The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello of

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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 Mekrán 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; (Nabílah, 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 Gesù, 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. (Müller's Ps. Callisth. 105.) The Mahábhárata celebrates the Amazon country of Ráná Paramitá, 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 Ferdúsi'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 Édifiantes 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 récit de Marc Pol est loin d'être 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.)

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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 Awál. 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. (Ethé, 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, Dvípa-Sukhádhára, "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 Kataríya."]

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 Kashís (Ar. for a Christian Presbyter), to whom they paid tithe. No man could read. The Kashís 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 Kashíses 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. Makám, "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: ékklaesía]). 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. (Müller's Geog. Gr. Minores, I. pp. 280-281; Relations, I. 139-140; Cathay, clxxi., ccxlv. 169; Conti, 20; Maffei, lib. III.; Büsching, 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 Bawárij, which chase the Arab ships bound for India and China, just as the Greek galleys chase the Mussulmans in the sea of Rúm along the coasts of Syria and Egypt" (III. 37). The Bawárij were corsairs of Kach'h and Guzerat, so called from using a kind of war-vessel called Bárja. (Elliot, I. 65.) Ibn Batuta tells a story of a friend of his, the Shaikh Sa'íd, 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.).

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Notes:

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

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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 Sumáli 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 Sumáli 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 Baráwa) 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 Matitánana on the east coast, in lat. 21°-23° 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°, 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° 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 Géog. 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 à 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. Guët (Origines de l'île Bourbon, 1888) brings the Carthaginians to Madagascar, and derives the name of this island from Madax-Aschtoret or Madax-Astarté, which signifies Isle of Astarté 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. (Ethé 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.)

[Illustration: The Rukh (from Lane's "Arabian Nights"), after a Persian drawing.]

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 Nesnás (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."

[Illustration: Frontispiece showing the Bird Rukh.]

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.

I have to thank Mr. Arthur Grote for a few words more on that most interesting subject, the discovery of a real fossil Ruc in New Zealand. He informs me (under date 4th December 1874) that Professor Owen is now working on the huge bones sent home by Dr. Haast, "and is convinced that they belonged to a bird of prey, probably (as Dr. Haast suggested) a Harrier, double the weight of the Moa, and quite capable therefore of preying on the young of that species. Indeed, he is disposed to attribute the extinction of the Harpagornis to that of the Moa, which was the only victim in the country which could supply it with a sufficiency of food."

One is tempted to add that if the Moa or Dinornis of New Zealand had its Harpagornis scourge, the still greater Aepyornis of Madagascar may have had a proportionate tyrant, whose bones (and quills ?) time may bring to light. And the description given by Sir Douglas Forsyth on page 542, of the action of the Golden Eagle of Kashgar in dealing with a wild boar, illustrates how such a bird as our imagined Harpagornis Aepyornithon might master the larger pachydermata, even the elephant himself, without having to treat him precisely as the Persian drawing at p. 415 represents.

Sindbad's adventures with the Rukh are too well known for quotation. A variety of stories of the same tenor hitherto unpublished, have been collected by M. Marcel Devic from an Arabic work of the 10th century on the "Marvels of Hind," by an author who professes only to repeat the narratives of merchants and mariners whom he had questioned. A specimen of these will be found under Note 6. The story takes a peculiar form in the Travels of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela. He heard that when ships were in danger of being lost in the stormy sea that led to China the sailors were wont to sew themselves up in hides, and so when cast upon the surface they were snatched up by great eagles called gryphons, which carried their supposed prey ashore, etc. It is curious that this very story occurs in a Latin poem stated to be at least as old as the beginning of the 13th century, which relates the romantic adventures of a certain Duke Ernest of Bavaria; whilst the story embodies more than one other adventure belonging to the History of Sindbad.[5] The Duke and his comrades, navigating in some unknown ramification of the Euxine, fall within the fatal attraction of the Magnet Mountain. Hurried by this augmenting force, their ship is described as crashing through the rotten forest of masts already drawn to their doom:—

"Et ferit impulsus majoris verbere montem
Quam si diplosas impingat machina turres."

There they starve, and the dead are deposited on the lofty poop to be carried away by the daily visits of the gryphons:—

—"Quae grifae membra leonis
Et pennas aquilae simulantes unguibus atris
Tollentes miseranda suis dant prandia pullis."

When only the Duke and six others survive, the wisest of the party suggests the scheme which Rabbi Benjamin has related:—

—"Quaeramus tergora, et armis
Vestiti prius, optatis volvamur in illis,
Ut nos tollentes mentita cadavera Grifae
Pullis objiciant, a queis facientibus armis
Et cute dissutâ, nos, si volet, Ille Deorum
Optimus eripiet."

Which scheme is successfully carried out. The wanderers then make a raft on which they embark on a river which plunges into a cavern in the heart of a mountain; and after a time they emerge in the country of Arimaspia inhabited by the Cyclopes; and so on. The Gryphon story also appears in the romance of Huon de Bordeaux, as well as in the tale called 'Hasan of el-Basrah' in Lane's Version of the Arabian Nights.

It is in the China Seas that Ibn Batuta beheld the Rukh, first like a mountain in the sea where no mountain should be, and then "when the sun rose," says he, "we saw the mountain aloft in the air, and the clear sky between it and the sea. We were in astonishment at this, and I observed that the sailors were weeping and bidding each other adieu, so I called out, 'What is the matter?' They replied, 'What we took for a mountain is "the Rukh." If it sees us, it will send us to destruction.' It was then some 10 miles from the junk. But God Almighty was gracious unto us, and sent us a fair wind, which turned us from the direction in which the Rukh was; so we did not see him well enough to take cognizance of his real shape." In this story we have evidently a case of abnormal refraction, causing an island to appear suspended in the air.[6]

The Archipelago was perhaps the legitimate habitat of the Rukh, before circumstances localised it in the direction of Madagascar. In the Indian Sea, says Kazwini, is a bird of size so vast that when it is dead men take the half of its bill and make a ship of it! And there too Pigafetta heard of this bird, under its Hindu name of Garuda, so big that it could fly away with an elephant.[7] Kazwini also says that the 'Angka carries off an elephant as a hawk flies off with a mouse; his flight is like the loud thunder. Whilom he dwelt near the haunts of men, and wrought them great mischief. But once on a time it had carried off a bride in her bridal array, and Hamd Allah, the Prophet of those days, invoked a curse upon the bird. Wherefore the Lord banished it to an inaccessible Island in the Encircling Ocean.

The Simurgh or 'Angka, dwelling behind veils of Light and Darkness on the inaccessible summits of Caucasus, is in Persian mysticism an emblem of the Almighty.

In Northern Siberia the people have a firm belief in the former existence of birds of colossal size, suggested apparently by the fossil bones of great pachyderms which are so abundant there. And the compressed sabre-like horns of Rhinoceros tichorinus are constantly called, even by Russian merchants, birds' claws. Some of the native tribes fancy the vaulted skull of the same rhinoceros to be the bird's head, and the leg-bones of other pachyderms to be its quills; and they relate that their forefathers used to fight wonderful battles with this bird. Erman ingeniously suggests that the Herodotean story of the Gryphons, from under which the Arimaspians drew their gold, grew out of the legends about these fossils.

I may add that the name of our rook in chess is taken from that of this same bird; though first perverted from (Sansk.) rath, a chariot.

Some Eastern authors make the Rukh an enormous beast instead of a bird. (See J.R.A.S. XIII. 64, and Elliot, II. 203.) A Spanish author of the 16th century seems to take the same view of the Gryphon, but he is prudently vague in describing it, which he does among the animals of Africa: "The Grifo which some call CAMELLO PARDAL … is called by the Arabs Yfrit(!), and is made just in that fashion in which we see it painted in pictures." (Marmol, Descripcion General de Africa, Granada, 1573, I. f. 30.) The Zorafa is described as a different beast, which it certainly is!

(Bochart, Hierozoica, II. 852 seqq.; Mas'udi, IV. 16; Mem. dell' Acad. dell' Instit. di Bologna, III. 174 seqq., V. 112 seqq.; Zurla on Fra Mauro, p. 62; Lane's Arabian Nights, Notes on Sindbad; Benj. of Tudela, p. 117; De Varia Fortuna Ernesti Bavariae Ducis, in Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum of Martene and Durand, vol. III. col. 353 seqq.; I.B. IV. 305; Gildem. p. 220; Pigafetta, p. 174; Major's Prince Henry, p. 311; Erman, II. 88; Garcin de Tassy, La Poésie philos. etc., chez les Persans, 30 seqq.)

[In a letter to Sir Henry Yule, dated 24th March 1887, Sir (then Dr.) John Kirk writes: "I was speaking with the present Sultan of Zanzibar, Seyyed Barghash, about the great bird which the natives say exists, and in doing so I laughed at the idea. His Highness turned serious and said that indeed he believed it to be quite true that a great bird visited the Udoe country, and that it caused a great shadow to fall upon the country; he added that it let fall at times large rocks. Of course he did not pretend to know these things from his own experience, for he has never been inland, but he considered he had ample grounds to believe these stones from what he had been told of those who travelled. The Udoe country lies north of the River Wami opposite the island of Zanzibar and about two days going inland. The people are jealous of strangers and practise cannibalism in war. They are therefore little visited, and although near the coast we know little of them. The only members of their tribe I have known have been converted to Islam, and not disposed to say much of their native customs, being ashamed of them, while secretly still believing in them. The only thing I noticed was an idea that the tribe came originally from the West, from about Manyema; now the people of that part are cannibals, and cannibalism is almost unknown except among the Wadoe, nearer the east coast. It is also singular that the other story of a gigantic bird comes from near Manyema and that the whalebone that was passed off at Zanzibar as the wing of a bird, came, they said, from Tanganyika. As to rocks falling in East Africa, I think their idea might easily arise from the fall of meteoric stones."]

[M. Alfred Grandidier (Hist. de la Géog. de Madagascar, p. 31) thinks that the Rukh is but an image; it is a personification of water-spouts, cyclones, and typhoons.—H.C.]

NOTE 6.—Sir Thomas Brown says that if any man will say he desires before belief to behold such a creature as is the Rukh in Paulus Venetus, for his own part he will not be angry with his incredulity. But M. Pauthier is of more liberal belief; for he considers that, after all, the dimensions which Marco assigns to the wings and quills of the Rukh are not so extravagant that we should refuse to admit their possibility.

Ludolf will furnish him with corroborative evidence, that of Padre Bolivar, a Jesuit, as communicated to Thévenot; the assigned position will suit well enough with Marco's report: "The bird condor differs in size in different parts of the world. The greater species was seen by many of the Portuguese in their expedition against the Kingdoms of Sofala and Cuama and the Land of the Caffres from Monomotapa to the Kingdom of Angola and the Mountains of Teroa. In some countries I have myself seen the wing-feathers of that enormous fowl, although the bird itself I never beheld. The feather in question, as could be deduced from its form, was one of the middle ones, and it was 28 palms in length and three in breadth. The quill part, from the root to the extremity, was five palms in length, of the thickness of an average man's arm, and of extreme strength and hardness. [M. Alfred Grandidier (Hist. de la Géog. de Madagascar, p. 25) thinks that the quill part of this feather was one of the bamboo shoots formerly brought to Yemen to be used as water-jars and called there feathers of Rukh, the Arabs looking upon these bamboo shoots as the quill part of the feathers of the Rukh.—H.C.] The fibres of the feather were equal in length and closely fitted, so that they could scarcely be parted without some exertion of force; and they were jet black, whilst the quill part was white. Those who had seen the bird stated that it was bigger than the bulk of a couple of elephants, and that hitherto nobody had succeeded in killing one. It rises to the clouds with such extraordinary swiftness that it seems scarcely to stir its wings. In form it is like an eagle. But although its size and swiftness are so extraordinary, it has much trouble in procuring food, on account of the density of the forests with which all that region is clothed. Its own dwelling is in cold and desolate tracts such as the Mountains of Teroa, i.e. of the Moon; and in the valleys of that range it shows itself at certain periods. Its black feathers are held in very high estimation, and it is with the greatest difficulty that one can be got from the natives, for one such serves to fan ten people, and to keep off the terrible heat from them, as well as the wasps and flies" (Ludolf, Hist. Aethiop. Comment, p. 164.)

Abu Mahomed, of Spain, relates that a merchant arrived in Barbary who had lived long among the Chinese. He had with him the quill of a chick Rukh, and this held nine skins of water. He related the story of how he came by this,—a story nearly the same as one of Sindbad's about the Rukh's egg. (Bochart, II. 854.)

Another story of a seaman wrecked on the coast of Africa is among those collected by M. Marcel Devic. By a hut that stood in the middle of a field of rice and durra there was a trough. "A man came up leading a pair of oxen, laden with 12 skins of water, and emptied these into the trough. I drew near to drink, and found the trough to be polished like a steel blade, quite different from either glass or pottery. 'It is the hollow of a quill,' said the man. I would not believe a word of the sort, until, after rubbing it inside and outside, I found it to be transparent, and to retain the traces of the barbs." (Comptes Rendus, etc., ut supra; and Livre des Merveilles de L'Inde, p. 99.)

Fr. Jordanus also says: "In this India Tertia (Eastern Africa) are certain birds which are called Roc, so big that they easily carry an elephant up into the air. I have seen a certain person who said that he had seen one of those birds, one wing only of which stretched to a length of 80 palms" (p. 42).

The Japanese Encyclopaedia states that in the country of the Tsengsz' (Zinjis) in the South-West Ocean, there is a bird called pheng, which in its flight eclipses the sun. It can swallow a camel; and its quills are used for water-casks. This was probably got from the Arabs. (J. As., sèr. 2, tom. xii. 235-236.)

I should note that the Geog. Text in the first passage where the feathers are spoken of says: "e ce qe je en vi voz dirai en autre leu, por ce qe il convient ensi faire à nostre livre,"—"that which I have seen of them I will tell you elsewhere, as it suits the arrangement of our book." No such other detail is found in that text, but we have in Ramusio this passage about the quill brought to the Great Kaan, and I suspect that the phrase, "as I have heard," is an interpolation, and that Polo is here telling ce qe il en vit. What are we to make of the story? I have sometimes thought that possibly some vegetable production, such as a great frond of the Ravenala, may have been cooked to pass as a Rukh's quill. [See App. L.]

NOTE 7.—The giraffes are an error. The Eng. Cyc. says that wild asses and zebras (?) do exist in Madagascar, but I cannot trace authority for this.

The great boar's teeth were indubitably hippopotamus-teeth, which form a considerable article of export from Zanzibar[8] (not Madagascar). Burton speaks of their reaching 12 lbs in weight. And Cosmas tells us: "The hippopotamus I have not seen indeed, but I had some great teeth of his that weighed thirteen pounds, which I sold here (in Alexandria). And I have seen many such teeth in Ethiopia and in Egypt." (See J.R.G.S. XXIX. 444; Cathay, p. clxxv.)

_______________

Notes:

[1] Bretschneider, On the knowledge possessed by the Ancient Chinese of the Arabs, etc. London, 1871, p. 21.

[2] Mas'udi speaks of an island Kanbalú, well cultivated and populous, one or two days from the Zinj coast, and the object of voyages from Oman, from which it was about 500 parasangs distant. It was conquered by the Arabs, who captured the whole Zinj population of the island, about the beginning of the Abasside Dynasty (circa A.D. 750). Barbier de Meynard thinks this may be Madagascar. I suspect it rather to be Pemba, (See Prairies d'Or, I. 205, 232, and III. 31.)

[3] "De la grandeza de una bota d'anfora." The lowest estimate that I find of the Venetian anfora makes it equal to about 108 imperial gallons, a little less than the English butt. This seems intended. The ancient amphora would be more reasonable, being only 5.66 gallons.

[4] The friend who noted this for me, omitted to name the Society.

[5] I got the indication of this poem, I think, in Bochart. But I have since observed that its coincidences with Sindbad are briefly noticed by Mr. Lane (ed. 1859, III. 78) from an article in the "Foreign Quarterly Review."

[6] An intelligent writer, speaking of such effects on the same sea, says: "The boats floating on a calm sea, at a distance from the ship, were magnified to a great size; the crew standing up in them appeared as masts or trees, and their arms in motion as the wings of windmills; whilst the surrounding islands (especially at their low and tapered extremities) seemed to be suspended in the air, some feet above the ocean's level." (Bennett's Whaling Voyage, II. 71-72.)

[7] An epithet of the Garuda is Gajakúrmásin, "elephant-cum-tortoise-devourer," because said to have swallowed both when engaged in a contest with each other.

[8] The name as pronounced seems to have been Zangibár (hard g), which polite Arabic changed into Zanjibár, whence the Portuguese made Zanzibar.

[admin]

CHAPTER XXXIV. CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF ZANGHIBAR. A WORD ON INDIA IN GENERAL.

Zanghibar is a great and noble Island, with a compass of some 2000 miles.[NOTE 1] The people are all Idolaters, and have a king and a language of their own, and pay tribute to nobody. They are both tall and stout, but not tall in proportion to their stoutness, for if they were, being so stout and brawny, they would be absolutely like giants; and they are so strong that they will carry for four men and eat for five.

They are all black, and go stark naked, with only a little covering for decency. Their hair is as black as pepper, and so frizzly that even with water you can scarcely straighten it. And their mouths are so large, their noses so turned up, their lips so thick, their eyes so big and bloodshot, that they look like very devils; they are in fact so hideously ugly that the world has nothing to show more horrible.

Elephants are produced in this country in wonderful profusion. There are also lions that are black and quite different from ours. And their sheep and wethers are all exactly alike in colour; the body all white and the head black; no other kind of sheep is found there, you may rest assured.[NOTE 2] They have also many giraffes. This is a beautiful creature, and I must give you a description of it. Its body is short and somewhat sloped to the rear, for its hind legs are short whilst the fore-legs and the neck are both very long, and thus its head stands about three paces from the ground. The head is small, and the animal is not at all mischievous. Its colour is all red and white in round spots, and it is really a beautiful object.[NOTE 3]

**The women of this Island are the ugliest in the world, with their great mouths and big eyes and thick noses; their breasts too are four times bigger than those of any other women; a very disgusting sight.

The people live on rice and flesh and milk and dates; and they make wine of dates and of rice and of good spices and sugar. There is a great deal of trade, and many merchants and vessels go thither. But the staple trade of the Island is in elephants' teeth, which are very abundant; and they have also much ambergris, as whales are plentiful.[NOTE 4]

They have among them excellent and valiant warriors, and have little fear of death. They have no horses, but fight mounted on camels and elephants. On the latter they set wooden castles which carry from ten to sixteen persons, armed with lances, swords, and stones, so that they fight to great purpose from these castles. They wear no armour, but carry only a shield of hide, besides their swords and lances, and so a marvellous number of them fall in battle. When they are going to take an elephant into battle they ply him well with their wine, so that he is made half drunk. They do this because the drink makes him more fierce and bold, and of more service in battle.[NOTE 5]

As there is no more to say on this subject I will go on to tell you about the Great Province of ABASH, which constitutes the MIDDLE INDIA;—but I must first say something about India in general.

You must understand that in speaking of the Indian Islands we have described only the most noble provinces and kingdoms among them; for no man on earth could give you a true account of the whole of the Islands of India. Still, what I have described are the best, and as it were the Flower of the Indies. For the greater part of the other Indian Islands that I have omitted are subject to those that I have described. It is a fact that in this Sea of India there are 12,700 Islands, inhabited and uninhabited, according to the charts and documents of experienced mariners who navigate that Indian Sea.[NOTE 6]

INDIA THE GREATER is that which extends from Maabar to Kesmacoran; and it contains 13 great kingdoms, of which we have described ten. These are all on the mainland.

INDIA THE LESSER extends from the Province of Champa to Mutfili, and contains eight great kingdoms. These are likewise all on the mainland. And neither of these numbers includes the Islands, among which also there are very numerous kingdoms, as I have told you.[NOTE 7]

NOTE 1.—ZANGIBAR, "the Region of the Blacks," known to the ancients as Zingis and Zingium. The name was applied by the Arabs, according to De Barros, to the whole stretch of coast from the Kilimanchi River, which seems to be the Jubb, to Cape Corrientes beyond the Southern Tropic, i.e. as far as Arab traffic extended; Burton says now from the Jubb to Cape Delgado. According to Abulfeda, the King of Zinjis dwelt at Mombasa. In recent times the name is by Europeans almost appropriated to the Island on which resides the Sultan of the Maskat family, to whom Sir B. Frere lately went as envoy. Our author's "Island" has no reference to this; it is an error simply.

Our traveller's information is here, I think, certainly at second hand, though no doubt he had seen the negroes whom he describes with such disgust, and apparently the sheep and the giraffes.

NOTE 2.—These sheep are common at Aden, whither they are imported from the opposite African coast. They have hair like smooth goats, no wool. Varthema also describes them (p. 87). In the Cairo Museum, among ornaments found in the mummy-pits, there is a little figure of one of these sheep, the head and neck in some blue stone and the body in white agate. (Note by Author of the sketch on next page.)

NOTE 3.—A giraffe—made into a seraph by the Italians—had been frequently seen in Italy in the early part of the century, there being one in the train of the Emperor Frederic II. Another was sent by Bibars to the Imperial Court in 1261, and several to Barka Khan at Sarai in 1263; whilst the King of Nubia was bound by treaty in 1275 to deliver to the Sultan three elephants, three giraffes, and five she-panthers. (Kington, I. 471; Makrizi, I. 216; II. 106, 108.) The giraffe is sometimes wrought in the patterns of mediaeval Saracenic damasks, and in Sicilian ones imitated from the former. Of these there are examples in the Kensington Collection.

I here omit a passage about the elephant. It recounts an old and long-persistent fable, exploded by Sir T. Brown, and indeed before him by the sensible Garcia de Orta.

NOTE 4.—The port of Zanzibar is probably the chief ivory mart in the world. Ambergris is mentioned by Burton among miscellaneous exports, but it is not now of any consequence. Owen speaks of it as brought for sale at Delagoa Bay in the south.

NOTE 5.—Mas'udi more correctly says: "The country abounds with wild elephants, but you don't find a single tame one. The Zinjes employ them neither in war nor otherwise, and if they hunt them 'tis only to kill them" (III. 7). It is difficult to conceive how Marco could have got so much false information. The only beast of burden in Zanzibar, at least north of Mozambique, is the ass. His particulars seem jumbled from various parts of Africa. The camel-riders suggest the Bejas of the Red Sea coast, of whom there were in Mas'udi's time 30,000 warriors so mounted, and armed with lances and bucklers (III. 34). The elephant stories may have arisen from the occasional use of these animals by the Kings of Abyssinia. (See Note 4 to next chapter.)

[Illustration: Ethiopian Sheep.]

NOTE 6.—An approximation to 12,000 as a round number seems to have been habitually used in reference to the Indian Islands; John of Montecorvino says they are many more than 12,000; Jordanus had heard that there were 10,000 inhabited. Linschoten says some estimated the Maldives at 11,100. And we learn from Pyrard de Laval that the Sultan of the Maldives called himself Ibrahim Sultan of Thirteen Atollons (or coral groups) and of 12,000 Islands! This is probably the origin of the proverbial number. Ibn Batuta, in his excellent account of the Maldives, estimates them at only about 2000. But Captain Owen, commenting on Pyrard, says that he believes the actual number of islands to be treble or fourfold of 12,000. (P. de Laval in Charton, IV. 255; I.B. IV. 40; J.R.G.S. II. 84.)

NOTE 7.—The term "India" became very vague from an early date. In fact, Alcuin divides the whole world into three parts, Europe, Africa, and India. Hence it was necessary to discriminate different Indias, but there is very little agreement among different authors as to this discrimination.

The earliest use that I can find of the terms India Major and Minor is in the Liber Junioris Philosophi published by Hudson, and which is believed to be translated from a lost Greek original of the middle of the 4th century. In this author India Minor adjoins Persia. So it does with Friar Jordanus. His India Minor appears to embrace Sind (possibly Mekran), and the western coast exclusive of Malabar. India Major extends from Malabar indefinitely eastward. His India Tertia is Zanjibar. The Three Indies appear in a map contained in a MS. by Guido Pisanus, written in 1118. Conti divides India into three: (1) From Persia to the Indus (i.e. Mekran and Sind); (2) From the Indus to the Ganges; (3) All that is beyond Ganges (Indo-China and China).

In a map of Andrea Bianco at Venice (No. 12) the divisions are—(1) India Minor, extending westward to the Persian Gulf; (2) India Media, "containing 14 regions and 12 nations;" and (3) India Superior, containing 8 regions and 24 nations.

Marino Sanuto places immediately east of the Persian Gulf "India Minor quae et Ethiopia."

John Marignolli again has three Indias: (1) Manzi or India Maxima (S. China); (2) Mynibar (Malabar); (3) Maabar. The last two with Guzerat are Abulfeda's divisions, exclusive of Sind.

We see that there was a traditional tendency to make out Three Indies, but little concord as to their identity. With regard to the expressions Greater and Lesser India, I would recall attention to what has been said about Greater and Lesser Java (supra, chap. ix. note 1). Greater India was originally intended, I imagine, for the real India, what our maps call Hindustan. And the threefold division, with its inclination to place one of the Indies in Africa, I think may have originated with the Arab Hind, Sind, and Zinj. I may add that our vernacular expression "the Indies" is itself a vestige of the twofold or threefold division of which we have been speaking.

The partition of the Indies made by King Sebastian of Portugal in 1571, when he constituted his eastern possessions into three governments, recalled the old division into Three Indias. The first, INDIA, extending from Cape Gardafui to Ceylon, stood in a general way for Polo's India Major; the second MONOMOTAPA, from Gardafui to Cape Corrientes (India Tertia of Jordanus); the third MALACCA, from Pegu to China (India Minor). (Faria y Souza, II. 319.)

Polo's knowledge of India, as a whole, is so little exact that it is too indefinite a problem to consider which are the three kingdoms that he has not described. The ten which he has described appear to be—(1) Maabar, (2) Coilum, (3) Comari, (4) Eli, (5) Malabar, (6) Guzerat, (7) Tana, (8) Canbaet, (9) Semenat, (10) Kesmacoran. On the one hand, this distribution in itself contains serious misapprehensions, as we have seen, and on the other there must have been many dozens of kingdoms in India Major instead of 13, if such states as Comari, Hili, and Somnath were to be separately counted. Probably it was a common saying that there were 12 kings in India, and the fact of his having himself described so many, which he knew did not nearly embrace the whole, may have made Polo convert this into 13. Jordanus says: "In this Greater India are 12 idolatrous kings and more;" but his Greater India is much more extensive than Polo's. Those which he names are Molebar (probably the kingdom of the Zamorin of Calicut), Singuyli (Cranganor), Columbum (Quilon), Molephatan (on the east coast, uncertain, see above pp. 333, 391), and Sylen (Ceylon), Java, three or four kings, Telenc (Polo's Mutfili), Maratha (Deogir), Batigala (in Canara), and in Champa (apparently put for all Indo-China) many kings. According to Firishta there were about a dozen important principalities in India at the time of the Mahomedan conquest of which he mentions eleven, viz.: (1) Kanauj, (2) Mírat (or Delhi), (3) Mahávan (Mathra), (4) Lahore, (5) Malwa, (6) Guzerat, (7) Ajmir, (8) Gwalior, (9) Kalinjar, (10) Multán, (11) Ujjain. (Ritter, V. 535.) This omits Bengal, Orissa, and all the Deccan. Twelve is a round number which constantly occurs in such statements. Ibn Batuta tells us there were 12 princes in Malabar alone. Chinghiz, in Sanang-Setzen, speaks of his vow to subdue the twelve kings of the human race (91). Certain figures in a temple at Anhilwara in Guzerat are said by local tradition to be the effigies of the twelve great kings of Europe. (Todd's Travels, p. 107.) The King of Arakan used to take the title of "Lord of the 12 provinces of Bengal" (Reinaud, Inde, p. 139.)

The Masálak-al-Absár of Shihabuddin Dimishki, written some forty years after Polo's book, gives a list of the provinces (twice twelve in number) into which India was then considered to be divided. It runs—(1) Delhi, (2) Deogír, (3) Multán, (4) Kehran (Kohrám, in Sirhind Division of Province of Delhi?), (5) Sámán (Samána, N.W. of Delhi?), (6) Siwastán (Sehwán), (7) Ujah (Uchh), (8) Hási (Hansi), (9) Sarsati (Sirsa), (10) Ma'bar, (11) Tiling, (12) Gujerat, (13) Badáún, (14) Audh, (15) Kanauj, (16) Laknaoti (Upper Bengal), (17) Bahár, (18) Karráh (in the Doab), (19) Maláwa, (Málwa), (20) Lahaur, (21) Kálánúr (in the Bári Doáb, above Lahore), (22) Jájnagar (according to Elphinstone, Tipura in Bengal), (23) Tilinj (a repetition or error), (24) Dursamand (Dwara Samudra, the kingdom of the Belláls in Mysore). Neither Malabar nor Orissa is accounted for. (See Not. et Ext. XIII. 170). Another list, given by the historian Zíá-uddín Barni some years later, embraces again only twelve provinces. These are (1) Delhi, (2) Gujerat, (3) Málwah, (4) Deogír, (5) Tiling, (6) Kampilah (in the Doáb, between Koil and Farakhábád), (7) Dur Samandar, (8) Ma'bar, (9) Tirhut, (10) Lakhnaoti, (11) Satgánw, (12) Sunárgánw (these two last forming the Western and Eastern portions of Lower Bengal).[1]

_______________

Notes:

[1] E. Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathán Kings of Delhi, p. 203.

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CHAPTER XXXV. TREATING OF THE GREAT PROVINCE OF ABASH WHICH IS MIDDLE INDIA, AND IS ON THE MAINLAND.

Abash is a very great Province, and you must know that it constitutes the MIDDLE INDIA; and it is on the mainland. There are in it six great Kings with six great Kingdoms; and of these six Kings there are three that are Christians and three that are Saracens; but the greatest of all the six is a Christian, and all the others are subject to him.[NOTE 1]

The Christians in this country bear three marks on the face;[NOTE 2] one from the forehead to the middle of the nose, and one on either cheek. These marks are made with a hot iron, and form part of their baptism; for after that they have been baptised with water, these three marks are made, partly as a token of gentility, and partly as the completion of their baptism. There are also Jews in the country, and these bear two marks, one on either cheek; and the Saracens have but one, to wit, on the forehead extending halfway down the nose.

The Great King lives in the middle of the country, the Saracens towards Aden. St. Thomas the Apostle preached in this region, and after he had converted the people he went away to the province of Maabar, where he died; and there his body lies, as I have told you in a former place.

The people here are excellent soldiers, and they go on horseback, for they have horses in plenty. Well they may; for they are in daily war with the Soldan of ADEN, and with the Nubians, and a variety of other nations. [NOTE 3] I will tell you a famous story of what befel in the year of Christ, 1288.

You must know that this Christian King, who is the Lord of the Province of Abash, declared his intention to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to adore the Holy Sepulchre of Our Lord God Jesus Christ the Saviour. But his Barons said that for him to go in person would be to run too great a risk; and they recommended him to send some bishop or prelate in his stead. So the King assented to the counsel which his Barons gave, and despatched a certain Bishop of his, a man of very holy life. The Bishop then departed and travelled by land and by sea till he arrived at the Holy Sepulchre, and there he paid it such honour as Christian man is bound to do, and presented a great offering on the part of his King who had sent him in his own stead.

And when he had done all that behoved him, he set out again and travelled day by day till he got to Aden. Now that is a Kingdom wherein Christians are held in great detestation, for the people are all Saracens, and their enemies unto the death. So when the Soldan of Aden heard that this man was a Christian and a Bishop, and an envoy of the Great King of Abash, he had him seized and demanded of him if he were a Christian? To this the Bishop replied that he was a Christian indeed. The Soldan then told him that unless he would turn to the Law of Mahommet he should work him great shame and dishonour. The Bishop answered that they might kill him ere he would deny his Creator.

When the Soldan heard that he waxed wroth, and ordered that the Bishop should be circumcised. So they took and circumcised him after the manner of the Saracens. And then the Soldan told him that he had been thus put to shame in despite to the King his master. And so they let him go.

The Bishop was sorely cut to the heart for the shame that had been wrought him, but he took comfort because it had befallen him in holding fast by the Law of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and the Lord God would recompense his soul in the world to come.

So when he was healed he set out and travelled by land and by sea till he reached the King his Lord in the Kingdom of Abash. And when the King beheld him, he welcomed him with great joy and gladness. And he asked him all about the Holy Sepulchre; and the Bishop related all about it truly, the King listening the while as to a most holy matter in all faith. But when the Bishop had told all about Jerusalem, he then related the outrage done on him by the Soldan of Aden in the King's despite. Great was the King's wrath and grief when he heard that; and it so disturbed him that he was like to die of vexation. And at length his words waxed so loud that all those round about could hear what he was saying. He vowed that he would never wear crown or hold kingdom if he took not such condign vengeance on the Soldan of Aden that all the world should ring therewithal, even until the insult had been well and thoroughly redressed.

And what shall I say of it? He straightway caused the array of his horse and foot to be mustered, and great numbers of elephants with castles to be prepared to accompany them;[NOTE 4] and when all was ready he set out with his army and advanced till he entered the Kingdom of Aden in great force. The Kings of this province of Aden were well aware of the King's advance against them, and went to encounter him at the strongest pass on their frontier, with a great force of armed men, in order to bar the enemy from entering their territory. When the King arrived at this strong pass where the Saracens had taken post, a battle began, fierce and fell on both sides, for they were very bitter against each other. But it came to pass, as it pleased our Lord God Jesus Christ, that the Kings of the Saracens, who were three in number, could not stand against the Christians, for they are not such good soldiers as the Christians are. So the Saracens were defeated, and a marvellous number of them slain, and the King of Abash entered the Kingdom of Aden with all his host. The Saracens made various sallies on them in the narrow defiles, but it availed nothing; they were always beaten and slain. And when the King had greatly wasted and destroyed the kingdom of his enemy, and had remained in it more than a month with all his host, continually slaying the Saracens, and ravaging their lands (so that great numbers of them perished), he thought it time to return to his own kingdom, which he could now do with great honour. Indeed he could tarry no longer, nor could he, as he was aware, do more injury to the enemy; for he would have had to force a way by still stronger passes, where, in the narrow defiles, a handful of men might cause him heavy loss. So he quitted the enemy's Kingdom of Aden and began to retire. And he with his host got back to their own country of Abash in great triumph and rejoicing; for he had well avenged the shame cast on him and on his Bishop for his sake. For they had slain so many Saracens, and so wasted and harried the land, that 'twas something to be astonished at. And in sooth 'twas a deed well done! For it is not to be borne that the dogs of Saracens should lord it over good Christian people! Now you have heard the story.[NOTE 5]

I have still some particulars to tell you of the same province. It abounds greatly in all kinds of victual; and the people live on flesh and rice and milk and sesame. They have plenty of elephants, not that they are bred in the country, but they are brought from the Islands of the other India. They have however many giraffes, which are produced in the country; besides bears, leopards, lions in abundance, and many other passing strange beasts. They have also numerous wild asses; and cocks and hens the most beautiful that exist, and many other kind of birds. For instance, they have ostriches that are nearly as big as asses; and plenty of beautiful parrots, with apes of sundry kinds, and baboons and other monkeys that have countenances all but human.[NOTE 6]

There are numerous cities and villages in this province of Abash, and many merchants; for there is much trade to be done there. The people also manufacture very fine buckrams and other cloths of cotton.

There is no more to say on the subject; so now let us go forward and tell you of the province of Aden.

NOTE 1.—Abash (Abasce) is a close enough representation of the Arabic Habsh or Habash, i.e. Abyssinia. He gives as an alternative title Middle India. I am not aware that the term India is applied to Abyssinia by any Oriental (Arabic or Persian) writer, and one feels curious to know where our Traveller got the appellation. We find nearly the same application of the term in Benjamin of Tudela:

"Eight days from thence is Middle India, which is Aden, and in Scripture Eden in Thelasar. This country is very mountainous, and contains many independent Jews who are not subject to the power of the Gentiles, but possess cities and fortresses on the summits of the mountains, from whence they descend into the country of Maatum, with which they are at war. Maatum, called also Nubia, is a Christian kingdom and the inhabitants are called Nubians," etc. (p. 117). Here the Rabbi seems to transfer Aden to the west of the Red Sea (as Polo also seems to do in this chapter); for the Jews warring against Nubian Christians must be sought in the Falasha strongholds among the mountains of Abyssinia. His Middle India is therefore the same as Polo's or nearly so. In Jordanus, as already mentioned, we have India Tertia, which combines some characters of Abyssinia and Zanjibar, but is distinguished from the Ethiopia of Prester John, which adjoins it.

But for the occurrence of the name in R. Benjamin I should have supposed the use of it to have been of European origin and current at most among Oriental Christians and Frank merchants. The European confusion of India and Ethiopia comes down from Virgil's time, who brings the Nile from India. And Servius (4th century) commenting on a more ambiguous passage—

—"Sola India nigrum Fert ebenum,"

says explicitly "Indiam omnem plagam Aethiopiae accipimus." Procopius brings the Nile into Egypt [Greek: ex Indôn]; and the Ecclesiastical Historians Sozomen and Socrates (I take these citations, like the last, from Ludolf), in relating the conversion of the Abyssinians by Frumentius, speak of them only as of the [Greek: Indôn tôn endotéro], "Interior Indians," a phrase intended to imply remoter, but which might perhaps give rise to the term Middle India. Thus Cosmas says of China: "[Greek: aês endotéro], there is no other country"; and Nicolo Conti calls the Chinese Interiores Indi, which Mr. Winter Jones misrenders "natives of Central India."[1] St. Epiphanius (end of 4th century) says India was formerly divided into nine kingdoms, viz., those of the (1) Alabastri, (2) Homeritae, (3) Azumiti, and Dulites, (4) Bugaei, (5) Taiani, (6) Isabeni, and so on, several of which are manifestly provinces subject to Abyssinia.[2] Roger Bacon speaks of the "Ethiopes de Nubiâ et ultimi illi qui vocantur Indi, propter approximationem ad Indiam." The term India Minor is applied to some Ethiopic region in a letter which Matthew Paris gives under 1237. And this confusion which prevailed more or less till the 16th century was at the bottom of that other confusion, whatever be its exact history, between Prester John in remote Asia, and Prester John in Abyssinia. In fact the narrative by Damian de Goës of the Embassy from the King of Abyssinia to Portugal in 1513, which was printed at Antwerp in 1532, bears the title "Legatio Magni Indorum Imperatoris," etc. (Ludolf, Comment. p. 2 and 75-76; Epiph. de Gemmis, etc., p. 15; R. Bacon, Opus Majus, p. 148; Matt. Paris, p. 372.)

Wadding gives a letter from the Pope (Alex. II.) under date 3rd Sept. 1329, addressed to the Emperor of Ethiopia, to inform him of the appointment of a Bishop of Diagorgan. As this place is the capital of a district near Tabriz (Dehi-Khorkhán) the papal geography looks a little hazy.

NOTE 2.—The allegation against the Abyssinian Christians, sometimes extended to the whole Jacobite Church, that they accompanied the rite of Baptism by branding with a hot iron on the face, is pretty old and persistent.

The letter quoted from Matt. Paris in the preceding note relates of the Jacobite Christians "who occupy the kingdoms between Nubia and India," that some of them brand the foreheads of their children before Baptism with a hot iron (p. 302). A quaint Low-German account of the East, in a MS. of the 14th century, tells of the Christians of India that when a Bishop ordains a priest he fires him with a sharp and hot iron from the forehead down the nose, and the scar of this wound abides till the day of his death. And this they do for a token that the Holy Ghost came on the Apostles with fire. Frescobaldi says those called the Christians of the Girdle were the sect which baptized by branding on the head and temples. Clavijo says there is such a sect among the Christians of India, but they are despised by the rest. Barbosa, speaking of the Abyssinians, has this passage: "According to what is said, their baptism is threefold, viz., by blood, by fire, and by water. For they use circumcision like the Jews, they brand on the forehead with a hot iron, and they baptize with water like Catholic Christians." The respectable Pierre Belon speaks of the Christians of Prester John, called Abyssinians, as baptized with fire and branded in three places, i.e. between the eyes and on either cheek. Linschoten repeats the like, and one of his plates is entitled Habitus Abissinorum quibus loco Baptismatis frons inuritur. Ariosto, referring to the Emperor of Ethiopia, has:—

"Gli è, s' io non piglio errore, in questo loco Ove al baltesimo loro usano il fuoco."

As late as 1819 the traveller Dupré published the same statement about the Jacobites generally. And so sober and learned a man as Assemani, himself an Oriental, says: "Aethiopes vero, seu Abissini, praeter circumcisionem adhibent etiam ferrum candens, quo pueris notam inurunt."

Yet Ludolf's Abyssinian friend, Abba Gregory, denied that there was any such practice among them. Ludolf says it is the custom of various African tribes, both Pagan and Mussulman, to cauterize their children in the veins of the temples, in order to inure them against colds, and that this, being practised by some Abyssinians, was taken for a religious rite. In spite of the terms "Pagan and Mussulman," I suspect that Herodotus was the authority for this practice. He states that many of the nomad Libyans, when their children reached the age of four, used to burn the veins at the top of the head with a flock of wool; others burned the veins about the temples. And this they did, he says, to prevent their being troubled with rheum in after life.

Indeed Andrea Corsali denies that the branding had aught to do with baptism, "but only to observe Solomon's custom of marking his slaves, the King of Ethiopia claiming to be descended from him." And it is remarkable that Salt mentions that most of the people of Dixan had a cross marked (i.e. branded) on the breast, right arm, or forehead. This he elsewhere explains as a mark of their attachment to the ancient metropolitan church of Axum, and he supposes that such a practice may have originated the stories of fire-baptism. And we find it stated in Marino Sanudo that "some of the Jacobites and Syrians who had crosses branded on them said this was done for the destruction of the Pagans, and out of reverence to the Holy Rood." Matthew Paris, commenting on the letter quoted above, says that many of the Jacobites before baptism brand their children on the forehead with a hot iron, whilst others brand a cross upon the cheeks or temples. He had seen such marks also on the arms of both Jacobites and Syrians who dwelt among the Saracens. It is clear, from Salt, that such branding was practised by many Abyssinians, and that to a recent date, though it may have been entirely detached from baptism. A similar practice is followed at Dwárika and Koteswar (on the old Indus mouth, now called Lakpat River), where the Hindu pilgrims to these sacred sites are branded with the mark of the god.

(Orient und Occident, Göttingen, 1862, I. 453; Frescob. 114; Clavijo, 163; Ramus. I. f. 290, v., f. 184; Marin. Sanud. 185, and Bk. iii. pt. viii. ch. iv.; Clusius, Exotica, pt. ii. p. 142; Orland. Fur. XXXIII. st. 102; Voyage en Perse, dans les Années 1807-1809; Assemani, II. c.; Ludolf, iii. 6, § 41; Salt, in Valentia's Trav. II. p. 505, and his Second Journey, French Tr., II. 219; M. Paris, p. 373; J.R.A.S. I. 42.)

NOTE 3.—It is pretty clear from what follows (as Marsden and others have noted) that the narrative requires us to conceive of the Sultan of Aden as dominant over the territory between Abyssinia and the sea, or what was in former days called ADEL, between which and Aden confusion seems to have been made. I have noticed in Note 1 the appearance of this confusion in R. Benjamin; and I may add that also in the Map of Marino Sanudo Aden is represented on the western shore of the Red Sea. But is it not possible that in the origin of the Mahomedan States of Adel the Sultan of Aden had some power over them? For we find in the account of the correspondence between the King of Abyssinia and Sultan Bibars, quoted in the next Note but one, that the Abyssinian letters and presents for Egypt were sent to the Sultan of Yemen or Aden to be forwarded.

NOTE 4.—This passage is not authoritative enough to justify us in believing that the mediaeval Abyssinians or Nubians did use elephants in war, for Marco has already erred in ascribing that practice to the Blacks of Zanjibar.

There can indeed be no doubt that elephants from the countries on the west of the Red Sea were caught and tamed and used for war, systematically and on a great scale, by the second and third Ptolemies, and the latter (Euergetes) has commemorated this, and his own use of Troglodytic and Ethiopic elephants, and the fact of their encountering the elephants of India, in the Adulitic Inscription recorded by Cosmas.

This author however, who wrote about A.D. 545, and had been at the Court of Axum, then in its greatest prosperity, says distinctly: "The Ethiopians do not understand the art of taming elephants; but if their King should want one or two for show they catch them young, and bring them up in captivity." Hence, when we find a few years later (A.D. 570) that there was one great elephant, and some say thirteen elephants,[3] employed in the army which Abraha, the Abyssinian Ruler of Yemen led against Mecca, an expedition famous in Arabian history as the War of the Elephant, we are disposed to believe that these must have been elephants imported from India. There is indeed a notable statement quoted by Ritter, which if trustworthy would lead to another conclusion: "Already in the 20th year of the Hijra (A.D. 641) had the Nubas and Bejas hastened to the help of the Greek Christians of Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa of the Arabs) … against the first invasion of the Mahommedans, and according to the exaggerated representations of the Arabian Annalists, the army which they brought consisted of 50,000 men and 1300 war-elephants."[4] The Nubians certainly must have tamed elephants on some scale down to a late period in the Middle Ages, for elephants,—in one case three annually,—formed a frequent part of the tribute paid by Nubia to the Mahomedan sovereigns of Egypt at least to the end of the 13th century; but the passage quoted is too isolated to be accepted without corroboration. The only approach to such a corroboration that I know of is a statement by Poggio in the matter appended to his account of Conti's Travels. He there repeats some information derived from the Abyssinian envoys who visited Pope Eugenius IV. about 1440, and one of his notes is: "They have elephants very large and in great numbers; some kept for ostentation or pleasure, some as useful in war. They are hunted; the old ones killed, the young ones taken and tamed." But the facts on which this was founded probably amounted to no more than what Cosmas had stated. I believe no trustworthy authority since the Portuguese discoveries confirms the use of the elephant in Abyssinia;[5] and Ludolf, whose information was excellent, distinctly says that the Abyssinians did not tame them. (Cathay, p. clxxxi.; Quat., Mém., sur l'Égypte, II. 98, 113; India in XVth Century, 37; Ludolf, I. 10, 32; Armandi, H. Militaire des Éléphants, p. 548.)

NOTE 5.—To the 10th century at least the whole coast country of the Red Sea, from near Berbera probably to Suákin, was still subject to Abyssinia. At this time we hear only of "Musalman families" residing in Zaila' and the other ports, and tributary to the Christians (see Mas'udi, III. 34).

According to Bruce's abstract of the Abyssinian chronicles, the royal line was superseded in the 10th century by Falasha Jews, then by other Christian families, and three centuries of weakness and disorder succeeded. In 1268, according to Bruce's chronology, Icon Amlac of the House of Solomon, which had continued to rule in Shoa, regained the empire, and was followed by seven other princes whose reigns come down to 1312. The history of this period is very obscure, but Bruce gathers that it was marked by civil wars, during which the Mahomedan communities that had by this time grown up in the coast-country became powerful and expelled the Abyssinians from the sea-ports. Inland provinces of the low country also, such as Ifat and Dawaro, had fallen under Mahomedan governors, whose allegiance to the Negush, if not renounced, had become nominal.

One of the principal Mahomedan communities was called Adel, the name, according to modern explanation, of the tribes now called Danákíl. The capital of the Sultan of Adel was, according to Bruce at Aussa, some distance inland from the port of Zaila', which also belonged to Adel.

Amda Zion, who succeeded to the Abyssinian throne, according to Bruce's chronology, in 1312, two or three years later, provoked by the Governor of Ifat, who had robbed and murdered one of his Mahomedan agents in the Lowlands, descended on Ifat, inflicted severe chastisement on the offenders, and removed the governor. A confederacy was then formed against the Abyssinian King by several of the Mahomedan States or chieftainships, among which Adel is conspicuous. Bruce gives a long and detailed account of Amda Zion's resolute and successful campaigns against this confederacy. It bears a strong general resemblance to Marco's narrative, always excepting the story of the Bishop, of which Bruce has no trace, and always admitting that our traveller has confounded Aden with Adel.

But the chronology is obviously in the way of identification of the histories. Marco could not have related in 1298 events that did not occur till 1315-16. Mr. Salt however, in his version of the chronology, not only puts the accession of Amda Zion eleven years earlier than Bruce, but even then has so little confidence in its accuracy, and is so much disposed to identify the histories, that he suggests that the Abyssinian dates should be carried back further still by some 20 years, on the authority of the narrative in our text. M. Pauthier takes a like view.

I was for some time much disposed to do likewise, but after examining the subject more minutely, I am obliged to reject this view, and to abide by Bruce's Chronology. To elucidate this I must exhibit the whole list of the Abyssinian Kings from the restoration of the line of Solomon to the middle of the 16th century, at which period Bruce finds a check to the chronology in the record of a solar eclipse. The chronologies have been extracted independently by Bruce, Rüppell, and Salt; the latter using a different version of the Annals from the other two. I set down all three.

BRUCE. RÜPPEL. SALT.

Reigns. Duration Dates. Duration Reigns. Duration Dates.
of reign. of reign. of reign.
Years. Years. Years.

Icon Amlac 15 1268-1283 15 .. .. 14 1255-1269
Igba Zion 9 1283-1292 9 Woudem Arad 15 1269-1284
Bahar Segued \ Kudma Asgud
Tzenaff " | Asfa " 3 1284-1287
Jan " | 5 1292-1297 5 Sinfa "
Hazeb Araad | Bar " 5 1287-1292
Kedem Segued / Igba Zion 9 1292-1301
Wedem Arad 15 1297-1312 15 .. .. .. ..
Amda Zion 30 1312-1342 30 .. .. 30 1301-1331
Saif Arad 28 1342-1370 28 .. .. 28 1331-1359
Wedem Asferi 10 1370-1380 10 .. .. 10 1359-1369
David II 29 1380-1409 29 .. .. 32 1369-1401
Theodorus 3 1409-1412 3 .. .. 1 1401-1402
Isaac 17 1412-1429 15 .. .. 15 1402-1417
Andreas 0-7/12 1429 0-7/12 .. .. 7 1417-1424
Haseb Nanya 4 1429-1433 4 .. .. 5 1424-1429
Sarwe Yasus \
| 1-1/12 1433-1434 1 .. .. 5 1429-1434
Ameda Yasus /
Zara Jacob 34 1434-1468 34-1/8 .. .. 34 1434-1468
Beda Mariam 10 1468-1478 10 .. .. 10 1468-1478
Iskander \
| 17 1478-1495 17-7/12 .. .. 16 1478-1494
Ameda Zion /
Naod 13 1495-1508 13 .. .. 13 1494-1507
David III 32 1508-1540 32 .. .. 32 1507-1536
Claudius .. 1540 .. .. .. .. ..

Bruce checks his chronology by an eclipse which took place in 1553, and which the Abyssinian chronicle assigns to the 13th year of Claudius. This alone would be scarcely satisfactory as a basis for the retrospective control of reigns extending through nearly three centuries; but we find some other checks.

Thus in Quatremère's Makrizi we find a correspondence between Sultan Bibars and the King of Habasha, or of Amhara, Mahar AMLÁK, which occurred in A.H. 672 or 673, i.e. A.D. 1273-1274. This would fall within the reign of Icon AMLAK according to Bruce's chronology, but not according to Salt's, and à fortiori not according to any chronology throwing the reigns further back still.

In Quatremère's Égypte we find another notice of a letter which came to the Sultan of Egypt from the King of Abyssinia, IAKBA SIUN, in Ramadhan 689, i.e. in the end of A.D. 1289.

Again, this is perfectly consistent with Bruce's order and dates, but not with Salt's.

The same work contains a notice of an inroad on the Mussulman territory of Assuan by David (II.), the son of Saif Arad, in the year 783 (A.D. 1381-1382).

In Rink's translation of a work of Makrizi's it is stated that this same King David died in A.H. 812, i.e. A.D. 1409; that he was succeeded by Theodorus, whose reign was very brief, and he again by Isaac, who died in Dhulkada 833, i.e. July-August 1430. These dates are in close or substantial agreement with Bruce's chronology, but not at all with Salt's or any chronology throwing the reigns further back. Makrizi goes on to say that Isaac was succeeded by Andreas, who reigned only four months, and then by Hazbana, who died in Ramadhan 834, i.e. May-June 1431. This last date does not agree, but we are now justified in suspecting an error in the Hijra date,[6] whilst the 4 months' reign ascribed to Andreas shows that Salt again is wrong in extending it to 7 years, and Bruce presumably right in making it 7 months.

These coincidences seem to me sufficient to maintain the substantial accuracy of Bruce's chronology, and to be fatal to the identification of Marco's story with that of the wars of Amda Zion. The general identity in the duration of reigns as given by Rüppell shows that Bruce did not tamper with these. It is remarkable that in Makrizi's report of the letter of Igba Zion in 1289 (the very year when according to the text this anti-Mahomedan war was going on), that Prince tells the Sultan that he is a protector of the Mahomedans in Abyssinia, acting in that respect quite differently from his Father who had been so hostile to them.

I suspect therefore that Icon Amlàk must have been the true hero of Marco's story, and that the date must be thrown back, probably to 1278.

Rüppell is at a loss to understand where Bruce got the long story of Amda Zion's heroic deeds, which enters into extraordinary detail, embracing speeches after the manner of the Roman historians and the like, and occupies some 60 pages in the French edition of Bruce which I have been using. The German traveller could find no trace of this story in any of the versions of the Abyssinian chronicle which he consulted, nor was it known to a learned Abyssinian whom he names. Bruce himself says that the story, which he has "a little abridged and accommodated to our manner of writing, was derived from a work written in very pure Gheez, in Shoa, under the reign of Zara Jacob"; and though it is possible that his amplifications outweigh his abridgments, we cannot doubt that he had an original groundwork for his narrative.

The work of Makrizi already quoted speaks of seven kingdoms in Zaila' (here used for the Mahomedan low country) originally tributary to the Hati (or Negush) of Amhara, viz., Aufat,[7] Dawaro, Arababni, Hadiah, Shirha, Bali, Darah. Of these Ifat, Dawaro, and Hadiah repeatedly occur in Bruce's story of the war. Bruce also tells us that Amda Zion, when he removed Hakeddin, the Governor of Ifat, who had murdered his agent, replaced him by his brother Sabreddin. Now we find in Makrizi that about A.H. 700, the reigning governor of Aufat under the Hati was Sabreddin Mahomed Valahui; and that it was 'Ali, the son of this Sabreddin, who first threw off allegiance to the Abyssinian King, then Saif Arad (son of Amda Zion). The latter displaces 'Ali and gives the government to his son Ahmed. After various vicissitudes Hakeddin, the son of Ahmed, obtains the mastery in Aufat, defeats Saif Arad completely, and founds a city in Shoa called Vahal, which superseded Aufat or Ifat. Here the Sabreddin of Makrizi appears to be identical with Amda Zion's governor in Bruce's story, whilst the Hakeddins belong to two different generations of the same family. But Makrizi does not notice the wars of Amda Zion any more than the Abyssinian Chronicles notice the campaign recorded by Marco Polo.

(Bruce, vol. III. and vol. IV., pp. 23-90, and Salt's Second Journey to Abyssinia, II. 270, etc.; both these are quoted from French versions which are alone available to me, the former by Castera, Londres, 1790, the latter by P. Henry, Paris, 1816; Fr. Th. Rink, Al Macrisi, Hist. Rerum Islamiticarum in Abyssinia, etc., Lugd. Bat. 1798; Rüppell, Dissert. on Abyss. Hist. and Chronology in his work on that country; Quat. Makr. II. 122-123; Quat. Mém. sur l'Égypte, II. 268, 276.)

NOTE 6.—The last words run in the G.T.: "Il ont singles de plosors maineres. Il ont gat paulz (see note 2, ch. xxiii. supra), et autre gat maimon si devisez qe pou s'en faut de tiel hi a qe ne senblent a vix d'omes." The beautiful cocks and hens are, I suppose, Guinea fowl.

[We read in the Si Shi ki: "There is (in Western Asia) a large bird, above 10 feet high, with feet like a camel, and of bluish-grey colour. When it runs it flaps the wings. It eats fire, and its eggs are of the size of a sheng" (a certain measure for grain). (Bretschneider, Med. Res., I. pp. 143-144.) Dr. Bretschneider gives a long note on the ostrich, called in Persian shutur-murg (camel-bird), from which we gather the following information: "The ostrich, although found only in the desert of Africa and Western Asia, was known to the Chinese in early times, since their first intercourse with the countries of the far west. In the History of the Han (T'sien Han shu, ch. xcvi.) it is stated that the Emperor Wu-ti, B.C. 140-186, first sent an embassy to An-si, a country of Western Asia, which, according to the description given of it, can only be identified with ancient Parthia, the empire of the dynasty of the Arsacides. In this country, the Chinese chronicler records, a large bird from 8 to 9 feet high is found, the feet, the breast, and the neck of which make it resemble the camel. It eats barley. The name of this bird is ta ma tsio (the bird of the great horse). It is further stated that subsequently the ruler of An-si sent an embassy to the Chinese emperor, and brought as a present the eggs of this great bird. In the Hou Han shu, ch. cxviii., an embassy from An-si is mentioned again in A.D. 101. They brought as presents a lion and a large bird. In the History of the Weí Dynasty, A.D. 386-558, where for the first time the name of Po-sz' occurs, used to designate Persia, it is recorded that in that country there is a large bird resembling a camel and laying eggs of large size. It has wings and cannot fly far. It eats grass and flesh, and swallows men. In the History of the T'ang (618-907) the camel-bird is again mentioned as a bird of Persia. It is also stated there that the ruler of T'u-huo-lo (Tokharestan) sent a camel-bird to the Chinese emperor. The Chinese materia medica, Pen ts'ao Kang mu, written in the 16th century, gives (ch. xlix.) a good description of the ostrich, compiled from ancient authors. It is said, amongst other things, to eat copper, iron, stones, etc., and to have only two claws on its feet. Its legs are so strong that it can dangerously wound a man by jerking. It can run 300 li a day. Its native countries are A-dan (Aden) Dju-bo (on the Eastern African coast). A rude but tolerably exact drawing of the camel-bird in the Pen-ts'ao proves that the ostrich was well known to the Chinese in ancient times, and that they paid great attention to it. In the History of the Ming Dynasty, ch. cccxxvi., the country of Hu-lu-mo-sz' (Hormuz on the Persian Gulf) is mentioned as producing ostriches."—H.C.]

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Notes:

[1] Reinaud (Abulf. I. 81) says the word Interior applied by the Arabs to a country, is the equivalent of citerior, whilst by exterior they mean ulterior. But the truth is just the reverse, even in the case before him, where Bolghár-al-Dakhila, 'Bulgari Interiores,' are the Volga Bulgars. So also the Arabs called Armenia on the Araxes Interior, Armenia on Lake Van Exterior (St. Martin, I. 31).

[2] Thus (2) the Homeritae of Yemen, (3) the people of Axum, and Adulis or Zulla, (5) the Bugaei or Bejahs of the Red Sea coast, (6) Taiani or Tiamo, appear in Salt's Axum Inscription as subject to the King of Axum in the middle of the 4th century.

[3] Muir's Life of Mahomet, I. cclxiii.

[4] Ritter, Africa, p. 605. The statement appears to be taken from Burckhardt's Nubia, but the reference is not quite clear. There is nothing about this army in Quatremère's Mém. sur la Nubie. (Mém. sur l'Égypte, vol. ii.)

[5] Armandi indeed quotes a statement in support of such use from a Spaniard, Marmol, who travelled (he says) in Abyssinia in the beginning of the 16th century. But the author in question, already quoted at pp. 368 and 407, was no traveller, only a compiler; and the passage cited by Armandi is evidently made up from the statement in Poggio and from what our traveller has said about Zanjibar. (Supra, p. 422. See Marmol, Desc. de Affrica, I. f. 27, v.)

[6] 834 for 836.

[7] On Aufat, see De Sacy, Chrestom. Arabe, I. 457.

[admin]

CHAPTER XXXVI. CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF ADEN.

You must know that in the province of ADEN there is a Prince who is called the Soldan. The people are all Saracens and adorers of Mahommet, and have a great hatred of Christians. There are many towns and villages in the country.

This Aden is the port to which many of the ships of India come with their cargoes; and from this haven the merchants carry the goods a distance of seven days further in small vessels. At the end of those seven days they land the goods and load them on camels, and so carry them a land journey of 30 days. This brings them to the river of ALEXANDRIA, and by it they descend to the latter city. It is by this way through Aden that the Saracens of Alexandria receive all their stores of pepper and other spicery; and there is no other route equally good and convenient by which these goods could reach that place.[NOTE 1]

And you must know that the Soldan of Aden receives a large amount in duties from the ships that traffic between India and his country, importing different kinds of goods; and from the exports also he gets a revenue, for there are despatched from the port of Aden to India a very large number of Arab chargers, and palfreys, and stout nags adapted for all work, which are a source of great profit to those who export them. [NOTE 2] For horses fetch very high prices in India, there being none bred there, as I have told you before; insomuch that a charger will sell there for 100 marks of silver and more. On these also the Soldan of Aden receives heavy payments in port charges, so that 'tis said he is one of the richest princes in the world.[NOTE 3]

And it is a fact that when the Soldan of Babylon went against the city of Acre and took it, this Soldan of Aden sent to his assistance 30,000 horsemen and full 40,000 camels, to the great help of the Saracens and the grievous injury of the Christians. He did this a great deal more for the hate he bears the Christians than for any love he bears the Soldan of Babylon; for these two do hate one another heartily.[NOTE 4]

Now we will have done with the Soldan of Aden, and I will tell you of a city which is subject to Aden, called Esher.

NOTE 1.—This is from Pauthier's text, which is here superior to the G.T. The latter has: "They put the goods in small vessels, which proceed on a river about seven days." Ram. has, "in other smaller vessels, with which they make a voyage on a gulf of the sea for 20 days, more or less, as the weather may be. On reaching a certain port they load the goods on camels, and carry them a 30 days' journey by land to the River Nile, where they embark them in small vessels called Zerms, and in these descend the current to Cairo, and thence by an artificial cut, called Calizene, to Alexandria." The last looks as if it had been edited; Polo never uses the name Cairo. The canal, the predecessor of the Mahmúdíah, is also called Il Caligine in the journey of Simon Sigoli (Frescobaldi p. 168). Brunetto Latini, too, discoursing of the Nile, says:—

"Così serva su' filo,
Ed è chiamato Nilo.
D'un su' ramo si dice,
Ch' è chiamato Calice."
—Tesoretto, pp. 81-82.

Also in the Sfera of Dati:—

—"Chiamasi il Caligine
Egion e Nilo, e non si sa l'origine." P. 9.

The word is (Ar.) Khalíj, applied in one of its senses specially to the canals drawn from the full Nile. The port on the Red Sea would be either Suákin or Aidháb; the 30 days' journey seems to point to the former. Polo's contemporary, Marino Sanudo, gives the following account of the transit, omitting entirely the Red Sea navigation, though his line correctly represented would apparently go by Kosseir: "The fourth haven is called AHADEN, and stands on a certain little island joining, as it were, to the main, in the land of the Saracens. The spices and other goods from India are landed there, loaded on camels, and so carried by a journey of nine days to a place on the River Nile, called Chus (Kús, the ancient Cos below Luqsor), where they are put into boats and conveyed in 15 days to Babylon. But in the month of October and thereabouts the river rises to such an extent that the spices, etc., continue to descend the stream from Babylon and enter a certain long canal, and so are conveyed over the 200 miles between Babylon and Alexandria." (Bk. I. pt. i. ch. i.)

Makrizi relates that up to A.H. 725 (1325), from time immemorial the Indian ships had discharged at Aden, but in that year the exactions of the Sultan induced a shipmaster to pass on into the Red Sea, and eventually the trade came to Jidda. (See De Sacy, Chrest. Arabe, II. 556.)

+Aden is mentioned (A-dan) in ch. cccxxxvi. of the Ming History as having sent an embassy to China in 1427. These embassies were subsequently often repeated. The country, which lay 22 days' voyage west of Kuli (supposed Calicut, but perhaps Káyal), was devoid of grass or trees. (Bretschneider, Med. Res., II. pp. 305-306.)

[Ma-huan (transl. by Phillips) writes (J.R.A.S., April 1896): "In the nineteenth year of Yung-lo (1422) an Imperial Envoy, the eunuch Li, was sent from China to this country with a letter and presents to the King. On his arrival he was most honourably received, and was met by the king on landing and conducted by him to his palace."—H.C.]

NOTE 2.—The words describing the horses are (P.'s text): "de bons destriers Arrabins et chevaux et grans roncins à ij selles." The meaning seems to be what I have expressed in the text, fit either for saddle or pack-saddle.

[Roncins à deux selles. Littré's great Dictionary supplies an apt illustration of this phrase. A contemporary Eloge de Charles VII. says: "Jamais il chevauchoit mule ne haquenée, mais un bas cheval trotier entre deux selles" (a cob?).]

In one application the Deux selles of the old riding-schools were the two styles of riding, called in Spanish Montar á la Gineta and Montar á la Brida. The latter stands for the old French style, with heavy bit and saddle, and long stirrups just reached by the toes; the former the Moorish style, with short stirrups and lighter bit. But the phrase would also seem to have meant saddle and pack-saddle. Thus Cobarruvias explains the phrase Hombre de dos sillas, "Conviene saber de la gineta y brida, ser de silla y albarda (pack-saddle), servir de todo," and we find the converse expression, No ser para silla ni para albarda, good for nothing.

But for an example of the exact phrase of the French text I am indebted to P. della Valle. Speaking of the Persian horses, he says: "Few of them are of any great height, and you seldom see thoroughbreds among them; probably because here they have no liking for such and don't seek to breed them. For the most part they are of that very useful style that we call horses for both saddles (che noi chiamiamo da due selle)" etc. (See Cobarruvias, under Silla and Brida; Dice. de la Lengua Castellana por la Real Academia Española, under Silla, Gineta, Brida; P. della Valle, Let. XV. da Sciraz, § 3, vol. ii, p. 240.)

NOTE 3.—The supposed confusion between Adel and Aden does not affect this chapter.

The "Soldan of Aden" was the Sultan of Yemen, whose chief residence was at Ta'izz, North-East of Mokha. The prince reigning in Polo's day was Malik Muzaffar Shamsuddín Abul Mahasen Yusuf. His father, Malik Mansúr, a retainer of the Ayubite Dynasty, had been sent by Saladin as Wazir to Yemen, with his brother Malik Muazzam Turan Shah. After the death of the latter, and of his successor, the Wazir assumed the government and became the founder of a dynasty. Aden was the chief port of his dominions. It had been a seat of direct trade with China in the early centuries of Islam.

Ibn Batuta speaks of it thus correctly: "It is enclosed by mountains, and you can enter by one side only. It is a large town, but has neither corn nor trees, nor fresh water, except from reservoirs made to catch the rain-water; for other drinking water is at a great distance from the town. The Arabs often prevent the townspeople coming to fetch it until the latter have come to terms with them, and paid them a bribe in money or cloths. The heat at Aden is great. It is the port frequented by the people from India, and great ships come thither from Kunbáyat, Tána, Kaulam, Kalikút, Fandaráina, Sháliát, Manjarúr, Fákanúr, Hinaur, Sindábúr,[1] etc. There are Indian merchants residing in the city, and Egyptian merchants as well."

[Illustration: Attempted Escalade of ADEN by the Portuguese under ALBOQUERQUE in 1513 (Reduced Facsimile of a large Contemporary Wood Engraving in the Map Department of the BRITISH MUSEUM supposed to have been executed at Antwerp) Size of the Original (in 6 Sheets) 12 Inches by 19-1/2 Inches]

The tanks of which the Moor speaks had been buried by débris; of late years they have been cleared and repaired. They are grand works. They are said to have been formerly 50 in number, with a capacity of 30 million gallons.

[Illustration: Attempted Escalade of ADEN by the Portuguese under ALBOQUERQUE in 1513 (Reduced Facsimile of a large Contemporary Wood Engraving in the Map Department of the BRITISH MUSEUM supposed to have been executed at Antwerp) Size of the Original (in 6 Sheets) 12 Inches by 19-1/2 Inches]

[Illustration: View of Aden in 1840.]

This cut, from a sketch by Dr. Kirk, gives an excellent idea of Aden as seen by a ship approaching from India. The large plate again, reduced from a grand and probably unique contemporary wood-engraving of great size, shows the impression that the city made upon European eyes in the beginning of the 16th century. It will seem absurd, especially to those who knew Aden in the early days of our occupation, and no doubt some of the details are extravagant, but the general impression is quite consonant with that derived from the description of De Barros and Andrea Corsali: "In site and aspect from the seaward," says the former, "the city forms a beautiful object, for besides the part which lies along the shore with its fine walls and towers, its many public buildings and rows of houses rising aloft in many stories, with terraced roofs, you have all that ridge of mountain facing the sea and presenting to its very summit a striking picture of the operations of Nature, and still more of the industry of man." This historian says that the prosperity of Aden increased on the arrival of the Portuguese in those seas, for the Mussulman traders from Jidda and the Red Sea ports now dreaded these western corsairs, and made Aden an entrepôt, instead of passing it by as they used to do in days of unobstructed navigation. This prosperity, however, must have been of very brief duration. Corsali's account of Aden (in 1517) is excellent, but too long for extract, Makrizi, IV. 26-27; Playfair, H. of Yemen, p. 7; Ibn Batuta, II. 177; De Barros, II. vii. 8; Ram. I. f. 182.

NOTE 4.—I have not been able to trace any other special notice of the part taken by the Sultan of Yemen in the capture of Acre by the Mameluke Sultan, Malik Ashraf Khalil, in 1291. Ibn Ferat, quoted by Reinaud, says that the Sultan sent into all the provinces the most urgent orders for the supply of troops and machines; and there gathered from all sides the warriors of Damascus, of Hamath, and the rest of Syria, of Egypt, and of Arabia. (Michaud, Bibl. des Croisades, 1829, IV. 569.)

"I once" (says Joinville) "rehearsed to the Legate two cases of sin that a priest of mine had been telling me of, and he answered me thus: 'No man knows as much of the heinous sins that are done in Acre as I do; and it cannot be but God will take vengeance on them, in such a way that the city of Acre shall be washed in the blood of its inhabitants, and that another people shall come to occupy after them.' The good man's prophecy hath come true in part, for of a truth the city hath been washed in the blood of its inhabitants, but those to replace them are not yet come: may God send them good when it pleases Him!" (p. 192).

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Notes:

[1] All ports of Western India: Pandarani, Shalia (near Calicut), Mangalore, Baccanore, Onore, Goa.

[admin]

CHAPTER XXXVII. CONCERNING THE CITY OF ESHER.

Esher is a great city lying in a north-westerly direction from the last, and 400 miles distant from the Port of Aden. It has a king, who is subject to the Soldan of Aden. He has a number of towns and villages under him, and administers his territory well and justly.

The people are Saracens. The place has a very good haven, wherefore many ships from India come thither with various cargoes; and they export many good chargers thence to India.[NOTE 1]

A great deal of white incense grows in this country, and brings in a great revenue to the Prince; for no one dares sell it to any one else; and whilst he takes it from the people at 10 livres of gold for the hundredweight, he sells it to the merchants at 60 livres, so his profit is immense.[NOTE 2]

Dates also grow very abundantly here. The people have no corn but rice, and very little of that; but plenty is brought from abroad, for it sells here at a good profit. They have fish in great profusion, and notably plenty of tunny of large size; so plentiful indeed that you may buy two big ones for a Venice groat of silver. The natives live on meat and rice and fish. They have no wine of the vine, but they make good wine from sugar, from rice, and from dates also.

And I must tell you another very strange thing. You must know that their sheep have no ears, but where the ear ought to be they have a little horn! They are pretty little beasts.[NOTE 3]

And I must not omit to tell you that all their cattle, including horses, oxen, and camels, live upon small fish and nought besides, for 'tis all they get to eat. You see in all this country there is no grass or forage of any kind; it is the driest country on the face of the earth. The fish which are given to the cattle are very small, and during March, April, and May, are caught in such quantities as would astonish you. They are then dried and stored, and the beasts are fed on them from year's end to year's end. The cattle will also readily eat these fish all alive and just out of the water.[NOTE 4]

The people here have likewise many other kinds of fish of large size and good quality, exceedingly cheap; these they cut in pieces of about a pound each, and dry them in the sun, and then store them, and eat them all the year through, like so much biscuit.[NOTE 5]

NOTE 1.—Shihr or Shehr, with the article, ES-SHEHR, still exists on the Arabian coast, as a town and district about 330 m. east of Aden. In 1839 Captain Haines described the modern town as extending in a scattered manner for a mile along the shore, the population about 6000, and the trade considerable, producing duties to the amount of 5000_l._ a year. It was then the residence of the Sultan of the Hamúm tribe of Arabs. There is only an open roadstead for anchorage. Perhaps, however, the old city is to be looked for about ten miles to the westward, where there is another place bearing the same name, "once a thriving town, but now a desolate group of houses with an old fort, formerly the residence of the chief of the Kasaidi tribe." (J.R.G.S. IX. 151-152.) Shehr is spoken of by Barbosa (Xaer in Lisbon ed.; Pecher in Ramusio; Xeher in Stanley; in the two last misplaced to the east of Dhofar): "It is a very large place, and there is a great traffic in goods imported by the Moors of Cambaia, Chaul, Dabul, Batticala, and the cities of Malabar, such as cotton-stuffs … strings of garnets, and many other stones of inferior value; also much rice and sugar, and spices of all sorts, with coco-nuts; … their money they invest in horses for India, which are here very large and good. Every one of them is worth in India 500 or 600 ducats." (Ram. f. 292.) The name Shehr in some of the Oriental geographies, includes the whole coast up to Omán.

NOTE 2.—The hills of the Shehr and Dhafár districts were the great source of produce of the Arabian frankincense. Barbosa says of Shehr: "They carry away much incense, which is produced at this place and in the interior; … it is exported hence all over the world, and here it is used to pay ships with, for on the spot it is worth only 150 farthings the hundredweight." See note 2, ch. xxvii. supra; and next chapter, note 2.

NOTE 3.—This was no doubt a breed of four-horned sheep, and Polo, or his informant, took the lower pair of horns for abnormal ears. Probably the breed exists, but we have little information on details in reference to this coast. The Rev. G.P. Badger, D.C.L., writes: "There are sheep on the eastern coast of Arabia, and as high up as Mohammerah on the Shatt-al-Arab, with very small ears indeed; so small as to be almost imperceptible at first sight near the projecting horns. I saw one at Mohammerah having six horns." And another friend, Mr. Arthur Grote, tells me he had for some time at Calcutta a 4-horned sheep from Aden.

NOTE 4.—This custom holds more or less on all the Arabian coast from Shehr to the Persian Gulf, and on the coast east of the Gulf also. Edrisi mentions it at Shehr (printed Shajr, I. 152), and the Admiral Sidi 'Ali says: "On the coast of Shehr, men and animals all live on fish" (J.A.S.B. V. 461). Ibn Batuta tells the same of Dhafár, the subject of next chapter: "The fish consist for the most part of sardines, which are here of the fattest. The surprising thing is that all kinds of cattle are fed on these sardines, and sheep likewise. I have never seen anything like that elsewhere" (II. 197). Compare Strabo's account of the Ichthyophagi on the coast of Mekran (XV. 11), and the like account in the life of Apollonius of Tyana (III. 56).

[Burton, quoted by Yule, says (Sind Revisited, 1877, I. p. 33): "The whole of the coast, including that of Mekrán, the land of the Máhi Khárán or Ichthyophagi." Yule adds: "I have seen this suggested also elsewhere. It seems a highly probable etymology." See note, p. 402. —H.C.]

NOTE 5.—At Hásik, east of Dhafár, Ibn Batuta says: "The people here live on a kind of fish called Al-Lukham, resembling that called the sea-dog. They cut it in slices and strips, dry it in the sun, salt it, and feed on it. Their houses are made with fish-bones, and their roofs with camel-hides" (II. 214).

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CHAPTER XXXVIII. CONCERNING THE CITY OF DUFAR.

Dufar is a great and noble and fine city, and lies 500 miles to the north-west of Esher. The people are Saracens, and have a Count for their chief, who is subject to the Soldan of Aden; for this city still belongs to the Province of Aden. It stands upon the sea and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profits thereby. This city has under it many other towns and villages.[NOTE 1]

Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The trees are like small fir-trees; these are notched with a knife in several places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes also it flows from the tree without any notch; this is by reason of the great heat of the sun there.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.—Dufar. The name [Arabic] is variously pronounced Dhafár, DHOFAR, Zhafár, and survives attached to a well-watered and fertile plain district opening on the sea, nearly 400 miles east of Shehr, though according to Haines there is now no town of the name. Ibn Batuta speaks of the city as situated at the extremity of Yemen ("the province of Aden"), and mentions its horse-trade, its unequalled dirt, stench, and flies, and consequent diseases. (See II. 196 seqq.) What he says of the desert character of the tract round the town is not in accordance with modern descriptions of the plain of Dhafár, nor seemingly with his own statements of the splendid bananas grown there, as well as other Indian products, betel, and coco-nut. His account of the Sultan of Zhafár in his time corroborates Polo's, for he says that prince was the son of a cousin of the King of Yemen, who had been chief of Zhafár under the suzeraineté of that King and tributary to him. The only ruins mentioned by Haines are extensive ones near Haffer, towards the western part of the plain; and this Fresnel considers to be the site of the former city. A lake which exists here, on the landward side of the ruins, was, he says, formerly a gulf, and formed the port, "the very good haven," of which our author speaks.

A quotation in the next note however indicates Merbát, which is at the eastern extremity of the plain, as having been the port of Dhafár in the Middle Ages. Professor Sprenger is of opinion that the city itself was in the eastern part of the plain. The matter evidently needs further examination.

This Dhafár, or the bold mountain above it, is supposed to be the Sephar of Genesis (x. 30). But it does not seem to be the Sapphara metropolis of Ptolemy, which is rather an inland city of the same name: "Dhafár was the name of two cities of Yemen, one of which was near Sana'á … it was the residence of the Himyarite Princes; some authors allege that it is identical with Sana'á" (Marásid-al-Ittila', in Reinaud's Abulfeda, I. p. 124).

Dofar is noted by Camoens for its fragrant incense. It was believed in Malabar that the famous King Cheram Perumal, converted to Islám, died on the pilgrimage to Mecca and was buried at Dhafár, where his tomb was much visited for its sanctity.

The place is mentioned (Tsafarh) in the Ming Annals of China as a Mahomedan country lying, with a fair wind, 10 days N.W. of Kuli (supra, p. 440). Ostriches were found there, and among the products are named drugs which Dr. Bretschneider renders as Olibanum, Storax liquida, Myrrh, Catechu(?), Dragon's blood. This state sent an embassy (so-called) to China in 1422. (Haines in J.R.G.S. XV. 116 seqq.; Playfair's Yemen, p. 31; Fresnel in J. As. sér. 3, tom. V. 517 seqq.; Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen, p. 56; Bretschneider, p. 19.)

NOTE 2.—Frankincense presents a remarkable example of the obscurity which so often attends the history of familiar drugs; though in this case the darkness has been, like that of which Marco spoke in his account of the Caraonas (vol. i. p. 98), much of man's making.

This coast of Hadhramaut is the true and ancient [Greek: chóra libanophóros] or [Greek: libanotophóros], indicated or described under those names by Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pseudo-Arrian, and other classical writers; i.e. the country producing the fragrant gum-resin called by the Hebrews Lebonah, by the Brahmans apparently Kundu and Kunduru, by the Arabs Lubán and Kundur, by the Greeks Libanos, by the Romans Thus, in mediaeval Latin Olibanum, and in English Frankincense, i.e. I apprehend, "Genuine incense," or "Incense Proper."[1] It is still produced in this region and exported from it: but the larger part of that which enters the markets of the world is exported from the roadsteads of the opposite Sumálí coast. In ancient times also an important quantity was exported from the latter coast, immediately west of Cape Gardafui (Aromatum Prom.), and in the Periplus this frankincense is distinguished by the title Peratic, "from over the water."

The Marásid-al-Ittila', a Geog. Dictionary of the end of the 14th century, in a passage of which we have quoted the commencement in the preceding note, proceeds as follows: "The other Dhafár, which still subsists, is on the shore of the Indian Sea, distant 5 parasangs from Mérbáth in the province of Shehr. Merbath lies below Dhafár, and serves as its port. Olibanum is found nowhere except in the mountains of Dhafár, in the territory of Shehr; in a tract which extends 3 days in length and the same in breadth. The natives make incisions in the trees with a knife, and the incense flows down. This incense is carefully watched, and can be taken only to Dhafár, where the Sultan keeps the best part for himself; the rest is made over to the people. But any one who should carry it elsewhere than to Dhafár would be put to death."

The elder Niebuhr seems to have been the first to disparage the Arabian produce of olibanum. He recognises indeed its ancient celebrity, and the fact that it was still to some extent exported from Dhafár and other places on this coast, but he says that the Arabs preferred foreign kinds of incense, especially benzoin; and also repeatedly speaks of the superiority of that from India (des Indes and de l'Inde), by which it is probable that he meant the same thing—viz., benzoin from the Indian Archipelago. Niebuhr did not himself visit Hadhramaut.

Thus the fame of Arabian olibanum was dying away, and so was our knowledge of that and the opposite African coast, when Colebrooke (1807) published his Essay on Olibanum, in which he showed that a gum-resin, identical as he considered with frankincense, and so named (Kundur), was used in India, and was the produce of an indigenous tree, Boswellia serrata of Roxburgh, but thereafter known as B. thurifera. This discovery, connecting itself, it may be supposed, with Niebuhr's statements about Indian olibanum (though probably misunderstood), and with the older tradition coming down from Dioscorides of a so-called Indian libanos (supra p. 396), seems to have induced a hasty and general assumption that the Indian resin was the olibanum of commerce; insomuch that the very existence of Arabian olibanum came to be treated as a matter of doubt in some respectable books, and that down to a very recent date.

In the Atlas to Bruce's Travels is figured a plant under the name of Angoua, which the Abyssinians believed to produce true olibanum, and which Bruce says did really produce a gum resembling it.

In 1837 Lieut. Cruttenden of the Indian Navy saw the frankincense tree of Arabia on a journey inland from Merbát, and during the ensuing year the trees of the Sumálí country were seen, and partially described by Kempthorne, and Vaughan of the same service, and by Cruttenden himself. Captain Haines also in his report of the Survey of the Hadhramaut coast in 1843-1844[2] speaks, apparently as an eyewitness, of the frankincense trees about Dhafár as extremely numerous, and adds that from 3000 to 10,000 maunds were annually exported "from Merbát and Dhafár." "3 to 10" is vague enough; but as the kind of maund is not specified it is vaguer still. Maunds differ as much as livres Français and livres sterling. In 1844 and 1846 Dr. Carter also had opportunities of examining olibanum trees on this coast, which he turned to good account, sending to Government cuttings, specimens, and drawings, and publishing a paper on the subject in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the R. As. Society (1847).

[Illustration: The Harvest of Frankincense in Arabia. Facsimile of an engraving in Thevet's Cosmographie Universelle (1575), reproduced from the Bible Educator.[3]]

But neither Dr. Carter's paper and specimens, nor the previous looser notices of the naval officers, seemed to attract any attention, and men of no small repute went on repeating in their manuals the old story about Indian olibanum. Dr. G. Birdwood however, at Bombay, in the years following 1859, took up the subject with great zeal and intelligence, procuring numerous specimens of the Sumálí trees and products; and his monograph of the genus Boswellia in the Linnaean Transactions (read April 1869), to which this note is very greatly indebted, is a most interesting paper, and may be looked on, I believe, as embodying the most correct knowledge as yet attainable. The species as ranked in his table are the following:

[Illustration: Boswellia Frereana (Birdw.). 1. Boswellia Carterii (Birdw.), including the Arabian tree of Dhafár, and the larger variety called Mohr Madau by the Sumálís. 2. B. Bhau-dajiana (Birdw.), Mohr A'd of the Sumálís. 3. B. papyrifera (Richard). Abyssinian species. 4. B. thurifera (Colebr.), see p. 396 supra. 5. B. Frereana (Birdw.), Yegár of the Sumálís—named after Mr. William Frere, Member of Council at Bombay. No. 2 was named from Bhau Dáji, a very eminent Hindu scholar and physician at Bombay (Birdw.).]

No. 1 produces the Arabian olibanum, and Nos. 1 and 2 together the bulk of the olibanum exported from the Sumálí coast under the name Lubán-Shehri. Both are said to give an inferior kind besides, called L. Bedawi. No. 3 is, according to Birdwood, the same as Bruce's Angoua. No. 5 is distinctly a new species, and affords a highly fragrant resin sold under the name of Lubán Méti.

Bombay is now the great mart of frankincense. The quantity exported thence in 1872-1873 was 25,000 cwt., of which nearly one quarter went to China.

Frankincense when it first exudes is milky white; whence the name "White Incense" by which Polo speaks of it. And the Arabic name lúbán apparently refers to milk. The Chinese have so translated, calling Ju-siang or Milk-perfume.

Polo, we see, says the tree was like a fir tree; and it is remarkable that a Chinese Pharmacology quoted by Bretschneider says the like, which looks as if their information came from a common source. And yet I think Polo's must have been oral. One of the meanings of Lubán, from the Kámús, is Pinus (Freytag). This may have to do with the error. Dr. Birdwood, in a paper Cassells' Bible Educator, has given a copy of a remarkable wood engraving from Thevet's Cosmographie Universelle (1575), representing the collection of Arabian olibanum, and this through his kind intervention I am able to reproduce here. The text (probably after Polo) speaks of the tree as resembling a fir, but in the cut the firs are in the background; the incense trees have some real suggestion of Boswellia, and the whole design has singular spirit and verisimilitude.

Dr. Birdwood thus speaks of the B. Frereana, the only species that he has seen in flower: "As I saw the plant in Playfair's garden at Aden … in young leaf and covered with bloom, I was much struck by its elegant singularity. The long racemes of green star-like flowers, tipped with the red anthers of the stamens (like aigrettes of little stars of emerald set with minute rubies), droop gracefully over the clusters of glossy, glaucous leaves; and every part of the plant (bark, leaves, and flowers) gives out the most refreshing lemon-like fragrance." (Birdwood in Linnaean Transactions for 1869, pp. 109 seqq.; Hanbury and Flückiger's Pharmacographia, pp. 120 seqq.; Ritter, xii. 356 seqq.; Niebuhr, Desc. de l'Arabie, I. p. 202, II. pp. 125-132.)

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Notes:

[1] "Drogue franche:—Qui a les qualités requises sans mélange" (Littré). "Franc … Vrai, véritable" (Raynouard).

The mediaeval Olibanum was probably the Arabic Al-lubán, but was popularly interpreted as Oleum Libani. Dr. Birdwood saw at the Paris Exhibition of 1867 samples of frankincense solemnly labelled as the produce of Mount Lebanon!

"Professor Dümichen, of Strasburg, has discovered at the Temple of Daïr-el-Báhri, in Upper Egypt, paintings illustrating the traffic carried on between Egypt and Arabia, as early as the 17th century B.C. In these paintings there are representations, not only of bags of olibanum, but also of olibanum-trees planted in tubs or boxes, being conveyed by ship from Arabia to Egypt." (Hanbury and Flückiger, Pharmacographia, p. 121.)

[2] Published in J.R.G.S., vol. XV. (for 1845).

[3] By courtesy of the publishers, Messrs. Cassell, Petter, & Galpin.

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CHAPTER XXXIX. CONCERNING THE GULF OF CALATU AND THE CITY SO CALLED.

Calatu is a great city, within a gulf which bears the name of the Gulf of Calatu. It is a noble city, and lies 600 miles from Dufar towards the north-west, upon the sea-shore. The people are Saracens, and are subject to Hormos. And whenever the Melic of Hormos is at war with some prince more potent than himself, he betakes himself to this city of Calatu, because it is very strong, both from its position and its fortifications. [NOTE 1]

They grow no corn here, but get it from abroad; for every merchant-vessel that comes brings some. The haven is very large and good, and is frequented by numerous ships with goods from India, and from this city the spices and other merchandize are distributed among the cities and towns of the interior. They also export many good Arab horses from this to India. [NOTE 2] For, as I have told you before, the number of horses exported from this and the other cities to India yearly is something astonishing. One reason is that no horses are bred there, and another that they die as soon as they get there, through ignorant handling; for the people there do not know how to take care of them, and they feed their horses with cooked victuals and all sorts of trash, as I have told you fully heretofore; and besides all that they have no farriers.

This City of Calatu stands at the mouth of the Gulf, so that no ship can enter or go forth without the will of the chief. And when the Melic of Hormos, who is Melic of Calatu also, and is vassal to the Soldan of Kerman, fears anything at the hand of the latter, he gets on board his ships and comes from Hormos to Calatu. And then he prevents any ship from entering the Gulf. This causes great injury to the Soldan of Kerman; for he thus loses all the duties that he is wont to receive from merchants frequenting his territories from India or elsewhere; for ships with cargoes of merchandize come in great numbers, and a very large revenue is derived from them. In this way he is constrained to give way to the demands of the Melic of Hormos.

This Melic has also a castle which is still stronger than the city, and has a better command of the entry to the Gulf.[NOTE 3]

The people of this country live on dates and salt fish, which they have in great abundance; the nobles, however, have better fare.

There is no more to say on this subject. So now let us go on and speak of the city of Hormos, of which we told you before.

NOTE 1.—Kalhát, the Calaiate of the old Portuguese writers, is about 500 m by shortest sea-line north-east of Dhafár. "The city of Kalhát," says Ibn Batuta, "stands on the shore; it has fine bazaars, and one of the most beautiful mosques that you could see anywhere, the walls of which are covered with enamelled tiles of Káshán…. The city is inhabited by merchants, who draw their support from Indian import trade…. Although they are Arabs, they don't speak correctly. After every phrase they have a habit of adding the particle no. Thus they will say 'You are eating,— no?' 'You are walking,—no?' 'You are doing this or that,—no?' Most of them are schismatics, but they cannot openly practise their tenets, for they are under the rule of Sultan Kutbuddin Tehemten Malik, of Hormuz, who is orthodox" (II. 226).

Calaiate, when visited by d'Alboquerque, showed by its buildings and ruins that it had been a noble city. Its destruction was ascribed to an earthquake. (De Barros, II. ii. 1.) It seems to exist no longer. Wellsted says its remains cover a wide space; but only one building, an old mosque, has escaped destruction. Near the ruins is a small fishing village, the people of which also dig for gold coins. (J.R.G.S. VII. 104.)

What is said about the Prince of Hormuz betaking himself to Kalhát in times of trouble is quite in accordance with what we read in Teixeira's abstract of the Hormuz history. When expelled by revolution at Hormuz or the like, we find the princes taking refuge at Kalhát.

NOTE 2.—"Of the interior." Here the phrase of the G.T. is again "en fra tere a mainte cité et castiaus." (See supra, Bk. I. ch. i. note 2.)

There was still a large horse-trade from Kalhát in 1517, but the Portuguese compelled all to enter the port of Goa, where according to Andrea Corsali they had to pay a duty of 40 saraffi per head. If these ashrafis were pagodas, this would be about 15_l._ a head; if they were dinárs, it would be more than 20_l._ The term is now commonly applied in Hindustan to the gold mohr.

NOTE 3.—This no doubt is Maskat.

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CHAPTER XL. RETURNS TO THE CITY OF HORMOS WHEREOF WE SPOKE FORMERLY.

When you leave the City of Calatu, and go for 300 miles between north-west and north, you come to the city of Hormos; a great and noble city on the sea.[NOTE 1] It has a Melic, which is as much as to say a King, and he is under the Soldan of Kerman.

There are a good many cities and towns belonging to Hormos, and the people are Saracens. The heat is tremendous, and on that account their houses are built with ventilators to catch the wind. These ventilators are placed on the side from which the wind comes, and they bring the wind down into the house to cool it. But for this the heat would be utterly unbearable. [NOTE 2]

I shall say no more about these places, because I formerly told you in regular order all about this same city of Hormos, and about Kerman as well. But as we took one way to go, and another to come back, it was proper that we should bring you a second time to this point.

Now, however, we will quit this part of the world, and tell you about Great Turkey. First, however, there is a point that I have omitted; to wit, that when you leave the City of Calatu and go between west and north-west, a distance of 500 miles, you come to the city of Kis.[NOTE 3] Of that, however, we shall say no more now, but pass it with this brief mention, and return to the subject of Great Turkey, of which you shall now hear.

NOTE 1.—The distance is very correct; and the bearing fairly so for the first time since we left Aden. I have tried in my map of Polo's Geography to realise what seems to have been his idea of the Arabian coast.

NOTE 2.—These ventilators are a kind of masonry windsail, known as Bád-gír, or "wind-catchers," and in general use over Oman, Kerman, the province of Baghdad, Mekrán, and Sind. A large and elaborate example, from Hommaire de Hell's work on Persia, is given in the cut above. Very particular accounts of these ventilators will be found in P. della Valle, and in the embassy of Don Garcias de Silva Figueroa. (Della Val. II. 333-335; Figueroa, Fr. Trans. 1667, p. 38; Ramus. I. 293 v.; Macd. Kinneir, p. 69.) A somewhat different arrangement for the same purpose is in use in Cairo, and gives a very peculiar character to the city when seen from a moderate height.

["The structures [at Gombroon] are all plain atop, only Ventoso's, or Funnels, for to let in the Air, the only thing requisite to living in this fiery Furnace with any comfort; wherefore no House is left without this contrivance; which shews gracefully at a distance on Board Ship, and makes the Town appear delightful enough to Beholders, giving at once a pleasing Spectacle to Strangers, and kind Refreshment to the Inhabitants; for they are not only elegantly Adorned without, but conveniently Adapted for every Apartment to receive the cool Wind within." (John Fryer, Nine Years' Travels, Lond., 1698, p. 222.)]

NOTE 3.—On Kish see Book I. ch. vi. note 2.

[Chao Ju-kua (transl. in German by Dr. F. Hirth, T'oung Pao, V. Supp. p. 40), a Chinese Official of the Sung Dynasty, says regarding Kish: "The land of Ki-shih (Kish) lies upon a rocky island in the sea, in sight of the coast of Ta-shih, at half-a-day's journey. There are but four towns in its territories. When the King shows himself out of doors, he rides a horse under a black canopy, with an escort of 100 servants. The inhabitants are white and of a pure race and eight Chinese feet tall. They wear under a Turban their hair loose partly hanging on their neck. Their dress consists of a foreign jacket and a light silk or cotton overcoat, with red leather shoes. They use gold and silver coins. Their food consists of wheaten bread, mutton, fish and dates; they do not eat rice. The country produces pearls and horses of a superior quality."—H.C.]

[Illustration: A Persian Wind-Catcher.]

The Turkish Admiral Sidi 'Ali, who was sent in 1553 to command the Ottoman fleet in the Persian Gulf, and has written an interesting account of his disastrous command and travels back to Constantinople from India, calls the Island Kais, or "the old Hormuz." This shows that the traditions of the origin of the island of Hormuz had grown dim. Kish had preceded Hormuz as the most prominent port of Indian trade, but old Hormuz, as we have seen (Bk. I. ch. xix.), was quite another place. (J. As. sér. i, tom. ix. 67.)