotees; though the latter name has been applied also to the nankeen cotton. That of which we speak is, however, according to Dr. Cleghorn, termed in Mysore Deo kapas, of which G. religiosum would be a proper translation. It is grown in various parts of India, but generally rather for ornament than use. It is stated, however, to be specially used for the manufacture of turbans, and for the Brahmanical thread, and probably afforded the groundwork of the story told by Philostratus of the wild cotton which was used only for the sacred vestments of the Brahmans, and refused to lend itself to other uses. One of Royle's authorities (Mr. Vaupell) mentions that it was grown near large towns of Eastern Guzerat, and its wool regarded as the finest of any, and only used in delicate muslins. Tod speaks of it in Bikanir, and this kind of cotton appears to be grown also in China, as we gather from a passage in Amyot's Memoires (II. 606), which speaks of the "Cotonniers arbres, qui ne devoient etre fertiles qu'apres un bon nombre d'annees."

The height appears to have been a difficulty with Marsden, who refers to the G. arboreum, but does not admit that it could be intended. Yet I see in the English Cyclopaedia that to this species is assigned a height of 15 to 20 feet. Polo's six paces therefore, even if it means 30 feet as I think, is not a great exaggeration. (Royle, Cult. of Cotton, 144, 145, 152; Eng. Cycl. art. Gossypium.)

NOTE 4.—Embroidered and Inlaid leather-work for bed-covers, palankin mats and the like, is still a great manufacture in Rajkot and other places of Kattiawar in Peninsular Guzerat, as well as in the adjoining region of Sind. (Note from Sir Bartle Frere.) The embroidery of Guzerat is highly commended by Barbosa, Linschoten, and A. Hamilton.

The G.T. adds at the end of this passage: "E qe voz en diroi? Sachies tout voiremant qe en ceste reingne se labore roiaus dereusse de cuir et plus sotilment que ne fait en tout lo monde, e celz qe sunt de greingnors vailance."



CHAPTER XXVII.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF TANA.

Tana is a great kingdom lying towards the west, a kingdom great both in size and worth. The people are Idolaters, with a language of their own, and a king of their own, and tributary to nobody.[NOTE 1] No pepper grows there, nor other spices, but plenty of incense; not the white kind however, but brown.[NOTE 2]

There is much traffic here, and many ships and merchants frequent the place; for there is a great export of leather of various excellent kinds, and also of good buckram and cotton. The merchants in their ships also import various articles, such as gold, silver, copper, and other things in demand.

With the King's connivance many corsairs launch from this port to plunder merchants. These corsairs have a covenant with the King that he shall get all the horses they capture, and all other plunder shall remain with them. The King does this because he has no horses of his own, whilst many are shipped from abroad towards India; for no ship ever goes thither without horses in addition to other cargo. The practice is naughty and unworthy of a king.

NOTE 1.—The town of THANA, on the landward side of the island of Salsette, still exists, about 20 miles from Bombay. The Great Peninsular Railroad here crosses the strait which separates Salsette from the Continent.

The Konkan is no doubt what was intended by the kingdom of Thana. Albiruni speaks of that city as the capital of Konkan; Rashiduddin calls it Konkan-Tana, Ibn Batuta Kukin-Tana, the last a form which appears in the Carta Catalana as Cucintana. Tieffentaller writes Kokan, and this is said (Cunningham's Anc. Geog. 553) to be the local pronunciation. Abulfeda speaks of it as a very celebrated place of trade, producing a kind of cloth which was called Tanasi, bamboos, and Tabashir derived from the ashes of the bamboo.

As early as the 16th year of the Hijra (A.D. 637) an Arab fleet from Oman made a hostile descent on the Island of Thana, i.e. Salsette. The place (Sri Sthanaka) appears from inscriptions to have been the seat of a Hindu kingdom of the Konkan, in the 11th century. In Polo's time Thana seems to have been still under a Hindu prince, but it soon afterwards became subject to the Delhi sovereigns; and when visited by Jordanus and by Odoric some thirty years after Polo's voyage, a Mussulman governor was ruling there, who put to death four Franciscans, the companions of Jordanus. Barbosa gives it the compound name of TANA-MAIAMBU, the latter part being the first indication I know of the name of Bombay (Mambai). It was still a place of many mosques, temples, and gardens, but the trade was small. Pirates still did business from the port, but on a reduced scale. Botero says that there were the remains of an immense city to be seen, and that the town still contained 5000 velvet-weavers (p. 104). Till the Mahrattas took Salsette in 1737, the Portuguese had many fine villas about Thana.

Polo's dislocation of geographical order here has misled Fra Mauro into placing Tana to the west of Guzerat, though he has a duplicate Tana nearer the correct position.

NOTE 2.—It has often been erroneously supposed that the frankincense (olibanum) of commerce, for which Bombay and the ports which preceded it in Western India have for centuries afforded the chief mart, was an Indian product. But Marco is not making that mistake; he calls the incense of Western India brown, evidently in contrast with the white incense or olibanum, which he afterwards assigns to its true locality (infra. ch. xxxvii., xxxviii.). Nor is Marsden justified in assuming that the brown incense of Tana must needs have been Benzoin imported from Sumatra, though I observe Dr. Birdwood considers that the term Indian Frankincense which occurs in Dioscorides must have included Benzoin. Dioscorides describes the so-called Indian Frankincense as blackish; and Garcia supposes the name merely to refer to the colour, as he says the Arabs often gave the name of Indian to things of a dark colour.

There seems to be no proof that Benzoin was known even to the older Arab writers. Western India supplies a variety of aromatic gum-resins, one of which was probably intended by our traveller:

I. BOSWELLIA THURIFERA of Colebrooke, whose description led to a general belief that this tree produced the Frankincense of commerce. The tree is found in Oudh and Rohilkhand, in Bahar, Central India, Khandesh, and Kattiawar, etc. The gum-resin is used and sold locally as an incense, but is soft and sticky, and is not the olibanum of commerce; nor is it collected for exportation.

The Coromandel Boswellia glabra of Roxburgh is now included (see Dr. Birdwood's Monograph) as a variety under the B. thurifera. Its gum-resin is a good deal used as incense, in the Tamul regions, under the name of Kundrikam, with which is apparently connected Kundur, one of the Arabic words for olibanum (see ch. xxxviii., note 2).

II. Vateria Indica (Roxb.), producing a gum-resin which when recent is known as Piney Varnish, and when hardened, is sold for export under the names of Indian Copal, White Dammar, and others. Its northern limit of growth is North but the gum is exported from Bombay. The tree is the Chloroxylon Dupada of Buchanan, and is, I imagine, the Dupu or Incense Tree of Rheede. (Hort. Malab. IV.) The tree is a fine one, and forms beautiful avenues in Malabar and Canara. The Hindus use the resin as an incense, and in Malabar it is also made into candles which burn fragrantly and with little smoke. It is, or was, also used as pitch, and is probably the thus with which Indian vessels, according to Joseph of Cranganore (in Novus Orbis), were payed. Garcia took it for the ancient Cancamum, but this Dr. Birdwood identifies with the next, viz.:—

III. Gardenia lucida (Roxb.). It grows in the Konkan districts, producing a fragrant resin called Dikamali in India, and by the Arabs Kankham.

IV. Balsamodendron Mukul, growing in Sind, Kattiawar and the Deesa District, and producing the Indian Bdellium, Mukl of the Arabs and Persians, used as an incense and as a cordial medicine. It is believed to be the [Greek: Bdella] mentioned in the Periplus as exported from the Indus, and also as brought down with Costus through Ozene (Ujjain) to Barygaza (Baroch—see Mueller's Geog. Graec. Minor. I. 287, 293). It is mentioned also (Mukl) by Albiruni as a special product of Kachh, and is probably the incense of that region alluded to by Hiuen Tsang. (See last chapter, note 3.) It is of a yellow, red, or brownish colour. (Eng. Cyc. art. Bdellium; Dowson's Elliot, I. 66; Reinaud in J. As. ser. IV. tom. iv. p. 263).

V. Canarium strictum (Roxb.), of the Western Ghats, affording the Black Dammar of Malabar, which when fresh is aromatic and yellow in colour. It abounds in the country adjoining Tana. The natives use it as incense, and call the tree Dhup (incense) and Gugul (Bdellum).

Besides these resinous substances, the Costus of the Ancients may be mentioned (Sansk. Kushth), being still exported from Western India, as well as from Calcutta, to China, under the name of Putchok, to be burnt as incense in Chinese temples. Its identity has been ascertained in our own day by Drs. Royle and Falconer, as the root of a plant which they called Aucklandia Costus. But the identity of the Pucho (which he gives as the Malay name) with Costus was known to Garcia. Alex. Hamilton, at the beginning of last century, calls it Ligna Dulcis (sic), and speaks of it as an export from Sind, as did the author of the Periplus 1600 years earlier.

My own impression is that Mukl or Bdellium was the brown incense of Polo, especially because we see from Albiruni that this was regarded as a staple export from neighbouring regions. But Dr. Birdwood considers that the Black Dammar of Canarium strictum is in question. (Report on Indian Gum-Resins, by Mr. Dalzell of Bot. Gard. Bombay, 1866; Birdwood's Bombay Products, 2nd ed. pp. 282, 287, etc.; Drury's Useful Plants of India, 2nd ed.; Garcia; A. Hamilton, I. 127; Eng. Cyc., art. Putchuk; Buchanan's Journey, II. 44, 335, etc.)



CHAPTER XXVIII.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF CAMBAET.

Cambaet is a great kingdom lying further west. The people are Idolaters, and have a language of their own, and a king of their own, and are tributary to nobody.[NOTE 1]

The North Star is here still more clearly visible; and henceforward the further you go west the higher you see it.

There is a great deal of trade in this country. It produces indigo in great abundance; and they also make much fine buckram. There is also a quantity of cotton which is exported hence to many quarters; and there is a great trade in hides, which are very well dressed; with many other kinds of merchandize too tedious to mention. Merchants come here with many ships and cargoes, but what they chiefly bring is gold, silver, copper [and tutia].

There are no pirates from this country; the inhabitants are good people, and live by their trade and manufactures.

NOTE 1.—CAMBAET is nearer the genuine name of the city than our CAMBAY. Its proper Hindu name was, according to Colonel Tod, Khambavati, "the City of the Pillar." The inhabitants write it Kambayat. The ancient city is 3 miles from the existing Cambay, and is now overgrown with jungle. It is spoken of as a flourishing place by Mas'udi, who visited it in A.D. 915. Ibn Batuta speaks of it also as a very fine city, remarkable for the elegance and solidity of its mosques, and houses built by wealthy foreign merchants. Cambeth is mentioned by Polo's contemporary Marino Sanudo, as one of the two chief Ocean Ports of India; and in the 15th century Conti calls it 14 miles in circuit. It was still in high prosperity in the early part of the 16th century, abounding in commerce and luxury, and one of the greatest Indian marts. Its trade continued considerable in the time of Federici, towards the end of that century; but it has now long disappeared, the local part of it being transferred to Gogo and other ports having deeper water. Its chief or sole industry now is in the preparation of ornamental objects from agates, cornelians, and the like.

The Indigo of Cambay was long a staple export, and is mentioned by Conti, Nikitin, Santo Stefano, Federici, Linschoten, and Abu'l Fazl.

The independence of Cambay ceased a few years after Polo's visit; for it was taken in the end of the century by the armies of Alauddin Khilji of Delhi, a king whose name survived in Guzerat down to our own day as Alauddin Khuni—Bloody Alauddin. (Ras Mala, I. 235.)



CHAPTER XXIX.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF SEMENAT.

Semenat is a great kingdom towards the west. The people are Idolaters, and have a king and a language of their own, and pay tribute to nobody. They are not corsairs, but live by trade and industry as honest people ought. It is a place of very great trade. They are forsooth cruel Idolaters. [NOTE 1]



NOTE 1.—SOMNATH is the site of the celebrated Temple on the coast of Saurashtra, or Peninsular Guzerat, plundered by Mahmud of Ghazni on his sixteenth expedition to India (A.D. 1023). The term "great kingdom" is part of Polo's formula. But the place was at this time of some importance as a commercial port, and much visited by the ships of Aden, as Abulfeda tells us. At an earlier date Albiruni speaks of it both as the seat of a great Mahadeo much frequented by Hindu pilgrims, and as a port of call for vessels on their way from Sofala in Africa to China,—a remarkable incidental notice of departed trade and civilisation! He does not give Somnath so good a character as Polo does; for he names it as one of the chief pirate-haunts. And Colonel Tod mentions that the sculptured memorial stones on this coast frequently exhibit the deceased as a pirate in the act of boarding. In fact, piratical habits continued in the islands off the coast of Kattiawar down to our own day.

Properly speaking, three separate things are lumped together as Somnath: (1) The Port, properly called Verawal, on a beautiful little bay; (2) the City of Deva-Pattan, Somnath-Pattan, or Prabhas, occupying a prominence on the south side of the bay, having a massive wall and towers, and many traces of ancient Hindu workmanship, though the vast multitude of tombs around shows the existence of a large Mussulman population at some time; and among these are dates nearly as old as our Traveller's visit; (3) The famous Temple (or, strictly speaking, the object of worship in that Temple) crowning a projecting rock at the south-west angle of the city, and close to the walls. Portions of columns and sculptured fragments strew the soil around.

Notwithstanding the famous story of Mahmud and the image stuffed with jewels, there is little doubt that the idol really termed Somnath (Moon's Lord) was nothing but a huge columnar emblem of Mahadeo. Hindu authorities mention it as one of the twelve most famous emblems of that kind over India, and Ibn Asir's account, the oldest extant narrative of Mahmud's expedition, is to the same effect. Every day it was washed with water newly brought from the Ganges. Mahmud broke it to pieces, and with a fragment a step was made at the entrance of the Jami' Mosque at Ghazni.

The temples and idols of Pattan underwent a second visitation at the hands of Alauddin's forces a few years after Polo's visit (1300),[1] and this seems in great measure to have wiped out the memory of Mahmud. The temple, as it now stands deserted, bears evident tokens of having been converted into a mosque. A good deal of old and remarkable architecture remains, but mixed with Moslem work, and no part of the building as it stands is believed to be a survival from the time of Mahmud; though part may belong to a reconstruction which was carried out by Raja Bhima Deva of Anhilwara about twenty-five years after Mahmud's invasion. It is remarkable that Ibn Asir speaks of the temple plundered by Mahmud as "built upon 56 pillars of teak-wood covered with lead." Is it possible that it was a wooden building?

In connection with this brief chapter on Somnath we present a faithful representation of those Gates which Lord Ellenborough rendered so celebrated in connection with that name, when he caused them to be removed from the Tomb of Mahmud, on the retirement of our troops from Kabul in 1842. His intention, as announced in that once famous paean of his, was to have them carried solemnly to Guzerat, and there restored to the (long desecrated) temple. Calmer reflection prevailed, and the Gates were consigned to the Fort of Agra, where they still remain.

Captain J.D. Cunningham, in his Hist. of the Sikhs (p. 209), says that in 1831, when Shah Shuja treated with Ranjit Singh for aid to recover his throne, one of the Maharaja's conditions was the restoration of the Gates to Somnath. This probably put the scheme into Lord Ellenborough's head. But a remarkable fact is, that the Shah reminded Ranjit of a prophecy that foreboded the downfall of the Sikh Empire on the removal of the Ghazni Gates. This is quoted from a report of Captain Wade's, dated 21st November, 1831. The gates were removed to India in the end of 1842. The "Sikh Empire" practically collapsed with the murder of Sher Singh in September, 1843.

It is not probable that there was any real connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the illustration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable for its own character and indisputable history, as for the questionable origin ascribed to it. (Tod's Travels, 385, 504; Burgess, Visit to Somnath, etc.; Jacob's Report on Kattywar, p. 18; Gildemeister, 185; Dowson's Elliot, II. 468 seqq.; Asiatic Journal, 3rd series, vol. I.).

[1] So in Elliot, II. 74. But Jacob says there is an inscription of a Mussulman Governor in Pattan of 1297.



CHAPTER XXX.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF KESMACORAN.

Kesmacoran is a kingdom having a king of its own and a peculiar language. [Some of] the people are Idolaters, [but the most part are Saracens]. They live by merchandize and industry, for they are professed traders, and carry on much traffic by sea and land in all directions. Their food is rice [and corn], flesh and milk, of which they have great store. There is no more to be said about them.[NOTE 1]

And you must know that this kingdom of Kesmacoran is the last in India as you go towards the west and north-west. You see, from Maabar on, this province is what is called the GREATER INDIA, and it is the best of all the Indies. I have now detailed to you all the kingdoms and provinces and (chief) cities of this India the Greater, that are upon the seaboard; but of those that lie in the interior I have said nothing, because that would make too long a story.[NOTE 2]

And so now let us proceed, and I will tell you of some of the Indian Islands. And I will begin by two Islands which are called Male and Female.

NOTE 1.—Though M. Pauthier has imagined objections there is no room for doubt that Kesmacoran is the province of Mekran, known habitually all over the East as Kij-Makran, from the combination with the name of the country of that of its chief town, just as we lately met with a converse combination in Konkan-tana. This was pointed out to Marsden by his illustrious friend Major Rennell. We find the term Kij Makran used by Ibn Batuta (III. 47); by the Turkish Admiral Sidi 'Ali (J. As., ser. I. tom. ix. 72; and J.A.S.B. V. 463); by Sharifuddin (P. de la Croix, I. 379, II. 417-418); in the famous Sindian Romeo-and-Juliet tale of Sassi and Pannun (Elliot, I. 333); by Pietro della Valle (I. 724, II. 358); by Sir F. Goldsmid (J.R.A.S., N.S., I. 38); and see for other examples, J.A.S.B. VII. 298, 305, 308; VIII. 764; XIV. 158; XVII. pt. ii. 559: XX. 262, 263.

The argument that Mekran was not a province of India only amounts to saying that Polo has made a mistake. But the fact is that it often was reckoned to belong to India, from ancient down to comparatively modern times. Pliny says: "Many indeed do not reckon the Indus to be the western boundary of India, but include in that term also four satrapies on this side the river, the Gedrosi, the Arachoti, the Arii, and the Parapomisadae (i.e. Mekran, Kandahar, Herat, and Kabul) .... whilst others class all these together under the name of Ariana" (VI. 23). Arachosia, according to Isidore of Charax, was termed by the Parthians "White India." Aelian calls Gedrosia a part of India. (Hist. Animal. XVII. 6.) In the 6th century the Nestorian Patriarch Jesujabus, as we have seen (supra, ch. xxii. note 1), considered all to be India from the coast of Persia, i.e. of Fars, beginning from near the Gulf. According to Ibn Khordadbeh, the boundary between Persia and India was seven days' sail from Hormuz and eight from Daibul, or less than half-way from the mouth of the Gulf to the Indus. (J. As. ser. VI. tom. v. 283.) Beladhori speaks of the Arabs in early expeditions as invading Indian territory about the Lake of Sijistan; and Istakhri represents this latter country as bounded on the north and partly on the west by portions of India. Kabul was still reckoned in India. Chach, the last Hindu king of Sind but one, is related to have marched through Mekran to a river which formed the limit between Mekran and Kerman. On its banks he planted date-trees, and set up a monument which bore: "This was the boundary of Hind in the time of Chach, the son of Sflaij, the son of Basabas." In the Geography of Bakui we find it stated that "Hind is a great country which begins at the province of Mekran." (N. and E. II. 54.) In the map of Marino Sanuto India begins from Hormuz; and it is plain from what Polo says in quitting that city that he considered the next step from it south-eastward would have taken him to India (supra, I. p. 110).

["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.

In Polo's order, again, the positions of Comari and Coilum are transposed, whilst Melibar is introduced as if it were a country westward (as Polo views it, northward we should say)[1] of Coilum and Eli, instead of including them, and Gozurat is introduced as a country lying eastward (or southward, as we should say) of Tana, Cambaet, and Semenat, instead of including them, or at least the two latter. Moreover, he names no cities in connection with those two countries.

The following hypothesis, really not a complex one, is the most probable that I can suggest to account for these confusions.

I conceive, then, that Cape Comorin (Comari) was the first Indian land made by the fleet on the homeward voyage, and that Hili, Tana, Cambay, Somnath, were touched at successively as it proceeded towards Persia.

I conceive that in a former voyage to India on the Great Kaan's business Marco had visited Maabar and Kaulam, and gained partly from actual visits and partly from information the substance of the notices he gives us of Telingana and St Thomas's on the one side and of Malabar and Guzerat on the other, and that in combining into one series the results of the information acquired on two different voyages he failed rightly to co-ordinate the material, and thus those dislocations which we have noticed occurred, as they very easily might, in days when maps had practically no existence; to say nothing of the accidents of dictation.

The expression in this passage for "the cities that lie in the interior," is in the G.T. "celz qe sunt en fra terres"; see I. 43. Pauthier's text has "celles qui sont en ferme terre," which is nonsense here.

[1] Abulfeda's orientation is the same as Polo's.



CHAPTER XXXI.

DISCOURSETH OF THE TWO ISLANDS CALLED MALE AND FEMALE, AND WHY THEY ARE SO CALLED.

When you leave this kingdom of Kesmacoran, which is on the mainland, you go by sea some 500 miles towards the south; and then you find the two Islands, MALE and FEMALE, lying about 30 miles distant from one another. The people are all baptized Christians, but maintain the ordinances of the Old Testament; thus when their wives are with child they never go near them till their confinement, or for forty days thereafter.

In the Island however which is called Male, dwell the men alone, without their wives or any other women. Every year when the month of March arrives the men all set out for the other Island, and tarry there for three months, to wit, March, April, May, dwelling with their wives for that space. At the end of those three months they return to their own Island, and pursue their husbandry and trade for the other nine months.

They find on this Island very fine ambergris. They live on flesh and milk and rice. They are capital fishermen, and catch a great quantity of fine large sea-fish, and these they dry, so that all the year they have plenty of food, and also enough to sell to the traders who go thither. They have no chief except a bishop, who is subject to the archbishop of another Island, of which we shall presently speak, called SCOTRA. They have also a peculiar language.

As for the children which their wives bear to them, if they be girls they abide with their mothers; but if they be boys the mothers bring them up till they are fourteen, and then send them to the fathers. Such is the custom of these two Islands. The wives do nothing but nurse their children and gather such fruits as their Island produces; for their husbands do furnish them with all necessaries.[NOTE 1]

NOTE 1.—It is not perhaps of much use to seek a serious identification of the locality of these Islands, or, as Marsden has done, to rationalise the fable. It ran from time immemorial, and as nobody ever found the Islands, their locality shifted with the horizon, though the legend long hung about Socotra and its vicinity. Coronelli's Atlas (Venice, 1696) identifies these islands with those called Abdul Kuri near Cape Gardafui, and the same notion finds favour with Marsden. No islands indeed exist in the position indicated by Polo if we look to his direction "south of Kesmacoran," but if we take his indication of "half-way between Mekran and Socotra," the Kuria Muria Islands on the Arabian coast, in which M. Pauthier longs to trace these veritable Male and Female Isles, will be nearer than any others. Marco's statement that they had a bishop subject to the metropolitan of Socotra certainly looks as if certain concrete islands had been associated with the tale. Friar Jordanus (p. 44) also places them between India the Greater and India Tertia (i.e. with him Eastern Africa). Conti locates them not more than 5 miles from Socotra, and yet 100 mile distant from one another. "Sometimes the men pass over to the women, and sometimes the women pass over to the men, and each return to their own respective island before the expiration of six months. Those who remain on the island of the others beyond this fatal period die immediately" (p. 21). Fra Mauro places the islands to the south of Zanzibar, and gives them the names of Mangla and Nebila. One is curious to know whence came these names, one of which seems to be Sanskrit, the other (also in Sanudo's map) Arabic; (Nabilah, Ar., "Beautiful"; Mangala, Sansk. "Fortunate").

A savour of the story survived to the time of the Portuguese discoveries, and it had by that time attached itself to Socotra. (De Barros, Dec. II. Liv. i. cap. 3; Bartoli, H. della Comp. di Gesu, Asia, I. p. 37; P. Vincenzo, p. 443.)

The story was, I imagine, a mere ramification of the ancient and wide-spread fable of the Amazons, and is substantially the same that Palladius tells of the Brahmans; how the men lived on one side of the Ganges and the women on the other. The husbands visited their wives for 40 days only in June, July, and August, "those being their cold months, as the sun was then to the north." And when a wife had once borne a child the husband returned no more. (Mueller's Ps. Callisth. 105.) The Mahabharata celebrates the Amazon country of Rana Paramita, where the regulations were much as in Polo's islands, only male children were put to death, and men if they overstayed a month. (Wheelers India, I. 400.)

Hiuen Tsang's version of the legend agrees with Marco's in placing the Woman's Island to the south of Persia. It was called the Kingdom of Western Women. There were none but women to be seen. It was under Folin (the Byzantine Empire), and the ruler thereof sent husbands every year; if boys were born, the law prohibited their being brought up. (Vie et Voyages, p. 268.) Alexander, in Ferdusi's poem, visits the City of Women on an island in the sea, where no man was allowed.

The Chinese accounts, dating from the 5th century, of a remote Eastern Land called Fusang, which Neumann fancied to have been Mexico, mention that to the east of that region again there was a Woman's Island, with the usual particulars. (Lassen, IV. 751.) [Cf. G. Schlegel, Niu Kouo, T'oung Pao, III. pp. 495-510.—H.C.] Oddly enough, Columbus heard the same story of an island called Matityna or Matinino (apparently Martinique) which he sighted on his second voyage. The Indians on board "asserted that it had no inhabitants but women, who at a certain time of the year were visited by the Cannibals (Caribs); if the children born were boys they were brought up and sent to their fathers, if girls they were retained by the mothers. They reported also that these women had certain subterranean caverns in which they took refuge if any one went thither except at the established season," etc. (P. Martyr in Ramusio, III. 3 v. and see 85.) Similar Amazons are placed by Adam of Bremen on the Baltic Shores, a story there supposed to have originated in a confusion between Gwenland, i.e. Finland, and a land of Cwens or Women.

Mendoza heard of the like in the vicinity of Japan (perhaps the real Fusang story), though he opines judiciously that "this is very doubtful to be beleeved, although I have bin certified by religious men that have talked with persons that within these two yeares have beene at the saide ilands, and have seene the saide women." (H. of China, II. 301.) Lane quotes a like tale about a horde of Cossacks whose wives were said to live apart on certain islands in the Dnieper. (Arab. Nights, 1859, III. 479.) The same story is related by a missionary in the Lettres Edifiantes of certain unknown islands supposed to lie south of the Marian group. Pauthier, from whom I derive this last instance, draws the conclusion: "On voit que le recit de Marc Pol est loin d'etre imaginaire." Mine from the premises would be different!

Sometimes the fable took another form; in which the women are entirely isolated, as in that which Mela quotes from Hanno (III. 9). So with the Isle of Women which Kazwini and Bakui place to the South of China. They became enceinte by the Wind, or by eating a particular fruit [or by plunging into the sea; cf. Schlegel, l.c.—H.C.], or, as in a Chinese tradition related by Magaillans, by looking at their own faces in a well! The like fable is localised by the Malays in the island of Engano off Sumatra, and was related to Pigafetta of an island under Great Java called Ocoloro, perhaps the same.

(Magail. 76; Gildem. 196; N. et Ex. II. 398; Pigafetta, 173; Marsden's Sumatra, 1st ed. p. 264.)



CHAPTER XXXII.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF SCOTRA.

When you leave those two Islands and go about 500 miles further towards the south, then you come to an Island called SCOTRA. The people are all baptized Christians; and they have an Archbishop. They have a great deal of ambergris; and plenty also of cotton stuffs and other merchandize; especially great quantities of salt fish of a large and excellent kind. They also eat flesh and milk and rice, for that is their only kind of corn; and they all go naked like the other Indians.

[The ambergris comes from the stomach of the whale, and as it is a great object of trade, the people contrive to take the whales with barbed iron darts, which, once they are fixed in the body, cannot come out again. A long cord is attached to this end, to that a small buoy which floats on the surface, so that when the whale dies they know where to find it. They then draw the body ashore and extract the ambergris from the stomach and the oil from the head.[NOTE 1]]

There is a great deal of trade there, for many ships come from all quarters with goods to sell to the natives. The merchants also purchase gold there, by which they make a great profit; and all the vessels bound for Aden touch at this Island.

Their Archbishop has nothing to do with the Pope of Rome, but is subject to the great Archbishop who lives at Baudas. He rules over the Bishop of that Island, and over many other Bishops in those regions of the world, just as our Pope does in these.[NOTE 2]

A multitude of corsairs frequent the Island; they come there and encamp and put up their plunder to sale; and this they do to good profit, for the Christians of the Island purchase it, knowing well that it is Saracen or Pagan gear.[NOTE 3]

And you must know that in this Island there are the best enchanters in the world. It is true that their Archbishop forbids the practice to the best of his ability; but 'tis all to no purpose, for they insist that their forefathers followed it, and so must they also. I will give you a sample of their enchantments. Thus, if a ship be sailing past with a fair wind and a strong, they will raise a contrary wind and compel her to turn back. In fact they make the wind blow as they list, and produce great tempests and disasters; and other such sorceries they perform, which it will be better to say nothing about in our Book.[NOTE 4]

NOTE 1.—Mr. Blyth appears to consider that the only whale met with nowadays in the Indian Sea north of the line is a great Rorqual or Balaenoptera, to which he gives the specific name of Indica. (See J.A.S.B. XXVIII. 481.) The text, however (from Ramusio), clearly points to the Spermaceti whale; and Maury's Whale-Chart consists with this.

"The best ambergris," says Mas'udi, "is found on the islands and coasts of the Sea of Zinj (Eastern Africa); it is round, of a pale blue, and sometimes as big as an ostrich egg.... These are morsels which have been swallowed by the fish called Awal. When the sea is much agitated it casts up fragments of amber almost like lumps of rock, and the fish swallowing these is choked thereby, and floats on the surface. The men of Zinj, or wherever it be, then come in their canoes, and fall on the creature with harpoons and cables, draw it ashore, cut it up, and extract the ambergris" (I. 134).

Kazwini speaks of whales as often imprisoned by the ebb tide in the channels about Basra. The people harpooned them, and got much oil out of the brain, which they used for lamps, and smearing their ships. This also is clearly the sperm whale. (Ethe, p. 268.)

After having been long doubted, scientific opinion seems to have come back to the opinion that ambergris is an excretion from the whale. "Ambergris is a morbid secretion in the intestines of the cachalot, deriving its origin either from the stomach or biliary ducts, and allied in its nature to gall-stones, ... whilst the masses found floating on the sea are those that have been voided by the whale, or liberated from the dead animal by the process of putrefaction." (Bennett, Whaling Voyage Round the Globe, 1840, II. 326.)

["The Pen ts'ao, ch. xliii. fol. 5, mentions ambergris under the name lung sien hiang (dragon's saliva perfume), and describes it as a sweet-scented product, which is obtained from the south-western sea. It is greasy, and at first yellowish white; when dry, it forms pieces of a yellowish black colour. In spring whole herds of dragons swim in that sea, and vomit it out. Others say that it is found in the belly of a large fish. This description also doubtless points to ambergris, which in reality is a pathological secretion of the intestines of the spermaceti whale (Physeter macrocephalus), a large cetaceous animal. The best ambergris is collected on the Arabian coast. In the Ming shi (ch. cccxxvi.) lung sien hiang is mentioned as a product of Bu-la-wa (Brava on the east coast of Africa), and an-ba-rh (evidently also ambergris) amongst the products of Dsu-fa-rh (Dsahfar, on the south coast of Arabia)." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 152, note.)—H.C.]

NOTE 2.—Scotra probably represented the usual pronunciation of the name SOCOTRA, which has been hypothetically traced to a Sanskrit original, Dvipa-Sukhadhara, "the Island Abode of Bliss," from which (contracted Diuskadra) the Greeks made "the island of Dioscorides."

So much painful interest attaches to the history of a people once Christian, but now degenerated almost to savagery, that some detail maybe permitted on this subject.

The Periplus calls the island very large, but desolate; ... the inhabitants were few, and dwelt on the north side. They were of foreign origin, being a mixture of Arabs, Indians, and Greeks, who had come thither in search of gain.... The island was under the king of the Incense Country.... Traders came from Muza (near Mocha) and sometimes from Limyrica and Barygaza (Malabar and Guzerat), bringing rice, wheat, and Indian muslins, with female slaves, which had a ready sale. Cosmas (6th century) says there was in the island a bishop, appointed from Persia. The inhabitants spoke Greek, having been originally settled there by the Ptolemies. "There are clergy there also, ordained and sent from Persia to minister among the people of the island, and a multitude of Christians. We sailed past the island, but did not land. I met, however, with people from it who were on their way to Ethiopia, and they spoke Greek."

The ecclesiastical historian Nicephorus Callistus seems to allude to the people of Socotra, when he says that among the nations visited by the missionary Theophilus, in the time of Constantius, were "the Assyrians on the verge of the outer ocean towards the East ... whom Alexander the Great, after driving them from Syria, sent thither to settle, and to this day they keep their mother tongue, though all of the blackest, through the power of the sun's rays." The Arab voyagers of the 9th century say that the island was colonised with Greeks by Alexander the Great, in order to promote the culture of the Socotrine aloes; when the other Greeks adopted Christianity these did likewise, and they had continued to retain their profession of it. The colonising by Alexander is probably a fable, but invented to account for facts.

[Edrisi says (Jaubert's transl. pp. 47, seqq.) that the chief produce of Socotra is aloes, and that most of the inhabitants of this island are Christians; for this reason: when Alexander had subjugated Porus, his master Aristotle gave him the advice to seek after the island producing aloes; after his conquest of India, Alexander remembered the advice, and on his return journey from the Sea of India to the Sea of Oman, he stopped at Socotra, which he greatly admired for its fertility and the pleasantness of its climate. Acting on the advice of Aristotle, Alexander removed the inhabitants from their island, and established in their place a colony of Ionians, to whom he entrusted the care of cultivating aloes. These Greeks were converted when the Christian religion was preached to them, and their descendants have remained Christians.—H.C.]

In the list of the metropolitan Sees of the Nestorian Church we find one called Kotrobah, which is supposed to stand for Socotra. According to Edrisi, Kotrobah was an island inhabited by Christians; he speaks of Socotra separately, but no island suits his description of Kotrobah but Socotra itself; and I suspect that we have here geography in duplicate, no uncommon circumstance. There is an epistle extant from the Nestorian Patriarch Jesujabus (A.D. 650-660), ad Episcopos Catarensium, which Assemani interprets of the Christians in Socotra and the adjacent coasts of Arabia (III. 133).[1] Abulfeda says the people of Socotra were Nestorian Christians and pirates. Nicolo Conti, in the first half of the 15th century, spent two months on the island (Sechutera). He says it was for the most part inhabited by Nestorian Christians.

[Professor W.R. Smith, in a letter to Sir H. Yule, dated Cambridge, 15th June, 1886, writes: "The authorities for Kotrobah seem to be (1) Edrisi, (2) the list of Nestorian Bishops in Assemani. There is no trace of such a name anywhere else that I can find. But there is a place called Katar about which most of the Arab Geographers know very little, but which is mentioned in poetry. Bekri, who seems best informed, says that it lay between Bahrain and Oman.... Istakhri and Ibn Haukal speak of the Katar pirates. Their collective name is the Katariya."]

Some indications point rather to a connection of the island's Christianity with the Jacobite or Abyssinian Church. Thus they practised circumcision, as mentioned by Maffei in noticing the proceedings of Alboquerque at Socotra. De Barros calls them Jacobite Christians of the Abyssinian stock. Barbosa speaks of them as an olive-coloured people, Christian only in name, having neither baptism nor Christian knowledge, and having for many years lost all acquaintance with the Gospel. Andrea Corsali calls them Christian shepherds of Ethiopian race, like Abyssinians. They lived on dates, milk, and butter; some rice was imported. They had churches like mosques, but with altars in Christian fashion.

When Francis Xavier visited the island there were still distinct traces of the Church. The people reverenced the cross, placing it on their altars, and hanging it round their necks. Every village had its minister, whom they called Kashis (Ar. for a Christian Presbyter), to whom they paid tithe. No man could read. The Kashis repeated prayers antiphonetically in a forgotten tongue, which De Barros calls Chaldee, frequently scattering incense; a word like Alleluia often recurred. For bells they used wooden rattles. They assembled in their churches four times a day, and held St. Thomas in great veneration. The Kashises married, but were very abstemious. They had two Lents, and then fasted strictly from meat, milk, and fish.

The last vestiges of Christianity in Socotra, so far as we know, are those traced by P. Vincenzo, the Carmelite, who visited the island after the middle of the 17th century. The people still retained a profession of Christianity, but without any knowledge, and with a strange jumble of rites; sacrificing to the moon; circumcising; abominating wine and pork. They had churches which they called Moquame (Ar. Makam, "Locus, Statio"?), dark, low, and dirty, daily anointed with butter. On the altar was a cross and a candle. The cross was regarded with ignorant reverence, and carried in processions. They assembled in their churches three times in the day, and three times in the night, and in their worship burned much incense, etc. The priests were called Odambo, elected and consecrated by the people, and changed every year. Of baptism and other sacraments they had no knowledge.

There were two races: one, black with crisp hair; the other, less black, of better aspect, and with straight hair. Each family had a cave in which they deposited their dead. They cultivated a few palms, and kept flocks; had no money, no writing, and kept tale of their flocks by bags of stones. They often committed suicide in age, sickness, or defeat. When rain failed they selected a victim by lot, and placing him within a circle, addressed prayers to the moon. If without success they cut off the poor wretch's hands. They had many who practised sorcery. The women were all called Maria, which the author regarded as a relic of Christianity; this De Barros also notices a century earlier.

Now, not a trace of former Christianity can be discovered—unless it be in the name of one of the villages on the coast, Colesseeah, which looks as if it faintly commemorated both the ancient religion and the ancient language ([Greek: ekklaesia]). The remains of one building, traditionally a place of worship, were shown to Wellsted; he could find nothing to connect it with Christianity.

The social state of the people is much as Father Vincenzo described it; lower it could scarcely be. Mahomedanism is now the universal profession. The people of the interior are still of distinct race, with curly hair, Indian complexion, regular features. The coast people are a mongrel body, of Arab and other descent. Probably in old times the case was similar, and the civilisation and Greek may have been confined to the littoral foreigners. (Mueller's Geog. Gr. Minores, I. pp. 280-281; Relations, I. 139-140; Cathay, clxxi., ccxlv. 169; Conti, 20; Maffei, lib. III.; Buesching, IV. 278; Faria, I. 117-118; Ram. I. f. 181 v. and 292; Jarric, Thes. Rer. Indic. I. 108-109; P. Vinc. 132, 442; J.R.G.S. V. 129 seqq.)

NOTE 3.—As far back as the 10th century Socotra was a noted haunt of pirates. Mas'udi says: "Socotra is one of the stations frequented by the Indian corsairs called Bawarij, which chase the Arab ships bound for India and China, just as the Greek galleys chase the Mussulmans in the sea of Rum along the coasts of Syria and Egypt" (III. 37). The Bawarij were corsairs of Kach'h and Guzerat, so called from using a kind of war-vessel called Barja. (Elliot, I. 65.) Ibn Batuta tells a story of a friend of his, the Shaikh Sa'id, superior of a convent at Mecca, who had been to India and got large presents at the court of Delhi. With a comrade called Hajji Washl, who was also carrying a large sum to buy horses, "when they arrived at the island of Socotra ... they were attacked by Indian corsairs with a great number of vessels.... The corsairs took everything out of the ship, and then left it to the crew with its tackle, so that they were able to reach Aden." Ibn Batuta's remark on this illustrates what Polo has said of the Malabar pirates, in ch. xxv. supra: "The custom of these pirates is not to kill or drown anybody when the actual fighting is over. They take all the property of the passengers, and then let them go whither they will with their vessel" (I. 362-363).

NOTE 4.—We have seen that P. Vincenzo alludes to the sorceries of the people; and De Barros also speaks of the feiticeria or witchcraft by which the women drew ships to the island, and did other marvels (u.s.).

[1] [Assemani, in his corrections (III. p. 362), gives up Socotra in favour of Bactria.]



CHAPTER XXXIII.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF MADEIGASCAR.

Madeigascar is an Island towards the south, about a thousand miles from Scotra. The people are all Saracens, adoring Mahommet. They have four Esheks, i.e. four Elders, who are said to govern the whole Island. And you must know that it is a most noble and beautiful Island, and one of the greatest in the world, for it is about 4000 miles in compass. The people live by trade and handicrafts.

In this Island, and in another beyond it called ZANGHIBAR, about which we shall tell you afterwards, there are more elephants than in any country in the world. The amount of traffic in elephants' teeth in these two Islands is something astonishing.

In this Island they eat no flesh but that of camels; and of these they kill an incredible number daily. They say it is the best and wholesomest of all flesh; and so they eat of it all the year round.[NOTE 1]

They have in this Island many trees of red sanders, of excellent quality; in fact, all their forests consist of it.[NOTE 2] They have also a quantity of ambergris, for whales are abundant in that sea, and they catch numbers of them; and so are Oil-heads, which are a huge kind of fish, which also produce ambergris like the whale.[NOTE 3] There are numbers of leopards, bears, and lions in the country, and other wild beasts in abundance. Many traders, and many ships go thither with cloths of gold and silk, and many other kinds of goods, and drive a profitable trade.

You must know that this Island lies so far south that ships cannot go further south or visit other Islands in that direction, except this one, and that other of which we have to tell you, called Zanghibar. This is because the sea-current runs so strong towards the south that the ships which should attempt it never would get back again. Indeed, the ships of Maabar which visit this Island of Madeigascar, and that other of Zanghibar, arrive thither with marvellous speed, for great as the distance is they accomplish it in 20 days, whilst the return voyage takes them more than 3 months. This (I say) is because of the strong current running south, which continues with such singular force and in the same direction at all seasons.[NOTE 4]

'Tis said that in those other Islands to the south, which the ships are unable to visit because this strong current prevents their return, is found the bird Gryphon, which appears there at certain seasons. The description given of it is however entirely different from what our stories and pictures make it. For persons who had been there and had seen it told Messer Marco Polo that it was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its wings covered an extent of 30 paces, and its quills were 12 paces long, and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air, and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him the bird gryphon swoops down on him and eats him at leisure. The people of those isles call the bird Ruc, and it has no other name.[NOTE 5] So I wot not if this be the real gryphon, or if there be another manner of bird as great. But this I can tell you for certain, that they are not half lion and half bird as our stories do relate; but enormous as they be they are fashioned just like an eagle.

The Great Kaan sent to those parts to enquire about these curious matters, and the story was told by those who went thither. He also sent to procure the release of an envoy of his who had been despatched thither, and had been detained; so both those envoys had many wonderful things to tell the Great Kaan about those strange islands, and about the birds I have mentioned. [They brought (as I heard) to the Great Kaan a feather of the said Ruc, which was stated to measure 90 spans, whilst the quill part was two palms in circumference, a marvellous object! The Great Kaan was delighted with it, and gave great presents to those who brought it. [NOTE 6]] They also brought two boars' tusks, which weighed more than 14 lbs. apiece; and you may gather how big the boar must have been that had teeth like that! They related indeed that there were some of those boars as big as a great buffalo. There are also numbers of giraffes and wild asses; and in fact a marvellous number of wild beasts of strange aspect.[NOTE 7]

NOTE 1.—Marco is, I believe, the first writer European or Asiatic, who unambiguously speaks of MADAGASCAR; but his information about it was very incorrect in many particulars. There are no elephants nor camels in the island, nor any leopards, bears, or lions.

Indeed, I have no doubt that Marco, combining information from different sources, made some confusion between Makdashau (Magadoxo) and Madagascar, and that particulars belonging to both are mixed up here. This accounts for Zanghibar being placed entirely beyond Madagascar, for the entirely Mahomedan character given to the population, for the hippopotamus-teeth and staple trade in ivory, as well for the lions, elephants, and other beasts. But above all the camel-killing indicates Sumali Land and Magadoxo as the real locality of part of the information. Says Ibn Batuta: "After leaving Zaila we sailed on the sea for 15 days, and arrived at Makdashau, an extremely large town. The natives keep camels in great numbers, and they slaughter several hundreds daily" (II. 181). The slaughter of camels for food is still a Sumali practice. (See J.R.G.S. VI. 28, and XIX. 55.) Perhaps the Shaikhs (Esceqe) also belong to the same quarter, for the Arab traveller says that the Sultan of Makdashau had no higher title than Shaikh (183); and Brava, a neighbouring settlement, was governed by 12 shaikhs. (De Barros, I. viii. 4.) Indeed, this kind of local oligarchy still prevails on that coast.

We may add that both Makdashau and Brava are briefly described in the Annals of the Ming Dynasty. The former Mu-ku-tu-su, lies on the sea, 20 days from Siao-Kolan (Quilon?), a barren mountainous country of wide extent, where it sometimes does not rain for years. In 1427 a mission came from this place to China. Pu-la-wa (Brava, properly Barawa) adjoins the former, and is also on the sea. It produces olibanum, myrrh, and ambergris; and among animals elephants, camels, rhinoceroses, spotted animals like asses, etc.[1]

It is, however, true that there are traces of a considerable amount of ancient Arab colonisation on the shores of Madagascar. Arab descent is ascribed to a class of the people of the province of Matitanana on the east coast, in lat. 21 deg.-23 deg. south, and the Arabic writing is in use there. The people of the St. Mary's Isle of our maps off the east coast, in lat. 17 deg., also call themselves the children of Ibrahim, and the island Nusi-Ibrahim. And on the north-west coast, at Bambeluka Bay, Captain Owen found a large Arab population, whose forefathers had been settled there from time immemorial. The number of tombs here and in Magambo Bay showed that the Arab population had once been much greater. The government of this settlement, till conquered by Radama, was vested in three persons: one a Malagash, the second an Arab, the third as guardian of strangers; a fact also suggestive of Polo's four sheikhs (Ellis, I. 131; Owen, II. 102, 132. See also Sonnerat, II. 56.) Though the Arabs were in the habit of navigating to Sofala, in about lat. 20 deg. south, in the time of Mas'udi (beginning of 10th century), and must have then known Madagascar, there is no intelligible indication of it in any of their geographies that have been translated.[2]

[M. Alfred Grandidier, in his Hist. de la Geog. de Madagascar, p. 31, comes to the conclusion that Marco Polo has given a very exact description of Magadoxo, but that he did not know the island of Madagascar. He adds in a note that Yule has shown that the description of Madeigascar refers partly to Magadoxo, but that notwithstanding he (Yule) believed that Polo spoke of Madagascar when the Venetian traveller does not. I must say that I do not see any reason why Yule's theory should not be accepted.

M.G. Ferrand, formerly French Agent at Fort Dauphin, has devoted ch. ix. (pp. 83-90) of the second part of his valuable work Les Musulmans a Madagascar (Paris, 1893), to the "Etymology of Madagascar." He believes that M. Polo really means the great African Island. I mention from his book that M. Guet (Origines de l'ile Bourbon, 1888) brings the Carthaginians to Madagascar, and derives the name of this island from Madax-Aschtoret or Madax-Astarte, which signifies Isle of Astarte and Isle of Tanit! Mr. I. Taylor (The origin of the name 'Madagascar,' in Antananarivo Annual, 1891) gives also some fancy etymologies; it is needless to mention them. M. Ferrand himself thinks that very likely Madagascar simply means Country of the Malagash (Malgaches), and is only a bad transcription of the Arabic Madagasbar.—H.C.]

NOTE 2.—There is, or used to be, a trade in sandal-wood from Madagascar. (See Owen, II. 99.) In the map of S. Lorenzo (or Madagascar) in the Isole of Porcacchi (1576), a map evidently founded on fact, I observe near the middle of the Island: quivi sono boschi di sandari rossi.

NOTE 3.—"The coast of this province" (Ivongo, the N.E. of the Island) "abounds with whales, and during a certain period of the year Antongil Bay is a favourite resort for whalers of all nations. The inhabitants of Titingue are remarkably expert in spearing the whales from their slight canoes." (Lloyd in J.R.G.S. XX. 56.) A description of the whale-catching process practised by the Islanders of St. Mary's, or Nusi Ibrahim, is given in the Quinta Pars Indiae Orientalis of De Bry, p. 9. Owen gives a similar account (I. 170).

The word which I have rendered Oil-heads is Capdoilles or Capdols, representing Capidoglio, the appropriate name still applied in Italy to the Spermaceti whale. The Vocab. Ital. Univ. quotes Ariosto (VII. 36):—

—"I Capidogli co' vecchi marini Vengon turbati dal lor pigro sonno."

The Spermaceti-whale is described under this name by Rondeletius, but from his cut it is clear he had not seen the animal.

NOTE 4.—De Barros, after describing the dangers of the Channel of Mozambique, adds: "And as the Moors of this coast of Zanguebar make their voyages in ships and sambuks sewn with coir, instead of being nailed like ours, and thus strong enough to bear the force of the cold seas of the region about the Cape of Good Hope,.. they never dared to attempt the exploration of the regions to the westward of the Cape of Currents, although they greatly desired to do so." (Dec. I. viii. 4; and see also IV. i. 12.) Kazwini says of the Ocean, quoting Al Biruni: "Then it extends to the sea known as that of Berbera, and stretches from Aden to the furthest extremity of Zanjibar; beyond this goes no vessel on account of the great current. Then it extends to what are called the Mountains of the Moon, whence spring the sources of the Nile of Egypt, and thence to Western Sudan, to the Spanish Countries and the (Western) Ocean." There has been recent controversy between Captain A.D. Taylor and Commodore Jansen of the Dutch navy, regarding the Mozambique currents, and (incidentally) Polo's accuracy. The currents in the Mozambique Channel vary with the monsoons, but from Cape Corrientes southward along the coast runs the permanent Lagullas current, and Polo's statement requires but little correction. (Ethe pp. 214-215; see also Barbosa in Ram. I. 288; Owen, I. 269; Stanley's Correa, p. 261; J.R.G.S. II. 91; Fra Mauro in Zurla, p. 61; see also Reinaud's Abulfeda, vol. i. pp. 15-16; and Ocean Highways, August to November, 1873.)



NOTE 5.—The fable of the RUKH was old and widely spread, like that of the Male and Female Islands, and, just as in that case, one accidental circumstance or another would give it a local habitation, now here now there. The Garuda of the Hindus, the Simurgh of the old Persians, the 'Angka of the Arabs, the Bar Yuchre of the Rabbinical legends, the Gryps of the Greeks, were probably all versions of the same original fable.

Bochart quotes a bitter Arabic proverb which says, "Good-Faith, the Ghul, and the Gryphon ('Angka) are three names of things that exist nowhere." And Mas'udi, after having said that whatever country he visited he always found that the people believed these monstrous creatures to exist in regions as remote as possible from their own, observes: "It is not that our reason absolutely rejects the possibility of the existence of the Nesnas (see vol. i. p. 206) or of the 'Angka, and other beings of that rare and wondrous order; for there is nothing in their existence incompatible with the Divine Power; but we decline to believe in them because their existence has not been manifested to us on any irrefragable authority."



The circumstance which for the time localized the Rukh in the direction of Madagascar was perhaps some rumour of the great fossil Aepyornis and its colossal eggs, found in that island. According to Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the Malagashes assert that the bird which laid those great eggs still exists, that it has an immense power of flight, and preys upon the greater quadrupeds. Indeed the continued existence of the bird has been alleged as late as 1861 and 1863!

On the great map of Fra Mauro (1459) near the extreme point of Africa which he calls Cavo de Diab, and which is suggestive of the Cape of Good Hope, but was really perhaps Cape Corrientes, there is a rubric inscribed with the following remarkable story: "About the year of Our Lord 1420 a ship or junk of India in crossing the Indian Sea was driven by way of the Islands of Men and Women beyond the Cape of Diab, and carried between the Green Islands and the Darkness in a westerly and south-westerly direction for 40 days, without seeing anything but sky and sea, during which time they made to the best of their judgment 2000 miles. The gale then ceasing they turned back, and were seventy days in getting to the aforesaid Cape Diab. The ship having touched on the coast to supply its wants, the mariners beheld there the egg of a certain bird called Chrocho, which egg was as big as a butt.[3] And the bigness of the bird is such that between the extremities of the wings is said to be 60 paces. They say too that it carries away an elephant or any other great animal with the greatest ease, and does great injury to the inhabitants of the country, and is most rapid in its flight."

G.-St. Hilaire considered the Aepyornis to be of the Ostrich family; Prince C. Buonaparte classed it with the Inepti or Dodos; Duvernay of Valenciennes with aquatic birds! There was clearly therefore room for difference of opinion, and Professor Bianconi of Bologna, who has written much on the subject, concludes that it was most probably a bird of the vulture family. This would go far, he urges, to justify Polo's account of the Ruc as a bird of prey, though the story of it's lifting any large animal could have had no foundation, as the feet of the vulture kind are unfit for such efforts. Humboldt describes the habit of the condor of the Andes as that of worrying, wearying, and frightening its four-footed prey until it drops; sometimes the condor drives its victim over a precipice.

Bianconi concludes that on the same scale of proportion as the condor's, the great quills of the Aepyornis would be about 10 feet long, and the spread of the wings about 32 feet, whilst the height of the bird would be at least four times that of the condor. These are indeed little more than conjectures. And I must add that in Professor Owen's opinion there is no reasonable doubt that the Aepyornis was a bird allied to the Ostriches.

We gave, in the first edition of this work, a drawing of the great Aepyornis egg in the British Museum of its true size, as the nearest approach we could make to an illustration of the Rukh from nature. The actual contents of this egg will be about 2.35 gallons, which may be compared with Fra Mauro's anfora! Except in this matter of size, his story of the ship and the egg may be true.

A passage from Temple's Travels in Peru has been quoted as exhibiting exaggeration in the description of the condor surpassing anything that can be laid to Polo's charge here; but that is, in fact, only somewhat heavy banter directed against our traveller's own narrative. (See Travels in Various Parts of Peru, 1830, II. 414-417.)

Recently fossil bones have been found in New Zealand, which seem to bring us a step nearer to the realization of the Rukh. Dr. Haast discovered in a swamp at Glenmark in the province of Otago, along with remains of the Dinornis or Moa, some bones (femur, ungual phalanges, and rib) of a gigantic bird which he pronounces to be a bird of prey, apparently allied to the Harriers, and calls Harpagornis. He supposes it to have preyed upon the Moa, and as that fowl is calculated to have been 10 feet and upwards in height, we are not so very far from the elephant-devouring Rukh. (See Comptes Rendus, Ac. des Sciences 1872, p. 1782; and Ibis, October 1872, p. 433.) This discovery may possibly throw a new light on the traditions of the New Zealanders. For Professor Owen, in first describing the Dinornis in 1839, mentioned that the natives had a tradition that the bones belonged to a bird of the eagle kind. (See Eng. Cyc. Nat. Hist. sub. v. Dinornis.) And Sir Geo. Grey appears to have read a paper, 23rd October 1872,[4] which was the description by a Maori of the Hokiol, an extinct gigantic bird of prey of which that people have traditions come down from their ancestors, said to have been a black hawk of great size, as large as the Moa.