NOTE 4.—Kaempfer speaks of pearls being found in considerable numbers, chiefly about Satsuma, and in the Gulf of Omura, in Kiusiu. From what Alcock says they do not seem now to be abundant. (Ib. I. 95; Alcock, I. 200.) No precious stones are mentioned by Kaempfer.

Rose-tinted pearls are frequent among the Scotch pearls, and, according to Mr. King, those of this tint are of late the most highly esteemed in Paris. Such pearls were perhaps also most highly esteemed in old India; for red pearls (Lohitamukti) form one of the seven precious objects which it was incumbent to use in the adornment of Buddhistic reliquaries, and to distribute at the building of a Dagoba. (Nat. Hist. of Prec. Stones, etc., 263; Koeppen, I. 541.)



CHAPTER III.

WHAT FURTHER CAME OF THE GREAT KAAN'S EXPEDITION AGAINST CHIPANGU.

You see those who were left upon the Island, some 30,000 souls, as I have said, did hold themselves for dead men, for they saw no possible means of escape. And when the King of the Great Island got news how the one part of the expedition had saved themselves upon that Isle, and the other part was scattered and fled, he was right glad thereat, and he gathered together all the ships of his territory and proceeded with them, the sea now being calm, to the little Isle, and landed his troops all round it. And when the Tartars saw them thus arrive, and the whole force landed, without any guard having been left on board the ships (the act of men very little acquainted with such work), they had the sagacity to feign flight. [Now the Island was very high in the middle, and whilst the enemy were hastening after them by one road they fetched a compass by another and] in this way managed to reach the enemy's ships and to get aboard of them. This they did easily enough, for they encountered no opposition.

Once they were on board they got under weigh immediately for the great Island, and landed there, carrying with them the standards and banners of the King of the Island; and in this wise they advanced to the capital. The garrison of the city, suspecting nothing wrong, when they saw their own banners advancing supposed that it was their own host returning, and so gave them admittance. The Tartars as soon as they had got in seized all the bulwarks and drove out all who were in the place except the pretty women, and these they kept for themselves. In this way the Great Kaan's people got possession of the city.

When the King of the great Island and his army perceived that both fleet and city were lost, they were greatly cast down; howbeit, they got away to the great Island on board some of the ships which had not been carried off. And the King then gathered all his host to the siege of the city, and invested it so straitly that no one could go in or come out. Those who were within held the place for seven months, and strove by all means to send word to the Great Kaan; but it was all in vain, they never could get the intelligence carried to him. So when they saw they could hold out no longer they gave themselves up, on condition that their lives should be spared, but still that they should never quit the Island. And this befel in the year of our Lord 1279.[NOTE 1] The Great Kaan ordered the Baron who had fled so disgracefully to lose his head. And afterwards he caused the other also, who had been left on the Island, to be put to death, for he had never behaved as a good soldier ought to do.[NOTE 2]

But I must tell you a wonderful thing that I had forgotten, which happened on this expedition.

You see, at the beginning of the affair, when the Kaan's people had landed on the great Island and occupied the open country as I told you, they stormed a tower belonging to some of the islanders who refused to surrender, and they cut off the heads of all the garrison except eight; on these eight they found it impossible to inflict any wound! Now this was by virtue of certain stones which they had in their arms inserted between the skin and the flesh, with such skill as not to show at all externally. And the charm and virtue of these stones was such that those who wore them could never perish by steel. So when the Barons learned this they ordered the men to be beaten to death with clubs. And after their death the stones were extracted from the bodies of all, and were greatly prized.[NOTE 3]

Now the story of the discomfiture of the Great Kaan's folk came to pass as I have told you. But let us have done with that matter, and return to our subject.

NOTE 1.—Kublai had long hankered after the conquest of Japan, or had at least, after his fashion, desired to obtain an acknowledgment of supremacy from the Japanese sovereign. He had taken steps in this view as early as 1266, but entirely without success. The fullest accessible particulars respecting his efforts are contained in the Japanese Annals translated by Titsing; and these are in complete accordance with the Chinese histories as given by Gaubil, De Mailla, and in Pauthier's extracts, so far as these three latter enter into particulars. But it seems clear from the comparison that the Japanese chronicler had the Chinese Annals in his hands.

In 1268, 1269, 1270, and 1271, Kublai's efforts were repeated to little purpose, and, provoked at this, in 1274, he sent a fleet of 300 vessels with 15,000 men against Japan. This was defeated near the Island of Tsushima with heavy loss.

Nevertheless Kublai seems in the following years to have renewed his attempts at negotiation. The Japanese patience was exhausted, and, in 1280, they put one of his ambassadors to death.

"As soon as the Moko (Mongols) heard of this, they assembled a considerable army to conquer Japan. When informed of their preparations, the Dairi sent ambassadors to Ize and other temples to invoke the gods. Fosiono Toki Mune, who resided at Kama Kura, ordered troops to assemble at Tsukuzi (Tsikouzen of Alcock's Map), and sent ... numerous detachments to Miyako to guard the Dairi and the Togou (Heir Apparent) against all danger.... In the first moon (of 1281) the Mongols named Asikan (Ngo Tsa-han[1]), Fan-bunko (Fan Wen-hu), Kinto (Hintu), and Kosakio (Hung Cha-khieu), Generals of their army, which consisted of 100,000 men, and was embarked on numerous ships of war. Asikan fell ill on the passage, and this made the second General (Fan Wen-hu) undecided as to his course.

"7th Month. The entire fleet arrived at the Island of Firando (P'hing-hu), and passed thence to Goriosan (Ulungshan). The troops of Tsukuzi were under arms. 1st of 3rd Month. A frightful storm arose; the Mongol ships foundered or were sorely shattered. The General (Fan Wen-hu) fled with the other Generals on the vessels that had least suffered; nobody has ever heard what became of them. The army of 100,000 men, which had landed below Goriosan, wandered about for three days without provisions; and the soldiers began to plan the building of vessels in which they might escape to China.

"7th day. The Japanese army invested and attacked them with great vigour. The Mongols were totally defeated. 30,000 of them were made prisoners and conducted to Fakata (the Fokouoka of Alcock's Map, but Fakatta in Kaempfer's), and there put to death. Grace was extended to only (three men), who were sent to China with the intelligence of the fate of the army. The destruction of so numerous a fleet was considered the most evident proof of the protection of the gods." (Titsingh, pp. 264-265.) At p. 259 of the same work Klaproth gives another account from the Japanese Encyclopaedia; the difference is not material.

The Chinese Annals, in De Mailla, state that the Japanese spared 10,000 or 12,000 of the Southern Chinese, whom they retained as slaves. Gaubil says that 30,000 Mongols were put to death, whilst 70,000 Coreans and Chinese were made slaves.

Kublai was loth to put up with this huge discomfiture, and in 1283 he made preparations for another expedition; but the project excited strong discontent; so strong that some Buddhist monks whom he sent before to collect information, were thrown overboard by the Chinese sailors; and he gave it up. (De Mailla, IX. 409; 418, 428; Gaubil, 195; Deguignes, III. 177.)



The Abacan of Polo is probably the Asikan of the Japanese, whom Gaubil calls Argan. Vonsainchin is perhaps Fan Wen-hu with the Chinese title of Tsiang-Kiun or General (elsewhere represented in Polo by Sangon), —FAN TSIANG-KIUN.

We see that, as usual, whilst Marco's account in some of the main features concurs with that of the histories, he gives a good many additional particulars, some of which, such as the ill-will between the Generals, are no doubt genuine. But of the story of the capture of the Japanese capital by the shipwrecked army we know not what to make: we can't accept it certainly.

[The Korea Review publishes a History of Korea based upon Korean and Chinese sources, from which we gather some interesting facts regarding the relations of China, Korea, and Japan at the time of Kublai: "In 1265, the seed was sown that led to the attempted invasion of Japan by the Mongols. A Koryu citizen, Cho I., found his way to Peking, and there, having gained the ear of the emperor, told him that the Mongol powers ought to secure the vassalage of Japan. The emperor listened favourably and determined to make advances in that direction. He therefore appointed Heuk Chuk and Eun Hong as envoys to Japan, and ordered them to go by way of Koryu and take with them to Japan a Koryu envoy as well. Arriving in Koryu they delivered this message to the king, and two officials, Son Kun-bi and Kim Ch'an, were appointed to accompany them to Japan. They proceeded by the way of Koje Harbor in Kyung-sang Province, but were driven back by a fierce storm, and the king sent the Mongol envoys back to Peking. The Emperor was ill satisfied with the outcome of the adventure, and sent Heuk Chuk with a letter to the king, ordering him to forward the Mongol envoy to Japan. The message which he was to deliver to the ruler of Japan said, 'The Mongol power is kindly disposed towards you and desires to open friendly intercourse with you. She does not desire your submission, but if you accept her patronage, the great Mongol empire will cover the earth.' The king forwarded the message with the envoys to Japan, and informed the emperor of the fact.... The Mongol and Koryu envoys, upon reaching the Japanese capital, were treated with marked disrespect.... They remained five months, ... and at last they were dismissed without receiving any answer either to the emperor or to the king." (II. pp. 37, 38.)

Such was the beginning of the difficulties with Japan; this is the end of them: "The following year, 1283, changed the emperor's purpose. He had time to hear the whole story of the sufferings of his army in the last invasion; the impossibility of squeezing anything more out of Koryu, and the delicate condition of home affairs, united in causing him to give up the project of conquering Japan, and he countermanded the order for the building of boats and the storing of grain." (II. p. 82.)

Japan was then, for more than a century (A.D. 1205-1333), governed really in the name of the descendants of Yoritomo, who proved unworthy of their great ancestor "by the so-called 'Regents' of the Hojo family, while their liege lords, the Shoguns, though keeping a nominal court at Kamakura, were for all that period little better than empty names. So completely were the Hojos masters of the whole country, that they actually had their deputy governors at Kyoto and in Kyushu in the south-west, and thought nothing of banishing Mikados to distant islands. Their rule was made memorable by the repulse of the Mongol fleet sent by Kublai Khan with the purpose of adding Japan to his gigantic dominions. This was at the end of the 13th century, since which time Japan has never been attacked from without." (B. H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 3rd ed., 1898, pp. 208-209.)

The sovereigns (Mikado, Tenno) of Japan during this period were: Kameyama-Tenno (1260; abdicated 1274; repulse of the Mongols); Go-Uda-Tenno (1275; abdicated 1287); Fushimi-Tenno (1288; abdicated 1298); and Go-Fushimi Tenno. The shikken (prime ministers) were Hojo Tokiyori (1246); Hojo Tokimune (1261); Hojo Sadatoki (1284). In 1266 Prince Kore-yasu and in 1289 Hisa-akira, were appointed shogun. —H.C.]

NOTE 2.—Ram. says he was sent to a certain island called Zorza (Chorcha?), where men who have failed in duty are put to death in this manner: They wrap the arms of the victim in the hide of a newly flayed buffalo, and sew it tight. As this dries it compresses him so terribly that he cannot move, and so, finding no help, his life ends in misery. The same kind of torture is reported of different countries in the East: e.g. see Makrizi, Pt. III. p. 108, and Pottinger, as quoted by Marsden in loco. It also appears among the tortures of a Buddhist hell as represented in a temple at Canton. (Oliphant's Narrative, I. 168.)

NOTE 3.—Like devices to procure invulnerability are common in the Indo-Chinese countries. The Burmese sometimes insert pellets of gold under the skin with this view. At a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1868, gold and silver coins were shown, which had been extracted from under the skin of a Burmese convict who had been executed at the Andaman Islands. Friar Odoric speaks of the practice in one of the Indian Islands (apparently Borneo); and the stones possessing such virtue were, according to him, found in the bamboo, presumably the siliceous concretions called Tabashir. Conti also describes the practice in Java of inserting such amulets under the skin. The Malays of Sumatra, too, have great faith in the efficacy of certain "stones, which they pretend are extracted from reptiles, birds, animals, etc., in preventing them from being wounded." (See Mission to Ava, p. 208; Cathay, 94; Conti, p. 32; Proc. As. Soc. Beng. 1868, p. 116; Andarson's Mission to Sumatra, p. 323.)

[1] These names in parentheses are the Chinese forms; the others, the Japanese modes of reading them.



CHAPTER IV.

CONCERNING THE FASHION OF THE IDOLS.

Now you must know that the Idols of Cathay, and of Manzi, and of this Island, are all of the same class. And in this Island as well as elsewhere, there be some of the Idols that have the head of an ox, some that have the head of a pig, some of a dog, some of a sheep, and some of divers other kinds. And some of them have four heads, whilst some have three, one growing out of either shoulder. There are also some that have four hands, some ten, some a thousand! And they do put more faith in those Idols that have a thousand hands than in any of the others.[NOTE 1] And when any Christian asks them why they make their Idols in so many different guises, and not all alike, they reply that just so their forefathers were wont to have them made, and just so they will leave them to their children, and these to the after generations. And so they will be handed down for ever. And you must understand that the deeds ascribed to these Idols are such a parcel of devilries as it is best not to tell. So let us have done with the Idols, and speak of other things.

But I must tell you one thing still concerning that Island (and 'tis the same with the other Indian Islands), that if the natives take prisoner an enemy who cannot pay a ransom, he who hath the prisoner summons all his friends and relations, and they put the prisoner to death, and then they cook him and eat him, and they say there is no meat in the world so good!—But now we will have done with that Island and speak of something else.

You must know the Sea in which lie the Islands of those parts is called the SEA OF CHIN, which is as much as to say "The Sea over against Manzi." For, in the language of those Isles, when they say Chin, 'tis Manzi they mean. And I tell you with regard to that Eastern Sea of Chin, according to what is said by the experienced pilots and mariners of those parts, there be 7459 Islands in the waters frequented by the said mariners; and that is how they know the fact, for their whole life is spent in navigating that sea. And there is not one of those Islands but produces valuable and odorous woods like the lignaloe, aye and better too; and they produce also a great variety of spices. For example in those Islands grows pepper as white as snow, as well as the black in great quantities. In fact the riches of those Islands is something wonderful, whether in gold or precious stones, or in all manner of spicery; but they lie so far off from the main land that it is hard to get to them. And when the ships of Zayton and Kinsay do voyage thither they make vast profits by their venture.[NOTE 2]

It takes them a whole year for the voyage, going in winter and returning in summer. For in that Sea there are but two winds that blow, the one that carries them outward and the other that brings them homeward; and the one of these winds blows all the winter, and the other all the summer. And you must know these regions are so far from India that it takes a long time also for the voyage thence.

Though that Sea is called the Sea of Chin, as I have told you, yet it is part of the Ocean Sea all the same. But just as in these parts people talk of the Sea of England and the Sea of Rochelle, so in those countries they speak of the Sea of Chin and the Sea of India, and so on, though they all are but parts of the Ocean.[NOTE 3]

Now let us have done with that region which is very inaccessible and out of the way. Moreover, Messer Marco Polo never was there. And let me tell you the Great Kaan has nothing to do with them, nor do they render him any tribute or service.

So let us go back to Zayton and take up the order of our book from that point.[NOTE 4]

NOTE 1.—"Several of the (Chinese) gods have horns on the forehead, or wear animals' heads; some have three eyes.... Some are represented in the Indian manner with a multiplicity of arms. We saw at Yang-cheu fu a goddess with thirty arms." (Deguignes, I. 364-366.)

The reference to any particular form of idolatry here is vague. But in Tibetan Buddhism, with which Marco was familiar, all these extravagances are prominent, though repugnant to the more orthodox Buddhism of the South.

When the Dalai Lama came to visit the Altun Khan, to secure the reconversion of the Mongols in 1577, he appeared as a manifest embodiment of the Bodhisatva Avalokitecvara, with four hands, of which two were always folded across the breast! The same Bodhisatva is sometimes represented with eleven heads. Manjushri manifests himself in a golden body with 1000 hands and 1000 Patras or vessels, in each of which were 1000 figures of Sakya visible, etc. (Koeppen, II. 137; Vassilyev, 200.)

NOTE 2.—Polo seems in this passage to be speaking of the more easterly Islands of the Archipelago, such as the Philippines, the Moluccas, etc., but with vague ideas of their position.

NOTE 3.—In this passage alone Polo makes use of the now familiar name of CHINA. "Chin" as he says, "in the language of those Isles means Manzi." In fact, though the form Chin is more correctly Persian, we do get the exact form China from "the language of those Isles," i.e. from the Malay. China is also used in Japanese.

What he says about the Ocean and the various names of its parts is nearly a version of a passage in the geographical Poem of Dionysius, ending:—

[Greek: Outos Okeanos peridedrome gaian hapasan Toios eon kai toia met' andrasin ounomath' elkon] (42-3).

So also Abulfeda: "This is the sea which flows from the Ocean Sea.... This sea takes the names of the countries it washes. Its eastern extremity is called the Sea of Chin ... the part west of this is called the Sea of India ... then comes the Sea of Fars, the Sea of Berbera, and lastly the Sea of Kolzum" (Red Sea).

NOTE 4.—The Ramusian here inserts a short chapter, shown by the awkward way in which it comes in to be a very manifest interpolation, though possibly still an interpolation by the Traveller's hand:—

"Leaving the port of Zayton you sail westward and something south-westward for 1500 miles, passing a gulf called CHEINAN, having a length of two months' sail towards the north. Along the whole of its south-east side it borders on the province of Manzi, and on the other side with Anin and Coloman, and many other provinces formerly spoken of. Within this Gulf there are innumerable Islands, almost all well-peopled; and in these is found a great quantity of gold-dust, which is collected from the sea where the rivers discharge. There is copper also, and other things; and the people drive a trade with each other in the things that are peculiar to their respective Islands. They have also a traffic with the people of the mainland, selling them gold and copper and other things; and purchasing in turn what they stand in need of. In the greater part of these Islands plenty of corn grows. This gulf is so great, and inhabited by so many people, that it seems like a world in itself."

This passage is translated by Marsden with much forcing, so as to describe the China Sea, embracing the Philippine Islands, etc.; but, as a matter of fact, it seems clearly to indicate the writer's conception as of a great gulf running up into the continent between Southern China and Tong-king for a length equal to two months' journey.

The name of the gulf, Cheinan, i.e. Heinan, may either be that of the Island so called, or, as I rather incline to suppose, 'An-nan, i.e. Tong-king. But even by Camoens, writing at Macao in 1559-1560, the Gulf of Hainan is styled an unknown sea (though this perhaps is only appropriate to the prophetic speaker):—

"Ves, corre a costa, que Champa se chama, Cuja mata he do pao cheiroso ornada: Ves, Cauchichina esta de escura fama, E de Ainao ve a incognita enseada" (X. 129).

And in Sir Robert Dudley's Arcano del Mare (Firenze, 1647), we find a great bottle-necked gulf, of some 5-1/2 deg. in length, running up to the north from Tong-king, very much as I have represented the Gulf of Cheinan in the attempt to realise Polo's Own Geography. (See map in Introductory Essay.)



CHAPTER V.

OF THE GREAT COUNTRY CALLED CHAMBA.

You must know that on leaving the port of Zayton you sail west-south-west for 1500 miles, and then you come to a country called CHAMBA,[NOTE 1] a very rich region, having a king of its own. The people are Idolaters and pay a yearly tribute to the Great Kaan, which consists of elephants and nothing but elephants. And I will tell you how they came to pay this tribute.

It happened in the year of Christ 1278 that the Great Kaan sent a Baron of his called, Sagatu with a great force of horse and foot against this King of Chamba, and this Baron opened the war on a great scale against the King and his country.

Now the King [whose name was Accambale] was a very aged man, nor had he such a force as the Baron had. And when he saw what havoc the Baron was making with his kingdom he was grieved to the heart. So he bade messengers get ready and despatched them to the Great Kaan. And they said to the Kaan: "Our Lord the King of Chamba salutes you as his liege-lord, and would have you to know that he is stricken in years and long hath held his realm in peace. And now he sends you word by us that he is willing to be your liegeman, and will send you every year a tribute of as many elephants as you please. And he prays you in all gentleness and humility that you would send word to your Baron to desist from harrying his kingdom and to quit his territories. These shall henceforth be at your absolute disposal, and the King shall hold them of you."

When the Great Kaan had heard the King's ambassage he was moved with pity, and sent word to that Baron of his to quit that kingdom with his army, and to carry his arms to the conquest of some other country; and as soon as this command reached them they obeyed it. Thus it was then that this King became vassal of the Great Kaan, and paid him every year a tribute of 20 of the greatest and finest elephants that were to be found in the country.

But now we will leave that matter, and tell you other particulars about the King of Chamba.

You must know that in that kingdom no woman is allowed to marry until the King shall have seen her; if the woman pleases him then he takes her to wife; if she does not, he gives her a dowry to get her a husband withal. In the year of Christ 1285, Messer Marco Polo was in that country, and at that time the King had, between sons and daughters, 326 children, of whom at least 150 were men fit to carry arms.[NOTE 2]

There are very great numbers of elephants in this kingdom, and they have lignaloes in great abundance. They have also extensive forests of the wood called Bonus, which is jet-black, and of which chessmen and pen-cases are made. But there is nought more to tell, so let us proceed.[NOTE 3]

NOTE 1.—+The name CHAMPA is of Indian origin, like the adjoining Kamboja and many other names in Indo-China, and was probably taken from that of an ancient Hindu city and state on the Ganges, near modern Bhagalpur. Hiuen Tsang, in the 7th century, makes mention of the Indo-Chinese state as Mahachampa (Pel. Boudd, III. 83.)

The title of Champa down to the 15th century seems to have been applied by Western Asiatics to a kingdom which embraced the whole coast between Tong-king and Kamboja, including all that is now called Cochin China outside of Tong-king. It was termed by the Chinese Chen-Ching. In 1471 the King of Tong-king, Le Thanh-tong, conquered the country, and the genuine people of Champa were reduced to a small number occupying the mountains of the province of Binh Thuan at the extreme south-east of the Coch. Chinese territory. To this part of the coast the name Champa is often applied in maps. (See J.A. ser. II. tom. xi. p. 31, and J. des Savans, 1822, p. 71.) The people of Champa in this restricted sense are said to exhibit Malay affinities, and they profess Mahomedanism. ["The Mussulmans of Binh-Thuan call themselves Bani or Orang Bani, 'men mussulmans,' probably from the Arabic beni 'the sons,' to distinguish them from the Chams Djat 'of race,' which they name also Kaphir or Akaphir, from the Arabic word kafer 'pagans.' These names are used in Binh-Thuan to make a distinction, but Banis and Kaphirs alike are all Chams.... In Cambodia all Chams are Mussulmans." (E. Aymonier, Les Tchames, p. 26.) The religion of the pagan Chams of Binh-Thuan is degenerate Brahmanism with three chief gods, Po-Nagar, Po-Rome, and Po-Klong-Garai. (Ibid., p. 35.)—H.C.] The books of their former religion they say (according to Dr. Bastian) that they received from Ceylon, but they were converted to Islamism by no less a person than 'Ali himself. The Tong-king people received their Buddhism from China, and this tradition puts Champa as the extreme flood-mark of that great tide of Buddhist proselytism, which went forth from Ceylon to the Indo-Chinese regions in an early century of our era, and which is generally connected with the name of Buddaghosha.

The prominent position of Champa on the route to China made its ports places of call for many ages, and in the earliest record of the Arab navigation to China we find the country noticed under the identical name (allowing for the deficiencies of the Arabic Alphabet) of Sanf or Chanf. Indeed it is highly probable that the [Greek: Zaba] or [Greek: Zabai] of Ptolemy's itinerary of the sea-route to the Sinae represents this same name.

["It is true," Sir Henry Yule wrote since (1882), "that Champa, as known in later days, lay to the east of the Mekong delta, whilst Zabai of the Greeks lay to the west of that and of the [Greek: mega akrotaerion]—the Great Cape, or C. Cambodia of our maps. Crawford (Desc. Ind. Arch. p. 80) seems to say that the Malays include under the name Champa the whole of what we call Kamboja. This may possibly be a slip. But it is certain, as we shall see presently, that the Arab Sanf—which is unquestionably Champa—also lay west of the Cape, i.e. within the Gulf of Siam. The fact is that the Indo-Chinese kingdoms have gone through unceasing and enormous vicissitudes, and in early days Champa must have been extensive and powerful, for in the travels of Hiuen Tsang (about A.D. 629) it is called maha-Champa. And my late friend Lieutenant Garnier, who gave great attention to these questions, has deduced from such data as exist in Chinese Annals and elsewhere, that the ancient kingdom which the Chinese describe under the name of Fu-nan, as extending over the whole peninsula east of the Gulf of Siam, was a kingdom of the Tsiam or Champa race. The locality of the ancient port of Zabai or Champa is probably to be sought on the west coast of Kamboja, near the Campot, or the Kang-kao of our maps. On this coast also was the Komar and Kamarah of Ibn Batuta and other Arab writers, the great source of aloes-wood, the country then of the Khmer or Kambojan People." (Notes on the Oldest Records of the Sea-Route to China from Western Asia, Proc.R.G.S. 1882, pp. 656-657.)

M. Barth says that this identification would agree well with the testimony of his inscription XVIII. B., which comes from Angkor and for which Campa is a part of the Dakshinapatha, of the southern country. But the capital of this rival State of Kamboja would thus be very near the Treang province where inscriptions have been found with the names of Bhavavarman and of Icanavarman. It is true that in 627, the King of Kamboja, according to the Chinese Annals (Nouv. Mel. As. I. p. 84), had subjugated the kingdom of Fu-nan identified by Yule and Garnier with Campa. Abel Remusat (Nouv. Mel. As. I. pp. 75 and 77) identifies it with Tong-king and Stan. Julien (J. As. 4 deg. Ser. X. p. 97) with Siam. (Inscrip. Sanscrites du Cambodge, 1885, pp. 69-70, note.)

Sir Henry Yule writes (l.c. p. 657): "We have said that the Arab Sanf, as well as the Greek Zabai, lay west of Cape Cambodia. This is proved by the statement that the Arabs on their voyage to China made a ten days' run from Sanf to Pulo Condor." But Abulfeda (transl. by Guyard, II. ii. p. 127) distinctly says that the Komar Peninsula (Khmer) is situated west of the Sanf Peninsula; between Sanf and Komar there is not a day's journey by sea.

We have, however, another difficulty to overcome.

I agree with Sir Henry Yule and Marsden that in ch. vii. infra, p. 276, the text must be read, "When you leave Chamba," instead of "When you leave Java." Coming from Zayton and sailing 1500 miles, Polo arrives at Chamba; from Chamba, sailing 700 miles he arrives at the islands of Sondur and Condur, identified by Yule with Sundar Fulat (Pulo Condore); from Sundar Fulat, after 500 miles more, he finds the country called Locac; then he goes to Pentam (Bintang, 500 miles), Malaiur, and Java the Less (Sumatra). Ibn Khordadhbeh's itinerary agrees pretty well with Marco Polo's, as Professor De Goeje remarks to me: "Starting from Mait (Bintang), and leaving on the left Tiyuma (Timoan), in five days' journey, one goes to Kimer (Kmer, Cambodia), and after three days more, following the coast, arrives to Sanf; then to Lukyn, the first point of call in China, 100 parasangs by land or by sea; from Lukyn it takes four days by sea and twenty by land to go to Kanfu." [Canton, see note, supra p. 199.] (See De Goeje's Ibn Khordadhbeh, p. 48 et seq.) But we come now to the difficulty. Professor De Goeje writes to me: "It is strange that in the Relation des Voyages of Reinaud, p. 20 of the text, reproduced by Ibn al Fakih, p. 12 seq., Sundar Fulat (Pulo Condore) is placed between Sanf and the China Sea (Sandjy); it takes ten days to go from Sanf to Sundar Fulat, and then a month (seven days of which between mountains called the Gates of China.) In the Livre des Merveilles de l'Inde (pp. 85, 86) we read: 'When arrived between Sanf and the China coast, in the neighbourhood of Sundar Fulat, an island situated at the entrance of the Sea of Sandjy, which is the Sea of China....' It would appear from these two passages that Sanf is to be looked for in the Malay Peninsula. This Sanf is different from the Sanf of Ibn Khordadhbeh and of Abulfeda." (Guyard's transl. II. ii. 127.)

It does not strike me from these passages that Sanf must be looked for in the Malay Peninsula. Indeed Professor G. Schlegel, in a paper published in the T'oung Pao, vol. x., seems to prove that Shay-po (Djava), represented by Chinese characters, which are the transcription of the Sanskrit name of the China Rose (Hibiscus rosa sinensis), Djava or Djapa, is not the great island of Java, but, according to Chinese texts, a state of the Malay Peninsula; but he does not seem to me to prove that Shay-po is Champa, as he believes he has done.

However, Professor De Goeje adds in his letter, and I quite agree with the celebrated Arabic scholar of Leyden, that he does not very much like the theory of two Sanf, and that he is inclined to believe that the sea captain of the Marvels of India placed Sundar Fulat a little too much to the north, and that the narrative of the Relation des Voyages is inexact.

To conclude: the history of the relations between Annam (Tong-king) and her southern neighbour, the kingdom of Champa, the itineraries of Marco Polo and Ibn Khordadhbeh as well as the position given to Sanf by Abulfeda, justify me, I think, in placing Champa in that part of the central and southern indo-Chinese coast which the French to-day call Annam (Cochinchine and Basse-Cochinchine), the Binh-Thuan province showing more particularly what remains of the ancient kingdom.

Since I wrote the above, I have received No. 1 of vol. ii. of the Bul. de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, which contains a note on Canf et Campa, by M.A. Barth. The reasons given in a note addressed to him by Professor De Goeje and the work of Ibn Khordadhbeh have led M.A. Barth to my own conclusion, viz. that the coast of Champa was situated where inscriptions have been found on the Annamite coast.—H.C.]

The Sagatu of Marco appears in the Chinese history as Sotu, the military governor of the Canton districts, which he had been active in reducing.

In 1278 Sotu sent an envoy to Chen-ching to claim the king's submission, which was rendered, and for some years he sent his tribute to Kublai. But when the Kaan proceeded to interfere in the internal affairs of the kingdom by sending a Resident and Chinese officials, the king's son (1282) resolutely opposed these proceedings, and threw the Chinese officials into prison. The Kaan, in great wrath at this insult, (coming also so soon after his discomfiture in Japan), ordered Sotu and others to Chen-ching to take vengeance. The prince in the following year made a pretence of submission, and the army (if indeed it had been sent) seems to have been withdrawn. The prince, however, renewed his attack on the Chinese establishments, and put 100 of their officials to death. Sotu then despatched a new force, but it was quite unsuccessful, and had to retire. In 1284 the king sent an embassy, including his grandson, to beg for pardon and reconciliation. Kublai, however, refused to receive them, and ordered his son Tughan to advance through Tong-king, an enterprise which led to a still more disastrous war with that country, in which the Mongols had much the worst of it. We are not told more.

Here we have the difficulties usual with Polo's historical anecdotes. Certain names and circumstances are distinctly recognisable in the Chinese Annals; others are difficult to reconcile with these. The embassy of 1284 seems the most likely to be the one spoken of by Polo, though the Chinese history does not give it the favourable result which he ascribes to it. The date in the text we see to be wrong, and as usual it varies in different MSS. I suspect the original date was MCCLXXXIII.

One of the Chinese notices gives one of the king's names as Sinhopala, and no doubt this is Ramusio's Accambale (Acambale); an indication at once of the authentic character of that interpolation, and of the identity of Champa and Chen-ching.

[We learn from an inscription that in 1265 the King of Champa was Jaya-Sinhavarman II., who was named Indravarman in 1277, and whom the Chinese called Che li Tseya Sinho phala Maha thiwa (Cri Jaya Sinha varmma maha deva). He was the king at the time of Polo's voyage. (A. Bergaigne, Ancien royaume de Campa, pp. 39-40; E. Aymonier, les Tchames et leurs religious, p. 14.)—H.C.]

There are notices of the events in De Mailla (IX. 420-422) and Gaubil (194), but Pauthier's extracts which we have made use of are much fuller.

Elephants have generally formed a chief part of the presents or tribute sent periodically by the various Indo-Chinese states to the Court of China.

[In a Chinese work published in the 14th century, by an Annamite, under the title of Ngan-nan chi lio, and translated into French by M. Sainson (1896), we read (p. 397): "Elephants are found only in Lin-y; this is the country which became Champa. It is the habit to have burdens carried by elephants; this country is to-day the Pu-cheng province." M. Sainson adds in a note that Pu-cheng, in Annamite Bo chanh quan, is to-day Quang-binh, and that, in this country, was placed the first capital (Dong-hoi) of the future kingdom of Champa thrown later down to the south.—H.C.]

[The Chams, according to their tradition, had three capitals: the most ancient, Shri-Banoeuy, probably the actual Quang-Binh province; Bal-Hangov, near Hue; and Bal-Angoue, in the Binh-Dinh province. In the 4th century, the kingdom of Lin-y or Lam-ap is mentioned in the Chinese Annals.—H.C.]

NOTE 2.—The date of Marco's visit to Champa varies in the MSS.: Pauthier has 1280, as has also Ramusio; the G.T. has 1285; the Geographic Latin 1288. I incline to adopt the last. For we know that about 1290, Mark returned to Court from a mission to the Indian Seas, which might have included this visit to Champa.

The large family of the king was one of the stock marvels. Odoric says: "ZAMPA is a very fine country, having great store of victuals and all good things. The king of the country, it was said when I was there [circa 1323], had, what with sons and with daughters, a good two hundred children; for he hath many wives and other women whom he keepeth. This king hath also 14,000 tame elephants.... And other folk keep elephants there just as commonly as we keep oxen here" (pp. 95-96). The latter point illustrates what Polo says of elephants, and is scarcely an exaggeration in regard to all the southern Indo-Chinese States. (See note to Odoric u.s.)

NOTE 3.—Champa Proper and the adjoining territories have been from time immemorial the chief seat of the production of lign-aloes or eagle-wood. Both names are misleading, for the thing has nought to do either with aloes or eagles; though good Bishop Pallegoix derives the latter name from the wood being speckled like an eagle's plumage. It is in fact through Aquila, Agila, from Aguru, one of the Sanskrit names of the article, whilst that is possibly from the Malay Kayu (wood)-gahru, though the course of the etymology is more likely to be the other way; and [Greek: Aloae] is perhaps a corruption of the term which the Arabs apply to it, viz. Al-'Ud, "The Wood."

[It is probable that the first Portuguese who had to do with eagle-wood called it by its Arabic name, aghaluhy, or malayalam, agila; whence pao de' aguila "aguila wood." It was translated into Latin as lignum aquilae, and after into modern languages, as bois d'aigle, eagle-wood, adlerholz, etc. (A. Cabaton, les Chams, p. 50.) Mr. Groeneveldt (Notes, pp. 141-142) writes: "Lignum aloes is the wood of the Aquilaria agallocha, and is chiefly known as sinking incense. The Pen-ts'au Kang-mu describes it as follows: 'Sinking incense, also called honey incense. It comes from the heart and the knots of a tree and sinks in water, from which peculiarity the name sinking incense is derived.... In the Description of Annam we find it called honey incense, because it smells like honey.' The same work, as well as the Nan-fang Ts'au-mu Chuang, further informs us that this incense was obtained in all countries south of China, by felling the old trees and leaving them to decay, when, after some time, only the heart, the knots, and some other hard parts remained. The product was known under different names, according to its quality or shape, and in addition to the names given above, we find fowl bones, horse-hoofs, and green cinnamon; these latter names, however, are seldom used."—H.C.]

The fine eagle-wood of Champa is the result of disease in a leguminous tree, Aloexylon Agallochum; whilst an inferior kind, though of the same aromatic properties, is derived from a tree of an entirely different order, Aquilaria Agallocha, and is found as far north as Silhet.

The Bonus of the G.T. here is another example of Marco's use, probably unconscious, of an Oriental word. It is Persian Abnus, Ebony, which has passed almost unaltered into the Spanish Abenuz. We find Ibenus also in a French inventory (Douet d'Arcq, p. 134), but the Bonus seems to indicate that the word as used by the Traveller was strange to Rusticiano. The word which he uses for pen-cases too, Calamanz, is more suggestive of the Persian Kalamdan than of the Italian Calamajo.

"Ebony is very common in this country (Champa), but the wood which is the most precious, and which is sufficiently abundant, is called 'Eagle-wood,' of which the first quality sells for its weight in gold; the native name Kinam," (Bishop Louis in J.A.S.B. VI. 742; Dr. Birdwood, in the Bible Educator, I. 243; Crawford's Dict.)



CHAPTER VI.

CONCERNING THE GREAT ISLAND OF JAVA.

When you sail from Chamba, 1500 miles in a course between south and south-east, you come to a great Island called Java. And the experienced mariners of those Islands who know the matter well, say that it is the greatest Island in the world, and has a compass of more than 3000 miles. It is subject to a great King and tributary to no one else in the world. The people are Idolaters. The Island is of surpassing wealth, producing black pepper, nutmegs, spikenard, galingale, cubebs, cloves, and all other kinds of spices.



This Island is also frequented by a vast amount of shipping, and by merchants who buy and sell costly goods from which they reap great profit. Indeed the treasure of this Island is so great as to be past telling. And I can assure you the Great Kaan never could get possession of this Island, on account of its great distance, and the great expense of an expedition thither. The merchants of Zayton and Manzi draw annually great returns from this country.[NOTE 1]

NOTE 1.—Here Marco speaks of that Pearl of Islands, Java. The chapter is a digression from the course of his voyage towards India, but possibly he may have touched at the island on his previous expedition, alluded to in note 2, ch. v. Not more, for the account is vague, and where particulars are given not accurate. Java does not produce nutmegs or cloves, though doubtless it was a great mart for these and all the products of the Archipelago. And if by treasure he means gold, as indeed Ramusio reads, no gold is found in Java. Barbosa, however, has the same story of the great amount of gold drawn from Java; and De Barros says that Sunda, i.e. Western Java, which the Portuguese regarded as a distinct island, produced inferior gold of 7 carats, but that pepper was the staple, of which the annual supply was more than 30,000 cwt. (Ram. I. 318-319; De Barros, Dec. IV. liv. i. cap. 12.)



The circuit ascribed to Java in Pauthier's Text is 5000 miles. Even the 3000 which we take from the Geog. Text is about double the truth; but it is exactly the same that Odoric and Conti assign. No doubt it was a tradition among the Arab seamen. They never visited the south coast, and probably had extravagant ideas of its extension in that direction, as the Portuguese had for long. Even at the end of the 16th century Linschoten says: "Its breadth is as yet unknown; some conceiving it to be a part of the Terra Australis extending from opposite the Cape of Good Hope. However it is commonly held to be an island" (ch. xx.). And in the old map republished in the Lisbon De Bairos of 1777, the south side of Java is marked "Parte incognita de Java," and is without a single name, whilst a narrow strait runs right across the island (the supposed division of Sunda from Java Proper).

The history of Java previous to the rise of the Empire of Majapahit, in the age immediately following our Traveller's voyage, is very obscure. But there is some evidence of the existence of a powerful dynasty in the island about this time; and in an inscription of ascertained date (A.D. 1294) the King Uttungadeva claims to have subjected five kings and to be sovereign of the whole Island of Java (Jawa-dvipa; see Lassen, IV. 482). It is true that, as our Traveller says, Kublai had not yet attempted the subjugation of Java, but he did make the attempt almost immediately after the departure of the Venetians. It was the result of one of his unlucky embassies to claim the homage of distant states, and turned out as badly as the attempts against Champa and Japan. His ambassador, a Chinese called Meng-K'i, was sent back with his face branded like a thief's. A great armament was assembled in the ports of Fo-kien to avenge this insult; it started about January, 1293, but did not effect a landing till autumn. After some temporary success the force was constrained to re-embark with a loss of 3000 men. The death of Kublai prevented any renewal of the attempt; and it is mentioned that his successor gave orders for the re-opening of the Indian trade which the Java war had interrupted. (See Gaubil, pp. 217 seqq., 224.) To this failure Odoric, who visited Java about 1323, alludes: "Now the Great Kaan of Cathay many a time engaged in war with this king; but the king always vanquished and got the better of him." Odoric speaks in high terms of the richness and population of Java, calling it "the second best of all Islands that exist," and describing a gorgeous palace in terms similar to those in which Polo speaks of the Palace of Chipangu. (Cathay, p. 87 seqq.)

[We read in the Yuen-shi (Bk. 210), translated by Mr. Groeneveldt, that "Java is situated beyond the sea and further away than Champa; when one embarks at Ts'wan-chau and goes southward, he first comes to Champa and afterwards to this country." It appears that when his envoy Meng-K'i had been branded on the face, Kublai, in 1292, appointed Shih-pi, a native of Po-yeh, district Li-chau, Pao-ting fu, Chih-li province, commander of the expedition to Java, whilst Ike-Mese, a Uighur, and Kau-Hsing, a man from Ts'ai-chau (Ho-nan), were appointed to assist him. Mr. Groeneveldt has translated the accounts of these three officers. In the Ming-shi (Bk. 324) we read: "Java is situated at the south-west of Champa. In the time of the Emperor Kublai of the Yuen Dynasty, Meng-K'i was sent there as an envoy and had his face cut, on which Kublai sent a large army which subdued the country and then came back." (l.c. p. 34.) The prince guilty of this insult was the King of Tumapel "in the eastern part of the island Java, whose country was called Java par excellence by the Chinese, because it was in this part of the island they chiefly traded." (l.c. p. 32.)—H.C.]

The curious figure of a vessel which we give here is taken from the vast series of mediaeval sculptures which adorns the great Buddhist pyramid in the centre of Java, known as Boro Bodor, one of the most remarkable architectural monuments in the world, but the history of which is all in darkness. The ship, with its outrigger and apparently canvas sails, is not Chinese, but it undoubtedly pictures vessels which frequented the ports of Java in the early part of the 14th century,[1] possibly one of those from Ceylon or Southern India.

[1] 1344 is the date to which a Javanese traditional verse ascribes the edifice. (Crawford's Desc. Dictionary.)



CHAPTER VII.

WHEREIN THE ISLES OF SONDUR AND CONDUR ARE SPOKEN OF; AND THE KINGDOM OF LOCAC.

When you leave Chamba[NOTE 1] and sail for 700 miles on a course between south and south-west, you arrive at two Islands, a greater and a less. The one is called SONDUR and the other CONDUR.[NOTE 2] As there is nothing about them worth mentioning, let us go on five hundred miles beyond Sondur, and then we find another country which is called LOCAC. It is a good country and a rich; [it is on the mainland]; and it has a king of its own. The people are Idolaters and have a peculiar language, and pay tribute to nobody, for their country is so situated that no one can enter it to do them ill. Indeed if it were possible to get at it, the Great Kaan would soon bring them under subjection to him.

In this country the brazil which we make use of grows in great plenty; and they also have gold in incredible quantity. They have elephants likewise, and much game. In this kingdom too are gathered all the porcelain shells which are used for small change in all those regions, as I have told you before.

There is nothing else to mention except that this is a very wild region, visited by few people; nor does the king desire that any strangers should frequent the country, and so find out about his treasure and other resources.[NOTE 3] We will now proceed, and tell you of something else.

NOTE 1.—All the MSS. and texts I believe without exception read "when you leave Java," etc. But, as Marsden has indicated, the point of departure is really Champa, the introduction of Java being a digression; and the retention of the latter name here would throw us irretrievably into the Southern Ocean. Certain old geographers, we may observe, did follow that indication, and the results were curious enough, as we shall notice in next note but one. Marsden's observations are so just that I have followed Pauthier in substituting Champa for Java in the text.

NOTE 2.—There is no reason to doubt that these islands are the group now known as that of PULO CONDORE, in old times an important landmark, and occasional point of call, on the route to China. The group is termed Sundar Fulat (Fulat representing the Malay Pulo or Island, in the plural) in the Arab Relations of the 9th century, the last point of departure on the voyage to China, from which it was a month distant. This old record gives us the name Sondor; in modern times we have it as Kondor; Polo combines both names. ["These may also be the 'Satyrs' Islands' of Ptolemy, or they may be his Sindai; for he has a Sinda city on the coast close to this position, though his Sindai islands are dropt far away. But it would not be difficult to show that Ptolemy's islands have been located almost at random, or as from a pepper castor." (Yule, Oldest Records, p. 657.)] The group consists of a larger island about 12 miles long, two of 2 or 3 miles, and some half-dozen others of insignificant dimensions. The large one is now specially called Pulo Condore. It has a fair harbour, fresh water, and wood in abundance. Dampier visited the group and recommended its occupation. The E.I. Company did establish a post there in 1702, but it came to a speedy end in the massacre of the Europeans by their Macassar garrison. About the year 1720 some attempt to found a settlement there was also made by the French, who gave the island the name of Isle d'Orleans. The celebrated Pere Gaubil spent eight months on the island and wrote an interesting letter about it (February, 1722; see also Lettres Edifiantes, Rec. xvi.). When the group was visited by Mr. John Crawford on his mission to Cochin China the inhabitants numbered about 800, of Cochin Chinese descent. The group is now held by the French under Saigon. The chief island is known to the Chinese as the mountain of Kunlun. There is another cluster of rocks in the same sea, called the Seven Cheu, and respecting these two groups Chinese sailors have a kind of Incidit-in-Scyllan saw:—

"Shang p'a Tsi-cheu, hia-pa Kun-lun, Chen mi t'uo shih, jin chuen mo tsun."[1]

Meaning:—

"With Kunlun to starboard, and larboard the Cheu, Keep conning your compass, whatever you do, Or to Davy Jones' Locker go vessel and crew."

(Ritter, IV. 1017; Reinaud, I. 18; A. Hamilton, II. 402; Mem. conc. les Chinois, XIV. 53.)

NOTE 3.—Pauthier reads the name of the kingdom Soucat, but I adhere to the readings of the G.T., Lochac and Locac, which are supported by Ramusio. Pauthier's C and the Bern MS. have le chac and le that, which indicate the same reading.

Distance and other particulars point, as Hugh Murray discerns, to the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, or (as I conceive) to the territory now called Siam, including the said coast, as subject or tributary from time immemorial.

The kingdom of Siam is known to the Chinese by the name of Sien-Lo. The Supplement to Ma Twan-lin's Encyclopaedia describes Sien-Lo as on the sea-board to the extreme south of Chen-ching. "It originally consisted of two kingdoms, Sien and Lo-hoh. The Sien people are the remains of a tribe which in the year (A.D. 1341) began to come down upon the Lo-hoh, and united with the latter into one nation.... The land of the Lo-hoh consists of extended plains, but not much agriculture is done."[2]

In this Lo or LO-HOH, which apparently formed the lower part of what is now Siam, previous to the middle of the 14th century, I believe that we have our Traveller's Locac. The latter half of the name may be either the second syllable of Lo-Hoh, for Polo's c often represents h; or it may be the Chinese Kwo or Kwe, "kingdom," in the Canton and Fo-kien pronunciation (i.e. the pronunciation of Polo's mariners) kok; Lo-kok, "the kingdom of Lo." Sien-LO-KOK is the exact form of the Chinese name of Siam which is used by Bastian.

What was this kingdom of Lo which occupied the northern shores of the Gulf of Siam? Chinese scholars generally say that Sien-Lo means Siam and Laos; but this I cannot accept, if Laos is to bear its ordinary geographical sense, i.e. of a country bordering Siam on the north-east and north. Still there seems a probability that the usual interpretation may be correct, when properly explained.

[Regarding the identification of Locac with Siam, Mr. G. Phillips writes (Jour. China B.R.A.S., XXI., 1886, p. 34, note): "I can only fully endorse what Col. Yule says upon this subject, and add a few extracts of my own taken from the article on Siam given in the Wu-pe-che. It would appear that previously to 1341 a country called Lohoh (in Amoy pronunciation Lohok) existed, as Yule says, in what is now called Lower Siam, and at that date became incorporated with Sien. In the 4th year of Hung-wu, 1372, it sent tribute to China, under the name of Sien Lohok. The country was first called Sien Lo in the first year of Yung Lo, 1403. In the T'ang Dynasty it appears to have been known as Lo-yueh, pronounced Lo-gueh at that period. This Lo-yueh would seem to have been situated on the Eastern side of Malay Peninsula, and to have extended to the entrance to the Straits of Singapore, in what is now known as Johore." —H.C.]

In 1864, Dr. Bastian communicated to the Asiatic Society of Bengal the translation of a long and interesting inscription, brought [in 1834] from Sukkothai to Bangkok by the late King of Siam [Mongkut, then crown prince], and dated in a year 1214, which in the era of Salivahana (as it is almost certainly, see Garnier, cited below) will be A.D. 1292-1293, almost exactly coincident with Polo's voyage. The author of this inscription was a Prince of Thai (or Siamese) race, styled Phra Rama Kamheng ("The Valiant") [son of Sri Indratiya], who reigned in Sukkothai, whilst his dominions extended from Vieng-chan on the Mekong River (lat. 18 deg.), to Pechabur, and Sri-Thammarat (i.e. Ligor, in lat. 8 deg. 18"), on the coast of the Gulf of Siam. [This inscription gives three dates—1205, 1209, and 1214 s'aka = A.D. 1283, 1287 and 1292. One passage says: "Formerly the Thais had no writing; it is in 1205 s'aka, year of the goat = A.D. 1283, that King Rama Kamheng sent for a teacher who invented the Thai writing. It is to him that we are indebted for it to-day." (Cf. Fournereau, Siam ancien, p. 225; Schmitt, Exc. et Recon., 1885; Aymonier, Cambodge, II. p. 72.)—H.C.] The conquests of this prince are stated to have extended eastward to the "Royal Lake", apparently the Great Lake of Kamboja; and we may conclude with certainty that he was the leader of the Siamese, who had invaded Kamboja shortly before it was visited (in 1296) by that envoy of Kublai's successor, whose valuable account of the country has been translated by Remusat.[3]

Now this prince Rama Kamheng of Sukkothai was probably (as Lieutenant Garnier supposes) of the Thai-nyai, Great Thai, or Laotian branch of the race. Hence the application of the name Lo-kok to his kingdom can be accounted for.

It was another branch of the Thai, known as Thai-noi, or Little Thai, which in 1351, under another Phra Rama, founded Ayuthia and the Siamese monarchy, which still exists.

The explanation now given seems more satisfactory than the suggestions formerly made of the connection of the name Locac, either with Lophaburi (or Lavo, Louvo), a very ancient capital near Ayuthia, or with Lawek, i.e. Kamboja. Kamboja had at an earlier date possessed the lower valley of the Menam, but, we see, did so no longer.[4]

The name Lawek or Lovek is applied by writers of the 16th and 17th centuries to the capital of what is still Kamboja, the ruins of which exist near Udong. Laweik is mentioned along with the other Siamese or Laotian countries of Yuthia, Tennasserim, Sukkothai, Pichalok, Lagong, Lanchang (or Luang Prabang), Zimme (or Kiang-mai), and Kiang-Tung, in the vast list of states claimed by the Burmese Chronicle as tributary to Pagan before its fall. We find in the Ain-i-Akbari a kind of aloes-wood called Lawaki, no doubt because it came from this region.

The G.T. indeed makes the course from Sondur to Locac sceloc or S.E.; but Pauthier's text seems purposely to correct this, calling it, "v. c. milles oultre Sandur." This would bring us to the Peninsula somewhere about what is now the Siamese province of Ligor,[5] and this is the only position accurately consistent with the next indication of the route, viz. a run of 500 miles south to the Straits of Singapore. Let us keep in mind also Ramusio's specific statement that Locac was on terra firma.

As regards the products named: (1) gold is mined in the northern part of the Peninsula and is a staple export of Kalantan, Tringano, and Pahang, further down. Barbosa says gold was so abundant in Malacca that it was reckoned by Bahars of 4 cwt. Though Mr. Logan has estimated the present produce of the whole Peninsula at only 20,000 ounces, Hamilton, at the beginning of last century, says Pahang alone in some years exported above 8 cwt. (2) Brazil-wood, now generally known by the Malay term Sappan, is abundant on the coast. Ritter speaks of three small towns on it as entirely surrounded by trees of this kind. And higher up, in the latitude of Tavoy, the forests of sappan-wood find a prominent place in some maps of Siam. In mediaeval intercourse between the courts of Siam and China we find Brazil-wood to form the bulk of the Siamese present. ["Ma Huan fully bears out Polo's statement in this matter, for he says: This Brazil (of which Marco speaks) is as plentiful as firewood. On Ch'eng-ho's chart Brazil and other fragrant woods are marked as products of Siam. Polo's statement of the use of porcelain shells as small change is also corroborated by Ma Huan." (G. Phillips, Jour. China B.R.A.S., XXI., 1886, p. 37.)—H.C.] (3) Elephants are abundant. (4) Cowries, according to Marsden and Crawford, are found in those seas largely only on the Sulu Islands; but Bishop Pallegoix says distinctly that they are found in abundance on the sand-banks of the Gulf of Siam. And I see Dr. Fryer, in 1673, says that cowries were brought to Surat "from Siam and the Philippine Islands."

For some centuries after this time Siam was generally known to traders by the Persian name of Shahr-i-nao, or New City. This seems to be the name generally applied to it in the Shijarat Malayu (or Malay Chronicle), and it is used also by Abdurrazzak. It appears among the early navigators of the 16th century, as Da Gama, Varthema, Giovanni d'Empoli and Mendez Pinto, in the shape of Sornau, Xarnau. Whether this name was applied to the new city of Ayuthia, or was a translation of that of the older Lophaburi (which appears to be the Sansk. or Pali Nava pura = New-City) I do not know.

[Reinaud (Int. Abulfeda, p. CDXVI.) writes that, according to the Christian monk of Nadjran, who crossed the Malayan Seas, about the year 980, at this time, the King of Lukyn had just invaded the kingdom of Sanf and taken possession of it. According to Ibn Khordadhbeh (De Goeje, p. 49) Lukyn is the first port of China, 100 parasangs distant from Sanf by land or sea; Chinese stone, Chinese silk, porcelain of excellent quality, and rice are to be found at Lukyn.—H.C.]

(Bastian, I. 357, III. 433, and in J.A.S.B. XXXIV. Pt. I. p. 27 seqq.; Ramus. I. 318; Amyot, XIV. 266, 269; Pallegoix, I. 196; Bowring, I. 41, 72; Phayre in J.A.S.B. XXXVII. Pt. I. p. 102; Ain Akb. 80; Mouhot, I. 70; Roe and Fryer, reprint, 1873, p. 271.)

Some geographers of the 16th century, following the old editions which carried the travellers south-east or south-west of Java to the land of Boeach (for Locac), introduced in their maps a continent in that situation. (See e.g. the map of the world by P. Plancius in Linschoten.) And this has sometimes been adduced to prove an early knowledge of Australia. Mr. Major has treated this question ably in his interesting essay on the early notices of Australia.

[1] [From the Hsing-ch'a Sheng-lan, by Fei Hsin.]

[2] The extract of which this is the substance I owe to the kindness of Professor J. Summers, formerly of King's College.

[3] I am happy to express my obligation to the remarks of my lamented friend Lieutenant Garnier, for light on this subject, which has led to an entire reform in the present note. (See his excellent Historical Essay, forming ch. v. of the great "Voyage d'Exploration en Indo-Chine," pp. 136-137).

[4] The Kakula of Ibn Batuta was probably on the coast of Locac. The Kamarah Komar of the same traveller and other Arab writers, I have elsewhere suggested to be Khmer, or Kamboja Proper. (See I.B. IV. 240; Cathay, 469, 519.) Kakula and Kamarah were both in "Mul-Java"; and the king of this undetermined country, whom Wassaf states to have submitted to Kublai in 1291, was called Sri Rama. It is possible that this was Phra Rama of Sukkothai. (See Cathay, 519; Elliot, III. 27)

[5] Mr. G Phillips supposes the name locac to be Ligor, or rather lakhon as the Siamese call it. But it seems to me pretty clear from what has been said the Lo-kok though including Ligor, is a different name from Lakhon. The latter is a corruption of the Sanskrit, Nagara, "city."



CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE ISLAND CALLED PENTAM, AND THE CITY MALAIUR

When you leave Locac and sail for 500 miles towards the south, you come to an island called PENTAM, a very wild place. All the wood that grows thereon consists of odoriferous trees.[NOTE 1] There is no more to say about it; so let us sail about sixty miles further between those two Islands. Throughout this distance there is but four paces' depth of water, so that great ships in passing this channel have to lift their rudders, for they draw nearly as much water as that.[NOTE 2]

And when you have gone these 60 miles, and again about 30 more, you come to an Island which forms a Kingdom, and is called MALAIUR. The people have a King of their own, and a peculiar language. The city is a fine and noble one, and there is great trade carried on there. All kinds of spicery are to be found there, and all other necessaries of life.[NOTE 3]

NOTE 1.—Pentam, or as in Ram. Pentan, is no doubt the Bintang of our maps, more properly BENTAN, a considerable Island at the eastern extremity of the Straits of Malacca. It appears in the list, published by Dulaurier from a Javanese Inscription, of the kingdoms conquered in the 15th century by the sovereigns reigning at Majapahit in Java. (J.A. ser. IV. tom. xiii. 532.) Bintang was for a long time after the Portuguese conquest of Malacca the chief residence of the Malay Sultans who had been expelled by that conquest, and it still nominally belongs to the Sultan of Johore, the descendant of those princes, though in fact ruled by the Dutch, whose port of Rhio stands on a small island close to its western shore. It is the Bintao of the Portuguese whereof Camoens speaks as the persistent enemy of Malacca (X. 57).

[Cf. Professor Schlegel's Geog. Notes, VI. Ma-it; regarding the odoriferous trees, Professor Schlegel remarks (p. 20) that they were probably santal trees.—H.C.]

NOTE 2.—There is a good deal of confusion in the text of this chapter. Here we have a passage spoken of between "those two Islands," when only one island seems to have been mentioned. But I imagine the other "island" in the traveller's mind to be the continuation of the same Locac, i.e. the Malay Peninsula (included by him under that name), which he has coasted for 500 miles. This is confirmed by Ramusio, and the old Latin editions (as Mueller's): "between the kingdom of Locac and the Island of Pentan." The passage in question is the Strait of Singapore, or as the old navigators called it, the Straits of Gobernador, having the mainland of the Peninsula and the Island of Singapore, on the one side, and the Islands of Bintang and Batang on the other. The length of the strait is roughly 60 geographical miles, or a little more; and I see in a route given in the Lettres Edifiantes (II. p. 118) that the length of navigation is so stated: "Le detroit de Gobernador a vingt lieues de long, et est for difficile quand on n'y a jamais passe."

The Venetian passo was 5 feet. Marco here alludes to the well-known practice with the Chinese junks of raising the rudder, for which they have a special arrangement, which is indicated in the cut at p. 248.

NOTE 3.—There is a difficulty here about the indications, carrying us, as they do, first 60 miles through the Strait, and then 30 miles further to the Island Kingdom and city of Malaiur. There is also a singular variation in the readings as to this city and island. The G.T. has "Une isle qe est roiame, et s'apelle Malanir e l'isle Pentam." The Crusca has the same, only reading Malavir. Pauthier: "Une isle qui est royaume, et a nom Maliur." The Geog. Latin: "Ibi invenitur una insula in qua est unus rex quem vocant Lamovich. Civitas et insula vocantur Pontavich." Ram.: "Chiamasi la citta Malaiur, e cosi l'isola Malaiur."

All this is very perplexed, and it is difficult to trace what may have been the true readings. The 30 miles beyond the straits, whether we give the direction south-east as in G.T. or no, will not carry us to the vicinity of any place known to have been the site of an important city. As the point of departure in the next chapter is from Pentam and not from Malaiur, the introduction of the latter is perhaps a digression from the route, on information derived either from hearsay or from a former voyage. But there is not information enough to decide what place is meant by Malaiur. Probabilities seem to me to be divided between Palembang, and its colony Singhapura. Palembang, according to the Commentaries of Alboquerque, was called by the Javanese MALAYO. The List of Sumatran Kingdoms in De Barros makes TANA-MALAYU the next to Palembang. On the whole, I incline to this interpretation.

[In Valentyn (V. 1, Beschryvinge van Malakka, p. 317) we find it stated that the Malay people just dwelt on the River Malayu in the Kingdom of Palembang, and were called from the River Orang Malayu.—MS. Note.—H.Y.]

[Professor Schlegel in his Geog. Notes, IV., tries to prove by Chinese authorities that Maliur and Tana-Malayu are two quite distinct countries, and he says that Maliur may have been situated on the coast opposite Singapore, perhaps a little more to the S.W. where now lies Malacca, and that Tana-Malayu may be placed in Asahan, upon the east coast of Sumatra.—H.C.]

Singhapura was founded by an emigration from Palembang, itself a Javanese colony. It became the site of a flourishing kingdom, and was then, according to the tradition recorded by De Barros, the most important centre of population in those regions, "whither used to gather all the navigators of the Eastern Seas, from both East and West; to this great city of Singapura all flocked as to a general market." (Dec. II. 6, 1.) This suits the description in our text well; but as Singhapura was in sight of any ship passing through the straits, mistake could hardly occur as to its position, even if it had not been visited.

I omit Malacca entirely from consideration, because the evidence appears to me conclusive against the existence of Malacca at this time.

The Malay Chronology, as published by Valentyn, ascribes the foundation of that city to a king called Iskandar Shah, placing it in A.D. 1252, fixes the reign of Mahomed Shah, the third King of Malacca and first Mussulman King, as extending from 1276 to 1333 (not stating when his conversion took place), and gives 8 kings in all between the foundation of the city and its capture by the Portuguese in 1511, a space, according to those data, of 259 years. As Sri Iskandar Shah, the founder, had reigned 3 years in Singhapura before founding Malacca, and Mahomed Shah, the loser, reigned 2 years in Johore after the loss of his capital, we have 264 years to divide among 8 kings, giving 33 years to each reign. This certainly indicates that the period requires considerable curtailment.

Again, both De Barros and the Commentaries or Alboquerque ascribe the foundation of Malacca to a Javanese fugitive from Palembang called Paramisura, and Alboquerque makes Iskandar Shah (Xaquem darxa) the son of Paramisura, and the first convert to Mahomedanism. Four other kings reign in succession after him, the last of the four being Mahomed Shah, expelled in 1511.

[Godinho de Eredia says expressly (Cap. i. Do Citio Malaca, p. 4) that Malacca was founded by Permicuri, primeiro monarcha de Malayos, in the year 1411, in the Pontificate of John XXIV., and in the reign of Don Juan II. of Castille and Dom Juan I. of Portugal.]

The historian De Couto, whilst giving the same number of reigns from the conversion to the capture, places the former event about 1384. And the Commentaries of Alboquerque allow no more than some ninety years from the foundation of Malacca to his capture of the city.

There is another approximate check to the chronology afforded by a Chinese record in the XIVth volume of Amyot's collection. This informs us that Malacca first acknowledged itself as tributary to the Empire in 1405, the king being Sili-ju-eul-sula (?). In 1411 the King of Malacca himself, now called Peilimisula (Paramisura), came in person to the court of China to render homage. And in 1414 the Queen-Mother of Malacca came to court, bringing her son's tribute.

Now this notable fact of the visit of a King of Malacca to the court of China, and his acknowledgment of the Emperor's supremacy, is also recorded in the Commentaries of Alboquerque. This work, it is true, attributes the visit, not to Paramisura, the founder of Malacca, but to his son and successor Iskandar Shah. This may be a question of a title only, perhaps borne by both; but we seem entitled to conclude with confidence that Malacca was founded by a prince whose son was reigning, and visited the court of China in 1411. And the real chronology will be about midway between the estimates of De Couto and of Alboquerque. Hence Malacca did not exist for a century, more or less, after Polo's voyage.

[Mr. C.O. Blagden, in a paper on the Mediaeval Chronology of Malacca (Actes du XI'e Cong. Int. Orient. Paris, 1897), writes (p. 249) that "if Malacca had been in the middle of the 14th century anything like the great emporium of trade which it certainly was in the 15th, Ibn Batuta would scarcely have failed to speak of it." The foundation of Malacca by Sri Iskandar Shah in 1252, according to the Sejarah Malayu "must be put at least 125 years later, and the establishment of the Muhammadan religion there would then precede by only a few years the end of the 14th century, instead of taking place about the end of the 13th, as is generally supposed" (p. 251). (Cf. G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes, XV.)—H.C.]

Mr. Logan supposes that the form Malayu-r may indicate that the Malay language of the 13th century "had not yet replaced the strong naso-guttural terminals by pure vowels." We find the same form in a contemporary Chinese notice. This records that in the 2nd year of the Yuen, tribute was sent from Siam to the Emperor. "The Siamese had long been at war with the Maliyi or MALIURH, but both nations laid aside their feud and submitted to China." (Valentyn, V. p. 352; Crawford's Desc. Dict. art. Malacca; Lassen, IV. 541 seqq.; Journ. Ind. Archip. V. 572, II. 608-609; De Barros, Dec. II. 1. vi. c. 1; Comentarios do grande Afonso d'Alboquerque, Pt. III. cap. xvii.; Couto, Dec. IV. liv. ii.; Wade in Bowring's Kingdom and People of Siam, I. 72.)

[From I-tsing we learn that going from China to India, the traveller visits the country of Shih-li-fuh-shi (Cribhoja or simply Fuh-shi = Bhoja), then Mo-louo-yu, which seems to Professor Chavannes to correspond to the Malaiur of Marco Polo and to the modern Palembang, and which in the 10th century formed a part of Cribhodja identified by Professor Chavannes with Zabedj. (I-tsing, p. 36.) The Rev. S. Beal has some remarks on this question in the Merveilles de l'Inde, p. 251, and he says that he thinks "there are reasons for placing this country [Cribhoja], or island, on the East coast of Sumatra, and near Palembang, or, on the Palembang River." Mr. Groeneveldt (T'oung Pao, VII. abst. p. 10) gives some extracts from Chinese authors, and then writes: "We have therefore to find now a place for the Molayu of I-tsing, the Malaiur of Marco Polo, the Malayo of Alboquerque, and the Tana-Malayu of De Barros, all which may be taken to mean the same place. I-tsing tells us that it took fifteen days to go from Bhoja to Molayu and fifteen days again to go from there to Kieh-ch'a. The latter place, suggesting a native name Kada, must have been situated in the north-west of Sumatra, somewhere near the present Atjeh, for going from there west, one arrived in thirty days at Magapatana; near Ceylon, whilst a northern course brought one in ten days to the Nicobar Islands. Molayu should thus lie half-way between Bhoja and Kieh-ch'a, but this indication must not be taken too literally where it is given for a sailing vessel, and there is also the statement of De Barros, which does not allow us to go too far away from Palembang, as he mentions Tana-Malayu next to that place. We have therefore to choose between the next three larger rivers: those of Jambi, Indragiri, and Kampar, and there is an indication in favour of the last one, not very strong, it is true, but still not to be neglected. I-tsing tells us: 'Le roi me donna des secours grace auxquels je parvins au pays de Mo-louo-yu; j'y sejournai derechef pendant deux mois. Je changeai de direction pour aller dans le pays de Kie-tcha.' The change of direction during a voyage along the east coast of Sumatra from Palembang to Atjeh is nowhere very perceptible, because the course is throughout more or less north-west, still one may speak of a change of direction at the mouth of the River Kampar, about the entrance of the Strait of Malacca, whence the track begins to run more west, whilst it is more north before. The country of Kampar is of little importance now, but it is not improbable that there has been a Hindoo settlement, as the ruins of religious monuments decidedly Buddhist are still existing on the upper course of the river, the only ones indeed on this side of the island, it being a still unexplained fact that the Hindoos in Java have built on a very large scale, and those of Sumatra hardly anything at all."—Mr. Takakusu (A Record of the Buddhist Religion, p. xli.) proposes to place Shih-li-fuh-shi at Palembang and Mo-louo-yu farther on the northern coast of Sumatra.—(Cf. G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes, XVI.; P. Pelliot, Bul. Ecole Franc. Ext. Orient, II. pp. 94-96.)—H.C.]



CHAPTER IX.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF JAVA THE LESS. THE KINGDOMS OF FERLEC AND BASMA.

When you leave the Island of Pentam and sail about 100 miles, you reach the Island of JAVA THE LESS. For all its name 'tis none so small but that it has a compass of two thousand miles or more. Now I will tell you all about this Island.[NOTE 1]

You see there are upon it eight kingdoms and eight crowned kings. The people are all Idolaters, and every kingdom has a language of its own. The Island hath great abundance of treasure, with costly spices, lign-aloes and spikenard and many others that never come into our parts.[NOTE 2]

Now I am going to tell you all about these eight kingdoms, or at least the greater part of them. But let me premise one marvellous thing, and that is the fact that this Island lies so far to the south that the North Star, little or much, is never to be seen!

Now let us resume our subject, and first I will tell you of the kingdom of FERLEC.

This kingdom, you must know, is so much frequented by the Saracen merchants that they have converted the natives to the Law of Mahommet—I mean the townspeople only, for the hill-people live for all the world like beasts, and eat human flesh, as well as all other kinds of flesh, clean or unclean. And they worship this, that, and the other thing; for in fact the first thing that they see on rising in the morning, that they do worship for the rest of the day.[NOTE 3]

Having told you of the kingdom of Ferlec, I will now tell of another which is called BASMA.

When you quit the kingdom of Ferlec you enter upon that of Basma. This also is an independent kingdom, and the people have a language of their own; but they are just like beasts without laws or religion. They call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan, but they pay him no tribute; indeed they are so far away that his men could not go thither. Still all these Islanders declare themselves to be his subjects, and sometimes they send him curiosities as presents.[NOTE 4] There are wild elephants in the country, and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big. They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles [and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue]. The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. 'Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, 'tis altogether different from what we fancied.[NOTE 5] There are also monkeys here in great numbers and of sundry kinds; and goshawks as black as crows. These are very large birds and capital for fowling.[NOTE 6]

I may tell you moreover that when people bring home pygmies which they allege to come from India, 'tis all a lie and a cheat. For those little men, as they call them, are manufactured on this Island, and I will tell you how. You see there is on the Island a kind of monkey which is very small, and has a face just like a man's. They take these, and pluck out all the hair except the hair of the beard and on the breast, and then they dry them and stuff them and daub them with saffron and other things until they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere in India nor anywhere else in the world were there ever men seen so small as these pretended pygmies.

Now I will say no more of the kingdom of Basma, but tell you of the others in succession.

NOTE 1.—Java the Less is the Island of SUMATRA. Here there is no exaggeration in the dimension assigned to its circuit, which is about 2300 miles. The old Arabs of the 9th century give it a circuit of 800 parasangs, or say 2800 miles, and Barbosa reports the estimate of the Mahomedan seamen as 2100 miles. Compare the more reasonable accuracy of these estimates of Sumatra, which the navigators knew in its entire compass, with the wild estimates of Java Proper, of which they knew but the northern coast.

Polo by no means stands alone in giving the name of Java to the island now called Sumatra. The terms Jawa, Jawi, were applied by the Arabs to the islands and productions of the Archipelago generally (e.g., Luban jawi, "Java frankincense," whence by corruption Benzoin), but also specifically to Sumatra. Thus Sumatra is the Jawah both of Abulfeda and of Ibn Batuta, the latter of whom spent some time on the island, both in going to China and on his return. The Java also of the Catalan Map appears to be Sumatra. Javaku again is the name applied in the Singalese chronicles to the Malays in general. Jau and Dawa are the names still applied by the Battaks and the people of Nias respectively to the Malays, showing probably that these were looked on as Javanese by those tribes who did not partake of the civilisation diffused from Java. In Siamese also the Malay language is called Chawa; and even on the Malay peninsula, the traditional slang for a half-breed born from a Kling (or Coromandel) father and a Malay mother is Jawi Pakan, "a Jawi (i.e. Malay) of the market." De Barros says that all the people of Sumatra called themselves by the common name of Jauijs. (Dec. III. liv. v. cap. 1.)

There is some reason to believe that the application of the name Java to Sumatra is of very old date. For the oldest inscription of ascertained date in the Archipelago which has yet been read, a Sanskrit one from Pagaroyang, the capital of the ancient Malay state of Menang-kabau in the heart of Sumatra, bearing a date equivalent to A.D. 656, entitles the monarch whom it commemorates, Adityadharma by name, the king of "the First Java" (or rather Yava). This Mr. Friedrich interprets to mean Sumatra. It is by no means impossible that the Iabadiu, or Yavadvipa of Ptolemy may be Sumatra rather than Java.

An accomplished Dutch Orientalist suggests that the Arabs originally applied the terms Great Java and Little Java to Java and Sumatra respectively, not because of their imagined relation in size, but as indicating the former to be Java Proper. Thus also, he says, there is a Great Acheh (Achin) which does not imply that the place so called is greater than the well-known state of Achin (of which it is in fact a part), but because it is Acheh Proper. A like feeling may have suggested the Great Bulgaria, Great Hungary, Great Turkey of the mediaeval travellers. These were, or were supposed to be, the original seats of the Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Turks. The Great Horde of the Kirghiz Kazaks is, as regards numbers, not the greatest, but the smallest of the three. But the others look upon it as the most ancient. The Burmese are alleged to call the Rakhain or people of Arakan Mranma Gyi or Great Burmese, and to consider their dialect the most ancient form of the language. And, in like manner, we may perhaps account for the term of Little Thai, formerly applied to the Siamese in distinction from the Great Thai, their kinsmen of Laos.

In after-days, when the name of Sumatra for the Great Island had established itself, the traditional term "Little Java" sought other applications. Barbosa seems to apply it to Sumbawa; Pigafetta and Cavendish apply it to Bali, and in this way Raffles says it was still used in his own day. Geographers were sometimes puzzled about it. Magini says Java Minor is almost incognita.

(Turnour's Epitome, p. 45; Van der Tuuk, Bladwijzer tot de drie Stukken van het Bataksche Leesboek, p. 43, etc.; Friedrich in Bat. Transactions, XXVI.; Levchine, Les Kirghiz Kazaks, 300, 301.)

NOTE 2.—As regards the treasure, Sumatra was long famous for its produce of gold. The export is estimated in Crawford's History at 35,530 ounces; but no doubt it was much more when the native states were in a condition of greater wealth and civilisation, as they undoubtedly were some centuries ago. Valentyn says that in some years Achin had exported 80 bahars, equivalent to 32,000 or 36,000 Lbs. avoirdupois (!). Of the other products named, lign-aloes or eagle-wood is a product of Sumatra, and is or was very abundant in Campar on the eastern coast. The Ain-i-Akbari says this article was usually brought to India from Achin and Tenasserim. Both this and spikenard are mentioned by Polo's contemporary, Kazwini, among the products of Java (probably Sumatra), viz., Java lign-aloes (al-' Ud al-Jawi), camphor spikenard (Sumbul), etc. Narawastu is the name of a grass with fragrant roots much used as a perfume in the Archipelago, and I see this is rendered spikenard in a translation from the Malay Annals in the Journal of the Archipelago.

With regard to the kingdoms of the island which Marco proceeds to describe, it is well to premise that all the six which he specifies are to be looked for towards the north end of the island, viz., in regular succession up the northern part of the east coast, along the north coast, and down the northern part of the west coast. This will be made tolerably clear in the details, and Marco himself intimates at the end of the next chapter that the six kingdoms he describes were all at this side or end of the island: "Or vos avon contee de cesti roiames que sunt de ceste partie de scele ysle, et des autres roiames de l'autre partie ne voz conteron-noz rien." Most commentators have made confusion by scattering them up and down, nearly all round the coast of Sumatra. The best remarks on the subject I have met with are by Mr. Logan in his Journal of the Ind. Arch. II. 610.