Cathay and the Way Thither (2024)

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

{{Template}}Cathay and the Way Thither (1866) by Henry Yule.

JAK 4KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK0079 6109

ח תسلیNote to " Cathay and the Way thither," by COLONEL YULE.Hakluyt Society, 1866.COLONEL YULE, at p. 436, and in a note p. 502, rather findsfault with Ibn Batuta for giving Persian words as if theywere vernacular Chinese. In defence of that great travellerIbn Batuta, I may state that I met a Chinaman in thesociety of some Arabs and Malays, who was going toArabia on the pilgrimage and spoke nothing but his ownlanguage and a few words of Malay. He was explainingsomething with regard to the mode of slaughtering animals,"zabh," by signs and such language as he could command.No one understood him except myself, and that I did fromseveral Persian words which he used. I cannot nowremember what these words were, but they were notfamiliar to the Arabs or Malays.

REPORT FOR 1866.THE Council, on this the nineteenth anniversary of theexistence of the Hakluyt Society, have the gratification ofbeing able to announce that several valuable works havebeen undertaken by Editors since the last General Meeting,and that two are in the hands of the printer. It has beenresolved, after careful consideration, to raise the price toMembers joining the Society, of a complete set of the volumes,from £13: 13 to £15: 15. Some of the earlier works, suchas the " Select Letters of Columbus, " and " Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, " are nearly out of print, and are thereforebecoming very valuable.Two volumes have been delivered to members since thelast General Meeting, namely:--1. "The Narrative of the Proceedings of PedrariasDavila, in the provinces of Tierra Firme or Castilla delOro, and of the Discovery of the South Sea and theCoasts of Peru and Nicaragua. " Written by theAdelantado Pascual de Andagoya. Translated andedited, with Notes and an Introduction, by Clements R.Markham.2. "A Description of the Coasts of East Africa andMalabar in the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, "by Duarte Barbosa. Translated from an early Spanish2manuscript in the Barcelona library, with Notes anda Preface, by the Hon. E. J. Stanley.The two works in the hands of the printer are: --1. 66 Cathay, and the road thither. " A collection ofall minor notices of China, previous to the sixteenthcentury; translated and edited by Colonel HenryYule, C.B.Colonel Yule's work is so voluminous as to requiredivision into two volumes, and, being equivalent to twoof the Society's ordinary works, will complete the issuefor the year 1866.2. "The Three Voyages of Sir Martin Frobisher,"with a selection from his letters now in the State PaperOffice . Edited by Rear- Admiral R. Collinson, C.B.The following Six Members retire from the Council, viz.:-JOHN W. KAYE, ESQ .SIR HENRY RAWLINSON, K.C.B. , M.P.ALLEN YOUNG, Esq. , R.N.R.VISCOUNT STRANGFORD .SIR WILLIAM STIRLING MAXWELL, BART. , M.P.WILLIAM WEBB, ESQ.Of this number, the three following are proposed forre-election:-SIR WILLIAM STIRLING MAXWELL, BART. , M.P.SIR HENRY RAWLINSON, K.C.B. , M.P.VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.3And the names of the following gentlemen are proposedfor election:-THE RIGHT HON. H. U. ADDINGTON.EDWARD H. BUNBURY, ESQ.CAPTAIN SHERARD OSBORN, R.N. , C.B.STATEMENT OF THE ACCOUNTS OF THE SOCIETY FORTHE YEAR 1865-66.Mr. Weller, for a Map Balance at Banker's at last Audit . £456 6 0 | Mr. Richards, for Printing Received by Banker during the year.... 242 11 0 Transcriptions.... £156 2 622 2 642 0 010 0£230 5 0Gratuity to Agent's Foreman (two years)...Present Balance at Banker's 468 12 0£698 17 0 £698 17 0Examined and approved June 28th, 1866.CHARLES GREY.JAMES G. GOODENOUGII.

THEHAKLUYT SOCIETY.President.SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, BART. , K.C.B., G.C.St.S. F.R.S., F.R.G.S , D.C.L.Mem. Imp. Acad. Sc. St. Petersburg, Corr. Mem. Inst. Fr., &c . &c.Vice-Presidents.REAR-ADMIRAL C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B.THE RIGHT HON. SIR DAVID DUNDAS, M.P.THE RIGHT HON. H. U. ADDINGTON.REV. G. P. BADGER, F.R.G.S.J. BARROW, Esq. , F.R.S. E. H. BUNBURY, Esq .REAR-ADMIRAL R. COLLINSON, C.B.SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S.GENERAL C. FOX.R. W. GREY, Esq.JOHN WINTER JONES, Esq. , F.S.A.Council.JOHN W. KAYE, Esq.HIS EXCELLENCY THE COUNT DE 、LAVRADIO.THOMAS K. LYNCH, Esq.R. H. MAJOR, Esq. , F.S.A.SIR CHARLES NICHOLSON, Bart.CAPTAIN SHERARD OSBORN, R.N., C.B.MAJOR-GENERAL SIR HENRY C. RAW- LINSON, K.C.B., M.P.VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.Honorary Secretary-C. R. MARKHAM, Esq.Bankers-MESSRS. RANSOM, BOUVERIE, AND Co., 1 , PALL MALL EAST.he Hakluyt Society, which is eſtabliſhed for thepurpoſe of printing rare or unpubliſhed Voyagesand Travels, aims at opening by this means an eaſier accessto the fources of a branch of knowledge, which yields tonone in importance, and is fuperior to moſt in agreeablevariety. The narratives of travellers and navigators makeus acquainted with the earth, its inhabitants and productions; they exhibit the growth of intercourſe amongmankind, with its effects on civilization, and, while inftructing, they at the fame time awaken attention, by recountingthe toils and adventures of thoſe who firft explored unknownand diftant regions.The advantage of an Affociation of this kind, confifts notmerely in its syſtem of literary co-operation, but alſo in itseconomy. The acquirements, tafte, and difcrimination ofa number of individuals, who feel an intereft in the fame1866.purſuit, are thus brought to act in voluntary combination,and the ordinary charges of publication are alſo avoided, fothat the volumes produced are diſtributed among theMembers (who can alone obtain them) at little more thanthe coſt of printing and paper. The Society expends thewhole of its funds in the preparation of works for theMembers; and fince the coſt of each copy varies inverſelyas the whole number of copies printed, it is obvious thatthe members are gainers individually by the profperity ofthe Society, and the conſequent vigour of its operations.New Members have, at prefent ( 1866), the privilege ofpurchafing the complete fet of the publications ofthe Societyforprevious years forfifteen guineas, but have not thepoweroffelecting anyparticular volume.The Members are requeſted to bear in mind that thepower ofthe Council to make advantageous arrangements,will depend, in a great meaſure, on the prompt payment ofthe subscriptions, which are payable in advance on theIst of January, and are received by MR. RICHARDS, 37,Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, who is theSociety's agent for the delivery of its volumes. PoftOffice Orders fhould be made payable to MR. THOMASRICHARDS, at the Weft Central Office, High Holborn.WORKS ALREADY ISSUED.1-The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knt.In his Voyage into the South Sea in 1593. Reprinted from the edition of 1622, and edited by Capt. C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, R. N. , C.B.2-Select Letters of Columbus.With Original Documents relating to the Diſcovery ofthe New World. Tranf- lated and Edited by R. H. MAJOR, Esq. , of the Britiſh Muſeum.3-The Discoverie of the Empire of Guiana,By Sir Walter Ralegh, Knt. Edited, with copious Explanatory Notes, and aBiographical Memoir, by SIR ROBERT H. SCHOMBURGK, Phil. D. , etc.34-Sir Francis Drake his Voyage, 1595,By Thomas Maynarde, together with the Spanish Account of Drake's attack on Puerto Rico, Edited from the Original MSS. , by W. D. COOLEY, Esq.5-Narratives of Early VoyagesUndertaken for the Diſcovery of a Paffa*ge to Cathaia and India, by the Northweft, with Selections from the Records of the worſhipful Fellowship of the Merchants of London, trading into the Eaft Indies; and from MSS. in the Library of the Britiſh Muſeum, now firſt publiſhed; by THOMAS RUNDALL, Esq.6-The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia,Expreffing the Coſmographie and Commodities of the Country, together with the manners and Cuftoms of the people, gathered and obferved as well by thoſe who went first thither as collected by William Strachey, Gent. , the first Secretary of the Colony; now firſt Edited from the original manuſcript in the Britiſh Muſeum, by R. H. MAJOR, Esq. , of the Britiſh Muſeum.7-Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of AmericaAnd the Islands adjacent, collected and publiſhed by Richard Hakluyt,Prebendary of Briſtol in the year 1582. Edited, with Notes and an intro- duction, by JOHN WINTER JONES, Esq. , of the Britiſh Muſeum.8-A Collection of Documents on Japan.With a Commentary by THOMAS RUNDALL, Esq.9-The Discovery and Conquest of Florida,By Don Ferdinando de Soto. Tranflated out of Portugueſe by RichardHakluyt; and Edited, with notes and an introduction, by W. B. RYE, Esq. ,ofthe Britiſh Muſeum.10-Notes upon Russia,Being a Tranſlation from the Earlieſt Account of that Country, entitled Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii, by the Baron Sigifmund von Herberstein,Ambaffador from the Court of Germany to the Grand Prince Vafiley Ivanovich,in the years 1517 and 1526. Two Volumes. Tranflated and Edited, withNotes and an Introduction, by R. H. MAJOR, Esq. , of the Britiſh Muſeum.Vol. 1.11-The Geography of Hudson's Bay.Being the Remarks of Captain W. Coats, in many Voyages to that locality,between the years 1727 and 1751. With an Appendix, containing Extractsfrom the Log of Captain Middleton on his Voyage for the Diſcovery of the North-west Passage, in H.M.S. " Furnace, " in 1741-2. Edited by JOHNBARROW, Esq. , F. R.S., F.S.A.12-Notes upon Russia. Vol. 2.13-Three Voyages by the North- east,Towards Cathay and China, undertaken by the Dutch in the years 1594, 1595,and 1596, with their Diſcovery of Spitzbergen, their refidence of ten months in Novaya Zemlya, and their safe return in two open boats. By Gerrit de Veer,Edited by C. T. BEKE, Esq. , Ph. D. , F. S. A.414-15-The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof.Compiled by the Padre Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza. And now Reprintedfrom the Early Tranflation of R. Parke. Edited by SIR GEORGE T.STAUNTON, Bart. With an Introduction by R. H. MAJOR, Esq. 2 vols.16-The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake.Being his next Voyage to that to Nombre de Dios. Collated, with an unpublished Manufcript of Francis Fletcher, Chaplain to the Expedition.With Appendices illuftrative of the fame Voyage, and Introduction by W. S. W. VAUX, Esq. , M. A.17-The History of the Tartar Conquerors who Subdued China.From the French of the Père D'Orleans, 1688. Tranflated and Edited by the EARL OF ELLESMERE, With an Introduction by R. H. MAJOR, Esq.18-A Collection of Early Documents on Spitzbergen and Greenland,Confifting of: a Tranſlation from the German of F. Martin's important work on Spitzbergen, now very rare; a Tranflation from Isaac de la Peyrère'sRelation de Groenland; and a rare piece entitled " God's Power and Pro- vidence fhowed in the miraculous prefervation and deliverance of eight Englishmen left by mifchance in Greenland, anno 1630, nine moneths and twelve days, faithfully reported by Edward Pelham. " Edited, with Notes, by ADAM WHITE, Esq. , of the Britiſh Muſeum.19- The Voyage of Sir Henry Middleton to Bantam and the Maluco Islands .From the rare Edition of 1606. Edited by BOLTON CORNEY, Esq.20-Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century.Comprifing "The Ruffe Commonwealth" by Dr. Giles Fletcher, and Sir Jerome Horfey's Travels, now first printed entire from his manufcript in the Britiſh Muſeum. Edited by E. Â. BOND, Esq. , of the Britiſh Muſeum.21- The Travels of Girolamo Benzoni in America, in 1542-56.Tranſlated and Edited by ADMIRAL W. H. SMITH, F.R.S. , F.S.A.22-India in the Fifteenth Century.Being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India in the century precedingthe Portugueſe diſcovery of the Cape of Good Hope; from Latin, Perſian,Ruffian, and Italian Sources, now firft tranflated into Engliſh. Edited, withan Introduction by R. H. Major, Esq. , F.S.A.23-Narrative of a Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico,In the years 1599-1602, with Maps and Illuſtrations. By Samuel Champlain.Tranflated from the original and unpubliſhed Manufcript, with a Biographical Notice and Notes by ALICE WILMERE.24-Expeditions into the Valley of the AmazonsDuring the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: containing the Journey ofGonzalo Pizarro, from the Royal Commentaries of Garcilaffo Inca de la Vega;the Voyage of Francifco de Orellana, from the General Hiftory of Herrera;and the Voyage of Criftoval de Acuna, from an exceedingly fearce narrativewritten by himſelf in 1641. Edited and Tranflated by CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq.525-Early Indications of Australia.A Collection of Documents fhewing the Early Difcoveries of Auftralia to thetime of Captain Cook. Edited by R. H. MAJOR, ESQ. , of the Britiſh Muſeum, F.S.A.26-The Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the Court of Timour, 1403-6.Tranflated, for the first time, with Notes, a Preface, and an Introductory Life of Timour Beg. By CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq.27-Henry Hudson the Navigator.The Original Documents in which his career is recorded. Collected, partly Tranſlated, and Annotated, with an Introduction by GEORGE ASHER, LL.D.28-The Expedition of Ursua and Aguirre,In search of El Dorado and Omagua, A.D. 1560-61 . Tranflated from the "Sexta Noticia Hiftorical " of Fray Pedro Simon, by W. BOLLAERT, Esq.; with an Introduction by CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq.29-The Life and Acts of Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman.Tranflated from a Manufcript in the National Library at Madrid, and edited,with Notes and an Introduction, by CLEMENTS Ř. MARKHAM, Esq.30-Discoveries of the World by Galvano.From their first original unto the year of our Lord 1555. Reprinted, with theoriginal Portugueſe text, and edited by VICE- ADMIRAL BETHUNE, C.B.31-Marvels described by Friar Jordanus,Ofthe Order of Preachers, native of Severac, and Biſhop of Columbum; from a parchment manuſcript ofthe Fourteenth Century, in Latin, the text of which has recently been Tranflated and Edited by COLONEL H. YULE, C.B. ,F. R. G. S. , late of H. M. Bengal Engineers.32-The Travels of Ludovico di VarthemaIn Syria, Arabia, Perſia, India, etc. , during the Sixteenth Century. Tranflatedby J. WINTER JONES, Esq. , F.S. Á. , and edited, with Notes and an Intro- duction, by the REV. GEORGE PERCY BADGER.33-The Travels of Cieza de Leon in 1532-50From the Gulf of Darien to the City of La Plata, contained in the first part of his Chronicle of Peru (Antwerp 1554) . Tranflated and edited, with Notes and an Introduction, by CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq.34-The Narrative of Pascual de Andagoya,Containing the earlieſt notice of Peru. Tranflated and edited, with Notes andan Introduction, by CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq.35-The Coasts of East Africa and MalabarIn the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, by Duarte Barboſa. Tranflatedfrom an early Spaniſh manuſcript by the HON. HENRY Stanley.36-Cathay and the Road Thither.A Collection of all minor notices of China, previous to the Sixteenth Century. Tranflated and edited by COLONEL H. YULE, C.B. Vol. 1 .37--Cathay and the Road Thither. Vol. 2.6OTHER WORKS UNDERTAKEN BY EDITORS.The Three Voyages of Sir Martin Frobiſher, with a selection from his Letters now in the State Paper Office. Edited by REAR-ADMIRAL R. COLLINSON, R.N., C.B.Journeys of Caterino Zeno and other Italians to Perfia in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Tranflated and edited by CHARLES GREY, Esq.The Travels of Jofafa Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini in Tana and Perſia.Tranflated from Ramufio by E. A. Roy, Esq., and edited, with an Introduction, by VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.The Diſcovery and Conqueft of the Canary Iſlands, by Bethencourt in 1402-25.Tranflated and edited by Captain J. G. GOODENOUGH, R.N., F.R.G.S.The Fifth Letter of Hernan Cortes, describing his Voyage to Honduras in 1525-26. Tranflated and edited by DON PASCUAL GAYANGOS.John Huigen van Linschoten. Diſcourſe of a Voyage unto the Eaſt Indies;to be reprinted from the Engliſh tranſlation of 1598, and edited by the Rev. G. P. BADGER, F.R.G.S.Rofmital's Embaffy to England, Spain, etc. , in 1466. Edited by R. C. GRAVES, Esq.WORKS SUGGESTED TO THE COUNCIL FOR PUBLICATION.Voyages ofAlvaro de Mandana and Pedro Fernandez de Quiros in the South Seas, to be tranflated from Suarez de Figueroa's " Hechos del Marques de Cañete, " and Torquemada's " Monarquia Indiana."Inedited Letters, etc., of Sir Thomas Roe during his Embaſſy to India.The Voyage of John Saris to India and Japan in 1611-13, from a manuſcript copy ofhis Journal, dated 1617 .Pigafetta's Narrative of the Voyage of Magalhaens, to be tranſlated from the Italian text, edited by Amoretti.The Topographia Chriſtiana of Cosmas Indicopleuftes.Bernhard de Breydenbach, 1483-84, A.D. Travels in the Holy Land.Felix Fabri, 1483. Wanderings in the Holy Land, Egypt, etc.Voyage of Du Quefne to the Eaſt Indies in 1692, from a manuſcript Journal by M. C.El Edrifi's Geography.Narrative of Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine, concerning the land called New France, diſcovered by him in the name of his Majefty: written at Dieppe, 1524 A.D.Voyage made by Captain Jaques Cartier in 1535 and 1536 to the ifles of Canada, Hochlega, and Saguenay.Nicolo and Antonio Zeno. Their Voyages to Friſland, Eftotiland, Vinland,Engroenland, etc.De Morga. Sucefos en las Islas Filipinas.Ca da Mofto. Voyages along the Weſtern Coaſt of Africa in 1454: tranflated from the Italian text of 1507.7J. dos Santos. The Hiſtory of Eaſtern Ethiopia. 1607.Joam de Caftro. Account of a Voyage made by the Portugueſe in 1541,from the city of Goa to Suez.John and Sebaftian Cabot. Their Voyages to America.Willoughby and Chancellor. Their Voyages to the North- east,Icelandic Sagas narrating the Diſcovery of America.The Voyage of Vafco de Gama round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497.Tranflated from a contemporaneous manufcript, accompanied by other documents, forming a monograph on the life of De Gama.The Voyages of Davis and Baffin in fearch of a North Weſt Paſſage, together with the " Seaman's Secrets" of Davis.La Argentina. An account of the Diſcovery of the Provinces of Rio de laPlata from 1512 to the time of Domingo Martinez de Irala; by Ruiz Diaz de Guzman.LAWS OF THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.I. The object of this Society fhall be to print, for diftribution among its members, rare and valuable Voyages, Travels, Naval Expeditions, and other geographical records, from an early period to the beginning of the eighteenth century.II. The Annual Subſcription ſhall be One Guinea, payable in advance on the 1st January.III. Each member of the Society, having paid his Subſcription, ſhall be entitled to a copy of every work produced by the Society, and to vote at the general meetings within the period fubfcribed for; and if he do not fignify,before the cloſe of the year, his wiſh to refign, he ſhall be conſidered as a mem- ber for the fucceeding year.IV. The management of the Society's affairs fhall be veſted in a Council confifting of twenty- one members, viz., a Prefident, two Vice- Preſidents, aSecretary, and feventeen ordinary members, to be elected annually; butvacancies occurring between the general meetings fhall be filled up by the Council.V. A General Meeting of the Subfcribers fhall be held annually. TheSecretary's Report on the condition and proceedings of the Society fhall be thenread, and the Meeting ſhall proceed to elect the Council for the enſuing year.VI. At each Annual Election, fix of the old Council ſhall retire, of whom three ſhall be eligible for re- election.VII. The Council fhall meet every month, excepting Auguft, September October, and November, for the diſpatch of buſineſs, three forming a quorum,including the Secretary, and the Chairman having a caſting vote.VIII. Gentlemen preparing and editing works for the Society, ſhall receivetwenty- five copies of fuch works reſpectively, and an additional twenty- five copies ifthe work is alſo tranflated .8RULES FOR THE DELIVERY OF THE SOCIETY'S VOLUMESI. The Society's productions will be delivered without any charge, within three miles of the General Poft Office.II. They will be forwarded to any place beyond that limit, the Societypaying the coſt of booking, but not of carriage; nor will it be anſwerable inthis cafe for any lofs or damage.III. They will be delivered by the Society's agent, MR. THOS. RICHARDS,37, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, to perſons having writtenauthority of fubfcribers to receive them.IV. They will be ſent to the Society's correſpondents or agents in the principal towns throughout the kingdom; and care ſhall be taken that the chargefor carriage be as moderate as poſſible.LIST OF MEMBERSOFTHE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.Addington, The Right Hon. H. U., 78, Eaton-place, S.W.Admiralty (The) , 2 copies.All Souls College, Oxford.Allport, Franklin, Esq. , 156, Leadenhall-street .Antiquaries, the Society of.Army and Navy Club, 13, St. James's- square.Arrowsmith, John, Esq. 35, Hereford-square, South Kensington.Asher, A., Berlin .Asiatic Society of Calcutta.Astor Library, New York.Athenæum Club, The, Pall Mall.Athenæum Library, Boston, U.S.Badger, Rev. George Percy, F.R.G.S., 7, Dawson-place, Bayswater.Bank of England Library and Literary Association .Baring, The Hon. Thomas George, M.P., Stratton, Micheldever Station .Barlersque, C., Esq. , Bordeaux .Barrow, J. , Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A., 17, Hanover-terrace, Regent's Park.Batho, J. A., Esq. , 49, Upper Charlotte-street, Fitzroy- square.Benzon, E. L. S., Esq. , Sheffield.Berlin, The Royal Library of.Bethune, Rear-Admiral C. R. Drinkwater, C.B., 4, Cromwell-road.Bibliothèque Impériale, Paris.Birmingham Library (The)Blackie, Dr. Walter G., Villafield, Glasgow.Boston Public Library, U.S.Bowring, Sir John, LL.D., Athenæum Club.Brevoort, J. C. , Esq. , New York.British Museum (copies presented)Brockhaus, F. A., Esq., Leipzig.ΙΟBrodhead, J. R., Esq. , New York.Broome, Major A.Broughton, Lord, 42, Berkeley- square.Brown, J. A. , Esq. , Newcastle-place, Clerkenwell.Brown, John Carter, Esq. , Providence, Rhode Island .Brown, R., Esq. , King's Langley, Herts.Brown, W. H., Esq. , Chester.Bruce, John, Esq., F.S.A., 5, Upper Gloucester- street, Dorset- square.Bunbury, E. H., Esq . , 35, St. James's- street.Burton, Captain Richard F. , H.M. Vice- Consul, Santos, Brazil.Cambridge University Library.Campkin, Henry, Esq. , F.S.A., Reform Club, Pall Mall.Canada, The Parliament Library.Cannon, Charles, Esq. , British Museum.Carlton Club, Pall Mall.Cartwright, Henry, Esq. , Her Majesty's Gaol, Gloucester.Cautley, Sir Proby, K.C.B., India Office.Chauncey, Henry C. , Esq. , New York.Chichester, Sir Bruce, Bart. , Arlington Court, Barnstaple.Christie, Jonathan Henry, Esq. , 9, Stanhope- street, Hyde- park- gardens.Churchill, Lord Alfred S., F.R.G.S. , 16, Rutland Gate.Churton, The Ven. Archdeacon, Creyke, Easingwold, Yorkshire.Collinson, Rear-Admiral, C.B., The Haven, Ealing.Colonial Office (The) .Congress, Library of the, United States.Cooper, Lieut.- Colonel E. H., 36, Hertford- street.Cotton, R. W., Esq. , Barnstaple.Crowninshield, F. B., Esq. , New York (per Mr. Stevens)Cunard, Edward, Esq. , New York.Dalrymple, Arthur, Esq. , F.S.A., Norwich.Deane, C., Esq. , Boston.Dilke, Sir C. Wentworth, Bart, 76, Sloane- street.Dry, Thos. , Esq. , 25, Lincoln's Inn Fields.Ducie, Earl of, 1 , Belgrave- square, S.W.Dundas, Rt. Hon. Sir David, M.P., 13, King's Bench Walk, Temple.Dundas, George, Esq. , 9, Charlotte- square, Edinburgh.Dundas, John, Esq. , 25, St. Andrew's-square, Edinburgh.Duprat, M. B., Paris .Duprat, Chevalier Alfredo, 4, Vicarage-gardens, Camden Hill, W.IIEllis, Sir Henry, K.H., F.R.S. , 24, Bedford-square.Ely, Miss, Philadelphia.Emmet, Dr. Addis, New York.Findlay, A. G., Esq. , 53, Fleet- street, E.C.Forbes, Captain Charles Stuart, R.N., 18, James-street, Buckingham-gate.Foreign Office ( The) .Forster, John, Esq. , Palace Gate House, Hyde Park Gate, W.Fox, General, 1 , Addison-road, Kensington.Francis, Charles John, Esq. , 7, St. Paul's Grove, Canonbury.Franklin, Lady, Upper Grove Lodge, Kensington.Frere, W. E., Esq.Garnett, Richard, Esq. , British Museum.Gayangos, Don Pascual de, Madrid.Gladdish, William, Esq., Gravesend.Glasgow College.Goodenough, Capt. J. G., R.N., F.R.G.S., 23, Chesham- place, S.W.Grey, Charles, Esq. , India Office, S.W.Grey, R. W., Esq., 47, Belgrave-square.Griffith and Farran, Messrs. , 21 , Ludgate- street.Grinnell, Cornelius, Esq . , F.R.G.S. , 180, Piccadilly.Guise, W. V., Esq. , Elmore-court, Gloucester.Hall, Rear Admiral, C.B. , 48, Phillimore- gardens, Campden Hill.Harcourt, Egerton, Esq. , Whitwell Park, York.Hardinge, Captain E., R.N., F.R.G.S., 32, Hyde Park Square.Harker, Turner James, Esq. , 10, Northampton Park, Islington.Harris, Captain H., 35, Gloucester-terrace, Bayswater.Hawkins, Edward, Esq , 6, Lower Berkeley-street, Portman- square.Hellwald, Frederick de, 9, Türkenstrasse, Vienna.Home Office (The) , Whitehall.Horner, Rev. J. S. H., Wells Park, Somersetshire.Hull Subscription Library.India Office, 20 copies.12Johnson, W., Esq . , R.N., F.R.G.S. , North Grove House, Southsea.Jones, J. Winter, Esq. , F.S.A. , British Museum.Jones, W. Bence, Esq. , Lisselan, co. Cork.Kaye, John W., Esq. , India Office.Kellett, Rear-Admiral, C.B., Dockyard, Malta.Kennedy, Robert Lenox, Esq., New York.Knowles, John, Esq. , 42, Moorgate- street .Lavradio, His Excellency the Count de, 12, Gloucester pl. , Portman - sq.L'Ecole Normale, Montreal.Lee, George, Esq., 15, Piccadilly .Lenox, J., Esq. , New York.Lilford, Lord, Lilford Hall, Oundle, Northamptonshire.Liverpool Free Public Library.Logan, A. J., Esq. , Singapore.London Institution , Finsbury Circus.London Library, 12, St. James's-square.Lott, Capt. E. G. , 159, Parliament-street, Liverpool.Loyes, Edw., Esq. , 33, Paternoster-row.Lucas, Samuel, Esq. , 6, Cork- street, W.Lynch, Thomas Kerr, Esq. , 31 , Cleveland-square, W.M'Calmont, Robert, Esq., 87, Eaton- square.Mackenzie, John W., Esq. , Edinburgh.McClintock, Commodore Sir Leopold, R.N., F.R.G.S , Port Royal,Jamaica.Macready, W. C., Esq. , Sherborne House, Dorset.Madras Literary Society.Maguire, Commodore Rochfort, R.N., H.M.S. Challenger, Australia.Major, R. H., Esq. , F.S.A. , British Museum.Malcolm, W. Elphinstone, Esq. , Burnfoot, Langholm, Carlisle.Mantell, Walter, Esq. , New Zealand.Markham, Clements R. , Esq. , 21 , Eccleston- square, S.W.Markham, Lieut. Albert H., H.M.S. Victoria, Malta.Massie, Admiral T. L., R.N., Chester.Melbourne, Public Library of, per Mr. Guillaume.Merewether, Lieut. Col. W. L., C.B., Political Resident at Aden.Moore, Adolphus W., Esq., India Office.13Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey, Bart. , K.C.B., F.R.S., &c . , 16,Belgrave- square.Murphy, Hon. C. H. , New York.Murray, John, Esq. , F.R.G.S. , Albemarle- street.Newcastle-upon-Tyne Literary and Scientific Institute.New York State Library.Nicholson, Sir Charles, Bart . , F.R.G.S. , 26, Devonshire- place, W.Norris, Edwin, Esq. , Sec. Asiatic Society, 5, New Burlington - street.Ommanney, Rear Admiral Erasmus, Talbot- square.Oriental Club, Hanover- square.Osborn, Captain Sherard, R.N., C.B., F.R.G.S., Bombay.Ouvry, F., Esq., F.S.A., 66, Lincoln's Inn Fields.Paine, W. Dunkley, Esq., co*ckshutt Hill, Reigate.Peabody Institute, Baltimore, U.S.Peaco*ck, George, Esq. , Starcross, near Exeter.Peaco*ck, Septimus, Esq. , Alexandria.Pennsylvania Historical Society.Perry, Sir Erskine, 36, Eaton -place.Petit, Rev. J. Louis, The Uplands, Shiffnal.Petit, Miss, 9, New-square, Lincoln's Inn.Phillimore, Charles B., Esq. , F.R.G.S., 25, Upper Berkeley-street.Plowden, W. H. Chicheley, Esq. , F.R.S. Porcher, Captain Edwin, R.N., F.R.G.S., 50, Montague-square.Portland, His Grace the Duke of.Potts, Captain H. H., 1 , Somerfield- terrace, Maidstone.Powis, Earl of, 45, Berkeley- square.Prescott, Admiral Sir Henry, K.C.B., Senior United Service Club.Rawlinson, Major General Sir H., K.C.B. , 1 , Hill- street, Berkeley- squareReed, F. J., Esq. , 34, Bedford-square.Richard, John E., Esq. , Wandsworth, Surrey.Riggs, G. W., Esq. , Washington, U.S. Royal Geographical Society, 15, Whitehall-place (copies presented)Royal Naval College, Portsmouth.14Royal Society, Burlington HouseRowsell , E. P., Esq., 29, Finsbury-circus.Rushout, The Hon. Miss, 26, Onslow-square, Brompton.Ryder, Rear Admiral Alfred, R.N., 5, Victoria-street, Westminster.Rye, W. B. , Esq. , British Museum.Seymour, Henry Danby, Esq. , M.P.Seymour, George, Esq. , 12, Sussex- square.Sheffield, Earl of, 20, Portland- place.Simpson, Lieutenant.Smith, Edmund, Esq. , Hull.Smith, George, Esq. , 21 , Russell-square.Smith, J., Esq. (Messrs. Smith and Elder. )Somers, Earl, 33, Princes- gate, Hyde Park.Somerville, Captain Phillip, R.N., 61, Belgrave-square, Brighton.Sotheby, Mrs., Kingston.Spottiswoode, William, Esq. , F.R.S., 50, Grosvenor- place.Stanford, Mr. E., Charing- cross.Stanley, Lord, M.P., 23, St. James's- square, S.W.Stanley, Honble. Henry, 40, Dover-street, W.St. Andrew's University.St. David's, the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of, Abergwili, Carmarthen.Stevens, H., Esq. , Boston, United States.Stewart, M. J. Maxwell Shaw, Esq. , Carwar, North Canara, India.Stirling, Wm., Esq. , M.P., of Keir, 128, Park-street.Strangford, Viscount, 58, Cumberland- street.Stuart, Alexander, Esq. , New York.Stuart, R. L., Esq. , New York.Stubbs, Commander Edward, R.N.Sturt, W. Neville, Esq. , India Office.Taylor, John George, Esq. , H.M. Consul at Diabekir.Thomas, Luke, Esq. , Carlton-villa, Blackheath Park.Tolstoy, George, Esq. , St. Petersburgh.Toronto University.Trade, the Board of, Whitehall.Traveller's Club, 106, Pall Mall.Trinity College, Cambridge.Trinity Corporation, Tower Hill.Turnour, Capt. Nicholas, R.N., H.M.S. Clio, Pacific.15Union Society, Oxford.United Service Institution, Scotland Yard.Van de Weyer, His Excellency M. Sylvain, 3, Grosvenor- square.Victoria Library and Reading Rooms, Hong Kong.Vienna Royal Imperial Library.Vivian, Geo. , Esq. , 11 , Upper Grosvenor- street.Van Ryckevorsel, H., Consul de Venezuela, Conseiller à la Régence deRotterdam.Waite, Henry, Esq. , 68, Old Broad-street.Wales, George Washington, Esq. , Boston, U.S.Walpole, Lieut. the Hon. Frederick, R.N., Long Stratton, Norfolk.Watkinson Library, Hertford, Connecticut, U.S.Watts, Thomas, Esq. , British Museum.Waugh, Major-General Sir Andrew Scott, F.R.S. , 7, Petersham- terrace,Queen's-gate-gardens, W.Webb, Captain John Sydney, The Trinity House.Webb, William Frederick, Esq., Newstead Abbey.Whiteman, J. C., Esq. , Theydon Grove, Epping.Wilcox, R. Wilson, Esq. , Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields.Wilkinson, John, Esq., 3, Wellington- street, Strand.Williams, T., Esq. , Northumberland-house, Strand.Willis and Sotheran, Messrs. , Strand.Wilson, Edward S. , Esq. , Hull.Wolff, Sir H. Drummond.Woodd, Basil T., Esq. , M.P., Conyngham Hall, Knaresborough.Wright, H., Esq. , Cheltenham .Young, Allen, Esq. , R.N.R., Riversdale, TwickenhamYule, Colonel Henry, C.B., 14, St. James's-square.

WORKS ISSUED BYThe Hakluyt Society.CATHAY AND THE WAY THITHER.M.LCCC.LXVI.1

Bas- relief of Odoric from the Shrine at Udine. See p. 16.CATHAYAND THE WAY THITHER;BEING A COLLECTION OFMEDIEVAL NOTICES OF CHINA,TRANSLATED AND EDITEDBYCOLONEL HENRY YULE, C.B.,LATE OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS (BENGAL ) .WITH APRELIMINARY ESSAYON THE INTERCOURSE BETWEEN CHINA AND THE WESTERN NATIONSPREVIOUS TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE CAPE ROUTE.Borerklike37bicethickVOL. I.LONDON:PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.M.DCCC.LXVI." Sed si aliqua scribimus propter noticiam legentium quæ in partibus vestrisnesciuntur, non debetis propter hoc nos appellare mendaces, qui vobis referimusilla quæ ipsi vidimus vel ab aliis pro certo audivimus quos esse credimus fidedignos. Imo est valde crudele ut hom*o propter bonum quod facit ab aliis infametur."-Joannis de Plano Carpini Prologus." Such also is the case with Geography. For the experience of ages confesses that many of the outlying tracts of the earth remain excluded from the bounds of accurate knowledge, owing to the difficulty of penetrating regions ofsuch vast extent; whilst some countries are very different from the descriptions that have been given of them on the faith of travellers' tales too uncriticallyaccepted, and others, through the partial operation of revolutions and catastrophes, are no longer what they used to be. Hence it is needful, as a generalrule, to abide by the most recent accounts that we possess, keeping an eye, how- ever, all the while, upon the statements of older authors, and on what can becritically educed from their narratives, so as to form some judgment as to whatis worthy of credit and what is not. " -The Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, i, 5."Wherefore the task we have undertaken is a double one: first, to preserve theopinions of our author in their integrity, so far as they call for no correction;secondly, where he has failed in making things clear, to set forth the correct view to the best of our ability from the narratives that are accessible to us, and from the data afforded by more accurate maps. " -Id. , i, 19." VELLERAQUE VT FOLIIS DEPECTVNT TENVIA SERESEn Wergyl: Soe from Folioes of olde TravellsVe Scrybe his slender China Yarnes unravellsAnd rudelie weveth them with Notes and Queries."ANON.COUNCILOFTHE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, K.C.B., G.C.St.S. , F.R.S., D.C.L., Corr. Mem .Inst. F., Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad . Sc. Petersburg, etc., etc., PRESIDENT.REAR-ADMIRAL C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B.THE RT. HON. SIR DAVID DUNDAS, M.P. C.B. }.VICE- PRESIDENTS.THE RIGHT HON. H. U. ADDINGTON.REV. G. P. BADGER, F.R.G.S.J. BARROW, Esq. , F.R.S.E. H. BUNBURY, Esq.REAR-ADMIRAL R. COLLINSON, C.B.SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S.GENERAL C. FOX.R. W. GREY, Esq.JOHN WINTER JONES, Esq. , F.S.A.JOHN W. KAYE, Esq.HIS EXCELLENCY THE COUNT DE LAVRADIO.THOMAS K. LYNCH, Esq.R. H. MAJOR, Esq. , F.S.A.SIR CHARLES NICHOLSON, Bart.CAPTAIN SHERARD OSBORN, R.N., C.B.MAJOR- GENERAL SIR HENRY C. RAWLINSON, K.C.B., M.P.VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq .. F.S.A., HONORARY SECRETARY.

DEDICATION AND PREFACE.TOSIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, BART. , K.C.B.,ETC. ETC. ETC.PRESIDENT OF THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.DEAR SIR RODERICK,I am happy to be allowed to inscribe to you,from whom I have experienced no little kindness, thisbook, which endeavours to throw some light on themedieval geography of Asia. The subject, at least,needs no apology to one who is the honoured Presidentof the Geographical as well as of the Hakluyt Society;for he has the best right of any man to say, “ nihil geographicum a me alienum puto."The work was originally designed to embrace onlythe story of Friar Odoric, and perhaps of one moretraveller; but seeing how much light the various fragments of minor medieval writers concerning Chinathrew upon one another and upon Marco Polo, andhow little known several of them were to Englishreaders, it seemed desirable to gather all into one collection, edited as thoroughly as my capacities admitted .I never ventured to think of introducing Marco himself into the group. There is room enough, probably,iv DEDICATION AND PREFACE.for a new English edition of that prince of medievaltravellers; but he claims an orbit for himself, andhas no place among these asteroids. What is aimedat in these volumes is a work that shall bear somesuch relation to Polo as the collections of the lesserGreek geographers bear to Ptolemy.When this task was entered on, I was more withinreach of necessary aids than circ*mstances known toyou have of late permitted, or it would scarcely havebeen attempted. All the reading accessible to me has,indeed, been directed to the illustration of my authors;but Palermo is not London or Paris; and the absenceof some capital authority has often stopped me shortin the investigation of a difficulty, just as a traveller,in projecting a complex journey, is stopped short by ablack bar in the columns of his railway-guide.I am painfully sensible also, that, in regard to manysubjects dealt with in the following pages, nothing canmake up for the want of genuine oriental learning. Afair familiarity with Hindustani for many years, andsome reminiscences of elementary Persian, have beenuseful in their degree; but it is probable that theymay sometimes also have led me astray, as such slenderlights are apt to do.Of the authors dealt with, Odoric, Ibn Batuta, andGoës, are already more or less accessible to Englishreaders; the first from old Hakluyt's version, thesecond from Lee's translation of an Arabic abridgment,and the third from the narrative in Astley's collection.Since the last work was published, however, a hun-DEDICATION AND PREFACE. Vdred and twenty years have past, and our knowledgeof the regions traversed by the gallant Jesuit, thoughstill exhibiting considerable gaps, has been greatly extended; whilst the other two travellers have never, sofar as I know, been systematically edited; i.e. , withsome endeavour to accompany their narratives with acommentary which should aim at identifying theplaces visited by them, and at the elucidation or condemnation of their statements:In regard to Ibn Batuta, " mine Arabike," as JohnBunyan says of his Latin, “ I borrowe"; not, however,from Lee, but from the unabridged travels as renderedinto French by MM. Defrémery and Sanguinetti.Though the version is thus borrowed, the commentaryis not; and it is certainly my belief that by it somenew light is thrown on this curious traveller.Of the other authors here laid under contributionthe vain and garrulous but truthful John de' Marignolliis the most conspicuous. He has been incidentallycited by Sir Emerson Tennent, whom little escapes;but otherwise he is, I believe, almost unknown inEngland.Each of the authors, however, will present his credentials in the proper place, before telling his story;and it is not needful to say more here regarding themindividually.For repetitions occurring in the text, I need notapologise; they are inevitable in what is a collection,not a selection. But it is to be feared that repetitionsoccur also sometimes in the notes, and for these I beg2vi DEDICATION AND PREFACE.indulgence. In addition to my great distance fromthe printer, circ*mstances rendered it necessary to sendthe first sheets to the press many months before thelater sections were ready; and thus it has been impossible to give the whole work a consistent revision.Several kind friends have taken trouble in makingreferences for me, or in answering questions bearingon the work. I beg all to accept my warm thanks;but I will only name here Mr. Major and Mr. Markham, who have also in turn been good enough to scethe revised proofs through the press.I trust that my own labour, which has been considerable, may not have been in vain. I have tried topresent pretty fully one special aspect of a great subject which in all ages has had a peculiar fascination.We can see that the ancients felt something of thischarm attaching to the dim legends which reachedthem across the length of Asia about the SERES dwelling in secluded peace and plenty on the shores of theEastern Ocean. The vast multiplication of manuscripts and translations of Polo and Odoric, and ofOdoric's plunderer Mandeville, shows how medievalChristendom experienced the same attraction in thetales which those travellers related of the vast population, riches, arts, and orderly civilisation of CATHAY.The charm rekindled when the Portuguese discoveriesrevealed CHINA, and many marvelled with an eccentricJesuit why God had bestowed such bounties on a hiveof pagans; a charm which nearly three centuries of" Cur Deus tot bonis infidelem sibi Chinam beaverit?"Kircher, China Illustrata, p. 165.DEDICATION AND PREFACE. viipartial knowledge scarcely quenched. Familiarity oflate years has had something of its proverbial result;and closer examination of a civilisation in decay hasdiscerned how much rottenness now exists at the coreof the vast and fantastic structure .When we see communities that have long passedthe zenith of their civilisation and genius going down.simultaneously in population and in moral power,there seems little of mystery in their future. But inregarding a country like China, in which moral andintellectual decay and disorganisation have been accompanied by an increase of population so vast as toamount to nearly a third of the world's inhabitants, thefield of speculation as to its destiny is dark indeed.Though under forms sometimes doubtless most imperfect, the influences of Christianity, the Divine Regenerator of the nations, have entered China on atleast three several occasions. Twice they appear tohave been choked and extinguished; on another occasion we have seen them perverted to the purposesof a vast imposture. The future is with God. Of theclouds that are gathering round the world's horizonChina has its share. The empire which has a historycoeval with the oldest of Chaldæa seems to be breakingup. It has often broken up before and been reconsolidated; it has often been conquered, and has eitherthrown off the yoke or absorbed its conquerors. Butthey derived what civilisation they possessed from theland which they invaded. The internal combustionsthat are now heaving the soil come in contact withviii DEDICATION AND PREFACE.new and alien elements of Western origin. Who canguess what shall come of that chemistry?I am,Dear Sir Roderick,Yours with much regard,Palermo, July 23rd, 1866 ,H. YULE.Additional Erratum.The quotation at p . 246, note 1, is misprinted. It should run 66 Con più color sommesse e soprapposte Non fêr mai in drappo Tartari nè Turchi,Nè fur tai tele per Aracne imposte; "viii DEDICATION AND PREFACE.new and alien elements of Western origin. Who canguess what shall come of that chemistry?Iam,Dear Sir Roderick,Yours with much regard,Palermo, July 23rd, 1866 ,H. YULE.ERRATAMinor and Typographical. (For more material corrections, see p. ccxl seqq . )Passim; for Remusat, Assemanni, Masudi, Sir H. Elliott, read Remusat,Assemani, Mas'údí, Elliot.P. xxxiii, fifth line of motto, for été, read étée.P. xlvi, line 13, after relate, insert as.P. xlix, § 23, line 2, for Tzintiza, read Tzinitza.P. lviii, line 8, for account, read accounts.P. lx, near middle, for Petzigaudius, read Petzigaudias.P. lxxii, § 49, line 8, for Fathian, read Fahian.P. lxxv, last line, for Jahanghir, read Shah Jahan.P. lxxvii, line 2, for (Dwara) =Samundra, read (Dwara) Samundru.P. cix, line 13-14, for This work, read His work.P. clxxx, Note 1 , twice, for Epthalites, read Ephthalites.P. clxxxiv is paginated as clxxxvi.P. ccxxxix, near bottom, Karmisin. Kirmesin was a city from whoseruins arose Kermanshah (see Rawlinson in J. R. G. S., ix, 42) .P. 14, line 7, for Beato, read Beata.P. 49, near bottom, for Desguignes, read Deguignes.P. 114, last line, and p. 115, note 3, read Masálak-al- Absár.P. 139, third last line, for Martin, read Martini.P. 206, 4th parag. from below, for Theophylactes, read Theophylactus.P. 217, 8th line from below, for latter, read former.P. 218, in the third Persian word the vowel-mark has been reversed.P. 227, note, line 3, dele five.P. 240, note, for malestouttes, read toultes.P. 304, second last line, Burns, read Burnes.P. 326, In quotation at bottom, for bulza, read balza .P. 335, last note, for Benedict XI, read X.P. 359, middle of page, for end offourth, read beginning offifth.P. 377, 4th line from end of first parag. of note, for Baldi, read Balbi.P. 400, second paragraph, for Kishm, read Kish.P. 448, paragraph o, fourth line, for Polonius, read Polonus.P. 453, third paragraph from below, in preceding note A, dele A.P. 457, eight lines from bottom of text, for ul, read al.P. 468 and 470, for Dhahir, read Zahir.P. 494 and 495, for Ul Bushri, read Al- Bushri.P. 476, third line from below, for Vas, read Vasa.P. 517, third line of fourth paragraph, put a comma after Silhet.P. 519, line 22, for application, read appellation.P. 526, note 1, for Haidar Razi, read Mahomet Haidar.P. 549, title, after " Chapters XI, XII, XIII,” insert ofBook 1'.P. 564, for Trigantius, read Trigautius.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSFROM DRAWINGS BY THE EDITOR.VOL. I. PAGEFriar Odoric Preaching to the Indians. ( Sketched from the tombat Udine as it exists) To face title.Sketch Map showing the Metropolitan Sees of the NestorianChurch in the Middle Ages, etc.View of Pordenone. (Drawn from a Photograph) •To face ccxlivTraditional Birth- place of Odoric. (Sketched on the spot) .The Sarcophagus of Odoric as it stood in the last century. (Compiled from an engraving in Venni's Elogio Storico)Domes of St. Anthony's at Padua. (From a Photograph) .•Map of Asia in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century, to illustrate Cathay and the Way Thither At the end.Reduced and condensed translation of the Carta Catalana of1375 Ditto.Sketch Map to illustrate Ibn Batuta's Travels in Bengal Ditto.•VOL. II.142717105Map of the Passes of the Hindu Kush and country adjoining, toillustrate the Journey of Goës • To face title.HowMarco Polo drew a certain star under the Antarctic (MagellanCloud?) . (From a cut in the Conciliator of Peter ofAbano) .Marignolli's Notion of the World. (Slightly modified from FraMauro) •Dog-mouthed Islanders . ( Sketched from Life)PAGE325372467

TABLE OF CONTENTS.Dedication and Preface.Table of Contents.PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON THE INTERCOURSE OF CHINA AND THE WESTERNNATIONS PREVIOUS TO THE Discovery of the SEA-ROUTE BY THECAPE.I. EARLIEST TRACES OF INTERCOURSE. GREEK AND ROMAN KNOWLEDGE OF CHINA.1. Double names applied to China at different eras, as approached by land or by sea.2. Origin usually ascribed to the name China. But both people andname seem to have been known to the Hindus from an antiquity inconsistent with that origin.3. Most ancient Chinese notice of intercourse with western nations;notice of envoys supposed to have come from Chaldæa.4. Coincident traditions of China and Persia regarding ancient intercourse. Less valuable Persian legends regarding China.5. Chinese record of a party from a distant kingdom, which has beensupposed Egypt. The alleged discovery of Chinese porcelain phials inancient Egyptian tombs.6. The Sinim of the Prophet Isaiah .7. The name Chin or China reaches the Greeks and Romans late, andthen in the forms Thin, Thina, Sina.8. These names certainly indicated China.9. Ancient authors by whom they are used. Discrepancy of Ptolemyand the author of the Periplus in position assigned to the country.10. Marcianus of Heraclea; only an abstracter of Ptolemy; but soshowing that geographer's views more compactly.11. The Seres, more frequently named than Sinæ; at first by poetsand in a vague way; more precisely by Mela and Pliny whose wordspoint to China.12. Ptolemy; his Sera and Serice. Precise in definition, far in excessof his knowledge; yet even his view consistent with the indication of theChinese empire from the landward. Inferior to his predecessors in notrecognizing the Eastern Ocean.13. Ammianus Marcellinus; his geography of the Seres only a paraphrase of Ptolemy's. A mistake to suppose that he refers to the Great Wall.c 2xii TABLE OF CONTENTS.14. General result of a fusion of the ancient notices of the Seres . Thecharacteristics have nearly all foundation in the character and circ*mstances of the Chinese. The Seric iron which Pliny lauds.15. Sole record of direct political intercourse with the Seres in Romanhistory.16. We are not to look for accuracy in the ancient views of suchremote regions. Real vagueness of Ptolemy's data. Confusions that were natural.17. Curious analogy in the views and mistakes of Chinese and Romanswith respect to each other.18. Association of the name Seres with silk. Etymologies. Long prevalence of error as to the nature of silk. Yet some had exceptional knowledge; account given by Pausanias. Fluctuation of geographical knowledge in ancient times; and paralleled among the Arabs.19. Chinese notices of the ancient silk trade with Europe. Consistentwith the circ*mstances related by Byzantine writers in reference to the introduction of the silkworm. The country indicated in that narrativeuncertain .20. Curious links between Greek and Chinese history in the fragmentsof Greek writers touching the Turkish tribes of Central Asia. Two remarkable notices of China itself in Greek authors of the sixth and seventhcenturies.21. The first of these, Cosmas: some account of him and his book.22. His correct view of the position of China.23. The name which he gives it . Knows the general position of theclove country.24. The other Greek writer, Theophylactus Simocatta: his notice ofChina under the name of Taugas.25. Extract fromTheophylactus with notes showing application to China.26. Remarks on the passage; name probably indicated in Taugas.27. Geographical darkness of the later Byzantines exemplified in Chal- condylas's mention of China.II. CHINESE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.28. First historical relations of the Chinese with Western Asia. Theexpedition of Changkian ( B.c. 135) , Chinese authority established overEastern Turkestan, and recognized west of the Bolor.29. Decay and revival of the Chinese domination in first century A.D.Conquests of Panchao. An officer despatched to reconnoitre Tathsin orthe Roman empire.30. Notices of Tathsin in Chinese geographical works of the early centuries of the Christian era. Meaning of the name.31. Particulars from those notices of Tathsin.32. In the later notices the title is changed for Fulin; Greek originof this name. Things ascribed by China to Europe which Europe hasascribed to China.33. Some of the more accurate particulars which shew some basis ofreal information in the notices of Tathsin.TABLE OF CONTENTS. XIII34. They contain à correct statement of an obscure passage in Byzantine history.35. Much that is analogous in the glimpses caught of the Far Westfrom the East, and of the Far East from the West.36. Return to the intended reconnaissance of Tathsin ( § 29); it mis- carries.37. Chinese record of a Roman embassy in A.D. 166.38. Further intercourse; Roman embassy in 284. Apparent suspensionof intercourse till 643, when another embassy arrived .39. Further intercourse during the eighth century.40. Missions from Constantinople in the eleventh century. Last recorded communication before the fall of that city.III. COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA.41. First historical particulars about India brought by Changkian(see § 28) . Consequent attempts at intercourse.42. Introduction of Buddhism from India. Commencement of Embassies from Indian princes.43. Sea trade to India in fourth century. First intercourse with Ceylon.Frequent missions from that island .44. Communication with India in fifth and sixth centuries.45. Chinese intercourse with Indian kingdom of Magadha in the reignof Taitsung; leads eventually to the invasion of Northern India by aChinese army.46. Communication with Kashmir. Other Indian intercourse in theeighth century.47. Political intercourse more rare after this date; some noticeshowever.48. Religious (Buddhist) visitors from India to China.49. Pilgrimages of Chinese Buddhists to India, and their literary works.50. Revival of communication with Ceylon in thirteenth century.51. Last attempt of Chinese to recover influence in maritime countriesof the West ( 1405) . Resulting relations with Ceylon, which continuedfor many years.52. Mongol Invasion, of Bengal, from the side of China, about 1244.Previous attempt of Bakhtiyar Khilji to make the converse expedition,and subsequent enterprises of Malik Yuzbek and Mahomed Tughlak.53. Chinese embassy to court of Mahomed Tughlak, and the returnembassy under Ibn Batuta. Later missions from India.54. Sea trade between China and Malabar; traces, real or supposed,of the Chinese in the Peninsula.55. Endeavours of Kublai to establish intercourse with certain king- doms of India.IV. INTERCOURSE WITH THE ARABS .56. Babylonia alleged to have been frequented by Chinese ships in thefifth century. The terminus of the trade with the Gulf successively receded from Hira to Hormuz.57. Account of the voyage from China to the P. Gulf, from the annalsxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS.of the Thang dynasty. Aden frequented by China Trade; Baroch andSuhar. Latest appearance of Chinese ships in the gulf.58. Early Arab establishments at Canton, and at Khanfu or Hangcheu.59. Arab communication with China by land from Transoxiana. Embassies. The Emperors cautious in avoiding collisions with the Arabs.Arab auxiliaries in China, and their misconduct. The Kotow.V. INTERCOURSE WITH ARMENIA AND PERSIA, ETC.60. Early Knowledge of China in Armenian literature. Account byMoses of Chorene. Settlements of Chinese in Armenia. Lost historyof China in Greek.61. Chinese notices of Persia. Embassy from Kobad King of Persia, andexchange of embassies between Khosru Naoshirwan and the court ofChina. The last Sassanian King seeks aid from China, which is refused .His son and grandson find hospitality at the Chinese court.62. The influence which China had regained over the states of CentralAsia just about the rise of the Mahomedan power. Organization of the tributary states after the Chinese manner. Countries west of the Bolorwhich were included in this organization. Doubtful how far it can havebeen carried out. Districts of Persia said to have preserved independenceof the Mahomedans to the middle of the eighth century and to have ac- knowledged allegiance to China.63. Druzes' tradition of their Chinese origin.VI. NESTORIAN CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA.64. Legends of the preaching of Apostles in China. The actual earlyspread of the Church in Persia and Khorasan.65. The Nestorian Church, under the Sassanidæ; under the Khalifs.66. Missionary spirit in seventh and eighth centuries. Metropolitansof China mentioned in the Syrian records from the eighth century. Christianity must have been older in that country.67. And this is shown by Chinese records: first, an edict of 745.68. Secondly, the monument of Singanfu. Controversy on that subject.69. Convincing nature of the argument in favour of genuineness. Contents of the inscriptions on it.70. Supposed occasion of the concealment of the monument.71. Decay of Christianity in China.72. Relics of the old missions to China found by Layard in Kurdistan.73. Partial revival of Nestorian Christianity under the Mongol dynasty.Its previous spread among Turkish Mongolian tribes. Notices of it fromthe travellers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.74. Latest vestiges.75. Traces of the Nestorian Christians met with by the Jesuits.76. Remarks. Traces of the existence of Christians in Further India.VII. LITERARY INFORMATION REGARDING CHINA PREVIOUS TO THE MONGOL ERA.77. Nearly all from Arabic authors . The compilation ( Anciennes Relations, &c. ) ofthe ninth century, translated by Renaudot and by Reinaud.78. General description and date.TABLE OF CONTENTS . XV79. Topography of the Voyage from Arabia to China, in the first (or anonymous) part ofthe work.80. Particulars regarding China which it offers .81. The second part of the work, by Abu Zaid. His account of theRevolutions in China, and its corroboration by the Chinese annals.82. Additional particulars afforded by Abu Zaid.83. The Route - book of Ibn Khurdadbah.83* . Masudi's " Meadows of Gold."84. The Travels of Ibn Muhalhal.85. China as represented by Edrisi.86. Benjamin of Tudela87. Abulfeda; properly belongs to the Mongol era.VIII. CHINA, KNOWN UNDER THE MONGOL DYNASTY AS CATHAY.88. Opening of China to the West. CATHAY.89. Origin of that name; The Khitans.90. The Kin, or Golden Dynasty.91. Rise of Chinghiz . (Kóan , Khákán, and Khán .) His conquests inChina.92. Prosecution of the Conquest of China, under his successor, Okkodai.93. Western Conquests. Invasion of Europe.94. Conquest of Persia and the Khalifate. Division of the Mongolempire.95. Commencement of missions from Europe to the Mongol Sovereigns.Reasons why partiality to Christianity was expected from them. Effectof the Mongol conquests in levelling political barriers .96. First travellers to bring news to Europe of Cathay. Plano Carpini.97. What he says of Cathay.98. The journey of Rubruquis.99. What he tells of Cathay.100. The journeys of the Armenian Princes, Sempad and King Hayton.101. The Poli . Pauthier's edition of Marco Polo.102. Diplomatic intercourse between the Chinghizide Khans of Persia,and European Princes. Vast interfusion of nations, occasioned by theMongol conquests.103. The work of Hayton, Prince of Gorigos.104. Catholic missions to Cathay, &c. , John of Monte Corvino; Andrew,Bishop ofZayton; John de Cora; Odoric of Pordenone; Friar Jordanus;John de' Marignolli.105. Frequency of commercial intercourse with India and Cathay in the fourteenth century.106. The commercial hand-book of Francis Balducci Pegolotti.107. The voyage of Ibn Batuta to China. The cessation of intercourseon the fall of the Mongols.IX. CATHAY PASSING INTO CHINA. CONCLUSION.108. Scanty glimpses of China in the century and a half succeedingthe fall ofthe Mongols. Hearsay notices, by Clavijo and Schiltberger.xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS .109. Travels of Nicolo Conti; he probably visited China.110. Use made of Conti's information by the Cosmographers. FraMauro; the Palatine Cosmographia.111. Notice by Poggio of a Christian Envoy from the borders of Cathayto Pope Eugenius IV. Toscanelli's notice of the same.112. Notices collected by Jehosaphat Barbaro.113. Mission sent by Shah Rukh, the son of Timur, to Peking.114. Cathay sought by Columbus.115. First visit of the Portuguese ships to China.116. Cathay still supposed to hold an independent position. Northernvoyages in search of route to Cathay. The journey of Anthony Jenkinson.117. Narratives of Asiatic travel to Cathay in the sixteenth century,preserved by Ramusio and Busbeck.118. The journey of Benedict Goës in search of Cathay finally esta- blishes its identity with China, and closes our subject.Supplementary Notes.Extracts from the PERIPLUS OF THE ERYTHREAN SEA.Extracts from the Geography of PTOLEMY.1.II.III. Extracts from POMPONIUS MELA De Situ Orbis.Extracts from the Natural History of PLINY.Extracts from the Itinerary of Greece of PAUSANIAS.IV.V.VI. Extracts from the History of AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.VII. Extracts regarding the introduction of the silkworm into the Roman Empire.VIII. Extracts regarding intercourse between the Turkish Khans andthe Byzantine Emperors, from MENANDER.IX. Extracts from the Christian Topography of COSMAS, THE MONK.X. The discovery of the Syro- Chinese Christian monument of Singanfu (from ALVAREZ SEMEDO, and a Chinese author) .XI. The kingdoms of India in the ninth century, as spoken of by theArab Compilers in the Anciennes Relations, etc. XII. Abstract of the travels of IBN MUHALHAL.XIII. Extracts regarding China, from the Geography of ABULFEDA.XIV. Extracts from the History of HAYTON, the Armenian.XV. Extracts from a letter of PAOLO DAL Pozzo Toscanelli .XVI. Extracts regarding Cathay, from the narrative of SIGNOR JOSAFABARBARO.XVII. Notes on the narrative of Shah Rukh's mission to China.XVIII . HAJJI MAHOMED'S account of Cathay, as delivered to RAMUSIO.XIX. Account of Cathay, by a Turkish Dervish, as related to AUGERGISLEN DE BUSBECK.XX. Note on the maps in this volume.XXI. Explanation of some abbreviated references used in the book.XXII. Errors and omissions noted.TABLE OF CONTENTS. xviiCATHAY AND THE WAY THITHER.I. THE TRAVELS OF FRIAR Odoric of pordenone ( 1316–1330) .Biographical and Introductory Notices. -His native country, FRIULI, 1;his family and birthplace, 3; his name, 4; probable date of birth; contemporary notices, 5; early history, 6; course of his travels; allegedmissionary labours, 7; and miracles, 8; his return home and death, 8, 9;excitement at his funeral, 10; alleged posthumous miracles, 11; beatification, 12; monument, 13; reliques and portraits, 15 , 16; writingsascribed to him, 17; character as a traveller, 18; marks of genuinenessof his travels, 20; varieties in the MSS. , and classification of them, 21;chief difficulties in his narrative, 25; Mandeville's thefts from him, 27;list of known MSS. , Latin, 29; Italian, 33; French, 34; bibliography, 35;text of the translation, how determined, 39; indication of references toMSS. and editions, 41 .The Travels. - 1. What the Friar saw at Trebizond, and in the GreaterArmenia. -Prefatory remarks, 43; Trebizond, 44; story of tame partridges; Zigana, 45; St. Athanasius; Arziron (Erzrum) , 46; Sarbisacaloand Ararat, 47.2. Concerning the city of Tauris and the city of Soldania, where dwelleththe Persian Emperor. -Tauris, 47; the Arbor Secco; salt mountain, 49;Soldania; the sea of Bacuc (Caspian), 50.3. Concerning the city ofthe Magi; also of the Sea of Sand, and ofthe landofHuz.-Cassan (Kashan) , the city of the Magi, 50; Iest ( Yezd) , 51; theSea of Sand; Comerum and great ruins (Persepolis); Huz (Haza or Adiabene), 53.4. Fr. Odoric treateth of the manners ofthe people of Chaldæa; ofIndiawithin Land; and of Ormes. —Kingdom of Chaldæa (Baghdad) , 54; Towerof Babel; dress and degradation of the women; inland India (Lower Euphrates), 55; dates; city of Ormes (Hormuz) , 56; death wake.5. Of ships that have no iron in theirframe; and in such a one Fr. Odoricpasseth to Tana in India. — Stitched vessels, 57; Tana, a city of King Porus;the Emp. of Dilli (Dehli) , 58; animals; marriage customs, 59; disposalof the dead.6. History ofthe Martyrdom ofthe fourfriars in the city of Tana.-Takento Tana against their will, 60; three of them brought before the Cadi andquestioned of their faith; Thomas ofTolentino, 61.7. The same continued . ― They are bound in the midday sun, 62; andthreatened with the stake, 63.8. The same history continued. -Friar James, of Padua, is cast into thefire, 63; but wonderfully preserved, 64; the same happens a second time.9. The same history continued. — The Melic, or governor, dismisses theFriars, 65; but the Cadi persuades him to send executioners after them, 66.10. The same history continued . -The Cadi sends four men, who put themto death in the night, 67; signs and wonders.11. The same continued . - The fourth friar, Peter of Siena, is torturedand slain, 68; the date ofthis martyrdom; the Melic's remorse, 69.12. The same history continued . -The Emperor of Delhi sends for theMelic and puts him to death, 69; burial of the martyrs, 70.xviii TABLE OF CONTENTS.13. How Fr. Odoric took up the bones of the four friars; and the wonderswrought thereby. -Friar Odoric takes up the bones and carries them withhim, 70; how the house is burnt, but he is saved by virtue of the reliques, 71.14. The same continued-At sea, going to Polumbum (Quilon) they canhave no fair wind till a bone of the friars is cast into the sea, 73; Note onPolumbum or Columbum, 71-2.15. The same continued . -What happened at Zayton, in Upper India(China) when the ship was searched, 73; miracles of healing, 74.16. Fr. Odoric is done with the four friars; and now he telleth ofthe kingdom of Minibar, and how pepper is got. -Minibar ( Malabar) where thepepper grows in a forest, 74; Flandrina (Pandarani) and Cyncilim (Cranganore), 75; Note on Cyncilim; Jews and Christians of the country, 76;mode in which the pepper is got and dried, 77; city of Polumbum.17. Fr. Odoric discourseth of the manners of the Idolators of Polumbum.-Their nakedness, 78, and worship of the ox; another bloody idol, 79;burning of widows; vegetable wonders ofthis country; strange customs, 80.18. Concerning the kingdom of Mobar, where lieth the body of St. Thomas.-Kingdom of Mobar (Coromandel) , 80; note on Ma'bar; church of St.Thomas, 81; the Nestorians; great golden idol, and temple; strangepenances of the idolaters, 82.19. Concerning other customs ofthe idolaters. —Lake into which offeringsare cast, 82; sacrifice of the people under the chariot-wheels of the idol,83; other religious suicides.20. Concerning the country called Lamori, where the pole-star is hidden:and also ofSumoltra. -Crosses the ocean to Lamori (Lambri in Sumatra),84; nakedness and community of wives, 85; cannibalism; kingdom ofSumoltra (Sumatra, on N.E. of the island) , 86; tattooing; Resengo (Rejang), 87.21. The friar speaketh of the excellent island called Java.-Great island,and its king, 87; spices, 88; note on Odoric's account ofJava, 87; on thespice called melegheta, 88; palace of the king, 89; his wars with Khan ofCathay.22. Of the land called Thalamasyn, and of the trees that give flour, andother marvels.- Panten, or Thalamasyn ( note as to this place) , 90; deadlypoison used there, 91; blowing tubes for arrows; trees producing flour(sago); sea called the Dead Sea, 92; great canes, 93; and stones found inthem that render people invulnerable; pirates, 94; uses of the canes.23. How the King of Zampa keepeth many elephants and many wives.—Kingdom of Zampa (Champa or Southern Cochin China) , 95; the king'slarge family; his numerous elephants; wonderful shoals of fish, 96; vasttortoises; burning of widows, 97.24. Of the Island of Nicoveran, where the men have dog's faces. -Islandof Nicoveran (Nicobar) , 97; customs of the people; eat their prisoners ifnot ransomed, 98; the king and his great jewels.25. Concerning the Island of Sillan, and the marvels thereof. -GreatIsland of Sillan ( Ceylon), 98; Great mountain on which Adam mourned;beautiful lake; precious stones in it, 99; and formidable leeches; remedyTABLE OF CONTENTS. xixagainst them; rubies and pearls; animals, 100; bird with two heads(Hornbill), and note.26. Of the Island called Dondin, and the evil manners there.-Island inthe south called Dondin ( Note on its identity) , 100; filthy cannibalism ofnatives, 101; how they consult their soothsayers about sick relations, 102;and feast on them if they die; Odoric remonstrates with them.27. A word in brief of India and the Isles thereof. -Many marvels ofIndia, 103; vast number of its islands, and kings therein.28. Fr. Odoric cometh to Upper India and the Province of Manzi, anddiscourseth of them. —Province of Manzi (South China, note), 103; vastnumber and size of cities, 104; crowded population; and great abundanceof all things; diligence of people, 105; their aspect.29. Of the great city Censcalan. -The first city reached is Censcalan(Sinkalan or Canton), 105; Note on it; its position; vast amount ofshipping, 106; great cheapness; large geese; serpents used for food, 107.30. Concerning the noble city called Zayton; and how the folk thereofregale their gods. -Zayton ( Chincheu) and Franciscan houses there, 107;cheapness of sugar, etc., 108; great monasteries of pagans; mode offeeding the idols, 109.31. The Friar telleth of the city Fuzo and its marvels; also of rarefashions of fishing. -Great city of Fuzo ( Fucheu) , 109; great co*cks; andhens with wool, 110; crosses a great mountain; peculiarities of thepeople; coming to a city on a river sees strange fishing with certainwaterfowl, 112; another way of fishing by diving, 113.32. Concerning the city of Cansay, which is the greatest city on earth.—The city of Cansay (Kingszé or Hangcheu), 113; note on it; its vast compass and population; its bridges, 115; the amount of the house tax;paper money; vast supplies of food and wine.33. Ofthe marvellous sight that Fr. Odoric beheld in a certain monasteryof the idolaters . -A noble convert entertains Odoric, 118; takes him to acertain pagan monastery, 119; where the monks feed a multitude ofstrange animals which they allege to be the souls of deceased gentlemen;vastness of the city, 120.34. Ofthe city called Chilenfu, and ofthe great River Talay and ofcertainPygmies. -City of Chilenfu ( Nanking) , 120; note on it; the greatest riveron earth, called Talay (the Kiang) , 121; the land of the Pygmies.35. Concerning the cities of Iamzai and of Menzu. - City of Iamzai (Yangcheu); Franciscans and Nestorians, 123; great revenue from salt; taverndinners, 124; port of Menzu (Ningpo?) and splendid vessels.36. Ofthe River Caramoran; and of certain other cities visited by FriarOdoric. -City of Lenzin (Linching) , and R. Caramoran (Hoang-Ho), 125;Sunzumatu (Lintsincheu, or Thsiningcheu?) , 126; great longevity.37. The Friar reacheth Cambalech, and discourseth thereof; and of theGreat Khan's palace there. -Cambalech (Peking), 127; Tartar city ofTaydo; the Khan's palace, 128; park, artificial mount, lake, chase, etc.;splendours of the palace, 130; great jar of jade; mechanical peaco*cks ofgold, 131 .38. The friar setteth forth the state of the Khan's court. - The Khan andXX TABLE OF CONTENTS.his Queen enthroned, 131; head-dress of the women; etiquettes, 132;banquets, dresses and hierarchy of the courtiers; Odoric resides threeyears; numbers of the imperial establishment, 133.39. Of the order of the Great Khan when he journeyeth. -The summerresidence at Sandu (Shangtu) , 134; the escorts, elephant-carriage, etc.,135; aides-de- camp called Cuthe (Kiesie); gerfalcons; number of troopsaccompanying the Khan; monsters kept by the Khan (note).40. The greatness of the Khan's dominion; and how hostels are providedtherein; and how news are carried to the Lord. -The twelve Singoes (Sing)of the empire, 136; its vast extent, 137; hostelries called Yam; horsesand dromedaries for expresses, 138; foot posts and post houses.41. Concerning the Great Khan's great hunting matches. -The forest andkeepers, 139; great battue, 140; etiquettes of the field.42. Concerning the four great feasts that the Khan keepeth. -Four annualfestivals, 141; costumes, coronets, and ivory tablets of the courtiers; theastrologers and their manoeuvres, 142; the musicians; presentation ofwhite horses, 143; the friars at court; singing men and women; cupsthat fly through the air; paper money, 144.43. Concerning a certain melon that produceth a beast like a lamb.—Melons in Cadeli ( Athil or Wolga country) that produce a lamb, 144; theIrish bernacles referred to.44. The friar passing from Cathay, describeth sundry lands, as of PresterJohn and others. -The country of Prester John and exaggerations abouthim, 146; his city of Tozan (Tathung) , 147; Great Province of Kansan(Kenjan or Singanfu), 148; rhubarb.45. Concerningthe realm of Tibet, where dwelleth the Pope of the idolaters.-Tibet, a great country, 148; felt tents; the royal city (Lhassa); theAbassi (Grand Lama), 149; fashions of the women, 150; extraordinarydisposal ofthe dead and preservation of their skulls, 151.46. Of a rich man in Manzi, and how he was fed by fifty maidens.-Burgess of Manzi, his enormous wealth, 152; and how he was fed bymusical damsels; splendours of his palace-court; nails allowed to growlong in Manzi, 153; and compression of the women's feet.47. Of the old man of the mountain and his end. -Region of Millestorte(of Mulahidah or the Impious, the Ismaelites or Assassins) , 153; the OldMan and his paradise, 154; wicked contrivances to corrupt young men;how the Tartars brought him to a miserable end, 155.48. How the friars deal with devils in Tartary. -Grace bestowed on theFranciscans to expel devils, 155; and extraordinary conduct of the demons, 156.49. Thefriar telleth of a certain valley where he saw terrible things. - Thevalley of the River of Delights ( It. Piaceri, the Panjshir?) , 156; manycorpses; mysterious music, 157; fearful face in the rock, 158; hill of sandand sound of invisible drums (Reg- Rawàn near Kabul); silver scales; theFriar coming forth unhurt is much thought of, 159.50. Friar Odoric attesteth the truth of his story . - Solemn attestationappended by order of the Provincial, 159; William de Solagna's postscriptas to his writing the story from Odoric's dictation.TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxi51. Friar Marchesino of Bassano addeth his say; and telleth a prettypassage that he heard of Odoric. -Friar Marchesino tells a story that Odoricrelated how he with the bishop and other friars encountered the Khan onthe road to Cambalec, 160; how Odoric presented a plate of apples, andthe Khan graciously received the same, 161; his favourable dispositiontowards Christianity; his costly cap.52. The blessed end ofFriar Odoric. -He goes to Pisa after his return ,162; is ill, and turns back to Udine, where he dies; miracles after his death.II. LETTERS AND REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS FROM CATHAY ANDINDIA ( 1292-1338) .Introductory Notices.Letters of JOHN OF MONTECORVINO, 165, date and place of birth; earlyemployment, 166; sent by the Pope to Kublai Khan; letter from Mabaror Coromandel identified as his, 167; mention of deputation fromEthiopia, 168; perhaps from Socotra; note on Christianity in that island;John's success at Cambalec reported at Rome, 170; created archbishopand seven bishops sent to join him; alleged conversion of the Great Khan,171; more bishops sent; death of Archbishop John, 172; a successor appointed but never reached China; others named to the see, but doubtfulif any were effective. Notice of Montecorvino in Winterthur's Chronicle,173. Mention in the letters of King George of PRESTER JOHN's family;some account of the reports of Prester John, 174; first notice of a conquering Christian Prince; extravagant reports and apocryphal letters,175; Chinghiz at one time perhaps confounded with him; the Khan ofthe Kerait Tartars; the account given by Rubruquis, 176; two storiesmixt by that traveller, 178; the Gurkhan of Kara Khitai; the spread ofChristianity among the Tartar tribes, 179 (and note on the NestorianMetropolitan sees); conversion of the Khan of the Kerait; Christianity ofthat tribe, 180; their seat; Wang-Khan of the Kerait the Prester Johnof Polo, and his history; speculations as to the appellation, 181; itstransfer to an African potentate earlier than is usually supposed, 182.Letter of ANDREW Bishop of ZAYTON, 183; but one successor in that see named.Letters of JORDANUS, afterwards Bishop of COLUMBUM, 184, some remarks as to his history; Molephatam; no account of him after his nomination as bishop and departure to the east, 185.Letter of PASCAL of VITTORIA, 185; his martyrdom with others inChagatai, 186; chronological difficulties in connexion with the dates ofthe Chagatai Khans in Deguignes, etc., 187; endeavour to adjust thesewhich is favourable to the ecclesiastical notices, 188; revised table of theKhans, 189.Report on the Estate of the Grand Caan, 189; its author J. DE CORA,Archbishop of Soltania, 190; another work probably his, but erroneouslyascribed to F. Burchardt, 191.xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS .Additional notes and corrections to the translation of the Mirabilia ofJordanus (HAK. Soc . , 1863) 192-196.The Letters and Reports.No. 1. First letter of Montecorvino ( 1305) . From Tauris to India, anddeath of his companion, 197; reaches Cathay; harassed by the Nestorians,198; but eventually gets the better of them; joined by F. Arnold; churchat Cambalec, and number of baptisms; purchase of pagan boys to educate, and their accomplishments; King George of Prest. John's familyattaches himself to the friar, 199; his death, and relapse of his followers;necessity of assistance in the mission, 200; and what sort are wanted;Routes to Cathay (and note on Goths of Crimea); no news of Rome foryears, 201; blasphemies about the Pope; begs his letter may be broughtto the Pope's knowledge; requests for sundry service books; his owntoils and translations, 202; King George's son, 203; the Khan's greatpower, etc.No. II. Second letter of Montecorvino ( 1306) , 203; rumours of the writer'sdeath, 204; subject of former letter; Scripture pictures; note on Tarsicletters, 205; baptisms, and deaths of converts, 206; second mission churchat Cambalec near the palace; its progress, 207; the impression made;boys divided between the two churches; the honours paid Friar John atcourt, 208; pagan monks; notes about India; deputation from Ethiopia,209; baptisms.No. III. Letter from Fr. Menentillus, a Dominican, forwarding copy of(an earlier) letter from Montecorvino (of about 1292-3) . How he came bythe letter, 210; copy of it; climate of India; direction of shadows; lengthofday and night, 211; low altitude of Pole-star; the Antarctic. Population, 212; houses; natural features; supply of water; animals; fruittrees and harvests; trees producing sugar, honey, and wine; the peppervine, 213; ginger; Brazil; Indian nut (coco-nut); cinnamon tree, andexport from Ceylon; no information as to Paradise or other wonders;oxen sacred in India. Characteristics of the people, 214; Saracens,Christians and Jews in the country; disposal of the dead; extent andvariety of languages in India; habits of the people, 215. The Sea ofIndia; pearls, etc.; islands; sea-route from Hormuz to Malabar, Mabarand Siu Simmoncota. The Monsoons, 217; great number of ships lost;their frail structure, etc.; written from Maabar of the province of Sitia,218. Note on Sitia and Maabar; with the accounts of M. Polo, Rashid,Wassaf, and their agreement; under what chiefs the country then was, 220.Polo's Kingdom of Mutfili identified, and the Queen of whom he speaks,221 .No. IV. Letter from Andrew Bishop of Zayton in Southern China ( 1326 ) .How he and Bishop Peregrine got to Cathay, 222; remain at Cambalec;get an allowance from the Emperor; the vastness of the empire; churchbuilt at Zayton and erected into a cathedral, 223; Friar Gerard madebishop; after his death Peregrine; and then the writer, who had previouslygone to live at Zayton; his journey thither, 224; he builds a secondchurch and convent there. Tolerant views of the Cathay people, andTABLE OF CONTENTS. xxiiiconverts from them, 225; martyrdom of four brethren in India; salutation; and account of the bishops who died on their way out.No. v. Letter of Friar Jordanus the Dominican ( 1321 ) . Martyrdom of hisfriends, 226; baptisms at Parocco (Baroch) , and elsewhere in Gujarat;places recommended for missions in India, 227; Ethiopia also open.No. vi. A second letter from F. Jordanus ( 1324) . His sad condition andsufferings, 228; baptisms, 229; mission to Ethiopia; high fame of theLatins in India and prophecies of their coming, 230; the Pope shouldhave a squadron on the Indian Sea.No. VII. Letter from Pascal of Vittoria, a Missionary Franciscan inTartary ( 1338) . His proceedings since leaving the convent at Vittoria,231; Assisi, Venice, Constantinople; Gazaria ( Crimea); Tana (Azov);Sarray; studies the Cumanian language and Uigur writing, 232; martyrdom of F. Stephen shortly before; embarks on the Tygris (Wolga), andgoes to Sarachik, 234; thence by land to Urganth ( Urghanj); againtravels to the empire of the Medes (Middle Tartary); detention amongthe Mahomedans, 235; discussions with them, and victory, 236; they tryto bribe him and then abuse and torment him; arrival at Armalec(Almalik); his many sufferings from the Saracens, 237; his zeal.No. VIII. The Book ofthe Estate ofthe Great Caan, set forth by the Archbishop of Soltania (circa 1330) .- The Great Caan of Cathay, 238; histhree vassals that are great emperors; their power, and that of theirsuzerain. Cathay, its extent, 239; great cities, Cambalec and Cassay;strict respect to the Caan's commands; yearly exhibition of the Caan tohis people; his justice and mercy; folk who have never mercy; his greatmunificence, 240; his distributions of food to the poor; his vast wealthand treasuries; his couriers and posts; entertainment of foreign ambassadors, 241. (2.) Concerning the Sovereign Bishop, who is the Pope of theEmpire of Cathay. -Called the Great Trutius, 241; highly honoured bythe Emperor; his red hat and clothing, 242; his supremacy over all thepagan prelates, monks, and clergy; abbeys of the idolaters, both menand women; their four gods, and the great God over all. (3. ) Concerningthe state and condition of the realm of Cathay. -Populousness, 243;meadows and great waters; floating houses, and aquatic population;fleshmeat dear, but other food plentiful; no oil-olive or wine of the vine;valuable trees that grow in Persia, 244. (4.) On the ordering of the twocities of Cambalec and Cassay.-Their great compass, population, andgarrisons; also the great trade of Cassay, 245. (5. ) Concerning the moneywhich is current in the said realm. -Money of paper; described; valuablewares to be purchased; how new paper is given for old at the king'streasuries, 246. (6.) Concerning the manner of life of the people of thecountry-Their rich clothing, and fashions of dress, 246; dishes made ofplaited canes; food. (7.) Ofthe manner in which they do bury their dead.-Register of every birth, 247; disposal of the dead by burning; whythey burn bodies; and what they do in commemoration. (8.) Concerningthe Minor Friars who sojourn in that country. —Archbishop John Montecorvino, and the convents he established in Cambalec and Zayton; his excellent character and favour with all men, 248; thwarted by Nestorians;xxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS .his late decease and the grief at his funeral. (9. ) Concerning the schismaticor Nestorian Christians who dwell in that country. -Their malice to theCatholics, 249; their numbers and wealth; the whole country might beconverted if they would be at one with the friars. (10.) Concerning thegreatfavour which the Grand Caan beareth towards the ( Catholic) Christians.-He supplies all their necessities, and those of the churches, and encourages them to preach the faith in the pagan temples.III. CATHAY UNDER THE MONGOLS: EXTRACTED FROM RASHIDUDDIN'SHISTORY (circa 1300-1307) .Introductory Notice.Sources of the translation, 253; birth of Rashiduddin; profession, 254;Wazir of the Persian Empire; intrigues against him; his execution; repentance of the Khan Abu-Said, who makes Rashid's son Wazir, 255.Stories of Rashid's wealth and accomplishments; his extensive buildings;his expenditure on his own books; his integrity. His great historicalwork; character of it, 256; his geographical ideas; Quatremère's unfinished translation; Mr. Morley's project of one.The Extracts.Cathay, 257; the Gulf of Corea; Khanbaligh; new city built byKublai, called Daidu, 258; rivers that pass those cities; Kublai's greatcanal, 259; ramparts of Daidu, 260; Kublai's summer palace at Kaiminfu;roads to it; description of the foundations, 261; classification ofChinese cities and governing officers, 262; the great officers of state, 263;Chingsangs and Fanchans; the whole gradation of dignitaries, 264;names of existing incumbents; the great council, 265, and six publicboards; system of business, 266; peculiar system of indenture in contracts; business of the chief Sing or council, 267; provincial Sings; list ofthem; other particulars regarding them, 271; the Isle of Chipangu(Japan); south-western forest country; Kafché- Kué (Lower Tungking) ,272; frontier of Tibet and the Zardandán or Gold-Teeth; the north-westfrontier and its defences, 274.IV. PEGOLOTTI'S NOTICES OF THE LAND ROUTE TO CATHAY, ETC.(Circa 1330-1340) .The work Della Decima, etc., by Pagnini, from which these extracts aretaken, 279; Pegolotti's work; the MS. , 280; the author; the Bardi Company of Florence, 281; their failures; date of Pegolotti's book; its character, a mercantile hand-book; its contents, 282; comments of Sprengeland Forster; mistakes of eminent authors regarding Pegolotti; anotherwork of like character by Giov. da Uzzano contained in Della Decima, 283.Extracts. Introduction to Pegolotti's book; explanations of technicalities, 284-6; introductory verses, 286.Chap. I. Information regarding the journey to Cathay, for such as will goby Tana and come back with goods. —Tana ( Azov) to Gintarchan (Astracan) ,287; Sara; Organci ( Urghanj); Oltrarre ( Otrar) , 288; Armalec (Almalik);Camexu (Kancheu); Cassai (Hangcheu); silver sommi of Tartary, and papermoney of Cathay, 289; (note on Chinese paper money); Cambalec, 290.TABLE OF CONTENTS . XXVChap. II. Things needful for merchants who desire to make the journey to Cathay above described. -Beard, 291; dragomen; servants, etc .; provisions to lay in, 292; safety of the road; two contingencies that causetrouble; Cambalec, a great place of trade, 293; calculation of the expensesofa mercantile journey to Cathay; Tana to Sara the least safe part, 294;investments in going; mode of travelling; paper money; prices of silkand silk stuffs in Cathay.Chap. III. Comparison ofthe weights and measures ofCathay and of Tana.-Value of certain weights in Genoa lbs. , 296; mode of sale of variousarticles at Tana.Chap. IV. Charges on merchandise which are paid at Tana on things entering the city, nothing being paid on going forth thereof, 298.Chap. VI. Ofthe expenses which usually attend the transport ofmerchandize from Ajazzo of Erminia to Torissi by land, 299.Chap. VII. Detail showing how all goods are sold and bought at Constantinople, and of the expenses incurred by traders, etc. (extracts) , 302.-A fewpart ulars regarding the contents of other parts of the work, 307; a listof religious houses in Scotland supplying wool; also part ofa list of thosein England, 308.V. JOHN DE' MARIGNOLLI'S RECOLLECTIONS OF EASTERN TRAVEL.( 1338-1353) .Biographical and Introductory Notices.The author, otherwise called John of Florence, 311; his family; approximate date of birth, 312; a Franciscan; works of his known, besides thatcontaining these recollections . Embassyarrives at Avignon from the GrandKhan, 313; apparently genuine; the Khan's letter to the Pope, 314;letter of Christian Alan chiefs to the Pope; digression regarding theAlans in the Mongol service, 316; the Pope sends a return mission, 318;Marignolli one of the legates, 319; and eventually it would seem chief orsole legate, 320; departure of the mission (1338); M. at Constantinople;Kipchak, 321; Armalec; Kamil; Cambalec; stays there for three or fouryears; Zayton; sails for India; residence in Malabar; visits tomb of St.Thomas; visits Saba; digression regarding this country, which is probably Java; extract from Peter of Abano regarding Sumatra, with asketch derived from Marco Polo, 324; Marignolli visits Ceylon; his viewsabout the terrestrial paradise; other medieval notions on that subject,326; Marignolli's homeward route by Hormuz, Baghdad, Aleppo, the HolyLand and Cyprus, 328; arrival at Avignon (1353); the Emperor CharlesIV makes him one of his chaplains; he is made Bishop of Bisignano;whilst with the Emperor at Prague he is desired to digest the Bohemianchronicles, 329; he lightens this hateful task by introducing digressions onhis Asiatic travel, which furnish these recollections; the work forgotten;printed in 1768 by Dobner, 330; the travels commented on by Meinert andby Kunstmann; probable date of the composition; Marignolli's characteras a writer, 331; his incoherence and confusion; probably advanced inyears; confirmation of this by a curious letter from a bishop of Armagh;the letter, 332; the writer must have been Archbishop , Fitz - Ralph, 333;dxxvi TABLE OF CONTENTS.date of Marignolli's death not known, 334; the MS. used by Dobner;another in St. Mark's library.The Extracts from Marignolli .Division of the work (Chronicle of Bohemia) . The mention of Edenlaunches him on his recollections , 335; appointed by Pope Benedict to goto the Kaam of the Tartars. Departure from Avignon, 336; digressionabout the Alans, and their zeal for the Pope; Friar John Montecorvino;arrives at Constantinople, and holds controversies with the Patriarch , 337;Caffa; Usbec, first Emperor of the Tartars; his hopitality, 338; travels to Armalec; proceedings of the mission there, and notice of a recent martyrdomof six friars and a layman. Departure from Armalec; the Cyollos Kagon,or sand hills , 339; the Torrid Zone (desert of Gobi); arrival at Cambalec,and good reception from the Kaam (the great horse presented to him), 340;liberal provision for the mission for nearly four years; glorious disputations and conversions, 341. The Franciscan establishments at Cambalec; the Emperor's wish for a bishop; departure from the capitalthrough Manzi ( S. China) , 542; (chronology of the journey); sail for India,and arrive at Columbum ( Quilon). Pepper harvest, 343; privileges oftheSt. Thomas Christians, and perquisites of the traveller as legate; theLatin Church of St. George, 344; the legate erects a pillar in imitation ofK. Alexander (note on Alexander's columns); leaves Malabar, 345; visitsthe Queen of Saba, and then Seyllan ( Ceylon) , 346.Chapter concerning Paradise. -What Paradise is, 346; the four rivers(and note); Gyon (the Nile) , 348; and how the Sultan pays St. Matthew'schristians to keep it open (note); Phison, the same as Caramoran (HoangHo), 349; vast cities on its banks, and floating population, 350; Tygris,351; ruins of Nineveh; Mesopotamia, Assyria, Edessa; Euphrates;Aleppo; French of Cyprus, 352.Chapter concerning the trees of Paradise, 352.Chapter on the transgression ofour first parents. -Observations on Serpents, 353; "coats of skins," a wrong reading, 353; fibre cloth of thecoco-palm; how Adam was set down in Ceylon, and left his footmark;re-union with Eve.Narrative concerning the mountain Seyllan. -How the author got there,354; the overland road from Cambalec shut up; passage through Manzi;its great population; the famous city of Campsay (Hangcheu); Zayton(Chincheu) , 355; Franciscan churches there, and fondaco (note); bells inthe churches. Quits Zayton, 356; Columbum; sails for the shrine of St.Thomas; violent storm; brought into port at Pervilis (Barberyn ) inCeylon, 357; plundered there by a Saracen chief; the high mountain ofCeylon (Adam's Peak) not. Paradise, 358; a glorious spectacle; relics ofAdam; the native monks, 359, and their views of the deluge, and othermatters contrary to Scripture, 360; habits of those monks; the fountain of Paradise.Concerning Adam's garden and thefruits thereof. -The plantain described,361; the crucifix seen on a section of the fruit; the nargil ( or coconut), 362;and its uses; amburan (the mango); chake-baruhe (the jack); no vinesTABLE OF CONTENTS. xxviiin India, except at St. Thomas's, 363; the seed of which he got fromParadise. What was the forbidden fruit? discussion thereon, 364-5.Concerning the clothing of our first parents.—" Coats of skins;" the realreading expounded, 366; camel cloth and camall cloth; camels; Arabs;elephants, 367; how he rode on one, and his conclusions.•...· •Concerning thefood of our first parents. —Adam's proceedings in Ceylon,367; the native (Buddhist) monks; their virtues and habits; trees whichthey worship; the text Dominus regnabit a ligno, 368; habits of the monkscontinued. . . . Cain's proceedings, 369; his city in Ceylon; his death.Adam's mourning; Hebron, where he died, 370. Enoch, thefounder of religious orders; the sons of Cain in Ceylon (the Veddahs);Ararat, 371. The division of the earth among the sons of Noah,371; Asia the Great; the White Sea (note); Uzbek, Cathay, the Indies,Ethiopia, 372; Shares of Cham and Japhet. Elam, the progenitor of the Alans, 373; great qualities of that people. The threekingdoms of India--1st. Manzi, with its cities, its great port of Cynkalan (Canton); 2nd. Mynibar ( Malabar) and its port of Cynkali ( Cranganor); the canine philosophers, 374; Columbum; 3rd. Maabar, whereis the church of St. Thomas. Legend of the great log; and of St. Thomas's martyrdom, 375; miracles on the spot, 376 (note, Legends of St.Thomas); grants made to St. Thomas, 377. Monstrous creaturesdiscussed, 378; St. Augustine's opinion, 379; six-fingered people; hairygirl; other monsters, 380; exceptions, and not constituting species; nevercould hear of such from anybody in his travels; origin of the story of theSciapoda, 381; the chatyr, or umbrella..Anecdote concerning a certain Indian who was baptised. -At Columbuma majestic and venerable Brahman appears seeking baptism, 381; his extraordinary story, 382; is instructed for three months and baptised . Thecountry of the Queen of Saba, 383. Monsters again; giants; wild menin India and their dumb trading. Monstrous serpents, 384; animals withhuman faces; the cloister garden of Campsay (vide Odoric, p . 119); thepagan monks and their austerities; how he disproved the allegationsabout the animals in the cloister garden . Antipodes not conceivable, 385;two fourth parts of the world not navigable; a hermaphrodite.The Plain of Senaar, 385; the Tower of Babel described, 386.Concerning the division of tongues, 387; failure to build other towers;what drove the Soldan into Egypt. Etymologies of Babel andBagdad (Baghdad), 388. The Jews, Tartars, Saracens, and OrientalChristians look on the Catholics as the worst of idolaters, 388; the storyof Semiramis and her daughter Saba, and the island so called, 389;whether tithes should of necessity be imposed, 389; anecdotes in illustration, 390. . . . The use of gold knives by the surgeons in Cathay,390. The Queen of Saba and her island, 391; the great mountainthere called Mount Gybeit, or the Blessed Mountain, where Elias washidden; the spring of Elias, 391; unable to ascend the mountain owingto his dysentery; cured by the Queen of Saba's doctress; how he washonoured by the Queen, and the presents she made him; and how liberally the legate conducted himself. . . Mahomed's address to Mary,• •.A 2xxviii TABLE OF CONTENTS .393; image of the Virgin worshipped in Campsay during the first moon;feast of lanterns, 394.VI. IBN BATUTA'S TRAVELS IN BENGAL AND CHINA.(Circa 1347.)Introductory Notice.His birth, 397; facilities and stimulus to Mahomedan travelling inthose days; its vast field; commencement of his travels, 398; Alexandria;Upper Egypt; Syria; the pilgrimage; Basra, Persia, Baghdad, 399;second pilgrimage; Yemen; Aden, its flourishing state; the African coast,400; Oman; Hormuz; Central Arabia; third pilgrimage; crosses the RedSea and travels to Cairo; Syria (second time) and Asia Minor; crossesthe Black Sea, 401; Caffa; Majar; Uzbek Khan; visits the city of Bolghar; the land of darkness; Astracan; journey with a Greek Princess toConstantinople, 402; Ukak; Soldaia; Constantinople; the name Istambul; Andronicus Senior, 403; returns to Uzbek; visits Khwarizm andBokhara; Tarmashirin, Khan of Chagatai; Khorasan; passes the HinduKush; Pashai, the Pascia of Polo; Sind, 404; Sehwan; Larri Bandar;travels towards Delhi; Multan; Mahomed Tughlak, the then Sultan ofDelhi, and his character; journey from Multan to Delhi, 406.Reception at Delhi, and appointment as judge, 407; eight years' residence in India; his extravagance; he falls into disfavour, 409; becomesan ascetic for the nonce, 410; the king sends for him and nominates himambassador to China; the Chinese embassy which had visited Mahomed;the return presents, 411; his colleagues, 412; they start from Delhi;mishaps near Koel; Kanauj, 413; Gwalior; feats of the Jogis; Daulatabad; Cambay (note on route from Dehli to Cambay); Kawe, 414; Gandar;isle of Perim , 415; Gogo; Sandabur (apparently Goa); Hunawar, and itsMahomedan Prince, 416; female education; Malabar; Calicut; Chineseshipping described; ports frequented by the Chinese junks, 418; mishapsattending the start of the embassy, and the traveller left behind, 419;proceeds to Kaulam, 420; goes back to the Mahomedan Prince of Hunawar, 421; expedition against Sandabur; Ibn Batuta returns to Calicut;hears of the final wreck and dispersion of his slaves, etc., who had sailedfrom Calicut; returns a third time to Hunawar, and to Sandabur; finding his friends in difficulties, escapes, and returns to Calicut, 422; visitsthe Maldives, 422; is made Kazi, and marries four wives; his pious reforms; quarrels and leaves for Ceylon; the Pagan chief Areya Chakravarti at Patlam; he travels to Adam's Peak, 423; Kurunaigalla; thePeak; Dondera; Galle; Columbo; sails for Maabar, and again comesto grief, 424; is received by the Sultan of Maabar, whose sister- in- lawIbn Batuta had married at Dehli; that good lady's commemoration byher husband; the Sultan's cruelties; his death; Madura; the traveller'sdeparture again for Kaulam, 425; sets off again for Hunawar; is robbed,and returns to Calicut; re-visits the Maldives; sails thence to Bengal, 426.His voyage to China ( see text following) , 426; his return to Arabia, andjourney thence by Persia, Irak, Syria (the Black Death) , Egypt, Tunis,Sardinia, Algeria, to his native country; his professed joy in returning;his laudations of the West, 427.TABLE OF CONTENTS . xxixResumes his travels; Tangier, Gibraltar, and Andalusia; sets out forCentral Africa, 428; Segelmessa; Taghaza; Malli; Timbuktu; Kaukau;Takadda; the Niger; is ordered home, and returns to Fez.The Sultan orders his travels to be written, 429; the scribe, Ibn Juzai;how the latter characterises the traveller. Death of the latter.First knowledge in Europe of Ibn Batuta's book; Seetzen; Kosegarten,430; Apetz; Lee. Complete MSS. procured by the French in Algeria;Moura's Portuguese translation; partial translations; complete Frenchtranslation of Defrémery and Sanguinetti, whence the ensuing extractsare translated, 431 .Interest ofthe book and character of Ibn Batuta as a traveller; different views; confused geographical ideas, 432; and other instances oflooseobservation, 433; exaggerations; instances apparently of positive fiction,435; mistakes in language, 436; chronological difficulties; summing upin favour of general veracity and genuine character, 437; personal character, 438.Note A. On the value of the Indian coins mentioned by Ibn Batuta, 439.Note B. On the places visited by Ibn Batuta between Cambay and Malabar, 443 .Note C. Remarks on sundry Passages in the Fourth Volume of Lassen'sIndische Alterthumskunde, 445.Note D. The Medieval Ports of Malabar, 450.THE TRAVELS OF IBN BATUTA IN CHINA, ETC.Sails from the Maldives to Bengal, 457; that country characterised;its great cheapness; Sadkawan (supp. Chittagong), 458; the King Fakhruddin, 459; his revolt and wars with the governor of Laknaoti (Gaur) ,460; the traveller visits the country of Kamru ( Silhet, vide note E) 461;the Shaik Jalaluddin; his ascetio life and longevity; his previsions, 462;his treatment of Ibn Batuta; story of the shaikh's goat's hair mantle andhis predictions, 463; the city of Habank, 464; Sunurkawan (Sunarganw),465; sails for Java (Sumatra), 466; Barahnagar (supposed coast nearNegrais); dog-mouthed people; Java (Sumatra) , 467; city of Sumatra,468; the King Al Zhahir; departure for China; Mul- Java (continent onGulfofSiam); Kakula, 469; Kamara (confusions connected with this name),469; elephants; aloes-wood; self-immolation; traveller's account ofspices; incense; camphor, 470; Indian aloes-wood, 471; the clove (hismis-statements), 472. The Calm Sea, 473; the kingdom of Tawalisi;description of it; the Princess Urduja governing at Kailukari, 474; herhospitality; her conversation with the traveller, 475; her present, 476;her warlike character; arrival in China, 477.The Great River of China, 477; rich products of the country, 478;porcelain, and process of making; Chinese poultry, 479; various characteristics of the people; silk, 480; customs ofthe merchants; paper money,(note on the word balisht), 481; fossil coal, 482; Chinese skill in drawingand portraiture; regulations in the ports, 483; forfeitures, 484; regulations respecting foreign traders; travelling accommodations, 485.City of Zayton (Chincheu) 486; damasks and satins; great amount ofXXX TABLE OF CONTENTS .shipping; meets the envoys who had been in India, 487; is lodged bythe government, and visited by the Mahomedans; sets out on a visit toSinkalan (Canton) , 488; description of that city; immense hospitality ofthe Mahomedan settlers, 489; the Rampart of Gog and Magog, 490; agedand singular recluse near Canton; his reception of Ibn Batuta; mysteriousdisappearance, 491; strange stories related of this personage and hismesmeric influence, 492; his peculiar habits. Return to Zayton, 493;sets out for the capital; Kanjanfu; his grand reception; singular encounter with a countryman from Ceuta, 494; continues his journey, 495;Bawam Kutlu; Khansa (Hangcheu) , 496; the greatest city on earth;reception; description of the city, 497; the Amir Kurtai, the Viceroy,498; he gives an entertainment, 499; festival on the water, and songsthat were sung; strange exhibition of juggling; further particulars ofthe city, 501; lacker dishes, 502; sets out from Khansa and enters CATHAY, 503. Its great culture and population; arrives at Khanbalik; theShaikh Burhanuddin, 504; the Kán; palace described (from imaginationit would seem), 505; revolution in progress in Cathay, 506; the Kán slain(a fiction) , 507; great preparations for his funeral, 507; extraordinaryceremonial, 508. Similar rites in Negroland, 509.The traveller advised to depart, 510; returns to Zayton; sails forSumatra; great storm and darkness; appearance of the rukh, 511; reachesSumatra; marriage ceremonies of the king's son, 512; departs loadedwith presents, 513; arrives at Kaulam; customs of the Ramazan there;Calicut; embarks for Arabia and reaches Zhafar) . (Note on the chronological difficulties of this expedition to China).Note E. On the Kamru of Ibn Batuta (the residence of the Shaikh Jalaluddin), the Blue River, and the city of Habank, 515.Note F. On the Mul- Java of Ibn Batuta, 518.Note G. On the Tawalisi of Ibn Batuta, 620.Note H. Regarding the history ofthe Khans of Chagatai, 522.VII. THE JOURNEY OF BENEDICT GOES FROM AGRA TO CATHAY.(1602-1607).Introductory Notice.Changes since the time of Ibn Batuta, 529; identity of Cathay withChina recognised by the Jesuits in the latter country, not by those inIndia, 530; expedition to rediscover Cathay projected and Goës chosenfor it.Early history of Goës, 531; a lay-brother of the Jesuits; he is sent tothe court of Akbar; circ*mstance which put it in the head of JeromeXavier, the head of the mission, to explore Cathay, 532; sanction is received from Europe, and Goës prepares for the journey, 535; his death afteraccomplishing it at Sucheu, 536. Mode in which the narrative was compiled; miserably meagre in consequence; perplexities about the chronology, 537; what may have led to some of the errors, 538.Chief difficulties in tracing the traveller about the Hindu Kush andBadakhshan; passage of the former, 540; Badakhshan, its history anddecay from former prosperity, 541; the pass over the Bolor and Pamer,TABLE OF CONTENTS . xxxi542; Chinese Turkestan, its characteristics, 543; history of that region inbrief outline, 544. Bibliography of Goës's journey, 548.The Journey.--From the work of Trigautius " De Christianâ Expeditioneapud Sinas." Book v. ch. xi, xii, xiii.Chap. XI. How the Portuguese, Benedict Goës, a member of our Society, issent to find out about Cathay. - Preliminary explanations as to the originand object ofthe expedition, 549; Benedict's preparations in character ofa merchant, 552; travels to Lahore; his companions, 553; caravan to goto Kashgar, 553; reach Attok; Peshawar, 554; account of Kafiristan;trouble from robbers in the passes, 556; Kabul; assistance rendered byGoës to the mother of the King of Khotan; two of Goës's companionsabandon him, 557; sets out from Kabul; Charekar; Parwan, 558; passesthe Hindu Kush; Aingharan; Calcia, 559; Talhan (Talikhan); Cheman(?);trouble with insurgents, 560; the straits of Badakhshan, 561; Serpanil(Pamer?), 561; terrible mountain passes, 562; reaches Yarkand.Chap. XII. The remainder of the journey to Cathay, and how it is ascertained to be all the same as the Chinese Empire. -Yarkand, 563; delay here,564; nature of the trade with Cathay under pretext of embassies; piecesof jade the chief import; account of this substance. The King of Yarkand, 565; he is supported by the Prince of Khotan, 566; re- appearanceof Demetrius, one of his original companions, and the trouble he caused,567; Goës makes a journey to Khotan; annoyance from the Mullahs, 568;safe return of Benedict; controversies, 569; the new Caravan chief invitesGoës to accompany him to Cathay, 570; Demetrius draws back again; Goësprepares for the journey, and sets out, 571; journey to Aksù; visit to theyoung chief there, 572; Caracathai, 573; Kucha; Cialis (Karashahr), 574;alarm, which proves unfounded; respect which Goës earned, 575; delays;meets merchants returning from Cathay, who tell him of the Jesuits atPeking, by which he learns that Cathay is China, 577; Goës's bold anddignified conduct, 578; sets out without waiting for the caravan; Pijan;Turfan; Kamul; enters the wall of China, 579; Sucheu; the Tartars onthe Chinese frontier and their forays; accident to Benedict on this lastpart ofthe journey, 580.Chap. XIII . How our Brother Benedict died in the Chinese territory afterthe arrival of one of our members who had been sent from Peking to his assistance. The garrison towns of Kancheu and Sucheu, 581; the Mahomedans at Sucheu, and restrictions upon them, 582; the resort of the caravans of merchants professing to be ambassadors; particulars about thissystem.Date of Goës's arrival at Sucheu, and prosperous state of his affairs,583; hears further accounts of the Jesuits at Peking from Saracen traders,584; writes to Matthew Ricci, but his letter miscarries; writes again aletter, which is received after many months; the Jesuits sent a ChineseChristian pupil, John Ferdinand, to his aid, 585; annoyance experiencedby Goës during detention at Sucheu; arrival of the caravan, 586; JohnFerdinand at last arrives, but finds Benedict on his death bed; his deatheleven days later, 587; annoyance to his servant Isaac and John Ferdinand from the Mahomedans, who destroy Goës's journal.xxxii TABLE OF CONTENTS.Some remarks on the character of Goës, 587; anecdote of his deathbed, 588.Trouble of the two survivors, 558; but they outwit the Mahomedans,and get to Peking, 590; relics of Benedict; further history of the faithful Isaac.Note I.-The Passes of the Hindu Kush, 591.APPENDIX.1. Latin text of Odoric, from a MS. in the Imperial Library at Paris(Fonds Latin, No. 2584); with various readings, p. i .II. Old Italian text of Odoric, from a MS. in the Palatine Library atFlorence (E, 5, 9, 6 , 7); with various readings, p. xliii .III. Transcript from the MS. of the first two chapters of Pegolotti, inthe Riccardian Library at Florence (No. 2441), p. lxiv.INDEX to the whole work.PRELIMINARY ESSAY.NOTES ON THE INTERCOURSE OF CHINA AND THEWESTERN NATIONS PREVIOUS TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE SEA-ROUTE BY THE CAPE." On se formeroit des notions peu exactes sur la Chine, et l'on n'auroit qu'une idée imparfaite des avantages qu'on peut obtenir en étudiant l'histoire de ce pays, si l'on se representoit un empire isolé, pour ainsi dire, à l'extrémité de l'Asie, séparé du reste du monde, dont l'entréeauroit toujours été interdite aux étrangers, et dont les relations au dehors se seroient bornées à quelques communications passagères avecles peuples les plus voisins de ses frontières. "--Abel Remusat.I. EARLIEST TRACES OF INTERCOURSE .LEDGE OF CHINA.GREEK AND ROMAN KNOW1. THAT spacious seat of ancient civilisation which we call CHINAhas loomed always so large to western eyes, and has, in spite ofits distance, subtended so great an angle of vision, that, at erasfar apart, we find it to have been distinguished by different appellations according as it was regarded as the terminus of asouthern sea- route coasting the great peninsulas and islands ofAsia, or as that of a northern land route traversing the longitudeof that continent.In the former aspect the name applied has nearly alwaysbeen some form of the name SIN, CHIN, SINE, CHINA. In thelatter point of view the region in question was known to theancients as the land of the SERES; to the middle ages as theempire of CATHAY.2. The name of Chin has been supposed, like many anotherword and name connected with the trade and geography of thefar east, to have come to us through the Malays, and to havebeen applied by them to the great eastern monarchy from thexxxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.style of the dynasty of THSIN, which a little more than two centuries before our era enjoyed a brief but very vigorous existence,uniting all the Chinese provinces under its authority, and extending its conquests far beyond those limits to the south and the west.There are reasons however for believing that the name of CHINAmust have been bestowed at a much earlier date, for it occurs inthe laws of Manu, which assert the Chinas to have beendegenerate Kshatriyas, and in the Mahabharat, compositionsmany centuries older than the imperial dynasty of Thsin. Theindications of the geographical position of the nation so calledare indeed far from precise, but in the absence of positiveevidence to the contrary it seems reasonable to believe thatthe name China meant to the Hindus then what it means still;whilst there is also in a part of the astronomical systems of thetwo nations the strongest implication of very ancient communication between them, so ancient as to have been forgotten evenin the far- reaching annals of China.2Whether the Chinese were known at all to the Hindus in remote antiquity, and whether they were known by the name ofChinese, are of course two different questions. But if it be established that they must have known one another, the probabilitybecomes strong that the name China in the writings of the onepeople indicated the other. And this name may have yet possibly been connected with the Thsin, or some monarchy of likedynastic title; for that dynasty had reigned locally in Shensifrom the ninth century before our era; and when, at a still earlierdate, the empire was partitioned into many small kingdoms, wefind among them the dynasties of the Tçin and the Ching.3¹ Lassen, i, 857-8; Pauthier, M. Polo, p. 550. The latter author says:" I shall take another occasion to establish that the statement in the Lawsof Manu is partially true, and that people from India passed into Shensi,the westernmost province of China, more than one thousand years beforeour era, and at that time formed a state named Thsin, the same word asChina." It is remarkable that, as the same scholar notices, the name ofChina is used in the Japanese maps (Ib . , 449) .2 See Lassen, i, 742 seqq.3 The Tçin reigning at Fungcheu in Shansi, endured from B.C. 1107 to677 and longer under other titles; the Ching, in Honan, from B.C. 1122to B.C. 477, (See Deguignes, i, 88, 102, 105; also Lassen, i, 857; St. Martin,Mem. sur l'Arménie, ii, 51) .PRELIMINARY ESSAY. XXXV3. Other indications of ancient communication are found in theannals and traditions both of the Chinese and of western nations.Thus in the reign of Taiwú (B.c. 1634) ambassadors accompaniedby interpreters, and belonging to 76 distinct kingdoms, are reported to have arrived from remote regions at the court ofChina.166At a far earlier period, under the reign of Hoangti, the firsthistorical emperor (B.c. 2698) the Chinese historians allege thatthe inventors of sundry arts and sciences arrived from the westernkingdoms in the neighbourhood of the Kuenlung mountains.² Inthe time of Yao (B.c. 2353) there came the envoys of a race calledYué-shangshi, arriving from the south, and presented to the emperor a divine tortoise, one thousand years old, " having on itsback inscriptions in strange charactors resembling tadpoles, inwhich was related the history of the world from its beginning.Yao caused these to be transcribed, and they were known thereafter as the Annals of the Tortoise. The same nation sent a newembassy to China in B.c. 1110. As Yue-shang-shi signifies " a peoplewith long training robes" ( like those of the Assyrian monuments),and as the tadpole form ascribed to the characters is suggestiveof the cuneiform writing; as the commentators likewise say thatthe country of these people was reached in a year, after passingby Funan and Lini (or the modern Siam) , Pauthier has conjectured that the envoys came from Chaldæa.³4. Absolute tradition in countries west of India however isfound of an exceedingly early communication with China, andthis is singularly confirmed by the annals of the latter country.Thus the legendary history of the Persians relates that their ancientking, the famous Jamshid, had two daughters by a daughter ofMáhang king of Máchin (or Great China) . It has been suggestedthat his name indicates Múwang, of the Cheu dynasty, who reignedfrom B.c. 1001 to 946, dying in the latter year in the 104th yearof his age, and who is related in the Chinese annals to have made1 Chine Ancienne, p. 76. 2 Ch. Anc., p. 29.3 H. des Relations Politiques de la Chine, etc., pp. 5-7. If I rememberrightly, some of the Chaldean inscriptions mentioned in Rawlinson'sAncient Monarchies are considered to go back to B.c. 2000 or earlier, butI have not the book to refer to.xxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.in the year 985 a journey into the remote countries of the west, andto have brought back with him skilled artizans and various naturalcuriosities .'Indeed China is often mentioned in the ancient legends ofPersia, but as these seem to be chiefly known through the poetryof Ferdusi, probably little stress can be laid upon such allusions.Thus however Jamshid is pursued through India and China bythe agents of Zohak; Feridun bestows upon his second son, Fur,Tartary and part of China; Siawush, the son of Kaikobad, marrying the daughter of Afrasiab, receives in dowry China and Khotan; Kaikhusru (Cyrus) is sent in his youth by Afrasiab beyondthe sea of China, and Jiv seeks him all through that countryamid wonderful adventures; in the wars of Kaikhusru and Rustumwith Afrasiab Rustum captures the Emperor of China on his whiteelephant; Lohrasp, the successor of Kaikhusru, exacts homagefrom the sovereigns of Tartary and China; Gushtasp (DariusHystaspes) makes war on Arjash, King of China, pursues himto his capital and slays him there."5. Under the third year of Chingwang (B.c. 1113 ) there is acurious and obscure tradition of the arrival at the court of menfrom the kingdom of Nili, who had come by sea, and in whomPauthier again suggests that we have visitors from the banks ofthe Nile. This notion might have derived some corroborationfrom the Chinese porcelain phials alleged to have been found inEgyptian tombs as old as the eighteenth dynasty; but I understand that Dr. Birch has demolished their claims to antiquity.6. Some at least ofthe circ*mstances which have been collectedin the preceding paragraphs may render it the less improbablethat the SINIM of the Prophet Isaiah, a name used, as the contextshows, to indicate some nation of the extreme east or south, shouldbe truly interpreted as indicating the Chinese.'7. The name of China in this form was late in reaching the1 Ib. , pp. 14-15 , and Chine Ancienne, p. 94 seqq.2 Malcolm's H. of Persia. I am obliged to quote from the FrenchTrans. , i , 26-89.3 Chine Ancienne, p . 85.4.66 Behold these shall come from far; and lo these from the north andfrom the west; and these from the land of SINIM" (xlix, ver. 12) . Seearticle Sinim, in Smith's Dict . of the Bible.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xxxviiGreeks and Romans, and to them it probably came through peopleof Arabian speech, as the Arabs, being without the sound of ch,made the China of the Hindus and Malays into Sin, and perhapssometimes into Thin. Hence the Thin of the author of thePeriplus of the Erythræan Sea, who appears to be the first extantauthor to employ the name in this form; hence also the Sinæand Thine of Ptolemy, who doubtless derived them from his predecessor Marinus of Tyre, the loss of whose work, with the detailsinto which it seems to have entered to a much greater extent thanPtolemy's, is so much to be regretted.8. Since the reaction from the sentiment of those days succeeding the revival of literature which ascribed all knowledge tothe Greeks, it has often been doubted and denied that the Sinaof Ptolemy indeed represented the Chinese. But compare thestatement of Marcianus of Heraclea (who is in this as in mostother parts of his work, merely condensing and popularising theresults of Ptolemy's definitions) , when he tells us that the " nations of the Sina lie at the extremity of the habitable world, andadjoin the eastern Terra Incognita, " with that of Cosmas a centuryor two later in speaking of Tinista, a name which no one hasThat is if Müller's view be right in ascribing the work to the firstcentury.Though the latest scholars have abandoned that reading of Strabowhich ascribed the use of the name Thine to Eratosthenes (the passageswhich speak of the parallel passing through Thina-dia Owŵr-beingshown to read correctly di Anvŵv; see Müller's Edition, p. 945 and thevarious passages referred to there); it is rather singular that the name should not have been known before the end of the first century, supposing such to be the fact. For Shi - Hoangti the great Emperor of theThsin is said to have sent an army of three hundred thousand men intoTartary, whist Ptolemy Euergetes about the same time carried his conquests to Bactria. The expedition of the latter may probably, however,have preceded that of the Chinese prince . Ptolemy reigned B.c. 247—222, Shihoangti from 246 as king of Thsin, but only from 221 as sovereign of the whole empire. M. Reinaud, in his Relations Politiques et Commerciales de l'Empire Romain avec l'Asie Orientale, a book which containssome ingenious suggestions and useful references to which I am indebted,but which is in the main an example of building pyramids on the apex,says that Ptolemy used the term Sinæ "pour se donner un air d'érudition; " but why he should say so it is hard to perceive, even if it be anerror to date the Periplus before Ptolemy.Xxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.questioned to indicate China, that " beyond this there is neitherhabitation nor navigation. " Who can doubt that the same regionis meant by these two authors? The fundamental error ofPtolemy's Indian geography, I mean his notion that the IndianSea was entirely encompassed by the land, rendered it impossiblethat he should do other than misplace the Chinese coast, and thusno doubt it is easy to perplex the question to any extent over hislatitudes and longitudes. But considering that the name in thesame shape has come down among the Arabs as applied to theChinese from time immemorial; considering that in the works ofPtolemy and his successors whatever else may be said about thename it certainly represented the furthest east of which they hadany cognisance; and considering how inaccurate are Ptolemy'sconfigurations and longitudes in a region so much further withinhis horizon as the peninsula of Hither India, to say nothing oftheMediterranean, it seems almost as reasonable to deny thatPtolemy's India contained Hindus as to deny that his Sine wereChinese.9. As far as I can collect, the names Sinæ or Thinæ are mentioned by only two ancient authors besides Ptolemy, viz. , by theauthor of the Periplus of the Erythræan Sea, who, as we havealready mentioned, uses the term Oiv, keeping still closer to theoriginal form, and by Marcianus, whom we have just quoted.Whilst Ptolemy assigns to the nation in question a position sofar to the south, ¹ the author of the Periplus places them beyondTransgangetic India indeed, but far to the north, under the veryUrsa Minor, and touching on the frontiers of the further regionsof Pontus and the Caspian.210. Marcianus is lauded by Lassen for his superior knowledgeof South Eastern Asia, but it is by no means clear that the praiseis well deserved. His statements with regard to that quarter of1 The Metropolis Thine is placed by him in long. 180°, lat . 3° south.2 The passage of the Periplus regarding Thin and Thinæ, and those ofPtolemy regarding Sinæ and Serice, will be found in Supplementary Notes I and II at the end of this essay.3 See Lassen, iii , 287 seqq. , and especially 290. Müller treats the pretensions of Marcianus in a very different fashion, and with more justice.(See his Prolegomena to Geog . Græci Minores, pp. cxxix seqq. )PRELIMINARY ESSAY . xxxixthe earth appear to be merely an abstract and popularisation ofthose of Ptolemy, of whom he speaks as the most godlike andwisest of men. He brings out in his compacter statements stillmore distinctly the erroneous notion that the Indian Sea was anenclosed basin terminating beyond the Gulf of the Sina. Herethe Terra Incognita that lay east of the Sinæ, and the Terra Incognita that ran south of the Indian Sea in prolongation ofEthiopia, met and formed an angle. But the Sina themselveswere the remotest denizens of the habitable world. Above themto the north and north- west lay the Seres and their metropolis;all east of these two nations was unknown land full of reedy andimpenetrable swamps.¹11. If we now turn to the SERES we find this name mentionedby classic authors much more frequently and at an earlier date byat least a century. The name indeed is familiar enough to theLatin poets of the Augustan age, but always in a vague way, andusually with a general reference to Central Asia and the farthereast. We find, however, that the first endeavours to assignAll this is merely abstracted from Ptolemy. See the passages ofthe latter in Note II.2 There are two mentions of the Seres which may be much earlier. Oneis in a passage ascribed to Ctesias, which speaks of the Seres as peopleof portentous stature and longevity. The passage, however, is found inonly one MS. (of the Bibliotheca of Photius) , and is attended by othercirc*mstances which cause doubt whether it is really from Ctesias (see Muller's Ctesias, p. 86 seq., and his Geog. Gr. Minores, ii, 152) . The othermention is found in a passage, or rather two passages, of Strabo. Thesealso allude only to the longevity of the Seres, said to exceed two hundredyears, and Strabo at the time seems to be quoting from Onesicritus(Müller's Strabo, xv, i, 34 and 37) . The date of Ctesias is about B.C. 400;Onesicritus was an officer of Alexander's (d. в.c. 328) . Smith's DictionaryofGr. and Rom. Geography, article Serica, would lead one by its expressions to suppose that Aristotle had spoken of that country, which ofcourse he does not. The reference is to that passage where he speaks ofBoußukia being wound off from a certain insect in the Island of Cos. Seethe passage quoted in Note IV at the end.3 Seneca is still more indefinite, and will not commit himself to anyview of their locality:"Et quocumque loco jacent Seres vellere nobiles" (Thyestes, 379);whilst Lucan does commit himself to the view that they were somewhereat the back of Ethiopia. For, apostrophising the Nile, he says:"Teque vident primi, quærunt tamen hi quoque, Seres" (x, 289) .xl PRELIMINARY ESSAY..more accurately the position of this people, which are those ofMela and Pliny, gravitate distinctly towards China in its northernaspect as the true idea involved. Thus Mela says that the remotest east of Asia is occupied by the three races, the Indians,the Seres, and the Scythians, of whom the Indians and theScythians occupy the southern and northern extremities, theSeres the middle. Just as in a general way we might say stillthat the extreme east of Asia is occupied by the Indies, China,and Tartary, the three modern expressions which answer withtolerable accuracy to the India, land of Seres, and Scythia of theancients.¹12. Ptolemy first uses the names of SERA and SERICE, the formerfor the chief city, the latter for the country of the Seres, and attempts to define their position with a precision beyond what hisknowledge justified, but which was the necessary result of thesystem of his work. Yet even his definition of Serice is quiteconsistent with the view that it indicated the Chinese Empire inits northern aspect, for he carries it eastward to the 180° of longitude, which is also according to his calculations, in a lowerlatitude, the eastern boundary of the Sinæ. In one especial pointhe is inferior in the justness of his views to his predecessors, forwhilst Mela and Pliny both recognise the position of the Seresupon the Eastern Ocean which terminates Asia, no such ocean isrecognised by Ptolemy (so far as I can discover) in any part ofhis work. The Ravenna Geographer denounces as an impiouserror the idea that there is in the extreme east an ocean passingfrom south to north.13. Ammianus Marcellinus devotes some paragraphs to adescription of the Seres and their country. It is no more than aconversion of the dry statements of Ptolemy into fine writing,with the addition of some more or less fabulous particulars abouttheir mode of growing silk and carrying on commerce, which aresimilar to those given by Pliny. One passage indeed of thegeographical description of Ammianus is startling at first sightin its seeming allusion to the Great Wall; and in this sense it hasbeen understood by Lassen, and apparently also by Reinaud.21 See Extracts from Mela and Pliny in Notes III and IV.2 See Lassen, ii, 536, and Reinaud's translation ofthe passage in Rel. Pol.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xliBut a comparison of the passage with Ptolemy's chapter onSerice from which it is derived will show, I think, convincinglythat he is speaking merely of an encircling rampart of loftymountains within which the spacious and happy valley of theSeres is conceived to lie.14. If, however, we try to fuse into one general descriptionthe ancient notices of the Seres and their country, omitting anomalous and manifestly fabulous statements, the result will besomething like the following: "The region of the Seres is a vastand populous country, touching on the east the Ocean and thelimits of the habitable world, and extending west nearly to Imausand the confines of Bactria. The people are civilised men, of mildjust and frugal temper, eschewing collisions with their neighbours, and even shy of close intercourse, but not averse to disposeof their own products, of which raw silk is the staple, but whichinclude also silk stuffs , furs, and iron of remarkable quality. "Now the Chinese Empire had during the century before ourera, and again about a century after that date, just the extensionwhich such a description would imply, whilst the other characteristics all have a distinct basis in the character of the nation.Their reputation for integrity and justice, in spite of much thatmight be said against it, must have had some solid foundation,et Commerc. de l'Empire Romain, etc., p. 192. The original words run:" Ultra hæc utriusque Scythiæ loca contra orientalem plagam in orbisspecie conserta celsorum aggerum summitates ambiunt Seres ubertateregionum et amplitudine circ*mspectos." The whole of the passage fromAmmianus will be found translated in Note VI. In a previous page hespeaks of Serica as a province of Persia!1 It must be acknowledged, however, that apart from the exceptionalstatement of Pausanias (see § 17) the serious notices of the Seres reducethemselves to two, viz. , that given by Pliny and that given by Ptolemy.For it will easily be seen by comparing the extracts in the notes, (1) thatthe notices of Mela and Pliny are either the one copied from the other,or both copied from a common source, and ( 2) , that, as has been alreadyobserved, the statements of Ammianus are copied from Ptolemy andPliny.2 Strabo, in the only passage in which he seems to speak proprio motuof the Seres, says of the kings of Bactria that " they extended their ruleto the frontier of the Seres and the Phryni” ( Muller's Strabo, book xi,p. 1016).exlii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.for it has prevailed to our own day among their neighbours inparts of Asia most remote from each other. The silk, silk- stuffs,and furs of China preserve their fame to our own day also; andtheir iron to which Pliny assigns the palm was probably that finecast-iron, otherwise unknown to the ancients, which is still one ofthe distinguishing manufactures of China. "15. Of actual diplomatic communication with the Seres I believe there is only one obscure trace in Roman history; this isin the representation of the historian Florus that among thenumerous missions from remote nations that sought the footstoolof Augustus there came envoys also from the Seres.³1 Thus Wood quotes the testimony regarding the Chinese of a travelledMullah in Badakshan: " Like every other native of those countries withwhom I conversed on the subject, he praised their probity and goodfaith" (p. 279). Burnes heard that " their commercial regulations are justand equitable. The word of a Chinese is not doubted, nor does the teaever differ from the sample" (iii, 195) . And on the remote frontier ofBurma and Siam, " all the travellers whose journals I have consultedspeak in unconscious unison of the bitter feeling with which the Burmeseare regarded by all the alien tribes which are in any way subject to theirauthority. And they speak with a like unanimity of the high characterwhich was ascribed to the Chinese for justice, moderation, and goodfaith" (On Geog. of Burma, etc., in J. R. G. S., xxvii).2 " Ex omnibus autem generibus palma Serico ferro est. Seres hoc cumvestibus suis pellibusque mittunt" (xxxiv, 41) . "Wefound cast- iron pots andpans of remarkable quality to form a chief item among the miscellaneous"notions" (apart from the silk which is the staple) imported by theChinese into Ava by the Yunan Road. The art of iron casting is, likemost Chinese arts, a very old one; and we find that in the first centuryB.C. the people of Tawan or Farghana acquired the new art of castingiron tools and utensils from Chinese deserters (Julien, quoted by Lassen,ii, 615) . There is mention of Chinese iron in a passage of the Arabiangeographer Ibn Khurdadbah, quoted below ( § 83) .3 " Even the rest of the nations of the world which were not subject tothe imperial sway were sensible of its grandeur, and looked with reverence to the Roman people, the great conqueror of nations. Thus evenScythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome.Nay the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath thevertical sun, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journeywhich they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years.In truth it needed but to look at their complexion to see that they werepeople of another world than ours. The Parthians also, as if repentingfor their presumption in defeating the Romans, spontaneously broughtPRELIMINARY ESSAY. xliii16. That Greek and Roman knowledge of the true position ofso remote a nation should at best have been somewhat hazy is notto be wondered at. As the circle of their knowledge widened itscircumference from the central shores of the Mare Nostrum, italso became of course, in something like quadruple ratio, fainterand less definite; a fact that seems to have been forgotten bythose who, in dealing with the identity of Sera and Thinæ, haveattached as much precision to the expressions of partial knowledge hovering on the verge of ignorance, as if these had beenthe expressions of precise but fragmentary knowledge such as ourgeographers possess of the Antarctic Coasts, or of the NyanzaLakes. Yet how very vague this knowledge was we may see incomparing the positions of Thine as assigned respectively byPtolemy and the author of the Periplus, or in observing thewholesale corrections which Ptolemy applied to the data ofMarinus in determining the distance in longitude of Sera fromthe Stone Tower and of the Stone Tower from the Euphrates.Moreover it is natural in such a state of imperfect knowledgeboth that the name of the remoter but dominant nation shouldsometimes be applied to its nearest subject races, and that thecharacteristics of these nearest races should sometimes be transferred to the governing nation. Something in a degree analogoushas taken place in our own specific application of the term DUTCHonly to our own neighbours of the Netherlands . Still more in pointis the fact that in the days of the Thang dynasty, when the Chinesepower extended to Transoxiana, Arab, and Armenian writerssometimes spoke of Farghana by the name of China; and theArmenians sometimes gave the name of Chinese even to theKhazars and other races north of the Caspian. 'sus.17. We shall also find presently that the view entertained byback the standards which they had captured in the catastrophe of CrasThus all round the inhabited earth there was an unbroken circle ofpeace or at least of armistice" (iv, 12).¹ St. Martin, Armenie, ii , 19, 20. An author quoted by Ibn Haukalplaces the frontiers of Sín close to Mawarulnahr, and an Arab poet speaksof Kutaiba, the conqueror of Transoxiana for the Moslem, as being interred in the land of Sin, whilst it is known from other testimony thatthis was in Farghana (Remusat in Mem. de l'Ac . des Insc. , viii, 107) .e 2xliv PRELIMINARY ESSAY .the Chinese themselves of the Roman Empire and its inhabitantshad some striking points of analogy to those views of the Chinesewhich are indicated in the classical descriptions of the Seres .There can be no mistaking the fact that in this case also thegreat object was within the horizon of vision, yet the detailsascribed to it are often far from being true characteristics, beingonly the accidents of its outer borders towards the east.18. The name of Seres is probably from its earliest use in thewest identified with the name of the silkworm and its produce,and this association continued until the name ceased entirely tobe used as a geographical expression. Yet it was long beforethe westerns had any correct conception of the nature of thearticle which they imported at so much cost. Virgil tells how theSeres combed out from the leaves of the forest the fleecy stapleof their trade; and poet after poet echoes the story down toClaudian.2 Pliny knows no better, nor does Ammianus, threeThe Chinese See and Szu, Silk, is found in the Corean language ordialect in the form Sir, in Mongol Sirkek, in Manchu Sirghé. Klaprothsupposes this word to have given rise to the Greek oǹp, the silk-worm,and Enpes, the people furnishing silk, and hence Sericum, silk. (Mem. rel.à l'Asie, iii, 265. ) Looking to the Tartar forms of the word the idea suggests itself that Sericum may have been the first importation, and thatSer and Seres may have been formed by inverse analogy from that wordtaken as an adjective. Deguignes makes or borrows a suggestion thatthe word Sherikoth, which occurs in the Hebrew of Isaiah, xix, 9 (“ Theythat work in fine flax and they that weave net-works shall be confounded"-Deguignes by mistake quotes Ezekiel) means silk, and he refers to theArabic Saragat. This, according to Freytag, means a long piece of whitesilk, sometimes silk in general. (Mem. de l'Acad. des Insc. , xlvi, 575. )Pardessus, in the modern Mem. de l'Acad . des Insc. , xv, p . 3, says Sir isPersian for silk, but I cannot discover the authority. Sarah, connectedwith the Arabic wordjust quoted, is "a stripe of white silk. " (F. Johnston'sDict.)2 A specimen from Silius Italicus is worth quoting, as it shows a correctidea of the position of the Seres on the shores of the remotest eastern sea:" Jam Tartessiaco quos solverat æquore TitanIn noctem diffusus equos, jungebat Eoïs Littoribus, primique novo Phaethonte retectiSeres lanigeris repetebant vellera lucis" ( Opening of book vi) .In another passage an audacious hyperbole carries the ashes of Vesuvius to that distant land:" Videre Eoï monstrum admirabile SeresLanigeros cinere Ausonio canescere lucos" (xvii, 600).PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xlvcenturies later than Pliny; yet in the interval a juster idea ofthe facts had been published by Pausanias, who knew that silkwas spun by insects which the Seres tended for the purpose.Either there was sounder knowledge on the subject afloat in themercantile world which the poets ignored, sticking to the oldliterary tradition of the fleecy leaves as they did to the DescendO Muse; or Pausanias must have had some special source of information. The former solution of the difficulty would be themost probable, if the error were confined to the poets, but whenwe find a sober historian like Ammianus adopt the tale, we seemforced upon the latter. M. Reinaud thinks that Pausanias musthave come in contact with a Roman visitor of China in the daysof Marcus Aurelius, respecting whom we shall have to speak further on. I may observe, however, that among the ancients, andindeed down to the time when the invention of the press had hadtime to take effect, the fluctuation of knowledge in regard to geographical truth in general, and to the far east in particular, isvery noticeable; chiefly due no doubt to the absence of efficientpublication and the difficulties of reference. Familiar instancesof this are seen in the false notion of the Caspian entertained byStrabo, and the opposite error in regard to the Indian Sea heldby Ptolemy, as compared with the correct ideas on both subjectspossessed by Herodotus. We find a like degeneration in theArabian knowledge of India in comparing Al Biruni with Edrisi;and other examples will occur in the allusions to China which weshall have to cite.19. The Chinese annals tell us that the people whom they callthe Asi (supposed by Julien and others to be the Parthians) were66 Even in the middle ages Jacques de Vitry, writing about 1213, andbelieving in his Virgil, says: Quædam etiam arbores sunt apud Seres,folia tanquam lanam ex se procreantes, ex quibus vestes subtiles contexuntur (Deguignes in Mem. de l'Acad. des Insc., xlvi, 541). Probably,however, this writer did not think of silk (which he must have knownwell enough) as the Seric vestment in question.The name Asi is however said by Remusat to have been applied bythe Chinese almost promiscuously to the nations between the Jaxartesand Oxus, as far south as Samarkand; and in one of his quotations it isapplied to people of Khojand, and in another to people of Bokhara. Inthe extracts from Menander ( Note VIII at the end) the Sogdians appearxlvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.mans.the intermediate traders who carried silk from the east to thewest, and they inform us that these Asi threw every obstacle in theway of direct communication between the Chinese and the RoThe latter, we are assured, were exceedingly desirous ofsuch communication, but the Asi, who were very inferior to thepeople of the Roman empire in the arts ofweaving and the qualityof dyes, feared to lose the profits of agency and manufacture entirely unless they retained a monopoly of the trade. The statement is no doubt incorrect that all silk was passed on to theRomans in a manufactured state, or if true, could only have beenso for some brief period, but the anxiety ofthe Romans to rid themselves of dependance on the nations of Persia for the supply of silkis fully borne out by the story which Procopius and others relate tothe introduction of the silkworm into the Byzantine territories bytwo monks in the time of Justinian ( circa 550) . The countryfrom which the monks brought their precious charge is called byTheophanes simply that of the Seres, but by Procopius Serinda.China may be intended, but of this there can be no certainty. Indeed it is possible that the term was meant to express a compound like our Indo- China, some region intermediate betweenSerica and India, and if so not improbably Khotan.220. There are among the fragments of the Greek historiansother curious notices of intercourse with the Turkish tribes ofCentral Asia in the days of Justinian's immediate successors,which, though they do not bring up mention of the Chinese underany denomination, are in a degree relevant to our subject, becausethey show the Byzantine empire in contact and intercourse withnations who occupy a prominent place in the Chinese annals, andintroduce the names of some princes who are to be recognised inthose also.3as intermediaries in the silk trade, i.e., the people of the country whose centre is Samarkand.1 See extracts in Note VII.2 D'Anville suggests that Serinda may be a compound name, but iden- tifies it with Sirhind in North Western India. This name I presumehowever to be Persian, and to date from comparatively late times.Gosselin will have it to be Srinagar in Kashmir. The Ravenna Geographer puts India Serica in the North of India on the Ganges and Acesines(Rav. Anon. Cosmog. Berlin, 1860, pp. 45, 48).3 See a sample of these narratives in Note VIII .PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xlviiWe have, however, in this (6th) and the following century,from Greek writers, two remarkable notices of China, in the comparison of which we still may trace the duplicate aspect of thisgreat country to which we have referred in the opening of thisEssay. For Cosmas, the first of these authors, recognises itchiefly on its southern or maritime side, the other, Theophylactus,solely on its land side, and without knowledge of any other. Theevidence of both goes to show that the name of Seres had beennow practically almost, if not entirely, forgotten .21. COSMAS, called fromhis maritime experiences Indicopleustes,apparently an Alexandrian Greek, who wrote between 530 and550, is the first Greek or Roman writer who speaks of China in amatter- of-fact manner, and not as a land enveloped in half mythical haze. He speaks of it also by a name which I suppose noone has ever disputed to mean China.This writer was a monk when he composed the work which hascome down to us, but in his earlier days he had been a merchant,and in that capacity had sailed on the Red Sea and the IndianOcean, visiting the coasts of Ethiopia, and apparently also thePersian Gulf and the western coasts of India, as well as Ceylon.His book was written at Alexandria, and is termed a "UniversalChristian Topography, " the great object of it being to show thatthe Tabernacle in the Wilderness is a pattern or model of theuniverse. The earth is a rectangular plane, twice as long as it isbroad. The heavens come down to the earth on all four sides likethe walls of a room; from the north wall to the south wall, at an1 Dates deduced by Montfaucon from different parts of his work showthat parts of it were written in 535, and other parts at least twelve yearslater. The work bears tokens of having been often altered and expanded. Five books only were at first published; six and a fraction morewere added gradually to strengthen arguments and meet objections.(See preface in Montfaucon's Collectio Nova Patrum et Script. Græc. , ii,which contains the work; extracts were also previously published inThévenot's Collection of Travels).2 Sir J. E. Tennent (Ceylon, i, 542) says that Cosmas got his accountsof Ceylon from Sopatrus whom he met at Adule, and Lassen ascribes allCosmas says of India to the same authority (ii, 773) . But I have not foundthe ground ofthese opinions. One anecdote is ascribed to Sopatrus, no more.

• Χριστιανική Τυπογραφία περιέκτικὴ παντὸς τοῦ Κόσμου.

xlviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.undefined height, a semicircular waggon-vault is turned, at thelevel ofthe springing of which lies the firmament, like a flat ceiling.All below this firmament is this world; the upper story is Heaven,or the world to come: In fact one of those enormous receptacleswhich carry the dresses of female travellers in our day forms aperfect model of the Cosmos of Cosmas.In the middle of the rectangular surface of this world lies theinhabited earth encompassed by the Ocean. Beyond the Ocean,bordering the edges of creation, is the unvisited transoceanic land,on which, in the far east, lies Paradise. Here, too, on a barrenand thorny soil, without the walls of Paradise, dwelt man fromthe fall to the deluge. The ark floated the survivors of the humanfamily across the great ocean belt to this earth which we inhabit,and which, in comparison with that where Noah and his fathersdwelt, is itself almost a Paradise. The earth rises gradually fromthe south towards the north and west, culminating in a greatconical mountain, behind which the sun sets .Again and again this crochety monk sputters with indignationagainst those who reject these views of his, " not built, " he says,"on his own opinions and conjectures, but drawn from Holy Scripture, and from the mouth of that divine man and great Master,Patricius. " Those wretched people who chop logic, and hold thatthe earth and heavens are spherical, are mere blasphemers, givenup for their sins to the belief of such impudent nonsense as thedoctrine of Antipodes. ' The sun, instead of being larger thanthe earth, is only of the diameter of two climates (18° of latitude)on the earth's surface.2Altogether the book is a memorable example ofthat mischievousprocess of loading Christian truth with a dead- weight of falsescience, which has had so many followers . The book as a wholeis what Robert Hall called some dreary commentary, “a continentof mud," but there are a few geographical fossils of considerableinterest to be extracted from it. These have been dug out accordingly, and will be found in Note IX, at the end of this Essay.22. It will be seen from one of these extracts that Cosmas had1 See pp. 125, 185, 191 , etc., and the drawing in ridicule of the doctrineof Antipodes. 2 P. 264.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xlixa very correct idea of the position of China, as lying on the extreme eastern coast of Asia, " compassed by the ocean runninground it to the left just as the same ocean compasses Barbary(Somáli Land) round to the right. " He knew also that a shipsailing to China, after running east for a long way, had to turnto the north at least as far as a ship bound for Chaldæa wouldhave to run up from the straits of Hormuz to the mouths ofthe Euphrates; and that thus it was intelligible how China bythe overland route lay much nearer to Persia than might havebeen thought from the length of the sea- voyage thither.23. The form of the name which he gives the country is remarkable, Tzintiza, as it reads in the 2nd extract, but as it occursfurther on (5th extract) more correctly TZINISTA, representing theChinasthána of the old Hindoos, the Chinistan of the Persians, andall but identical with the name given to China in the Syriac inscription of Singanfu, of which we shall speak further on, viz. ,TZINISTHAN.' Cosmas professes no knowledge of geographicaldetails between Ceylon and China, but he is aware that the clovecountry lies between the two, which is in itself a considerablestep in geography for the sixth century. Silk, aloes-wood, cloves,and sandal- wood are the chief exports that came westward toCeylon from China and the intermediate countries.24. The other Greek notice of China, which has been alludedto above, is to be found in the History of THEOPHYLACTUS SIMOCATTA, a Byzantine writer of the early part of the seventh century.This author appears to have acquired, through some exceptionalsource, a knowledge of wars and revolutions that had been goingon among the Turkish nations of Central Asia, and some curiousfragments of the history of their relations with one another andwith their neighbours, which he introduces into his book withoutmuch relevance to the thread of his narrative. Among these fragments is a notice of a great state and people called TAUGAS, whichhe describes as very famous over the east, originally a colony ofthe Turkish race, now forming a nation scarcely to be paralleled.on the face of the whole earth for power and population. Theirchief city was at a distance of 1500 miles from India. AfterSee Pauthier, L'Inscript. de Singanfu, p. 42.Theoph. Simoc. , vii, 7. The main subject of the history of Theophy-1 PRELIMINARY ESSAY.treating of some other matters, the historian returns to the subject, and proceeds:¹-25. "The ruler of the land of the Taugas is called Taissan,which signifies, when translated, the Son of God.³ This kingdomof Taugas is never disturbed by disputed successions, for theauthority is hereditary in the family of the chief. The nationpractises idolatry, but they have just laws, and their life is fullof temperate wisdom. There is a law binding on these peoplewhich prohibits the men from ever wearing ornaments of gold,although they derive great wealth in gold and silver from theircommerce, which is both large and lucrative . The territory ofTaugas, of which we are speaking, is divided in two by a river,which in time past formed the boundary between two very greatnations which were at war with one another. These nationswere distinguished from one another by their dress , the onewearing clothes dyed black, the other red. In our own day, however, and whilst Maurice wielded the Roman sceptre, the nationof the black- coats crossed the river to attack the red- coats, andhaving got the victory over them they thus became supreme overthe whole empire.66 lactus is the reign of Maurice. Gibbon calls this author "a vain sophist,"an impostor," " diffuse in trifles, concise in the most interesting facts."1 Ib. , vii, 9.2 The name of China which this probably represents will be shownbelow. In the Latin version in the Corpus Hist. Byz. , and in the Bonnedition it is Taugast, as also in the Ecclesiastical History of NicephorusCallistus, who copies largely from Theophylactus (Lang's Lat. Version,Franf. , 1588, book xviii, ch. 30).3 This is supposed by Klaproth to represent the Chinese Thiantsé, ‘ Sonof Heaven.' It is curious, however, that the name of the emperor reigning in the latter years of Theophylactus, and a very celebrated sovereignin Chinese history, was Taitsung. He came to the throne in 626. Thelast addition known to have been made to the history of Theophylactusis an allusion to the death of Chosroes, King of Persia, which occurredin 628. Smith's Dict. ofGreek and Roman Biography says that the historian is supposed to have died in the following year, but there does notseem to be any authority for this; and it is possible that at a later datethe name of Taitsung might have reached him.4 The great river is the Kiang, which divided the Empire of the Sui,whose capital was at Chhanggan or Singanfu, from that of the Chinwhose Emperor resided at Nanking. The sovereign of the Sui crossedthe Kiang as here related in the year 589, and therefore in the reign ofPRELIMINARY ESSAY. li"And this city of Taugas they say was founded by Alexanderthe Macedonian, after he had enslaved the Bactrians and theSogdianians, and had consumed by fire twelve myriads of barbarians."In this city the king's women go forth in chariots made ofgold, with one ox to draw them, ' and they are decked out mostgorgeously with gold and jewels of great price, and the bridles ofthe oxen are gilt. He who hath the sovereign authority hath 700concubines. And the women of the chief nobles of Taugas usesilver chariots."When the prince dies he is mourned by his women for therest of their lives, with shaven heads and black raiment; and itis the law that they shall never quit the sepulchre.66 They say that Alexander built a second city at the distanceof a few miles, and this the barbarians call KHUBDAN.3"Khubdan has two great rivers flowing through it, the banksof which are lined with nodding cypresses, so to speak.Maurice at Byzantium (582-602). The Chin Emperor threw himself intoa well; the tombs of his ancestors were violated and their bodies throwninto the Kiang. The Sui thus became masters of the United Empire asTheophylactus relates. (Klaproth, Mem. , as below, and see Deguignes,vol. i , 51 , 52. ) The characteristic black clothing of the people of Shensi,in which lay the capital of the Sui, is noticed by Hajji Mahomed in theextracts given in Note XVIII.1 In Chine Ancienne I see a plate from a Chinese drawing which represents Confucius travelling in a carriage drawn by one ox ( Pl. 30).2 The Emperor Taitsung above mentioned, is said to have dismissedthree thousand women from the imperial establishment ( Ch. Anc. , p. 286).3 This is sufficient of itself to show that the Taugas of the Greek writeris China. For Khumdan was the name given by the Turkish and Western Asiatic nations to the city of Chhanggan-now represented bySinganfu in Shensi-which was the capital of several Chinese dynastiesbetween the twelfth century, B.C., and the ninth century, A.D. The nameKhumdan appears in the Syriac part of the Singanfu inscription repeatedly; in the Arab Relations of the ninth century published by Renaudotand by Reinaud; in Masudi; in Edrisi (as the name of the great river ofChina); and in Abulfeda. What is said in the text about the two riversrunning through the city is substantially correct (see Klaproth as quotedbelow) . I have here transposed two periods of the original, to bring together what is said of Khubdan. Pauthier takes Khumdan for a western transcription of Chhangan, whilst Neumann regards it as a corruptionof Kong-tien, court or palace. Both of these explanations seem unsatis- tory.lii PRELIMINARY ESSAY."The people also have many elephants; and they have muchintercourse for trade with the Indians. And these are said to beIndians who are white from living in the north."The worms from which the silk filaments are produced arefound among these people; they go through many alternations,and are of various colours. And in the art of keeping thesecreatures the barbarians show much skill and emulation ."26. The passing remarks of some scholars have identified theTaugas of this curious passage with some of the tribes of Turkestan, but there can be no reasonable doubt that it refers to theChinese, though there is no allusion by Theophylactus to Sinæ orSeres, and it is pretty clear that he was repeating what somewell-informed person had told him without himself at all understanding where the country lay of which he spoke. Deguignesfirst showed that the passage referred to China. Gibbon acceptedthis view, and Klaproth has expounded it in the same sense, apparently unaware that he had been anticipated. ' And yet hedoes not explain the name applied to the Chinese or their capital.Deguignes explained it as indicating the Ta-göei, great Göei,or Wei dynasty, which preceded the Sui, but there can be littledoubt that it represents the obscure name of TAMGHAJ, once applied vaguely to China or some great country lying in the mistsof the far east by the western nations of Asia, and by old Arabian and Persian writers. Thus in 1218, when Mahomed, Sultanof Khwarizm, received envoys from Chinghiz Khan, at Bokhara,he sent by night for one of those envoys who was a native of hisown territories, and asked him if it was really true that ChinghizKhan had conquered Tamghaj?227. I am not aware of any other mention of China in a Greek1 Gibbon, ch. cxl, notes; Klap. Mem. Rel. à l'Asie, iii, 261-4.2 D'Ohsson, i, 203. That author refers in a note to the Taugas ofTheophylactus. So also Albiruni terms the city of Yangju in China"the Residence of the fa*ghfur, who has the title of Tamghaj Khan"(Sprenger's Post-und Reise-route des Orients, p. 90) . Abulfeda says thesame quoting the " Kanun, " which I believe is Albiruni's work—“thefa*ghfur of China, who is called Timghaj Khan, and who is the GreatKing, according to the history of Al- Niswy, where in his account of Khwarizm Shah and the Tartars, it is stated that the name of the Kingof the Tartars in China is Tooghaj." I take this from MS. extracts ofPRELIMINARY ESSAY. liiiwriter till we get to LAONICUS CHALCONDYLAS in the latter half ofthe fifteenth century. We need not be surprised at the vaguenessof the site ascribed to Taugas by Theophylactus when we findthis author, who wrote from one to two centuries after the travelsof Polo, Odoric, and IbnBatuta, describing Cathay in one passageas somewhere near the Caspian, in another as in India, betweenthe Ganges and Indus. 'Abulfeda kindly translated for me by Mr. Badger. I do not know howthe last word is written in the Arabic, and its closer correspondence tothe Taugas of Theophylactus is almost certainly due to accident. TheNiswy or Nessawi quoted by Abulfeda was secretary to Sultan Jalaluddinof Khwarizm, and no doubt the allusion is to the anecdote told in the textfrom D'Ohsson.Masudi says the King of China when addressed was termed Thamghama Jabán (qu. Thamgaj?) ( Prairies d'Or, i, 306) .Clavijo says, "The Zagatays call him (the Emperor of China) Tangus,which means Pig Emperor. " (!) See Markham , p..133-4. In the Universal History it is mentioned (probably after Sharifuddin) that in 1398envoys came to Timur from Tamgaj Khan, Emperor of Cathay.The following examples are more doubtful. "We call this regionChina, the which they in their language name Tame, and the peopleTangis, whom we name Chinois” (Alhacen, his Arabike Historie of Tamerlane, in Purchas, iii, 152) .Tangtash, Tangnash, Taknas, occur repeatedly in the translation ofSadik Isfahani and of the Shajrat ul Atrák as synonymous with Machín,or a great city therein . But these words are perhaps corrupt readingsof Nangiás, which was a name applied by the Mongols to Southern China(see D'Ohsson, i, 190-1; Quat. , Rashideddin, p. lxxxvi) .The name can scarcely have any reference to the Thang dynasty, forthey did not attain the throne till the latter years of Theophylactus,and he mentions Taugas in connexion with a Khan of the Turks in thetime of the Emperor Maurice. It should be mentioned, however, thatthe title Thangáj is found on a coin of a Turkish Khakan of A.d. 1043-44(see Fræhn's remarks on this in Meyendorff's Voyage d'Orenbourg à Bokhara, p. 314 seqq.; see also D'Herbelot in v. Thamgaj) . The geographerBakui also defines Thamgaj as a great city of the Turks' country, nearwhich are many villages between two mountains, and only approachedby a narrow defile (Not. et Extr. , ii, 491) ." Hence he (Timur) directed his march against the Chataides,threatening them with destruction. This people are believed to be thesame with the ancient Massagetæ, who crossed the Araxes (Jaxartes?)and took possession of an extensive region adjoining that river, in whichthey settled." (De Rebus Turcicis, iii, p. 67.) Again: "Chataia is a citytowards the east of Hyrcania, great and flourishing in population, andsurpassing in wealth and all other attributes of prosperity all the citiesliv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.II. CHINESE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.28. Having thus set forth such indications as we can ofacquaintance with China from Greek and Roman writers , we shall nowcollect such notices of the Greek and Roman territories as we areable to find in translations from Chinese sources.It was under the Emperor Hiao Wuti, of the Han dynasty(B.C. 140-86) that the Chinese first had relations with the countrieswest of the Bolor mountains, and even the discovery of those regions is ascribed by Chinese writers to this period, though thecorrectness of that idea may well be questioned. The Yueichi, apeople believed to be of Tibetan race, and who became known inthe west as Indoscythians, and at a later date as White Huns,had been driven from their seats, somewhere between China andKhotan, by the great Turkish race of Hiongnu. After some intermediate halts, they had arrived first in Tawan, or Farghana,and afterwards in Tahia, or Bactriana, where they destroyed theGreek dynasty and settled themselves. The Chinese Emperorwas desirous of opening communication with them in order toexcite a diversion against the Hiongnu, the constant disturbersof the Chinese frontier, and about B.C. 135 he sent for this purpose a party under an officer called Chang-Kian. On their waythey were caught by the Hiongnu and kept prisoners for tenyears. Chang-kian then escaped with some of his comrades, butadhering to his mission succeeded in reaching Tawan, where hewas well received by the people who were acquainted by famewith the powers and riches of China, though they had never hadany direct communication with that country. Finding that theYueichi had gone south to Bactriana he followed them thither,of Asia except Samarkand and Memphis (Cairo) . By the Massagetæ itwas established with excellent laws in olden time." (Ib .) Somewhatlater (p. 86) he puts Chatagia in India as mentioned above. Indeedgeography for a Greek writer must have been in a state of very midnight at this time, when a historian who ventured to treat of Timurand Shah Rukh (Zaxpoúxos) was fain to say of Cheria (Herat): " in whatpart of Asia it was situated, whether in the land of the Syrians or theland of the Medes, he could not ascertain. But some thought thatanciently Cheriah was Ninus (Nineveh) as Pagdatine ( Baghdad) wasBabylon" (Ib. , p. 68) .PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lvbut failed to induce them to quit their new seats upon the Oxusto return to their eastern deserts and battle with the Hiongnu.Thus unsuccessful, he tried to return to China by way of Tibet,but was again taken by the Hiongnu and detained for some time.At last this adventurous man got back to China about B.C. 122,after thirteen years' absence, with a single follower out of thehundred who had started with him. He was able to report, frompersonal knowledge, of the countries on the Jaxartes and Oxus,and, from the information he had collected, on other countriesof the west.About the same time the Chinese began to take vigorous measures against the Hiongnu, and to extend their frontier westward.By B.C. 59 their power reached all over what is now Chinese Turkestan; a general government was established for the tributarystates; and about the time of our era, fifty-five states of westernTartary acknowledged themselves vassals of the empire, whilstthe Princes of Transoxiana and Bactriana are also said to haverecognised its supremacy.29. During the first century the power of China decayed, andthe Hiongnu recovered their ascendancy. In A.D. 83, however,Panchao, one of the most illustrious commanders in the Chineseannals, appeared in the field , and in a few years recovered theUigur country and all western Tartary to the empire. After reconquering Kashgar in the year 94, he crossed the snowy Tsungling, or Bolor, and attacked and killed the king of the Yueichi.In the following years he pushed his conquests to the Caspian,and perhaps even had a way open to the shores of the IndianOcean. For we are told that in the year 102 he despatched oneof his officers called Kanyng to make his way by sea to TATHSIN,or the Roman empire.¹30. Notices of this region are found in the geographical worksof the time of the latter Han (A.D. 56-220) in the annals of theTçin (265-419) , and of the Thang (618-905) . But references arealso made by the Chinese editors to the same country as havingbeen known in the days of the first Han dynasty (from B.c. 202)1 Remusat in Mem. de l'Acad. des Ins. (new) , viii, 116-125; Klap. Tab.Hist., p. 67, etc.; see also Lassen, ii, 352 seqq.lvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.under the name of LIKAN or LIKIEN, a name which Pauthier withsome probability refers to the empire of the Seleucidæ of Syria,whose conquests at one period extended to the regions of theOxus.1The name Ta-thsin ( Great China) , we are told, was applied tothose western lands on account of the analogy of its people tothose ofthe middle kingdom. Some even alleged that they hadsprung originally from China. But this was probably a puerileperversion, and we may suppose that the name was given fromsome perception that those Greek and Roman countries bore tothe west the same relation that China and its civilisation bore toEastern Asia.From this we gather, among other things, that the Chinese inthe time of Panchao recognised the term Thsin as a name by whichthey were known, at least to foreigners. Indeed Fahian theBuddhist traveller (early in the fifth century) repeatedly speaksof his native land under this name, though perhaps with a restricted reference to the ancient territory of the Thsin which wasthe province of his birth.231. Tathsin, according to the earlier of these notices, is otherwise called the kingdom of the Western Sea. It is reached fromthe country of the Tiaochi (Tajiks, or Persians, according to Pauthier and others) , by traversing the sea obliquely for a distance of2000 miles, and is about 8000 miles distant from Changgan orSinganfu. The name of the capital is ANTU.3 The Ansi, andpeople of India, drive a great and profitable trade with this empire by the way of the Great Salt Sea, and merchants sailingthither are obliged to provide themselves with necessaries forthree years. Hence there are few who succeed in reaching soremote a region. The extent of the empire is 2000 miles fromeast to west, and as much from north to south," and it has 4001 Pauthier de l'Authent. , pp. 34, 55 seqq.; Klap. , o. c. , p. 70.2 E.g., pp. 7, 333.3 Antioch, prcbably, as Pauthier supposes; and, if so, it shows thatthe information came from a date earlier than the time of Panchao.So, conversely, the author of the Periplus says, " It is not easy toget to this Thin, and few and far between are those who come from it."5 The extract at p. 36 of Pauthier (De l'Authent. ) has 1000 li ( 200PRELIMINARY ESSAY . lviicities of the first class . The coinage is stated to be of gold andsilver, ten pieces of silver making the value of one piece of gold.¹There follows a variety of what read to us as vague or puerilenotices of the constitution and productions of the country, including, however, a detailed and apparently correct enough account of the coral fisheries of the Mediterranean.²32. In the annals of the Thang we are told that the countryformerly called Tathsin has in later days been called FULIN ( ToλIV,=Byzantium, see Note to Ibn Batuta, p. 402, infra). Many ofthetrivialities in the older accounts of Tathsin are repeated, withsome circ*mstances that are new. And among the peculiaritiesascribed by the Chinese to the Roman empire it is curious torecognise not a few that nearly or entirely coincide with thingsthat have been described by ancient or medieval writers aspeculiarities of China, or the adjoining countries. Such are theeminently peaceful and upright character of the people; thegreat number of cities and contiguous succession of populatedplaces; horse- posts; the provision made for the conveyance andmaintenance of foreign ambassadors; the abundance of gold andgems, among which are some in the form of tablets that shinein the dark; pearls generated from the saliva of golden pheasants (! ) , tortoise- shell, rare perfumed essences, asbestos stuffsthat are cleaned by fire, cloths of gold brocade and damask silk;remarkable capons, rhinoceroses, lions, and vegetative lambs. *Jugglers and conjurors are also seen who perform amazing things."miles); but this is evidently a mistake for 10,000, as given in anotherextract at p. 43.¹ In the Byzantine coinage, however, twelve of the ordinary silver coin(miliaresion) went to the piece of gold (nomisma).2 Pauthier de l'Auth. , 34-40; Klap. , p. 68.3 Benjamin of Tudela says that the lustre of the diamonds on theemperor's crown at Byzantium was such as to illumine the room in whichthey were kept (p. 75) .4 The obscure extracts in Pauthier (op. cit. , pp. 39, 47), as to certainlambs found to the north of the kingdoms dependent on Fulin, whichgrow out of the ground, and are attached by the navel to the soil, appearto refer to the stories of the Lamb- Plant of the Wolga countries ( seeOdoric, p. 144) , and not, as Pauthier supposes, to the fat-tailed sheep of Western Asia.5 See traces ofthis juggling skill in a passage of one Italian version offlviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.33. If such trivialities as most of these were all on which tobuild, the identification with the Roman empire would not bevery satisfactory. But in addition to the name of Fulin, and theposition ascribed to the kingdom as lying N. W. of Persia, othersof the details, though the mention of some of them has a dash ofthe whimsicality of Chinese taste, appear to be genuine touches.from the reports of those who had visited Constantinople. Theaccount of the coral fishery and the horse-posts have already beenalluded to , as well as the desire ascribed to the kings of Tathsinfor a direct communication with the Middle Kingdom, which hasits counterpart in the statements of Procopius and Menanderabout the silk trade. The compass of 100 li or 20 miles, ascribedto the capital of Fulin, nearly corresponds with that estimated byBenjamin of Tudela, and by popular opinion in the city itself. ' Itstands upon the shore of the sea; the houses are very lofty, andbuilt ofstone; the population extends to 100,000 fires (say 500,000souls); the adjoining boroughs, villages, and houses are in suchnumbers as to form an almost unbroken succession. The palacesand other great houses of the capital had colonaded porticoes,and parks with rare animals; there were twelve principal ministers, distinguished by titles of honour, who directed the administration of the empire.3 One great gate of the city towards theOdoric, at p. xliv of Appendix. In the Byzantine History of NicephorusGregorias, there is a curious account of some Blondins of those days,whose itinerancies extended from Egypt through Constantinople toCadiz, and who, in their funambulistic exhibitions, shot arrows standingon the rope, and carried boys on their shoulders across it at a vast heightfrom the ground, etc. (viii, 10) .I Benjamin says eighteen miles (p. 74) . According to Gibbon, it wasreally between ten and eleven . "Ambitus urbis non attingit tredecimmilliaria ... si ejus situs collinus in planitiem explicaretur, in amplioremdilataretur latitudinem, attamen nondum ad magnitudinem quam vulgoByzantini ei attribuunt, videlicet duo de vingti milliariorum." (Pet. Gylliusde Topog. Constant in Banduri, Imp. Orientale, Venet. , 1729, i, 284; seealso Ducange, Const. Christiana.)2 When King Sigurd sails into Constantinople, he steers near theshore, and sees that " over all the land there are burghs, castles, countrytowns, the one upon the other without interval." (The Saga of Sigurd—Early Travels in Palestine, p . 58.)3 The Empire, whilst entire, was divided into thirteen dioceses; but ofPRELIMINARY ESSAY. lixeast is 20 chang (about 200 feet) high, and is covered with goldleaf from top to bottom; ' another of the gates has a golden steelyard over it, and also a clock showing the twelve hours of the dayby means of the golden figure of a man who drops a golden ballat every hour; the houses have flat terraced roofs, over which,in hot weather, water is discharged from pipes; the costume ofthe sovereign, his jewelled collars and cap, his silken robe embroidered with flowers, and without any opening in front, are allin accordance with particulars to be observed in effigies of theByzantine emperors. But the most convincing proof that theChinese authors had real information about the empire of Con3the administrators there were twelve vice-prefects, a number likely toadhere in popular accounts. Gibbon also says: " The successive casualties ofinheritance and forfeiture had rendered the sovereign proprietorof many stately houses in the city and suburbs, of which twelve wereappropriated to the ministers of state" (ch. liii) . Gibbon is, perhaps, herebuilding on Benjamin of Tudela, whose words closely corroborate thepopular view as exhibited in the Chinese notices: " Twelve princelyofficers govern the whole empire by (the emperor's) command; each ofthem inhabiting a palace at Constantinople, and possessing fortressesand cities of his own" (p. 74) .1 The Saga of Sigurd, quoted above, says: " The Emperor Alexius hadheard of King Sigurd's expedition, and ordered the City- Port of Constantinople to be opened, which is called the GOLD-TOWER, throughwhich the emperor rides when he has been long absent from Constantinople, or has made a campaign in which he has been victorious" (p. 59) .The Golden Gate stood towards the south end of the western wall of thecity, not on the east as said in the Chinese reports." The western sideof the city is towards the land," says Masudi, " and there rises theGolden Gate with its doors of bronze" (Prairies d'Or, ii, 319). It wasbuilt by Theodosius, and bore the inscription , “ Hæc loca Theudosius de- corat post fata tyranni; Aurea Sacla gerit qui portam construit auro."(Insc. Constant. , in Banduri, i, p. 156. )2 Pauthier quotes passages from Codinus about a brazen modius, etc.,over the arch of Amastrianus; but they do not seem to afford any realcorroboration of this account. See Banduri, at pp. 18, 73-74; and Ducange, p. 170. The latter, indeed, speaks of a golden horologe in theForum of Constantine; but this is a slip, for the original, which he cites,has χαλκοῦν (p. 134).3 The Chinese story ascribes wing- like appendages to the emperor'scap. Pauthier refers to medals as showing these; but I have not beenable to verify this. The wings attached to the cap are rather an ancientHindu feature, and are remarkably preserved in the state costume ofthe kings of Burma and the sultans of Java.12lx PRELIMINARY ESSAY.stantinople is found in a notice which they give of a somewhatobscure passage in the Byzantine History:-34. " The Tashi ( or Mahomedan Arabs) , after having overrunand forcibly taken possession of kingdom after kingdom, at lastsent their general- in- chief, Moi, to lay siege to the capital city ofFulin. YENYO, who was the negociator of the peace which followed, made it one of the conditions that the Tashi should everyyear pay a tribute, consisting of gold and silk- stuffs. "1In this passage is commemorated the remarkable fact that theKhalif Moawiyah, after having (A.D. 671-678) for seven successivesummers renewed the endeavour to take Constantinople, at lengthfelt himself under the necessity of sending envoys to sue for peacefrom the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus. The latter agreed,and sent the patrician Ioannes Petzigaudius (the Yenyo of theChinese) to Damascus to conduct the negociation with the Arabs.The result was that the latter pledged themselves to a thirtyyears' peace, and to pay to the empire every year 3,000 pieces ofgold, fifty slaves, and fifty horses.235. In a later work, called the History of the Barbarous Nations,some of the particulars ascribed to Tathsin appear to belong toSyria under the Ayubite sultans, but with these also are mixedup circ*mstances, both old and new, which really point to theRoman empire. Thus it is said, with that confusion of Christianity with Buddhism of which we have elsewhere quoted various1 Pauth. de l'Auth. , p. 49.2 See Niceph. Patriarch. Breviarium Historic. , in the 1st volume of theCorpus Byzant. Histor. , p. 21-22; also, Theophanis Chronographia, in thesame coll. , p. 295, and Gibbon, ch. lii. Pauthier seems to think that thecirc*mstances are passed over entirely by Gibbon and other modern historians; but this a mistake. Gibbon does not name the Greek envoy;but he mentions his going to Damascus, and the result. He also relateshow the tribute was greatly augmented a few years afterwards, whenthe Khalifate was in difficulties; but finally repudiated by the KhalifAbdulmalik in the time of Justinian II. The circ*mstances, with thename ofthe Patrician, are also detailed in St. Martin's edition of Lebeau(Hist. du Bas Empire, xi, 428. ) Silk- stuffs are not mentioned here aspart of the tribute; but " gold and silk-stuffs" do frequently appear asthe constituents of tribute exacted in the early Saracen wars. SeeGibbon, ch. li, passim. I believe no Mahomedan writer records this transaction.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxiinstances (p. 551 infra)

-—“ On the recurrence of every seventhday people assembled from all directions to offer their devotionsin the chapels, and to adore Fo. "In all these notices we see much that is analogous between thefragmentary views of the great seats of western civilisation underthe names of Tathsin and Fulin, taken in the far east, and thoseof the great eastern civilisation under the names of Sinæ and Serestaken in the west. In both we see the same uncertainty in degreeas to exact position, the same application of facts belonging tothe nearer skirts of the half- seen empire as descriptive of thewhole; and in that isolated chance record in the Chinese booksof a real occurrence in the history of Byzantium we have a singular parallel to the like fragment of Chinese history which hadbeen picked up and entered in his narrative by Theophylactus.The form given in the Chinese fragment to the name of the Khalifis nearly the same as that (Maui) which we find in an Armenianwriter,' and this little circ*mstance may possibly indicate thepeople who furnished the Chinese annalists with some of theirscraps of knowledge.36. After this short view of the Chinese ideas of the Romanempire we may return to Kanyng, the officer whom General Panchao commissioned in the beginning of the second century toopen communication with those western regions, whether in viewto trade or to conquest. This officer proceeded to take ship, itwould seem on the Persian Gulf. "But the ship's companysaid to him, ' When out at sea a multitude of things will occur tomakeyou sigh for what you have left behind. He who occupies hisbusiness in the great waters is liable to regret and repentancefor what he has undertaken. If the envoy of the Han has nofather, no mother, no wife or children to pine after, then let him1 Michael the Syrian, translated by Dulaurier in Journ. Asiat. , ser. iv,tom. xiii, p. 326.2 Klaproth says that Panchao entertained a scheme for invading theRoman Empire, but that the general to whom this was confided wasbetter advised, and retraced his steps. (Tabl. Hist. de l'Asie, p. 67.) Theextract, however, given by Pauthier from the Annals of the Tçin, as citedin the Encyclopædia of the Emperor Khanghi, says Kanyng wasdespatched as envoy. (Pauth. , p . 38. ) Probably he was sent to reconnoitre,lxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.go to sea-not otherwise. " They also represented that with afair wind it would take two months at least to cross the sea toTathsin, and if the wind were adverse it might take two years tomake the return voyage, so that adventurers bound for Tathsinwere accustomed to lay in stores for three years.¹ Such at leastwere the excuses made bythe chicken- hearted Kan-yng, who wascertainly not the man to conquer the Roman empire; he thereforethought better of it, and retraced his steps. Hence at this timeno contact occurred between the representatives of the two greatseats of civilisation.237. Sixty years later, however (A.D.166 ) , in the reign of Hiwantiof the Han, an embassy came to the court of China from ANTUN,king of Tathsin (the Emperor M. Aurelius ANTONinus) . Thismission had no doubt made the voyage by sea, for it enteredChina by the frontier of Jinan or Tonking, bringing presents ofrhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoiseshell. This is not precisely thesort ofpresent we should have looked for, and indeed the Chineseannals say that it was believed the ambassadors had purloinedthe rarer objects of their charge; just the accusation that wasbrought against Friar John of Montecorvino eleven hundredyears later. It seems likely enough that they had lost theiroriginal presents by shipwreck or robbery, and had substitutedin the east such trumpery as they were told the Chinese set avalue upon. The historians also observe that the embassy cameby this southern route, and not by the northern route, which, itis implied, they might have followed; a route which was doubtless debarred to them by Parthian hostility.3About the same time, and perhaps by means of this embassy, the Chinese philosophers were made acquainted with atreatise on astronomy, which had been brought from Tathsin;1 This may have referred rather to the difficulty of obtaining provisionsuited to Oriental tastes. Governor Yeh, when bound a captive for FortWilliam, laid in seven years' provision of eggs!Hist. des Relations, etc.,Reinaud supposes that2 Pauthier, u. s.; Remusat, op. cit. , p. 123.3 Klap. 68-9; Pauthier de l'Auth. , p. 32; Id .p. 20; Deguignes in Mem. de l'Acad. , xxxii, 358.Pausanias may have got his information about the production of silkfrom the members of this embassy (supra, p. xlv) .PRELIMINARY ESSAY . lxiiiwe are told that they examined it, and compared it with theirown. '38. Some intercourse would seem to have been kept up afterthis of which no precise record has been preserved. For we aretold that early in the third century the Sovereign of Tathsin sentto the Emperor Taitsu, of the Wei dynasty which reigned inNorthern China, articles of glass of a variety of colours, andsome years later a person who had the art of " changing flintsinto crystal by means of fire, " a secret which he imparted toothers, and by which the fame of the people of the west wasgreatly enhanced in China.2A new embassy came from Tathsin in the year 284, bringingtribute, as the presents are termed on this occasion with the usualarrogant formula of the Chinese. This must have been despatchedby the Emperor Carus (282-233) , whose short reign was occupiedwith Persian war.A long suspension of intercourse seems to have followed, enduring till the 7th century. In the time of the Sui the EmperorYangti (605-617) greatly desired to open communication withTathsin, now called Fulin, but he could not succeed in his object.In 643 however during the reign of TAITSUNG, the second emperor ofthe Thang dynasty, and one of the greatest monarchs in Chinesehistory, whose power was acknowledged south of Hindu Kushand westward to the Caspian, an embassy came from Fulinbringing a present consisting of rubies, emeralds, etc. This embassy is alleged to have been sent by the King of Fulin calledPOTOLI OF PHEITOLI. The emperor deigned to address a graciousand conciliatory letter in reply to this mission. " Considering1 Deguignes in Mem. de l'Acad. , xlvi, 555.2 Ibid.3 Klaproth, op. cit. Pauthier, probably by an alternative translation,calls the presents " glasses of a red colour, stuffs of azure silk figuredwith gold, and the like" (p. 49) .4 It is difficult to guess who is meant by the Wang Pheitoli, who sentthis embassy. Heraclius died in February 641; his son Constantinethree months later. Heracleonas was then proclaimed; but speedily displaced by Constans, son of Constantine, at the age of eleven. Klaprothascribes this embassy to Theodorus, the brother of Heraclius, whosename might be represented in Chinese as Potoli. But he appears to havelxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.that the Musulmans had in the seven preceding years wrestedSyria from the Roman Empire and Persia from the Sassaniankings; that Yezdegerd, the last of these latter, had sent (as weshall see hereafter) envoys to China to seek support, and that thesuzerainty of Taitsung was acknowledged in Farghana, Bactria,and a part at least of Afghanistan and Khorassan, it seems notimprobable that the object of the Byzantine mission also was tostir up a Chinese diversion against the terrible new enemy.39. Another embassy from Fulin, mentioned without particnlars under the year 711, must have been despatched underJustinian II, who was slain in that year. In 719 arrived anotherembassy from the ruler of Fulin, who is termed on this occasion,not king, but YENTHUHOLO, of the rank of Premier Functionary ofthe Empire, bringing presents of lions and great sheep with spiralhorns. The emperor at this time was Leo the Isaurian. Possiblyhe mission, whatever its object, may have been despatchedbefore he was established on the throne ( 717) .¹In 742 came, bringing presents, another mission from Fulin,but this time composed ofpriests of great virtue. Leo ( 717-741 )was still reigning when this party must have been despatchedfrom Byzantium, if from Byzantium they came. But we shallfind that the Christian inscription of Singanfu records the arrivalin 744 of a priest of Tathsing, Kiho byname, who, " observing thestars and the sun, came to the court to present his respects to theaugust emperor. " Kiho is immediately afterwards styled " Ofgreatvirtue." Probably therefore the same event is alluded to, and itbeen killed in 638. Pauthier adopts the name, but applies it to PopeTheodorus, who might have sent this embassy to China after his acces- sion to the Pontifical throne in November 642; a desperately improbablehypothesis. May not Wang Pheitoli represent the Prætorian Prefectduring the infancy of Constans? St. Martin thinks the name representsValentine Cæsar, whose revolt put Constans on the throne. (On Lebeau's Hist. du Bas Empire, xi, 306.)¹ Pauthier translates the appellation in the Chinese record, “ Patrice,ou chef superieur des fonctionnaires de l'empire" (p. 50) . Leo is termed,at the time of his election to the empire, Leo the Patrician ( Niceph.Constant., p. 34). I suppose the name AéovTOS TOû Iσaúpou might becomein Chinese organs something like Yenthuholo.2 Klap. , p. 70; Pauthier, pp. 32, 50. The extract in the last referenceappears to mix up the missions of 719 and 742.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxvmay appertain rather to the missions of the Nestorian Churchthan to the political relations of the Eastern Empire with China.40. Another long interval then occurs; the Mahomedan powernow forming a wide and dense barrier between the Empires.But in 1081 , during the reign of Shintsung of the Sung dynasty,whose capital seems to have been still at Singanfu, an embassyarrives from Fulin, despatched by the King MILI- I- LING (orMIKIALING) KAISA. This is supposed by Klaproth and Pauthierto indicate the Emperor Michael Ducas, who, indeed, was compelled to resign the purple some three years before ( 1078) , butwhose envoys, in the uncertainties of Asiatic travel, might havebeen detained long upon the way.'Another mission is mentioned without particulars in the year1091 , which would fall in the reign of Alexius I. Comnenus.And the last distinct record of a communication from the Byzantine Empire is found in 1371 under Hongvu of the Ming dynasty,a few years after the expulsion of the House of Chinghiz, whenthere came to the court an envoy from Fulin called Kúmín Níkúlún. This person received presents, and an imperial letter inreply to the requests which he had submitted. Other envoysfrom this country, it is vaguely added, came with tribute. I1 The name of the Byzantine Cæsar appears to be read by Pauthierhimself, as it had been by Deguignes, Mili-iling. Klaproth makes itMikialing, but probably with some forcing, as Pauthier, though adoptingthis reading in a later work, says " Mikia-i-ling comme Klaproth a crupouvoir lire" (Klap. , p. 70; Deguignes, i, 67; Pauthier de l'Auth. , p. 33;Do., Hist. des Relations, etc., p. 22). If Michael be not accepted, I suppose the name of the competitor for the empire, Bryennius Cæsar, wouldbe the only alternative; but why either should have sent a mission toChina I cannot venture to suggest.2 Pauth., 51. This is cited from the Supplement to the Literary Encyclopædia of Matwanlin. The Great Imperial Geography, also quoted by Pauthier (p. 54), gives a somewhat different account. "Towards theend of the dynasty of the Yuan (a parenthesis says in 1341, but the fallof the Yuan was in 1368) a man of Fulin named Nikúlún came for purposes of trade to the middle kingdom. In the fourth year of Hongvuofthe Ming this merchant of Tathsin was invited to appear at court.The emperor ordered presents to be made to him, and an imperial letterwas entrusted to him to be delivered to his king when he should returnto his own country, and relate what he had witnessed. In consequenceof this an embassy came to China with tribute."lxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.cannot throw any light upon the identity of this Nicholas Comanus, or whatever his name was.III. COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA.41. We have seen, in the early part of this Essay, that reasonexists for believing in very early intercourse between India andChina; but the Chinese annals appear to have lost all sight ofthis, for their first mention and knowledge of India is referred toB.C. 122, when Changkian, returning from his adventurous expedition to Bactriana, brought back intelligence about variousregions in the West. When in that country he observed amongthe articles exposed for sale certain canes, which struck him asbeing like those grown in the mountains of Kiongshan, andcloths also which he recognised as the production of the countryof Shu, i.e. , Chingtufu in Szechuen. On inquiry he was toldthat these articles had been purchased by merchants in thecountry of SHINTU, otherwise called THIANCHU ( Sind or India) .This country lay some thousand li to the south- east of Tahia orBactriana, and from all that he could gather could not be fardistant from the province of Szechuen, which accounted for theimportation of the articles which he had seen for sale. Therewere three roads by which Shintu might be reached from China;one, leading by the Kiang, very dangerous and difficult; asecond by the north and through the lands of the Hiongnu, whowould certainly obstruct attempts at communication; and athird, which would be the safest, by Szechuen. The emperor,pleased with the hope of adding to the list of his tributaries inthose western countries, sent Changkian to attempt to enterIndia by the way of Kienwei ( Siucheufu in Szechuen) , andothers by different roads. Indeed some ten attempts in all weremade, but they were all as unsuccessful as Colonel Sarell's lateattempt to follow in the steps of Changkian. 'I See Demailla ( I can only refer to the Italian translation, vol. vii);Julien in J. As. , ser. iv, tom. x, 91-2; Deguignes in Mem. de l'Acad. , xxxii,358. The Italian translation of Demailla is a curiosity. The editor,finding that the Chinese names were distasteful to the readers of hisearlier volumes, changes them all into a more pleasing form. ThusKublai figures as Vobalio, Wang Khan as Govannio, Ilchiktai as Chitalio.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxvii42. In the succeeding century, however, relations must havebeen opened, for in A.D. 65 the Emperor Mingti, in consequenceof a dream, sent ambassadors to Thianchu to obtain instructionin the doctrines of Buddha, and to bring back images of him, astep which brought upon that emperor's memory the execrationsof the orthodox Confucian literati, and which led to very peculiar relations between the two countries for many centuries.Under the Emperor Hoti (A.D. 89-105) Indian sovereignsseveral times sent tribute (presents) to the court of China, andagain in 158-9 under Hiwanti, the same emperor that receivedthe mission supposed to have come from Marcus Aurelius.43. Throughout the greater part of the third and fourth centuries political intercourse between India and China seems tohave been interrupted, though it may be gathered from thehistory of Fahian's travels that a sea-trade between China andIndia existed at the end of the latter century, as it probably haddone for some time previously. Its commencement, however,perhaps does not ascend beyond the early years of the EasternTçin (residing at Nanking, 317-420) as the first intercoursebetween China and Ceylon is ascribed to their time. Ceylonwas famed for its figures of Buddha, and these often were sentas presents to the Chinese court. The first embassy from Ceylonarrived in 405, having come apparently overland, as it was tenyears upon the road. It brought a Jade image of Buddha, exquisite in material and workmanship. In the course of thesame century came four more Singhalese embassies: one in 428,when the King Chacha Mohonan ( Raja Mahanaama, reigned410-432) sent an address to the emperor, together with a modelof the shrine of the Sacred Tooth; one in 430, one in 435, anda fourth in 456, composed of five priests, of whom one wasNanté, a famous sculptor, and who brought a threefold image ofBuddha. During the sixth century the kings of Ceylon acknowledged themselves vassals of China, and in 515 Kumara Dás, onsucceeding to the throne, sent an envoy to China to announcethe event, and who reported that the king had been desirous togo himself, but was afraid of the sea. Embassies are also recorded under the years 523, 527, 531.¹¹ Tennent's Ceylon , 2nd ed. , i , 590-91; 596. Sir Emerson Tennent wasIxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.44. In 428 also the King of Kapila (the birth place of Buddhain the present district of Gorakhpúr) by name Yuei- ai or “ Lovedof the Moon, " i.e. Chandragupta, sent an ambassador carrying adiamond ring, a gold bracelet, red and white parrots, etc., to theEmperor Wuti. In 466 came another mission from the samecourt, and again in 500-504 bringing a trained horse.In 441, 455, 466, and 473 other Buddhist kingdoms in or adjoining India, sent tribute. In 502 Kioto (or Gupta) , a king ofIndia, sent one Chulota to present to the emperor a letter, aspittoon of lapis-lazuli, perfumes, cotton- stuffs, etc. This king'sterritory adjoined the great river Sinthao (Indus) with its fivebranches. Rock- salt like crystal, it is observed, is found there.'In 605 Yangti of the Sui dynasty, the same whose desire hadbeen to open relations with the Roman empire, having formedsome ambitious projects, sent to try and induce the kingdoms ofTibet and India to render him homage, but those of India refused, which much enraged the emperor.Two years later we find one Chang- tsuen, " Director of theMilitary Lands", sent on an embassy to Ceylon."45. In 641 the King of Magadha ( Behar, etc.) sent an ambassador with a letter to the Chinese court. The emperor (the greatTaitsung) in return directed one of his officers to go to the kingwith an imperial patent and to invite his submission. The KingShiloyto ( Siladitya) was all astonishment. " Since time immemorial, " he asked his officers, " did ever an ambassador comefrom MOноCHINTAN? " "Never, " they replied. The Chineseauthor remarks that in the tongue of the barbarians the MiddleKingdom is called Mohochintan (Mahachinasthana) . This led toa further exchange of civilities extending to 646. But theusurping successor of Siladitya did not maintain equally amicablerelations, and war ensued, in the course of which the Chinese,assisted by the Kings of Tibet and Nepal, invaded India. OtherIndian kings lent aid and sent supplies; and after the capture ofthe usurper Alanashun, and the defeat of the army commandedsupplied with unpublished translations of extracts from Chinese authorsfor his work. The authorities are given by him.1 Julien, u. s., pp. 99-100. 2 Tennent, i, 583.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxixby his queen on the banks of the Khientowei ( Gandhara) 580cities surrendered to the Chinese arms, and the king was carriedprisoner to China. .A magician, who accompanied the Chinesegeneral from India was employed to treat the Emperor Taitsung, who was very ill, but with no success. Wang Hiwantsé,the envoy who had gone on the mission which resulted in thiswar, wrote a history of all the transactions in twelve books, butit is lost.¹In 667-8 it is asserted the Kings of the five Indies all sent tooffer homage; and this homage was repeated in 672 and 692.These kings are named in the Chinese Annals—( 1 ) the King ofEastern India, named Molopama; (2) the King of WesternIndia, called Shiloyito; (3 ) the King of Southern India, calledChilukhipalo; (4) the King of Northern India, called Nana;(5) the King of Central India, called Timosina.2In 670 King Datopiatissa of Ceylon sent a memorial tothe Emperor with a present of native productions. AnotherCeylonese embassy came in 711.346. In 713 an embassy came to the Emperor Hiwantsung fromChentolopiti (Chandrapida) , King of Kashmir, acknowledgingallegiance, and some years later a patent of investiture wasgranted to this prince. A successor and brother called Mutopi(Muktopida) also offered homage and requested the Emperor tosend troops into Kashmir, offering to quarter them on the banksof the Lake Mahapadma in the centre of that valley. Tributecontinued to be paid regularly by Kashmir for some time. Thepressure of the rising power of Tibet probably induced this stateto seek Chinese protection."1 Julien, pp. 107-110. The Siladitya of this account is known fromHiwen Thsang to have been one of the great kings of Indian history.His empire extended from the sea- coast of Orissa at least as far northwest as Kanauj, which was his capital, and possibly to the frontiers ofKashmir (see Lassen , iii, 673 seqq . ) . Lassen, as far as I can discover, saysnothing as to this Chinese invasion of India, or the usurper Alanashun.Nor is the chronology consistent with his (from Hiwen Thsang) whichcontinues Siladitya's reign to 650; whilst the account followed in thetext makes him already dead in 646. The Emperor Taitsong died in 650.2 Chine Ancienne, p. 301. 8 Tennent, i, p. 597.Remusat, u. s. , p. 106; Chin. Anc. , 311; Reinaud in Mem. de l'Acad. ,lxx PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Between 713 and 731 repeated missions are reported from thedifferent kingdoms of India, one of which begged aid against theArabs and the Tibetans, and requested the Emperor to bestowan honorific title upon the Indian monarch's army. The Emperorperhaps found this the most convenient part of the petition tocomply with, and decreed it the title of "the Army whichcherishes virtue."וייIn 742 foreign merchants who had arrived in China by the Seaof the South brought a number of precious articles from thekingdom of Lions (Sinhala or Ceylon) to be presented to theEmperor on behalf of Shiloshukia their king. Other embassiescame from the same island in 746, 750, 762. There is then aninterval of many centuries before Ceylon is again heard ofin theChinese Annals.347. Towards 758-760, China, it is said, having lost the countryxvii, p. 190. There is a King Chandrapida in the Kashmir Annals, buthe is killed in 691. The king reigning 695-732 was Laladitya, a greatconqueror. He seems to have had a brother Muktopida (see Lassen, iii,993, 997).1 See Julien, u.s., and compare Chine Ancienne, 309, 310. About thistime there is frequent mention in the Chinese Annals of relations withtwo kingdoms called Great and Little Poliu, which lay between Kashgarand Kashmir. The king of Little Poliu dwelt in a city called Nicito,near a river called Soï. The Great Poliu was more to the east; his country was occupied by the Chinese forces in 747 (Remusat, in Mem. de l'Acad.as above, pp. 100-102) . Remusat renders Poliu Purut; but there can beno doubt that the kingdoms in question are Ladakh and Balti, whichcontinued to a late date to be known as Great and Little Tibet. Thesetitles will be found in Tavernier I think, and in the letters of the JesuitDesideri ( 1716), and indeed the term Little Tibet for Balti is scarcely yetobsolete. Ladakh is probably " the city of Tibet, built on an eminenceover a river" of Edrisi (i, 492) . In Meyendorff we find the cities of Greatand Little Tibet still spoken of at Bokhara. The Georgian Danibegwent from Kashmir to the " city of Tibet" in twenty days. It was threemonths from Lhassa. And the Tajik route given by Meyendorff speaksof reaching by the Karakorum pass " Tibet, a city on the croupe of amountain, with the governor's residence at the top," a description whichapplies perhaps equally well to Ladakh and Balti. The latter is perhapsthe name concealed in the Poliu of the Chinese, and the Soï may be theShayok (Meyendorff, pp. 122, 339) .2 Ch . Anc. , 312. This is not mentioned by Tennent. The king reigning at Anurajapura at this time was Aggrabodhi III or Akbo.3 Tennent, ib. , 597.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxiof Holong, the kings of India ceased to send homage. I do notknow what country is indicated, whether Khulum in the valleyof the Oxus or some region on the Yunan frontier. The formeris probable, as the narratives of the Buddhist pilgrims show thatthe long route by Kashgar and Badakshan was that generallyfollowed between India and China.The Tibetans at this time were becoming powerful and troublesome neighbours, insomuch that about 787 the Emperor Tetsung,by the advice of one of his ministers, applied to the Uigurs, thePrinces of India, and the Khalif to join in a league against them.After this, for a long time no political intercourse is heard of;but a few more missions from Indian kingdoms are recordedunder the later years of the tenth century and beginning of theeleventh as visiting the Court of the Northern Sung. With theexception of one in 1015 from the country of Chulien, which issupposed by Deguignes to be the Chola Kingdom of SouthernIndia, I suspect these embassies to belong rather to the Archipelago than to India Proper.348. Throughout this period, however, there are frequent noticeseither of the visits of Indian Buddhist devotees to the Court ofChina or of leave obtained from the Emperor by Chinese Buddhists to visit India for religious objects. One of the parties.from India is related to have been accompanied by the son of anIndian king, by name Manjusri, a very zealous Buddhist, whowas treated with great favour by the Emperor. The monks werejealous of this, and as he did not understand Chinese they madehim believe that the Emperor had ordered his departure. Hewent off in much indignation to the southern coast to embark ina merchant vessel for India. These religious visitors to Chinabecame very frequent after 975, perhaps a sign that by that time1 Julien, p. 111. 2 Ch. Anc., p. 321.3 Deguignes, i, pp. 66 seqq. Tanmoeilieu, one of the kingdoms named, isperhaps Tana- Malayu, the Malay country.4 The route of one of these parties is described as carrying them byKancheu, Shacheu, Icheu (Kamul) , Karashahr, Kuche, Khotan, Khulum,Peshawur, and Kashmir.5Julien, 111-114. This Manjusri appears in the traditions of theNewars of Nepal as the Buddhist Apostle of their country ( see Lassen, iii,777 seq. quoting from B. H. Hodgson).lxxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Buddhism was becoming oppressed in India. In 986, however,a monk of Icheu ( Kamul) returning from India brought a letterfrom a king who is called Mosinang, written in terms of humblestreverence, which are preserved by the Chinese authority, andtransmitting relics of Sakya.'49. Indeed, for many centuries subsequent to the introductionof Buddhism in China, the intercourse between its devotees inthe two countries was frequent, and the narratives of Chinesepilgrims who spent years in studying the Buddhist doctrines intheir original country and in visiting the sacred sites andmonastic establishments of India, form a curious and valuablepart of Chinese literature. Of these works several have beentranslated into European languages, as the Travels of Fathian(399-414); of Hiwen Thsang (travelled 628-645); and of HoeiSing, who set out in 518. One of the latest of these travellers wasKhinie, who journeyed ( 964-976) at the head of a body of 300monks whom the Emperor despatched to India to seek relics ofBuddha and collect books of palm- leaves. Fragments of descriptions of the western countries are cited from a work of one of¹ Julien, 115-116. This letter was translated by one Shihu, an Indianecclesiastic, who also communicated some information about the kingdomsof India. Besides Central India (here Magadha) there were in the norththe kingdoms of Utiennang ( Udyana, according to Julien) , west of thatKhientolo (Gandhara) , Nanggolokialo (Nagarahara) , Lanpo ( Lamghan,now generally called Laghman), then Gojenang (probably Ghazni) , andthen Persia. Three days' journey west of Magadha was Alawei (Rewa?),then Karana Kiuje (i.e. Kanya Kubja or Kanauj) , Malwa, Ujjayani, Lolo(Lara according to Julien), Surashtra, and the Western Sea. SouthernIndia was four months' journey from Magadha, and ninety days west of it was Konkana.Gandhara mentioned above, according to the indications of HiwenThsang, lay north of Peshawur and stretched across the Indus. It is theKandahár of Albiruni and other early Arab writers, the capital of whichwas Waihand, which stood on the west of the Indus north of the KabulRiver's confluence. This is supposed to be the Utakhanda of HiwenThsang,and has been identified with Ohind or Hund, about fifteen miles aboveAttok. Udhyana lay west of Gandhara, the country on the Upper Swatand eastern part of the modern Kafiristan. Nanggolokialo or Nagaraharaappears to have been near the present Jalalabad. See Reinaud in Mem.de l'Acad. xvii, 108, 157, etc.; Lassen iii, 137 seq.; V. St. Martin in N. Ann.des Voyages for 1853, ii, 166.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxiiithese pilgrims older even than Fahian, the monk Shi-tao-an whodied in 385. It does not seem to be known if the work is extant.1These pilgrimages must have become more unfrequent as theindigenous Buddhism of India gradually perished, but perhapsthey had not altogether ceased even in the middle of the fourteenth century. For at that date we find the Emperor of Chinaasking leave from Mahomed Tughlak to rebuild a temple nearthe base of the Himalya, which was much visited by his subjects.250. In the thirteenth century we find revived indications ofcommunication with Ceylon. Singhalese writers mention imports from China at this time; and in 1266 Chinese soldiers arementioned as taking service in the army of the Ceylonese king.We hear, also, during the Mongol reign in China of the occasional despatch by the Emperors of officers to Ceylon to collectgems and drugs; and, on three occasions, envoys were sent tonegotiate the purchase of the sacred alms- dish of Buddha. Suchmissions are alluded to by Polo and Odoric.51. As late as the beginning of the fifteenth century, underthe Ming dynasty, the Chinese made a remarkable and last attempt to renew their former claims to honorary allegiance in themaritime countries of the west. In 1405 a mission from China,which had come to Ceylon bringing incense and offerings to theShrine of the Tooth, was maltreated by the reigning KingWijayabahu VI, who was a native of Solli or the Peninsula, andan oppressor of Buddhism. The Emperor Chingtsu, indignantat the outrage, and anxious to do something for the re- establishment of the declining prestige of China, despatched Chingho, asoldier of distinction, with a fleet of sixty-two ships and a military force, and armed with credentials and presents, to visit thewestern kingdoms. He touched at Cochin China, Sumatra, Java,1 Julien op. cit. , pp. 272-294, and Preface to Vie de Hiouen Thsang. TheChinese bibliographer quoted by Julien observes of Fa Hian that he appliesthe term Chong Kué or Middle Kingdom to India instead of China. Thiserror he observes is a fashion of the Buddhist monks, and is not worth thetrouble of refutation! I suppose the Buddhists used it as a translation ofMadhyadesa, the classical name which the Burmese still apply to Gangetic India.2 See Ibn Batuta, infra, p. 410. 3 Tennent, i, 497-8.༡lxxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Cambodia, Siam, and other places, proclaiming at each the imperial edict and conferring imperial gifts . If any of the statesrefused to acknowledge the Emperor's supremacy they weresubdued by force; and in 1407 the expedition returned to Chinaaccompanied by envoys from the different nations. Chinghobeing sent again next year on a like mission, the SinghaleseKing tried to entrap and capture him, but Chingho avoided thesnare, caught the king, his whole family and officers of state, andcarried them prisoners to China. In 1411 the Emperor set theprisoners free, but deposed the misdemeanant king, and appointed another of the party in his place, who was sent back toCeylon accompanied by a Chinese commissioner to invest him asa royal vassal of the empire. This new king is named by theChinese Pulakoma Bazae Lacha, which identifies him as PrakramaBahu Raja VI, whose reign according to the Ceylonese annalsextended from 1410 to 1462. Tribute was paid regularly byCeylon for fifty years; apparently therefore throughout the longreign of this prince and no longer. During that time the kingis asserted to have been on two occasions the bearer of it inperson. Other circ*mstances mentioned appear to imply that aChinese Resident was maintained on the island who superintendedthe administration. The last tribute was paid in 1459. Chineseinfluence was thus a matter of recent memory on the arrival ofthe Portuguese in the beginning of the following century, andthey found many traces of it remaining.These events are of course very differently represented in theCeylonese annals. According to their account the King ofMahachina landed in the island with an army under the pretenceof bringing tribute; the King of Ceylon was then treacherouslytaken and carried captive to China, etc. '52. As regards warlike relations between India and China inthe middle ages we may mention the Mongol invasion of Bengal"by way of Cathay and Tibet" during the reign of AlauddinMusaüd King of Dehli; the only invasion of Bengal from thatquarter distinctly recorded in history. This took place about1244, and was defeated by the local officers. Firishta in speaking1 Tennent, pp. 601-602 .PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxvof it says it is supposed that they entered by the same routewhich was followed by Mahomed Bakhtiyar Khilji when he invaded Cathay and Tibet from Bengal. This refers to the expedition some forty years before, to which allusion is made at p. 516of the present work. It is very possible that Bakhtiyar Khilji'sambition dreamt even of a raid upon China, but it is difficult togather from the account extant how far he had really got whenforced to retreat; perhaps not beyond the Assam valley. In thestill more disastrous enterprise of Malik Yuzbek in 1256-57 aimsmore distant than Kámrúp are not alluded to. The mad expedition of Mahomed Tughlak in 1337 was, according to Firishta'saccount, directed against China. Of the force, which both thathistorian and Ibn Batuta estimate at one hundred thousand horsebesides infantry, scarcely any returned to tell the tale, except thefew who had been left to garrison posts in rear of the army. Itis difficult to guess by what point this host entered the Himalya,nor have I been able to identify the town of Jidiáh at the base ofthe mountains, mentioned by Ibn Batuta, which would ascertainthe position.53. We ought not to omit in the record of relations betweenChina and India, the two embassies mentioned by the author lastnamed, viz . , that sent by the Mongol Emperor Shunti orTogantemur to the Court of the same Mahomed Tughlak in1341-42, and the unlucky return embassy entrusted to theMoorish traveller himself, which has furnished this collectionwith one of its chief items.An embassy from Bengal is mentioned in the time of Chingtsuof the Ming (1409) , but from what sovereign, Hindu or Musalman, does not appear. It was, perhaps, one of those compli-.mentary missions which General Chingho went cruising to promote, as mentioned on the previous page.And in 1656, though the date is beyond the field of our notices,we find that the Dutch envoy Nieuhoff was presented at Pekingalong with an ambassador from the Great Mogul, at that timeJahanghir.5¹ Briggs's Firishta, i, 231 .Chine Anc. , p. 402.

• See Stewart's History of Bengal, pp. 45-50. 3 Ibn Batuta, iii , 325.

Pauth. Relations Polit. , etc. , p. 49.9 2lxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.254. Returning to earlier days, we find that in the time of theMongol emperors an ample trade by sea existed between Chinaand the ports of Malabar. To this Polo, Odoric, Marignolli, andIbn Batuta bear witness. The rise of this trade, so far as weknow about it, will be more conveniently related under the headof Chinese intercourse with the Arabs. Ibn Batuta alludes to theChinese merchants residing at Kaulam,¹ and such residents arealso alluded to in ancient Malabar documents. I have alreadysuggested that Marignolli's mention of " Tartars" in connexionwith the tomb of St. Thomas at Mailapúr (p . 376 infra) may indicate that Chinese traded, perhaps were settled, also on theCoromandel Coast. But Ritter's idea that CHINAPATAM, one ofthe native names of the town of Madras, is a trace of ancientChinese colonisation here, is not well founded. That name, properly Chennapatam or Chennapapatam, was bestowed on the sitegranted to the British in 1639 by the Naik of Chingleput, inhonour of that chief's own father-in-law, Chennapa by name. Itis curious, however, in connexion with such a suggestion, thatGasparo Balbi in the sixteenth century, speaking of certainPagodas seen in making Negapatam after rounding Ceylon ( apparently the monolithic temples at Mahabalipuram, commonlyknown still as the Seven Pagodas) observes that they were calledthe Sette Pagodi de' Chini, and were attributed to ancient Chinesemariners . "55. We hear from Marco Polo of some part of the intercoursewhich Kublai Khan endeavoured to establish with westerncountries of Asia, and his endeavours are also specially mentioned in the Chinese annals. Unfortunately he and his officersseem to have entertained the Chinese notion that all intercoursewith his empire should take the form of homage, and his at- .tempts that way in Java and Japan had no very satisfactoryresult. But he is said to have been more fortunate in 1286 withthe kingdoms of MAPAEUL, SUMUNTALA, SUMENNA, SENGKILI, MAp. 103.1iv,2 See Madras Journal for 1844, p. 121 .3 Ritter, v, 518, 620; Madras in the Olden Time, by J. T. Wheeler,Madras 1861, i , p. 25.4 It is worth noting that the Catalan Map of 1375 has in this positiona place called Setemelti; qu. , an error for Sette templi?PRELIMINARY ESSAY, lxxviiLANTAN, LAILAI, NAVANG, and TINGHOEUL. Of these the first fourare almost certainly Indian. Maabar, (Dwara) =Samundra,²Sumnath,³ are not difficult to recognize; the fourth, Sengkili,is probably the Shinkali of Abulfeda, the Singuyli of Jordanus,the Cynkali of Marignolli, i.e. , Cranganor. The rest of thenames probably belong to the Archipelago."JV. INTERCOURSE WITH THE ARABS.56. This likewise, in all probability, goes back to an earlierdate than is to be learned from any existing history, as the formsin which the name of China reached the Greeks have alreadysuggested to us.The earliest date to which any positive statement of suchintercourse appears to refer is the first half of the fifth cen1 See infra, pp. 80, 218, etc.2 The kingdom of the Bilal Rajas immediately north of Ma'bar, andconstantly coupled with it in the Mahomedan histories.3 See Marco Polo, pt. III, ch. 32.See infra, pp. 75, 373.5 Thus Malantan, Navang, Tinghoeul may be compared with the namesof the actual Malay states or provinces of Kalantan, Pahang, and Sungora. Pauthier introduces the list (which he gives as Siumenna, Senghili,Nanwuli, Malantan, Tingkorh, Maparh, and Sumuntala) as that of " tenmaritime kingdoms of the Indian Archipelago", but that is merely anopinion of his own. It is possible, certainly, that Sumuntala may represent Sumatra, as it appears to do in passages quoted from Chinesegeographies by M. Pauthier. Some of these, indeed, appear to be derivedfrom European sources; others do refer to the Chinese Annals as far backas the tenth century, and if these can be depended on as showing thatthe island or a kingdom on it was called Sumatra at so early a date thecirc*mstance is remarkable. In the absence of more distinct evidence, Ishould doubt if the name is so old. The Malay traditions, quoted byDulaurier, ascribe the foundation of the city called Sumatra to the fatherof the king reigning in Ibn Batuta's time.The list of names in the text is from Gaubil (see, G. Hist. de GentchisCan, p. 205; Pauthier's Polo, p. 572; also Baldello Boni's Il Milione, ii,388).I may observe, that in an old Chino- Japanese map described by Klaproth and Remusat, the kingdoms of Sumenna, Kylantin, Mapœul, andTinghoul, are placed far to the west beyond the Arabs ( Not. et Ext. , vol.xi, and Klap. Mem. ii) . This, however, only shows that the author ofthe map did not know where to put them.lxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.tury of our era. At this time, according to Hamza of Ispahanand Masudi, the Euphrates was navigable as high as Hira, a citylying south- west of ancient Babylon, near Kufa, (now at along distance from the actual channel of the river) , and theships of India and China were constantly to be seen mooredbefore the houses of the town. ' Hira was then abounding inwealth, and the country round, now a howling wilderness, wasfull of that life and prosperity which water bestows in sucha climate. A gradual recession took place in the position ofthe headquarters of Indian and Chinese trade. From Hira itdescended to Obolla, the ancient Apologos, from Obolla it wastransferred to the neighbouring city of Basra, built by theKhalif Omar on the first conquest of Irak ( 636) , from Basra toSiraf on the northern shore of the gulf, and from Siraf successively to Kish and Hormuz.57. Chinese Annals of the Thang dynasty of the seventh andeighth centuries, describe the course followed by their junks invoyaging to the Euphrates from Kwangcheu ( Canton) . Afterindicating the route and the times occupied as far as Ceylon, "we are told that they passed in front of MOLAI (Malé of Cosmas,Malabar) , after which they coasted ten small kingdoms towardsthe north-west, and after two days ' sail to the north-west acrosssea (Gulf of Cambay) they reached TIYU (probably Diu) . Tendays further voyage carried them past five small kingdoms to661 Reinaud, Relations, etc., 1 , xxxv; Tennent's Ceylon, i, 541; Masudi inPrairies d'Or, i, 216 seqq . The passage in Masudi, as translated byMessrs. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courtille, is not so precise inits evidence as I should have gathered from Reinaud and Tennent. I havenot access to Hamza." Hira was the seat of a race of kings who had embraced the Christianreligion, and reigned above six hundred years under the shadow ofPersia" (Gibbon, ch. li) .2 All which, strange to say, is omitted by Deguignes, from whom thisis quoted (Mem. de l'Acad. des Insc. , xxxii, 367). The passage does not seem to have been reproduced by later Chinese scholars. It also speaks,as may be gathered from Deguignes in another essay, of the differentplaces in Asia whither the goods taken to the Gulf were carried for sale,and indicates places of commerce on the coast of Africa (Mem. , as above,xlvi , 547) ,PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxixanother TIYU, near the Great River MILAN or SINTEU. In twentydays more they came to the frontiers of another country, wherethere was a great lighthouse in the sea; one day more broughtthem to Siraf, and thence they reached the mouth of the Euphrates.The ships of China, according to some authorities, used tovisit Aden as well as the mouths of Indus and Euphrates. I donot think that either Polo or any traveller of his age speaks ofthem as going further than Malabar, the ports of which appearto have become the entrepôts for commercial exchange betweenChina and the west, nor does it appear what led to this change.Some time in the fifteenth century again they seem to haveceased to come to Malabar, nor can it be positively gatheredfrom Abd- ul- Razzak or Conti whether Chinese vessels continuedto frequent that coast in their time ( circa 1430-1442) . We1 The Milan or Sinteu is the Sindu or Indus, called by the ArabsMehrán. Tiyu is probably, as suggested by Deguignes, the port of Diul,Dewal, or DAIBUL, which lay to the west of the Indus mouths and cannothave been far from Karachi. Edrisi speaks of it specifically as frequentedby Chinese ships . Daibul was besieged and taken by the Mahomedansbefore the end of the seventh century. The district at the mouths of theIndus appears to have retained the name long after the decay of the port,for Barbosa calls this territory Diul (Jaubert's Edrisi, i, 161; Gildemeister,p. 170, but the reading of Ibn Haukal here which places Daibul on theeast of the Indus appears to be erroneous; Barbosa (Lisbon ed. ), p. 266;Reinaud in Mem. de l'Acad. , xvii, p. 170).2 Probably at the Straits of Hormuz. I do not find any light therementioned, but Masudi mentions that at the terminus of this voyage atthe entrance of the roadstead near Obollah and Abadan (i.e. , off themouth of Euphrates) there were three great platforms on which beaconswere lighted every night to guide ships coming in ( Prairies d'Or, i, 230) .3 See Ibn el Wardi, in Not. et Extraits, ii, 43. Edrisi says that, fromAden ships sailed for Hind, Sind, and China (i, 51 ) . He gives a list ofthe wares brought from China by these ships, but except iron, swordblades (perhaps Japanese), shagreen, rich stuffs and velvets, and variousvegetable tissues, the articles rather belong to the Archipelago .Baroch is also mentioned as a port visited by ships of China (Edrisi, i ,179); and Suhár in Oman (the Soer of Polo), as a port from which Arabvessels traded to China ( Id. , i, 152) .4 Abdul Razzak, however, does mention merchants and maritime peopleof China among those who frequented Hormuz in his time ( 1442) . Hedoes not distinctly say that ships of that country came, and the passageis perhaps too general to build upon (Ind. in XV Cent. , p. 56) .lxxx PRELIMINARY ESSAY.read, however, that Chingtsu of the Ming dynasty ( 1402-1424)despatched vessels to the islands and countries of India, Bengal,Calicut, Ceylon, Surat, the Persian Gulf, Aden, and the RedSea, expeditions to which reference has been made in a previouspage, and which do not seem to have been in any degree commercial. This, however, is the last notice with which I am acquainted of Chinese vessels visiting Malabar and Western Asia. '58. The Arabs at an early date of Islam, if not before, hadestablished a factory at Canton, and their numbers at that portwere so great by the middle of the eighth century that in 758they were strong enough to attack and pillage the city, to whichthey set fire and then fled to their ships. Nor were they confined to this port. The city now called Hangcheufu, the Quinsaiand Khansa of the middle ages, but known in those days to theArabs as KHANFU, 3 was probably already frequented bythem; for,one hundred and twenty years later, the number of foreignsettlers, Musulman, Jew, Christian, and Gueber, who perished onthe capture of that city by a rebel army, is estimated at onehundred and twenty thousand, and even two hundred thousand! 'Of course we must make large deductions, but these contemporary statements still indicate a large foreign population.59. In the eighth century also the Arabs began to know theChinese not only as Sine, but as Seres, i.e. by the northern landroute. The successes of Kutaiba, who in the time of KhalifWalid overran Bokhara, Samarkand, Farghana, and Khwarizm,Deguignes, i, 72.2 Deguignes, i, 59, ii, 503; also in Mem. de l'Acad. , xlvi, 545. In thelatter essay, Deguignes attributes this out-break to the Arab auxiliariesmentioned further on.3 Khanfu was properly only the port of Hangcheu or Khansa, called bythe Chinese KANP’HU ( a name still preserved as that of a town half aleague north of the old site), and by Marco Polo Ganfu (i, 74) . The placeis mentioned as a coasting port in Chinese Annals under A.D. 306; as theseat of a master attendant in 706; and as that of a marine court underthe Mongols (Klap. Mem. rel. à l'Asie, ii , 200 seqq. ) . The name of the portseems to have been transferred by the early Arabs to Hangcheu; forthere seems no reason to ascribe to Kanp'hu itself the importance hereassigned to Khanfu. Indeed, Abulfeda says expressly, "Khanfu, whichis known in our days as Khansa."4 Reinaud, Relations, etc., i, p. 61; Masudi Prairies d'Or, i, 304.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxxiand even extended his conquests across the Bolor to Kashgar,brought the two powers into dangerous collision; ' and theEmperor of China seems to have saved himself from an Arabinvasion, only by the very favourable reception which he gave toan embassy from Kutaiba, composed of twelve Mahomedans,whom he sent back loaded with presents for the Arab general.2This was no doubt the embassy to the Emperor Hiwen Thsung(circa 713) , of which the Chinese annals relate that the envoysdemanded exemption from the Kotow, and in consequence wereput upon their trial and pronounced worthy of death. The emperor, however, graciously pardoned them! 3The emperors seemed to have entertained a correcter apprehension of the character of the new enemy than their successorshave exhibited in later days when coming in contact withEuropean nations, and consequently they were very cautious intheir answers to the many applications that were made to themfor aid against the irresistible Arabs. Yet collisions were not entirely avoided. Indeed according to one Mahomedan historian¹ theend of the year 87 of Hejira (A.D. 709) had already witnessed theglorious defeat of two hundred thousand Tartars who had brokeninto the Mahomedan conquests under the command of Taghabun,the Chinese Emperor's nephew. And at a later date, about 751,we find the Chinese troops under their general Kaosienchi engaging those of the Khalif near Taraz or Talas and entirelyrouted. A few years afterwards (757-8) , when the EmperorSutsung was hard pressed by a powerful rebel, he received an¹ Hajáj, the Viceroy of Irak, sent messages to Kutaiba and to MahomedIbn Kassim in Sind, urging both to press forward to the conquest ofChina, and promising that the first to reach it should be invested withthe government. This induced Kutaiba to advance to Kashgar, andMahomed to press towards Kanauj. But the death of their patron andof the Khalif put an end to their schemes and brought destruction uponboth (Reinaud in Mem. de l'Acad . , xvii , 186) .2 De Sacy in Not. et Extraits, ii, 374-5.3 Remusat, Melanges Asiat. , i , 441-2. So in turn ten Chinese envoysare said to have been murdered at the Burmese court in 1286, becausethey insisted on appearing in the royal presence with their boots on(Mission to Ava, p. 79) .4 Tabari, quoted in Ch. Anc.,5 Ib. , 311; Deguignes, i, 58.p. 310.lxxxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.embassy from the Khalif Abu Jafar al Mansúr, accompanied byauxiliary troops. But even these ministers of timely aid are related in the Chinese annals to have been compelled to performthe kotow in spite of their strong remonstrances. Uigur andother western troops also joined the emperor's standard, and therebel was completely defeated in the immediate neighbourhoodof Singanfu. These auxiliaries seem to have been found veryunmanageable; the eastern capital, Loyang, was pillaged bythem, and, as we have seen, one account ascribes to them, ontheir way to embark for the west, the sack of Canton which occurred at this time.¹Mention has been made in a preceding page how about 787the emperor applied to the khalif to join in a league against theTibetans. Some years later ( 798) the celebrated Khalif HarunAl Rashid sent three ambassadors to the Court of China, and itis recorded of them that they performed, apparently without remonstrance, the ceremonies to which the former Arab envoys,like ours in modern times, had so strongly objected.2An embassy from the khalif is said to have also reached theChinese Court in 974, and another to have visited the NorthernSung in 1011.3V. INTERCOURSE WITH ARMENIA AND PERSIA, ETC.60. Besides that communication by land and sea with Arabia,and with the various states of India, of which illustrations havebeen given, there existed from an old date other and obscurerstreams of intercourse between China and Western Asia, of whichwe have but fragmentary notices, but which seem to indicate asomewhat fuller mutual knowledge and freer communicationthan most persons probably have been prepared to recognise.Thus, China appears to have been well known from an earlyperiod to the Armenians. Moses of Chorene, who wrote a littleafter A.D. 440, and who probably drew from earlier authors,speaks of JENASDAN (i.e. Chinistùn or China) as a great plain1 See Mem. de l'Acad. (old) , xvi, p. 254, and supra, p. lxxx.2 Remusat, u.s.3 Deguignes, in Acad. , xlvi, 54k; H. des Huns, i, 66, seqq.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxxiiicountry, east of Scythia, at the extremity of the known world,and occupied by a wealthy and civilised people of character soeminently pacific as to deserve to be called not merely friends ofpeace but friends of life. Their country furnished an abundanceof silk, insomuch that silk dresses, so rare and costly in Armenia,were there common to all classes . It also produced musk,saffron, and cotton. Peaco*cks were found there. Twenty-ninenations were comprised within its bounds; and not all of equalcivilisation, for one was addicted to cannibalism. The king,whose title was Jen-pagur, had his residence in the city of Siurhiatowards the Terra Incognita. The country of the Sinæ adjoinedJenasdan and embraced seven nations; it contained many riversand mountains, and extended likewise to the Unknown Land.²According to the same historian, in the reign of Tigranes VI(A.D. 142-178 ) several bodies of foreign settlers, and amongstothers Chinese, were placed in Gordyene or Kurdish Armenia,for the defence of the country.3To more than one great Armenian family a Chinese descentwas attributed. One of these families was that of the Orpelians,which in Georgia was known by the name of Jenpakuriani fromtheir supposed ancestor the Jen-pakur or Emperor of China. *Another family was that of the Mamigonians, one which plays animportant part in Armenian history . Their story is told byMoses of Chorene, who refers their establishment in Armenia toa date two hundred years before his own time, and therefore toCompare Ptolemy, vi, 16; and Marco Polo, i, 78.2 St. Martin, Mem. sur l'Armenie, ii, 22, 23, 377. The Jenasdan of Mosesof Chorene is perhaps the Empire of the Wei dynasty which ruled inNorthern China with varying power from the fourth to the sixth century,and whose authority in Tartary was very extensive. Their capitals werevarious; Loyang was one of them. I do not know if this could be identifiedwith Siurhia; but it may be observed that in the Syriac of the Singanfuinscription Loyang is supposed to be meant by Saragh. The Sine wouldperhaps represent the Tçin reigning at Nanking.3 St. Martin, ii, 47.St. Martin says that Pakur is the fa*ghfur ofthe Mahomedan writers,the generic name applied to the Emperors of China. See note under § 85,infra.I notice, however, that Pakor forms a part ofthe name or title of manyof the Georgian kings in Deguignes's list .lxxxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.the first half of the third century. He relates that, in the latterdays of Ardeshir, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty (who diedin 240) , a certain Arpog was King of China, one of whose sons,Mamkon by name, fled from home on account of a charge broughtagainst him, and took refuge in Persia. The Chinese threatening war on account of the shelter afforded him, he was obligedto retire to Armenia, where he was received by the King Tiridates, who eventually bestowed the province of Daron uponhim and his Chinese followers. From this Mamkon came thefamily of the Mamigonians, whose Chinese descent is spoken ofby all the Armenian historians. 'About the same time we find it stated that the Emperor ofChina offered to mediate between Ardeshir, King of Persia, andKhosru I of Armenia; whilst Suren, a brother of St. Gregory ofArmenia, is represented as taking refuge in China. All thesecirc*mstances imply some familiarity of relation. The authorityquoted for them is Zenob, a Syrian, who wrote in Armenian in thebeginning of the fourth century. And he says that they werederived from a history of China written in Greek by one Partaor Barta of Edessa. "61. The offer at mediation between Persia and Armenia justreferred to is apparently unknown to the Chinese Annals. Theirfirst notice of Persia is the record of an embassy to the court ofthe Wei in 461; succeeded by a second in 466.3 In the year518-19 an ambassador came from Kiuhoto ( Kobád) , king of thatcountry, with presents and a letter to the emperor. The Chineseannalists profess to give the literal terms of the letter, which usesa tone of improbable humility.There appears to be some chronological hitch in this account; forTiridates, who was carried off as an infant to the Romans, was not established on the throne till the beginning of Dioclesian's reign ( 284) ,forty-four years after the death of Ardashir ( Smith's Dict. of Greek andRom. Biog.).2 St. Martin, 29. 3 Deguignes, i, 184.4 "To the Son of Heaven, the Sovereign of the Great Realm, whomHeaven hath caused to exist and hath placed at the sun-rising to reigneternally over the empire of the Han; the King of Persia, Kobád,presents his respectful homage a thousand and ten thousand timesPRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxxvIn the reign of Naoshirwan, the celebrated son of Kobád, anembassy came to the Persian court from the Emperor of China,bringing splendid presents. Among these are mentioned apanther formed of pearls with eyes of rubies; a silk robe ofultramarine blue of extraordinary splendour on which was represented in gold the Persian monarch with his courtiers round him;and a golden box to contain this robe on which was figured thehead of a woman veiled with long hair, through which herbeauty shone like a ray of light through the darkness.1In the same reign (567) is mentioned that the King of Persiasent an embassy to Wuti, Emperor ofthe Cheu dynasty, perhaps toengage his aid against the Turks who were then become formidable upon the Bactrian frontiers, as we see in the extractsfrom Menander, in note viii.²In 638 Yezdijerd III, the last of the Sassanid kings, when hardpressed in the uttermost corners of his dominions by the Saracens,sent an envoy to seek help from the Emperor of China, now thegreat and powerful Taitsung . The Persian prince, obliged toretire into Turkestan, met in Sogdiana his messenger returningwith Taitsung's refusal of assistance. This embassy is mentionedboth by Chinese and Arabian historians; by the former the unfortunate king is styled Yisséssé.3 The son of this king, calledby the Chinese Piloussé; i.e. , Perozes or Firúz, established himself in Tokharistan, apparently under some subordination to theChinese Government. In 661 he reported to China that theArabs were again pressing him hard, and some years laterand prays his Imperial Majesty to accept it " (Pauthier, de l'Auth. ,p. 60).1 Malcolm's History of Persia (Fr. Trans. ) , i, 211; Masudi, Prairiesd'Or, ii, 201. In the latter's version the long-haired beauty is not apicture, but a living damsel who carried the casket.2 Deguignes, ii, 385.3 Remusat, l'Acad. , viii, p. 103; St. Martin, ii, 19; Klap. , Tab. Hist., p.208; Pauth. , de l'Auth. , pp. 17, 61. The reply of the Chinese Emperoris thus represented by the Arab historian, Tabari: -"It is just that kingsshould help one another; but I have gathered fromyour ownambassadorswhat manner of men are these Arabs, what their habits, their religion,and the character of their leaders. People who have such a faith andsuch leaders will carry all before them. Try, then, to make the best ofthings by gaining their good graces" (Not. et Extraits, ii, 365).lxxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.(670-673) he took refuge at the Chinese court, where he receiveda high nominal command, and died soon after. ' After his death,his son, called by the Chinese Ninissé or Ninieissé ( Narses? ) , tookthe oath of allegiance to the emperor. In 679 a Chinese general,with a body of troops, was ordered to escort this prince to hispaternal dominions; but the general seems to have descriedserious obstacles to the completion of this duty; for he turnedback from the frontier near Taraz " because of the length of theway and the fatigue of the journey", as the Chinese annalistquaintly puts it. The prince betook himself to Tokharistanwhere he was hospitably received; but, whatever efforts he mayhave made to recover his throne, he found them fruitless at last;for, in 707 we find him again presenting himself at the Chinesecourt, where, like his father, he was consoled with a soundingmilitary title, and did not long survive. But here we must lookback a little .62. In the days of Yangti of the Sui dynasty ( 605-617) Chinahad begun to regain that influence over the states of CentralAsia which it had enjoyed in the great days of the Han, preceding and following the Christian era, and under Taitsung of theThang (627-650) that influence was fully re- established and thefrontiers of the empire were again carried to the Bolor and evenbeyond it to the borders of Persia. In these remoter provincesthe actual administration remained in the hands of the nativeprinces who acknowledged themselves the vassals of the emperor.But from him they accepted investiture, Chinese seals of office ,and decorations as lieges of the empire. Their states weredivided after the Chinese manner into departments, districts ,and cantons (fu, cheu, and hian) , each of which received a Chinesename by which it was entered in the imperial registers; whilstChinese camps were scattered over the whole territory. Thetributary states west of the Bolor formed sixteen fu and seventytwo cheu, over which were distributed a hundred and twenty- sixChinese military posts. The list of the sixteen districts of thefirst class has been published by Remusat, and, though doubtsFiruz, as the name of a son of Yezdejird , the last Sassanid king, ismentioned by Masudi, Prairies d'Or, ii , 241.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxxviiattach to the localities of some, enough has been made out toshow that this Chinese organisation extended, at least in theory,over Farghana and the country round Tashkand, over theeastern part at least of Mawaralnahr, the country on the Oxusfrom Balkh upwards, Bamian and other districts adjoining theHindu Kush, with perhaps Sejistan and part of Khorasan.¹The states of Turkestan and Khorasan were probably desirousto place themselves under Chinese protection in the vain hope offinding it a bulwark against the Saracen flood, and may themselves have originated this action of the Chinese Government.Besides the states which were thus organised on a Chinese model,others occupying a wider circle sent occasional embassies of compliment which the Chinese represent as bearing tribute, andamong these are found the Khans of Khwarizm and the Khazars.The kings of Samarkand for several generations are alleged tohave received investiture from China, but it does not appear thattheir territory was organised in the Chinese fashion .The orders for that organisation were issued in 661 , and itmust remain very doubtful how far they were ever carried out,considering that in that very year, as we have seen, the SassanianPrince Firuz was beginning to find Tokharestan too hot to holdhim. The highest point of this tide of the Chinese power musthave been then reached, but several of the states west of theBolor are represented as continuing to send tribute to China withRemusat, u.s. , pp. 81 seqq. This author considers Kandahar andKabul to be included in the Chinese distribution of provinces; but seeReinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde in Mem. Acad. , xvii, 167-8.One of the Chinese Fús is termed Pussé; i.e., " Persia", which shouldbe at least on the borders of that country. The chief city of this department was called Tsiling. Now, it seems not improbable that this department of Persia was really part of SEJISTAN, the chief city of which in earlyMahomedan times was called ZARANJ (compare the Drangiane and Zarangiane of the Greeks) , a name which might be well represented by theChinese Tsiling. This is the more probable, as near Zaranj stood theancient city of Fars (Farrah?), the traditional capital of Rustum, whichmight suggest the Persia or Pussé of the Chinese (see Edrisi, i, 445) .M. Pauthier suggests Shiraz as the identification of Tsiling. But itwould have been a bold step surely in 661 to name Shiraz as the seat ofa Chinese Government (see De l'Auth. , p. 61) .lxxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.wonderful persistence for years after the conquests of Kutaiba,and well into the middle of the eighth century. 'The Chinese annals represent indeed that some small districtsof Persia maintained their independence against the Arabs for aconsiderable time, and between 713 and 755 sent ten separateembassies to the court of China. A prince of Tabaristan isespecially mentioned as sending one of these missions; hiscountry is correctly described as surrounded on three sides bymountains and on the north bythe Little Sea (the Caspian) . Thecapital was called SARI. In the time of the Kings of Persia thishad been the seat of an officer called the Great General of theEast. This officer had refused to submit to the Arabs, and in746 he ( or rather a successor) sent envoys to the Emperor ofChina and received a title of honour. Eight years later he senthis son to China, and the Emperor conferred high military rankupon him. The father perished at the hands of the Arabs.One more embassy is reported from Persia in 923. The greaterpart of Persia seems at that time to have been under the Samaniddynasty at Bokhara, with whom intercourse was carried on and amarriage alliance took place some twenty years later, if we candepend on the Arabian traveller Ibn Muhalhal (see § 84) .63. In this part of our subject we may also mention as worthyof note, though without being able to throw any light upon it,the tradition of the Druzes of Syria that China is the land of theirforefathers, and the happy country to which good Druzes revertbeyond the grave.³VI . NESTORIAN CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA.64. The traditions of the eastern churches take back thepreaching of the Gospel in China to a very old date indeed. Not1 See Remusat, to p. 102. He says the Chinese power really extendedto the Caspian in the latter half of the seventh and first half of theeighth centuries. But how can this be reconciled with the Mahomedanconquests?2 An old city of Mazandaran, which is celebrated in the legends ofAfrasiab. There are, or were in the last century, still to be seen at Sarifour ancient circular temples, each thirty feet in diameter and one hundred and twenty feet high (Malcolm, u.s. , p. 42) .3 Mr. Cyril Graham in Journ. R. Geog. Soc. , vol . xxvii, pp. 262-3.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. lxxxixSt. Thomas only is asserted to have carried so far his indefatigable missionary journeys, ' for the apostle Bartholomew isrelated by a Syro- Arabian writer to have gone preaching to Indiaand further China. Apart from these legends, a Christian authorof the third century speaks of the Seres with the Persians andMedes as among the nations who had been reached by the powerof the Word.3 On this we cannot build as evidence thatChristianity had then extended to China; but that it was in thefollowing century already widely diffused over Mesopotamia andPersia is shown by the number of Bishops and Presbyters whoare named as martyrs or otherwise in connexion with the persecutions of Sapor; whilst the existence of an episcopal see at1 The Chaldæan breviary of the Malabar Church, in its office of St.Thomas contains this passage:-"By St. Thomas were the errors of idolatry banished from among theIndians;" By St. Thomas were the CHINESE and the Ethiopians converted to the truth;By St. Thomas did they receive the Sacrament of Baptism and theadoption of children;" By St. Thomas were they brought to believe in the Father, the Son,and the Holy Ghost 66"6

'By St. Thomas when they had gotten the Faith they did maintain it;By St. Thomas hath the brightness of the doctrine unto life arisenover all the Indies;"By St. Thomas hath the Kingdom of Heaven taken unto itself wingsand passed even unto CHINA."And again in an anthem:""The Hindus and the CHINESE and the Persians, and all the people ofthe Isles of the Sea, and they who dwell in Syria and Armenia, in Javanand Romania call Thomas to remembrance and adore Thy Name, O Thouour Redeemer." (Assemanni, pp . 32, 516.)2 Ditto, p. 576.3 That new power which has arisen from the works wrought by theLord and his Apostles " has subdued the flame of human passions, andbrought into the hearty acceptance of one faith a vast variety of races,and nations the most different in their manners. For we can count upin our reckoning things achieved in India, among the SERES, Persians,and Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, Asia, and Syria; among the Galatians, theParthians, and the Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, and Epirus; in allthe islands and provinces which the rising or the setting sun looks downupon." Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, in ii, 448, Max. Biblioth. Patrum, 1677.As. , p. 52-3, 415.хс PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Marw and Tús in 334, raised to metropolitan dignity in 420,shows how early the church had established itself also inKhorasan.165. After the condemnation and banishment of Nestorius, hisopinions nevertheless spread extensively in Persia and throughout the eastern churches. The separation from Byzantine orthodoxy and influence (formally accomplished about 498) ratherrecommended the Separatists to the Kings of Persia, though theirtreatment by those princes constantly fluctuated between favourand persecution. And much the same may be said of their condition under the Arabian khalifs. At first they seem to havebeen treated by the Mahomedans with some amount of good will.2They found employment with the khalifs, especially as secretariesand physicians, and in the latter capacity many of them acquireda wide eastern fame. Still they were always liable to be treatedwith capricious outbursts of severity, and too often the heavyhand of Islam was brought down upon them through their owninternal rivalries and factions.66. Whatever may have been the faults of the churches, thereseems to have been a strong missionary spirit among them in theseventh and eighth centuries, as shown both by positive historicalstatements, and by the extension eastward of the metropolitansees. Such were constituted at Herat, Samarkand, and in CHINAin the first quarter of the eighth century, and no doubt thesemust have existed as ordinary bishoprics for some time before. *1 Ditto, 477, 479.2 The Patriarch Jesujabus (650-660) in a letter given by Assemanni,deplores a falling away of thousands of Christian people in the provinceof Marw before the Mahommedan invasion, not from any reason thatthey had to fear fire or sword, but only to avoid the loss of part of theirgoods . He testifies in the same letter that the conduct of the Tayi, as hecalls the Mahomedans (whence, as M. Pauthier has somewhere pointedout, the Tashi of the Chinese, v. supra p. lx) was in general kindly towards the Christians . Assem. iii, Pt. i, pp. 130-131 .3 E.g., see in Assemanni, p. 478.4 Indeed some of the Syrian authors ascribe all three metropolitan seesto much earlier dates. A writer quoted by Assemanni says:-" Heriæ etSamarkandæ et Sina Metropolitanos creavit Salibazacha Catholicos[ 714-728 ] . Aiunt vero quidam Achæum [ 411-415 ] et Silam [ 503-520 ] illosconstituisse" (p. 522) . The fact may be that Herat was constituted aPRELIMINARY ESSAY. хсіUnder the patriarchate of Timothy again ( 778-820) we find therecord of the appointment of one David to be metropolitan ofChina. In the middle of the ninth century we find the metropolitan of China mentioned along with those of India, Persia,Marw, Syria, Arabia, Herat, and Samarkand, as excused onaccount of the remoteness of their sees from attending thequadrennial synods of the church, but enjoined to send every sixyears a report of the state of their affairs, and not to neglect thecollections for the support of the patriarchate. There is thusgood evidence from the ecclesiastical annals of Western Asia ofthe existence of the church in China during the eighth and ninthcenturies; and the narrative of the Arab Abu Said, in consistencewith this, speaks of Christians as forming one part of a very largeforeign population at Khanfu in the year 878.The institution of a metropolitan for China about the year 720involves a presumption that Christianity had penetrated to thatcountry some time before. Deguignes thought it had got thithervery much earlier, but he seems to have been misled by a theorythat some at least of the earlier notices of Buddhism in Chinaalluded to Christianity."67. For these extreme ideas there seems to be no evidence, unless we accept the loose statement of Arnobius about the Seres.Cosmas, in the sixth century, was not aware of the existence ofany Christians further east than Taprobane, nor in Inner Asiadoes he speak of any beyond the Huns and the Bactrians, on thebanks of the Indus andthe Oxus. But that christianity in Chinawas nearly a century older than the date of its first metropolitanbishop is established by more than one Chinese record.The first of these, which would be obscure without the lightreflected on it by the second and more important, is an edict issuedin 745 by the Emperor Hiwentsung of the Thang, wherein it isbishopric in 411-415, and Samarkand in 503-520. We shall see that theexistence of any bishopric in China before 635 is highly improbable.¹ Assem. , p. 439.12 He refers, without the condemnation which it may be supposed tomerit, to a medal representing the Virgin and Child united to a Chinesecopper coin of A.D. 556, of which he says a cut is given in the LettresEdifiantes, xvi. See Deguignes, i , 50.h 2xcii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.declared that the religion of the sacred books known as Persianhad originally come from Tathsin (the Roman Empire); propagated by preaching and tradition it had made its way to theMiddle Kingdom, and had been for a long time practised therein.Temples of this worship had been erected from the first, and hadgot to be known popularly as Persian temples. But as this titlewas inaccurate it was by this edict enacted that throughout theempire the name of Persian temples should be thenceforwardchanged to TATHSIN TEMPLES.¹68. The second record is that celebrated monument of Singanfuwhich has been the subject of so much discussion.This monument was dug up in the year 1625 during a chanceexcavation in a suburb of Singanfu, preserving in its name ofChanggan that of the city which was for so many ages the capitalof successive dynasties. It was a stone slab of some six feet anda quarter in height and about three feet in width, with a crosscarved at the top, and below that a continuous Chinese inscription of great length, besides lines of writing in an alphabeticcharacter, which was soon after the discovery ascertained to beSyriac.2The contents of this inscription, attesting the ancient propagation of Christianity in China, speedily became known to theJesuit missionaries; and a Chinese edition of it was published inthe country eighteen years later by two of that body. Long before the latter date, however, copies or facsimiles had been sentto Europe, and the first attempt at a translation was published byAthanasius Kircher in 1636.The inscription has since been several times translated, andhas given rise to a large amount of controversy, sometimes ofvery acrimonious character. Many scholars have entirely refusedto believe in its genuineness . Voltaire, as a matter of course,sneered at it. In our own day Renan (though apparently withsome doubts ) and Julien have denied its authenticity; so has theGerman Neumann with singular rashness, roundly accusing the1 Pauth. de l'Auth. , pp. 79-80.2 Extracts regarding the discovery of the monument will be found inSuppl. Note x.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xciiiJesuit Semedo of having forged it . On the other hand, AbelRemusat and Klaproth fully accepted and stoutly maintained itsauthenticity, which M. Pauthier seems, as far as I can judge, tohave demonstrated. It is not easy to see why a Jesuit should haveexpended enormous labour in forging a testimonial to the ancientsuccesses of a heretical sect; though perhaps one could not buildentirely on this, as the mysteries of the hoaxing propensity in thehuman mind are great. But the utter impossibility of the forgeryof such a monument at the time and place of its discovery is amore invulnerable argument, and to appreciate this the remarksof Remusat and Pauthier must be read.69. The monument exhibits, in addition to the Chinese textwhich forms its substance, a series of short inscriptions in Syriac,containing the date of erection, the names of the reigningpatriarch of the Nestorian Church, of the Bishop of China(Tzinisthún, the form used by Cosmas) and of the chief clericalstaff of the capital, which is here styled, as in the early Greek andArabic sources already quoted, Kúmdán. To this are added inSyriac characters the names of sixty- seven persons, apparentlyWestern Asiatics, the great majority of whom are characterisedas priests (Kashishá) , with those of sixty-one persons of thecountry in Chinese, all of whom are styled priests except two.21 See Pauthier de l'Auth . , pp. 6 seqq.; 14 seqq.; 83 seqq.; and especially 91 .2 The essential parts of the Syriac matter on the monument run asfollows:"6 In the days of the Father of Fathers MAR HANAN ISHU'A the CatholicPatriarch:[And] " ADAM Priest and Bishop and Pope of TzINISTHAN:"In the year one thousand and ninety-two of the Greeks [A.D. 781] MARIDBUZID, Priest and Chorepiscopus of KUMDAN, the royal city, son of Milisofblessed memory, Priest of BALKH, a city of THOKARESTHAN, has erectedthis table ofstone, on whichare inscribed the Redemption by our Saviour, andthe preachings of our Fathers to the King of TZINIA:"ADAM the Deacon, son ofIdbuzid, Chorepiscopus:"MAR SARGIS [ Sergius], Priest and Chorepiscopus:66 SABAR ISHU'A, Priest:"GABRIEL, Priest, and Archdeacon and Church Ruler of the cities ofKUMDAN and SARAGH."Anan Jesus II, according to Assemanni ( 111 , i, 155-7) was patriarch ofthe Nestorian Church from 774 to 778. It is justly pointed out by thesame author that the fact of this patriarch's being represented as stillxciv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.The chief contents of the long inscription in Chinese, whichcontains 1789 characters, may be thus summarised: -1st. Anabstract of Christian doctrine, of a very vague and figurativekind. This vagueness is perhaps partly due to the character ofthe Chinese language, but that will scarcely account for theabsence of all intelligible enunciation of the Crucifixion , or evenof the death, of our Lord Jesus Christ, though his Ascension isdeclared. 2nd. An account of the arrival of the missionary,OLOPAN,' from the empire of Tathsin in the year 635, bringingsacred books and images; of the translation of the said books (anotable circ*mstance); of the approval of his doctrine by theimperial authority, and the permission given to teach it publicly.There follows a decree of the emperor (Taitsung) issued in 638 infavour of the new doctrine, and commanding the construction ofa church in one of the public places of the capital. The emperor'sportrait was to be placed in the church. After this comes a shortdescription of Tathsin (here, says Pauthier, specially meaningSyria) from Chinese geographical works; and then there arereigning in 781 is a perfectly natural result of the long distance from the Patriarchal see. The anachronism is in fact, quantum valeat, evidenceof the genuineness of the monument. Saragh, according to Pauthier, isLoyang in Honan, one of the capitals of the Thang, and occupied as suchby the Imperial Government for a time, between the introduction ofChristianity and the date of the monument.This name according to Pauthier is Syriac; Alo-pano signifying theReturn of God. If this, however, be an admissible Syriac name, it issingular that the original should have been missed by one so competentas Assemanni, who can only suggest that the name was the commonSyriac name Jaballaha, from which the Chinese had dropt the first syllable, adding a Chinese termination.Might not Olopan be merely a Chinese form of the Syriac Rabban, bywhich the Apostle had come to be generally known?It is fair, however, to observe that the name in the older versions usedby Assemanni is written Olopuen, which might have disguised from himthe etymology proposed by Pauthier. The name of this personage doesnot appear in the Syriac part of the inscription .Saragh, it may be added, is referred by Pauthier to the Saraga ofPtolemy, a city placed by the geographer among the Sina, and accordingto his theory of course far to the south of the real position of Loyang.But we have seen reason to believe that Ptolemy's view of the Sinæand Seres is that of a person using his right and left eye separately.Binocular vision reduces the two objects to one, and corrects their displacement.PRELIMINARY ESSAY . XCVparticulars given of the continued patronage of Olopan and hisdoctrine under the Emperor Kaotsung (650-683) , ' and of thespread of Christianity in the empire. In the end of the centuryBuddhism establishes a preponderance, and succeeds for a time indepressing the new doctrines. Under Hiwan-tsung ( 713-755) thechurch recovers its prestige, and a new missionary called Kihoappears. Sutsung ( 756-762) , Taitsung ( 763-777) , and Tetsung(780-783) , continue to favour the Christians. Under this lastreign the monument was erected, and this part of the inscriptionterminates with an elaborate eulogy of Issé, a sage and statesman,who, though apparently by profession a Buddhist, conferred manybenefits upon the churches. 3rd. A recapitulation in octosyllabicstanzas of the purport of the inscription , but chiefly as regardsthe praises of the emperors who had favoured the progress of thechurch.The record concludes with the date of erection (the secondyear Kienchung of the Great Thang, which Pauthier has shownperfectly to synchronise with the Greek date of the Syriac partof the inscriptiou, A.D. 781 ); the name of the chief of the law,the Priest NINGCHU, charged with the instruction of the Christianpopulation of the eastern countries (and, I presume, the samewith the Adam, who appears as Metropolitan in the Syriac sentences); the name of a civil officer who wrote and engraved theChinese inscription; and the official approval of the whole.70. It is reasonably supposed that this remarkable monument,the idea of which was probably taken from a Buddhist custom,²may have been buried about the year 845, when the Emperor1 Kaotsung was also the devout patron of the Buddhist traveller HiwenThsang. Kublai and Akbar are examples of like wavering among great kings.2 Stone monuments and inscriptions highly analogous in character arevery common in the precincts of pagodas and monasteries in Burma.Some account of a remarkable one on a marble slab, standing eight and ahalf feet high by six feet wide and eleven inches in thickness, is given at pp. 66, 351 of the Mission to Ava in 1855. This contains on each sideeighty-six lines of inscription beautifully executed. It is not older thanthe seventeenth century, but imitates others of far greater antiquity. Seethe like in the old Cambodian temples described by Bastian (J. R. G. S.XXXV, p. 85).xcvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Wutsung published an edict, still extant, denouncing the increase of Buddhist monks, nuns, and convents, and ordering thedestruction of 4600 great monasteries, the 260,000 inmates ofwhich were to return to civil life . 40,000 minor monasteriesscattered about the country were also to be demolished, thelands attaching to them to be resumed by the state, and 150,000slaves belonging to the bonzes to be admitted to civil privilegeand duties. The edict also directs that foreign bonzes who hadcome to China to make known the law prevailing in their countries,whether that of TATHSIN or of MUHUPA, amounting to some 3000,should also return to secular life, and cease to corrupt the institutions of the Central Flowery Kingdom.¹71. A century later, Christianity in China seems to have fallento a very low ebb, though probably not quite to zero as the nextinformation on the subject would imply. This is derived from acirc*mstance noted by an Arabian author, Mahomed, the son ofIsaac, surnamed Abulfaraj , who says:-" In the year 377 (A.D.987) , behind the church in the Christian quarter ( of Baghdad) ,I fell in with a certain monk of Najran, who seven years beforehad been sent to China by the Catholicos, with five other ecclesiastics, to bring the affairs of Christianity in that country intoorder. He was a man still young, and of a pleasant countenance,but of few words, opening his mouth only to answer questions.I asked him about his travels, and he told me that Christianityhad become quite extinct in China. The Christians had perishedin various ways; their Church had been destroyed; and but oneChristian remained in the land. The monk, finding nobodywhom he could aid with his ministry, had come back faster thanhe went. "2¹ Pauthier (de l'Auth . , pp. 69-71 ) takes Muhupa for the Ma'bar ofSouthern India, and thinks that offshoots of the St. Thomas Christiansare meant. But it may be questioned whether the name Ma'bar asapplied to a country of Southern India occurs so early by some centuries.The opinion of Gaubil, quoted by Pauthier, that the Mubids or Guebersof Persia were meant, seems more probable. It will be recollected thatAbu Zaid mentions among the foreigners slaughtered at Khanfu in 878Magians as well as Mahomedans, Christians, and Jews (supra, p. lxxx).2 Reinaud's Abulfeda, i, ccccii; also N. Annales des Voyages for 1846, iv,90; and Pauth. Auth. , p. 95; also Mosheim, p. 13. The passage had pre-PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xcviiThe capital of China at this time, according to the monk, wasa city called Taiúna or Thajúye, in which Pauthier discovers acorruption of the name Cháo or Chiao -fu, by which Singanfu wascalled under the Sung dynasty. In any case it was probably thesame as that intended by the Tájah which Edrisi and Abulfedaspeak of as the capital of China. The form is more suggestiveof Thaiyuan-fu in the province of Shensi, the Taianfu of M. Polo,which had been for a time the capital of the Thang in the eighthcentury.¹72. To the early tide of Christianity in China which herereached its ebb, probably belong those curious relics of the ancient ecclesiastical connexion which Layard found in the valleyof Jelu in the mountains of Kurdistan. Here, in visiting a veryold Nestorian church, he saw among many other motley curiosities ,a number of China bowls, black with the dust of ages, suspendedfrom the roof. These, he was assured, had been brought fromthe distant empire of Cathay by those early missionaries of theChaldean church, who bore the tidings of the Gospel to theshores ofthe Yellow Sea.273. No more is known, so far as I am aware, of christianity inChina till the influx of European travellers in the days of Mongolsupremacy. We then again find a considerable number ofNestorian Christians in the country. It is probable that a newwave of conversion had entered during the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies, consequent on the christianisation of large numbersamong the Turkish and Mongolian tribes, of which we have manyindications, and on the influence exercised by those tribes uponNorthern China, both in the time of Chinghiz and his successors,and in the revolutions which preceded the rise of that dynasty.Already in the time of the patriarch Timothy ( 778-820) we hearof active and successful missions in the countries adjoining theviously been referred to by Golius, but it was not known whence he hadderived it, till it was rediscovered by M. Reinaud in a work in the Bibl.Impériale.1 See Pauthier's Polo, p. 353. It must have been difficult to say whatwas the capital of China in the tenth century, when it was divided intofive monarchies. That of the Sung, who acquired a predominance in 960,was first at Changgan or Singanfu, and afterwards at Kaifongfu.Nineveh and Babylon, p. 433 .xcviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Caspian, and of the consequent conversion of a Khakan of theTurks and ofseveral minor princes. The progress of Christianityamong those nations then remains obscure till the conversion ofthe Kerait Tartars at the beginning of the eleventh century,"followed by those rumours of Christian potentates under the nameof Prester John which continued to reach Europe during the following age. Rubruquis, in the narrative of his journey to thecourt of Karakorum ( 1253-54) makes frequent mention of theNestorians and their ecclesiastics, and speaks specifically of theNestorians of Cathay as having a bishop in SEGIN or Singanfu(p. 292) . He gives an unfavourable account of the literatureand morals of their clergy, which deserves more weight than suchstatements regarding those looked on as schismatics generally do;for the narrative of Rubruquis gives one the impression of beingwritten by a thoroughly honest and intelligent person. In thetime of Marco Polo we find Nestorian Christians numerous notonly at Samarkand but at Yarkand, whilst there are such also inChichintalas (identified by Pauthier with the modern Urumtsi,north of the Thian Shan) , 3 in Sucheu and Kancheu, and over allthe kingdom of Tangut in Tenduc' and the cities east of it, as1 There is a still older indication of the existence of Christians, however ignorant, among the Turks, in a curious story related by Theophylactus Simocatta and Theophanes. In the expedition sent by the Emperor Maurice to assist Chosroes II against Bahram near the end of thesixth century, the General Narses sent to Constantinople some Turkswho had been taken prisoners. "And these bore marked on their foreheads the sign of the Lord (that which is called the cross by the followers of the Christian religion). The emperor therefore inquired whatthe meaning might be of this token being borne by the Barbarians.And they said their mothers had put it on them. For, once when a virulent pestilence prevailed among the Scythians in the east, certain of theChristians persuaded them to prick the foreheads of their children withthis symbol. The Barbarians by no means despised this counsel, and theresult was their preservation" (Theophyl. , bk. v, ch. 10; see also Theophanis Chronog. , A.M. 6081. The latter says, " Some among them whowere Christians.") 2 See infra, p. 179.3 It occurs to me as possible that the Cyollos Kagan (Kagan cyollos) ofMarignolli (infra, p. 339) may be the same name as the Chichintalas ofPolo. The position of the two corresponds in a general way, and bothmay be represented by the Chagan Talas (" White Plains" ) of somemodern maps (see K. Johnstone's Royal Atlas, Asia) .4 See p. 146 infra.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xcixwell as in Manchuria and the countries bordering on Corea.Polo's contemporary Hayton also testifies to the number of greatand noble Tartars in the Uigur country who held firm to the faithof Christ. As regards the spread of Nestorian Christianity inChina Proper at this period we do not find in Polo so manydefinite statements, though various general allusions which hemakes to Christians in the country testify to their existence. Healso speaks of them specifically in the remote province of Yunan,and at Chinkiangfu, where they had two churches, built in thetraveller's own day by Mar Sergius, a Christian officer who wasgovernor there. Their number and influence in China at theend of the thirteenth century may also be gathered from theletter of John of Monte Corvino ( p . 198 seqq. ) in this volume;and in the first part of the following century from the report ofthe Archbishop of Soltania, who describes them as more thanthirty thousand in number, and passing rich people. Probablythere was a considerable increase in their numbers about thistime, for Odoric, about 1324, found three Nestorian churches inthe city of Yangcheu, where Marco would probably have mentioned them had they existed in his time. That Christians continued to rise in influence during the short remainder of theMongol reign appears probable from the position which we findthe Christian Alans to occupy in the empire at the time of thevisit of John Marignolli.74. That the Nestorians continued to exist in China or on itsfrontiers during the fifteenth century we shall see hereafter fromthe brief records of a mission which they appear to have sent toRome in the time of Pope Eugenius IV. Even till near theend of that century a metropolitan of China continued to be constituted, though we know not if he resided in the country. Inthe case of John, who was nominated Metropolitan of Masin(Mahachin) in 1490, the charge seems to have been united withthat of India, and therefore as regards China we may conjecturethat the title had ceased to have more of practical meaningthan the Sodor of the English bishop of Sodor and Man.²1 V. 2nd chapter of Hayton's Hist. " De Regno Tarsiæ."See Assem. , pp. 439, 523 .сPRELIMINARY ESSAY.75. When China was re-occupied by the Jesuit Missions inthe end of the sixteenth century the impression of the missionaries at first was that no Christianity had ever existed inChina before their own day. Ricci must in any case have modified that opinion when he arrived at the conclusion that Chinawas the Cathay of Marco Polo; but he also met before his deathwith unexpected evidence of its having survived, in however degenerate a form, almost to his own time. Its professors he wasinformed had been numerous in the northern provinces, and hadgained distinction both in arms and literature. But some sixtyyears before (i.e. about 1540) a persecution against them hadarisen which had driven all, or nearly all, to abandon or concealtheir profession. At a later date a member of the Jesuit company visited the cities in which the descendants of these peoplewere said to exist, furnished with the names of the families. Butnone of them would admit any knowledge of the subject on whichhe spoke. 'Some years afterwards also the Jesuit Semedo chanced on fainttraces of former Christianity in the neighbourhood of the chiefcity of Kiangsi. 'Some material relics also bearing like evidence came in thecourse of the seventeenth century into the hands of the Jesuitmissionaries, such as a bell with a cross and Greek inscription, andat Changcheu in Fokien sculptures of the Virgin, marble crosses,and the like. More than one medieval MS. of the Scriptures wasalso met with, but as these were Latin they must have been relicsof the Franciscan missions of John Montecorvino and his brethrenrather than of the Nestorians.31 Trigautius, De Exped. Christianâ apud Sinas, bk. i , ch. 11 .2 Semedo, Rel. della Cinu 1643, p. 195. It does not seem necessary todo more than allude to the story told by Ferdinand Mendez Pinto of hiscoming on a Christian village on the canal between Nanking and Peking;the inhabitants of which were descended from converts made one hundred and forty-two years before ( i.e. , about 1400) by one Matthew Escan- del of Buda in Hungary, a hermit of Mount Sinai; all the history ofwhich was shown to Ferdinand in a printed book (language not specified)by the people of the village! ( ch . xcvi) .3 Trigautius, u.s.; Martini's Atlas Sinensis; Baldello Boni, Introd. to Il Milione. One of these relics, a Latin Bible of the eleventh century,PRELIMINARY ESSAY. ci76. It is a melancholy history. For ages after the rise ofMahomedanism, Christianity, in however defective a form, had awide and even growing influence over extensive regions of theearth, across which now for centuries past a Christian hasscarcely dared to steal. Leaving out China, where possibly theChurch of Rome may number as many disciples nowas the SyrianChurch did in its most prosperous days, how many Christians arethere in what were up to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuriesthe metropolitan sees of Tangut, Kashgar, Samarkand, Balkh,Herat, Sejistan, and Marw? Whilst at the other end of Asia,Socotra, once also the seat of a Christian Archbishop, aud wemay hope of some Christian culture, is sunk into the very depthsof savagery. 'VII. LITERARY INFORMATION REGARDING CHINA PREVIOUS TO THEMONGOL ERA.77. Before speaking of that great opening of the Farther Eastto European travel, which took place under the reign of theMongol dynasty in Asia, it will be well to take such a view as ispracticable to me of the information regarding China which is tobe found in literary works of the middle ages antecedent to thatera. These are all, with one slight exception, Arabic.The earliest of them (at least as regards one half of it ) is anArab compilation of the middle of the ninth century and bewhich was obtained by the Jesuit Philip Couplet from a Chinese in theprovince of Nanking, is now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. Itried to see it but could not. " How not to do it" is, or was till lately,the principle of administration in that institution, if I may judge frommy own experience on two occasions, on the second with an introduction; in this a singular contrast to those other public libraries of Florence which are not under clerical management.1 There are one or two indications of the existence of Christians in theIndo-Chinese countries and islands which have perhaps been hithertooverlooked. One is found in Marignolli who speaks of there being a fewChristians in Saba, which we shall see reason to believe to be Java (infr. ,p. 346), and another in the Travels of Hier. Santo Stephano, who, when hiscomrade Hieronimo Adorno died in the city of Pegu in 1496, buried him"in a certain ruined church, frequented by none" (India in the FifteenthCentury, p. 6) . If the Sornau of Varthema's Christian fellow-travellersbe Siam, this affords a third indication of the same kind.cii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.ginning of the tenth, which was first made known to Europe bythe Abbé Eusebius Renaudot in 1718 under the title of AnciennesRelations de l'Inde et de la Chine de deux Voyageurs Mahometansqui y allèrent dans le IXieme siecle de notre ère.' The original fromwhich Renaudot had translated was lost sight of, and some of hiscritics both in France and England went so far as to set his workdown as a forgery. But the MS. was discovered some fifty yearslater by Deguignes in the Bibliothèque Royale; and in 1845 a newtranslation and commentary by M. Reinaud appeared, in companywith an impression of the Arabic text which had been lying formore than thirty years in the stores of the Government printingoffice at Paris.78. The title given by Renaudot is acknowledged to be an incorrect description of the work. It is in two parts indeed, writtenat different times, and by different authors, but the author of thesecond part, Abu Zaid Hassan of Siraf on the Persian Gulf, certainly does not profess to have himself travelled in the east. Heaffords us the date of his predecessor's work as A.H. 237 (A.D.851 ) , and his own is fixed by M. Reinaud from an apparent mention of him by Masudi³ to about 916. M. Reinaud says that thenarrative whlch forms the basis of the first part of the work isderived from Suleiman a merchant, who had made voyagesto India and China, but I have not been able to discover onwhat grounds this opinion is founded. The introductory passages of the work are missing, so that we are without explanationby the author as to his own identity or the sources of his information. The name of Suleiman is only once mentioned; nor isthere any narrative, properly speaking, to be traced throughoutthe composition, though the first pages, amounting to about onethird of the whole, contain a tolerably coherent account of theseas and islands between Oman and China, in the course of whichAn English version of Renaudot's translation appeared in 1733 (seeMajor's Introd. to India in the Fifteenth Century, p. xxiii) , and has beenreprinted or abstracted in Pinkerton and other Collections since.2 Mem. de l'Acad. des Insc. , xxxii, 366; Not. et Extraits, i, 136 seqq.Deguignes himself had fancied the work to be a compilation of Renau- dot's own.3 See Prairies d'Or, i , 322.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. ciiitwice, as well as once or twice again in subsequent pages of thebook, passages occur in the first person. It may be observed,however, that none of these passages, if my examination may betrusted, refer to China. They relate to India, Ceylon, and theseas between those countries and Arabia. My conclusion wouldrather be that the book is a compilation of notes made by theauthor from his own experiences in a voyage to India, and fromwhat he had collected from others who had visited China,Suleiman among them. The remainder of this first part of thebook is in fact a medley of notes about India and China, includinga detail of some of the chief kingdoms of the Indies of which theauthor had heard. It is clear from the vagueness of these accounts that the author's knowledge of India was slight and inaccurate, and that he had no distinct conception of its magnitude. An abstract of them will be found in the notes to thisessay, with some remarks that it seems desirable to offer regarding this part of the subject, over which I venture to think thatM. Reinaud with all his great learning has spread confusionrather than shed light.¹79. The names of seas and places described by this writer asencountered on the voyage to China have given rise to curiouscontroversy. The views taken by M. Reinaud about many ofthem are very untenable, and the most consistent and probableinterpretatien yet published appears to be that of M. AlfredMaury.2According to this view, with trifling modifications, the seasand places passed are as follows: -The SEA OF PERSIA; the SEA OFLAR (that which washes Gujarat and Malabar); the SEA OF HARKAND (the Indian Ocean from the DíBAJAT or Maldives, and SERENDIB or Ceylon to AL RAMNI or Sumatra); the LANJABALUS orI See Note XI.2 Des Anciens Rapports de l'Asie Occidentale, etc., published in theBulletin de la Société de Géographie 1846, and republished some three yearsago in a collection of essays by M. Maury.3 These first two are missing with the opening pages of the work, andare derived by Reinaud from a parallel passage in Masudi.+ Compare the ab usque Divis et Serendivis of Ammianus Marcellinus.5 See Odoric infra p. 84, note 2.civ PRELIMINARY ESSAY.LANKHABALUS (the Nicobar Islands); and the two ( Andaman)Islands in the SEA OF ANDAMAN; KALAH- BAR, a dependence ofZábaj (some port on the Malacca coast, perhaps Kadáh, commonly spelt Quedda; Zábaj² representing some great monarchythen existing on the Malay Islands, probably in Java, the kingofwhich was known to the Arabs by the Hindu title of Maharaj );BATÚMA or TANÚMAH (perhaps errors for Natúma, the NatunaIslands); KADRANJ, ( Siam or some other region on the Gulf ofSiam); SANF ( Champa, but here used in a sense much moreextensive than the modern Champa, and including Cambodia);SANDAR FULAT (the Sondur and Condur group of Marco Polo, thechief island of which is now called Pulo Condore) .31 Probably we have in the second part of this name the Malay Pulomeaning island. I may observe that there is a considerable island belonging to Queddah, and surrounded by many smaller ones, at thenorthern entrance of the Straits of Malacca, which is called PuloLangkawi.2 The Syrian bishops Thomas, Jaballaha, Jacob, and Denha, sent on amission to India in 1503 by the Patriarch Elias, were ordained to go "tothe land of the Indians and the islands of the Seas which are betweenDabag and Sin and Masin." (Assemanni iii, Pt. i, 592. ) This Dabag isprobably a relic of the form Zábaj of the early narratives, used also by AlBiruni. Ibn Khurdadbah and Edrisi use Jaba for Zábaj. Walckenærquoted by Mr. Major (op. cit. p. xxvii) says, “ The puranas and Hindubooks show that the title of Maharaja or Great King was originally applied to the sovereign of a vast monarchy which in the second centurycomprised a great part of India, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and theneighbouring islands . This dynasty continued till 628, " etc. It is a pitythat Baron Walckenær did not quote more definitely "the Puranas andHindu books " which give this precise and interesting information, and inthe absence of such quotation there must be some hesitation in acceptingit. The truth appears to be that whilst the antiquities, literature, andtraditions of Java and other islands show that communication with continental India in remote times must have been large and intimate,nothing distinct has yet been produced to show that any record of suchcommunication or knowledge of those islands has been preserved on theContinent. Friedrich and Lassen certainly seem to have no knowledge ofsuch records as Walckenær alludes to.3 This is not in accordance with Maury, who places Sander Fulat arbitrarily on the coast of Cochin China, perhaps from confining Sanf orChampa to the tract now retaining that name (for the names are identical,the Arabs, having no ch and no p, necessarily writing Champa as Sanfa).But Crawfurd states that the name Champa with the Malays really ap-PRELIMINARY ESSAY. CV80. The port of China frequented by the Arab merchants wasKhanfu, of which we have already spoken. Here there was aMusulman Kazi and public worship. The houses were for themost part built of wood and bamboo matting, which led to frequent fires. When a foreign ship arrived, the officials tookcharge of the cargo and locked it up. When all the ships of theseason had entered, a duty of 30 per cent. was exacted beforeplacing the goods at the disposal of the owners. If the kingwanted anything for himself, the highest price was paid for it inready money.Many particulars mentioned by this author regarding Chinaare silly enough, but much also that is stated is perfectly correct.He notices the ancient Chinese customs of issuing food frompublic granaries in times of dearth, as well as of dispensingmedicines to the poor; the support of schools by the government;the generally methodical and just character of the administration;the elaborate classification of official titles; the custom of doingall business by written documents, and the strict censure exercised on the style and tone of papers submitted to public departments; the use of a copper currency instead of gold and silver;the custom of delaying the burial of the dead for years sometimes; the systematic protection afforded to travellers; theplies to the whole of Cambodia embracing the eastern coast of the Gulfof Siam (Dict. Ind. Islands, p. 80) , whilst actual tradition in those regionsascribes to ancient Champa sovereignty over all the neighbouring kingdoms to the frontiers of Pegu and China (Mouhot's Travels, i, 223) .Hence Pulo Condore would properly come between a port on this coastand China, as Sandar Fúlát does in the Arab narrative. I do not knowwhat is the proper Malay name of Pulo Condore, but it is probably con- nected with the Sanskrit Sundara beautiful. And the Fulát is probablyonly an Arabic plural from the Malay Pulo or Pulau an island . All thatis said of the place in the Relations is that Sandarfulat is an island, tendays from Sanf and a month's voyage from China, where the ships findfresh water. According to Alex. Hamilton the Pulo Condore group consists of four or five islands; " producing nothing but wood, water, andfish for catching." There are two harbours or anchorages, but neither ofthem good. Mr. Allan Ketchpole established a factory for the East IndiaCompany on Pulo Condore in 1702, which speedily came to a disastrous end ( N. Acc. of the East Indies, ed. 1744, ii , 205) .See p. 265 infra and note.cvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.manufacture of porcelain; the use of rice- wine and of tea (sákhor sáhh for chá) .¹ There is scarcely anything of Chinese Geography in this first part beyond the mention of Tibet and theTaghazghaz as the western neighbours of China, and of the Islesof SILA in the east, which appear to be Japan."One custom he mentions with great apparent admiration. Itis, that the governor of every city slept with a bell at his headcommunicating with a handle at the gate, which anyone claimingjustice was at liberty to ring. And we learn from Abu Zaidthat even the king had such a bell; only he who dared to use itmust have a case justifying so strong an appeal from the ordinarycourse ofjustice, or he suffered for it.³The anonymous author was aware that the principles of theChinese religion (here meaning Buddhism) came from India.Both countries, he says, accept the doctrine of metempsychosis,but with certain differences.81. ABU ZAID, the author of the second part of the Relations,begins by remarking the great change that had taken place in1 See Reinaud, Relations, i , pp. 39, 46, 47, 43-44, 37, 33, 36, 42, 34, 40.None of the medieval European travellers in China mention tea. Thefirst notice of it so far as I know is in Ramusio's notes of Hajji Mahomed'sinformation (see Note XVIII at the end of the essay).2 Edrisi also speaks of the Isles of Silah, of which the chief city wasANKUAH, and where gold was so abundant that the people made dogchains of it. The low value of gold in Japan up to the opening of thetrade the other day is a familiar fact. M. Polo says of it: " et je vous dyqu'il ont tant d'or que c'est sans fin; car ils le treuvent en leurs isles (Pauth.Polo, 538) . Possibly Ankúah may really represent Miyako.663 Edrisi also speaks of this. It is a kind of story having a strong attraction for eastern people . Ibn Batuta heard that the same custom wasadopted by Shamsuddin Altamsh Sultan of Dehli ( 1211-1236) . See IbnBat. , iii, 158, The custom was a genuine Chinese one, but the summonsseems to have been by a drum rather than by a bell. Thus in theRomance of 66 The Fortunate Union," the hero Teichungyu exclaims,My lord, you are mistaken! The emperor himself suspends the drumat his palace gate, and admits all to state their hardships without reserve"(Davis's Chinese Miscellanies, p. 109). This institution of the drum wasadopted by a late king of Siam, according to Pallegoix, but the pageswho had to answer it succeeded in extinguishing the practice. A curious Chinese drawing engraved in Chine Ancienne (L'Univers Pittoresque),pl. 3, represents this institution of the drum.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cviithe interval (some sixty years ) since the first part of the bookwas composed. Events had happened which had entirely stoptthe Arab trade with China, had thrown that country into anarchy,and had destroyed its power. He then proceeds to relate thisrevolution, which was due to a rebel whom he calls Banshoa,who, after sacking many cities of the empire, including Khanfu,which he took in A.H. 264 (A.D. 878) , at length marched againstthe capital. The emperor fled to the frontiers of Tibet; but,after obtaining the aid of the King of the Taghazghaz (a greatTurkish tribe) , was enabled to renew the struggle and to regainhis throne. His capital, however, was in ruins; his power andtreasure had vanished; his generals had perished, and the bestof his soldiers . The provinces had been seized by rapacious adventurers who scarcely made a pretence of allegiance. Foreignmerchants and shipmasters were bullied, insulted, and plundered;the staple industries of the country were destroyed; trade couldnot go on; and thus the misfortunes and anarchy of Chinacarried ruin to many families in distant Siraf and Oman.Klaproth¹ has pointed out the correspondence of this statementwith the account in the Chinese Annals of the rebellion ofHwangchao, here called Banshoa, at the time mentioned by Abu Zaid;one of those tremendous insurrections which seem to recur inChina almost periodically. The chief cities of the empire, including (880) Loyang and Changgan, the two imperial capitals ,really fell into the hands of this chief, who declared himselfemperor, but was eventually beaten from them by the aid ofTurki auxiliaries. The Chinese account of the insubordinationcontinuing to prevail in the provinces after the emperor's restoration, also corresponds almost in so many words with that of theArab writer.282. Abu Zaid adds to the notes of his predecessor many interesting particulars regarding India and the Islands, as well asregarding China. In reference to the latter country he gives acurious account of a visit which an acquaintance of his own, IbnWahab of Basra, paid to KHUMDAN, the capital of China ( see1 Tab. Historiques, p. 223-230.2 Reinaud, i, p. 66-67; Chine Ancienne, p. 330.i 2eviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.1ante, pp. li, xciii) , and of the interview which he had there with theemperor, who must have been Hitsung of the Thang, very shortlybefore the great rebellion broke out. The story of the interviewis too long to extract; but there does not seem to be any sufficient reason to doubt its correctness, and we may gather from itfurther proof that the knowledge of the Chinese in the days ofthe Thang was by no means confined to that circle of obliqueeyed humanity which we are accustomed to regard as the limitof Chinese ideas. Ibn Wahab describes Khumdan or Changgan,which was two months' journey from Khanfu, as divided in twoby a long and wide street. The city eastward of this was entirely devoted to the residences of the emperor and officers ofGovernment. On the west side were the shops , places of business, and the miscellaneous population. The streets were traversedwith channels of running water and bordered with trees.Abu Zaid, like his predecessor, dwells upon the orderly andupright administration of China whilst in its normal state. Thisindeed seems to have made a strong impression at all times onthe other nations of Asia, and we trace this impression in almostevery account that has reached us from Theophylactus downwards, whilst it is also probably the kernel of those praises ofthe justice of the Seres which extend back some centuries furtherinto antiquity.He is acquainted with the general character of the overlandcommunication between Sogdiana and China Proper. The frontier of the latter was a two months' journey distant, over acountry which was almost a waterless desert, though the frontierof the empire was not far from Khorasan. The difficulty ofpassing this desert had alone prevented the Musulman warriorsof Khorasan from attempting the invasion of China. A friend ofthe author told him, however, that he had seen at Khanfu a manwith a bagful of musk on his back whom he found to have comeon foot all the way from Samarkand.21 The Jesuit historian Jarric thinks that " if Plato were to rise fromHades he would declare that his imagined Republic was realised inChina" (ii , 676) .2 i, p. 114.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cixHe mentions that three of the chief officers of state were calledthe Master of the Right, the Master of the Left, and the Masterof the Centre. I do not know if traces of these appellations stillexist in the Chinese administration; but we find that underKublai Khan the two chief ministers of state bore the titles of"Minister of the Right, and Minister of the Left".'83. We have some account of China from an Arab geographerwho was contemporary with the earlier of the two compilers ofthe Relations, and wrote perhaps a few years later than the dateassigned by Abu Zaid to the work of his predecessor. This wasAbul Kasim ' Ubaid Allah called Ibn Khurdádbah, born about820-830, and who served under the Khalif Mutammid (869-885)as director of the posts in Jibal or the ancient Media. Thiswork, " The Book of Routes and Provinces, " in great part consists only of lists of stages and distances, but there are occasionally some descriptive details introduced. The following lines.contain nearly all that he says of China: ²"From SANF ( Champa) to AL- WAKIN, 3 which is the first port ofChina, is one hundred farsangs either by sea or by land. Hereyou find excellent Chinese iron, porcelain, and rice. You can gofrom Al Wakin, which is a great port, to KHANFU in four days bysea, or in twenty days by land. Khanfu produces all sorts offruits and vegetables, wheat, barley, rice, and sugar- cane. FromKhanfu you arrive in eight days at JANFU, which has the same¹ See Pauthier's Polo, p. 329. In the case of Lord Amherst's Embassythe three members of the Legation were distinguished by the Chinese asthe Middle or Principal, the Left Hand (which is the more honourableside), and the Right Hand Envoys (Davis's Chinese, Supp. vol. , p. 40).In our Mission to Ava in 1855 the Envoy's secretary was termed by theBurmese " the Right Hand Officer. "2 From a translation by M. Barbier de Meynard in the Journal Asiatique, ser. vi, tom. v (see pp. 292-294) .8 The Lúkin of Edrisi (v. §85) who has derived several passages fromIbn Khurdadbah. One would suppose it to be Canton, had not IbnBatuta identified Canton with Sin-ul- Sin, which Edrisi describes quite distinctly from Lukin. Edrisi, however, had no distinct ideas aboutEastern Asia, and this is not conclusive. This Lukin cannot of coursebe the Lukinju of Rashid ( p . 268 infra), but it may have something to do with the alternative name (apparently corrupt) of Lumkali applied inthe same page to Canton.CX PRELIMINARY ESSAY.productions. Thence to KANTU, six days, also having the sameproductions. In all the ports of China you find a great navigableriver affected by the tide. In that of Kantu there are geese,ducks, and other wild fowl. The greatest length of coast fromAL MAÏD to the other extremity of China is two months' voyage.China includes three hundred prosperous aud famous cities. Itis bounded by the sea, by Tibet, and by the country of theTurk. Strangers from India are established in the easternprovinces."What is beyond China is unknown. But in front of Kanturise high mountains. These are in the country of SILA, whichabounds in gold. Musulmans who visit this country are ofteninduced to settle for good because of the advantages of the place.The products exported are ghorraib (a kind of plant) , gum kino,aloes, camphor, sails, saddles, porcelain, satin, cinnamon, andgalanga. "83* . Masudi is our next writer; who in the Meadows of Gold²treats ofall things in Nature and History, and of all at once ratherthan all in succession; of China among the rest. He travelledfar and wide, and from a very early age, visiting Sind in 912when quite a youth, and afterwards, according to his own account,Zanzibar and the Island of Kanbalu, Champa, China, and thecountry of Zabaj (supra, p. civ) , besides travelling a long wayinto Turkestan. If he really visited China it must have been ina very cursory manner. I can find nothing of any interest1 Janfu is probably the Janku of others, and to be identified withYangcheu (infra, p. 123) . Kantu, from the mountains of Sila or Japanopposite to it, as mentioned below, should be either Shanghai or aboutthe mouth of the Yellow River, if there was ever a port there.2 Les Prairies d'Or-translated by MM. Barbier de Meynard and Pavetde Courteille, Paris, 1861-66 . Four volumes are published and more to follow.3 The French translators take this for Madagascar. Masudi describesit as an island in the sea of Zanj, well cultivated and inhabited byMusulmans speaking the Zanj language. The Mahomedans got possession of it about the beginning of the Abasside dynasty, capturing thewhole Zanj population (this never could be true of Madagascar) . Sailorsreckoned it roughly about five hundred farsangs to Oman. I shouldthink it must be the Island of Zanzibar, or perhaps the Great Comoro,which has some resemblance in name, and is occupied by people of Arab descent.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxirespecting it that does not also appear in the Relations, chiefly inthat part of it of which Abu Zaid is the professed author. M.Reinaud has treated of these coincidences, but has not I thinkquite satisfactorily accounted for them.184. In the course of the tenth century we have another Arabtraveller who professes to have visited China. This is Abu DulifMisar Ibn Mohalhal who being, according to his own account, atthe Court of Nasri Bin Ahmed Bin Ismail of the Samanidæ atBokhara when ambassadors arrived from " the King of ChinaKalatin-bin-ul- Shakhir," to negotiate a marriage between hisown daughter and Noah the son of Nasri (who afterwards succeeded to the throne of Bokhara) , took advantage of the opportunity of accompanying the ambassadors on their return, aboutthe year 941. The whole narrative of this traveller is not extant,but much of it has been preserved in citations by Yakuti (A.H.617, A.D. 1220) , and Kazwini (A.H. 667, A.D. 1268-69) , and aGerman editor has collected these passages into a tolerably continuous narrative, and translated them into Latin.³It is very difficult to say whether the narrative is genuine ornot, or to guess how much it may have suffered from the mannerin which it has been thus coopered out of loose fragments. Ifthe author really accompanied Chinese ambassadors fromBokhara back to their native country, it is not easy to understandwhy they should have made a grand tour of all the Turk andTartar nations from the shores of the Black Sea to the banks ofthe Amur. The name which he attributes to the capital of Chinais SINDABIL, which is more like an Indian than a Chinese name,or rather like the Arabic perversion of an Indian name (compareKandábil, Sandábúr) . The nearest Chinese name is that ofCHINGTUFU, or as Marco Polo calls it SINDIFU, the chief city of theprovince of Szechuen, and which was during parts of the tenthcentury the capital of the kingdom of SHU. Neither would it1 Discours Preliminaire to Relations, etc., pp. viii and xviii seqq.Or Kalin bin- Shakhbar.3 Abu DolifMisaris Bin Mohalhal de Itinere Asiatico- Studio Kurd deSchloezer, Berolini, 1845.4 The first Shu dynasty at Chingtufu lasted only from 891 to 925; thesecond from 925 to 965. The names of the kings as given in Deguignescxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.be easy to discover in a list of Chinese sovereigns any name resembling Kalatin son of Shakhbar or Shakhir. In one of thenotes appended to this paper will be given an abstract of thechief points of this journey, real or pretended.¹85. The account of China in the Geography of Edrisi, writtenunder the patronage of King Roger II of Sicily, and completedin 1153-54, is, like the whole of his account of South- eastern Asia,including India, very meagre and confused. Professing to givethe distances between places, he generally under- estimates theseenormously, insomuch that in a map compiled from his distancesAsia would, I apprehend, assume very contracted dimensions.Owing to his manner of dealing with the world in successiveclimates or zones of latitude the passages in his work treating ofChina are scattered over nearly all parts of the book; but thegeneral result is something like the following:China is a great and populous empire whose supreme king iscalled the Baghbugh. This sovereign is just, powerful, sage, andprovident, easy and gentle in his administration, generous in hisgifts, attentive to what goes on in foreign countries, but muchoccupied with the interests of his own subjects, who are admittedto his presence readily, and without having to apply for the intervention of subordinates. In religion he follows an idolatrous faithdiffering but little from that of India; but he follows it devoutly,and is liberal to the poor.The people are dark like those of Hind and Sind. They liveupon rice, coco- nut milk, sugar, and mokl (said to be the fruit ofhave no possibility of assimilation to those in the text (Deg. i, 124-129) .1 See Note XII.2 This word in various forms, Baghbúgh, Baghbúr, fa*ghfúr, is appliedas a generic title to the emperors of China by old Arabian and Persianwriters, and appears in Marco Polo as applied to the dethroned Sungemperor in the form Facfur (part i, c. 62, 63) . It is, according to Neumann, a translation of the Chinese title Tientsé or " Son of Heaven" intoold Persian, in which Bak is Divinity ( Sansk. Bhaga, Hindi Bhagwán),and Fur is " Son" ( Sansk. putra) . The elements of the name are still tobe found in the modern Persian dictionaries: " Bagh, The name of anIdol," and Púr, A Son." So Shahpúr, the Sapor of the Romans, isKing's Son" (see Bürck's Polo, p. 629; Pauthier's Polo, 453; F. Johnson's Dict.)."666PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxiiithe dúm-palm of Upper Egypt) . No arts are more valued amongthem than those of design and pottery.Under the Baghbugh there are some three hundred flourishingcities and many fine sea- ports. The latter generally stand uponriver estuaries, up which ships ascend some distance from thesea. They are full of life and business, and the security of property in them is perfect. The greatest of the ports is KHANFU, 'which is the terminus of the western trade. It stands on (ornear) the Khumdan, the great river of China, one of the greatestand most famous of all rivers; the Ganges itself is said to be anaffluent of it. Its banks are crowded with population, and manygreat cities stand upon them. Such are SUSAH,3 a very famouscity whether for its buildings or its trade, or for the wealth of itscitizens. Its commercial credit extends over the world. Hereare made an unequalled kind of porcelain, the Ghazár of China,and silk- stuffs famous for their solidity and elegance. JANKU isalso on the Khumdan about three days from Khanfu. This alsois a city where there are manufactures of glass and silk stuffs.Two months' journey up the river is BAJAH, ' the capital of theBaghbugh, where is his palace with his guards, treasures, harem,and slaves. He is bound to keep always one hundred doweredwives and one thousand elephants. Another city is SíNIA- UL- SÍNwhich Ibn Batuta enables us to identify with Canton (see infra ,p. 417) . And the first port of China coming from Sanfi orChampa is LUKIN, where also are made rich silks, and amongothers a kind called Ghazar- Sini," which are exported far andnear.Many places besides these are named which it seems impossibleto identify. Such are, on the borders of Indo- China TARI1 Jaubert has Khanku, but no doubt the right reading is Khanfu. Itinvolves but the difference of a dot.So thought Fra Mauro, as his map shows.3 Qu. Sucheu in Kiangnan, the celebrated rival of Hangcheu?The copies used by Jaubert read Bájah or Nájah. But probably theright reading is Tájah. Compare with Abulfeda quoted hereafter, andwith the Taiuna or Thajuye at p. xcvii supra.I do not find this word in the Arabic dictionaries. May it be theorigin of our word Gauze, which has been referred to Gaza in Palestine?cxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.GHURGHAN and KATIGHORA, the last a name which seems simplyborrowed from the Cattigara of Ptolemy; KHAIGHUN, ASFIRIA, ¹BURA, KARNABUL, ASKHRA, SHARKHU or SADCHU, BASHIAR, TAUGHA(recalling the Taugas of Theophylactus) , etc. KASHGARA, apparently Kashgar, is put only four days distant from Katighoraupon the China Sea.Exterior China, apparently corresponding in a general way tothe Tangut of later days, is also mentioned by Edrisi. It isbounded by the Taghazghaz on the west, by Tibet on the south,and by the country of the Khizilji Turks on the north .86. To a date only a few years later than Edrisi belongsBenjamin of Tudela, who travelled between 1159 and 1173, andof whom some account has been given by Mr. Major, in his Introduction to India in the Fifteenth Century, which need not berepeated. After speaking of the Island KHANDY, supposed to beCeylon, this traveller says: -"From hence the passage to CHINA is effected in forty days.This country lies eastward, and some say that the star Orion predominates in the sea which bounds it, and which is called theSea of Nikpha. Sometimes the sea is so stormy, that no marinercan conduct his vessel; and, whenever a storm throws a shipinto this sea, it is impossible to govern it; the crew and thepassengers consume their provisions and then die miserably, butpeople have learned how to save themselves from this fate bythe following contrivance"; and so he proceeds to tell how thesailors sew themselves in bulls' hides, and being found floatingin the sea are carried ashore by great eagles, and so forth. Thisstuff (literally a co*ck and a bull story) is all that Benjamin relates in connexion with China.2It is remarked by the English editor of Benjamin that thisauthor is the first European who mentions China by that name.But Edrisi at least precedes him, and a Sicilian Arab writing ofSin in Arabic at Palermo, has at least as good a title to be considered a European author writing of China, as a Spanish Jew1 It is very possible that this Asfiria also represents the PtolemæanAspithra, and perhaps some ofthe other names have a like origin, thoughtoo much corrupted to identify with the Greek.2 Bohn's ed. (in Early Travellers in Palestine) , p. 116-117.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. CXVwriting of Tsin in Hebrew at Tudela. Benjamin appears to haveheard these tales of the voyage to China at the island of Kísh,which would seem to have been the limit of his travels; ' what herelates of India likewise being to all appearance mere hearsay.Indeed the eleventh and twelfth centuries are more bare ofnotices of communication between China and western nationsthan almost any others since the beginning of our era.87. ABULFEDA (1273-1331 ) belongs to a date subsequent tothe rise of the Mongol power, which we have fixed as a dividingmark in the treatment of this subject; but it will be more convenient to dispose of his notices of China now, in connexion withthose of the other Arab writers who have been already cited.Notwithstanding the facilities which his age afforded for obtaining correct information about China, he does not seem to havebeen in the way of profiting greatly by them. His knowledge ofthose regions is, as he himself complains, very much restricted,and his accounts are chiefly derived from books long antecedentto his own time and to that of the Mongol sovereigns, thoughthey are not altogether devoid of recent information. Someextracts of the essential part of his information on Chinawill be found in the supplementary notes, and will show thiscurious mixture of the obsolete statements of the geographers ofthe tenth or eleventh centuries with items of modern knowledge; affording an analogy to the maps of the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries, which in remoter Asia sometimes presenta strange jumble of Ptolemy, Marco Polo, and recent discoveries.VIII. CHINA UNDER THE MONGOL DYNASTY, KNOWN AS CATHAY.88. We now arrive at the epoch of the Mongols, during whosepredominance the communication of China with the western¹ I have fallen into an error in the notes on Odoric (p. 52) , and again atp. 400, in confounding the large island of Kishm, near the mouth of thePersian Gulf, with the much smaller Kais or Kish, about a hundred milesfurther up, which last was the real terminus of Indian trade for severalages, and the seat of a principality, Quisci of Polo. At least two moderneditors of Polo seem to have made the same mistake. Yet Marco, I see,shows the true approximate position of Quisci as two hundred milesfurther up the Gulf than Hormuz. Kish, in the map before me (Steiler'sHand Atlas), is termed Guase or Kena.2 See note XIII.cxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.nations was less impeded by artificial obstacles than it has beenat any other period of history. For even now, though our warsteamers have ascended the Kiang to Hankow, and a post runsfrom Peking to Petersburg, every land frontier excepting thattowards Russia remains as impervious as in the darkest age ofthe past.It was in the days of the Mongols also that China first becamereally known to Europe, and that by a name which, thoughespecially applied to the northern provinces, also came to bear amore general application, CATHAY. 'In89. This name, KHITAI, is that by which China is styled tothis day by all, or nearly all, the nations which know it from aninland point of view, including the Russians, the Persians, andthe nations of Turkestan; and yet it originally belonged to apeople who were not Chinese at all. The KHITANS were a people ofManchu race who inhabited for centuries a country to the northeast of China, lying east of the Khingan mountains and northof the river Sira, and whose allegiance was rendered alternatelyto the Khakans of the Turks and the Emperors of China.the beginning of the tenth century the chief of one of theirtribes made himself supreme, first over his own entire race, andthen successively over the adjoining nations of Asia from the seaof Corea to the Altai. The son of this conqueror having assistedto place on the throne Kaotsu of the brief dynasty of the laterTçin, this prince in return not only transferred to the Tartar alarge tract of Northern China, but agreed to pay him yearlytribute, and to acknowledge his supremacy. The next Chinesesovereign kicking against these degradations, the Khitan overran all the provinces north of the Yellow River, and establishedhis own empire within them, under the name of Leao or the IronDynasty. This Khitan empire subsisted for two centuries, inNorthern China and the adjoining regions of Tartary. The1 Several names strongly resembling Cathay appear in ancient geographers; but, of course, none of them have any connexion with the nameas applied to China. The Xaîra Scythians of Ptolemy probably represent Khotan (vi, 15 ) . The Kaléa of Strabo is in the Punjab, apparentlyfrom what he says, including the Salt Range ( Bk. xv) . The Kataia of Arrian is the island of Kish in the Persian Gulf.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxviisame curious process then took place which seems always tohave followed the intrusion of Tartar conquerors into China, andsingularly analogous to that which followed the establishment ofthe Roman emperors in Byzantium. The intruders themselvesadopted Chinese manners, ceremonies, literature, and civilisation,and gradually lost their energy and warlike character. It musthave been during this period, ending with the overthrow of thedynasty in 1123, and whilst this northern monarchy was the facewhich the Celestial Empire turned to Inner Asia, that the nameof Khitan, Khitat, or Khitaï, became indissolubly associated withChina.90. In the year just named the last prince of the dynasty wascaptured by the leader of the revolted Churchés, who had proclaimed himself emperor, and founder of a dynasty under thename of the Golden, the Kin of the Chinese.This dynasty, like its predecessor, adopted the Chinese civilisation, and for a brief period prospered . Their empire, the chiefcapital of which was established at the city which they calledChungtu, the modern Peking, embraced in China itself theprovinces of Pecheli, Shansi, Shantung, Honan, and the southof Shensi, whilst beyond the wall all Tartary acknowledged theirinfluence. Their power, however, soon passed its climax, andtheir influence over Mongolia had already declined before themiddle of the twelfth century.91. Temuchin, afterwards known as Chinghiz, was born of aMongol tribe on the banks of the Onon in 1162. It is not needful to follow the details of his rise and of his successes againstthe nations of Tartary which led to his being saluted in 1206 bythe diet of his nation as Chinghiz Khan.¹¹ Chinghiz, according to Quatremère, did not use the higher appellation of Káan (or rather Qáan) , which was adopted by his son Okkodai andhis successors as their distinctive title, identical with Kháqán, the Xayávosofthe Byzantine historians. Properly a distinction should therefore bepreserved between Khan, the ordinary title of Tartar chiefs, and whichhas since spread to Persian gentlemen and to be a common affix to thename of Hindustanis of all classes, and Quan, as the peculiar title of theSupreme Chief of the Mongols. The Mongol princes of the subordinateempires of Chagatai, Persia, and Kipchak, were entitled only to theformer affix, though the other is sometimes applied to them in adulation ,cxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.The conquest of China was commenced by Chinghiz, althoughit was not completed for several generations. Already in 1205he had invaded TANGUT, a kingdom occupying the extreme northwest of China, and extending beyond Chinese limits in the samedirection, held by a dynasty of Tibetan race, which was or hadbeen vassal to the Kin. This invasion was repeated in succeeding years; and in 1211 his attacks extended to the empire of theKin itself. In 1214 he ravaged their provinces to the YellowRiver, and in the following year took Chungtu or Peking. In1219 he turned his arms against Western Asia, and conqueredall the countries between the Bolor and the Caspian and southward to the Indus, whilst his generals penetrated to Russia, Armenia, and Georgia; but a lieutenant whom he had left behindhim in the East continued to prosecute the subjection of NorthernChina. Chinghiz himself on his return from his western conquests renewed his attack on Tangut, and died on that enterprise18th August, 1127.92. Okkodai, the son and successor of Chinghiz, followed upthe subjugation of China, extinguished the Kin finally in 1234and consolidated with his empire all the provinces north of theGreat Kiang. The southern provinces remained for the presentsubject to the Chinese dynasty of the Sung, reigning now atKingssé or Hangcheu. This kingdom was known to the Tartarsas NANGKIASS, and also by the quasi- Chinese title of MANGI orMANZI, made so famous by Marco Polo and the travellers of thefollowing age, a title which the Western Mahomedans not unnaturally confounded and identified with MACHÍN, a term ofanother origin and properly of a larger application.¹whilst the successors of Chinghiz, viz . , Okkodai, Kuyuk, Mangu, Kublai,and those who followed him on the throne of Khanbalik, the Magni Canesof our ecclesiastical travellers, should properly be designated as Qáun.But I have not ventured on such a refinement. (See Quatremère onRashid, pp. 10 et seqq.)1 Máchán is merely a contraction of Mahachina, "Great China", thename by which the Hindus anciently styled the Great Empire (see supra,p. lxviii) , and in this application I have heard it still vernacularly usedby them . In this sense, also, it would appear to have been understood inold times by the more intelligent Mahomedans, as when Al Biruni, speaking of the Himalyas, says that beyond those mountains is Mahachin.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxix93. After establishing his power over so much of China as wehave said, Okkodai raised a vast army and set it in motion toThat geographer's contemporary, Firdusi, also uses the name (see Journ.As., ser. iv, tom. iv, 259; Klaproth, Mem. , iii , 257, seqq . ) But the majority,not knowing the meaning of the expression, seem to have used it pleonas- tically coupled with Chín to denote the same thing, " Chin and Machin"; aphrase having some analogy to the way Sind and Hind was used to express all India, but a stronger one to Gog and Magog, as applied to thenorthern nations of Asia; for Sind and Hind are capable ofdivorce. Andeventually Chin was discovered to be the eldest son of Japhet, andMachin his grandson; which is much the same as saying that Britain wasthe eldest son of Brut the Trojan, and Great Britain his grandson. Inthe Mongol days, when Chinese affairs were for a time more distinctlyknown in Western Asia, and the name of Mánzí as the southern portionof the empire was current in men's mouths, it would appear that thisname was confounded with Máchín, and the latter word thus acquired aspecific application, though an erroneous one. For though accident thusgave a specific meaning to Machin, I cannot find that Chin ever had asimilar specific meaning given to it. One author of the sixteenth century, indeed, quoted by Klaproth, distinguishes North and South Chinaas the Chìn and Machin of the Hindus (Journ . As. , ser. ii, tom. i, 115) .But there is no proof that the Hindus ever made this distinction, norhas anyone that I know of quoted an instance of Chin being applied peculiarly to Northern China. Ibn Batuta, on the contrary, sometimesdistinguishes Sín as South China from Khitai as North China.In times after the Mongol régime, when intercourse with China hadceased, the double name seems to have recovered its old vagueness as arotund way of saying China. Thus Barbaro speaks of Cini and Macini,Nikitin of Chin and Machin, the commission of Syrian bishops to India(supra, p. civ) of Sin and Masin, all apparently with no more plurality ofsense than there is in Thurm and Taxis. And yet, at the same time, thereare indications of a new application of Máchin to the Indo- Chinese countries. Thus Conti applies it to Ava or Siam, in which Fra Mauro followshim, and the Ayin Akbari, if I remember rightly, applies it to Pegu.The use of a double assonant name, sometimes to express a dual idea butoften a single one, is a favourite Oriental practice. As far back as Herodotus we have Crophi and Mophi, Thyni and Bithyni; the Arabs haveconverted Cain and Abel into Kabil and Habil, Saul and Goliah intoTalut and Jalut, Pharaoh's magicians into Risam and Rejam, of whomthe Jewish traditions had made Jannes and Jambres; whilst Christianlegends gave the names of Dismas and Jesmas to the penitent and impenitent thieves in the Gospel. Jarga and Nargah was the name givento the great circle of beaters in the Mongol hunting matches. In geography we have numerous instances of the same thing, e.g. , Zabulistanand Kabulistan, Koli Akoli, Longa Solanga, Ibir Sibir, Kessair and Owair,Kuria Muria, Ghuz and Maghuz, Mastra and Castra (Edrisi) , Artag andCXX PRELIMINARY ESSAY.wards the west. One portion was directed against Armenia,Georgia, and Asia Minor, whilst another great host under Batu,the nephew of the Great Khan, conquered the countries north ofCaucasus, overran Russia making it tributary, and still continuedto carry fire and slaughter westward. One great detachmentunder a lieutenant of Batu's entered Poland, burned Cracow,found Breslaw in ashes and abandoned by its people, and defeatedwith great slaughter at Wahlstadt near Lignitz (April 12th, 1241 )the troops of Poland, Moravia, and Silesia, who had gatheredunder Duke Henry of the latter province to make head againstthis astounding flood of heathen. Batu himself with the mainbody of his army was ravaging Hungary. The king had beenvery slack in his preparations, and when eventually he made astand against the enemy his army was defeated with great loss,and he escaped with difficulty . Pesth was now taken and burnt,and all its people put to the sword.The rumours of the Tartars and their frightful devastationshad scattered fear through Europe, which the defeat at Lignitzraised to a climax. Indeed weak and disunited Christendomseemed to lie at the foot of the barbarians. The Pope to be sureproclaimed crusade, and wrote circular letters, but the enmitybetween him and the Emperor Frederic II was allowed to preventany co- operation, and neither of them responded by anythingbetter than words to the earnest calls for help which came fromthe King of Hungary. No human aid merited thanks whenEurope was relieved by hearing that the Tartar host had suddenly retreated eastward. The Great Khan Okkodai was deadin the depths of Asia, and a courier had come to recal the armyfrom Europe.Kartag (Abulghazi) , Khanzi and Manzi ( Rashid) , Iran and Turan, Crit andMecrit (Rubruquis), Sondor and Condor ( Marco Polo), etc. (See Quatremère'sRashid, pp. 243-246; D'Avezac, p. 534; Prairies d'Or, i, p. 399) .The name of Achín in Sumatra appears to have been twisted in thisspirit by the Mahomedan mariners as a rhyme to Machin; the real name is Atcheh.In India, such rhyming doublets are not confined to proper names;to a certain extent they may be made colloquially at will upon a varietyof substantives. Thus chauki-auki means " chairs" simply (chauki), or, atmost, "chairs and tables"; lakri-akri, "sticks and stakes " . In somePRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxxi94. In 1255 a new wave of conquest rolled westward fromMongolia, this time directed against the Ismaelians or " Assassins"on the south of the Caspian, and then successively against theKhalif of Baghdad and Syria. The conclusion of this expeditionunder Hulagu may be considered to mark the climax of theMongol power. Mangu Khan, the emperor then reigning, andwho died on a campaign in China in 1259, was the last whoexercised a sovereignty so nearly universal. His successorKublai extended indeed largely the frontiers of the Mongol powerin China, which he brought entirely under the yoke, besides gaining conquests rather nominal than real on its southern and southeastern borders, but he ruled effectively only in the eastern regionsof the great empire, which had now broken up into four. (1 )The immediate Empire of the Great Khan, seated eventually atKhanbalik or Peking, embraced China, Corea, Mongolia, andManchuria, Tibet, and claims at least over Tunking and countrieson the Ava frontier; ( 2) , the Chagatai Khanate, or Middle Empire of the Tartars, with its capital at Almalik, included themodern Dsungaria, part of Chinese Turkestan, Transoxiana, andAfghanistan; ( 3 ) , the Empire of Kipchak, or the Northern Tartars, founded on the conquests of Batu, and with its chief seat atSarai on the Wolga, covered a large part of Russia, the countrynorth of Caucasus, Khwarizm, and a part of the modern Siberia;(4) , Persia, with its capital eventually at Tabriz, embracedGeorgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and part of Asia Minor, all Persia,Arabian Irak, and Khorasan.95. Though the Tartar host had retired spontaneously whenEurope seemed to lie at its mercy, the fears of renewed invasionhung over the west for years. Pope Innocent, who had succeeded Gregory, summoned a council at Lyons in 1245, the chiefalleged object of which was to devise measures for the protectionof Christendom against this enemy. But even before the meetingof the Council the Pope had taken one of the steps which was tostand instead of a hearty union to resist the common foe, by sendingmissions to the Tartar chiefs which should call upon them to shedsuch sense probably grew up the use of Chin Machin, China and all itsappurtenances.kcxxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.no more Christian blood , but to adopt the Christian faith. Thereseems indeed, even when the early panic caused by the vast scaleof the Tartar atrocities had scarcely passed away, (and the feelingfor many years grew rather than diminished), an undercurrent ofanticipation to have run through Europe that these barbarianswere in some way ripe for conversion; and this sentiment istraceable, more or less , in most of the missions that from thistime forth were sent to them by Christian Pontiffs and Princes.At its maximum, as we have seen, the power of the Grand Khanextended from the Gulf of Tunking almost to the Baltic. None,or next to none, of the Mongol princes were at this timeMahomedans, and the power of Islam over the length of Asiawas for a time prostrated. The heavy blows thus dealt at theMahomedan enemy; then the old stories of Prester John withwhom early rumour had confounded Chinghiz; the vagueness ofreligious profession in the Khans and their captains, facilitatingthe ascription to them of that Christianity which was no doubtreally professed by some of the tribal chiefs under them; thetolerance and patronage in some cases extended to Christians inthe conquered countries; all these circ*mstances perhaps contributed to create or to augment in Europe the impression ofwhich we have spoken.And the accomplishment of the missions to which allusion hasbeen made was facilitated by the very extent of the Tartar floodwhich had thus washed down all artificial barriers from theYellow River to the Danube. Nor only to those missionariesand ambassadors, or to the crowned kings who bore their ownhomage to the footstool of the Great Khan, was the way thusthrown open; the circulation of the tide extended far lower, andthe accidents of war, commerce, and opportunity carried a greatvariety of persons in various classes of European life to remoteregions of Asia.96. ""Tis worthy of the grateful remembrance of all Christianpeople, " says Ricold of Montecroce, " that just at the time whenGod sent forth into the eastern parts of the world the Tartars toslay and to be slain, He also sent forth in the west his faithfuland blessed servants Dominic and Francis, to enlighten, instruct,PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxxiiiand build up in the Faith. " Whatever we may think on thewhole of the world's obligations to Dominic, it is to the friars, butmore especially indeed to the Franciscans, that we owe much interesting information about the Tartars and Cathay. Thus, besides the many wanderers dumb to posterity who found their wayto the Great Khan's camp in the depths of Mongolia, there wentalso John of Plano Carpini, and William Ruysbroek or Rubruquis,both Franciscan monks of superior intelligence, who have leftbehind them narratives of what they saw and learned . And thesewere the first, so far as I know, to bring to Western Europe therevived knowledge of a great and civilised nation lying in theextreme east upon the shores of the ocean. To this kingdomthey give the name, now first heard in Europe, of CATHAY.JOHN OF PLANO CARPINI, deriving his name from a place in theterritory of Perugia, and an immediate disciple of the founder ofhis order, was the head of one of the missions dispatched byPope Innocent to call the chief and people of the Tartars to abetter mind. He set out from Lyons in April 1245, accompaniedby Friar Stephen, a Bohemian, who speedily broke down andhad to be left behind, was joined at Breslaw by Friar Benedictthe Pole, who was intended to act as interpreter, and in February1246 reached the head- quarters of Batu on the Wolga. Aftersome stay here, they were sent on to the camp of the Great Khannear Karakorum, ( a fatiguing journey of three months and a half,which must have sorely tried an elderly and corpulent man likeFriar John) , arriving onthe 22nd July. We shall not go into anyfurther details on the mission or narrative of Plano Carpini whichhas been so ably reviewed and edited by M. D'Avezac, ¹ but becontent to say that he obtained his dismissal from Kuyuk Khanon the 13th November, with a brief and haughty reply to thePope's address, and returned safely, reporting his mission to thePope apparently some time in the autumn of 1247.21 See that able and admirable essay "Notice sur les Anciens Voyageursen Tartarie en général, et sur celui de Jean du Plan du Carpin en particulier", Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, iv, 399.2 The last date is that of his arrival at Kiev a fortnight before St. JohnBaptist's day (i.e. , 9th June) .k 2CXxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.97. After mentioning the wars of Chinghiz against theCathayans (Kitai) , he goes on to speak of that people as follows:"But one part of the country of the Cathayans which liesupon the sea- shore has not been conquered by the Tartars tothis day. Nowthese Cathayans of whomwe have been speakingare heathen men, and have a written character of their own.Moreover ' tis said they have an Old and New Testament, andLives of the Fathers, and religious recluses, and buildings whichare used for churches as it were, in which they pray at their owntimes and they say that they have also some saints of their own.They worship the one God, honour the Lord Jesus Christ, andbelieve in eternal life, but are entirely without baptism. Theypay honour and reverence to our Scriptures, are well disposedtowards Christians, and do many alms deeds. They seem indeedto be kindly and polished folks enough. They have no beard,and in character of countenance have a considerable resemblanceto the Mongols, but are not so broad in the face. They have alanguage of their own. Their betters as craftsmen in every artpractised by man are not to be found in the whole world. Theircountry is very rich in corn, in wine, gold, silver, silk, and inevery kind of produce that tends to the support of mankind. "98. RUBRUQUIS, a Fleming, was sent by St. Lewis on a missionto the Tartar chiefs, the object of which is not to be very clearlygathered. It was suggested, however, by the report that Sartach the son of Batu, who was in command near the Don, was aChristian, and probably partook of the character of a religiousas well as a political reconnoissance. The friar, though carryingletters from the king, was evidently under orders to deny allpretension to the character of an envoy, and to put forward hisduty as a preacher of the Gospel as the motive of his journey.His narrative is a remarkably interesting one, showing that theauthor had a great deal of sagacity and observation; and hisremarks, in reference to language in particular, show muchThere are difficulties in connexion with the indicationsof his route across Tartary, which it would be interesting to discuss, but scarcely appropriate here. Suffice it, therefore, to say,acumen.1 Some remarks on the subject will, however, be found at the end ofSupp. Note XVII.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. CXXVthat he entered the Black Sea on the 7th May, 1253, and aftervisiting successively Sartach, Batu , and the court of the GreatKhan Mangu near Kara Korum, got back to Antioch about theend of June 1255.99. After describing several of the nations of Further Asia,he says: "Further on is Great Cathay which I take to be thecountry which was anciently called the Land of the Seres. For thebest silk stuffs are still got from them, and the people themselvescall such stuffs Seric; ' the nation getting the name of Seres froma certain town of theirs . I was really given to understand thatthere is a town in that country which has silver walls and goldenbattlements. The land in question is divided into many provinces, several of which have not yet been subdued by the Mongols, and the sea lies between it and India. Those Cathayansare little fellows, speaking much through the nose, and as isgeneral with all those eastern people their eyes are very narrow.They are first-rate artists in every kind of craft, and their physicians have a thorough knowledge of the virtues of herbs, and anadmirable skill in diagnosis by the pulse. But they don't examinethe urine or know anything on that subject; this I know frommy own observation. There are a great many of these people atKarakorum; and it has always been their custom that all thesons must follow their father's craft whatever it be. Hence it isthat they are obliged to pay so heavy a tribute; for they pay theMongols daily 1,500 iascot or cosmi; the iascot is a piece ofThis is probably a reference to the Mongol word Sirkek (supra, p. xliv),and Rubruquis thus anticipated Klaproth in tracing an eastern etymologyof the term SERICA. I do not know what town he can allude to, but seethe Siurhia of Moses the Armenian, and the Saragh of the Singanfu inscription (supra, pp. lxxxiii, xciii) .2 Martini alludes to a popular Chinese saying about the golden wallsof Singanfu (Atlas Sinensis) . And these passages are remarkable withreference to the remark of Ptolemy about the metropolis Thine, that there was no truth in the stories of its brazen walls .3 Martini speaks of the great skill of the physicians in diagnosis by thepulse, and Duhalde is very prolix on that matter.4 I do not know what the word iascot is; but cosmi is possibly intendedfor the same word as the sommi of Pegolotti (infra, p. 288) , though thevalue here assigned would be about ten times that of the sommo, takingthe mark as of a pound.cxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.silver weighing ten marks, so that the daily sum amounts to15,000 marks without counting the silk stuffs and food in kindwhich is taken from them, and the other services which they areobliged to render. ' . . . And in answer to my inquiries of thepriests who came from Cathay I was told that from the placewhere I found Mangu- Chan to Cathay was twenty days' journeygoing south-east. . . . One day there sat with me a certain priestfrom Cathay clothed in a crimson stuff of a splendid colour, so Iasked him whence that colour was got. In reply he told methat in the eastern parts of Cathay there are lofty rocks inhabitedby certain creatures which have the human form in every respectexcept that they can't bend their knees, but get along by somekind of a jumping motion. They are only a cubit high, and arehairy all over, and dwell in inaccessible holes in the rock. So thehuntsmen bring beer with them, which they know how to brewvery strong, and make holes in the rocks like cups which theyfill with beer. ( For they have no wine in Cathay, but maketheir drink of rice, though now they are beginning to plantvines. ) So the huntsmen hide themselves, and then the creaturescome out of their holes and taste the drink that has been set forthem and call out " Chin chin!" and from this call they get theirname for they are called Chinchin. Then they gather in greatnumbers and drink up the beer and get tipsy and fall asleep. Sothe huntsmen come and catch them sleeping and bind them bandand foot, and open a vein in the neck of the creatures, and aftertaking three or four drops of blood let them go. And ' tis thatblood, he told me, that gives this most precious purple dye.¹And they also used to tell as a fact, though I don't believe a wordof it, that there is a certain province on the other side of Cathay,and whatever a man's age be when he enters that province henever gets any older. Cathay lies on the Ocean. . .. The commonmoney of Cathay consists of pieces of cotton paper about a palmin length and breadth, upon which certain lines are printed resembling the seal of Mangu Chan . They do their writing with aI P. 291-2 .2 This is a genuine Chinese story, which I have met with in some ofthe translations, but I have lost the reference.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxxviipencil such as painters paint with, and a single character oftheirs comprehends several letters so as to form a whole word. '100. Another traveller, of whose journey some account hascome down to us, visited the Court of Mangu Khan immediately after Rubruquis. This was Hethum or HAYTON I,King of Little Armenia, who at an early date saw the irresistiblepower of the Tartars and made terms with them; i.e. , acknowledged himself the Khan's vassal. On the accession of KuyukKhan (1246) the king sent his brother Sempad or Sinibald,Constable of Armenia, to secure the continuance of good understanding. This prince was four years absent, and we possess aletter from him written on the journey in which some allusionsare made to Tangut and Cathay, with reference to the generaldelusion as to the Christianity of those countries."Pp. 327-329. Neither Marco Polo, nor, I believe, any other travellerprevious to the sixteenth century, had the acumen to discern the greatcharacteristic of the Chinese writing as Rubruquis has done here.2 The letter is addressed to the King and Queen of Cyprus and othersat their court, and was written apparently from Samarkand (printedSaurequant, probably for Samrequant) . Here is an extract: " We understand it to be the fact that it is five years past since the death of the present Chan's father [ Okkodai]; but the Tartar barons and soldiers hadbeen so scattered over the face of the earth that it was scarcely possiblein the five years to get them together in one place to enthrone theChan aforesaid. For some of them were in India, and others in the landof CHATA, and others in the land of CASCHAR and of TANCHAT. This lastis the land from which came the Three Kings to Bethlem to worship theLord Jesus which was born. And know that the power of Christ has been,and is, so great, that the people of that land are Christians; and thewhole land of Chata believes in those Three Kings. I have myself beenin their churches and have seen pictures of Jesus Christ and the ThreeKings, one offering gold, the second frankincense, and the third myrrh.And it is through those Three Kings that they believe in Christ, and thatthe Chan and his people have now become Christians. And they havetheir churches before his gates where they ring their bells and beat uponpieces of timber.......And I tell you that we have found many Christiansscattered all over the East, and many fine churches, lofty, ancient, andof good architecture, which have been spoiled by the Turks. Hence theChristians of the land came before the present Khan's grandfather; andhe received them most honourably, and granted them liberty of worship,and issued orders to forbid their having any just cause of complaint byword or deed. And so the Saracens who used to treat them with contumely have now like treatment in double measure.......And let me tellcxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.HeHayton himself went to the court of Mangu Khan soon afterthe latter's accession, to assure his position with that potentate,and to obtain certain advantages for himself and his states.set out apparently in the beginning of 1254, first visiting BachuNoian, the general of the Tartar army at Kars, and then passingthrough Armenia Proper and by the Pass of Darband to theWolga, where he saw Batu and his son Sartach, whom this narrative alleges to have been a Christian, in opposition to Rubruquis, who says such stories were all nonsense.¹ The chiefs received Hayton well, and sent him on to Kara Korum by a routefar to the north of that followed by Plano Carpini and Rubruquis.Leaving the court of Batu on the 13th May, the party arrived atthe royal camp before the 13th September, on which day theysaw the Great Khan in state and offered their gifts. King Hayton was treated with honour and hospitality, and on the 1stNovember set out on his homeward journey, passing by Bishbaligand through the modern Dsungaria to Otrar, Samarkand, andBokhara; thence through Khorasan and Mazanderan to Tabriz,and so to his own territories .King Hayton related many wonderful things that he had seenyou that those who set up for preachers (among these Christians) , in myopinion, deserve to be well chastised . Let me tell you, moreover, thatin the land of India, which St. Thomas the Apostle converted, there is acertain Christian king who stood in sore tribulation among the otherkings who were Saracens. They used to harass him on every side, untilthe Tartars reached that country, and he became their liegeman. Then,with his own army and that of the Tartars, he attacked the Saracens;and he made such booty in India that the whole East is full of Indianslaves; I have seen more than 50,000 whom this king took and sent forsale" (Mosheim, App. , p. 49) .The motive in the letter is perhaps the justification of his brotherHayton for having, like this questionable Indian king, become theTartar's liegeman. The writer fell in battle against the Turks in 1272.1 See infra, p. 177. When Friar William was leaving the camp ofSartach, one of the Tartar officers said to him, " Don't you be saying thatour master is a Christian; he is no Christian, but a Mongol!” (p. 259) .Just as Sir Walter Scott tells somewhere of a belated southron travellerin the old days, who seeking vainly for shelter in some town on theborder, exclaimed in despair, " Would no good Christian take him in?"To which an old woman who heard him, made answer, " Christian? Na,na! we're a' Jardines and Johnstones here . "PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxxixand heard of the nations of barbarians, and among others of theGhotaians or Cathayans. In their country there were manyidolaters who worshipped a clay image called Shakemonia. Thispersonage. had been Deity for the last 3040 years, and had stillto rule the World for 35 tumans or 350,000 years, when he wasto be deprived of his divinity. They had also another god (whoshould then reign? ) called Madri, of whom they had made aclay image of incredible size. In these statements we have arough indication of Buddhism with its last Buddha or deifiedsage, SAKYA-MUNI, and its coming Buddha, Maitreya or MAIDARIawaiting his time in the development of the ages. The kingheard, too, of a people beyond Cathay whose women had the useof reason like men, whilst the males were great hairy dogs, astory which Plano Carpini had also heard, and which Klaprothhas found in the Chinese books of the period. The informationregarding Cathay and other countries of the far East, containedin the history written half a century later by the king's namesake and relative, Hayton the Younger, was also probably derivedin part from the former and his companions.101. We do not mean here to enter into any details regardingthat illustrions Venetian family whose travels occupy a largespace in the interval between the journeys of Rubruquis andKing Hayton and the end of the thirteenth century, those travelswhich more than all other narratives together familiarised Europewith the name and wonders of Cathay. Indeed, all other travellersto that region are but stars of a low magnitude beside the fullorb of MARCO POLO. There was a time when he fell into discredit; but that is long past, and his veracity and justness ofobservation still shine brighter under every recovery of lost or1 See Pl. Carpini, p. 656. The narrative of King Hetum's journey istranslated by Klaproth in the Journ . Asiat. , s . ii , tom. xii, pp. 273 seqq.King Hayton, in his latter years, abdicated and became a monk; as didat a later date his son Hayton II, and again, their kinsman, Hayton the historian.2 The editors of the Histoire Générale des Voyages (I am afraid this is atranslation from the English), express doubts whether Polo ever wasreally in China or Tartary, because he says nothing of the Great Wall, oftea, of the compressed feet of the ladies, etc. ( Baldello Boni, Il Milione,p. lxxv) .CXXX PRELIMINARY ESSAY.forgotten knowledge.men.Nearly fifty years ago a Quarterly Reviewer received with disparaging anticipations the announcement of a new Italian edition of Polo,' as if deeming that littlecould be added in illustration of the Traveller to what Marsdenhad effected . Much as Marsden really did in his splendid edition,it would be no exaggeration to say that the light thrown onMarco's narrative has since that day been more than doubledfrom the stores of Chinese, Mongol, and Persian history whichhave been rendered accessible to European readers, or broughtdirectly to bear on the elucidation of the Traveller, by Klaproth,Remusat, Quatremère, and many other scholars, chiefly FrenchAnd within the last year Paris has sent out an edition ofthe Traveller, by M. Pauthier, which leaves far behind everythingpreviously attempted, concentrating in the notes not only manyof the best suggestions of previous commentators, but a vast massof entirely new matter from the editor's own Chinese studies .102. During a period including the last thirty years of thethirteenth century and the first few years of the fourteenthmany diplomatic communications took place between the Mongol Khans of Persia and the sovereigns of Christendom; and inthese we find a tone on the part of the Tartar princes very different from the curt insolence of the previous age. They nolonger held the same domineering supremacy, and their great object now was to obtain Christian alliances against their bitterrivals, the Sultans of Egypt. These communications do not,however, bear upon our subject, except in one curious incidentalaspect. The Khans of Persia, as liegemen of the Great Khan,still received from him their seals of state, and two of their letterspreserved in the French archives exhibit the impressions of theseseals bearing inscriptions in ancient Chinese characters, in thecase of the earlier letter perhaps the first specimens of such characters that reached Europe.2This peculiar relation, which the Mongol conquests producedBaldello Boni's: see that work i, p. civ. Perhaps, however, the termsquoted may refer only to the improbability of fresh light from Italian archives.2 See Remusat's Memoir in Mem. de l'Acad. Inscript. , vii, 367, 391, etc.The earlier letter is from Argun Khan, and came in 1289. It is writtenin Uigur characters in the Mongol language on a roll of cotton paperPRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxxxibetween China and Western Asia, not only introduced strangersfrom the remote West to China and its borders, but also carriedChinese to vast distances from the Middle Kingdom. Not onlywere corps of Alans and Kipchaks seen fighting in Tunking, butChinese engineers were employed on the banks of the Tigris, andChinese astronomers, physicians, and theologians could be consulted at Tabriz. ' The missions of Kublai himself extended toMadagascar.103. There must have been other Frank travellers to Cathaycontemporary with the Polos, such as the German engineer,whom Marco mentions as employed under his father, his uncle,and himself, in the construction of mechanical artillery to aidKublai Khan in his attack on the city of Saianfu or Siangyangfuin Hukong, but no other narrative from the time of their sojournin China has come down to us.An interesting chapter on Cathay is found in the geographicalpart of the work of Hayton, Prince of Gorigos, already alludedto. This prince, after long experience of eastern war and politics ,having become in Cyprus a Monk of the Order of Præmonstrants,and afterwards visiting Avignon, Pope Clement V gave him anabbey in the city of Poitiers. Here in 1307 he dictated his history in French to Nicholas Faulcon. It contains in sixty chaptersa geography of Asia, the history of the Mongol Khans, andnotices of the Holy Land and the Eastern Christians.The first fifteen chapters contain short successive accounts ofthe chief kingdoms of Asia, and form altogether probably thebest geographical summary of that continent which had yet been"6six feet and a half long by ten inches wide. The seal is thrice impressedon the face of the letter in red . It is five inches and a half square, containing six characters; ' Seal of the Minister of State, Pacificator ofNations." The second letter is from Khodabandah, otherwise calledOljaitu, and written in 1305. The seal in this case contains the words," By a supreme decree the Seal of the Descendant of the Emperorcharged to reduce to obedience the 10,000 barbarous nations". A duplicate of this perhaps went to Edward II, as his reply, dated Northampton16th October 1307, is in Rymer's Foedera (Remusat, u.s. )1 See Polo, iii , 35; D'Ohsson, ii, 611; iii, 265; Quatremère's Rashid, pp.195, 417, and Rashid's own grandiloquence, p. 39. Marco Polo's willbequeaths liberty and a legacy to a Tartar servant, thirty years after his return home.cxxxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.compiled. In the Supplementary Notes to this Essay will befound the chapter on Cathay.'104. Just as the three Poli were reaching their native city, theforerunner of a new band of travellers was entering SouthernChina. This was JOHN OF MONTE CORVINO, a Franciscan monk,who, already nearly fifty years of age, was plunging alone intothat great ocean of Paganism, and of what he deemed littlebetter, Nestorianism, to preach the Gospel. After years of uphillwork and solitary labour others joined him; the Papal See wokeup to what was going on; it made him Archbishop in Khanbalig or Pekin, with patriarchal authority, and sent him spasmodically batches of suffragan bishops and friars of his order; theRoman Church spread; churches and Minorite Houses wereestablished at Khanbalig; at Zayton or Chincheu, at Yangcheuand elsewhere; and the missions flourished under the immediate patronage of the Great Khan himself. Among the friarswhose duty carried them to Cathay during the interval betweenthe beginning of the century and the year 1328, when Archbishop John was followed to the grave by mourning multitudes,Pagan as well as Christian, several have left letters or more extended accounts of their experiences in Cathay. Among thesemay be mentioned ANDREW OF PERUGIA, Bishop of Zayton; JOHNDE CORA, Archbishop of Sultania (though it is not quite certainthat his account was derived from personal knowledge) , andabove all FRIAR ODORIC OF PORDENONE. A short though interesting notice of China belonging to this period, but derived fromthe information of others, is also contained in the Mirabilia ofFRIAR JORDANUS.2The only ecclesiastical narrative subsequent to the time ofArchbishop John is that contained in the reminiscences of JOHNMARIGNOLLI, who spent four years at the court of Peking(1342-46) as Legate from the Pope.105. But the Exchange had its emissaries at this time as well1 See Note XIV.2 The journey of Ricold of Montecroce, one of the most learned of themonk travellers of the age ( d. 1309) did not apparently extend beyondBaghdad. He mentions Cathay only once in noticing the conquests ofChinghiz (Perig. Quat. , 120) .PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxxxiiias the Church. The record is a very fragmentary and imperfectone, but many circ*mstances and incidental notices show howfrequently the far East was reached by European traders in thefirst half of the fourteenth century; a state of things which itis very difficult to realise, when we see how all those regions,when reopened only two centuries later, seemed almost as absolutely new discoveries as the empires which about the same timeCortes and Pizarro were annexing in the West.This frequency of commercial intercourse, at least with China,probably did not commence till some years after the beginningof the fourteenth century. For Montecorvino, writing in 1305,says it was then twelve years since he had heard any news of theCourt of Rome or European politics, the only western strangerwho had arrived in that time being a certain Lombard chirurgeonwho had spread awful blasphemies about the Pope. Yet, evenon his first entrance into Cathay, Friar John had been accompanied by one Master Peter of Lucolongo, whom he describes asa faithful Christian man and a great merchant. The letter ofAndrew Bishop of Zayton, lately referred to, quotes the opinionof the Genoese merchants of his acquaintance at that great seaport touching a question of exchanges. Marino Sanuti, theVenetian, writing about 1306 to propound a great scheme forthe subversion of the Mahomedan power, alludes to the manymerchants who had already gone to India to make their purchases and come back safely. About 1322 Friar Jordanus, theDominican, when in sore trouble at Tana near Bombay, wherefour of his brethren had been murdered by the Mahomedans,falls in with a young Genoese who gives him aid; and in one ofhis letters from Gujarat, he speaks of information received from"Latin merchants". In the stories connected with the samemartyred friars, we find mention of a merchant of Pisa owning aship in the Indian seas . Mandeville, too, speaks of the merchantsof Venice and Genoa coming habitually to Hormuz to buy goods.Odoric, dictating his travels in 1330, refers for confirmation ofthe wonders related of the great city of Cansay or Hangcheu, tothe many persons whom he had met at Venice since his returnwho had themselves been witnesses of all that he asserted . Acxxxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.few years later ( 1339) we find William of Modena, a merchant,dying for the Faith with certain friars at Almalik on the banksof the Ili. John Marignolli mentions that when he was in Malabar about 1347-8, his interpreter was a youth who had beenrescued from pirates in the Indian seas by a merchant of Genoa.And from the same authority we find that there was a fondaco orfactory, and warehouse for the use of the Christian merchants,attached to one of the Franciscan convents at Zayton.106. But the most distinct and notable evidence of the importance and frequency of the European trade from Cathay, of whichsilk and silk goods were the staple, is to be found in the work ofF. BALDUCCI PEGOLOTTI, of which an account and extracts aregiven in the present collection . That the ventures on this tradewere not insignificant is plain from the example taken by theauthor to illustrate the question of expenses on the journey toCathay, which is that of a merchant carrying goods to the amountof some £12,000.107. To the same period of the Mongol domination and activecommerce with the west, belongs the voyage, about 1347, of theMoor, IBN BATUTA, to China, which forms a part of this work.But, as regards Christian intercourse, missions and merchantsalike disappear from the field soon after the middle of the fourteenth century, as the Mongol dynasty totters and comes down.We hear, indeed, once and again of friars and bishops despatchedfrom Avignon; but they go forth into the darkness and areheard of no more. For the new rulers of China revert to the oldindigenous policy and hold foreigners at arm's length; whilstIslam has recovered its ground and extended its grasp overMiddle Asia, and the Nestorian Christianity which once prevailedthere is rapidly vanishing and leaving its traces only in somestrange parodies of church ritual which are found twined into theworship of the Tibetan Lamas, like the cabin gildings and mirrors of a wrecked vessel adorning the hut of a Polynesian chief.A dark mist has descended upon the farther east, coveringMANGI and CATHAY with those cities of which the old travellerstold such wonders, CAMBALEC and CANSAY and ZAYTON and CHINKALAN. And when the veil rises before the Portuguese andPRELIMINARY ESSAY. CXXXV•Spanish explorers a century and a half later, those names areheard of no more. In their stead we have CHINA and PEKING,HANGCHEU and CHINCHEU and CANTON. Not only are the oldnames forgotten, but the fact that those places had been knownbefore, is utterly forgotten also. Gradually Jesuit missionarieswent forth again from Rome. New converts were made andnew vicariats constituted; but the old Franciscan churches andthe Nestorianism with which they had battled had been alikeswallowed up in the ocean of Paganism. In time, as we haveseen, slight traces of the former existence of Christian churchescame to the surface, and when Marco Polo was recalled to mind,one and another began to suspect that China and Cathay were one.IX. CATHAY PASSING INTO CHINA. -CONCLUSION.108. But we have been going too fast over the ground, and wemust return to that dark interval of which we have spoken, between the fall of the Yuen dynasty and the first appearance ofthe Portuguese in the Bocca Tigris. The name of Cathay wasnot forgotten; the poets and romancers kept it in memory,' andthe geographers gave it a prominent place on their maps. Butthis was not all; some flickering gleams of light came now andthen from behind the veil that now hung over Eastern Asia.Such are the cursory notices of Cathay which reached Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo on his embassy to the court of Timur at Samarkand (A.D. 1403-5) , and John Schiltberger the Bavarian who1 E.g., the story of Mitridanes and Nathan in Boccaccio is laid inCathay. And in the Orlando Innamorato the father of Angelica is King Galafron:" Il qual nell' India estrema signoreggiaUna gran terra ch' ha nome il CATTAJO, ” x, 18.2 Clavijo speaks of an ambassador whom the Lord of Cathay had sentto Timur Beg, to demand the yearly tribute which was formerly paid.When Timur saw the Spaniards seated below this Cathayan ambassador,he sent orders that they should sit above him; those who came from theKing of Spain, his son and friend, were not to sit below the envoy of athief and scoundrel who was Timur's enemy. Timur was at this timemeditating the expedition against China, in entering on which he diedat Otrar (17th Feb. 1405) .The Emperor of Cathay, Clavijo tells us, was called Chuyscan, whichmeans “ Nine Empires. " But the Zagatays (Timur's people) called himcxxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.served for many years in the armies of Bajazet and Timur, andreturned to his native land in 1427.1109. More detail is found in the narrative of Nicolo Conti, astaken down in Latin by Poggio Bracciolini about 1440, of whicha version has been given in " India in the Fifteenth Century”.The narrative does not distinctly assert that Nicolo himself hadbeen in Cathay; but I think there is internal evidence that hemust have been. He briefly notices Cambalec (CAMBALESCHIA)and another city of great size which had been established by theemperor, to which he gives the name of NEMPTAI, and which wasthe most populous of all . He speaks of the great wealth of theTangus, which means Pig Emperor (supra, p. liii). The best of all merchandise coming to Samarkand was from China (it is not quite clearwhether Clavijo understands Cathay and China to be the same); especially silk, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and rhubarb. TheChinese were said to be the most skilful workmen in the world. Theysaid themselves that they had two eyes, the Franks one, and the Moors(Mahomedans) none, (an expression which we find repeatedly quoted bydifferent authors) . Cambalu, the chief city of Cathay, was six monthsfrom Samarkand, two of which were over steppes. In the year of theembassy 800 laden camels came from Cambalu to Samarkand. The people with them related that the city was near the sea and twenty times asbig as Tabriz. Now Tabriz is a good league in length, so Cambalu mustbe twenty leagues in length (bad geometry Don Ruy! ) . The emperorused to be a Pagan but was converted to Christianity ( Markham's Trans.,pp. 133 seq., 171 , 173 seq.).1 Schiltberger seems to have been at Samarkand at the same timewith Clavijo. All that he says of China is with reference to the embassyspoken of by the latter, and Timur's scheme of invasion: " Now at thistime had the Great Chan, the King of CHETEY, sent an envoy to Thämerlin with four hundred horses, and demanded tribute of him, seeing thathe had neglected to pay it and kept it back for five years past. SoThämerlin took the envoy with him to his capital aforesaid. Then senthe the envoy away and bid him tell his master he would be no tributarynor vassal of his, nay he trusted to make the emperor his tributary and vassal. And he would come to him in person. And then he sent offdespatches throughout his dominions to make ready, for he would marchagainst Cetey. And so when he had gathered 1,800,000 men he marchedfor a whole month, " etc. (Reisen des Johannes Schiltberger, etc., München,1859, p. 81).2 I suppose this to be Nanking. The " ab imperatore condita" appearsto imply recent construction or reconstruction, which would justly applyto Nanking, established as the capital of the Ming dynasty at the timethe Mongols were expelled ( 1367-8 ) . Indeed Ramusio's Italian version of•PRELIMINARY ESSAY. exxxviicountry and of the politeness and civilisation of the people, asquite on a par with those of Italy. Their merchants were immensely wealthy, and had great ships much larger than those ofEurope, with triple sides and divided into water-tight compartments for security. " Us, " he says, " they call Franks, and saythat whilst other nations are blind, we see with one eye, whilstthey are the only people who see with both. " Alone of alleastern nations they use tables at dinner, and silver dishes. Thewomen paint their faces . Their tombs are caves dug in the sideof a hill, arched over, and revetted on the exterior with a handsome wall. All these particulars are perfectly accurate, and canscarcely have been acquired except from personal knowledge.¹Conti has "la quale da poco tempo in qua è stata fatta di novo di questo rè.”Thirty miles, the circuit ascribed by Conti to Nemptai, though above thetruth, is less than more recent travellers have named (see p. 120 infra) .I am not able to explain the name, though I have little doubt thatit was a Mongol appellation of Nanking, perhaps connected with Ingtien, a name given to that city by the Ming when they made it theircapital (Martini) , and that it is the same which occurs in Sharifuddin'slife of Timur, where it is mentioned that from Tetcaul (qu. Karaúl ofShah Rukh's ambassadors? infra) , the fortified gate of the Great Wallon the Shensi frontier, it was fifty-one days' journey to KENJANFU (i.e. ,Singanfu, vide infra, p. 148) , and from that city forty days alike to Canbalec and NEMNAI. The reading should probably be Nemtai as in Conti .One dot missing makes the difference (Petis de la Croix, iii, 218) .1 See India in the XVth cent. , pp. 14, 21, 23, 27. The passage about thetombs is, indeed, in the printed edition given as of Anterior India; but Ihave no doubt that this is a mistake for Interior India, a term whichConti uses for China, as where he quotes the proverb about the one eye of the Franks, etc., as used by the Interiores Indi. This is inexactly translated by Mr. Winter Jones as "The natives of CentralIndia"; but the word is used for remoter, as by Cosmas, when he saysthat Ceylon receives silk " from the parts further in (and Tŵv évdotépwv) ,I speak of Chinista and the other marts in that quarter" , and again ofChina, " s évdorépa ( ' further ben' , as they say in Scotland) , there is noother country." Ptolemy uses a like expression for remoter (see ext. , atp. cl ) . The description of the tombs applies accurately to those of theChinese and of no other people .Poggio has evidently not followed Conti's Geography with any insight,and thus has mixed up features belonging to very different easternnations. Thus the passage which is given as applicable to all the nationsof India of writing vertically was probably meant only to apply to the Chinese.7cxxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.110. The information brought home by Nicolo was eagerlycaught at by the cosmographers of the period, and much of it isembodied both in the Cosmographia in the Palatine Library atFlorence, ' and in the more important map of FRA MAURO, nowin the Ducal Palace at Venice. The latter map indeed embracesso much more than is noticed in Poggio's narrative, especiallyin the valleys of the Ganges and the Irawadi, that there can belittle doubt that Conti, when at Venice, was subjected to a moreeffectual cross-examination by the cosmographic friar.2111. Poggio helps us to another very ill-focussed glimpse ofCathay in the notices which he adds at the end of Conti's narrative. Here he states that whilst he was preparing that story forpublication a person had arrived " from Upper India towards thenorth" , who had been deputed to visit the Pope and to collect1 This map is described by Zurla (Dissert. , ii , 397) as of 1417, and, if Iam not mistaken, it is so entered in the Palatine Catalogue. But thecoincidences with Conti, e.g. , his Java Major and Minor, his islands ofSandai and Bandan, his lake in Ceylon, etc., are too many and toominute to admit question of their origin. The third figure of the dateis half obliterated, and can just as well be read 4 as 1. The date is certainly 1447 at the earliest.I had noted these remarks from examination of the original before Ibecame aware, from a passage in Professor Kunstmann's Die KenntnissIndiens im 15ten Jahrhunderte (p. 33) , that Neigebauer, an author whomI do not know, had already made the correction.2 Thus in Burmah we have not only, as in the narrative by Poggio,AVA and PAIGU (Pegu, transmuted by Poggio into Pauconia, and printedPanconía), but also CHESMI (Cosmin, the port representing the modernBassein till the beginning of last century, but the exact site of whichseems lost), MARTABAN; and up the river PERHÉ ( Prome, in the trueBurmese form Pré), POCHANG (Pagán, the ancient capital), CAPELANG(the Ruby country north of Ava, a name preserved to a much later date,but not now traceable) , MOQUAN (Mogoung) . And near the head of theIrawadi; i.e. , at Bhamó, is the rubric, " Here goods are transferred fromriver to river, and so go on into Cathay." In Bengal, again, we haveORIÇA, BENGALLA (see p. 465 infra) , SONARGAUAm (ibid. ) , SatgaUAM ( Satganw, or perhaps Chittagong) , and in the interior SCIERNO (Cernoue inPoggio; i.e. , Gaur under the name of Shahr-i-nau, see ibid. ) , ZUANAPUR(Jaunpur) , CHANDAR (Chunar? ) . But there are enormous fundamentalconfusions in Fra Mauro's ideas of the rivers of India. Thus, the Industakes in a great measure the place of the Ganges, whilst the Ganges isconfounded with the Kiang. And some of the towns of Bengal namedare placed on the Indus and some are transported eastward.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxxxixinformation about Western Christians, by the Patriarch of hisown country, which was a Nestorian kingdom, twenty days'journey from Cathay. The imperfections of interpretation madeit difficult to acquire information of interest from this personage.He spoke, however, of the Great Khan, and of his having dominion over nine potent kings. This seems to be the same envoywho is spoken of by the Italian philosopher and mathematician,Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, in a letter addressed in 1474 to hisfriend Fernando Martinez, canon of Lisbon, of which the writerafterwards sent a copy to Columbus, when replying to a communication from the latter on the great object of his life. Thestatement of Poggio that the envoy came from a Christian ecclesiastic seems much more probable than that he came, as Toscanelli thought, from the Great Khan himself. But it remainsa difficult problem to say whence he did really come. It wouldseem as if some tribe of the Kerait or the Uigurs had maintainedtheir Christianity till near the middle of the fifteenth century. "112. To this period also belong the notices of Cathay whichwere collected by JOSAFAT BARBARO, and are recounted in thehistory of his Embassy to Persia. Whilst he was on this mission ,the Lord Assambei (i.e. , Uzun Hassan, a Turcoman chief, who,See the extract from Clavijo above. This notion may be taken fromsome traditional title bearing reference to the oldest division of Chinaunder Yu (B.c. 2286) into Nine Provinces (Chine Moderne, p. 37); also inthe division of the empire under the Mongols into 12 sings (infra, p.270) three of these, Solangka, Corea, and Yunan, were considered exterior, the other nine to constitute China Proper ( D'OHSSON, ii, 478). NineProvinces was anciently a name applied to China Proper (Chine Moderne, 211; and Vie de Hiouen Thsang, p. 298) .2 See the letter in Note XV. The curious statements in Varthemaabout Christians of Sarnau, a country towards Cathay, with whom hetravelled in the Archipelago, are here brought to mind. I think Mr.Badger has referred to this passage of Poggio; but I cannot turn to hisedition now. The letter of Toscanelli is extracted from " Del Vecchio eNuovo Gnomone Fiorentino, etc. , di Lionardo Ximenes della Comp. di Gesù,Geografo di sua Maestà Imp. Firenze, 1757" , pp. lxxxi-xcviii .Another traveller, who returned from the Indies in 1424 after wandering there for twenty-four years, by name Bartolomeo Fiorentino, relatedwhat he had seen to Pope Eugenius at Venice; but, unfortunately, nothing ofthis narrative seems to have been preserved (see Humboldt, Examen Critique, etc., i, 260).12cxl PRELIMINARY ESSAY.in the civil strifes that accompanied the decay of Timur'sdynasty, acquired the whole of Western Persia) , being one daygreatly pleased with the acumen shown by Barbaro in judgingof a Balass ruby, called out " O, Cathayers, Cathayers! ( saidyou not well that) three eyes have been allowed mankind, andyou have got two of them, and the Franks the third!" Barbarounderstood what he meant, for he had already heard the proverb(as we have now three times before¹ ) from a certain ambassadorin the service of the Khan of the Tartars of the Wolga, who hadcome from Cathay in 1436, and whom Barbaro had entertainedin his house at Tana ( or Azov) " hoping to get some jewel outof him. " From this ambassador he gathered a good deal of detail about Cathay, which he gives in a later part of his work."113. Somewhat earlier in the century occurred the missionsent by Shah Rukh, the son of Timur, to the court of Chingtsu ,the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty. Of this embassy anarrative written by Khwaja Ghaiassuddin, surnamed Nakkáshor the Painter, a member of the mission, has been preserved inAbdurrazzak's History of Shah Rukh, and has been translated byM. Quatremère.3 The embassy took place in A.H. 823-5 ( a.d.1420-22) , and was one out of several such interchanged betweenthe courts, of which mention is made in the same history.amusing to find the Emperor of China, in a letter carried by oneof his embassies, speaking of the steadfastness with which hiscorrespondent's father, Timur, had maintained his loyalty to theCourt of China. An abstract of the narrative, with notes, will befound in the sequel. "1 From Hayton (in Note XIV) , Clavijo, and Conti.2 Ramusio, ii, ff. 106 v. and 107. See the extracts in Note XVI.It is3 Notices et Extraits, xiv, pt. i , pp . 387 seqq. There is a slightly abridgedtranslation in Astley's Voyages. Quatremère is mistaken in supposingthat the narrative of the Embassy is translated in Chambers's AsiaticMiscellany. There is only an extract containing some account of thepreceding intercourse between the courts.See op. cit. , pp. 213 seqq . , 216 seqq. , 304-6. There seems to be some variation as to the correct date. It is not worth going into here,but a comparison of the passage where Abdurrazzak speaks of the embassy in the ordinary course of his history (p. 306) with that where heintroduces the special narrative (p. 387) will show the inconsistency.5 P. 214.6 See Note XVII.PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxli114. Except the brief and fabulous stories of Chin and Machin,which Athanasius Nikitin picked up in the ports of WesternIndia (1468-1474) I am not aware of any other European noticesof China previous to the voyages of Columbus and De Gama.The former, it is scarcely needful to say, in his great enterprisewas seeking no new continent but a shorter route to the Cathayand Cipangu of Marco Polo, and died believing that the countrieswhich he had discovered were the eastern skirts of Asia, a beliefwhich was not extinct for some twenty years and more after hisdeath.¹115. The Portuguese first visited a port of China in 1514, andthe adventurers on this occasion sold their goods to great profitthough they were not allowed to land. In 1517 took place thetrading expedition to Canton under Andrada, carrying the unfortunate ambassador Perez, who died in fetters in China.²116. With this event, perhaps, our sketch ought to conclude.But it was a good many years longer before China was familiarlyknown from the seaward access, and with the revived interest in1 In a letter, De Orbis Situ ac Descriptione, from a certain FranciscanFriar Francis, addressed to the Archbishop of Palermo, which is attachedto some copies of the Peregrinatio Joannis Hesei (Antwerp. , 1565), the cityof"Themistetan" or Mexico is identified with the Quinsai of Marco Polo,Hispaniola with Cipangu, and so forth.2 This last is generally stated as the first Portuguese expedition toChina. But the former one is noticed by Andrew Corsalis in his letterto Duke Lorenzo de' Medici, dated 6th January, 1515 ( Ramusio, i, ff. , 180,181): " The merchants of the land of China also make voyages to Malacca across the Great Gulf to get cargoes of spices, and bring from theirown country musk, rhubarb, pearls, tin, porcelain, and silk and wroughtstuffs of all kinds, such as damasks, satins, and brocades of extraordinaryrichness. For they are people of great skill, and on a par with ourselves(di nostru qualità) , but of uglier aspect, with little bits of eyes. Theydress very much after our fashion, and wear shoes and stockings (?scarpee calciamenti) like ourselves. I believe them to be pagans, though manyallege that they hold our faith or some part of it. During this last yearsome of our Portuguese made a voyage to China. They were not permitted to land; for they say ' tis against their custom to let foreignersenter their dwellings . But they sold their goods at a great gain, andthey say there is as great profit in taking spices to China as in takingthem to Portugal; for ' tis a cold country and they make great use ofthem. It will be five hundred leagues from Malacca to China, sailingnorth."cxlii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.discovery and in the perusal of the old travellers, attention became again directed to CATHAY, as a region distinct from thesenew found Indies, so that it might be considered yet to hold anindependent place in geographical history. Cathay had been theaim of the first voyage to the north-west of the Cabots in 1496,and it continued to be the object of many adventurous Englishvoyages to the north-west and the north- east till far on in thesucceeding century, though in the later of these expeditionsChina no doubt had assumed its place. At least one memorableland journey too was made by Englishmen, of which the investigation of the trade with Cathay was a chief object; I mean ofcourse that in which Anthony Jenkinson and the two Johnsonsreached Bokhara from Russia in 1558-9. The country regardingwhich they gathered information at that city is still known tothem only as Cathay, and its great capital is still as in the days ofPolo Cambalu and not Peking.¹117. Other narratives of Asiatic journeys to Cathay are preserved by RAMUSIO, and by AUGER GISLEN DE BUSBECK. The firstwas taken down by the Venetian geographer from the lips ofHAJJI MAHOMED, an intelligent Persian merchant whom he fell inwith at Venice; the second was noted by Busbeck, when ambassador from the Emperor Charles V to the Porte ( 1555-62) , fromthe narrative of a wandering Turkish dervish. Large extractsfrom these last words about Cathay will be found in the notes tothis essay.118. We arrive now at the term of our subject in the journeyof Benedict Goës, undertaken in 1603 with the specific object ofdetermining whether the Cathay of old European travellers andmodern Mahomedans was or was not a distinct region from thatChina of which parallel marvels had now for years been recited .Benedict, " secking Cathay found Heaven, " as one of his brethren1 Such is the case also in the narrative of the Russian Embassy ofJacowitz Boicof in 1653 ( Voyages au Nord, iv, 150).2 Preface to the 2nd vol. of the Navigationi.3 Busbequii Epistolæ, Amsterd. , 1660, pp. 326-330 . The letter containing this narrative was written at Frankfort, 16th December, 1562, after the ambassador's return.

• See Notes XVIII and XIX.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. cxliiihas pronounced his epitaph; but not before he had ascertained thatChina and Cathay were one. His journey we have chosen as afitting close to our collection . After the publication of that narrative inexcusable ignorance alone could continue to distinguishbetween Cathay and China, and though such ignorance lingeredfor many years longer, here we may fairly consider our task at anend.11 Ricci and his companions, as we have seen, were before the journeyof Goës satisfied of the identity of Cathay and China. So appears tohave been, at an earlier date, the Italian geographer Magini. Purchas perceived the same, and the Jesuit Martini, in his Atlas Sinensis,expounded the identity in detail . Yet the Geographical Lexicon ofBaudrand, in a revised edition of 1677, distinguishes between them, remarking that “ some confound Cathay with China. ” I have not had accessto Müller's Disquisitio de Chataja, which probably contains interestingmatter on the subject .A faint attempt to repeat the journey of Goës, but apparently in ignorance of that enterprise, was made a good many years later by the JesuitAimé Chesaud starting from Ispahan. He does not seem to have gotfurther than Balkh, if so far. He still speaks of " getting to Chatao andthence to China." There is no date given. (See his letter in Kircher'sChina Illustrata, 1667, p. 86.)exliv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES TO PRELIMINARYESSAY.ΝΟΤΕ I.EXTRACT FROM THE PERIPLUS OF THE ERYTHRÆAN SEA.(Circa A.D. 80-89 . ) ¹" BEHIND this country2 the sea comes to a termination somewhere inTHIN; and in the interior of that country, quite to the north, there is avery great city called THINE, from which raw silk and silk thread andsilk stuffs are brought overland through Bactria to Barygaza, as theyare on the other hand by the Ganges River to Limyrice. It is not easy,however, to get to this Thin, and few and far between are those whocome from it. The place lies quite under the Little Bear; and it is saidthat its territories adjoin the remoter frontiers of Pontus and the Caspian Sea, beside which you find the Lagoon Mæotis which has a communication with the ocean.66 Every year there come to the frontier of Thin certain people of dwarfish stature and very broad in the face, scarcely superior to wildcreatures, but harmless, who are said to be called SESADE. They comeaccompanied by their wives and children, and bring with them great41 This is Müller's view; see his Prolegomena to Geog. Græci Minores, i,xcvi-vii.2 Viz. Chryse, " The Golden Land, " apparently Pegu and thereabouts,the Suvarna Bhumi or Golden Land of the old Indian Buddhists. Sonaparanta, a term of like meaning, is still the sacred or classical term for the central territories of Ava.3 The meaning is probably the same as that of Ptolemy's statement,extracted in the next note, that there was not only one road from the Sinæ or Seres to Bactriana by the Stone Tower, but also another direct to Palibothra on the Ganges.4 In the work styled Palladius on the Brahmans, embodied in the Pseudo-Callisthenes published by Müller ( Script. de Alex. Magno, pp.103-4) there is an account apparently of the same people under the name of Bisades, the gatherers of pepper. They are described as " a dwarfish and imbecile race who dwell in rocky caves, and from the nature of theircountry are expert at climbing cliffs , and thus able to gather the pepper from the thickets....These Bisades are pygmies, with big heads and longstraight unclipt hair." Sir J. E. Tennent applies this to the Veddahs of Ceylon. But there is nothing, I think, in the passage to fix it to Ceylon. It is given on the authority of a certain Scholasticus of Thebes, who finding an Indian vessel in a port of the Axum country took the opportunity it offered of visiting distant parts. The story is probably not genuine. Foras Müller points out, the Beside are mentioned by Ptolemy (vii, 1 ) as apeople, otherwise called Tilada, who live north of Maandrus (a moun1SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. exlyloads in creels' that look as if they were made of green vines . Thesepeople halt at some place on the frontier between their own country andThin, and hold a feast for several days, during which they strew [thematerials of] their baskets about on the ground, and then they depart totheir own homes in the interior. When the other people are aware oftheir departure they come to the spot and gather those withes that hadbeen strewn about. To these they give the name of Petris Gettingrid of the [stalks and ] fibrous parts they take the leaves and double themup into little balls which they stitch through with the fibres of the withes.And these they divide into three classes, forming from the largest leaveswhat is called Big-ball Malabathrum, from the next size Middle- ball,and from the smallest leaves Little-ball. And thus originate the threequalities of Malabathrum, which the people who have prepared themcarry to India for sale. 'tain chain on the east of Bengal) , " dwarfish and stumpy and platter- faced, but white in complexion. " Lassen locates them as a Bhotiya race in the Himalya near Darjiling; his map (by Kiepert) in the Garo and Kasia Hills north of Silhet.1 The word is тapróvas , the meaning of which is doubtful.2 The word is κaλáμоι, and would usually mean reeds or canes. But itseems absurd so to term what had been described as like green vinetwigs.3 Not the withes but the leaves, as Lassen (iii, 38) has pointed out,must have been called thus; Sanst. Patra, a leaf; mod. Hindust. Patti.4 The same terms (hadrospherum, mesospherum, microspherum) are applied by Pliny to varieties of Nard; perhaps a mistake of his, as Dioscorides observes that some people made the mistake of regarding mala- bathrum as the leaf of Indian Nard.Some ofthe early writers after the Portuguese discoveries took the pán or betel leaf for the malabathrum of the ancients, but the physician Garcias Da Horta, in his work on the aromatics of India (first publishedat Goa in 1563) pointed out that malabathrum was the Tamalapatra, the leaf of a species of cassia, still valued in India though in a greatly inferior degree (see ch. xix; I quote an Ital. transl. , Venice, 1589) . Curiously enough Ramusio gives as a representation of the " Betelle" a cut which really represents with fair accuracy the Tamalapatra, commonly called (at least in Bengal) Tejpát. Linschoten describes it accurately, noticing its pleasant clove-like smell, and says it was in great repute among the Hindus as a diuretic, etc., and to preserve clothes from moths, two of the uses expressly assigned to malabathrum by Dioscorides and Pliny. He also observes that the natives considered it to rival spikenard in all its qualities. Linschoten's commentator Paludanus says much was imported to Venice in his time; and that it was called by the Arabs Cadegi Indi(Read çadegi) . I see that in F. Johnson's Persian Dictionary, Sádaj is defined " Indian spikenard, " and Sádhaji Hindi, Indian leaf, " whichseems to show the persistence of the confusion between the two articles.This leaf was abundant in the forests of the Kasia Hills, where I passeda part of my earliest service in India, and so was a cassia producing acoarse cinnamon, of which there was a considerable export to the plains.The trees were distinct, if I be not mistaken, though evidently of the same genus. The Tejpát was narrow, like that of the Portugal laurel,that of the other tree much broader, both noticeable for their partitionby three main longitudinal nerves, like the lines of longitude on a map of the hemisphere. The Kasias in features would answer well to the66cxlvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY."But as for the regions beyond those places that we have mentioned,whether it be that the wintry climate and excessive cold renders it hardto penetrate them, or whether it be the result of some supernatural influence from the gods, it is the fact that they never have beenexplored. " From Müller's Geogr. Gr. Minores, i , pp. 303-5.NOTE II.EXTRACTS FROM THE GEOGRAPHY OF PTOLEMY.(Circa A.D. 150)."The inhabited part of our earth is bounded on the east by the Unknown Land which lies along the region occupied by the eastermostnations of Asia Major, the SINE and the nations of SERICE; and on thesouth likewise by the Unknown Land'which shuts round the Indian Sea,and encompasses that Ethiopia to the south of Libya which is called theland of Agisymba; to the west by the Unknown Land which embracesthe Ethiopic Gulf of Libya, and then by the Western Ocean which liesalong the most westerly parts of Libya and of Europe; and on the northby that continuation of the same ocean which encircles the BritannicIsles and the most northerly parts of Europe, and which goes by thenames of Duecalydonian and Sarmatic, and by an Unknown Land whichstretches along the most northerly parts of Asia Major, viz . , Sarmatia,Scythia, and Serice. . . ."6' The Hyrcanian Sea, called also Caspian, is everywhere shut in bytheland, so as to be just the converse of an island encompassed by thewater. Such also is the case with that sea which embraces the IndianSea with its gulfs, the Arabian Gulf, the Persian Gulf, the GangeticGulf, and the one which is called distinctively the Great Gulf, this seaBesada or Sesada, but they are no dwarfs, whilst some of the Tibetan tribes of the Himalya are very short. Domestically among AngloIndians this once prized malabathrum, some qualities of which the Romans purchased at three hundred denarii per pound, is, as far as Iknow, used only to flavour tarts, custards, and curries. But (besides what Linschoten says) Rheede mentions that, in his time in Malabar, oils in high medical estimation were made from both the root and the leaves of the Karua or wild cinnamon of that coast, a plant no doubt closely allied. And from the former a camphor was extracted, having several ofthe properties of real camphor and more fragrant.Mr. Crawfurd has suggested that the finer malabathrum was benzoin,but I believe all the authorities on the subject speak of it as derivedfrom a leaf; indeed Dioscorides, like our author here, speaks of the stitching up of the leaves. Some part of what Dioscorides says seemsindeed to apply to a solid extract, but it may have been of the nature of Rheede's camphor. ( See Pliny, xii , 25, 26, 59; xiii , 2; xxxiii , 48; Dioscorides,loc. cit.; Linschoten, Latin version, Hague, 1599, p. 84; Rheede, Hortus Malabaricus, i, 107; Crawf. Diet. Indian Islands, p. 50; on Malabathrum,see also Lassen, i, 283; iii, 37, 154 seq. )SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . cxlviibeing encompassed on all sides by the land . So we see that of the threeContinents Asia is joined to Libya both by that Arabian Isthmus whichseparates Our Sea from the Arabian Gulf, and by the unknown landwhich encompasses the Indian Sea. . . ."The eastern extremity of the known earth is limited by the meridiandrawn through the metropolis of the Sina, at a distance fromAlexandria of 11940, reckoned upon the equator, or about eightequinoctial hours. . . . " ( Book vii, ch. 5. )In his first book Ptolemy speaks of Marinus as the latest Greek writerwho had devoted himself to geography. Editions of his revision of the geographical tables had been very numerous. But his statements required much correction, and he forms too great an estimate of the extentof the inhabited world both in length and breadth . As regards latitudePtolemy illustrates this by criticising the position which Marinus hadassigned, on the basis of certain journeys and voyages, to the extreme southern region of Ethiopia called Agisymba. The calculation ofdistance in the rough from those routes would have placed this region24,680 stadia south of the equator, or as Ptolemy says almost among theantarctic frosts.¹ Marinus had summarily cut this down to 12,000stadia, bringing it nearly to the southern tropic, and Ptolemy again ongeneral reasoning as to the nature of the animals met with, etc., reducesthe distance to 8,000 stadia. So also, he says, Marinus had exaggeratedthe longitude, giving an interval of fifteen hours between the FortunateIslands in the west and the most easterly regions of Sera, of the Sinæ,and of Cattigara in the east, which should not be more than twelvehours. In determining the position of Sera, etc. , Marinus had made useof the route of certain mercantile agents who had travelled thither, andthis Ptolemy proceeds to criticise . He assents to the longitude assignedby Marinus between the Fortunate Isles and the Euphrates Ferry atHierapolis, and then proceeds (Bk. i , ch. 11 ):"But as regards the distance between the said Euphrates Ferry andthe Stone Tower, which he deduces to be 876 schani, or 26,280 stadia, andthe distance from the Stone Tower to Sera, the capital of the Seres, ³ ajourney of seven months, which he calculates at 35,200 stadia runningon one parallel ( i.e. due east) we shall apply a correction in reduction ofeach of these. For in neither section has he made any diminution onaccount of the exaggeration caused by deviations from a straight course,whilst in the second portion of the route he has fallen into the sameerrors as in regard to the itinerary from the country of the Garamantesto that of Agisymba. In that case it was found necessary to cut down1 Bk. i, ch. 8. 2 N.E. of Aleppo.3 Most editions I believe read 66 capital of the Sina," which, however,with Ptolemy's views, as clearly enough shown in these extracts, cannot be the genuine reading.cxlviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.more than the half on the distance as calculated from a journey of fourmonths and fourteen days, for it was not to be supposed that travellingshould have gone on without intermission all that time. And as regardsthis seven months' journey the same consideration will apply even moreforcibly than on the route from the Garamantes. For in the latter casethe business was carried out by the king of the country, and as we maysuppose with more than ordinary forethought, and they had fine weatherall along. But on the journey from the Stone Tower to Sera badweather was to be looked for, seeing that it ran (according to Marinus'sown hypothesis) in the latitudes of Hellespont and Byzantium. And onthis account there must have been many halts on the journey. Moreover it must be remembered that it was on a trading expedition that theinformation about this road was acquired."For he tells us that the distances were taken down by one Maës calledalso Titianus, a Macedonian, and a merchant like his father before him;not that he made the journey himself, but he had sent agents to theSeres. Now Marinus himself (on other occasions) has shown little faithin traders' stories, as (for example) when he refuses to believe the statement of Philemon (founded on the talk of some traders) , that the Islandof Iuvernia was twenty days' journey in length from east to west. Forsuch people, he observes, don't take any trouble to search into the truthof things, being constantly taken up with their business and often exaggerating distances through a spirit of brag. Just so, as there seems tohave been nothing else that they thought worth remembering or tellingabout this seven months' journey, they made a wonder about the lengthof time it had occupied.CHAPTER XII."For these reasons, and because the journey was not really upon oneparallel ( the Stone Tower being in the latitude of Byzantium, whilstSera is further south than Hellespont) it might have seemed advisableto reduce the distance of 36,200 stadia ascribed to this seven months'journey by more, rather than by less, than a half. But let us keep thereduction within the half, so as to calculate the distance on a roundestimate at 22,625 stadia or 451° . . . And the first distance ( I speak ofthat from Euphrates to the Stone Tower) should be reduced from 876schoni to 800 only, i.e. 24,000 stadia, on account of deviations from thestraight line. . . . For the road from the ferry of the Euphrates atHierapolis through Mesopotamia to the Tigris, and thence through theterritory of the Garamæaus of Assyria, ' and Media, to Ecbatana and theCaspian Gates, and through Parthia to Hecatonpylos, ³ is assumed to liein the parallel of Rhodes, for Marinus himself draws that parallel through¹ In the country S.E. of Mosul; see the Beth- Garma of the list at p. 179 infra. 2 Pass in the Elburz, east of Demawend.3 Somewhere near Damghan.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. cxlixall those places. But the road from Hecatonpylos to Hyrcania¹ mustdecline to the north, for the city of Hyrcania lies somewhere betweenthe latitudes of Smyrna and of the Hellespont. . . . Then the route runson through Aria² to Margiana Antiochia,3 first declining to the south(for Aria lies in the same latitude as the Caspian Gates) , and then tothe north, Antiochia being somewhere near the parallel of the Hellespont. Thence the road proceeds eastward to Bactra, and from thatnorthward up the ascent of the hill country of the Comedi, and theninclining somewhat south through the hill country itself as far as thegorge in which the plains terminate. For the western end of the hillcountry is more to the north also, being (as Marinus puts it) under thelatitude of Byzantium, the eastern end more to the south being under thelatitude of Hellespont. Hence [ the hills running thus from south ofeast to north of west ] the road runs as he describes in the oppositedirection, i.e. towards the east with an inclination south; and thena distance of fifty schoeni extending to the Stone Tower would seemto tend northward. This Stone Tower stands in the way of those whoascend the gorge, and from it the mountains extend eastward to join thechain of Imaus which runs north to this from (the territory of)Palimbothra. "...³1 Jorján, N.W. of Astrabad.2 The territory of Harah, Heri or HERAT.3 Supposed to be MARW. 4 BALKH.I have not perhaps succeeded in rendering this description very in- telligible. The old Latin versions and the Abbé Halma's French trans- lation seem simply to shirk the difficulties of the passage. I have notaccess to any others or to Humboldt's Asie Centrale, which I believe con- tains a dissertation on this route.The account would perhaps be easier to understand if we knew more of the geography of the country towards Karategin, in which I suppose the hill country of the Comedi must lie. The chief difficulties arise in connexion with the expression " as far as the gorge in which the plains terminate” (μέχρι τῆς ἐκδεχομένης τὰ πεδία φαράγγος) , and the statementthat fifty schoeni (one hundred and fifty miles? ) before reaching the Stone Tower the route lay northward. The former expression is intelligible if with Ritter we understand the passage of Imaus to have been that running from Kokand up the Jaxartes Valley to Andijan and across the Terek Daban to Kashgar, but in that case how could the route ap- proaching the Stone Tower which he places at USH (where there aresaid to be ancient remains of importance) by any possibility run north- ward? (see Ritter, vii, 483, 563; viii, 693) . In the time of the Sui dynasty,or beginning of the seventh century, the Chinese knew three roads from Eastern into Western Turkestan, among which we naturally seek that of Maes Titianus. Of these three the first or north road seems fromthe description to have run north of the Thian Shan, and is out of thequestion; a second or middle road passed from Kashgar to Farghana,and is no doubt that of the Terek Daban; the third or south road passed through Khotan, and then through Chukiupo (said to be Yangihisar) ,and Kopantho (said to be Selekur or Sarikul; see N. Ann. des Voy., 1846,iii, 47) . Ritter takes the second for the route of Titianus, supposingthe third route to be that by the Sirikul into Badakshan, which is cer- tainly inconsistent with Ptolemy's data. But is it certain that there wasel PRELIMINARY ESSAY.And so on, bringing out the whole distance from the Fortunate Isles tothe city of Sera to be 1771° . In chapters 13 and 14 he tries to estimatethe longitude run by sea from Cape Cory in Southern India to Cattigarathe port of the Sinæ, determining the latter to lie in 177°; and as allwere agreed that the metropolis of the Sinæ lay still further to the east,he puts that in 180° . The whole calculation is based on the loosestpossible data, and made to bring out a foregone conclusion. The following is a specimen of the data:"Marinus does not exhibit the mileage from the Golden Chersonese toCattigara. But he says that Alexander has described the land beyond(that Chersonese ) to lie facing the south, and that after sailing by thisfor twenty days you reach the city of Zaba, and still sailing on for somedays southward but rather to the left you reach Cattigara. He exaggerates the distance, for the expression is some days not many days. Hesays indeed that no numerical statement of the days was made becausethey were so many but this I take to be ridiculous , " etc. , etc.In chapter 17 , speaking of persons who had made the voyage to Indiaand spent much time in those parts, he proceeds:" From these persons also we have got more exact information aboutIndia and its kingdoms, as well as about the remoter¹ parts of the region extending to the Golden Chersonese and thence to Cattigara. For examplethey all agree in stating that in going thither your course is to the east,and in coming back again it is to the west, and they agree also in sayingthat no determinate time can be named for the accomplishment of theno route in former use intermediate between the pass to Farghana andthat to Badakshan, e.g. passing from Tashbalik towards Karateghin?Kiumi, which is probably the country of Ptolemy's Comedi, is mentioned in Remusat's list of states tributary to China under the Thang. He says indeed it lay " among the mountains of Tokharestan south of theOxus, towards Balk and Termedh, " but north ofthe Oxus would be moreconsistent with the data, and it is north of the Oxus that the kingdom ofKeumitho mentioned by Hiouen- Thsang appears to lie, which is doubt- less the same (see Mem. de l'Acad. R. des Inscr. , viii , 92-3; Vie de HiouenThsang, p. 464; and Chino-Japanese ancient Map, in Klaproth's Mémoires,tom. ii). I see that Kiepert in his map of Asia (1864) inserts Kumid above Karategin with a query (?) . It seems possible, however, that we have the name of the Comedi in Kawadián or Kabadian, which Edrisiapplies to the country between Termedh and Hissar, and which still survives as the name of a town or village.Beyond the Stone Tower, and in Imaus itself, there was a opμnrnplov or station for the traders to the Seres (bk. vi, ch. 13 ) . This may have been about Tashbalik. Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Roman Geography, article Serica, states as a fact that in the ancient conduct of the silk trade theSeres deposited their bales of silk in the Stone Tower with the prices marked, and then retired, whilst the western merchants came forward toinspect. Where is the authority? And if it were so, why did Maës send his agents seven months' journey further? Or did the writerof the article find the dumb trade in Pliny and the Stone Tower in Ptolemy, and like a celebrated character of Dickens's " combine the in- formation"?Lit. " Interior."SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clivoyage, which varies with circ*mstances. They also agree that the landof the Seres with their metropolis lies to the north of the land of theSinæ, and that all that is further east than these is a Terra Incognitafull of marshy lagoons in which great canes grow, and that so denselythat people are able to cross the marshes by means of them. They tellalso that there is not only a road from those countries to Bactriana bythe Stone Tower, but also a road to India which goes through Palimbothra. And the road from the metropolis of the Sina to the port ofCattigara runs towards the south-west; so the former city would appearnot to fall on the meridian of Sera and Cattigaras, as Marinus will haveit, but to lie further east. "SERICE." SERICE is bounded on the west by Scythia beyond Imaus, accordingto the line already defined (i.e. , a line whose northern extremity is inlong. 150°, N. lat. 63° and its southern extremity in long. 160° , N. lat.35°); on the north, by the Terra Incognita, in the latitude of the Islandof Thule; on the east, by the Eastern Terra Incognita in the meridianof 180 ° from lat. 63° down to 3° 0; on the south, by the remaining partof India beyond the Ganges along the parallel of 35° to the terminationof that country in long. 173°, and then by the Sinæ along the same linetill you reach the frontier of the Terra Incognita, as it has just been defined.'" Serice is girdled round by the mountains named Anniba, 2 by theeastermost part of the Auxacian Mountains, by the mountains calledAsmiræan, the easternmost part of the Kasian Mountains, by MountThagurus, by the most easterly part of the ranges called Hemodus andSericus, and by the chain of Ottorocorrhas. Two rivers of especial noteflow through the greater part of Serice; the river Echordas is one ofthese, one source of which is that set forth as flowing from the Auxacianrange, and the other from the Asmiræan range. And the other isthe river called Bautes, whieh has one source in the Kasian Mountainsand another in the mountain of Ottorocorrhas.3One might be reading the legislative definitions of the boundaries of an American state or an Australian colony. We see here how Ptolemy's Asiatic Geography was compiled. It is evident that he first drew his maps embodying all the information that he had procured, however vague and rough it might be. From these maps he then educed his tables of latitudes and longitudes and his systematic topography. The result is that everything assumes an appearance of exact definition; and indications on the map which meant no more than " somewhere here- abouts is said to be such a country," become translated into a precision fit for an Act of Parliament.2 I omit the latitudes and longitudes of the mountains, rivers, and cities named in this chapter.3 There is, I suppose, no question that the Serice described here ismainly the basin of Chinese Turkestan, encompassed on three sides bylofty mountains. In Auxacia we probably trace the name of Aksu ( De- guignes and D'Anville) , in Kasia perhaps Kashgar (D'Anv. ). Theclii PRELIMINARY ESSAY." The most northern parts of Serice are inhabited by tribes of cannibals. Below these the nation of the Annibi dwells to the north of themountains bearing the same name. Between these last and the AuxacianMountains is the nation of the Sizyges; next to them the Damnæ; andthen the Piaddæ, extending to the river Echardus. Adjoining it are apeople bearing the same name, the Echardæ." And again, east of the Annibi are the Garenæi and the Nabannæ.3There is the Asmiræan country lying north of the mountains of thesame name, and south of this extending to the Kasian Mountains thegreat nation Issedones; and beyond them to the east the Throani. Below them come the Ethaguri to the east of the mountains of the samename, and south of the Issedones the Aspacaræ, and then the Batæ, andfurthest to the south, near the mountain chains Hemodus and Sericus,are the Ottorocorrhæ.""The names of the following cities of Serice are given: " Damna, Piada,Asmiræa, Tharrhana, Issedon Serica, Aspacara, Drosache, Paliana,Abragana, Thogara, Daxata, Orosana, Ottorocorrha, Solana, Sera Metropolis " (book vi, ch. 16).The Land ofthe SINE." The Sinæ are bounded on the north by part of Serice, as has beendefined already; on the east and the south, by the Terra Incognita; onthe west, by India beyond the Ganges, according to the boundary alreadydefined extending to the Great Gulf, and then by the Great Gulf itself,and those gulfs that follow it in succession, by the gulf called Theriodes,and by part of the gulf of the Sinæ, on which dwell the fish- eatingEthiopians, according to the detail which follows. "He then gives the longitude and latitude of various points on thecoast; viz. , River Aspithra, city of Bramma, River Ambastes, RhabanaOikhardai, on the river of that name, which is probably the Tarim, may represent the Uigurs.i As late as the middle of the thirteenth century King Hethum ofArmenia in the deserts near Bishbalig (Urumtsi ) speaks of wild men with no covering but the hair of their heads; " They are real brutes, " it is added. I do not know any other reference to tribes in Tartary in so lowa state (Journ. Asiat. , ser. ii, tom. xii, p. 273 seqq. )2 The name Sizyges in its probable etymology appears to refer to the chariot or waggon driving habits of the people. A tribe of the Uigurs hereabouts were called by the Chinese Chhesse or " The Car Drivers "(Rémusat in Acad. , viii, 112 ) .663 Possibly the Naiman horde so notable in the Mongol history.4 Utara Kuru of the Hindus, see Lassen i, 846.5 Marcianus of Heraclea in the corresponding passage has theIchthyophagi Sinae, " which is , perhaps, an indication that his Ptolemydid not contain the perplexing appellation Æthiopes. As this appellation(Ichthyophagi Ethiopes) occurs more appropriately (Bk. iv, chap. 9) asthat of a tribe on the remote west coast of Africa, it is not improbablethat its introduction here is due to officious, or perhaps unconscious, interpolation by a transcriber.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. cliiiR. Senus, Cape Notion, Satyr's Cape, R. Cottiaris, and Cattigara, to thePort of the Sinæ. Of inland cities are named Akadra, Aspithra,Cocco- or Coccora- Nagara, Saraga, and Thinæ the Metropolis.66 But this last, they say, hath in reality neither brazen walls nor anything else worth mentioning" (book vii, ch. 3) .NOTE III.FROM POMPONIUS MELA DE SITU ORBIS.(Supposed about A.D. 50. )"In the furthest east of Asia are the Indians, Seres, and Scythians .The Indians and Scythians occupy the two extremities, the Seres are inthe middle" (i, 2) .In another passage, after speaking of certain islands in the Caspian ,and on the Scythian coast, he proceeds:—"From these the course (of the shore) makes a bend and trends tothe coast line which faces the east. That part which adjoins the Scythian promontory is first all impassable from snow; then an uncultivatedtract occupied by savages. These tribes are the Cannibal Scythians andthe Sage, severed from one another by a region where none can dwellbecause of the number of wild animals. Another vast wilderness follows, occupied also by wild beasts, reaching to a mountain called Thabiswhich overhangs the sea. A long way from that the ridge of Taurusrises. The Seres come between the two; a race eminent for integrity,and well known for the trade which they allow to be transacted behindtheir backs, leaving their wares in a desert spot" (iii , 7) .NOTE IV .EXTRACTS FROM PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY.(Bn. A.D. 23, Dd. A.d. 79.)" From the Caspian Sea and the Scythian Ocean the course (of thecoast) makes a bend till the shore faces the east. The first part of thattract of country, beginning from the Scythian Promontory, is uninhabitable from eternal winter; the next portion is uncultivated andoccupied by savage tribes, among whom are the Cannibal Scythianswho feed on human flesh; and alongside of these are vast wildernessestenanted by multitudes of wild beasts hemming in those human creaturesalmost as brutal as themselves. Then, we again find tribes of Scythians,and again desert tracts occupied only by wild animals, till we come tothat mountain chain overhanging the sea, which is called Tabis. Not1 See note at p. cxxv.mcliv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.till nearly half the length of the coast which looks north- east has beenpast, do you find inhabited country . '"The first race then encountered are the SERES, SO famous for thefleecy product of their forests. This pale floss, which they find growingon the leaves, they wet with water, and then comb out, furnishing thusa double task to our womenkind in first dressing the threads, and thenagain of weaving them into silk fabrics. So has toil to be multiplied;so have the ends of the earth to be traversed: and all that a Romandame may exhibit her charms in transparent gauze.²It is evident from a comparison of this with the passage of Melaquoted in the preceding note, that both authors are drawing from some common source.2 Seneca is still stronger in expressions to like purport: " Video sericas vestes, si vestes vocandæ sunt, in quibus nihil est quo defendi aut corpus, aut denique pudor possit; quibus sumptis mulier parum liquido nudam se non esse jurabit. Hæc ingenti summâ, ab ignotis etiam ad commercium gentibus, accersuntur, ut matronæ nostræ ne adulteris quidem plus sui in cubiculo quam in publico ostendant. " De Beneficiis, vii, 9.From these passages it would appear that the silk textures in such esteem among the Romans of those days were not what we should call rich silks, like the satins and damasks which were imported from China in later days, but gauzes, the value of which lay in their excessive delicacy.And that this continued to be the character of the China silks in mostgeneral estimation for several centuries later may be gathered from Abu Zaid, who tells us that the chief Chinese officers wore "silks of the firstquality, such as were never imported into Arabia, " and illustrates this bythe story of an Arab merchant whose curiosity was attracted by amark upon the chest of an officer of the imperial household, which wasplainly visible through several folds of the silk dress which he wore; and it proved that the officer had on five robes of this texture, one over the other (Relations i, p . 76) . Like stories are told in India of the Dacca muslins. One tells, I think, of Akbar that he rebuked one of his ladiesfor the indecent transparency of her dress, and in defence she showed that she had on nine, of the kind which was called Bád- baft, or " Woven Wind."66The passage of Pliny here translated, coupled with another to benoticed presently, has led to a statement made in many respectablebooks, but which I apprehend to be totally unfounded, that the Greeksand Romans picked to pieces the rich China silks and wove light gauzesout of the material. This is asserted, for example, in the treatise on SilkManufacture in Lardner's Cyclopædia (pp. 5, 6) , and in the Encyclopædia Britannica (7th ed. article Silk) . Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography also (article Serica) says: Pliny records that a Greekwoman of Cos, named Pamphila, first invented the expedient of splitting these substantial silk stuffs, and of manu: acturing those very fine and web-like dresses which became so celebrated under the name of Coo Vestes."The whole passage of Pliny here alluded to is as follows (xi, 25):"Among these there is a fourth kind of Bombyx produced in Assyria andgreater than those of which we have been speaking. These make nestsof clay, having the appearance of salt, fastening them upon stone; andthese nests are so hard that they can scarcely be pierced with a pointedtool. They secrete wax in these nests more copiously than bees do, andthe grub too is of proportionately larger size."26. There is one with another mode of development produced from ayet larger grub which has two peculiar horns as it were. From this itbecomes first a caterpillar; then what is called bombylius; next necydalus;SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. elvThe Seres are inoffensive in their manners indeed; but, like the beastsof the forest, they eschew the contact of mankind; and, though readyand then in six months a bombyx. These spin webs like spiders, which are turned to the account of female dress and extravagance under the name of Bombycina. The process of dressing these webs and again of weaving them into fabrics was first invented in Ceos by a woman called Pamphila, the daughter of Latous. Let us not cheat her of her glory in having devised a method by which women shall be dressed and yet naked!"27. They say that Bombyces are also produced in the island of Cos by the genial action of the earth on the flowers of cypress, turpentine-tree,ash, or oak, when shaken down by rain. The first form of the creatureproduced is that of a butterfly, little and naked; then as the cold affects it, it develops a rough coat, and against the winter prepares for itself athick envelope by scraping off the down of leaves with its feet, which are adapted to this purpose. Carding, as it were, and spinning out this sub- stance to a fine thread with its claws, it stretches it from branch to branch,and then lays hold of it and winds it round its body till entirely wrappedin the nest so formed. The people then gather the creatures and put them in earthen pots with warm bran, the effect of which is to develope on them a new plumage, clothed with which they are let go to the other functions reserved for them . The woolly web that they had spun ismoistened so as to disengage more easily, and wound off on a reel of reed.The stuffs made from this are worn without shame even by men as lightsummer clothing. So far have we degenerated from the days when cuirasses of mail were worn that even a coat is too great a burden forus! The produce of the Assyrian Bombyx however we as yet leave to the ladies."On these passages we may remark:1. That the account of the Bombyx in §25 appears to be substantiallytaken from Aristotle, De Animal. Hist. , v, 24, and to refer to somekind of mason bee. The " in Assyria proveniens" of Pliny, which the reference to "Bombyx Assyria” again at the end of the extract seems toconnect with the produce of some kind of texture, does not appear in Aristotle at all. And yet Pliny gives no explanation as to what theproduce of the Assyrian Bombyx was.2. In §26 Pamphila's invention and some kind of web-weaving bom- byx are referred to Ceos; in §27 another kind of weaving bombyx (with its anomalous history) is referred to Cos; whilst Aristotle, as we shallsee, refers Pamphila to Cos. Has not Pliny here been merely emptying out of his note book two separate accounts of the same matter?663. In §26 Pliny's words redordiri rursusque texere are verbatim the same that he uses in the passage about the Seres translated in the text,and seem to be merely affected expressions, indicating nothing more than the carding and reeling the sericum and the bombycinum respectively out of the entanglement of their natural web (as Pliny imagines it) and then re-entangling them again (as it were) in the loom. This is put beyond doubt by the fact that §26 is merely a paraphrase from Aristotle (De An.Hist., v, 19) , who, speaking of various insect transformations, says:From a certain great grub, which has as it were horns, and differs from the others, is produced, first by transformation of the grub, a caterpillar,and then bombylius, and then necydalus. In six months it goes through all these changes of form. And from this creature some women disengage and reel off the bombycina and then weave them. And the first who is said to have woven this material was Pamphile, daughter of Plates in Cos." Whatever material this bombycina may have really been, there isevidently here no question of picking foreign stuffs to pieces, a figment which seems entirely based on Pliny's rhetoric. Cuvier considered the description in §27, however erroneous, clearly to indicate some species ofin 2elvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.to engage in trade, wait for it to come to them instead of seeking it '(vi, 20).Further on, when speaking of Taprobane, he says: —"So far we have from the ancients. But we had an opportunity ofmore correct information in the reign of Claudius , when ambassadorscame from the island. A freedman of Annius Plocamus, who had farmedthe customs of the Red Sea from the Imperial Exchequer, after sailinground Arabia, was driven by storms past Carmania, and on the fifteenthday made the port of Hippuri.¹ Here he was entertained by the kingwith kindness and hospitality for six months; and, when he had learnedto speak the language, in answer to the king's questions, told him allabout Cæsar and the Romans. Nothing that the king heard made sucha wonderful impression on him as the opinion of the exactness ofour dealings which he formed from seeing in some Roman money thathad been taken that the coins were all of the same weight, though theheads upon them showed that they had been struck by different princes.And the stranger having particularly urged him to cultivate the friendship of the Romans, he sent these four ambassadors, the chief of whom was named Rachias.2........These men also related that the side of theirisland which was opposite India, extended ten thousand stadia towardsthe south-east. The Seres, too, who dwell beyond the mountains ofEmodus, and who are known to us by the commerce which is carried onwith them, had been seen by those people; the father of Rachias hadvisited their country; and they themselves, on their travels, had metwith people of the Seres. They described these as surpassing the ordinary stature of mankind, as having red hair, blue eyes, hoarse voices ,and no common language to communicate by. The rest of what theytold was just as we have it from our own traders. The goods carriedthither are deposited on the further side of a certain river beside whatthe Seres have for sale, and the latter, if content with the bargain, carrythem off; acting, in fact, as if in contempt of the luxury to which theyministered, and just as if they saw in the mind's eye the object anddestination and result of this traffic ”³ ( vi , 24) .silkworm, which had been superseded by the introduction of that fromChina (see Didot's edition of Pliny with Cuvier's notes in loco) . And, in- deed, as regards the Assyrian Bombyx, we learn from Consul Taylor that its wild silk is still gathered and used for dresses by the women about Jazirah on the Tigris (see J. R. G. S., xxxv, p. 51 ).Tennent says this is the modern Kudra- mali on the north-west ofCeylon, near the pearl banks of Manaar" (i , 532).2 On the possible interpretations of this name see Tennent's Ceylon, i,532-3.3 I cannot attempt to solve the difficulties of this passage on which Ihave seen nothing satisfactory. Putting aside the red hair and blueeyes, it is difficult to conceive that the Chinese ever practised this dumbtrade, which in all other known cases I believe has been found only where one party to it was in a very low state of civilisation . A certain kind ofSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clviiIn a later passage, after speaking of the simplicity of primitive habits,he goes on:-"Hence, one wonders more and more, how from beginnings so different,we have come now to see whole mountains cut down into marble slabs,journeys made to the Seres to get stuffs for clothing, the abysses of theRed Sea explored for pearls, and the depths of the earth in search ofemeralds! Nay, more, they have taken up the notion also of piercingthe ears, as if it were too small a matter to wear these gems in necklaces and tiaras, unless holes also were made in the body to insert themin! " (xii, 1 ).And again:-"But the sea of Arabia is still more fortunate; for ' tis thence it sendsus pearls. And at the lowest computation, India and the Seres and thatPeninsula put together drain our empire of one hundred million of sesterces every year. That is the price that our luxuries and our womankind cost us!" (xii, 41 ) .66NOTE V.FROM THE ITINERARY OF GREECE OF PAUSANIAS.(Circa A.D. 174.)Now, the Land of Elis is not merely fruitful in other products , butalso, and it is not the least of them, in Byssus. ' Hemp and flax andbyssus are sown by such as have soils appropriate to the cultivation ofeach. But the filaments from which the Seres make their stuffs are thegrowth of no plant, but are produced in quite another manner; andthus it is. There exists in their country a certain insect which theGreeks call Ser; but by the Seres it is not called Ser, but somethingquite different. In size ' tis twice as big as the biggest of beetles: but,in other respects, it resembles the spiders that spin under trees; and,moreover, it has eight legs as spiders have. The Seres keep these creature, and make houses for their shelter adapted to summer and winterrespectively. And the substance wrought by these insects is found inthe shape of a slender filament entangled about their legs . The peoplefeed them for about four years upon millet, and in the fifth year (forthey know that the creatures will not live longer than that) they givethem a kind of green reed to eat. This is the food that the insect likesbest of all; and it crams itself with it to such an extent that it burstsdumb trade indeed prevails more or less in most Asiatic countries, including Mongolia (Huc and Gabet, 112) and possibly China, I mean that by which bargains are driven and concluded by the two parties fingering each other's knuckles under a shawl without a word spoken. Could the stories of the Seric trade have risen out of this practice?1 Cotton?clviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.from repletion. And when it is thus dead, they find the bulk of whatit has spun in its inside .'"Now, SERIA is known to be an island in a recess of the ErythræanSea. But I have been told that it is not the Erythræan Sea whichmakes it an island, but a river which they call SER, just as the Delta ofEgypt is isolated by the Nile and not by a sea compassing it all round.And these Seres are of the Ethiopic race; and they hold also the adjoiningislands, ABASA and SAKAIA. Yet others say that they are not Ethiopians at all, but a cross between the Scythians and the Indians. Thisis what they tell of these matters" (vi, 26) .66NOTE VI.FROM THE HISTORY OF AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.(Circa A.D. 380. )Beyond these regions of the two Scythias, towards the east, acircling and continuous barrier of lofty mountains fences round theSeres, who dwell thus secure in their rich and spacious plains. On thewest they come in contact with the Scythians; on the north and eastthey are bounded by solitary regions of snow on the south, they reachas far as India and the Ganges. The mountains of which we have spokenare called Anniva and Nazavicium and Asmira and Emodon and Opurocarra. And these plains, thus compassed on all sides by precipitoussteeps, are traversed by two famous rivers, Echardes and Bautis, winding with gentle current through the spacious level; whilst the Seresthemselves pass through life still more tranquilly, ever keeping clear ofarms and war. And being of that sedate and peaceful temper whosegreatest delight is a quiet life, they give trouble to none of their neighbours. They have a charming climate, and air of healthy temper; theface of their sky is unclouded; their breezes blow with serviceablemoderation; their forests are spacious, and shut out the glare of day."The trees of these forests furnish a product of a fleecy kind, so tospeak, which they ply with frequent waterings, and then card out infine and slender threads, half woolly fibre, half viscid filament . SpinErroneous as this account is, it looks as if it had come originallyfromreal information, though afterwards misunderstood and perverted. The "shelter adapted to winter and summer" seems to point to the care taken by the Chinese in regulating the heat of the silk-houses; the "five years" may have been a misunderstanding of the five ages of the silkworm's life marked by its four moultings; the reed given it to eat when the spinning season has come may refer to the strip of rush with whichthe Chinese form receptacles for the worms to spin in (see Lardner's Cyc.Silk Manufacture, p. 126).Read "Anniba, Auxacius, Asmiraeus, Emodon, and Ottorocorrhas. "See extract from Ptolemy, supra, p. cli.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clixning these fibres they manufacture silk, the use of which once confinedto our nobility has now spread to all classes without distinction , even tothe lowest. Those Seres are frugal in their habits beyond other men,and study to pass their lives in peace, shunning association with therest of mankind. So when foreigners pass the river on their frontier tobuy their silk or other wares, the bargain is settled by the eyes alonewith no exchange of words. And so free are they from wants that,though ready to dispose of their own products, they purchase none fromabroad" (xxiii, 6).NOTE VII.THE INTRODUCTION OF THE SILK-WORM INTO THEROMAN EMPIRE, FROM PROCOPIUS, DE BELLO GOTHICO.(A.D. 500-565. )" About the same time certain monks arrived from the ( country ofthe) Indians, and learning that the Emperor Justinian had it much atheart that the Romans should no longer buy silk from the Persians,they came to the king and promised that they would so manage aboutsilk that the Romans should not have to purchase the article either fromthe Persians or from any other nation; for they had lived, they said , along time in a country where there were many nations of the Indians,and which goes by the name of SERINDA. And when there they hadmade themselves thoroughly acquainted with the way in which silkmight be produced in the Roman territory . And when the Emperorquestioned them very closely, and asked how they could guarantee success in the business, the monks told him that the agents in the production of silk were certain caterpillars, working under the teaching ofnature, which continually urged them to their task. To bring livecaterpillars indeed from that country would be impracticable, but arrangements might be made for hatching them easily and expeditiously.For the eggs produced at a birth by one of those worms were innumerable; and it was possible to hatch these eggs long after they had beenlaid, by covering them with dung, which produced sufficient heat for thepurpose. When they had given these explanations, the emperor madethem large promises of reward if they would only verify their assertionsby carrying the thing into execution . And so they went back again toIndia and brought a supply of the eggs to Byzantium. And havingtreated them just as they had said, they succeeded in developing thecaterpillars, which they fed upon mulberry leaves. And from this beginning originated the establishment of silk-culture in the Roman territory" (iv, 17) .Zonaras (Annals xiv, vol. ii, p . 69 of Paris ed. 1687) , in relating thisstory after Procopius, says that till this occurred the Romans did notknow how silk was produced, nor even that it was spun by worms.clx PRELIMINARY ESSAY.The same as told by THEOPHANES of Byzantium .(End of sixth century) ."Now in the reign of Justinian a certain Persian exhibited inByzantium the mode in which ( silk) worms are hatched, a thing whichthe Romans had never known before. This Persian on coming awayfrom the country of the Seres had taken with him the eggs of theseworms (concealed) in a walking- stick, and succeeded in bringing themsafely to Byzantium. In the beginning of spring he put out the eggsupon the mulberry leaves which form their food; and the worms feedingupon those leaves developed into winged insects and performed theirother operations. Afterwards when the Emperor Justinian showed theTurks the manner in which the worms were hatched, and the silk whichthey produced, he astonished them greatly. For at that time the Turkswere in possession of the marts and ports frequented by the Seres, whichhad been formerly in the possession of the Persians. For whenEpthalanus King of the Ephthalites ( from whom indeed the race derivedthat name) conquered Perozes and the Persians, these latter were deprived of those places, and the Ephthalites became possessed of them .'But somewhat later the Turks again conquered the Ephthalites and tookthe places from them in turn." In Müller's Fragmenta Histor. Græc.iv, 270.NOTE VIII.EXTRACTS REGARDING INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THETURKISH KHANS AND THE BYZANTINE EMPERORS.From the Fragments of MENANDER PROTECTOR.(End of sixth century. )"In the beginning of the fourth year of the Emperor Justin [ 568] anembassy from the Turks arrived at Byzantium; and it came about thus.The power ofthe Turks had now grown to a great pitch, and the peopleof Sogdia who had formerly been subject to the Ephthalites but werenow under the Turks, besought the king to send an embassy to thePersians, in order to obtain permission for them to carry silk for sale into Persia. Dizabulus consented to send an embassy of Sogdians, andPerozes (Firoz) reigned 458-484 . The circ*mstances as gathered from other Greek writers are set forth in Lassen ii, 773.The mention here ofthe "ports frequented by the Seres" is remarkable,and I believe the only indication of the Seres (under that name) as a seafaring people. Ifthe expression can be depended on, the ports in question must have been in Sind. We have seen that a record of the Chinesetrade to Sind at a date somewhat later exists (supra, p. lxxix ) . This passage then becomes a final link of identification between Seres and Chinese.The Great Khan of the Turks at this time, according to the ChineseSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. élxiManiach was put at the head of the mission . So they presented themselves before the Persian king, and solicited permission to carry on theirsilk trade without obstruction. The King of the Persians, however, wasnot at all pleased at the notion that the Turks should have free accessfrom that side into the Persian territories, and so he put them off tillthe morrow, and when the morrow came again deferred reply. After hehad thus staved off the matter for a length of time on one pretext orother, the solicitations of the Sogdian people became very importunate,and at last Khosroes called a council where the matter was brought upfor consideration. And then that saue Ephthalite Katulphus, who, inrevenge for the king's ravishing his wife, had betrayed his nation to theTurks, and who had on that account abandoned his country and takenup with the Medes, exhorted the Persian king on no account to let thesilk have free passage, but to have a price put upon it, buy it up, andhave it burnt in the presence of the ambassadors. It would thus beseen that though he would do no injustice, he would have nothing to dowith the silk of the Turks. So the silk was put in the fire and the ambassadors turned homeward, anything but pleased with the result of theirjourney, and related to Dizabulus what had taken place. He was, however, exceedingly desirous to obtain the good will of the Persians for hisgovernment, so he immediately despatched a second embassy. Whenthis second Turkish embassy arrived at the Persian court, the king, withthe Persian ministers and Katulphus, came to the conclusion that itwould be highly inexpedient for the Persians to enter into friendly relations with the Turks, for the whole race of the Scythians was one not tobe trusted. So he ordered some of the ambassadors to be taken off by adeadly poison, in order to prevent any more such missions from coming.Most of the Turkish envoys accordingly, in fact all but three or four,were put an end to by a deadly poison which was mixt with their food,whilst the king caused it to be whispered about among the Persians thatthe Turkish ambassadors had died of the suffocating dry heat of thePersian climate; for their own country was subject to frequent falls ofsnow, and they could not exist except in a cold climate. Dizabulus,however, a sharp and astute person , was not ignorant of the real state of the case. And so this was the origin of ill-will between the Turks andhistories, was Mokan. There was also a great chief called by these authorities Titeupuli, who is mentioned as joining Mokan Khan in an expedition to China a few years before this time. It is difficult not to identify this name with that of Dizabulus, but the latter is so distinctly represented as the supreme chief that Deguignes hesitates whether toidentify him with Mokan or Titeupuli (ii, 380-385) .Another ofthe fragments of Menander contains an account of the em- bassy of Valentine who was sent some twelve years later by the Emperor Tiberius II. In this occur the names of Tardu and Bochanos, twoTurkish chiefs who appear in the Chinese Annals as Tateu Khan and Apo Khan (see Deguignes i, 226, 227; ii, 395, 463) .clxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.the Persians. Maniach, who was chief of the people of Sogdia, took theopportunity of suggesting to Dizabulus that it would be more for theinterest of the Turks to cultivate the friendship of the Romans, and totransfer the sale of silk to them, seeing also that they consumed it morelargely than any other people. And Maniach added that he was quiteready to accompany a party of Turkish ambassadors, in order to promotethe establishment of friendly relations between the Turks and theRomans. Dizabulus approved of the suggestion, and despatchedManiach with some others as ambassadors carrying complimentarysalutations, with a present of silk to no small value, and letters to theRoman Emperor. So Maniach ... at last arrived at Byzantium, andpresenting himself at the court, conducted himself before the Emperorin accordance with the obligations of friendship, and when he had madeover the letter and presents to the proper officers, prayed that all thetoils of his long journey might not have been wasted. The emperorwhen he had by aid of the interpreters read the letter, which was writtenin Scythian, gave a gracious reception to the embassy, and then putquestions to them about the government and country of the Turks.They told him that there were four chiefs, but that the supremeauthority over the whole nation rested with Dizabulus. They also related how he had subdued the Ephthalites and even made them paytribute. Then said the Emperor, ' Has then the whole power of theEphthalites been overthrown? ' ' Altogether, ' answered the envoys.Again the Emperor: ' Did the Ephthalites live in cities or villages orhow?' The Envoys: " They are a people who live in cities, O king. ' ' Isit not of course then , ' said the Emperor, ' that you are become mastersof all their cities? ' . . . The ambassadors having counted up to theEmperor all the nations who were subject to the Turks, begged him togive his sanction to the establishment of amity and alliance between thetwo nations, and said that on their part they would always be ready toattack the enemies of the Roman power wherever they might showthemselves in their part of the world. And as he said this Maniach andhis companions raised their hands and swore a great oath that they werespeaking with their whole hearts, and invoked curses on themselves andon Dizabulus, and on all the nation, if their promises were not true andsuch as they would carry out. And thus it was that the nation of theTurks became friends with the Romans. "(Another Fragment. )

• * * *

"Now Justin, when the Turks, who were anciently called Sacæ, hadsent to arrange a treaty with him, resolved to send them an embassyalso. So he ordered Zemarchus the Cilician, who was then Præfect ofthe cities of the East, to prepare for this . And when he had got everything ready that he required for so long a journey, which was towards theend of the fourth year of the reign of Justin , in the month which theSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clxiiiLatins call August, Zemarchus started from Byzantium with Maniachhimself and his company. "

• *

(Another).

• * *

"After accomplishing a journey of many days, Zemarchus and hisparty arrived in the territories of the Sogdians. And as they dismounted from their horses certain Turks, sent as it seemed for that purpose, presented some iron which they offered for sale; this being, I fancy, in order to show that they had mines of iron in their country. For themanufacture of iron is reckoned among them to be by no means aneasy art; and we may guess that this was a kind of brag by which theyintended to indicate that theirs was a country in which iron was produced. Some others of the tribe also showed off their performances (ina different line) . These, announcing themselves as the conjurors awayof evil omens, came up to Zemarchus and taking all the baggage of theparty set it down in the middle. They then began ringing a bell andbeating a kind of drum over the baggage, whilst some ran round it carrying leaves of burning incense flaming and crackling, and raged aboutlike maniacs, gesticulating as if repelling evil spirits. Carrying on thisexorcism of evil as they considered it, they made Zemarchus himself alsopass through the fire, and in the same manner they appeared to performan act of purification for themselves. After these performances theparty proceeded with those who had been sent to receive them to theplace where the Khagan was, in a certain mountain called ECTAG, or asa Greek would say "the Golden Mountain. " And when they got therethey found the camp of Dizabulus in a certain hollow encompassed by1 It may have had a different import. For according to the Chinese authority followed by Deguignes, the tribe which founded the Turkishpower shortly before this time had long inhabited the Altai, where they worked as smiths for the service of the Khan of the Geu-gen or Juen-juen;and the Khans of the Turks instituted in memory of their origin theceremony of annually forging a piece of iron. The presentation of iron to the Byzantine envoys may have had some kindred signification (Deguignes ii, 350, 373) .2 When Plano Carpini and his companions came to the camp of Batu they were told that they must pass between two fires , because this wouldneutralise any mischievous intentions they might entertain, or poison that they might be carrying. And in another place the traveller says:"To be brief, they believe that by fire all things are purified . Hence when envoys come to them, or chiefs, or any other persons whatever, they and the presents they bring must pass between two fires, to prevent their working any witchcraft or bringing any poison or evil thing with them"(p. 744 and p. 627) . In the French note which Busquarel, the ambas- sador in 1289 of Argun Khan of Persia, presented with his master's letterto the King of France (both of which are preserved in the French archives)it is said: "priant vous que se vous li envoiez yceuls ou autres messages,que vous vouliez souffrir et commander leur que il li facent tele reverence et honneur comme coustume et usage est en sa court sanz passer feu"(Remusat, in Mem. de l'Acad . Insc. vii, 432) .clxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.was.the Golden Mountain. The party of Zemarchus on their arrival wereimmediately summoned to an interview with Dizabulus. They foundhim in his tent, seated on a golden chair with two wheels, which couldbe drawn by one horse when required . Then they addressed theBarbarian in accordance with the fashion of those people, and laid thepresents before him, which were taken charge of by those whose office itZemarchus then made a polite speech [ which may be omitted] ,and Dizabulus replied in like manner. Next they were called to a feast,and passed the whole day in conviviality in the tent. Now this tentwas furnished with silken hangings of various colours artfully wrought.They were supplied with wine, not pressed from the grape like ours, for their country does not produce the vine, nor is it customary among themto use grape wine; but what they got to drink was some other kind ofbarbarian liquor. And at last they departed to the place assigned for their quarters. Next day again they assembled in another pavilion ,adorned in like manner with rich hangings of silk, in which figures ofdifferent kinds were wrought. Dizabulus was seated on a couch that wasall of gold, and in the middle of the pavilion were drinking vessels andflagons and great jars , all of gold. So they engaged in another drinkingmatch, talking and listening to such purpose as people do in their drink,and then separated . The following day there was another bout in a pavilion supported by wooden posts covered with gold, and in which there wasa gilded throne resting on four golden peaco*cks. In front of the place ofmeeting there was a great array of waggons, in which there was a hugequantity of silver articles consisting of plates and dishes, besidesnumerous figures of animals in silver, in no respect inferior to our own.To such a pitch has attained the luxury of the Turkish Sovereign!1 Ek-tag or Ak- tagh would, I believe, be "White Mountain." The Altaior Golden Mountain of the Mongols, which was the original seat of these Turks, may be meant, but it is very remote. All that can be deducedfrom the narrative is that it was beyond Talas, for the party pass that place on their march towards Persia (infra) . Simocatta also says it wasan established law among the Turks that the Golden Mountain shouldbe in the hands of the most powerful Khagan (vii, 8) .2 No doubt Darassun; see Shah Rukh's embassy in Note xvii infra.3 So Rubruquis describes Batu as seated "on a long broad throne likea bed, gilt all over" (p. 268).4 "At the entrance of the tent there was a bench with Cosmos (Kumisor fermented mare's milk) , and great goblets of gold and silver set with precious stones" (Ibid). See also Shah Rukh's Embassy infra.5 This constant drinking corresponds exactly to the account of the habits of the Mongol court in Plano Carpini and Rubruquis. Thus theformer, on the occasion of Kuyuk Khan's formal inthroning, says that after the homage had been done " they began to drink, and as theirway is, continued drinking till hour of vespers" (p. 758) . Rubruquis's ac- count of his residence at the Court of Mangu Khan is quite redolent of drink. One sees how Sultan Baber came by his propensity to strong drink.6 Probably the lincal predecessor of the Peaco*ck Throne of Dehli.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clxy"And whilst Zemarchus and his party continued there, Dizabulusthought proper that Zemarchus with twenty of his servants and followers should accompany him on a campaign against the Persians ,sending the rest of the Romans back to the land of the CHOLIATE' toawait the return of Zemarchus. These last Dizabulus dismissed withpresents and friendly treatment; and at the same time he honouredZemarchus with the gift of a handmaiden, one of those called Kherkhis,who was the captive of his spear. And so Zemarchus went withDizabulus to fight the Persians. Whilst they were on this expedition,as they were pitched at a place called TALAS, an ambassador from thePersians came to meet Dizabulus, who invited him to dinner as well asthe ambassador of the Romans.3 When the party had met, Dizabulusaccorded to the Roman much the more honourable treatment, and madehim occupy the more honourable place at table. Moreover he heapedgreat reproaches on the Persians, telling the injuries he had received attheir hands, and how he was coming on that account to attack them.*So as the abuse of Dizabulus waxed more and more violent, the Persianenvoy, casting off all regard for that etiquette of theirs which imposessilence at feasts, began to speak with heat, and in the most spiritedmanner to refute the charges of Dizabulus; insomuch that all the company wondered at the way in which he gave rein to his wrath. For,contrary to all rule, he used all sorts of intemperate expressions."And in this state of things the party broke up and Dizabulus pro1 Or Chliata. The Kallats are mentioned with the Kanklis, Kipchaks,and Kharliks as four Turkish tribes descended from the Patriarch Oguz Khan (Deguignes ii, 9) .Were these the four divisions of the Turks of whom Maniach spoke to the Emperor?Deguignes, however, identifies the Chliate with the Kangli who laynorth of the country between the Caspian and Aral (ii, 388) . And St.Martin in his notes on Lebeau's History says that in the tenth and eleventh centuries the Russians called the Turk and Fin nations near theCaspian Khwalis, and knew that sea as the Sea of Khwalis (Hist. du BasEmpire, 1828, x, 61 ) .This girl might be either Kirghiz or Circassian . St. Martin thinks the latter (Ib.)3 Near Talas about sixty years later the Chinese pilgrim, Hiwen Thsang, on his way to India fell in with the Great Khan of the Turks, asuccessor of Dizabulus, whom the Chinese traveller calls Shehu. Hisaccount is very like that of Zemarchus. The Khan " occupied a great tent adorned with gold flowers of dazzling richness. The officers of the court sat in two long rows on mats before the Khan, brilliantly attired in embroidered silk; the Khan's guard standing behind them.Although here was but a barbarian prince under a tent of felt, one couldnot look on him without respect and admiration" (H. de la Vie de H. T.,p. 55-56) .4 A curious parallel to the scene at Samarkand, related by Clavijo(supra, p. cxxxv) , where Timur takes the place of Dizabulus, the Castilian envoy that of Zemarchus, and the Chinese ambassador that of the Persian.clxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.secuted his preparations against the Persians. And then he summonedZemarchus and his party, and when they had presented themselves herenewed his declarations of friendship for the Romans and gave themtheir dismissal homewards, sending also with them another embassy.Now Maniach the leader of the former embassy was dead, and the nameof the one next in rank was Tagma, with the dignity of Tarchan.¹ Sothis personage was sent by Dizabulus as ambassador to the Romans, andalong with him the son of the deceased, I mean of Maniach. This wasquite a young fellow, but he had succeeded to his father's honours, andobtained the next place in rank to Tagma Tarchan. *

• * *

"Now when the rumour spread through Turkey² and among theneighbouring nations how ambassadors from the Romans were amongthem, and were going back to Byzantium accompanied by a Turkishembassy, the chief of the tribes in that quarter sent a request to Dizabulus that he might be allowed also to send some of his own people tosee the Roman state. And Dizabulus granted permission . Then otherchiefs ofthe tribes made the same petition , but he would grant leave tonone except the Chief of the Choliatæ. So the Romans taking the latterwith them across the River OECH, after a long journey came to thathuge wide lagoon.³ Here Zemarchus halted for three days and sent offGeorge, whose business it was to carry expresses, to announce to theEmperor the return of the party from the Turks. So George with adozen Turks set out for Byzantium by a route which was without water,and altogether desert, but was the shortest way. Zemarchus thentravelled for twelve days along the sandy shores of the Lagoon, andhaving to cross some very difficult places, came to the streams of theRiver ICH, and then to the DAICH, and then by other swampy tracts tothe ATTILA, and then again to the land of the UGURS. And these sentto say that four thousand Persians were stationed in ambuscade in thebush about the River KOPHEN to lay hands on the party as it passed,"etc., etc.6Zemarchus escapes the Persians, and after visiting the chief of theALANS gets to the Phasis, and so to Trebizond, whence he rode post toByzantium. (From Müller's Fragmenta Histor. Græc. , iv, p. 235.)See p. 287 infra.2 «Κατὰ τὴν Τουρκίαν.”3 If this was the Aral we may suppose the Oech to be the Sir orJaxartes. But this is scarcely consistent with the position assigned to the Chliatæ.Probably the Emba. It appears to be called Tic by Sharifuddin (P. de la Croix, ii , 95, 129) .5 The Ural or Iaik, called by Constantine Porphyrogenitus Tex ( De Administ. Imper. , cap. xxxvii ) .6 The Athil or Wolga.7 On these Ugors see Vivien St. Martin in N. Annales des Voyages for 1848, iv.8 Kuban I presume.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clxviiNOTE IX .EXTRACTS FROM THE TOPOGRAPHIA CHRISTIANA OFCOSMAS THE MONK.(Circa 545.)1. " But, as is said by those who are without , ' in discoursing of thismatter (and here they speak truth) , there are on this earth four gulfswhich enter the land from the ocean; to wit, this one of ours whichpenetrates the land from the west side, and extends from Gades rightthrough Romania; then the Arabian Gulf called also Erythræan, andthe Persian Gulf, both which are offshoots from that of Zinj , and penetrate the southern and eastern side of the earth overagainst the region called Barbary, which forms the extremity of the land of Ethiopia.And those who navigate the Indian Sea are aware that Zinj, as it iscalled, lies beyond the country where the incense grows, which is calledBarbary, and which is compassed round by the ocean as it passes on intothose two gulfs . And the fourth gulf enters from the north side of theearth, further to the east, and is called the Caspian or Hircanian Sea .Now navigation is confined to these gulfs only. The ocean it is impossible to navigate, on account of the multitude of currents and the fogsthat rise and obstruct the rays of the sun, and because of its vast extent.These things, then, I have made known as I received them from theMan of God (as has been mentioned); or indeed, I might rather sayin this case, from my own experience. For I myself, for purposes oftrade, have sailed on three out of those four gulfs; to wit, the Roman,the Arabian, and the Persian; and I have got accurate informationabout the different places on them from the natives as well as from seafaring men." Once upon a time, when we were sailing to Further India, we hadcrossed over within a little way of Barbary, beyond which is Zinj ( for sothey call the mouth of the Ocean) , and there I saw to the right of ourcourse a great flight of the birds called suspha. These are birds twiceas big as kites and somewhat more. And I observed that in that quarterthere were signs of very unsettled weather. So all the men of experienceon board, whether mariners or passengers, began to say that we weregetting near the Ocean, and so they called out to the steersman, ' steerthe ship to port, and bear up into the gulf, or the currents will sweepus out into the Ocean , and we shall be lost' . For the Ocean driving upinto the gulf was creating a very heavy sea, and the currents from the1 Oi Ewbev, meaning those who are not Christians.It should be noted that the book is illustrated with sketches anddiagrams, the originals of which would appear to have been drawn by Cosmas himself.Literally " Inner India."elxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.gulf again were drifting the ship towards the Ocean; a terrible thing indeed for us who saw what was happening, and in great fear were we.And all this time flocks of those birds called suspha followed us flyinghigh over our heads, which was a sign that the Ocean was nigh"¹ ( Bookii, p. 132).2. " For if Paradise were really on the surface of this world, is therenot many a man among those who are so keen to learn and search outeverything, that would not let himself be deterred from reaching it?When we see that there are men who will not be deterred from pene .trating to the ends of the earth in search of silk, and all for the sakeof filthy lucre, how can we believe that they would be deterred fromgoing to get a sight of Paradise? The country of silk, I may mention,is in the remotest of all the Indies, lying towards the left when youenter the Indian Sea, but a vast distance farther off than the PersianGulf or that island which the Indians call SELEDIBA and the GreeksTAPROBANE. TZINITZA is the name of the country, and the Ocean compasses it round to the left, just as the same Ocean compasses Barbaryround to the right. And the Indian philosophers, called Brachmans,tell you that if you were to stretch a straight cord from Tzinitza throughPersia to the Roman territory, you would just divide the world in halves .And mayhap they are right."For the country in question lies very much to the left, insomuchthat loads of silk passing through the hands of different nations in succession by land reach Persia in a comparatively short time, whilst thedistance from Persia by sea is vastly greater. For, in the first place, justas great a distance as the Persian Gulf runs up into Persia has thevoyager to Tzinitza to run up from [ the latitude of] Taprobane and theregions beyond it to reach his destination . And, in the second place,there is no small distance to be traversed in crossing the whole width ofthe Indian Sea from the Persian Gulf to Taprobane, and from Taprobane to the regions beyond [where you turn up to the left to reachTzinitza ] . Hence it is clear that one who comes by the overland routefrom Tzinitza to Persia makes a very short cut. And this accounts forthe fact that such quantities of silk are always to be found in Persia." Further than Tzinitza there is neither navigation nor inhabitedcountry." And here I may observe, that if anyone should actually measurethe earth's longitude with a straight line running from Tzinitza westward, he would find it to be four hundred marches more or less, takingWith reference to the terrors of the Southern Ocean see infra, p. 92 note. Edrisi says: "The Ocean Sea, which is called the Dark Sea, because it is dark, and is almost always in commotion with violent winds,and covered by thick fogs" (i , 87) .I believe this is the meaning, but the passage is very elliptical .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clxixthe marches at thirty miles each. And the measurement will run thus:From Tzinitza to the frontier of PERSIA, including all UNNIA and INDIA,and the Land of the Bactrians, will be about a hundred and fifty marches,if not more, certainly not less. The whole of Persia will be eightymarches. From Nisibis to Seleucia thirteen marches. From Seleuciaby ROME and the GAULS and IBERIA (the country of those who are nowadays called Spaniards) , to Outer GADES on the Ocean a hundred andfifty marches and more. So the total of the distances will be four hundred marches, more or less."Now, as regards the earth's latitude. From the far north to Byzantium will not be more than fifty marches (for we may form a good guessat the extent of those northern regions, both inhabited and uninhabited,from the position of the Caspian Sea which is a gulf of the ocean) .¹From Byzantium again to Alexandria is fifty marches. From Alexandria to the Cataracts thirty marches. From the Cataracts to Axum thirtymarches. From Axum to the projecting part of Ethiopia, the countrywhere the incense grows, and which is called Barbary, lying along theOcean, and including the territory of Sas which is the remotest part ofEthiopia, and is anything but a narrow tract of country, indeed quitethe reverse, fifty marches, more or less. So that we may take the wholebreadth at two hundred marches, more or less. And thus we see thatthe Holy Scripture speaks the truth when it puts the length of theearth at double its breadth: For thou shalt make the Table (which is,as it were, a pattern of the Earth) in length two cubits, and in breadthone cubit.'"Now, the country where the incense grows lies in the projectingparts of Ethiopia, being itself indeed an inland region , but having theocean on the other side of it . Hence the people of Barbary, beingin the vicinity, are able to visit the interior for trading purposes, andbring back with them many kinds of aromatics, such as incense, cassia,calamus, and a great variety of others, and these again they carry bysea to Adule and Homerite, and to Further India and to Persia. Andthis is just as you will find it written in the Book of Kings, where theQueen of Saba, i. e. , of Homerite (and whom again in the Gospels theLord terms the Queen of the South) brings to Solomon aromatics fromthis very Barbary ( she residing hard by on the coast just opposite) , andbrings him also staves of ebony, and monkeys, and gold from Ethiopia, thewhole of Ethiopia being in fact quite in her vicinity and just across the¹ I suppose there is here to be understood a comparison of the Caspian,regarded as a gulf, with the Red Sea or Persian Gulf, and a deduction that the Ocean cannot lie further north from the innermost point of theCaspian than it lies south of the innermost point of one of those gulfs.The modern Somali country. The name of Barbary is still retainedin that of Berberah on the coast over against Aden. See also Ptolemy"i , 17.clxx PRELIMINARY ESSAY .6Arabian Gulf. Again, let us look at some of Our Lord's words, as whenhe calls those places the Ends of the Earth, saying, The Queen of theSouth shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemnit, for she came from the Ends of the Earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.' The fact is, Homerite is at no distance from Barbary, for thesea between them has only a width of some two days' sail. And beyondthat is the Ocean, which thereabouts is called the Sea of Zinj . And justas the Incense Country has the Ocean near it, so also has the Land of Saswhere the gold mines are. Now, year by year the King of the Axumites,through the ruler of Agau, ' sends men of his own to Sas for the purchase of gold. And many others bound on the same speculation accompany them on this expedition, so there shall be more than five hundredin the party. They take with them beeves, and pieces of salt, and iron.And when they get near the country they make a halt at a certainplace, and take a quantity of thorns with which they make a greathedge, within which they establish themselves, and there they slaughterthe oxen and cut them up, and put the meat, and the pieces of salt, andthe iron on the top of the hedge. So the natives then approach withgold in nuggets, like peas, which they call Tancharan, and each of themdeposits one or two of these upon the joints of meat, or the salt, or theiron as he pleases, and then stands aloof. Then the owner of the beefetc., comes up, and if he is satisfied he takes the gold, whilst the otherparty comes and removes the flesh, or piece of salt or iron. But if thetrader is not satisfied he leaves the gold where it is, and when the nativecomes up and sees that his gold has not been taken, he either adds tothe quantity or takes up his gold and goes away. This is the mode ofbarter among the people in that quarter; for they are of different language and have no supply of interpreters . The time of their stay to dobusiness in that country extends to five days, more or less, according tothe rate at which customers present themselves until they have sold offall their goods. And on the return journey they all form themselvesinto an armed body; for there are certain people in the tract they passthrough who hang about them and endeavour to plunder the gold. Thewhole business carried on in this way takes some six months; the journey thither being accomplished more slowly than the retnrn, chiefly because of the cattle that accompany them, and also because they makegreat haste on the way back that the winter rains catch them not on the1 Alvarez in Ramusio speaks of certain lordships of Abyssinia "the people of which are called Agaos," and who are a mixture of Gentiles and Christians. The Agaus appear to be scattered widely over Abyssinia.Salt speaks of them along the Takazzé to the east of Gondar, and one of Petermann's maps shows Agau also to the south-west of Tzana Lake,which again lies south-west of Gondar. A country including both of these positions would lie south and a little west of Axum (Ramusio i,f. 250; Salt's Second Travels, French transl. , 1816, ii, 21 seq.; Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1857, pl. 23) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clxxijourney. For the head of the Nile is somewhere thereabouts , and therivers that feed it cross the route, and in winter become greatly swollenby the rains. Now, the winter there is in the time of our summer, extending from the month called by the Egyptians Epiphi,¹ till that calledThoth and all these three months it rains with great violence, so as togive rise to a multitude of rivers, all of which discharge themselves intothe Nile" (book ii, pp. 138-140) .Cosmas then proceeds to give an account of an ancient marble thronewhich he had seen at Adule (then the port of Abyssinia, a little southof Massawa) , with Greek inscriptions on it, of which he gives a professedtranscript; but I shall not attempt to enter upon this subject, whichhas been treated by competent commentators³ (pp. 140-143) .3. In a later passage, speaking of the Gospel's being preachedthroughout the world, he says: -"So that I can speak with confidence of the truth of what I say, relatingwhat I have myself seen and heard in many places that I have visited."Even in the Island of TAPROBANE in Further India where theIndian Sea is , there is a church of Christians with clergy and a congregation of believers, though I know not if there be any Christians furtheron in that direction. And such also is the case in the land called MALE,where the pepper grows. And in the place called KALLIANA there isa bishop appointed from Persia, as well as in the island which they callthe Isle of Dioscoris in the same Indian Sea. The inhabitants of thatisland speak Greek, having been originally settled there by the Ptolemies who ruled after Alexander of Macedon. There are clergy therealso, ordained and sent from Persia to minister among the people of the51 Epiphi (June 25th-July 25th) was the eleventh month of the Egyptian year, and Thoth (August 29th-September 28th) the firstmonth; represented by the modern Coptic months Ebib and Tút (see Nicolas, Chron. of Hist. , pp. 13, 15) .2 Alvise Cadamosto gives nearly the same account of the dumb barter of salt for gold as carried on by negro traders from Timbuktu and Melliwith a certain people in the remote interior.The Sasus of Cosmas must also have lain towards the centre of thecontinent and south-west from Abyssinia. This is shown by the relative position of Agau to Axum (see preceding note); by the fact that the route crossed numerous Nile feeders, apparently those which show so thickly in the map between 7° and 10° N. lat.; and again because the Adule inscription mentioned in the next paragraph of the text speaks of conquests extending east to the Thuriferous country, and west to Sasus.Cosmas indeed speaks of Sasus as not far from the Ocean. But then he supposes the ocean to cut across Africa somewhere about the equator.3 See Salt's Travels, and De Sacy in Annales des Voyages, xii, 350.4.6 Inner."5 Malabar. Compare the Kaulam- Malé of the Arab Relations.Probably the Kalliena of the Periplus, which Lassen identifies with the still existing Kalyani on the mainland near Bombay. Father Paolinoindeed will have it to be a place still called Kalyánapúri on the banks of a river two miles north of Mangalore, but unreasonably (l'iag. alle Indie Orientali, p. 100) .n 2clxxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.island, and a multitude of Christians. We sailed past the island, butdid not land. I met, however, with people from it who were on theirway to Ethiopia, and they spoke Greek. And so likewise among theBactrians and Huns and Persians and the rest of the Indians, andamong the Persarmenians and Greeks and Elamites, and throughoutthe whole land of Persia, there is an infinite number of churches withbishops, and a vast multitude of Christian people, and they have manymartyrs and recluses leading a monastic life. So also in Ethiopia, andin Axum, and in all the country round about, among the HappyArabians, who are now- a-days called Homeritæ, and all through Arabiaand Palestine, Phoenicia, and all Syria, and Antioch and Mesopotamia;also among the Nubians and the Garamantes, in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, and so through Africa and Mauritania as far as Southern Gades,²in a very great number of places are found churches of Christians withbishops, martyrs, monks, and recluses, wherever in fact the Gospel ofChrist hath been proclaimed . So likewise again in Cilicia, Asia, Cappadocia, Lazice, and Pontus, and in the Northern Regions of the Scythians,Hyrcanians, Heruli, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Illyrians, Dalmatians,Goths, Spaniards, Romans, Franks, and other nations till you get toOcean Gades" (book iii , p . 178).34. He says the place in the Red Sea where the Egyptians perished is" in Klysma, as they call it, to the right of people travelling to theMount (Sinai); and there also are to be seen the tracks of chariot- wheelsover a long tract extending to the sea. These have been preserved tothis day, as a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers" ( book v, p. 194) .5. Elim, now called Raithu, where there were twelve springs ,which are still preserved ... . . Raphidin, now called Pharan, whenceMoses went with the elders to Mount Choreb, i.e. in Sinai , which is aboutsix miles from Pharan, " ib. , pp. 195, 196.6. "And when they (the Israelites) had received the written Law fromGod, they then and there first learned letters. For God made use of the1 See On the Christianity of Socotra, p. 168 infra, where this passage of Cosmas should have been referred to . Some further particulars on thesubject, apparently taken from the letters of Francis Xavier, are given in Jarric (Thesaurus Rerum Indicarum, i, p. 108-9) . On the use of theGreek language in Abyssinia and Nubia, see Letronne in Mem. de l'Acad.(New), ix, 170 seqq.2 "ews Tadelpwv, тà Tрds vóτov, " an odd construction, which, however,seems intended to be distinctive from “ Γαδείρων τοῦ Ωκεανοῦ” mentioned a few lines further on, and to indicate some place in Africa, perhapsTingis, or Cape Spartel, called by Strabo Kóreis. I do not know if this Southern Gades is mentioned by any other author, but something analogous will be found in the passage quoted from Mandeville at p. 345 infra,where Gades is used for the World's End, eastern as well as western.3 At or near Suez, whence the Kolzum of the Arabs, and the nameBahr-Kolzum given to the Red Sea.Raithu was the seat of a monastery, as is mentioned by Cosmas him- self (at p. 141) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clxxiiiwilderness in its quiet as a kind of school for them, and allowed themthere to practise their letters for forty years. And you may see in thatdesert of Sinai, at every place where you halt, that all the stones whichhave rolled down from the mountains are written over with Hebrewcharacters. And to this I can myself bear witness, having travelledthat ground on foot. And these inscriptions were explained to us bycertain Jews who could read them, and they were to this effect: " Thedeparture of So -and-so of such a tribe, in such a year and such a month; "just such things in fact as you often find scribbled on the walls of innsby people among ourselves. But the Israelites, as is the way of peoplewho have but recently learned to write, were always making use of theirnew accomplishment, and were constantly writing, so that all those placesare quite covered with Hebrew characters. And these have been preserved to this day, —for the sake of unbelievers as I think. And anyonewho likes may go there and see for himself, or may ask from those whohave been there, and learn that I am saying what is true. " (Pp. 205-206.)Nearly the whole of Book xi is worth translating. It contains"Details regarding Indian Animals, and the Island of Taprobane. ""Rhinoceros."This animal is called Rhinoceros because he has horns over hisnostrils; when he walks his horns jog about, but when he is enragedwith what he is looking at he erects his horns, and they become so rigidthat he is able to uproot trees with them, especially if they are straightbefore him. His eyes are placed low down near his jaws. He is altogether a fearful beast, and he is somehow especially hostile to theelephant. His feet and his skin are, however, very like those of theelephant. His skin when dried is four fingers thick, and some peoplehave used it instead of iron to put in the plough, and have ploughed theground with it! The Ethiopians in their own dialect call him ArueHarisi, using in the second word an aspirated a with rhisi added. Theword Arue expresses the beast as such, but Harisi expresses ploughing,a nickname that they give him from his form about the nose, and alsofrom the use to which his skin is turned. I saw this creature alive1? τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς μάλιστα τὸ ἔμπροσθεν. The fact about the animals carrying the horn loose when not irritated is confirmed by Salt ( 2d Travels,French Trans. , 1816, ii , 191) .

• Ludolf mentions Arweharis as a great and fierce beast, of which his friend Abba Gregory often used to speak. He quotes Arab. Hharash,

Hharshan, "Unicorn, " but I do not find these in the dictionaries. Saltagain says: "The name by which the rhinoceros (two horned) is desig- nated to this day all over Abyssinia is absolutely the same as that given by Cosmas. In the Gheez it is written Aru Haris, pronounced with astrong aspiration of the Ha..... Aruê, signifying always fera or bestia in genere; à coincidence so extraordinary as to convince me that the lan-clxxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.once in Ethiopia, but I kept at a good distance from him. And I haveseen one dead, skinned and stuffed with straw, standing in the king'spalace, so that I have been able to draw him accurately."Taurelaphus."This creature, the Taurelaphus (or Bull- stag) , is found both in Indiaand Ethiopia. Those in India are tame, and they make them carry loadsof pepper and other such articles in sacks; they also milk them andmade butter from their milk. We also eat their flesh, Christians cuttingtheir throats and Greeks felling them. Those of Ethiopia again are wildbeasts, and have not been domesticated.¹"Cameleopard."The Cameleopard is found only in Ethiopia. These also are wildbeasts, and have not been domesticated. But in the palace [at Axum]they have one or two which they have tamed by the king's command bycatching them when young, in order to keep them for a show. When milkor water to drink is given to these creatures in a dish, as is done in theking's presence, they cannot reach the vessel on the ground so as todrink, except by straddling with their fore - legs, owing to the greatlength of their legs and height of the chest and neck above the ground.It stands to reason therefore that they must widen out their fore - legs inorder to drink. This also I have drawn ( or described) from personalknowledge." The Wild Ox."This Wild Ox is a great beast of India, and from it is got the thingcalled Tupha, with which officers in the field adorn their horses andpennons. They tell of this beast that if his tail catches in a tree he willnot budge, but stands stock-still, being horribly vexed at losing a singlehair of his tail; so the natives come and cut his tail off, and then whenhe has lost it altogether he makes his escape! Such is the nature of theanimal.2 " The Musk Animal."This little animal is the Musk. The natives call it in their owntongue Kasturi.³ When they hunt it they shoot it with arrows, andguage spoken at the court of Axum was the Gheez" (Ludolf, i, 10, 78;Salt as above) .ploughing" in Arabic, which may illustrate the etymo- Hhars meanslogy ofCosmas.This appears to be the buffalo. Everything applies accurately except the name, which does not seem a very appropriate one. The picture is that of a lanky ox with long tusks.2 This is evidently the Yak, which Cosmas could only have known by distant hearsay. Tupha is probably Túgh or Tau, which according to Rémusat is the Turkish name of the horse-tail standard, applied also bythe Chinese to the Yak-tail, which respectively with those nations mark the supreme military command (Rech. sur les langues Tartares, 303; also D'Ohsson, i, 40).3 Kastúri is a real Sankrit name for the perfume musk (see Lassen, i,SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clxxvafter tying up the blood collected in the navel , cut it off.the fragrant part of the beast, or what we call the musk.the body they throw away."The Unicorn.For this isThe rest of"This creature is called a Unicorn . I can't say I ever saw him, butI have seen bronze figures of him in the four-towered palace of the Kingof Ethiopia, and so I have been able to make this drawing of him. Theysay he is a terrible beast, and quite invincible, and that all his strengthlies in his horn. And when he is encompassed by many hunters so thathe is hard put to it, he makes a leap over some high precipice, and as hefalls he turns over, so that his horn bears the whole force of the fall, andhe escapes unhurt.¹ So also the Scripture discourses of him, saying:'Save me from the months of lions and my humility from the horns ofthe Unicorns; and again in the blessings wherewith Balaam blessedIsrael, he saith twice over: Thus hath God led him out of Egypt likethe glory of the unicorn; 23 in all these passages testifying to the strengthand audacity and glory of the creature."The Hog-stag and Hippopotamus."The Chorelaphus ( or Hog- stag) I have both seen and eaten. Thehippopotamus I have not seen indeed, but I had some great teeth of histhat weighed thirteen pounds which I sold here [ in Alexandria]. AndI have seen many such teeth in Ethiopia and in Egypt.¹Pepper."This is the pepper-tree . Every plant of it is twined round somelofty forest tree, for it is weak and slim like the slender stems of the vine.And every bunch of fruit has a double leaf as a shield; and it is verygreen like the green of rue.316; and iii, 45) . This author says that in the Himalya Kastúri is also applied to the animal. He observes that " Cosmas is the first to mention the musk animal and musk as products of India, but he is wrong in representing the animal as living in Taprobane." Cosmas does nothing ofthe kind.From this story some kind of Ibex or Oryx would seem to be meant.The practice is asserted of animals of that class in parts of the world so remote from each other that it can scarcely be other than true.2 "Save me from the lion's mouth for thou hast heard me from thehorns of the unicorns" (Ps. xxii , 21 ) .3 "God brought him out of Egypt: He hath as it were the strength of an unicorn" (Numbers xxiii, 22; xxiv, 8) .4 The Charelaphus is represented in the drawing as a long-legged hog with very long tusks. It has certainly nothing to do with the so-calledhog-deer of India, which has no resemblance to a hog. It looks a good deal like the Babirussa, but that is I believe peculiar to the Archipelago.Yet this description by Pliny of a kind of swine in India comes very near that animal: " In Indiâ cubitales dentium flexus gemini ex rostro, totidem a fronte ceu vituli cornua, exeunt" (viii, 78) .I do not find any confirmation of this in modern accounts. But Ibn Khurdadbah (see ante, p . cix) says: The mariners say every bunch of "6clxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY."Argellion (the Coco- nut) ." Another tree is that which bears the Argell, i.e. the great IndianNut. In nothing does it differ from the date-palm, excepting that itsurpasses it in height and thickness, and in the size of its fronds. All thefruit it produces is from two or three stalks bearing three Argells each.2The taste is sweet and very pleasant, like that of fresh nuts. The Argellat first is full of a very sweet water, which the Indians drink from thenut, using it instead of wine. This drink is called Rhoncosura,³ and isexceedingly pleasant. But if the Argell be pluckt and kept, the watercongeals gradually on the inside of the shell; a small quantity remaining in the middle, till in course of time that also gets quite dried up. If,however, it be kept too long the coagulated pulp goes bad and cannot be eaten."Phoca, Dolphin, and Turtle." The Phoca, Dolphin, and Turtle we eat at sea if we chance to catchthem. To eat the dolphin or turtle we cut their throats; the phoca'sthroat we don't cut , but strike it over the head as is done with largefishes. The flesh of the turtle is like mutton, but blackish; that of thedolphin is like pork, but blackish and rank; that of the phoca is alsolike pork, but white and free from smell."Concerning the Island of Taprobane."This is the great island in the ocean, lying in the Indian Sea. Bythe Indians it is called SIELEDIBA, ' but by the Greeks TAPROBANE. Inpepper has over it a leaf that shelters it from the rain. When the rainceases the leaf turns aside; if rain recommences the leaf again covers thefruit" (in Journ. As. , ser. vi, tom. v, p. 284).1 Pers. Nárgil.

• This is obscure in the original: οὐ βάλλει δὲ καρπὸν εἰ μὴ δύο ἢ τρία

σπάθια ἀπὸ τριὼν ἀργελλίων. But his drawing explains, showing two stalks with three nuts to each. He must have seen but poor specimens.3 Possibly Cosmas bas confounded the cocoa-nut milk with the cocopalm toddy. For Sura is the name applied on the Malabar coast to the latter. Roncho may represent Lanha, the name applied there to the nutwhen ripe but still soft, in fact in the state in which it gives the milk (see Garcias dall' Orto, Venice, 1589, p. 114; Rheede, vol. i).4 This represents fairly the Pali name SIHALADIPA. Síhala or (Sansk. )Sinhala, the " Dwelling of the Lions, " or as otherwise explained, “ The Lion- Slayers." Taprobane, from (Pali) TAMBAPANNI, ( Sansk. ) TAMRA- PARNI, the name of a city founded near Putlam by Wijaya (son of Siha- bahu) the first human king and colonist . These names are explained in the Mahawanso thus:"At the spot where the seven hundred men, with the king at their head, exhausted by (sea) sickness, and faint from weakness, had landedout of the vessel, supporting themselves on the palms of their hands pressed on the ground, they set themselves down. Hence to them the name of Tambapanniyo ( “ copper-palmed, " from the colour of the soil) .From this circ*mstance that wilderness obtained the name of TAMBA- PANNI. From the same cause also this renowned land became celebrated(under that name) ."By whatever means the monarch Sihabahu slew the Siho (Lion) , fromSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clxxvii5it is found the hyacinth stone. It lies on the other side of the PepperCountry. And round about it there are a number of small islands, in allof which you find fresh water and coco- nuts. And these are almost allset close to one another. " The great island, according to what thenatives say, has a length of three hundred gaudia, and a breadth of thesame number, i.e. nine hundred miles. There are two kings on theisland, and they are at enmity with one another. The one possesses thehyacinth, and the other has the other part in which is the great placeof commerce and the chief harbour. It is a great mart for the people ofthose parts. The island hath also a church of Persian Christians whohave settled there, and a Presbyter who is appointed from Persia, and aDeacon, and all the apparatus of public worship. But the natives andtheir kings are quite another kind of people. They have many temples onthe island, and on one of these temples which stands in an elevated position there is a hyacinth, they say, of great size and brilliant ruddy colour,as big as a great pine- cone, and when it is seen flashing from a distance,especially when the sun's rays strike on it, ' tis a glorious and incomparable spectacle."From all India and Persia and Ethiopia many ships come to thisisland, and it likewise sends out many of its own, occupying as it does akind of central position. And from the remoter regions, I speak ofTzinista and other places of export, the imports to Taprobane are silk,aloes-wood, cloves, sandal-wood, " and so forth, according to the productsthat feat his sons and descendants are called Sihala ( Lion- Slayers), This Lanka having been conquered by a Sihalo, from the circ*mstance also of its having been colonized by a Sihalo, it obtained the name of SIHALA"(in Turner's Epitome, p. 55) . The more approved etymologies of the names will be found in Lassen, i, 200 seq .; Tennent's Ceylon, i, 525).Malabar, so called by the Arabs (Balad- ul- Falfal); see Ibn Batuta infra, p. 476.ἀσσοβαθαὶ, perhaps a mistake for ἀσσόταται . He here seems to speak of the Maldives.3 66 This singular word gaou, in which Cosmas gives the dimensions of the island, is in use to the present day in Ceylon, and means the distance which a man can walk in an hour" (Tennent, i, 543) .4 Tennent translates: "at opposite ends of the island."5 This has been thought by some to mean the part of the island con- taining the ruby mines; but Tennent considers it to refer to the Ruby mentioned below (see Ceylon, i, 543) . The expression, however, " the Hyacinth" for the "district producing hyacinths" seems quite in the vein of Cosmas. Thus below he uses Tò kapuóquλλov for the Clove Country. Tennent considers the Port to be Galle, but I have noticed this elsewhere ( Note xii) .6 àλλópuλλo , i.e. as I understand it, Gentiles; at any rate not Persian Christians. But Sir E. Tennent renders it: " The natives and theirkings are of different races."7 This is spoken of by Hiwen Thsang as on the Buddha-Tooth Temple near Anurajapura. " Its magical brilliance illumines the whole heaven.In the calm of a clear and cloudless night it can be seen by all, even at adistance of 10,000li " (Vie de H. T. , p. 199; also 371-2) .8 Here Tennent, following Thevenot's edition, has " clove-wood, " but it is not in Montfaucon. As regards clove-wood see pp. 305, 472-3, infra.9 TŠávdavn, representing the Sanscrit Chandana,clxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.of each place. These again are passed on from Sielediba to the martson this side, such as Malè, where the pepper is grown, and Kalliana,whence are exported brass, and sisam logs, and other wares, such ascloths (for that also is a great place of business); also to SINDU, whereyou get the musk or castorin, and androstachyn;2 also to Persia, Homerite, and Adule. And the island receives imports again from all thosemarts that I have been mentioning, and passes them on to the remoterports, whilst at the same time it exports its own produce in bothdirections." SINDU is where India begins. Now, the Indus, i. e. , Phison, themouths of which discharge into the Persian Gulf, is the boundary between Persia and India And the most notable places of trade are these:SINDU, ORRHOTHA, KALLIANA, SIBOR, ³ and then the five marts of Malè,from which pepper is exported, to wit, PARTI, MANGARUTH, SALOPATANA, NALOPATANA, PUDOPATANA.¹ Then there is SIELEDIBA; i.e.,Taprobane, which lies hitherward about five days and nights ' sail fromthe Continent; and then again on the Continent, and further back isMARALLO, which exports conch shells;5 KABER, which exports alabandinum; and then again further off is the Clove Country; and thenTZINISTA, which produces the silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the ocean encompasses it on the east.The Periplus mentions among exports from Barygaza (Baroch) brass,sandal-wood, beams, horns, and planks of sasam and ebony. I supposethe suggestion has been made before, though I cannot find it, that these sisam logs or sasam planks were the wood of the sissu or shisham, one of the most valuable Indian timbers. I believe the blackwood of WesternIndia, much used for carved furniture, is a species of sissu . The brasswas probably manufactured in pots and vessels; still so prominent abusiness in Indian towns.2 Sindu, doubtless a port at the mouth of the Sinthus or Indus, probably Diul or Daibul, which we have seen to be a port known to the Chinese soon after this (supra, p. lxxix) . Androstachyn is probably, as Lassen sug- gests, an error for Nardostachys or spikenard, the chief sources of which seem to have been the countries on the tributaries of the Upper Indus (see Lassen, iii, 41, 42; also i, 288-9) .3 Sibor, probably the Supera of Jordanus and Suppara of Ptolemy (infra, p. 227) . Orrhatha is supposed by Lassen to be Ptolemy's Soratha onthe Pen. of Gujarat, identified with the Surata of Hiwen Thsang, not to be confounded with modern Surat(Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde in Acad. , p. 155).4 Of these five ports of Malabar, Mangaruth is no doubt Mangalore,Pudopatana the port which bore the same name till a recent century (see infra, pp. 448, 453); the others I cannot identify.5 In position and perhaps in name identical with Marava or Marawar opposite Ceylon. The fishing of chank shells hereabouts was till recently I believe a government monopoly like the pearl- fishery. Walckenær says Marallo is " Morilloum, opposite Ceylon". Is there such a place?6 Kaber, from the name and position, may be the Chaberis of Ptolemy (Kaveripatam), but I can get no light on the alabandinum. Pliny speaks of alabandic carbuncles and of an alabandic black marble, both calledfrom a city of Caria. The French apply the name almandine or alban- dine to a species of ruby (Pliny, xxxvii, 25; xxxvi, 13; Dict. de Trevoux).If rubies be meant it is just possible that Pegu may be in question.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clxxix"This same Sielediba then, set, as it were, in the central point of theIndies, and possessing the Hyacinth, receiving imports from all the seatsof commerce, and exporting to them in return, is itself a great seat ofcommerce. Here let me relate what there befel one of the merchantsaccustomed to trade thither. His name was Sopatrus, and he has beendead, to my knowledge, these thirty- five years past. Well, he had goneto the island of Taprobane on a trading adventure, and a ship fromPersia happened to put in there at the same time. So when the Adulepeople, with whom Sopatrus was, went ashore, the people from Persiawent ashore likewise, and with them they had a certain venerable personage of their nation.¹ And then, as their way is, the chief men of theplace and the officers of the custom -house received the party, and conducted them before the king. The king having granted them an audience,after receiving their salutations, desired them to be seated, and thenasked, ' In what state are your countries? and how go your own affairs?'They answered, ' Well . ' And so as the conversation proceeded, the kingput the question, ' Which of you has the greatest and most powerfulking?' The Persian elder snatching the word, answered, ' Our king isthe greatest and the most powerful and the wealthiest, and indeed is theking of kings; and whatever he desires, that he is able to accomplish. 'But Sopatrus held his peace. Then, quoth the king, ' Well, Roman! hastthou not a word to say?' Said Sopatrus, ' Why, what is there for me tosay, after this man hath spoken as he hath done? But if thou wouldstknow the real truth of the matter thou hast both the kings here;examine both, and thou shalt see thyself which is the more magnificentand potent. ' When the prince heard that, he was amazed at the words,and said, ' How make you out that I have both the kings here?' Theother replied, ' Well, thou hast the coins of both of the one the nomisma, and of the other the dirhem ( i.e., the miliaresion) . Look at theeffigy on each, and you will see the truth. ' The king approved of thesuggestion, nodding assent, and ordered both coins to be produced. Now,the nomisma was a coin of right good ring and fine ruddy gold, brightin metal and elegant in execution, for such coins are picked on purposeto take thither, whilst the miliaresion, to say it in one word, was ofsilver, and of course bore no comparison with the gold coin . So theking, after he had turned them this way and that, and had studied bothwith attention, highly extolled the nomisma, ² saying that in truth theRomans were a splendid , powerful, and sagacious people. So he orderedgreat honour to be paid to Sopatrus, causing him to be set on an eleThe 1 66 #peσBurns." A Shaikh? Montfaucon's Latin has orator.2 Nomisma was usually applied to the gold solidus, as here.miliaresion or miliarensis was a silver coin, the twelfth part of the solidus (Ducange, de Inf. Aevi Numism . ) . The latter coin continued to be wellknown in the Mediterranean probably to the end of the Byzantine Empire. Migliaresi are frequently mentioned by Pegolotti circa 1340 .clxxx PRELIMINARY ESSAY.phant, and conducted round the city with drums beating in great state.These circ*mstances were told me by Sopatrus and the others who hadaccompanied him from Adule to that island. And, as they told thestory , the Persian was very much ashamed of what had happened ”(p. 338)." But in the direction of those most notable places of trade that Ihave mentioned, there are many others ( of minor importance) both onthe coast and inland, and a country of great extent. And in Indiafurther up the country, i. e. , further north , are the White Huns. 'That one who is called Gollâs, ' tis said, goes forth to war with not lessthan a thousand elephants, besides a great force of cavalry. This rulertyrannises over India and exacts tribute from the people. Once upon atime, as they tell, he would lay siege to a certain inland city of India;but the city was protected all round by inundation. So he sat himdown before it for many days, and in course of time what with his elephants and his horses and the people of his camp the whole of the waterwas drunk dry, so that at last he was able to cross over dry-shod, andtook the city."These people have a great fondness for the emerald stone, and it isworn by their king in his crown. The Ethiopians who obtain this stonefrom the Blemmyes in Ethiopia, import it into India and with the pricethey get are able to invest in wares of the greatest value."Now, all these matters I have been able thus to describe and explain,partly from personal experience, and partly from accurate inquirieswhich I made when in the vicinity of the different places" (p. 339) ."There are other kings ( I may observe) of different places in Indiawho keep elephants, such as the King of Orrhotha, and the King of theKalliana people, and the Kings of Sindu, of Sibor, and of Malè. Onewill have six hundred elephants, another five hundred, and so on, somemore, some less. And the King of Sielediba [ gives a good price for] *both the elephants that he has, and the horses. The elephants he buysby cubit measurement; for their height is measured from the ground,and so the price is fixed according to the measurement, ranging fromfifty to a hundred nomismata or more.³ Horses they bring to him fromPersia, and these he buys, and grants special immunities to those whoimport them.1 On the Yueichi, Yetas or White Huns, called also Epthalites, see Lassen, ii, 771 seqq., and iii, 584 seqq. There is a special dissertation onthem by Vivien St. Martin (Les Huns Blancs on Epthalites) , which I have not been able to obtain.This is conjectural, as some words are evidently wanting. Montfau- con's Latin supplies pretio emit.3 From £32 to £65. The price of elephants in Bengal now may run from twice to thrice these amounts. Height is always one of theelements in estimating the price of an elephant. Edrisi says: 66 TheKings of India and China make a great work about the height of theirelephants; they pay very dear in proportion as this attribute increases'(i, 97) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clxxxi" The kings on the mainland cause wild elephants to be tamed, andmake use of them in war. And it is a common practice to get up elephant fights as a spectacle for the king. For this purpose they set upbetween the two elephants a pair of upright timbers with a great crossbeam fastened to them which reaches as it might be to the chests of theelephants. A number of men are also stationed on this side and onthat to prevent the animals coming to close quarters, but at the sametime to stir them up to engage one another. And so the beasts thrasheach other with their trunks till at length one of them gives in."The Indian elephants are not furnished with great tusks. And evenwhen they have them naturally the people saw them off, in order thattheir weight may not be an incumbrance in war. The Ethiopians donot understand the art of taming elephants; but if their king shouldwant one or two for a show they catch them young and bring them upin captivity. For in their country there are great numbers of elephants,and they are of the kind that have great tusks. And these tusks are exported by sea from Ethiopia into Persia and Homerite and the Romanterritory, and even to India. These particulars are derived from whatI have heard" (p. 339) .NOTE X.THE DISCOVERY OF THE SYRO- CHINESE CHRISTIANMONUMENT AT SINGANFU.From the RELAZIONE DELLA CINA of P. ALVAREZ SEMEDO, Rome, 1643."In the year 1625, whilst the foundations of a house were a- diggingin the neighbourhood of the city of Singanfu, the capital ofthe provinceof Shensi, the workmen hit upon a stone slab more than nine palms long,by four in width, and more than a palm in thickness . The head of thisslab, i.e. one of the ends in its longer dimension, is finished off in theform of a pyramid more than two palms high with a base of more thanone palm, and on the surface of this pyramid is a well-formed cross withfloreated points, resembling those which are described to be sculpturedon the tomb of St. Thomas at Meliapur, and such as were also at onetime in use in Europe, as we may see by some examples that have beenpreserved to the present day."There are some cloudy marks round about the cross, and (immediately) below it three transverse lines, each composed of three largecharacters clearly carved, all of the kind employed in China. The whole(of the rest) of the surface of the stone is seen to be sculptured over with1 It is well known that a large proportion of male elephants in India have only very small tusks like the females. Such in Bengal are called makhna.elxxxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.characters of the same kind, and so also is the thickness of the slab, butin the last the characters are different from the others, for some of themare outlandish, and their nature was not known at the time of thediscovery." No sooner had the Chinese cleaned this notable piece of antiquityand seen what it was, than, with the vivid curiosity which is natural tothem, they ran to tell the Governor. He came in all haste to see it, andstraightway caused it to be set up on a handsome pedestal under an archwhich was closed at the sides and open in front, so that it might at oncebe protected from the weather, and accessible to eyes capable of enjoyingand appreciating an antique of such a venerable kind. The place whichhe selected for it was also within the enclosure of a Bonze Temple, not farfrom where the discovery occurred."Great numbers of people flocked to see this stone, attracted in partby its antiquity and in part by the novelty of the strange charactersthat were visible on it. And as the knowledge of our religion has nowspread far and wide in China, a certain Pagan who happened to bepresent, and who was on very friendly terms with a worthy Christianmandarin called Leo, when he discerned the bearing of this mysteriouswriting, thought he could not do his friend a greater pleasure than bysending him a copy of it . And this he did , although the Mandarin wasa six weeks' journey off, residing in the city of Hangcheu, whither mostof our fathers had retired on account of the persecution that had occurred, of which we shall speak in its place. He received the transcriptwith pious joy, and visible demonstrations of delight, seeing the irrefragable testimony of the ancient Christianity of China which it contained (a thing such as had been much desired and sought for) , as weshall explain."Three years later, in 1628, some of the fathers had an opportunityof visiting the province in question in company with a Christian mandarin called Philip, who had to go thither. A church and a house (ofthe Society) were erected in that metropolis; for the Blessed God whohad willed the discovery of so fine a monument of the ancient occupationof this country by His Divine Law, was also pleased to facilitate its restitution in the same locality. It was my fortune to be one of the first togo thither, and I thought myself happy in having that post, on accountof the opportunity it gave me of seeing the stone; and on my arrival Icould attend to nothing else until I had seen it and read it. And Iwent back to read it again, and examined it in a leisurely and deliberatemanner. Considering its antiquity, I could not but admire that it wasso perfect, and exhibited letters sculptured with such clearness andprecision."Looked at edge- wise there are on it many Chinese characters whichcontain a number of names of priests and bishops of that age. Thereare also many other characters which were not then known, for they areSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clxxxiiineither Hebrew nor Greek, but which, as far as I understand, containthe same names, in order that if by chance some one from abroad shouldcome who could not read the writing of the country, he might, perhaps,be able to understand these foreign characters." Passing afterwards through Cochin on my way to Cranganor, theresidence of the Archbishop of the Coast, I consulted on the subject ofthose letters Father Antonio Fernandez of our Society, who was verylearned in the literature of those St. Thomas Christians, and he told methat the letters were Syriac, and the same as were in use by that body. "(P. 197 seq.)The following account is given in a Chinese work entitled " LAICHAI'SBrief Examination of Inscriptions on Stone and Metal .”"At present this inscription exists in the enclosure of the monasteryKinching ( Golden Victory' ) to the west of the city of Singan. In theyears Tsungching of the Ming ( 1628-1643) the Prefect of Singan, DoctorTseu Tsingchang, a native of Tsinling, had a young child called Hoasengwho was endowed from his birth with a very rare degree of intelligenceand penetration. Almost as soon as he could speak he would alreadyjoin his hands to adore Fo. When he had reached his twelfth year, thechild, without knowing where was the seat of his ailment, pined away;his eyes insensibly closed; he opened them for an instant with a smile,and died. Chang, seeing that his son was gone, cast lots, and these indicated for the place of his burial a spot to the south of the monasteryThsungjin ( Sublime Humanity' ) in Changgan. After digging here toa depth of several feet, they hit upon a stone which was no other thanthat bearing the inscription, " etc. (From Pauthier, L'InscriptionChrétienne de Singanfou, pp. 70-71 . )NOTE XI.THE KINGDOMS OF INDIA IN THE NINTH CENTURY,SPOKEN OF BY THE ARAB WRITERS IN THERELATIONS TRANSLATED BY REINAUD.The first king named is the BALHARA, who is said to have been regarded as the most exalted of Indian princes, and whom the Indians andChinese classed with the Khalif, the Emperor of China, and the King ofthe Romans, as the four great kings of the world. There is, however,scarcely anything definite stated about him except that his empirebegan at the country of Komkam ( the Konkan) on the sea coast.The name of Balhara Lassen considers to be a corruption of Ballabhiráa or raja, the title of a great dynasty which reigned at Ballabhipuraclxxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.in the Peninsula of Gujarat, ' but which had fallen long before this time.Nor indeed does there appear to have been any very powerful dynasty inthis region in the ninth century. " Al Biruni, who in Indian matters knewwhat he was talking about a great deal better than other old Arabicwriters, says nothing of the Balhara.3 He mentions a kingdom ofKonkan with its capital at Tálah [ read Tánah]. *Among the other kings with whom the Balhara was often at war wasone named the JURZ, who was noted for his cavalry , and had great riches,and camels and horses in great numbers. His states are said to form atongue of land, i.e. , I presume, to be on the sea coast. Yet Abu- Zaidsays that Kanauj formed his empire, and to this M. Reinaud holds.But Masudi, who gives the same account of the Jurz ( or Juzr as itis in his book as printed) , makes him entirely distinct from the King ofKanauj, whom he calls the Bawurah. Lassen and the editors ofMasudi make this kingdom Gujarat, apparently from the slight resemblance of name. But it seems much more likely that it is the King Jor ofAl Biruni, whom that writer places on the eastern coast of the Peninsula,either in the Tanjore country or in Telinga , or extending over both.And from Hiwen Thsang also we hear of a kingdom called Juri or Jurya,which lay some three hundred miles north of Dravida (the capital of whichlast was the present Konjeveram) , and this may have been the same."There is then the kingdom of THAFAK, or THAFAN as Masudi has it,which was noted for its women, who were the whitest and most beautifulin India. The author of the Relations calls it beside the Jurz, but no1 Called by Masudi Manekir, and identified by Lassen with the Minnagara of Ptolemy.2 See Lassen, iii, 533 seqq . , and iv , 917 seqq. It is a curious illustration of the expanse of the Mahomedan power and consequent circulation ofits agents that the name of this Indian prince, the Balhara, was applied to a village in the neighbourhood of Palermo, now the well- known Monreale, and from it again to a market in the city, Súk-Balhara, now called Piazza Ballarò. Similar illustrations are found in the names of ManzilSindi, near Corleone; Jibal- Sindi, near Girgenti; and ' Ain- Sindi, in the suburbs of Palermo: all preserved by mediæval documents, and the last still surviving under the corrupted name of Fonte Dennisinni (Amari, St. dei Musulm. di Sicilia, i , 84; ii, 33 , 34, 300) .3 Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde in Mem. de l'Acad.4 Reinaud in J. As. S. , iv, tom. iv, p. 251.5 Or Baurawa. Gildemeister says on this: " Paurav [ in Nagari letters]esse puto, nam eo nomine Reges Kanyakubgenses gloriati sunt"; but gives no authority (p. 160) . Masudi also speaks of a city Bawurah on oneof the Panjab rivers, which is perhaps the Parvata of Hiwen Thsang (Pr. d'Or, i, 371; Vie de H. T., p, 210) .6 Lassen, iv, 921; Prairies d'Or, i, 383, 384. In the last passage the French translator puts simply le Guzerat to represent Al-Jurz or Juzr,which is scarcely fair translating of so doubtful a point.Sce Vie de H. T., pp. 189-90, 453; also Lassen, iii, 205, note. The Jurz of the Relations is evidently the Malik-al-ji*zr of Edrisi, who puts him on what he calls the Island of Madai on the way to China, but Edrisi's in- formation about the South Eastern Indies, is a hopeless chaos (see i , 86 , 98).SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clxxxvgreat weight can be attached to this where his knowledge was evidentlyso dim. Because of Ibn Batuta's praise of the Mahratta women, M.Reinaud will have Tháfan to be in the Dekkan, nay he localises it "inthe present province of Aurungabad," and Lassen following up thislead with equal precision will prefer to put it in Baglana, which wasthen the Mahratta country. But Ibn Batuta certainly does not saythat the Mahratta women were white, the very last attribute I supposethat they could claim, and we find that Masudi couples Thafan withKashmir and Kandahar (i.e. Gandhára, the country about Peshawarand Attok) as one of the countries in which the Indus had its sources.The traveller Ibn Mohalhal speaks of Thábán as a chief city of Kabul, ³but whether that be meant for the same place or no, this Thafan is certainly to be sought on the N.W. frontier of India, and the fair womenare very probably those ofthe race now called Kafirs, whose beauty andfair complexion are still so much extolled.³Contiguous to these, according to the Arab writer, was the Kingdomof Ruhmi, Rahma, or RAHMAN, who was at war with the Jurz and theBalhara . He was not of great consideration , though he had the greatestarmy, and was accompanied by some fifty thousand elephants and fifteenthousand washermen! Muslins that could pass through a ring weremade in his country. Gold, silver, aloes-wood, and chowries were alsofound in it. Cowries were the money used; and in the forests was therhinoceros, of which a particular description is given under the name ofKarkadan. The Kingdom of Rahma, adds Masudi, extends both inlandand on the sea.Of this Reinaud says: "This seems to me to answer to the ancientKingdom of Visiapour;" and Lassen will have it that it fits none butthe Kingdom of the Chalukyas of Kalliani (in the Dekkan) . Why, itwould be hard to say; the washermen doubtless exist in those regions,and to a certain extent the elephants, but none of the other alleged products. Gold, silver, aloes-wood, chowries, rhinoceroses, and the fabulousstud of elephants all point to Transgangetic India, perhaps including1 Lassen, iv, 921.Prairies d'Or, i, 207.3 See the notices of the Kafir women quoted at p. 555 infra. Kazwinimentions a very strong fortress of India called Thaifand, on the summit of a mountain almost inaccessible, but which had water, cultivation, and everything needful for the maintenance of its garrison . It was taken,he says, by Mahmud Sabaktagin in the year 414 (A.D. 1023), and five hundred elephants were found in it . This is like the account given of astronghold on the west of the Indus, at Mahaban, which has been ad- mirably identified by Col. James Abbott with Aornos. The name may have to do with our Tháfan (see Gildem, p. 208) .4 Some copies of Mas'udì have Wahman, which seems to point toRahman as the proper name (see Reinaud, Relations, i, cii) . Edrisi (in Jaubert, i, 173) has Dumi.This is probably the word which Aelian intends in his description of the Indian unicorn, which he calls Kapтašávov (De Nat. Animalium, xvi, 20) .0clxxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Assam, whilst the muslins that pass through a ring are the produce ofEastern Bengal ( Dacca muslins) . Pegu is known in Burma, Buddhistoclassically, as Rahmaniya,¹ and I have little doubt that this is the nameinvolved, though I should be sorry to define more particularly the limitsof the region intended by the Arab writer.?Then come an inland people of white complexion with pierced ears,and remarkable for their beauty, called KASHIBÍN, or, as Masudi has it,Káman. M. Reinaud says Mysore, but only because he had last saidVisiapur. He cannot suppose that the people of Mysore are white inany sense. All that can be said is that this and all the other kingdomsmentioned afterwards appear to be in Farther India. These are KAIRANJ, said to be on the sea, probably the sea called Kadranj, in the listof seas between Oman and China; then MUJAH, where there is muchgood musk and very long ranges of snowy mountains; and MABAD orMAYAD, the people of both of which resemble the Chinese, whilst thelatter touch the Chinese frontier. These are to be sought in the vicinityof Yunan, which has much musk and very long ranges of snowymountains.NOTE XII.ABSTRACT OF THE TRAVELS OF IBN MUHALHAL.Quitting Khorasan and the Mahomedan cities of Mawarulnahr, withthe ambassadors of China, as mentioned in the text, the party came firstto the territory of HARKAH ( or Harkat) . It took a month to passthrough this region , and then they came to that of THATHAH, throughwhich they travelled for twenty days. The people of this country arein alliance with those of Harkat to repel the inroads of the Pagans, andthey are subject to the orders of the Emperor of China. They pay tribute also to Harkat, as the latter lies between them and the Musulman1 The great Burmese inscription at Kaungmúdhau Pagoda, near Ava,thus defines: "All within the great districts of Hanzawadi ( i.e. , the city of Pegu) , Digun ( Rangoon) , Dala (opposite Rangoon), Kothian, Young- myo, and Mauttama (Martaban) is the great kingdom of RAMANIYA"(Mission to Ava, p. 351. ) Arramaniya is also used in the Ceylonese annals to designate some country of the Transgangetic Peninsula (see Turnour's Epitome, p. 41 ) . The sounding titles of many of the Indo- Chinese princes refer to their possession of vast numbers of elephants.2 The kings of India as given by Ibn Khurdadbah (supra, p. cix) , are the Balhara, the kings of Jábah, Táfan, Juzr, Ghánah or ' Anah, Rahma,and Kámrún. Ghanah seems to have no parallel in other lists , nor can I conjecture what is meant.3 Apassage quoted by Dulaurier, in relation to camphor, from an Arabic author, Ishak Bin Amram, says that the best camphor comes from "Herenj, which is Little China.' This seems to point either to Borneoor to Cochin China (Jour. Asiat. , ser. iv, tom. viii, p. 218).SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . clxxxviicountries with which they desire to have commerce. Next they reachedNAJA, tributary to Thatháh. Here they have wine, figs, and blackmeddlars, and a kind of wood which fire will not burn. The Christianscarry this wood away, believing that Christ was crucified upon it . Nextthey came to the BAJNAK, a people with beards and mustachios, andwent twenty-two days through their territory which extended north tothe confines of the SCLAVES. Next to the JIKIL, a people who keep nocattle; they marry their daughters and sisters without regard to unlawful affinities, and are subject to the Turks. They have a herb calledKalkan which they boil with their meat. Bezoars are found here, andmalignant serpents haunt the country in the beginning of winter. Theirhouses are of wood and clay. Then to the BAGHRAJ, whose king is descended from ' Ali, and who are very skilful in the manufacture of arms. 'Next to TOBBAT, and travelled forty days therein . There was a greatcity there built of reeds and a temple made of ox leather covered withvarnish. There is also an idol made of the horns of musk oxen.5 Nextthey came to KIMAK, where the houses are of the skins of beasts, andthere are vines with grapes which are half black and half white. Thereis also a stone here with which they produce rain as often as they will.Gold is found on the surface, and diamonds are disclosed by the rivers.They have no king nor temple. They venerate greatly those who attaineighty years without being ill . The travellers were thirty-five daysamong them. Then they came to the GHUZ, whose city is of stone,1 Or Baja.2 On the three preceding peoples or countries, Harkah, Thatháh, and Naja, I can throw no light. The Bajnak are the Pechinegs, or ПaτŠivaкĺτaι of the Greeks, much discoursed of by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who evidently stood in great fear of them, in his book De Administrando Imperio. In his time they were on the Dnieper and Dniester, but he tells us that fifty years before they had been driven from their original seats on the Atil and Geech (Wolga and Iaic) by the Uz (or Ghuz) and Khazars.Their original settlement is described by an Arab writer as having on the north Kipchak, to the south the Khazars, to the east the Ghuz, to the westthe Slaves (Const. Porph. in Banduri Imper. Orientale, vol. i; Defrimery,Fragments de Geographes, etc., in Jour. As. , ser. iv, tom. xiii, 466; Masudi,Prairies d'Or, i , 262 ) .8 Kalank in Pers. is the kitchen herb purslain. The Ashkal, Szekely orSiculi, no doubt the same as these Jikil, are mentioned in the extractsby Defrémery just quoted (p. 473) , as being to the south of the Majgarsor Majars, who again were south of the Bajnaks.4 Qu . Georgians? (whose kings were Bagratida); or Bulgarians? (of the Wolga).5 Some region of Siberia?6 On the rain-stone used by the Turk and Tartar tribes to conjure rain ,and still known among the Kalmaks, see one of Quatremère's long but interesting notes on Rashiduddin, pp. 428 seqq.; also Hammer's Golden Horde, pp. 42 and 436. This stone was called by the Turks Jadah (Pers.Yadah). Is this the origin of our Jade-stone? and is it connected withthe (Pers. ) word Jádú, conjuring, in common use in India?7 The Kimaks are represented by Edrisi as the greatest of the Turk (or Tartar) nations. They had the Taghazghaz to the south, the Khiziljis02clxxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.timber, and reeds. They have a temple but no images. Their king isvery powerful and trades with India and China. Their clothes are oflinen and camel's hair. They have no wool . They have a white stonewhich is good for colic, and a red stone which by touching a sword prevents it from cutting. The route lay securely for one month throughthis country. Then came the TAGHAZGHAZ who eat flesh, both raw andcooked, and wear wool and cotton. They have no temples; they holdhorses in high esteem. They have a stone that stops bleeding at thenose. They celebrate a feast when they see a rainbow. In prayer theyturn to the west. The king is very powerful, and at the top of hiscastle is a round structure of gold which holds a hundred men, and isseen for five parasangs. Their standards are black. The travellers wenttwenty days through this country in great fear.2 Next they came tothe KHIRKHIZ, a people who have temples for worship and a writtencharacter, and are a very intelligent people. They never put a lightout. They have a little musk. They keep three feasts in the year.Their standards are green, and in prayer they turn to the south. Theyadore the planets Saturn and Venus, and predict the future by Mars.They have a stone that shines by night and is used for a lamp. No man(Kharlikhs?) to the south-west, the Khilkhis to the west, on the east theDark Sea. They had numerous cities, all on a great river flowing eastward.El-Wardi calls them a race of Eastern Turks, bordering on Northern China. In the Chinese Annals we find embassies repeatedly from the Kumuki, coupled with the Khitans, to the court of the Wei dynasty in the fifth century (Edrissi, i, 25; ii , 217-223, etc.; Ibn Khurdádbah in Jour.As. , ser. vi, tom. v, 268; D'Herbelot in v.; Deguignes, i, 183, 184) . The river was perhaps the Irtish, as Mas'udi speaks of the " Black and WhiteIrshat (the French transl. , however, prints Arasht) on the banks of which is the kingdom of the Keimak-Baigur, a Turkish tribe originating in the country beyond the Jihun" (Prairies d'Or, i , 230; also 288) .1 The Ghuz or Uzes had their seats about the Aral and to the east of it.In the reign of Constantine Ducas they penetrated into Macedonia, and got large sums from the emperor to make peace. On their return theywere cut to pieces by the Pechinegs. The Ghuz are identified with the Turkomans (Edrisi, i, 7; ii, 339 seqq.; Deguignes, ii, 522; Mas'udi, Prairies d'Or, i, 212) .2 The Taghazghaz (printed in Edrisi, Bagharghar) , were one of the greatest tribes of the Turks, according to the early Arab geographers.Their country seems to have been that afterwards known as the Uigur country, whether they were the same people or not (see Edrisi, i, 490 seq.; Ibn Khurdadbah, u.s. , 268). Masudi says they occupied the city of Kushan between Khorasan and China, supposed to be the Kaochang of the Chinese,the modern Turfan. He says they were in his day the most valiant,powerful, and best governed of the Turks (Prairies d'Or, i, 288) . The round structure of gold was probably a gilt Dagoba.3 Wood mentions this prejudice, against blowing out a light, not indeed among the Kirghiz, but among the immediate neighbours of the Kirghiz of Pamir, the people of Wakhan and Badakhshan; "A Wakhani considers it bad luck to blow out alight by the breath, and will rather wave hishand for several minutes under the flame of his pine-slip than resort tothe sure but to him disagreeable alternative" (Oxus, p. 333; see alsop. 274).SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. clxxxixunder forty sits down in the king's presence. Next to the HAZLAKH,'who are great gamblers, and stake wife, mother, or daughter on theirplay. When a caravan of travellers comes into their country the wife orsister or daughter of some chief comes and washes them. And if any ofthese ladies takes a fancy for one of the strangers she carries him homeand entertains him with all kindness, and makes her husband or son orbrother provide for him in every way; nor as long as the guest is keeping company with her does the husband come near them unless fornecessary business. Next they reached the KHATHLAKH, the bravestof all the Turks. These admit marriage with sisters . Women are allowed to marry but once, and there is no divorce except for breach ofmarriage vows; in which case both the offending parties are burnt. Thewife is endowed with all the man's worldly goods, and he must serve herfather for a year. They have the custom of exacting blood-money; andthe king is not allowed to marry on pain of death. Next they came tothe KHATIYAN. These do not eat meat unless cooked; they have civi1 I suspect it should be Kharlikh (it is a question of points only) , the name of one of the greatest Turkish tribes, and sometimes written Car- ligh, whose country seems to have been north of Farghana. They are probably the Khizilji of the French Edrisi, and the Khuzluj of Mas'udi,"remarkable for their beauty, stature, and perfect features. Formerly they ruled over all the other tribes . From their race descended the Khakan of the Khakans who united under his empire all the kingdoms of the Turks, and commanded all their kings" (p. 288) .2 This discreditable custom is related by Marco Polo of the people of Kamul; he says of it, "il le tiennent a grand honneur et n'en ont nulle honte. Car tuit cil de ceste province sont si honni de leur moliers comme vous avez ouy" (Pauthier, 157).....It is a notorious allegation against the Hazaras of the Hindu Kushthat they exercise the same practice ( Wood, p. 201 , and Burnes) . But what shall we say to its being ascribed also by a Byzantine historian of the fifteenth century to a certain insular kingdom of Western Europe (the capital of which was Aoúvdpas) , at least if we trust to the Latin version of Conrad Clauser. The Greek runs: “ νομίζεται δὲ τούτοις τά τ'αμφὶ τὰς γυναικας τε καὶ τοὺς παῖδας ἁπλοϊκωτέρα ὥστε ἀνὰ πᾶσαν τὴν νῆσον ἐπειδάν τις ἐςτὴν τοῦ ἐπιτηδείου αὐτῷ οἰκίαν ἐσήει καλούμενος, κύσαντα τὴν γυναῖκα , οὕτω ξενίζεσθαι αὐτὸν, καὶ ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς δὲ ἁπανταχῆ περιέχονται τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας ἐν τοῖς ἐπιτηδείοις . . . . και οὐδὲ αἰσχύνην τοῦτο φέρει ἑαυτοῖς κύεσθαι τὰστε γυναίκας ȧUTŵv Kai Tàs Ovyarépas " (Laonicus Chalcondylas, in ed. Paris, 1650, p.48-49) . The translation of Clauser gives substantially the same meaning as Ibn Muhalhal's account of the Kharlikh practice, except that it is much more grossly expressed. We need not defend our ancestors and ances- tresses against the Byzantine; but was he really such a gobemouche as his translator makes him? I must needs speak very diffidently, but do the words mean more than this? "They take things very easily in regard to their wives and children. For over all the island, when anyone goes tovisit a friend, he kisses the good wife on entering the house. And if friends meet on the highway ' tis the universal custom that they embrace each other's wives.... Nor do they think shame that their wives and daughters should be kissed . "I have elsewhere (p. 545 infra) intimated a suspicion that this is Khotan. The civilised character of the people; their temples; and theirhaving musk, are favourable to this supposition, as well as the juxtaposi- tion of Bai.CXC PRELIMINARY ESSAY,lised laws of marriage and wise institutions; they have no king; theyuse no cruelties towards foreigners. They have no dyed clothes; theypossess musk, and a stone which heals poisoned bites, etc. , also thebezoar. Then they came to BAHI. This is a great city and territory,with palm trees, vines, etc. In the city are Mahomedans, Jews, Christians, Magians, and idolaters. They have a green stone which is goodfor the eyes, and a red stone which is good for the spleen; also excellent indigo. They travelled forty days in this territory.¹ Thenthey came to KALIB, in which there is a colony of the Arabs ofYemen, who were left behind by the army of Tobba, after he hadinvaded the Chinese. They use the ancient Arabic language and theHimyaritic character . They worship idols, and make a drink fromdates. The king pays tribute to the King of China. After travellingfor one month through their territory they came to the Makám ul Báb(House or Halting- place of the Gate) , in a sandy region. Here isstationed an officer of the King of China, and anyone desiring to enterChina from the Turkish countries or elsewhere must ask leave here. Heis entertained three days at the king's expense and is then allowed to setout . In the first parasang of the journey the travellers met with beastsloaded with necessaries for them, and then they arrived at the Wadi ulMakám (Valley of the Station or Halting- place) , where they had to askleave to enter, and after abiding three days at the king's expense in thatvalley, which is one of the pleasantest and fairest regions of God's earth,permission was given. Leaving the valley and travelling for a wholeday they came to the city of SINDABIL, the capital of China, and wherethe king's palace is. They stopped the night at a mile from the city.Setting out in the early morning, and making the best of their way fora whole day, they reached the city at sunset. It is a great city, a day'sjourney in length, and having sixty straight streets radiating from theThis is probably the province of Pein, which in Marco Polo follows Khotan, and is now represented by the town and district of Bai between Aksu and Kucha (see p. 545 infra).66 2 The name of this country seems to be corrupt. Tibet is probably meant, of which Mas'udi says, the population is in great part composedof Himyarites mixt with some descendants of Tobba," etc. (Prairies d'Or,i, p. 350) . He also in his account of the Kings of Yemen speaks of one of them, Malkikarib, son of Tobba al Akrán, who " overran various coun- tries of the East, such as Khorasan, Tibet, China, and Sejistan” (iii, 154) .Tobba was the hereditary title of the ancient Kings of Yemen. They seem to have been as useful to the Arabian antiquaries as the Phoenicians to ours. Samarkand was said to have been built by them, and a Himya- rite inscription on one of the gates to testify thereunto (see d'Herbelot) .3 This part of the narrative has a kind of verisimilitude, and may be compared with that of Shah Rukh's ambassadors, who were stopt and entertained for a day or two by the Chinese officials, after which theyproceeded through the desert to the Great Wall, provisions of all sorts being supplied to them, etc. ( See the abstract in Note XVII . )4 "Per totam diem contendimus." I do not understand, unless it bemeant that getting through the crowded population took them a whole day to move a mile?SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. сxсіpalace. The wall ( of the palace? ) is ninety cubits high and ninetythick; on the top of it is a stream of water throwing off sixty branches,one at every gate. Each branch flows down the street and back to thepalace, so that every street has a double canal flowing this way and that.The one supplies water, the other acts as a drain. There is a greattemple inclosure, greater than that of Jerusalem, inside of which areimages and a great pagoda. The constitution of the government is veryelaborate, and the laws are strict . No animals are slaughtered for food,and to kill them is a capital offence. The traveller found the kingmost accomplished, intelligent, and benevolent, and enjoyed his hospitality until the terms of the marriage were settled, and the princess wasthen committed to the escort of two hundred slaves and three hundredhandmaidens to be taken to Khorasan to Noah Ben Nasr.Leaving Sindabil, the traveller proceeded to the sea-coast and haltedat KALAH, the first city of India (from the east) and the extreme pointmade by ships going in that direction . If they go past it they are lost.This is a great city with high walls, gardens, and canals. Here are themines of lead called Qala'í, which is found in no part of the world except QALA'H. Here also are made the swords of Qala'h, the best inIndia. The inhabitants rebel against their king or obey him, just asthey please. Like the Chinese, they do not slaughter animals (i.e., areBuddhists) . The Chinese frontier is three hundred parasangs from theirterritory. Their money is of silver, worth three dirhems, and is calledFahri. Their king is under the King of the Chinese, and they pray forhim and have a temple dedicated to him.From Kalah Ibn Muhalhal proceeds to the PEPPER COUNTRY, by whichThis is all very obscure in the Latin. I have tried to interpret into consistent meaning.2 This difference of spelling is in the original. Kalah or Kalah-bar is spoken of by the authors of the Relations as one month's voyage from Kaulam, and as midway between Oman and China, and as a great central point of trade in aloes, camphor, sandal, ivory, the lead called al-qala'i,ebony, brazil-wood, and spices, i.e. of the products of the Archipelago.Reinaud is very wild about the position of this Kalah, and whether he means it to be a port on the Coromandel coast, the Kalliana of Kosmas (i.e. a port on the West of India) , or Pt. de Galle in Ceylon, is difficult to discern. It seems to me certain that it is a port of the Archipelago.representing in a general way the modern Singapore or Malacca, andvery possibly identical with Kadah ( Quedah) as M. Maury has suggested.M. Reinaud objects to "the lead called al- qala'i" being translated tin,though all the light he throws on it is a suggestion that it is the brasswhich Cosmas says was exported from Kalliana. Yet qala'i is the word universally used in Hindustani for the tinning of pots and pans, andI see F. Johnston's Persian Dictionary simply defines it as tin. This product sufficiently fixes Kalah as in or near the Malay Peninsula.Edrisi also places the mine of qala'i at that place.I should not have enlarged on this if Sir E. Tennent had not in his Ceylon followed up and expanded the suggestion of Reinaud that Kalah was Pt. de Galle. He refers to the arguments of Dulaurier in the Journ. Asiat. , but there does not seem to be much force in them.excii PRELIMINARY ESSAY,name Malabar is often styled,' and thence to the foot of Mount Káfúr,on which there are great cities, one of which is KAMRUN, from whichcomes the green wood called Mandal Kamruni. There also is the citycalled SANF, which gives its name to the Sanfi aloes-wood. At anotherfoot of the mountain towards the north is the city called SAIMUR, whoseinhabitants are of great beauty, and said to be descended from Turksand Chinese. From this place also the SAIMURI wood is named, thoughit is only brought thither for sale, etc. After describing JAJALI, a cityon a great mountain overlooking the sea, he goes to KASHMIR, wherethere is a great observatory made of Chinese iron which is indestructible; ³thence to KABUL and its chief city THABAN (see supra, p. clxxxv) . Hethen returns rapidly to the shore of the Indian Sea, and describes thecity called MANDURAFIN ( or KIN) , a place which has not been identified;and thence to KULAM, where grow teak, brazil, and bamboos, and respecting which various other perplexing particulars are stated . Fromthe cities of the shore he visits MULTAN, where he gives a romancingdescription of the great idol so celebrated among the early Arab invaders. According to Abu Dulif it was a hundred cubits high, andhung suspended in air, without support, a hundred cubits from theground. Thence he goes to MANSURA and DABIL, etc.³1 E.g., see Ibn Batuta infra, p. 476, and Cosmas, supra, p. clxxvii.2 This passage is a strange jumble, but it may be doubted whether the author has been fairly represented in the extracts. For in Gilde- meister (p. 70) will be found a quotation from Kazwini which seems to represent the same passage, in which the cities named are Kamarún,Kumár, and Sanf, but nothing is said of Saimur. Kamrún is generally understood to be intended for Kamrup or Assam, though the notices ofAbulfeda (ib . , p. 191 ) leave this very doubtful. Sanf is Champa, and Kumar has been spoken of at pp. 469, 519 infra. Saimur was the name of a seaport not far from Bombay, the exact site of which has not beenascertained. According to Reinaud it is the Simylla of Ptolemy and the Periplus, and perhaps the Chimolo of Hiwen Thsang ( Vie de H. T.,p. 420) . It seems to be called by Al- Biruni Jaimur. He puts it south of Tanah in the country of Lárán ( see Reinaud's Mem. sur l'Inde in Mem.Acad. , p. 220, and his extracts in J. As. , ser. iv, tom. iv, p. 263-4) . Putting all these forms of the name together, and looking to the approximateposition, it seems likely that the old name was something like Chaimul or Chánwul, and that the port was no other than CHAUL, some thirty miles south of Bombay, which continued to be a noted port down to the seventeenth century.3 Compare Pliny at p. xliii , as to Seric iron.According to Edrisi the image was mounted on a throne of plastered brick. The temple was in the form of a dome (probably the Hindubulging pyramidal spire) which was gilt; the walls were painted. When Multan was taken in the time of the Khalif Walid by Mahomed Ibn Kasim, he left the temple of the idol standing, but hung a piece of beef round the neck of the latter ( Edrisi, i, 167; Reinaud, Mem. , p. 185) .5 As to Daibal see p. lxxix supra. Mansura, the capital of the Musulman conquerors of Sind, was two parasangs from the old Hindu city of Bahmanabad; and this lay on an old channel forty- three miles to thenorth-west of Haidarabad (see Proc. R. G. S. , vol. x, p. 131 ) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . cxciiiOn the whole the impression gathered is, that the author's work (likethat of some more modern travellers) contained genuine matter in anarrangement that was not genuine; but that some at least of the perplexities found in it are due to the manner in which its fragments havebeen preserved and joined together.NOTE XIII.EXTRACTS REGARDING CHINA FROM ABULFEDA.¹(A.D. 1273-1331) ."China is bounded on the west by the lands between India and China;on the south by the sea; on the east by the Eastern Atlantic; on thenorth by the lands of Gog and Magog, and other regions respectingwhich we have no information. Writers on the customs and kingdomsof the world have in their works mentioned many provinces and placesand rivers as existing in China under the different climates, but thenames have not reached us with any exactness, nor have we any certaininformation as to their circ*mstances. Thus they are as good as unknown to us; there being few travellers who arrive from those parts,such as might furnish us with intelligence ( respecting those places) , andfor this reason we forbear to detail them."Some places, however, are named by persons who come from thoseparts, and of these one is KHANFU, 2 which is known in our day asKHANSA, and on the north side of which is a lake of fresh water calledSíкHU about half-a-day's journey in circumference.³" It is also stated that SHANJU , known in our time as ZAITUN, is oneof the ports of China, and with them the ports are also the places ofcustoms." Khanfu is one of the gates of China, and is situated on the river, asit is stated in the Kánún.¹ Ibn Said says it is mentioned in books, andMy friend Mr. Badger was kind enough to make a literal translation of these extracts for me. I have slightly smoothed the ruggedness of aliteral version from Arabic, whilst trying not to affect the sense.It is to be lamented that M. Reinaud has left his version of Abulfeda'sGeography unfinished for some eighteen years . There is a Latin translation by Reiske in Büsching's Magazine, but I have no access to it.2 The word is written as in Jaubert's Edrisi, Khánkú, but I believethere can be no doubt as to the right reading. See above, pp. lxxx,cv, cix.3 The Si-hu or Western Lake of Hangcheu. Its mention here is nodoubt a part of Abulfeda's scanty recent information, as well as the next paragraph.4 The Kanun is I believe the lost work of Al Biruni upon Geography.The " Gates of China" appears to have been a sort of technical expression for the chief ports of China, connected with the view of the accessto that country conveyed in the Relations and in Edrisi . In approaching China ships find a series of mountainous islands or promontories.cxciv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.is situated on the east of the River Khamdán. Ibn Khurdádbah saysit is the greatest commercial port of China, and abounds in fruit,vegetables, wheat, barley, rice, and sugar- cane." KHANJU is, according to the Kanun, one of the gates of China,situated on the river. Ibn Said states that it is the chief of the gates ofChina, and is fortified with masonry. . . . To the east of it is the city ofTAJAH. Ibn Said adds: It is the capital of China where the Baghbúrtheir great king resides...." YANJU, the residence of their king. The Kanun states that this isthe abode of the Fághfúr of China, who is called Tamghaj Khan, and istheir Great King, etc. ( see supra, p. lii ) . The Kanun also states thatthe city of KAZKU in China is greater than the above-named Yanju. . . .Some who have seen Yanju describe it as in a temperate part of theearth, with gardens and a ruined wall. It is two days from the sea, andbetween it and Khansa is a distance of five days. Yanju is to the northand west of Khansa, and is smaller in size.²" ZAITUN, i.e. Shanju, is a haven of China, and, according to the accounts of merchants who have travelled to those parts, is a city of mark.It is situated on a marine estuary which ships enter from the China Sea.The estuary extends fifteen miles, and there is a river at the head of it.According to some who have seen the place the tide flows (at Zaitun).It is half-a-day from the sea, and the channel by which ships come upfrom the sea is of fresh water. It is smaller in size than Hamath, ³ andhas the remains of a wall which was destroyed by the Tartars. Thepeople drink water from the channel and also from wells.*' KHANSA, i.e. Khanfu. According to some travellers Khanfu is at thepresent time the greatest port of China, and is that which is made byvoyagers from our own country. According to some who have seen it, itis east and south of Zaitun, and is half-a-day from the sea.It is a verylarge city and lies in a temperate part of the earth. In the middle ofthe city are some four small hills. The people drink from wells. Thereare pleasant gardens about it. The mountains are more than two days distant from it."Between these are narrow channels, through which the ships pass to thevarious ports of the Empire, and these passages are called the Gates of China (Reinaud, Relations, i, 19; Edrisi, i, 90) .1 I.e. as I apprehend Tajah, the Bajah of Jaubert's Edrisi (supra, p.cxiii) Khanju is perhaps Quangcheu or Canton.2 Yanju is evidently from name and position Yangcheu (see Odoric,p. 123) . But it never was the capital of China. I do not know what Kazku is; but no doubt the name is corrupt. It is perhaps Fucheu in some form.3 Hamath was Abulfeda's own city . We may strongly doubt theaccuracy of his information as to the comparative size of Zayton.On Zayton or Chincheu see note to Odoric, p. 108, and to Ibn Batuta, p. 486.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. CXCVNOTE XIV.EXTRACT FROM THE HISTORY OF HAYTON THEARMENIAN.(Written in 1307.)"Of the Kingdom of Cathay."The empire of Cathay is the greatest that you will find on the faceof the earth, and it abounds with population, and has wealth withoutend. It is situated on the shore of the Ocean Sea. And there are inthat quarter so many islands in the sea that there is no knowing theirnumber. For no man is to be found in existence who shall venture tosay that he hath seen all those islands. But such of them as are attainable are found to have an infinite store of riches."That which is reckoned well-nigh the most costly article that you canpurchase in those parts is oil of olive, and when any such oil finds itsway thither by any means the kings and nobles treasure it with thegreatest care as if it were some princely salve."There are in that kingdom of Cathay more marvellous and singularthings than in any other kingdom of the world. The people of thecountry are exceedingly full of shrewdness and sagacity, and hold in⚫ contempt the performances of other nations in every kind of art andscience. They have indeed a saying to the effect that they alone seewith two eyes, whilst the Latins see with one, and all other nations areblind! By this you may easily gather that they look on all othernations as quite uncivilised in comparison with themselves. And ingood sooth there is such a vast variety of articles of marvellous and unspeakable delicacy and elaboration of workmanship brought from thoseparts, that there is really no other people that can be compared withthem in such matters."All the people of that empire are called Cathayans, but they havealso other names according to the special nation to which they belong.You will find many among them, both men and women, who are veryhandsome, but as a general rule they have all small eyes, and naturegives them no beard. These Cathayans have a very elegant writtencharacter, which in beauty in some sort resembles the Latin letters. Itwere hard to enumerate all the sects of Gentiles in that empire, for therebe some who worship idols of metal; others who worship oxen becausethese plough the ground which produces wheat and the other fruits ofthe earth; others who worship great trees of different kinds; some whodevote themselves to astronomy and the worship of nature; others whoadore the sun or the moon; and others again who have neither creed norlaws but lead a mere animal life like brute beasts. And though thesepeople have the acutest intelligence in all matters wherein materialcxcvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.things are concerned, yet you shall never find among them any knowledgeor perception of spiritual things."The people of that country are not courageous, but stand in greaterfear of death than at all befits those who carry arms. Yet being full ofcaution and address they have almost always come off victorious overtheir enemies both by land and by sea. They have many kinds of armswhich are not found among other people."The money which is current in those parts is made of paper in asquare form, and sealed with the king's seal; and according to themarks which it bears this paper has a greater or less value. And ifperchance it begins to wear from long usage the owner thereof shallcarry it to a royal office, and they give him new paper in exchange.They do not use gold and other metals except for plate and other purposes of show.""Tis said of that empire of Cathay that it forms the eastern extremityof the world, and that no nation dwells beyond it. Towards the west ithath upon its frontier the kingdom of TARSE, and towards the north theDesert of BELGIAN, whilst towards the south it hath the Islands of theSea, whereof we have spoken above. ”NOTE XV.EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OF PAOLO DAL POZZOTOSCANELLI TO FERNANDO MARTINEZ, CANON OF LISBON.(Written 25th June, 1474) ."And now to give you full information as to all those places whichyou so much desire to learn about, you must know that both the inhabitants and the visitors of all those islands are all traders, and thatthere are in those parts as great a multitude of ships and mariners andwares for sale, as in any part of the world, be the other what it may.And this is especially the case at a very noble port which is calledZAITON, where there load and discharge every year a hundred greatpepper ships, besides a multitude of other vessels which take cargoes ofother spices and the like. The country in question is exceedinglypopulous, and there are in it many provinces and many kingdoms, andcities without number, all under the dominion of a certain sovereignwho is called the Great Caan, a name which signifies the king of kings.The residence of this prince is chiefly in the province of CATHAY. Hispredecessors greatly desired to have intercourse and friendship withChristians, and some two hundred years since they sent ambassadors to1 Here Toscanelli is drawing from Marco Polo ( i, ch. 81) , as again below where he speaks of Quinsai.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . cxcviithe Pope, begging him to despatch a number of wise and learned teachersto instruct them in our faith. But on account of the hindrances whichthese ambassadors met with they turned back without reaching Rome.And in later times there came an ambassador to Pope Eugenius IV, ¹ whor*hearsed to him the great friendship that those princes and their peoplebore towards Christians. And I myself discoursed at length withthis ambassador on many subjects, as of the greatness of their royalbuildings, and of the vastness of their rivers in length and breadth. Andhe told me many things that were wonderful as to the multitudes ofcities and towns which are built on the banks of those rivers; as thatupon one river alone are to be found two hundred cities, all of whichhave their marble bridges of great width and length, and adorned with aprofusion of marble columns. The country indeed is as fine a countryas has ever been discovered; and not only may one have great gain, andget many valuable wares by trading thither, but also they have gold andsilver and precious stones, and great abundance of all kinds of spicessuch as are never brought into our part of the world. And it is a factthat they have many men of great acquirements in philosophy andastrology, and other persons of great knowledge in all the arts, and ofthe greatest capacity who are employed in the administration of thatgreat territory, and in directing the ordering of battle."From the city of Lisbon going right to the westward there are inthe map which I have mentioned twenty-six spaces, each containingtwo hundred and fifty miles, to the great and very noble city of QUINSAI,which has a circuit of one hundred miles or thirty-five leagues. "NOTE XVI.EXTRACTS REGARDING CATHAY FROM THE NARRATIVEOF SIGNOR JOSAFA BARBARO."(Written about 1480, but the information acquired about 1436. )"And in this same province of Zagatai is the very great and populouscity of SAMMARCANT, through which all those of CHINI and MACHINIpass to and fro, and also those of CATHAY, whether traders or travellers.• . . . I have not been further in this direction myself, but as I haveheard it spoken of by many people, I will tell you that Chini and Machini are two very great provinces inhabited by idolaters. They are, infact, the country in which they make plates and dishes of porcelain.And in those places there is great store of wares, especially of jewelsand of fabrics of silk and other stuffs. And from those provinces you goon into that of Cathay, about which I will tell you what I learned from1 1431-1447.cxcviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.the Tartar's ambassador who arrived from those parts when I was atTana. Being with him one day and our talk running on this Cathay,he told me that after passing the places that have been mentioned, assoon as he had entered the country of Cathay all his expenses were provided stage by stage until he arrived at a city called CAMBALU. Andthere he was honourably received, and had an apartment provided forhim. And he said that all the merchants who go that way have their expenses provided in the same manner. He was then conducted towhere the sovereign was, and when he came in front of the gate he wasobliged to kneel down outside. The place was a level, very broad and long;and at the far end of it there was a stone pavement, on which the princewas seated on a chair with his back turned towards the gate. On the twosides there were four persons sitting with their faces towards the gate andfrom the gate to the place where those four were there was on each side arow of mace bearers standing with silver sticks, leaving, as it were, a pathbetween them, and all along this were interpreters sitting on their heelsas the women do with us here. The ambassador accordingly havingbeen brought to the gate, where he found things arranged as we havedescribed, was desired to say what his object was. And so having delivered his message it was passed from hand to hand by the interpreterstill the explanation reached the prince, or at least those four who sat atthe top . Answer was then made that he was welcome, and that hemight return to his quarters where the official reply would be deliveredto him. And thus there was no more need for him to return to theprince, but only to confer with some of his people who were sent to theambassador's house for the purpose; reference being made in thisquarter or that, as occasion arose; and so the business was despatchedin a very prompt and pleasant manner. One of the servants of thisambassador, and also a son of his, both of whom had been with him inCathay, told me wonderful things of the justice that was done there.And they said that not only in the city but anywhere outside ofit where travellers pass, if anything should be found under a stone orelsewhere that a traveller has dropt, no one would dare to take it upand appropriate it . And, moreover, if one going along the road is askedby some one whom he regards with suspicion , or does not put muchtrust in, where he is going; and if he go and make complaint of thisquestion, then the person who put it must give some good and lawfulreason for asking, otherwise he will be punished. And so you mayeasily perceive that this is a city of liberty and great justice ."As regards the disposal of merchandise, I have heard that all themerchants who arrive in those parts carry their goods to certain fonteghi,and those whose duty it is then go and see them, and if there is anythingthat the sovereign would like to have they take it at their option,giving in exchange articles of greater value. The rest remains at thedisposal of the merchant. For small dealings there they use money ofSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. cxcixpaper, which is exchanged every year for other paper freshly stamped;the old money being taken at the new year to the mint, where the ownersreceive an equal amount of fine new paper, paying always a fee of twoper cent. in good silver money, and the old ( paper) money is thrown intothe fire. Their silver is sold by weight, but they have also some metalcoinage of a coarse description ."I am of opinion that the religion of these Cathayans is paganism ,although many people of Zagatai and other nations who have been thereassert that they are Christians. And when I asked on what ground theyjudged them to be Christians, the answer was that they had images intheir temples as we have. And it having chanced once when I was atTana, and the ambassador aforesaid was standing with me, that therepassed in front of us one Nicolas Diedo, an old Venetian of ours, whosometimes used to wear a coat of cloth quilted with taffetas, and withopen sleeves (as used to be the fashion in Venice) over a jerkin of leather,with a hood on the back, and a straw hat on his head that might beworth four sous, as soon as the ambassador saw him he said with somesurprise, 'That's the very dress that the Cathay people wear; they mustbe of the same religion with you, for they dress just like you!'"In the country of which we are speaking there is no wine grown, for' tis a mighty cold country, but of other necessaries of life they havegood store." Ramusio ii, f. 106 v, and 107.NOTE XVII.THE EMBASSY SENT BY SHAH RUKH TO THE COURT OFCHINA.A.D. 1419-1422.Abstracted from Quatremère's Translation in NOTICES ET EXTRAITSxiv, Pt. 1, pp. 387 seqq .; with Notes.The embassy embraced representatives not only of Shah Rukh himselfbut of several princes of his family governing different provinces of theempire founded by Timur, and appears also, like the ordinary sham embassies which frequented China under the Ming dynasty, to have beenaccompanied by merchants bound on purely commercial objects. ShádiKhwaja was the chief of Shah Rukh's ambassadors, and GhaiassuddinNakkásh (" The Painter" ) , one of the envoys (sent by one of the king'ssons, Mirza Baisangar) , was the author of the narrative which has beenpreserved by Abdurrazzák; his master having enjoined on him to keepa full diary of everything worthy of note.The party left Herat, the capital of Shah Rukh, on the 16th ofDhu'lkadah A.H. 822 (4th December, 1419) , and proceeded via Balkh toсс PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Samarkand. The envoys of Mirza Olug Beg ( the astronomer, and eldestson of Shah Rukh) , who governed there, had already started, ' but thosedeputed by other princes joined the mission here, and the whole partyleft Samarkand on the 10th Safar 823 ( 25th February 1420) .Passing by TASHKAND , SAIRAM, and ASHPARAH,2 they entered theMongol territory on the 25th April, and were soon afterwards met bythe venerable Amir Khudaidád (see infra, pp. 525, 545) . We cannottrace with certainty their course to YULDUZ, but it probably lay bythe Issikul and the Ili River, crossing the Thian Shan N.W. of YULDUZ.3From Yulduz they proceeded to TURFAN ( see infra, p. 578) where thepeople were mostly Buddhists, and had a great temple with a figure ofSakya Muni. From Turfan they reached Karakhoja ( infra, p. 275) andfive days beyond this they were met by Chinese officials, who took downthe names of the envoys and the number of their suite. Seven dayslater they reached the town of ATA-SUFI (a name which does not seemto occur elsewhere) , and in two marches more KAMUL ( infra, pp . 390,579) where they found a magnificent mosque and convent of Derwishesin juxtaposition with a fine Buddhist temple. The envoy notes that atthe gate ofthe latter were figures of two demons which seemed preparingto fly at one another; a correct enough description of the figures commonly called warders which are often found in pairs facing one anotherin the approaches to temples in Burma and other Buddhist countries.Twenty-five days were then occupied in crossing the Great Desert.In the middle of the passage they fell in with a wild camel and a Kutás,or wild Yak.1 A place called Sairam appears in some of our modern maps about one degree north of Tashkand. The Sairam of those days must, however,have been further east, for Hulagu on his march to Persia reached Sairam, the second day after passing TALAS. Rashid also speaks of Kari- Sairam near Talas as an ancient city of vast size, said to be a day's journey from one end to the other, and to have forty gates. (Not. et Ex.xiii, 224).2 Asparah was a place on the Mongol frontier, frequently mentioned in the wars of Timur's time. Its position does not seem to be known, but it certainly lay east of Talas, not far from Lake Issik Kul. It isperhaps the Equius of Rubruquis, a place that has been the subject of great difference of opinion. The idea that its odd name is the transla- tion of some Persian word beginning with Asp (a horse) , is due to Mr. Cooley in Maritime and Inland Discovery. There is another Asparah or Asfarah south of the Sihun, with which this is not to be confounded.(Remusat, Nouv. Mélanges, i , 171 seqq.; Not. et Extraits, xii, 224, 228; Hist.Univ. (Moderne) iv, 139, 141; Arabshah, i , 219) . Some remarks on the topography of Rubruquis, including the position of Equius, will be found at the end of this paper.3 The only places named between Asparah and Yulduz are Bilugtu and the river Kankar or Kangar; and they passed the latter five days before reaching the Yulduz territory, whilst in thatjourney they traversed a desert region so cold that water froze two inches thick, though it was nearly midsummer. The Kangar from these indications would seem tohave been the Tekes or one of its branches; perhaps the Kungis. The cold region must have occurred in the passage of the Thian Shan.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. cciOn arriving near the frontier of China Proper, Chinese officers againcame to meet them, and one march further on they found a platformwith awnings erected in the desert, and an elegant repast set out forthem, such as many cities would have found it difficult to furnish . Provisions of all sorts were also supplied to every member of the party, with many polite forms. The envoys were then called on to subscribe adocument declaring the number of persons in their service , and theDájis' had to make affidavit that nothing but truth was stated . Themerchants who had accompanied the embassy were counted among theservants, and to give a colour to this they employed themselves inwaiting on the ambassadors. There were five hundred and ten souls in´the party, without counting Mirza Olug Beg's envoys who had gone onbefore, and those of Mirza Ibrahim Sultan not yet arrived.Next day they were invited to a feast of royal magnificence at thecamp of the Dangchi commanding on the frontier. The envoys tooktheir places at the left hand of the Dangchi, that being the position ofhonour in Cathay, " because the heart is on the left side." Before eachof the envoys two tables were placed, on one of which were various dishesof meat and poultry and dried fruits; on the other cake, excellent bread,and artificial bouquets made of paper and silk admirably wrought. Theother guests had but one table apiece. Elevated before them there wasa great royal drum, and in front of this a buffet on which were rangedflagons, cups, and goblets of silver and porcelain.3 On either side ofthis was an elaborate orchestra, which played admirably. One of thegreat Chinese lords presented the cup to each guest in turn, and as hedid so took a sprig from a basket of artificial flowers, and placed it in the other's cap, 66 so that the pavilion presented the appearance of a parterreof roses." Beautiful children also were in attendance carrying dishesfilled with various relishes, such as filberts, jujubes, walnuts, pickles, etc. ,every kind being disposed on the plate in a separate compartment.When the amir presented the cup to any person of distinction one ofthese children also presented this plate that he might choose what pleasedhim. Dances were performed by young men in feminine costume,and by figures of animals made of pasteboard with men inside; amongothers a perfect representation of a stork, which bobbed its head to themusic, this way and that, to the admiration of the spectators. Altogetherthe first Chinese fête seems to have been regarded as a great success.It is not explained who the Dájís were, but the word seems to be aTartar form of the Chinese Tajin, " great man," a title still applied to certain officers on the Tartar frontiers. They must have been Chineseofficials who had joined the mission party at an earlier date.2 This perhaps represents the Chinese Tsiang-shi, a general. Pauthier however, I see, says it is in Chinese Tangchi, without further explanation (M. Polo, 166) .3 See this feature in the receptions of the Turk and Tartar Khans, in the extracts from Menander (p. clxiv, supra, and note there) .Pccii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.The following day they proceeded on their march through the desert.On their arrival at a strong castle called KARAUL, ¹ in a mountain defile,through the middle of which the road passed, the whole party wascounted and their names registered before they were allowed to proceed.They then went on to SUKCHEU,2 where they were lodged in the greatYam-Khana or Post- House, at the City Gate."Sukcheu is a great city, with strong fortifications, in the form of aperfect square.³ The bazars are without covering, and are fifty ellsin width, all kept well swept and watered. The people keep tame swinein their houses, and in the butchers' shops mutton and swines ' flesh arehung up for sale side by side! In every street you see numerous edificessurmounted by handsome wooden spires, and with wooden battlementscovered with lacquer of Cathay. All along the rampart of the city, atintervals of twenty paces, you find towers with the tops roofed over.There are four gates, one in the middle of each of the four walls, so thatone directly faces another, and as the streets are as straight as can beyou would think in looking from one gate to the other that it is but alittle way. And yet to go from the centre of the town to any one of thegates is really a considerable distance. Behind [ over? ] each gate thereis a two-storied pavilion with a high pitched roof in the Cathayanfashion, just such as you see in Mazanderan. Only in this latter province the walls are plastered with plain mud, whereas in Cathay theyare covered with porcelain. In this city there are a variety of idoltemples to be seen, some of which occupy a space of ten acres, and yetare kept as clean as possible. The area is paved with glazed tiles, whichshine like polished marble. "•From this time the party were supplied with everything by theChinese authorities. They were lodged at the Yams or post- houses, ofwhich there were ninety- nine between Sucheu and Khanbalik, and everynight found not only provisions but servants, beds, night- clothes, etc.,awaiting them. At every yam they brought four hundred and fifty wellcaparisoned horses and donkeys for the use of the travellers, besides fiftyor sixty vehicles. The description of these vehicles (' Arábah) is a littleobscure, but they seem to have been palankins of some sort, and were1 Karául means in Persian (probably of Turkish origin) a sentry,guard, or advanced post . The place here so designated is the fortified entrance of the Great Wall called Kia-yu-Koan, or Fort of the Jade- Gate,mentioned by Hiwen Thsang in the sixth century, and which was in the latter days of the Ming the actual limit of the Chinese power (see supra,p. cxxxviii) .2 SUCHEU; see pp. 268, 581 infra; also Hajji Mahomed in Note XVIII .3 A square is the typical form of royal fortified cities, both in China and in all the Indo- Chinese countries including Java. It is, I believe, asacred Buddhist form.4 Quatremère has " twenty feet," but this cannot be. The word is Kadam, which means sometimes a foot, sometimes a step or pace.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. cciiicarried by twelve men each. "The lads who have charge of the horsesare called Bá-fú (Má-fú); those who look after the donkeys are calledLú-fú; and those attached to the vehicles are called Chi -fu.... Atevery post-house the travellers were presented with sheep, geese, fowls,rice, flour, honey, darásun, ' arak, garlic, pickled onions and vegetables.At every city the ambassadors were invited to a banquet. The palaceof the government is called Duson, and the banquet took place there."On these occasions there was always a vacant throne with a curtain hungbefore it, and a fine carpet spread in front. The Chinese officials andthe ambassadors sat down upon this carpet whilst the rest of the companystood behind them in ranks, like Mahomedans at their public worship.A man standing beside the throne then proclaimed something in Chinese,and the mandarins proceeded to Kotow before the throne , in which theenvoys were obliged to follow them.The first city that they reached was KAMCHEU,2 nine yams fromSucheu. The entertainment given by the Dangchi, whose seat was here,took place in Ramadhan, and the envoys were obliged to excuse themselves from eating. The Dangchi took their excuses in good part, andsent all that had been prepared to their quarters."In this city of Kamcheu there is an idol temple five hundred cubitssquare. In the middle is an idol lying at length, which measures fiftypaces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the instep is twentyone cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are other idols ofa cubit (?) in height, besides figures of Bakshis³ as large as life. Theaction of all is hit off so admirably that you would think they were alive.Against the wall also are other figures of perfect execution. The greatsleeping idol has one hand under his head, and the other resting on histhigh. It is gilt all over and is known as Shakamuni-fu. The people ofthe country come in crowds to visit it, and bow to the very groundbefore this idol... . In the same city there is another temple held ingreat respect. At it you see a structure which the Mussulmans call theCelestial Sphere. It has the form of an octagonal Kiosque, and fromThe rice wine of the Chinese (infra, p. 117) . Ysbrant Ides (quoted in Astley, iii, 567) says: " Their liquors are brandy, which they call arakka,and tarasu, a sort of wine they drink warm. This is a decoction of immature rice," etc. In Ssanang Ssetzen there is a legend telling howChinghiz was sitting in his hall when a Jade cup of a delicious drink called darassun descended into his hand from the chimney, a token which was recognised as a celestial recognition of his supremacy.2 KANCHEU, see pp. 288, 581 infra, and next note (xviii).8 I.e., Buddhist monks; see pp. 150, 474 notes.4 This recumbent figure at Kancheu is mentioned also by Hajji Mahomed in Note XVIII. Such colossal sleeping figures, symbolisingSakya Muni in the state of Nirwana, are to be seen in Burma, Siam, andCeylon to this day. Notices of them will be found in Tennent's Ceylon,ii, 597; Mission to the Court of Ava in 1855, p. 52; and Bowring's Siam. Hiwen Thsang speaks of one such in a convent at Bamian which was 1000 feet long! (Vie de H. T., p. 70).P2Cciv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.top to bottom there are fifteen stories. Each story contains apartmentsdecorated with lacquer in the Cathayan manner, with anterooms andverandas. . . . Below the Kiosque you see figures of demons which bearit on their shoulders. ' . . . It is entirely made of polished wood, and thisagain gilt so admirably that it seems to be of solid gold . There is a vaultbelow it. An iron shaft fixed in the centre ofthe kiosque traverses it frombottom to top, and the lower end of this works in an iron plate, whilstthe upper end bears on strong supports in the roof of the edifice whichcontains this pavilion. Thus a person in the vault can with a triflingexertion cause this great kiosque to revolve . All the carpenters, smiths,and painters inthe world would learn something in their trades by cominghere!"All the baggage was deposited at Kancheu till their return, and theChinese took over all the presents intended for the Emperor, with theexception of a lion sent by Mirza Baisangar, which the athleteSalahuddin, the lion-keeper, retained charge of till they reached thecapital.Every day they halted at a yam, and every week they reached somecity. On the 4th of Shawal, A.H: 823 ( Oct. 12th, 1420) they were onthe banks of the Karamuran, a river which in size might be classed withthe Oxus. There was a bridge over it composed of twenty-three boatsattached together by a chain as thick as a man's thigh, and this wasmoored on each side to an iron post as thick as a man's body, deeplyplanted in the ground. On the other side of the river they found a greatcity with a splendid temple. This city was remarkable for the beautyof its women, insomuch that it was known as the City of Beauty(HUSNABAD).2After thirty- seven days' journey they reached, we are told, anothergreat river twice the size of the Oxus, and this they had to cross in boats(evidently the Hoang Ho again where it divides the provinces of Shensiand Shansi); and twenty-three days later they reached a city whichthey call SADINFU, where there was a great idol of gilt bronze, fiftyells in height.³Eleven days after this ( 14th December) they arrived at the gates ofPeking some time before dawn. The city had been recently re-occupied1 The statement of the dimensions is corrupt and unintelligible.2 They probably crossed the Karamuran or Hoang Ho opposite LAN- CHEU, the present capital of the province of Kansu, and this is therefore most probably the Husnabad of the Persians .3 As they reached Peking in eleven days from Sadinfu, the latter city must be looked for about two thirds of the way between the Hoang Ho and the capital. Hereabouts we find the city of CHINGTINGFU inPecheli; and at that city accordingly, as the Chinese Imperial Geo- graphy tells us, there is a Buddhist temple called " the Monastery of the Great Fo, " founded A.D. 586, which possesses a bronze statue of Buddha, seventy Chinese feet in height (Chine Moderne, p. 50).SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . CCVafter the temporary transfer of the Court to Nanking, and the buildingswere yet under reconstruction. The envoys were conducted straight tothe palace, in an inner court of which they found a numerous assemblage of courtiers and officers waiting for the Emperor's appearance."Each held in his hand a tablet of a cubit in length and a quarter asmuch in breadth, on which he kept his eyes steadfastly fixed . ' Behindthese were troops in countless numbers, of spearmen and cuirassiers, apart of whom held drawn swords. All preserved the profoundest silence.You would have thought it an assembly of the dead. ” As "the Emperorcame out of the women's apartments they set against the throne² a silverladder of five steps, and placed a golden chair on the top of the throne.The Emperor mounted and took his seat upon this chair. He was aman of the middle height; his face neither very large nor very small,and not without some beard; indeed two or three hundred hairs of hisbeard were long enough to form three or four curls upon his chest. Toright and left of the throne stood two young girls with faces like themoon, who had their hair drawn to a knot on the crown; their faces andnecks were bare; they had large pearls in their ears; and they heldpaper and pen in their hands ready to take down the Emperor's orders.It is their duty to write down whatever falls from the Emperor's mouth.When he returns to the private apartments they submit this paper tohim. Should he think proper to change any of the orders, a new document is executed, so that the members of his Council may have hismature decisions to follow.8"When the Emperor had taken his seat on the throne, and everybodywas in place in the royal presence, they made the ambassadors comeforward side by side with certain prisoners. The Emperor proceeded toexamine the latter, who were some seven hundred in number. Some ofthem had a doshákah (or wooden yoke) on their necks; others had bothneck and arms passed through a board; some five or ten were held together by one long piece of timber, through holes in which their headsprotruded. Each prisoner had a keeper by him who held him by thehair, waiting for the Emperor's sentence. Some were condemned to imprisonment, others to death. Throughout the Empire of Cathay noAmir or Governor has the right to put any person whatsoever to death.When a man has committed any crime the details of his guilt are writtenon a wooden board which is hung round the delinquent's neck, as well as amemorandum indicating the punishment incurred according to the infidellaw, and then with a wooden pillory on and a chain attached to him he isSee allusion to these tablets by Odoric, infra, p. 141, and the note there.2 By throne is to be understood an elevated ottoman or cushioned platform.3 These are varieties of the portable pillory called by our travellers ,after the Portuguese, Cangue.ccvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.sent off to Khanbalik to the foot of the throne. Should he have a year'sjourney to get there still he must never be allowed to halt till he reachesthe capital.¹"At last the ambassadors were led in front of the throne and placedsome fifteen ells from it. An Amir kneeling read a paper in theCathayan language, stating all about the ambassadors to the followingeffect: Certain deputies , sent by his majesty Shah Rukh and his sons,have come from a distant country with presents for the Emperor, andpresent themselves in order to strike the ground with their foreheadsbefore him. " His worship Hajji Yusuf the Kazi, who was one of theAmirs of a tuman (or commandants of ten thousand) and one of theofficers attached to the person of the Emperor, as well as chief of one ofthe twelve imperial councils, came forward accompanied by severalMusulmans acquainted with the languages. They said to the ambassadors: First prostrate yourselves and then touch the ground three timeswith your heads. ' Accordingly the envoys bent their heads, but without absolutely touching the ground; then raising both hands they presented the letters of his majesty Shah Rukh, of his Highness Baisangar,and of the other princes and amirs, each of which was folded in a pieceof yellow satin. For it is a law among the people of Cathay that everything intended for the Emperor must be wrapt in a piece of some yellowstuff. His worship the Kazi advanced, took the letters, and handed themto an eunuch who stood before the throne; the eunuch carried them tothe Emperor, who received them, opened them, and glanced at them,and then gave them back to the eunuch. "After some trivial questions the emperor remarked that they had hada long journey, and dismissed them to take some refreshments. Afterhaving done so in an adjoining court they were conducted to the Yamkhana or hostelry, where they found everything handsomely providedfor them.Next morning, before daylight, they were summoned by the officercalled the Sejnin (or Sekjin) , ² who had charge of them, to get up andcome in haste to the palace, as a banquet was to be given them by theemperor; but this affords nothing of much interest."On the 17th of the month of Dhulhajja (23rd December, 1420) , several criminals were sent to the place of execution. According to the1 This was no doubt a misunderstanding, but it is the Chinese law(not we may presume the practice, at least in troubled times) that every capital sentence must be confirmed by a special court at the capital,composed of members of the six great Boards of Administration and ofthree great Courts of Justice (see Chine Moderne, pp. 230, 256) . The pre- sentation of the ambassadors along with criminals for sentence was cha- racteristic. In Burma, even the ambassadors of China are subjected to analogous slight (see Mission to Ava, p. 76).2 The former in Quatremère, the latter in Astley. The word is (Chin).Sse-jin, a Palace-man or Eunuch" (see Journ. Asiat. , s. iv, tom. ii, 435) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccviipractice among the infidels of Cathay, a formal record is made of thepunishment inflicted for every crime, and they enter into very long details on this subject. But my pen refuses to expose particularly the(horrid) nature of these punishments. The people of Cathay in all thatregards the treatment of criminals proceed with extreme caution. Thereare twelve courts of justice attached to the emperor's administration; ifan accused person has been found guilty before eleven of these, and thetwelfth has not yet concurred in the condemnation, he may still havehopes of acquittal. ' If a case requires a reference involving a six months'journey or even more, still as long as the matter is not perfectly clearthe criminal is not put to death, but only kept in custody."The 27th day of Moharram His Worship the Kazi sent a messageto the ambassadors: ' To-morrow is the New Year. The Emperor isgoing to visit his New Palace, and there is an order that none shouldwear white clothes ' (for among these people white is the colour of mourning). The 28th, about midnight, the Sekjin arrived to conduct theambassadors to the New Palace. This was a very lofty edifice whichhad only now been finished after nineteen years of work. This night inall the houses and shops there was such a lighting up of torches, candles,and lamps, that you would have thought the sun was risen already.That night the cold was much abated. Everybody was admitted intothe New Palace, and the Emperor gave an entertainment to his greatofficers of state.... It would be impossible to give a just description ofthis edifice. From the gate of the hall of audience to the outer gatethere is a distance of 1985 paces. . . . To the right and left there is anuninterrupted succession of buildings, pavilions, and gardens. All thebuildings are constructed of polished stone and glazed bricks of porcelain clay, which in lustre are quite like white marble. A space of twoor three hundred cubits is paved with stones presenting not the veryslightest deflexion or inequality, insomuch that you would think thejoints had been ruled with a pen. In the arts of stone-polishing,cabinet-making, pottery, brick-making, there is nobody with us whocan compare with the Chinese. If the cleverest of our workpeople wereto see their performances they could not but acknowledge the superiorityof these foreigners. Towards noon the banquet ended."On the 9th of Safar ( 13th February, 1421 ) , in the morning, horseswere sent for the ambassadors. . . . Every year, acording to a practice oftheirs, the emperor passes several days without eating animal food, or661 Here is doubtless some misapprehension. See preceding page.2 Astley's version has here a passage not found in Quatremère's:They found at the palace one hundred thousand people who had come thither from all parts of Cathay, the countries of Tachin and Machin,Kalmak, Tibet, Kabul (read Kamul) , Karakhoja, Jurga ( Churché?) , and the sea coasts .'3دوI suppose this meant by " bricks formed of Chinese earth. "ccviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.entering his harem, or receiving anyone. He goes to a palace whichcontains no image or idol, and there , as he says, adores the God ofHeaven. This was the day of his return , and he entered his haremagain with immense pomp. Elephants walked in procession, handsomelycaparisoned, and bearing on their backs a circular- gilded litter; thencame flags of seven different colours , and men-at- arms, and then fivemore handsomely gilt litters carried by men on their shoulders. Musicalinstruments played the while in a manner of which it is impossible togive an idea. 50,000 men marched before and behind the emperor,keeping perfect step and cadence. Not a voice was heard; nothing butthe sound of the music. As soon as the emperor had entered the haremeverybody went away."It was now the time of the Feast of Lanterns, but it was stript of itsordinary splendours, of which the ambassadors had heard much, becausethe astrologers had predicted that the palace would catch fire."The 8th of Rabbi First ( 13th March) , the monarch having sent forAhmed Shah and Bakshi Malik gave them what is called a sankish orpresent. He gave Sultan Shah eight balish of silver, ' thirty dresses ofroyal magnificence, a mule, twenty -four pieces of kala'i, 2 two horses, oneof them caparisoned, a hundred cane arrows, five three- sided kaibars,³ inthe Cathayan fashion, and five thousand chao. Bakshi Malik receiveda similar present, only he had one balish less. The wives of the ambassadors received no silver, but were presented with pieces of stuffs. . . ·once." The 1st day of the Latter Rabbi ( 5th April) , news was broughtthat the emperor was on his way back from the hunting field, and thatthey were expected to meet him. The ambassadors were out riding whenthe news came, and as he was to arrive next day they returned home atThe blue Shonghár belonging to Sultan Ahmed was dead. TheSekjin visited them, and said: " Take care to start to night in order thatyou may be ready to be presented to the emperor the first thing in themorning. ' So they mounted in haste, and when they arrived at the posthouse they found His Worship the Kazi looking very much put out.Asking what made him so out of spirits, he answered in a low tone: 'The1 See pp. 115, and 481 infra.Tin? Quatremère does not translate it. Astley has " under petti- coats"!8 Quivers?4 Bank notes (see pp. 116, 291).5 The shonghar was a species of falcon monopolised by eastern royalty,and was, I believe, that of which Marco Polo speaks as the gerfalcon,which bred on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. They were sent in tribute to the Great Khan by the chiefs of the Northern Tartar Tribes. In apassage of the narrative which has been omitted, the emperor had pre- sented several to the envoys for their respective princes, adding the brusque observation that they brought him screws of horses and carried off his good shonghárs. Petis de la Croix says of the shonghár: ""Tis amark of homage which the Russians and Crim- Tartars are bound bythe last treaty to send annually to the Porte" (H. de Timur Bec, ii, 75).SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . ccixemperor during the chase has been thrown by one of the horses sent byHis Majesty Shah Rukh, which he was riding. He is tremendously enraged at this mishap, and has ordered the ambassadors to be put in ironsand sent off to the eastern provinces of Cathay.' The envoys, deeply disturbed at the intelligence, got on their horses again at morning prayertime. Bythe time half the forenoon was past they had ridden some twentymarrah,' and reached the camp where the emperor had spent the night.This occupied an area of some five hundred feet square, round whichthey had built that same night a wall of four feet in thickness and tencubits high. Such walls, built of pisé, are erected in Cathay with extraordinary celerity. There were two gates left in it , and at the foot ofthe wall there was a ditch from which the earth had been dug for it.... Inside there was a pavilion of yellow satin, and an awning adornedwith gems. Each of these was some twenty-five cubits square, and wassupported by four pillars. All round were other tents of yellow satinembroidered with gold ."When the ambassadors had arrived within five hundred paces of theimperial camp, His Worship the Kazi told them to dismount and stopwhere they were till the emperor should appear, whilst he himself wenton. As soon as the emperor had returned to camp and dismounted, theLi-daji and the Ján- daji ( who in the Cathayan tongue are called Serailid and Jík-fú) came and stood before him. The emperor then discussedthe question of arresting the ambassadors. The Li-daji, the Ján-daji,and His Worship Yusuf the Kazi bowed their foreheads to the ground,and said: " The envoys are in no way to blame. Their princes send goodhorses as presents doubtless, when they can meet with such; but in anycase these persons have no authority over their sovereigns. If yourMajesty has the envoys cut in pieces it won't hurt their kings, butthe name of the emperor will be evil spoken of. People will not fail tosay that the Emperor of China has used violence to ambassadors contrary to all the rules of justice. ' The emperor took these judicious remonstrances in good part. His Worship the Kazi came in great glee totell this news to the ambassadors, saying: ' The Most High has shownhis mercy to these foreigners. ' The emperor having thus decided on amerciful course, the dishes which he had sent were placed before theenvoys; but as they consisted of swines' flesh and mutton the Musulmans declined to partake of them. The emperor then started, mounted1 In a previous passage it is said that " every sixteen marrah make afarsang" (or nearly three miles and a half). Astley's version has six to a farsang. The former estimate reduces the distance ridden in half the forenoon to less than five miles . The word marrah is perhaps thatwhich Clavijo called molé, but he applies it to Timur's leagues, "equal to two leagues of Castille" (p . 106) . This last definition, however, cor- responds with that which Ssanang Ssetzen gives of the Bără, probably the same word. This makes it 16,000 ells, which will be about sixmiles, taking the ell at two feet (see Schmidt, p. 5).CCX PRELIMINARY ESSAY.on a black horse with white points which had been sent as a present byMirza Olug Beg, and which had housings of yellow brocaded with gold.Two grooms ran alongside, each holding by one of the stirrups, andthese also were dressed in gold brocade of a royal magnificence. Theemperor had on a red mantle brocaded with gold, to which was stitcheda pocket of black satin in which the imperial beard was cased. Sevensmall covered palankins were borne after him on men's shoulders; thesecontained young ladies of the emperor's family. There was also a greatpalankin carried by seventy men. Right and left of the emperor, at theinterval of a bow-shot, were columns of horsem*n who kept exactlyabreast of him. These lines extended as far as the eye could reach, andthere was a space of twenty paces between their ranks. They marchedin this way, keeping exact alinement, to the gates of the city. Theemperor rode in the middle, accompanied by the Dah-daji, whilst theKazi rode with the Li-daji and the Ján- daji. The Kazi coming forward,said to the ambassadors: Dismount and touch the ground with yourheads'; and so they did. The emperor then desired them to mountagain, which they did, and joined the procession . The monarch beganto reproach them, saying to Shadi Khwaja: ' When horses or other objects of value are sent as presents to kings, they should be of the best,if they are meant to strengthen the bonds of friendship . Here, Imounted for the chase yesterday one of the horses which you broughtme, and the beast, being excessively old, came down with me. Myhand is much hurt and has become black and blue. It is only by applying gold in great quantities that the pain has abated a little.' ShadiKhwaja, to put the best face on the matter, answered: ' The fact is, thishorse belonged to the Great Amir, Amir Timur Kurkan. His MajestyShah- Rukh in sending the animal to you intended to give you a testimony of his highest consideration; indeed, he thought that in your dominions this horse would be regarded as a very pearl of horses. " Thisaccount of the matter satisfied the emperor who then treated the ambassadors with kindness. "After this one of the emperor's favourite wives died, and also a fire ,occasioned by lightning , took place in the new palace, so that "contraryto what usually happens, " the diarist observes, "the prediction of theastrologers was completely verified . " These misfortunes made the oldemperor quite ill, and it was from his son that the ambassadors receivedtheir dismissal. During the days that they remained at Peking afterthis they no longer received the usual supplies.On their return journey, however, they met with all the same attentions as on their way to court. They followed the same road as before,and quitting Khanbalik on the middle of Jumadah first (about 18th MayAs the Great Amir was dead sixteen years before, this pearl of horses must indeed have been a venerable animal.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . сехі1421 ) , they reached the city of BíKAN¹ on the first day of Rajab ( 2ndJuly). Here they were splendidly fêted; and on the fifth of Shaban(3rd October) they recrossed the Karamuran. Nineteen days later theyarrived at Kancheu and took up their servants and baggage which hadbeen left there. But they had to halt here two months on account ofthe disturbed state of the Mongol country; and they were again detainedat Sucheu, so that they did not pass the frontier fortress till some daysafter the middle of Moharram 825 (about 9th January 1422) . Here thewhole party were again mustered and registered by the Chinese officials.The troubles in Mongolia induced the ambassadors now to take the unfrequented southern route through the desert. They reached KHOTANon the 30th May, and KASHGAR on the 5th July. From this they passedthe mountains by the defile of ANDIJAN, i.e. by the Terek Daban, andthere separated; one party taking the road to Samarkand, the other"preferring the route of Badakshan" travelled to HISSAR SHADUMAN,³and thence reached BALKH on the 18th August. Finally on the 1stSeptember 1422 they kissed the feet of his majesty Shah Rukh at Herat,and related their adventures."The dates indicate the position as about one-third of the way from the capital to the passage of the Hoang Ho at Lancheu. This and thename probably point to PINGYANGFU in the province of Shansi, one of the most ancient capitals of China. It is the Pian-fu of Polo, who says of it " moult est grant citez et de grant vaillance; en laquelle a mar- chans assez qui vivent d'art et de marchandize. Et si font soie en grant habondance" (Pauthier's Polo, p. 354).I find that in the identification of the three cities named on the jour- ney through China (Husnabad, Sadinfu, and Bikan) M. Reinaud has anticipated me in every case; but as my identifications were arrived atindependently on the grounds assigned, this is a strong confirmation oftheir correctness (see his Introduction to Abulfeda, pp. ccclxxxv-vii).2 Nine days according to the date in Quatremère ( 14th Shaban), but thus seems much too short. Astley has 24th.3 The expression in the text seems to show that Badakhshan was some- times used in a much larger sense than is now attached to it. But this brief indication of the route followed by the ambassadors from Kash- gar to Balkh is particularly interesting, because it precisely retraces Ptolemy's caravan route across Imaus, on the supposition that the StoneTower was in the vicinity of Ush or Andijan (Andiján=The Stone Tower;Hissar Shaduman-Ascent to Hill Country of the Komedi; Balkh=Bactra). And this is certainly an argument in favour of Ritter's view,for the route from Kashgar via Tashbalik and Wakhsh to Hissar would have been vastly more direct, and there must have been ample reason for not adopting it, even in the height of summer, as on this occa- sion (see ante, p. cxlix, seq. )4 I will here insert some remarks on the topography of Rubruquis's travels, in connexion with the site of Equius, which I suppose to be the Asparah of these ambassadors (supra, p. cc).Rubruquis, riding with Tartars and relays of horses, set out from the Wolga on the 16th September 1253. The route lay straight east, or nearly so, through the country of the Kangli till the 31st October. They then bore a good deal south, passing through certain Alps (mountain pastures?). On the 7th November they entered a plain irrigated like agarden, through which a large river flowed which entered no sea, butccxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.after forming swamps was absorbed by the earth. It flowed from very high mountains which were seen towards the south (east).On the 8th November they entered the city of KENCHAC. They went from this east towards the mountains, and got among the mountain pastures, where the Caracatai formerly dwelt, a few days later. They found there a great river which they had to cross in a boat; they then turned into a valley where there were old intrenchments of earth overwhich the plough had passed, and came to a good town called Equius,where the Mahomedan inhabitants spoke Persian .Next day they passed the " Alps, " which were spurs from the great mountains to the south, and entered an extensive and beautiful plain,which was copiously irrigated by the streams from the mountains. The mountains in question were to the right of the travellers, and to the left,beyond the plain, was a sea or great lake of twenty-five days' journey in compass.There had formerly been many cities in this plain but the Tartars had destroyed them. They found, however, one great town called CAILAC,where they halted for twelve days.The country in which they now were was called ORGONUM; and here Rubruquis first met with Buddhist temples.They quitted Cailac on the 30th November (hence they must have reached it on the 18th or 19th), and four days later (3rd December) theycame upon the head of the great lake. There was a great island in the lake . The water was brackish, but drinkable. A valley opened upon the head of the lake from the south-east, and up this valley among themountains was another lake. Through this gorge at times such furious gusts of wind blew that riders were apt to be blown into the lake.Passing this valley they went north towards great mountains covered with snow.From December 6th they greatly increased the length of their jour- neys, doing two days' journey in one. On December 12th they passed ahorrible rocky defile, said to be haunted by demons, etc. They then entered the plains of the Naiman country. After this they again ascended a hill country, tending northward. On December 26ththey entered a great flat plain like the sea, and next day reached the camp of Mangu Khan, apparently not far from KARAKORum.Now the points on this journey which we may consider ascertained (besides its departure from the Wolga somewhere near SARAI, and its termination near Karakorum) are two.The first is the city of KENCHAC. This is known to have been one ofthe cities of the valley of the Talas, near the city so called (see Quatre- mère in Notices et Extraits, xiii , 224-5-6) .The other is the site of the great rushing wind. This is described in Carpini's narrative in very similar terms (see p. 751 ) . It is also spoken of by the diarist of Hulagu's march; and in modern times by a Russian traveller Poutimsteff (quoted in Malte Brun, Precis de la Geog. Univer- selle, ix, p. 208 ) . These three latter accounts point, and the last indeed,which is singularly coincident with Carpini's, distinctly refers the scene of this phenomenon, to the lake called Ala-kul. Rubruquis had specified the island in the lake; Carpini says " several islands;" Poutimsteff says it contains " three great rocks of different colours, " with which he con- nects its name. We now go back to trace the route of Rubruquis.After riding for six weeks east, but not quite so due east as he ima- gines, leaving the Caspian and Aral on the right, about long. 67° he strikes south- east, crosses the " Alps" of the Kara-tau to the south-east of the modern town of Turkestan (in the medieval map south-east ofOtrar) and enters the valley of the Talas, the river which, as he says,loses itself in swamps and enters no sea. Here he has to the south- eastvery lofty mountains, the branches of the Thian Shan, or perhaps the great range itself.Quitting Kenchak and the Talas, he goes cast into the " Alps" thatSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . ccxiii66separate the Upper Talas from the Chu; the Chu is the river crossed in a boat. Beyond this is the valley with the remains of old intrenchments.These are noticed also by the Diarist of Hulagu's march. Four days before reaching Talas, this writer says, they passed between the two mountains Itu (qu. the two parallel ranges called Ala-tagh?) . Thecountry is flat, well peopled and well watered; and there are many old ramparts and military structures, for it was formerly occupied by the Khitan" (the Caracatai of Rubruquis, see infra, p. 176) . "Near this isa river called Yi-yun, very rapid, flowing from the east; the people of the country call it the Yellow river" (as to the muddy colour and great rapidity of the Chu, see Russians in Central Asia, p. 262).Rubruquis then reaches Equius, or as I have supposed the Asparah of the Mahomedan writers, and we must therefore locate this north of theChu, somewhere opposite the modern Russian posts of Pishpek or Tokmak.They then cross the " Alps" again; this time the branch of the Ala- Tau between Pishpek and Almaty, and emerge on the great plain stretching to the Balkash. It is true that towards the lake this is abarren steppe, but the tract along the spurs of the Northern Ala- Tau,which bounded the plain to the right of the traveller as he describes, is rich arable land, amply irrigated (see sem*nov in Petermann's Mitthei- lungen for 1858, p. 352-3) .Somewhere at the foot of those hills was CAILAC, doubtless the KAYALIK of the historians of the Mongols. It must have been some distance northof the Ili, for the traveller reaches the Alakul from Cailac in four days.It may be placed near the modern Russian station of Kopal.That it was not on the Ili, but some distance beyond it, is in some degree confirmed by the circ*mstance, that though a place of import- ance, it is not mentioned in the route either of Hulagu or of King Hethum, both of whom seem to have come down the Ili valley fromALMALIK (near modern Kulja) and then passed to Talas by the route which Rubruquis had come.At p. 576 infra are quoted some passages relating, or supposed to relate, to Kayalik or Cailac. Another may be cited as slightly favourable to the site indicated. We are told that Batu was on his way from his domain on the Wolga to Karakorum, when " at the mountain Aladagh,seven days march from Kayalik, he heard of the death of the Kaan"(Kuyuk), and turned back. Supposing this to be the Alatagh pass be- tween the Chu and the Ili the distance would be appropriate to our position (see D'Ohsson, ii, 246).The name Orgonum, which Rubruquis heard applied to the country, Ihave elsewhere endeavoured to elucidate (infra, p. 522) .It will be observed that Rubruquis, coming upon the Alakul, regardedit as the continuation and termination of the great lake which had occupied the distant horizon on his left for a good many days, an error whichthe map alone renders very conceivable to us, and which may thenhave had still more excuse, as all those lakes appear to be contracting.Indeed there seems to be no doubt that the Balkash and Alakul wereformerly actually one, though they may not have been so in the days ofRubruquis (see sem*nov as above, p. 351; and in J. R. G. S., xxxv, p. 213;also Petermann for 1863, p. 392) .From the Alakul the mountains crossed to the north were apparently those above Tarbogatai. From this the route probably lay along the Upper Irtish and then along the Jabkan river.On the return journey in summer Rubruquis passed to the north of the Balkash. The only part common to the two journeys was, he says,a fifteen days' ride along a river among mountains, where there was no grass except on the banks. This would seem to have been the Jabkan.I discern no real difficulty in the foregoing interpretation of the traveller except one, viz. , the scanty time allowed between Kenchak in the Talasvalley and the head of the Alakul. This distance is about five hundredccxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.miles without deviations of course, and the time according to the data(deducting the twelve days' halt at Cailac) is fourteen days , giving an average of more than thirty-five miles (crow-flight) daily), and much of it through hilly ground. It is true that the traveller says that they rodedaily as far as from Paris to Orleans, say sixty miles; but the measure- ment of his first long stretch from the Wolga to Talas gives only about twenty-seven miles a day as the crow flies. If we can venture to sup- pose that the halt at Cailac was written vii days instead of xii, this would bring the marches between Talas and Alakul to about the same average.The map in " Russians in Central Asia, " or some other embracing the recent Russian surveys, will be serviceable in following these remarks.NOTE XVIII.HAJJI MAHOMED'S ACCOUNT OF CATHAY, AS DELIVEREDTO MESSER GIOV. BATTISTA RAMUSIO.(Circa 1550.)" In the thirty- eighth chapter of Messer Marco Polo's first book hetreats of the rhubarb which is produced in the province of SucCUIR, andis thence exported into these parts and all over the world. And it seemshighly necessary that I should give a particular account of what Ichanced to hear on this subject some years ago from a certain Persian ofgreat judgment and intelligence; for the matter is well worthy of correct knowledge, seeing how universal the use of the article among sickpeople has become in our time, nor have I ever yet seen so much information regarding it in any book."The name of the narrator was Chaggi Memet, a native of the province of CHILAN on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and from a city calledTABAS, ' and he had himself been to Succuir, coming afterwards, at thetime I speak of, to Venice with a large quantity of the aforesaid rhubarb.Now it happened one day that I had gone out of town to dine atMurano; a relaxation of business allowed me to get away from the city,and to enjoy it all the more I chanced to have in my party that excellent architect Messer Michele San Michele of Verona, and MesserTommaso Giunti, both very dear friends of mine, besides this Persian.2So when dinner was over and the cloth was drawn, he began his narrative, and it was interpreted as he went along by Messer Michele Mambre,a man of great acquirements in the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish tongues,1 I have not been able to find any place of this name in Ghilan. ButTabas in the Salt Desert north of Yezd is called in the Tables of Nasiruddin Tabas Kili or Gili, and this may be meant (see in Hudson, vol. iii) .2 Sanmichele of Verona, the still celebrated architect and engineer ofthe Venetian Republic, and often called (though wrongly) the inventor of modern bastioned fortification. Giunti, the printer and publisher ofRamusio's great work, and editor of it after the author's death .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . CCXVand a person of most agreeable manners, whose accomplishments havenow obtained him the position of Turkish interpreter to this illustriousSignory. First he told us that he had been at SuCCUIR¹ and CAMPION,2cities of the province of TANGATH, at the commencement of the statesof the Great Can, whose name he said was Daimir Can, and by whomrulers were sent to govern the said cities, the same that M. Marco speaksof in the thirty- eighth and thirty-ninth chapters of his first book. Theyare the first cities of idolaters that are met with in going from theMusulman territories; and he went thither with the caravan that goeswith merchandise from Persia and the countries about the Caspian tothe regions of CATHAY. And this caravan is not allowed to enter furtherinto the country than Succuir and Campion; nor may any merchantbelonging to it, unless he go as an ambassador to the Great Can.'"This city of Succuir is large and extremely populous, with veryhandsome houses built of brick after the Italian manner; and in itthere are many great temples with idols carved in stone. It is situatedin a plain, through which run an infinite number of streamlets, andabounds in all sorts of necessaries. They grow silk there in very greatquantities, using the black-mulberry tree for the purpose. They haveno wine grown there, but for their drink they make a kind of beer withhoney. As regards fruit, the country is a cold one, so they have nonebut pears, apples, apricots, and peaches, melons, and grapes. Then hetold us that the rhubarb grows over all that province, but much thebest is got in a certain neighbouring range of lofty and rocky mountains,where there are many springs, with woods of sundry kinds of treesgrowing to a great height, and soil of a red colour, which, owing tothe frequent rains and the springs which run in all directions, is almostalways in a sloppy state. As regards the appearance of the root and itsleaves it so chanced that the said merchant had brought a little picturewith him from the country which appeared to be drawn with great careand skill, so he took it from his pocket and showed it us, saying thathere we had the true and natural representation of the rhubarb... .He said moreover . . . that in the Lands of Cathay they never used therhubarb for medicine as we do, but pounded it up and compounded it1 Succuir, or rather Succiur (i.e. Sukchúr) as Polo seems to have written it, is according to Pauthier a Mongol pronunciation of Suh-cheu- lu, the Circuit of Suhcheu (Polo, p. 164) . On Suhcheu or Sucheu see supra, p. ccii, and references there."2 Campicion in most copies of Polo; well identified with Kancheu,though the form of the name has not been satisfactorily explained.3 Daiming Khan is the name by which the Emperor of China is calledin Abdurrazzak's History introducing the narrative abstracted in the preceding note. It is, in fact, the name of the native Dynasty (Ta- Ming,"Great Light") usually called the Ming, which reigned from 1369 to1616 (see Chine Ancienne, p. 389; Atlas Sinensis in Blaeu, p. 1; Notices et Extraits, xiv, pt. i, p. 213 seq.; Schmidt, pp. 153, 211, 289.See the narrative of Goës passim.ccxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.with some other odoriferous ingredients to burn as a perfume before theiridols. And in some other places it is so abundant that they constantly,use it for fuel, whilst others give it to their sick horses, so little esteemhave they for this root in those regions of Cathay. But they have amuch greater appreciation of another little root which grows in themountains of Succuir where the rhubarb grows, and which they callMambroni Cini. This is extremely dear, and is used in most of theirailments, but especially where the eyes are affected. They grind it on astone with rosewater, and anoint the eyes with it. The result is wonderfully beneficial. He did not believe that this root was imported into theseparts, and he was not able to describe it.¹ Then seeing the greatpleasure that I beyond the rest of the company took in his stories, hetold me that over all the country of Cathay they made use of anotherplant, or rather of its leaves. This is called by those people ChiaiCatai, and grows in the district of Cathay, which is called CACIANFU.3This is commonly used and much esteemed over all those countries .They take of that herb whether dry or fresh, and boil it well in water.One or two cups of this decoction taken on an empty stomach removesfever, head-ache, stomach-ache, pain in the side or in the joints, and itshould be taken as hot as you can bear it. He said besides that it wasgood for no end of other ailments which he could not then remember,but gout was one of them. And if it happens that one feels incommodedin the stomach from having eaten too much, one has but to take a littleof this decoction and in a short time all will be digested . And it is sohighly valued and esteemed that every one going on a journey takes itwith him, and those people would gladly give ( as he expressed it ) a sackof rhubarb for an ounce of Chiai Catai. And those people of Cathaydo say that if in our parts of the world, in Persia and the country of theFranks, people only knew of it there is no doubt that the merchants wouldcease altogether to buy Ravend Cini as they call rhubarb in those parts.4..."I asked him what route he had followed in returning from CampionMambroni Cini is, I suppose, Mámírán-i - Chíní; the first word of which is explained by F. Johnson as "swallow-wort." Bernier also mentions Mamiron as a little root very good for eye ailments, which used to be brought with rhubarb to Kashmir by caravans from China (in H. Gen. des Voyages, tom, 37, p. 335) . It is possibly the Jinseng or " Man- Root"(from its forked radish shape) , so much prized by the Chinese as a tonic,etc., and which used to sell for three times its weight in silver. Another root, called by the Chinese Foling, comes from the rhubarb region in question, and was formerly well known in European pharmacy under the name Radix China. This, however, was not a "little root ."2 (Pers. ) Chá-i-Khitai, " Tea of China." Here and in some other words in this narrative the ch must be sounded soft, and not as usual in Italian,I do not know of any earlier mention of tea in an European book.3 Cachanfu is probably Kanjanfu, i.e. Singanfu (see infra, p. 148) . Tea would come to the frontier from that quarter, whether it grows there or not.Pers. Rawand-i- Chíni, " China Rhubarb."SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . ccxviiand Succuir on his way to Constantinople, if he were able to tell it me.He answered by Mambre our interpreter that he would tell me thewhole gladly. So he began by saying that he had not returned by precisely the same way that he had taken with the caravan in going, for atthe time that he wanted to start it happened that those Tartar chiefs ofthe Green caps, whomthey call Iescilbas, were sending an ambassador oftheirs with a great company by way of the Desert of Tartary to the northof the Caspian Sea to the Grand Turk at Constantinople in order tomake a league with him for a joint attack on their common enemy theSoffi.... And so he travelled with them as far as CAFFA. But he wouldwillingly detail to me the route as it would have been had he returnedby the same that he followed in going. And it would stand thus:Leaving the city of Campion you come to GAUTA, ' which is a six days'journey. Every day's journey is reckoned at so manyfarsenc, and onePersian farsenc is three of our miles. And a day's journey may be takenat eight farsencs, but in case of deserts and mountains they will not dohalf as much, so days made in the desert must be reckoned at half ordinary journeys. From Gauta you come to Succuir in five days, and fromSuccuir to CAMUL2 in fifteen. Here the Musulmans begin; all havingbeen idolators hitherto. From Camul to TURFON thirteen; and afterTurfon you pass three cities, the first of which is CHIALIS, ten days, thenCHUCHE ten more, and then AKSU twenty days.3 From Aksu to CASCARis twenty days more of the wildest desert, the journey hitherto havingbeen through inhabited country. From Cascar to SAMARCAND twentyfive days, from Samarcand to BOCHARA in CORASSAM, five; from Bocharato ERI, twenty; and thence you get to VEREMI in fifteen days; thenCASBIN in six, from Casbin to SOLTANIA in four, and from Soltania tothe great city of TAURIS in six. Thus much I drew from that Persianmerchant. And the detail of his route was all the more interesting tome because I recognised with great satisfaction the names of many citiesand of several provinces which are written in the first book of the travelsof M. Marco Polo. And on that account it seemed to me in a measurenecessary to give the statement here." It seems also expedient to add here a brief summary, which wasdrawn up for me by the said Chaggi Memet the Persian merchant beforehis departure from this city, giving some particulars regarding the cityof Campion, and the people of those parts. And these I shall repeat for1 Kao-tai, between Kancheu and Sucheu.2 Supra, p. cc, infra, 390, 579.3 On these places see Goës, infra, pp. 572, seqq. + HERAT.5 VERAMIN was a great town two marches east of Tehran, close to the site of ancient Rai, " to which it succeeded as Tehran has succeeded toVeramin" (Ritter, viii, 450) . It is mentioned also by Clavijo, who on his return after passing Damghan, Perescote (Firuz-koh) , and Cenan ( Sem- nan) "came to a great city called Vatami" (read VARAMI) " which was nearly depopulated and without any wall, and they call this land theLand of Rei" ( Markham's Clavijo, p. 182); see also P. de la Croix, H. de Timur Bec, ii, 181 , 401).qccxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.the benefit and advantage of all my gentle readers in few words andunder various heads just as he set them down."The city of Campion. . . . The people here go dressed in cotton stuffof a black colour, which in winter the poor have lined with wolf- skinsand sheep-skins, and the rich with costly sables and martens. Theywear black caps coming to a point like sugar- loaves. The men are shortrather than tall. They wear their beard as we do, and especially at acertain time of the year." Their houses are built after our fashion with brick and cut stone,two or three stories high, with ceilings painted in various colours andpatterns. There are no end of painters there; and one street in the cityis entirely occupied by painters."The princes of that country to exhibit their pomp and grandeur havea great platform made, over which are stretched two canopies of silkembroidered with gold and silver, and with many pearls and other gems;and on this they and their friends take their places, and forty or fiftyslaves take up the whole and carry them about the city for recreation .Ordinary noblemen go about in a simple open litter without ornamentcarried by four to six men."Their temples are made after the fashion of our churches withcolumns from end to end; and they are enormous things, fit to holdfour or five thousand people. There are also in that city two remarkablestatues, one of a man, the other of a woman, each of them forty feet inlength and represented extended on the ground; each figure is of onesolid piece, and they are gilt all over. There are first-rate sculptors instone there.66 They get their blocks of stone sometimes from a distance of two orthree months' journey, conveying them on carts that have some fortyvery high wheels with iron tires; and these shall be drawn by five or sixhundred horses or mules."There are other statues of smaller size that have six or seven headsand ten hands, each hand grasping a different article, as if (for example)one should hold a serpent, a second a bird, a third a flower, and so on." They have also certain monasteries where many men dwell leadingthe most holy life possible. For they have the doors of their chamberswalled up so they can never get forth again as long as they live. Peoplecome every day with food for them."There are also no end of the same class who go about the town just like our friars." Their custom is, when anyone of their kin shall die, to wear whiteclothes for many days, that is to say of cotton cloth . Their clothes aremade after the same fashion as ours, reaching to the ground, and withlarge sleeves like those of ours at Venice which we call a gomedo.21 See preceding note, p. cciii ." Utrisque (viris et feminis ) manica laxiores longioresque communes sunt, quales in Italiâ Venetorum esse solent" (Trigautius, b. i, c. 8) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccxix"They have the art of printing in that country, and their books areprinted. And as I wanted to be clear on the point whether their mannerof printing was the same as our own, I took the Persian one day to seethe printing office of M. Thomaso Giunti at San Giuliano: and when hesaw the tin types and the screwpresses with which they print, he said thatthey seemed to him to be very much like the other.'"Their city is fortified by a thick wall, filled with earth inside, so thatfour carriages can go abreast upon it. There are great towers on thewalls and artillery planted as thickly as on the Grand Turk's. There isa great ditch which is dry, but can be filled with water at pleasure."They have a kind of oxen of great size, and which have long hair extremely fine and white.²"The Cathayan people and pagans generally are prohibited fromleaving their native country and going about the world as traders."Onthe other side of the desert north of Corassam as far as Samarcand,the Tescilbas or people of the green caps have sway. Those Green- capsare a certain race of Mahomedan Tartars³ who wear conical caps of greenfelt, and give themselves that name to distinguish themselves from thefollowers of the Soft, their deadly enemies, who are the rulers of Persia,who are also Mahomedans and wear red caps. And these Green- capsand Red-caps are continually at most cruel war with one another onaccount of certain religious differences and frontier disputes. Amongthe cities that the Green-caps have under their rule are among others atpresent Bochara and Samarcand, each of which has a prince of its own."Those people have their peculiar sciences which they call respectivelyChimia, that which we call alchemy, Limia or the science of attractinglove, and Simia, or that of illusion. They have no coined money, butevery gentleman or merchant has his gold or silver made into small rods,and these are divided into small fragments for spending, and this is thepractice of all the inhabitants of Campion and Succuir.1 The Hajji's observation must have been superficial, at least as regards the metal types. Printing with movable types (made of terra cotta) was invented in China by a smith named Pishing before the middle of the eleventh century, but the invention does not seem to have been followed up. Wood printing was known at least as early as A.D.581; and about 904 engraving on stone for the press was introduced (Julien in Jour. Asiat. , ser. iv, tom. ix, 509, 513; Chine Moderne, pp. 626 seqq.).2 The Yak.3 Uzbeks.4 The Kizil-básh.Kimia (Ar. ) Alchemy; Simía (Pers . ) Enchantment or fascination .Limía is probably a factitious word made on the jingling principle spoken of in note at p. cxix.D'Herbelot says, however, that Simia is that part of chemistry which refers to the preparation of metals and minerals, and that Kimia Simia is used to express chemistry in general. There is another Simia headds, which has for its subject a sort of divination by names and num.bers; the word being connected with ism, a name.y 22CCXX PRELIMINARY ESSAY."On the public square at Campion every day there gather a numberof charlatans who practise the art of Simia, and by means of it, in themiddle of crowds of people, they will exhibit all sorts of wonders; forexample they will take a man who accompanies them and cleave himthrough with a sword, or cut his arm off, and you'll see him all streamingwith blood, and so forth . " ( From the " Espositione of M. Giov. Batt.Ramusio, prefixed to the travels of Marco Polo, in the II vol. of theNavigationi e Viaggi, ” f. 14 vers. to f. 16 vers. )NOTE XIX.ACCOUNT OF CATHAY BY A TURKISH DERVISH, ASRELATED TO AUGER GISLEN DE BUSBECK.(Circa 1560. )"Now let me tell you what I heard about the city and country ofCATHAY from a certain Turkish vagabond. He was one of that kind ofsect whose devotion consists in wandering into the most distant countries,and in worshipping God in the loftiest mountains and in the wildestdeserts. This fellow had rambled over well-nigh the whole EasternWorld, and among other things he mentioned that he had come acrossthe Portuguese. Then he was seized with a strong desire to see the cityand kingdom of Cathay, and for that purpose attached himself to a company of merchants who were going thither. For it is their custom tojoin together in large numbers, and to travel to the frontiers of thatempire in a company. There is no passage for a small party that way,or at least it is very unsafe; for there are a number of treacherous tribesupon the way whose attacks the travellers have to dread at everymoment. When they have got some distance from the Persian frontierthey come to the cities of SAMMARCAND , BORCHARA, TASCHAN, and otherplaces occupied by the successors of Demirlan. After these there areextensive deserts and inhabited countries, some occupied by savage andinhospitable tribes, others by people of more civilised character, buteverywhere scantily supplied with food and forage, so that everyone hasto take his victuals and other necessaries along with him, and this involves a large number of camels to carry the loads. Such large companies of men and beasts they call caravans. After a fatiguing journeyof many months they came to a defile which forms, as it were, thebarrier gate of Cathay. For a great part of that empire consists of inland country, and here there was an inclosing chain of rugged and precipitous mountains, affording no passage except through a narrow strait1 See Ibn Batuta, infra, p. 500.2 Bokhara; Tashkand; Tamerlane.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . сеххі62in which a garrison was stationed on the king's part. There the questionis put to the merchants, What they bring, whence they come, and howmany of them are there? ' The answer being given , the king's guardspass it by signal-by smoke if in daylight, by fire if by night-to thenext watch-tower; they to the next, and so on, till in a few hours themessage reaches the king at Cathay: a thing which would by any othercommunication require many days. The king sends back his orders inthe same manner and with equal rapidity, saying whether all shall beadmitted, or only a part, or the whole put off. If they are allowed toenter they proceed under charge of certain leaders, finding haltingplaces arranged at proper distances where everything needed for food orclothing is to be had at reasonable rates, until they reach Cathay itself.On arriving there they have each to declare what they bring, and thenthey make a complimentary present to the king, as each thinks fit. He,however, is accustomed to pay for what he wants at a fair price.³ Therest of their goods they sell or barter, a day being appointed for theirreturn, up to which they have full liberty to do business. For the people of Cathay do not approve of the prolonged stay of foreigners amongthem, lest their indigenous manners should be corrupted by some foreigninfection . And so the merchants are sent back stage by stage alongthe same road that they followed in coming."This wanderer stated that they were a people of extraordinary accomplishments, highly civilised and polite in their mode of living , andhad a religion of their own, which was neither Christian, Jewish, norMahomedan, but except as regards ceremonies came nearest to theJewish. For many centuries past the art of printing has been in useamong them, and books printed with types, which he had seen there,sufficiently proved the fact. For this they made use of paper made fromthe slough and envelopes of silkworms, which was so thin that it borethe impression of the types on one side only, whilst the other side was left blank. '"There were many taverns in that city. . . . The odour of the perfume called musk, which is the exudation of a certain little animalabout as big as a kid. Nothing fetched so great a price among them as1 Supra, p. ccii.Infra, p. 138-9.3Supra, p. cv.4 This is well known as a characteristic of Chinese printing. Paperin China is made from bamboo, from the bark of mulberry, of a hibiscus(Rosa Sinensis), and of a tree called chu (Broussonetia Papyrifera)." Allbark paper is strong and tough; it has rays crossing it, so that whentorn you would think it was made of silk fibres. This is why it is calledMien-chi or silk paper" (Chinese author translated by Julien -see ChineModerne, pp. 622 seqq . ) . Duhalde, however, does mention a kind of paper made from "the cods the silk- worms spin " (ext. in Astley, iv,p . 158).An unindicated hiatus in the original.ccxxii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.a lion; for this beast does not occur in those countries, and they look onit with immense admiration, and give any price for it."So much for the kingdom of Cathay, as I heard told by that vagabond; let him answer for its truth. For it might easily be that whilstmy questions referred to Cathay, his answers referred to some othercountry thereabouts, and in fact that we were playing at cross purposes.But when I had heard so much, I thought I would ask if he had notbrought back from his travels any curious kind of a root or fruit orpebble or what not? ' Nothing whatever,' he said, ' except this littleroot that I carry about with me, and if I am knocked up with fatigueor cold, by chewing and swallowing a tiny morsel of it, I feel quite warmed and stimulated' . And so saying, he gave it me to taste, tellingme to be careful to take but the smallest quantity. My doctor William(who was alive then) tasted it, and got his mouth into a state of inflammation from its burning quality. He declared it to be regular wolfsbane. " (From Busbequii Epistolæ. Amsterdam, 1661 , pp. 326-330.)NOTE XX.ON THE MAPS IN THIS WORK.I. MAP OF ASIA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY .This is intended to elucidate the narrative of the fourteenth centurytravellers, from John of Monte Corvino to Ibn Batuta, as far as waspossible without attempting greater detail than my time or knowledgewould permit. The basis is a trace from Keith Johnstone's Map in theRoyal Atlas; substituting for present political divisions the chief ofthose which existed at the period in question , and inserting ( in general)only those names of places which occur in the narratives and notes ofthis collection . Before preparing the map, I had at different times consulted maps ofthe period by Klaproth ( in Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie) ,D'Ohsson, and Sprüner (Historical Atlas, German) , and at a later datethe map attached to Pauthier's Marco Polo; but latterly none of these,except the last, have been within reach, and the map has in the mainbeen compiled gradually along with the matter which it illustrates. Thetheory of the indications was to show all political divisions, and allnames still extant, in black; obsolete names used by European writersin red; and obsolete names only used by Asiatics in red also, but withthe slope of the letters reversed. I am afraid, however, that these minutiæ have sometimes been overlooked by myself.1 This was certainly Jinseng (supra, p. ccxvi) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccxxiiiII. CATALAN MAP OF 1375.It occurred to me that an acceptable pendant to the map last noticedwould be a copy of one showing the geography of the same period as itwas conceived by the people of the time. The Carta Catalana of 1375,in the Imperial Library at Paris, as lithographed in vol. xiv, part ii,of the Notices et Extraits, with a description by MM. Buchon and Tastu,was the only model accessible; but at the same time it is probably thebest that could have been taken for the purpose. The original, as shownin the lithographed facsimiles, is complicated and perplexed with manyradiations of roses des Vents and other geometrical lines, with numerousrude drawings and long rubrics, and by the fact that to read half thenames and inscriptions you have to turn the map upside down. Allthis, together with the character of the writing, renders the map aspublished difficult to appreciate without considerable study, and it istrusted that the trouble taken to present its geographical substance herein a more lucid and compact form will not have been thrown away.Those sheets of the map which pertain to Asia have alone been copied.The scale is one-fourth that of the original. All the embellishments,geometrical lines, and long rubrics, have been omitted, preserving theessential points of the latter, where it has been possible to do so in fewwords. On the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, which arethickly studded with names in the original, only a few have been selected ,but in the remainder of the map scarcely any have been intentionallyomitted except a few on the Caspian. In decyphering the names theprinted transcripts of the French editors have been consulted, but notservilely followed.¹It may be observed that in the original facsimiles the sheets do not fitto one another properly. This is especially the case with sheets III andIv, and is obvious even in my reduction, as may be seen in the fragment shown of the Arctic Sea, and in the faulty junction of the coastlines of the Peninsula of India. We find also a pair of duplicate namesoccurring in these two sheets ( Chabol and Camar) , besides other instancesof apparent duplication in sheet IV. This is probably the result of inexpert compilation from different authorities, and I have seen the samething in modern published maps of some pretension.The date of the map has been fixed , on sufficient grounds I believe,to 1375; but the data from which it has been constructed are naturallynot all of one period . Thus CATHAY is represented as the Empire ofthe Great Can HOLUBEIM; i.e., not Olug Beig, as the French editors1 In the names extracted below there are I think scarcely any variations from the French readings, though corrections of the original have been suggested occasionally. But in Central Asia there are severalopen to amendment, as where they read Fista and Evi for Sista and Eri,thus obscuring the otherwise obvious identification of the places Seistan and Heri or Herat.ccxxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.say (a Great Khan not known to history) , but Khublai, who died in1294; ¹ MEDEIA or the Middle Empire of the Tartars is shown as ruledby King CHABECH; i.e. , Guebek or Kapak, who reigned some time between 1310 and 1320; and SARRA or Kipchak is under the Lord JANIBECH; ie. , Janibeg, the son of Mahomed Uzbek, who reigned 1342-56.One of the aids in compiling this map was almost certainly the Portulano Mediceo, now in the Laurentian Library, or perhaps it would bemore safe to say that both copied from some common source. That theydid so to a certain extent will be evident from a comparison of the coastsof Arabia and Persia and the west coast of India with the names entered,as they are on this map and on the map from the Portulano engraved byBaldello Boni in the Atlas to his Il Milione.2For Cathay and the countries adjoining it we can trace Marco Polo asone of the authorities, and perhaps Odoric as another. To the former certainly belong Calajan (i.e. Carazan) , Vociam, Zardandan, Michem(Mien), Penta ( Pentam), and many more names found here; to thelatter perhaps Zayton and Fozo. Cincolam and Mingio are found inOdoric and not in Polo, but they are located here with a correctnesswhich seems to imply independent knowledge.Much cannot be said, however, for correctness of detail in Cathay.We have a good approximation to its general form and position in themap of Asia; Chanbalech is placed correctly at the northern extremityofthe empire, and Cincolam and Caynam ( Hainan) at the southern, whilstZayton and Mingio (Ningpo) appropriately occupy intermediate positions.Vociam and Zardandan are rightly placed on the south-west frontiertowards Michem (Ava), and Cansio (Kancheu) properly stands on thenorth-west frontier towards the desert . But in the rest of the details wehave confusion or darkness. Many of the names in the interior can berecognised but doubtfully or not at all . I suspect, however, that mostof them are from corrupt copies of Marco Polo. And it may be addedthat the representation of China and Cathay in the geography of Maginiat the end of the sixteenth century is decidedly less correct in generalposition and almost as wild in details as this.The 7548 islands ascribed to the Eastern Archipelago are certainly derived from Polo.³As in the geographical ideas of Ibn Batuta, and it would seem ofAbulfeda, one great river with its radiating branches extends all overCathay.The eastern peninsula of India is omitted altogether, or confused with1 Kublai is called Quolibey in Wadding's version of Pope Nicholas III's letter to the Khan of 1278 (infra, p. 166).2 Baldello's is not a perfect representation of the original, which con- tains half effaced traces of a good deal that he has not copied.3 Murray's Polo ( ii , c. 4) has 7448 islands; Pauthier's ( p. 250) 7459.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . CCXXVthe Island of Java ( probably Sumatra) . In the extreme south - east is agreat Island of TAPROBANE . It exhibits a number of cities, the names ofwhich seem to be imaginary, and it is stated in the rubric to be the remotest island of the east called by the Tartars GREAT KAULI . Kaoliwas the Chinese and Tartar name for Corea, and this great Taprobaneis perhaps a jumble of Corea and Japan.2The great river which separates India from China, rising in themountains of BALDASSIA (Badakhshan ) , and flowing into the Bay ofBengal, appears to be a confusion between Indus and Ganges, a confusionstill more elaborately developed in the map of Fra Mauro. BENGALAitself is placed with admirable correctness.The width of the Great Desert of Central Asia is greatly overestimated,and this has the effect of shoving up KAMUL and other cities of EasternTurkestan into immediate contact with Siberia and the Eastern Wolgaregions.In the extreme north- east of Asia we have the nations of Gog andMagog, shut up within mountains by Alexander the Great to await thelatter days.3The Orontes is represented as a branch diverging from Euphrates;and in this we are again reminded of a similar error of Ibn Batuta's. 'The Tigris is connected with the Euphrates by a branch or canal (thetraces of which seem really to exist) near Baghdad ( BALDACH) , but flowsinto the sea by a separate mouth. Another great river, a duplicate ofTigris, having no prototype in nature, but perhaps an amalgamation ofthe two Zabs and other rivers east of Tigris, flows from the seas ofARGIS and MARGA ( Lakes Van and Urumia) , and enters the PersianGulf to the eastward.1 In the facsimile the name is written Jana. The same clerical erroroccurs in Jordanus (p. 30) , and perhaps he was one of the authorities used. For near it we have also the Island of the Naked Folk which that friar mentions. In Jana also the map shows us the Regio Feminarum,which Polo, Conti, Jordanus, and Hiwen Thsang all concur in placing inthe western part of the Indian Ocean. But a Chinese authority quoted by Pauthier places it in the immediate vicinity of Java ( Polo , iii, ch. 33;Conti, p. 20; Jordanus, p. 44; Vie de H. Thsang, p. 208; Pauthier's Polo,p. 559).2 V. infra, pp. 257, 268.3 The name given to the mountains ( Caspis) shows the curious jumble between the Wall of Darband and the Wall of China, between the Caucasian nations, the Tartars, and the Gog Magog of Ezekiel and theApocalypse which was involved in this legend. It is very old, for it is found in the Pseudo- Callisthenes edited by Müller (pp. 139, 143) . It seems that a prince of the Shut- Up Nations found his way out in the six- teenth century, but he had better have stayed where he was: " It is reported by certain writers that the Kingof Tabor came from those parts to seek Francis I of France and Charles V the Emperor, and other Christian princes, in order to gain them secretly over to Judaism. But by the command of Charles V at Mantua in 1540 his temerity was punished in the fire" (Magini, Geografia, Venet. , 1598, f. 171 , v. )4Infra, p. 432.ccxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.The Oxus flows into the Caspian in the latitude of Urganj after passingthat city (ORGANCI) . There is no indication of the Aral.'Notwithstanding these and many other errors the map is a remarkableproduction for the age. The general form of Asia is fairly conceived;the Peninsula of India is shown I believe for the first time with somecorrectness of form and direction. In these respects the map is greatlysuperior to the more ambitious work of Fra Mauro in the followingcentury. The Catalan geographer was probably more of a practicalman, and did not perplex himself and distort his geography with theoriesabout the circular form of the inhabited earth. Unluckily, however, heseems to have allowed his topography towards the north and south to becompressed, by no theories indeed , but by the limits of his parchment!The following is an orderly list of the names shown on our reductionof the map in some of its most interesting portions, with as many identifications as I have been able to suggest.IN SHEET II.Countries North of the Black Sea." ROSSIA, BURGARIA, COMANIA, GATZARIA, ALLANIA. ”R. Tiulo .R. LussomR. Tanay .TorachiRostaorTiferPerumBaltachintaThe Dniester; ancient Tyras; 3 Turlú of theMahomedans.The Dnieper. Sharifuddin calls the Dnieper Uzi,¹which is perhaps the name here (L'Uzi).The Don (Tanais).Torshok N.W. of Twer.RostowTwerNovgorod? where there was a great idol calledPerum.5Poltawa Timur returning from the sack ofMoscow took guides to travel across the steppesby way of Balchimkin ( P. de la Croix, ii, 365) .That translator gives as explanation of thename "les Palus Meotides;" but this is probably one of his random shots.In the map of Marino Sanudo dating from the beginning of the four- teenth century, besides the Caspian, which he calls M. Yrcanum, we have a smaller sea in the position of the Aral called M. Caspium, and then yet another and still smaller into which the Gyon flows.2 A few of these identifications only are given by the French editors.M. Elie de la Primaudaie, in his Etudes sur le Commerce au Moyen Age,has identified nearly all the names on the Black Sea and Caspian Coasts .These I have not repeated here.3 "Nullo tardior amne Tyras" (Ovid. , Epist. ex Pont. , iv, 10) . For Turlu, see Not. et Extraits, xiii, 274.4 Petis de la Croix, ii, 360.5 Gwagnini, Sarmatia Europ. descripta, Moscovia, f, 8-9.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . ccxxviiBranchichaChivaCanadaCalamit ·CembaroSoldayaSomewhere near Czernikov, where we hear of agreat forest of Branki ( Magini) . There wasalso a city Bransko in the same quarter.Kiev.Caminietz?. Eupatoria? on Kalamita Bay.••Balaclava (see p. 173) .Sudak.Taganrog.Azov.CAFFA.Porto PisanoTanaLarissaDamiyat .Casar BochirALEXANDRIA.ChayreBabilloniaBussiMijnere ··Egypt.El- Arish.· DamiettaAbukirCairoOld Cairo (p. 387) .Bush, near Beni Suef (see Ibn Bat. ii. 95) ,MinichIeuch (read Seuth) . SiutChossaTegiaAnseeKus ( see p. 399, note 2) .? near Luksor. Possibly should read Begia, astation of the Bejah tribes of the Red Seadesert who held the emerald mines of Berenice;see quotation from Masudi in Corrections below.EsnehLialeyse ( read S―) . SilsilahSohanHurmaDONCOLA .Coale • .Dobaha ·SobahaCiutat SioeneInsula MeroeCiutat de Nubia .Al- BayadiDesert de GipteMns. of Barchium.Meda• AssuanDarmut?(Old Donkola) . The Dominican Bartholomew ofTivoli was made Missionary Bishop of Donkola in 1330 (Le Quien, iii , 1414) .Ghalwa of Edrisi (i , 33) .Al- Dabah, above Donkola.Sobah, the ruins of which are near Khartum?From the ancients.Nuábah of Edrisi, i, 25.· Little Oasis?Lybian Desert.Coast of Red Sea.Suakin?ccxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.LideboChosAydipELIIM• · Aidhúb.••Kosseir.A double of Aidhab.Exodus (xv, 27).ESSIONGEBER • (Deut. ii, 8; 1 Kings ix, 26).Guide • Jiddah.Semin Zabid?PopertiSavastScisiaMalmistraArmenia, the Euphrates, and Interior Syria.LayazoG. of CaramelaMalasia·Brisom .BenzabTira·Serug Domasch .Mt. Ermon••"" Sanir .Jilahd · 9999 PISGA.29 AbariNEBO. ""99 de Rubeo•Baiburt.Siwas (Sebaste).Sis (p. 281) .Mississa (Mopsuestia).Aias (p. 280).(Read Cannamela) G. of Scanderún. The castleCannamella between Scanderun and Malmistrais mentioned by Wilibrand of Oldenburg, xi.Malatia.Castle of Parshiam? see Ritter, x, 866, 868.Membaj or Benbij?(Read Bira) BirSeruj or Sarug, S.W. of Urfa.Damascus.Hermon.Shenir of Deuter. iii; Sanyr of Friar Burchardiii , 7, 8, for the S. part of Hermon; see alsoPrairies d'Or, iv, 87.GileadAbarim, see Numb. xxvii, 12, and Deut. xxxii, 49.?Sea of GamoraR. Edil •COSTRAMA.BorgarJorman••• Dead Sea.IN SHEET II.Country North of the Caspian.EMPIRE OF SARRAY.The Athil or Wolga.City of Bolgar (see p. 401 ) .Julman of Rashid and Masalak al- absar, supposedthe country on the Kama, asserted to be calledalso R. Cholma (see Not. et Extr. , xiii, 274) .The Maps still show a place on the Viatka,tributary of the Kama, called Churmansk.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . ccxxixPascherit .Fachatim .SeburCity of MarmoreaMns of SeburZizeraBerchimamCity of SarraAgitarchan•••••.Bashkird.Viatka?Sibir, ancient city near Tobolsk.Mercator and Hondius ( 10th Ed. , 1630) and N.Sanson ( 1650) show Jorman on the south of theKama R., Pascherti in the position of Ufa, thepresent head- quarter of the Bashkirs, Sagatin(= Fachatim of the text) at the head of theUfa River, Marmorea on the Bielaya south ofUfa. Blaeu ( 1662) has these, similarly placed,except Jorman. He has, however, Iurmen asa tract between Astracan and the Iaik. I suspect these names in the main were mere traditions from old maps like the Catalana.Altai and Thian Shan.The Jazirah or Island on the Wolga (nr. Zaritzin) .Probably the Upper City of Sarai.Or Sarai (see p. 231 ) .Astracan.Countries South of the Caspian.66 ARMENIA MAJOR, KINGDOM OF TAURIS AND CHALDEA. "Three ChurchesMalascorti• Echmiazin? or Uch Kilisi ( see p. 301 ) .Malasjerda.PasalainZizeraArboC. of BaldachTaurisSodaniaSea of Argis·.· ArgisCapreriSea of Marga •MargaOrmiCremiCadeCheziReySirasAbdeni••Read Rasalain, the ancient Callirhoe, on theKhabur.Jazirah on the Tigris.Harba (see Ibn Bat. , ii, 132, and J.R.G.S. ix , 445) .Baghdad.Tabriz.Sultania.L. Van.Arjish.?L. Urumia.Maragha.Urumia.Karmisin is mentioned by Ibn Khallikan as aplace in Kurdistan. I cannot find any otherreference to it (see Quatremère's Rashid, p. 266) .Hadith? at the confluence of the Gr. Zab andTigris (see Assemani, p. 752).Khuzistan.Rai.Shiraz.Abadan, on Island in mouth of Tigris.CCXXX PRELIMINARY ESSAY.BassoraTaiwust.Serans or SeamUssnCremanI. of Chis .•I. of OrmisHormisiumNocranChesimoDamonelasem*natGoga•·BAROCHE.CanbetumCocintaya .PaychinorChintaborNandor (Nanaor?) ·PescanorManganorEllyColumboCarocamSetemelti .Mirapor•:.ButifilisBENGALA . •BijderDiogilJaleymDILLI.·•Basra.Wasit? called Madínata Wásit, (" The Two CitiesWasit," see Edrisi, i, 367.)Coast of Persia and India.Siraf? But the Medico has Sustar, i e. , Shustar.Husn Amárat? ( see Edri. , i , 379) . Any castleis Husn.Kirman.Kish.Hormuz.Old Hormuz on the Continent.Mekran.Kij. Mediceo has Chechi.Daibul.Somnath.Gogo.CambayMed. has Cocintana: the Kokan- Tana of IbnBatuta (iii , 335); the city of Tana (see p. 57) ,capital of Konkan .Faknur of Ibn Batuta ( see p. 415); Bakanur, butout of place a little.Sandábúr, Goa ( see p. 444) .Honore? Med. has Niandor.Perhaps Barçelor.Mangalore.Hili (see p. 451 ) .Kaulam, but on the wrong side of the Peninsula.Karikal?Seven Pagodas? (see p. lxxvi ) .Mailapúr; Madras.Mutfili of Polo ( see p. 221 ); but by a misunderstanding theauthorputs St. Thomas'stomb here.(See p. 465) .Interior of India.Bidr.Deogiri or Daulatabad.Jálna?66 Where Elliot, quoting Rashid, has Guzerat, which is a great country, in which are Cambay, Súmnáth, Konkan, Tana, and several other towns and cities;" and again: Beyond Guzerat are Konkan and Tana,”probably the original will be found to read as here, "Konkan-Tana"(p. 42; I quote an extract in Pauthier's Polo, p. 663, not having the pas sage in my own notes).SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . сехххіNeruala Anhilwara.Hocibelch?BargelidoaMOLTAN.?III. SKETCH MAP TO ILLUSTRATE TRAVELS OF IBN BATUTA IN BENGAL.This is little more than a diagram, for no accurate map of Bengal eastof the old Brahmaputra has yet been published. Two or three of thepositions wanted in the Silhet district are, however, given by Rennell'sand other maps, and others have been inserted from the informationquoted at pp. 516-174 , to give an idea of the localities.IV. MAP IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE JOURNEY OF GOES.The following maps have been used or studied in the compilation ofthe map in question:—1. Wood's and other British surveys Kabul and on the Oxus, as embodied in a map by Mr. John Walker ( title and date missing in my copy) .2. Kiepert's large map of Asia, Weimar, 1864.3. Tracing of part of a map of Central Asia, by Col. G. T. Walker,R.E. of the G. Trig. Survey of India.4. Veniukhof's Sketch of the Bolor, as given in Petermann, for1861 (plate 10) .5. Extract of Schlagintweit's General Map, as given in the same place.6. Kashmir, in Petermann for 1861 , p. 1 .7. Tracing of Gen. Court's Map (Itineraire d'Afghanistan) , in vol .viii of the J. As. Soc. Ben.8. Austin's Map of Balti, etc. , in J. R. G. S. for 1864.9. Tracing of a map by Masson, from his Travels.10. Map of the Scene of the Umbeyla Campaign , from a ParliamentaryReport.11. Macartney's Map in Elphinstone's Caubul.12. Arrowsmith's Map to Burnes's Travels.13. Map in the Russians in Central Asia (by Stanford apparently) .14. Keith Johnstone's Map of India, extracted from his Royal Atlas.I have also derived from Leech's Reports on the Passes of the HinduKush, and still more from Wood's Journey, names and indications thatdo not appear in any of the maps named; a chief object having been tomake that part of the map which relates to the Hindu Kush and Badakhshan as complete as possible.I have not been able to see a translation of Veniukhof's paper on theBolor (referred to at p. 539 infra, excepting as regards some extracts fromthe journal of the anonymous German traveller, which have been kindlymade for me by Mr. Moukhine, the Consul General of Russia in Sicily.Sir H. Rawlinson appears, however, to have completely demolished theclaims of the German narrative to genuineness. We have seen suchstrange mystifications of a somewhat similar kind in our own day thatсехххії PRELIMINARY ESSAY.it would be rash perhaps to say that the journey, or a part of it, wasnever made, but till the matter be more thoroughly investigated , none ofhis statements can be built upon. Even if the German's MS. proveentirely worthless, the Chinese itinerary referred to by Veniukhof shouldbe of great value.How uncertain is still the basis of any map connecting the regions onthe different sides of the Bolor, Karakorum, and Thian Shan Rangesmay be judged from the following statement of the longitudes assignedin the maps before me to some of the chief points, to which are addedthe data for the same as given by the Chinese missionary surveyors, andthose of some of them deduced by Captain Montgomerie from the papers of his Múnshí Mahomed Hamid.Ilchi (Ko'an).Yarkand. Kashgar. Aksu. Issikul (W. End).Chinese Tables 80° 21' 76° 3' 73° 48' 78° 58' 78° 12'2Sirikul (W. End) .... Veniukhof ... 76° 10' 73° 58' ... 73° 38'Kiepert 79° 12′ 74° 56' 72° 53' 78° 20' 776330' 73° 5'Colonel Walker 79° 13' 76° 24' 73° 58' 79° 40' 73° 30'John Walker (Wood) ... ... 73° 33'Schlagintweit 78° 20' 73° 58' 71° 50′ 76° 27'Golobev74° 6'76° 17'71° 28'... ...MontgomerieGreatest Differences79° 0'2° 1'77° 30'3' 32'75° 20' ... ...3' 30' 3° 13' 4° 6' 2° 10'It will be seen that the geographers who deviate most widely fromall the rest are the Schlagintweits, who carry the whole of Turkestanfrom 2° to 3° further west than the Chinese tables. I have not seen anystatement of the grounds on which this great change is based. It iscertainly a bold one, for it throws over not merely the Chinese tablesentirely, but the positions assigned by the Russians, north of the ThianShan, and by the British travellers on the Oxus. Our last intelligenceaffords no corroboration of this revolutionary map- making . On the contrary, Captain Montgomerie's data carry the position of Yarkand one degree more to the east than any previous map.3 And it is not merely as regards calculations of longitude that the Schlagintweits reject the resultsof the British journeys on the Oxus. Captain Wood's latitude of Sirikul istreated with equal contempt; nor does that distinguished traveller seemto be considered competent even to take a compass bearing. For the1 After this had gone to press I received a copy of Sir H. Rawlinson's remarks on the German narrative, and as M. Khanikhof is stated toave taken up the defence, the question will doubtless be thoroughly hiscussed. A few memoranda that occur to me on the subject will be d und at the end of this note.fo 2 Only an approximate deduction from other data in the tables. Ike them as given in the Russians in Central Asia, p. 522-3.3 The map had been finished when I saw in the Times the account ofmy brother officer Captain Montgomerie's paper, read at the R. Geog.Society in May 1866. I have since re-cast the part affected by thatinformation, and I have to thank him for his kind readiness in answering questions which I sent him. But I have not seen Capt. Montgomerie's full paper, or his map.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccxxxiiiUpper Oxus, the river which he represents himself as having travelledalong for many days, and which his map shows as flowing from northeast by east to south-west by south, is made by Schlagintweit to flowfrom south by east to north by west . And the lake itself which Woodimagined that he saw lying east and west, is made by Schlagintweit tolie south-east and north-west.The chief difficulty found in adjusting the longitude of the cities ofChinese Turkestan, in accordance with Captain Montgomerie's approximate determination of Yarkand, arises from the impossibility of reconciling this with the difference between Ilchi and Yarkand in the JesuitTables. This amounts in those Tables to 4° 18'; whilst the collation ofMontgomerie's position of Yarkand with the Jesuit position of Ilchi reduces it to 2° 51 ', and with the position which the former's own datainduced him to assign to Ilchi it comes down to 1° 30'. It had indeedlong been pretty certain that the Jesuit position of Ilchi was too fareast; and a communication, for which I have had to thank CaptainMontgomerie since this went to press, reports later data obtained byColonel Walker (who will no doubt publish them in detail) as fixingIlchi approximatively to longitude 79° 25′ and latitude 37° 8'. Thislongitude I have adopted in my map, whilst in regard to Yarkand I havestretched Captain Montgomerie's data westward as far as their circ*mstances seemed to justify (perhaps further than he would admit) , assigning to it a longitude of 77°. This is still 36' further east than the assignment of any previous map, whilst it reduces the discrepancy fromthe Jesuit data in relation to Ilchi , though still leaving it inevitablylarge.Next to this general uncertainty about the longitudes the greatgeographical puzzle about this region appears to be the identity of themain source of the Oxus. In addition to Wood's River, which he tracedto the Sirikul Lake, most maps represent another, a longer and thereforeperhaps greater, feeder from a more northern source, under the name ofthe River of Bolor or Wakhsh. Nor has the narrative of Wood's journeythrough the district of Wakhán yet displaced from our maps anotherposition assigned to Wakhan or Vokhan upon this northern river.Wood unluckily never treats these questions at all. Finding Wakhanupon the Panja, just where Macartney's map led him to expect it, henotices no other place of the name, nor does he allude to any other greatbranch of the river. And it may well be doubted if there is in truthany other Wakhan than that which Wood passed through. The position1 Edrisi speaks of Wakhan as the region inhich the Jihun rises,lying towards Tibet. Abdulrazzak speaks of Mirza Ibrahim during acampaign in Badakhshan as advancing into Saqnán, Ghand (which Quatremère proposes to read Waghand or Wakhan), and Bamir, the exact order of Shagnán, Wakhán, and Pamir, as reported by Wood. Macart- ney's map, drawn up from information most carefully, many years beforeI'ccxxxiv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.assigned to the northern Vokhan of the maps is due I believe to an entryin the Chinese tables. But it seems to be very doubtful if the Jesuitobservers in person actually crossed the mountains. This NorthernWakhan, if not a mere displacement, I suspect to represent Wakhsh orthe Wakhshjird of the old Arab geographers.The existence of a place called Bolor stands on better evidence; atleast there is or has been a State so called, the chief inhabited place ofwhich would appropriate the name in the talk of foreigners, accordingto a well-known Asiatic practice, whether rightly or not. It appears tobe mentioned as a kingdom by Hiwen Thsang ( Pololo ); it is spoken ofby Polo as the name of a province; it appears as a geographical positionin the tables of Nasiruddin, and reappears in the Chinese tables of thelast century with exactly the same latitude. It is also mentioned in theTáríkh Rashidi of the sixteenth century;2 and its prince appears as atributary to China in the Chinese annals of some seventy years back.³But is there a great Wakhsh branch of the Oxus coming from thoseregions, and if so where does it join the Panja or river of the Sirikul?To the first question I would answer in the affirmative. The very nameWakhsh appears to be that from which the classical and Chinese namesof the combined stream (Oxus, and Potsu or Fatsu) are derived . It isalso spoken of both by Hiwen Thsang and by Edrisi, and by the latteris described as a very great river, though he evidently regards the Panjaof Wood as the chief source.Hiwen Thsang on the other hand appears to have regarded the Wakhshbranch as the main Potsu or Oxus. For after describing the Lake ofPamir, apparently the Sirikul of Wood, he says: " This lake dischargesto the westward; for a river issues from it which runs west to the easternfrontier of the kingdom of Tamositieti, and then joins the River Potsu;their waters flow westward and are discharged into the sea."4The following extracts show what Edrisi says on the subject:"The Jihun takes its rise in the country of WAKHAN" on the frontierWood's journey, gives Darwáz, Shagnán, Wakhan, exactly in Wood's order. Burnes, a few years before Wood, does the same. (Edrisi, i, 472;Not. et Extraits, xiv, 491.)1 Father Felix d'Arocha, President of the Mathematical Board atPeking, followed the Chinese armies in 1759 to Kashgar and Yarkand (Ritter, vii, 432) .2 " Malaur is a country with few level spots. It has a circuit of four months' march. The eastern frontier borders on Kashgar and Yarkand;it has Badakhshan to the north, Kabul to the west, and Kashmir to thesouth," etc. (Not. et Extraits, xiv, 492).3 See Pauthier's Po; p. 133.4 Vie de H. T., p . 272.5 Jaubert has Úján, or rather (as his transcription of the Arabic shows)Waján, an obvious misreading for Wakhan. I regret that I cannot show these corrections (without which it is useless to quote the French Edrisi) in Arabic letters, which would carry conviction of their fairness,SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . CCXXXVof BADAKHSHAN, and there it bears the name of Khari-ab. It receivesfive considerable tributaries which come from the countries of KHUTL2and WAKSH. Then it becomes a river surpassing all the rivers in theworld as regards volume, depth and breadth of channel .The Khariab receives the waters of a river called Akhsua or Mank, 3those of Than or Balian, of Farghan (or Faughán) , of Anjára (orAndijára') , of WAKHSHAB with a great number of affluents coming fromthe mountains of BOTм: ( it also receives) other rivers such as those ofSághanián, and Kawádián, which all join in the province of the lattername and discharge into the Jihun."TheWakhsh-ab takes its rise in the country ofthe Turks; after arrivingin the country of Wakhsh it loses itself under a high mountain, where itmay be crossed as over a bridge. The length of its subterranean courseis not known; finally, however, it issues from the mountain, runs alongthe frontier of the country of Balkh and reaches Tarmedh. The bridgeof which we have spoken serves as a boundary between Khutl andWakhshjird."The river having passed to Tarmedh flows on to Kilif, to Zam, toAmol, and finally discharges its waters into the Lake of Khwarizm ( theAral)."Badakhshan is built on the west bank of the Khariab, the most considerable of the rivers that fall into the Jihun." They bring to Badakhshan the musk of the regions of Tibet adjoining Wakhan. Badakhshanhas on its frontier Kanauj, a dependency of India."The two provinces which you reach first beyond the Jihun are Khutland Wakhsh. Although distinct and separate provinces they are under thesame government. They lie between the Khariab and the Wakhshab, thefirst of which rivers bathes the eastern part of Khutl, and the other thecountry of Wakhsh, of which we have spoken. . . . Khutl is a provincebut at my distance from the press it gives too much trouble to the printer.1 This Khari is perhaps the Icarus of which Pliny speaks, on the authority of Varro (vi, 19).Jaubert throughout has Jil, a name that seems totally unknown hereabouts (Jil is another name for Gilan) . There can be little doubt that it is misread for Khutl (sometimes called Khutlán) a province frequently mentioned as lying north of the Oxus towards Karategin. It is probably the Kotulo of Hiwen Thsang.3 Mank is afterwards described as a dependence of Jil ( Khutl).4 Afterwards apparently written Tha'lán (beginning with the fourth Arabic letter) , and I believe a misreading for Baghlán.Apparently the Kafirnihan of the maps.6 Perhaps the Tupalak of the maps.7 This does not answer to the position of Fyzabad, the capital of Badakhshan, abandoned in Wood's time, but reoccupied by Mír Shah,the present chief.8 Kanauj is absurd. I suspect it should be read Mastauj.r 2ccxxxvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.everywhere very mountainous except near Wakhsh and the country ofAkjar which borders on Mank, a dependency of Khutl. ”¹Further on, in giving a route from Sághánián ( Cheghánián) toWasjird (Wakhshjird) he mentions that the road comes upon theWakhshab between nine miles, and thirty miles from the former place,and that the river has here a breadth of three miles. . . . "From Wakhshjird to the place where the Wakhshab loses itself under a mountainis one short day...."On the borders of Wakhsh and Khut are Wakhán and Saknia, dependencies of the Turks' country. From Wakhán to Tibet is eighteendays. Wakhán possesses very rich silver mines, producing ore of excellent quality. Gold is found in the valleys when the torrents have beenin flood. . . . Musk and slaves are also exported . Saknia is a town independence on the Khizilji Turks. It is five days from Wakhán, and itsterritories border on the possessions of China. " 3In spite of the obscurities of these passages we can gather that thefeeder of the Oxus which Edrisi's authorities regarded as the main onecame from Wakhán, a country lying in the direction of Tibet, but thatit received somewhere before reaching Tarmedh another great branchcalled the Wakhshab, so great as to be reported in one part of its courseto have a channel three miles wide, and which rose in the Turk's country,i.e. at least as far off as the main chain of the Bolor; also that betweenthose two great branches lay the provinces of Wakhsh and Khutl.But where do these two streams join? Wood, the most competent tohave settled the question, in his book, as we have seen, takes no notice of the Wakhshab at all. Nor is there any distinct trace of it inMacartney's map, though a tributary of the Oxus which he representsunder the name of the Surkháb or R. of Karategín, entering the mainstream a short distance above its confluence with the Kokcha has bylater geographers (e.g. by the author of the map to Russians in CentralAsia) been expanded into identity with the great Bolor- Wakhsh branch.But as Wood in his journey from Kila'h- Chap to Jan- Kila'h and Sayadtwice passed the mouth of this Surkhab, so good an observer wouldscarcely have omitted to notice the confluence of a rival Oxus.The gallant seaman is still more slightingly treated by Kiepert in his map of Asia. That geographer denies entirely the identity of the river which Wood ascended for thirty miles (as has just been mentioned) fromthe Kokcha confluence at Kila'h Chap to Sayad, with that river whichMank is perhaps the Mungkien (or Munkan) of Hiwen Thsang (see Vie de H. T., pp. 269, 422) .2 Wood mentions a torrent in Wakhan called Zerzumen, probably Zar- Zamin, " Gold-ground." He also says all the tributaries of the Oxus are fertile in gold (p. 382) .3 This Saknia does not seem to be Shagnán of Wood, which is belowWakhan. It appears to correspond to the Shikini of Hiwen Thsang.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccxxxviithe same traveller had previously tracked from near the Ruby- Mines upto the Sirikul. The former river is conjured by Kiepert from the eastto the west of the town of Sayad, and identified by him with the BolorWakhsh River: the latter, under a new name, Duwán, due to the anonymous German, occupies quite a subordinate position , and is introducedinto the Kokcha about half-way between Fyzabád and Kila'h- Chap; aclandestine union surely! at a spot within a few miles of which Woodpassed twice without being aware of it, and within five and twenty miles of which he lived for several weeks. Veniukhof's treatment of this admirable traveller is equally violent, and we have already seen how hefares at the hands of the Schlagintweits. Surely this is geography runmad.Perhaps Wood's own map suggests the real point of union, thoughwithout recognising its importance. In J. Walker's map of Wood'ssurveys we find the Wagish River indicated as entering the Oxus sometwelve or thirteen miles to the west of Hazrat Imám, at a point of theriver's course yet visited by no modern traveller. In my map I haveassumed this to be the real Wakhshab, a hypothesis which has at least theadvantage of not flying in the face of an honest and able traveller.Another vexed question embraced in this field is the course of themain feeder of the Yarkand river. According to Moorcroft's information, probably derived from Izzetoollah ' ( see J.R.G.S., vol. i , p. 245) ,this rises in the north face of the Karakorum Pass, and flows in anortherly (north-westerly) direction to a point where it receives drainagefrom the (Eastern) Sarikul, and the Bolor Mountains, and then turnseast (north-east) towards Yarkand. But, according to the best interpretation , I can put upon the Chinese Hydrography translated by Julien(N. Ann. des Voyages, 1846, iii, 23, seqq . ) , the river rising in Karakorum,which I take to be that there termed Tingdsapuho, only joins the streamfrom Karchu and Sarikul below Yarkand. In the map I have hypothetically adopted the latter view, but with no great confidence. I may addthat both the authorities just cited illustrate the name given by Goës tothe mountain between Sarikul and Yanghi- Hisar ( Chechalith, no doubtmisread for Chechalich) , ' the Chinese terming it Tsitsikling, and Moorcroft Chechuklik or " Place of Flowers".Before concluding, I venture to contribute two or three remarks in aidof the discussion regarding the anonymous German Traveller.Abdul Medjid, the British messenger in 1860, made nineteen longmarches from Fyzabad to the Karakul . The German is only elevendays, less some days' halt, say only eight days, from Karakul to Badakhshan (Fyzabad).The German represents the city just named as on the south side of1 See p. 563, infra.ccxxxviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.the river on which it stands. We know from Wood that it is on thenorth side.But on the other hand the German narrative, whether fictitious or no,contains indications of special sources of knowledge. For example, thename Chakheraller, which it applies to a mountain north of the Karakul,will be found in the Chinese Hydrography recently quoted, applied inthe same way. The German speaks of the Duvan, by which the mainOxus of Wood seems meant, as crossed by a bridge to the north ofBadakhshan. Wood tells us ( p . 398) that it is bridged in that quarter.And the German speaks of the river of Vokhan passing underground ata spot on the frontier of the district of Vokhan, a remarkable coincidence with the statement of Edrisi quoted at p. ccxxxv.I would suggest to any one trying to settle the question about thisnarrative a careful comparison of its indications with the map whichKlaproth published of Central Asia. To that I have no access.NOTE XXI.TITLES OF SOME BOOKS QUOTED IN THIS WORK BYABBREVIATED REFERENCES.ABULPHARAGIUS, Historia Compend. Dynastiarum, etc., ab Ed.Poco*ckio. Oxon, 1663.ACAD. means Mém. de l'Acad des Inscriptions.ASSEMANI, Bibliotheca Orientalis. When no volume is specified thereference is to vol . iii , part ii , containing the account of the NestorianChurch.ASTLEY. A new general collection of Voyages and Travels, etc.Printed for Thomas Astley . London, 4 vols. , 1745-47.BABER, Memoirs of the Emperor; by Leyden and Erskine. 1826.BALDELLI BONI, Il Milione di M. Polo. Firenze, 1827.BARBOSA (Lisbon ed . ) Livro de Duarte Barbosa in Colleccão de Noticias, etc., publicada pela Acad. Real das Sciencias Tomo II. Lisboa,1812.BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, see Early Travellers in Palestine.BROWN'S VULGAR ERRORS. Bohn's Edition.CHINE (ANCIENNE), Description Historique, etc. , etc., par M. G.Pauthier. Paris, 1837 (L'Univers Pittoresque).( MODERNE) , par Pauthier et Bazin. Ditto, ditto, 1853.CRAWFURD; Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and adjacentcountries. London, 1856.Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language. London,1852.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. сехххіхD'AVEZAC. Notice sur les Anciens Voyages de Tartarie en général, etsur celui de Jean du Plan de Carpin en particulier. (In vol . iv ofRecueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, publié par la Soc. de Géographie.Paris, 1839).DAVIS. The Chinese, new ed. in 3 vols. , and a supply. volume, C.Knight. 1844.DEGUIGNES. Histoire des Huns.DELLA DECIMA, see p. 280.D'OHSSON, Hist. des Mongols. par Baron C.; La Haye et Amsterdam,1834.EARLY TRAVELLERS IN PALESTINE, edited by T. Wright. Bohn'sAntiq. Library.EDRISI, La Geographie de, traduite, etc., par P. Amedée Jaubert.Paris, 1836-1840.ELLIOT, Sir H. M. Biographical Index to the Historians ofMuhamedan India, vol . i . Calcutta, 1849.GILDEMEISTER; Scriptorum Arabum de Rebus Indicis Loci etOpuscula Inedita. Bonn, 1838.JARRIC. See p. 530.J.A.S.B. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.J.R.A.S. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.J.R.G.S. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.JOHNSON, Francis; Dict. Persian , Arabic, and English. 1852.JOUR. ASIAT. Journal Asiatique.KLAPROTH. Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie. Paris, 1824-25.Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, etc. Paris , 1826.KUNSTMANN, Prof. Friedrich ( see p. 39) .LAPRIMAUDAIE, F. Elie de. Etudes sur le Commerce au Moyen Age.Paris, 1848.LASSEN, Indische Alterthumskunde. 1847-1862.LINSCHOTEN. Hist . de la Navigation de Jean Hugues de Linschot,Hollandois. 3ième ed. Amsterdam, 1638. Sometimes the Latinedition, Haga Com. 1599.LUDOLF. Historia Ethiopica, Francof. A.M., 1681. Commentarius,etc. , 1691 , and Suppt. , 1693.MANDEVILLE'S Travels, see Early Travellers in Palestine.MARTINI. Martinii Atlas Sinensis. In Blaeu's Atlas, vol . x, and inThévenot's Collection.MAS'UDI; Maçoudi, Les Prairies d'Or, Par C. Barbier de Meynard etPavet de Courteille. Paris, 1861 seqq.MOOR's Notices of the Indian Archipelago. Singapore, 1837.MOSHEIM. Historia Tartarorum Ecclesiastica. Helmstadi, 1741. Thebook is not by Mosheim, as the preface informs you; but written under his instructions.ccxl PRELIMINARY ESSAY.PAOLINO, Fra di S. Bartolomeo, etc., Viaggio alle Indie Orientali.Roma, 1796.PEREGRINATORES MEDII EVI QUATUOR (Burchardus de Monte Sion,Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, [ Pseudo] Odoricus de Foro Julii, Wilbrandusde Oldenborg) . Recensuit J. C. M. Laurent, Lipsiæ, 1864.PIGAFETTA. Il Primo Viaggio intorno del Mondo. Milan, 1800.PLANO CARPINI . In tom. iv of the Recueil de Voyages, etc. (seeD'Avezac) .POLO, MARCO. When quoted simply, the reference is to the fourthedition of that by Hugh Murray.PAUTHIER's.Pauthier, Paris, 1865.Le Livre de Marco Polo, Par M. G.BÜRCK's. Leipzig, 1845.See BALDELLI.PAUTHIER; L'Inscription Syro- Chinoise de Si-ngan-fou , etc. Paris,1858.De L'Authenticité de l'Inscription Nestorienne de Singan-fou, etc. Paris , 1857.Histoire des Relations Politiques de la Chine avec lesPuissances Occidentales. Paris, 1859.See Polo and Chine.QUATREMERE'S RASHID, see Rashid.QUÉTIF and ECHARD, Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum. Paris, 1719.RASHID. Histoire des Mongols de la Perse, par Raschid-el- din ,traduite, etc., par M. Quatremère. Paris, 1836.REINAUD; Relations des Voyages faits par les Arabes dans l'Inde et àla Chine, etc. Paris, 1845.Relations Politiques et commerciales de l'Empire Romainavec l'Asie Orientale, etc. Paris, 1863.RELATIONS, etc. , see Reinaud.REMUSAT, Abel-, Melanges Asiatiques, Paris, 1825; and NouveauxMelanges Asiatiques, Paris, 1829.RITTER. Erdkunde.RITTER'S LECTURES. Gesch. der Erdkunde und der Entdeckungen.... herausgegeben von H. A. Daniel. Berlin , 1861 .RUBRUQUIS. In tom. iv of the Recueil de Voyages, etc. (seeD'Avezac) .ST. MARTIN, Mémoires Historiques et Geographiques sur l'Armenie,etc. Paris, 1818-19.ST. MARTIN ON LEBEAU. Hist. du Bas Empire ( with notes andcorrections by St. Martin) . Paris, 1828.SC HILTBERGER. Reisen des Johannes--aus München; Von K. F.Neumann. München, 1859.SCHMIDT , I. J.; Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen, etc., verfasst VonSsanang Sstzen Chungtaidschi. St. Petersburg, 1829.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . ccxliSEMEDO, P. Alvaro, Relazione della Cina. Roma, 1643.SSANANG SSETZEN, see Schmidt.TIMKOWSKI. Travels of the Russian Mission through Mongolia toChina, etc. London, 1827.TURNOUR; Epitome of the History of Ceylon, etc. , and the first twentychapters of the Mahawanso. Ceylon, Cotta Ch . Mis. Press.VINCENZO MARIA. Viaggio all' Indie Orientali del P. F— di S.Caterina da Siena, etc. Roma. 1672.WADDING. Annales Minorum, etc. (History of the Franciscan Order) ,see p. 37.NOTE XXII.CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS.P. xxxvii, last line; Tzinista, a name which no one has questioned toindicate China. This is a mistake; for Baron Walckenaer maintainsTzinista to be Tenasserim ( see N. Ann. des Voyages, vol . 53, 1832, p. 5) .P. xlviii, a little below middle; Patricius. This appears from Assemani to be the translated name of Mar- Aba, Patriarch of the NestorianChurch, from 536 to 552 ( see ii , 412; iii , 75-76; iii , pt. ii, 406) . Thesame author says that Cosmas, in his expositions of Scripture and hissystem of the World, closely follows two chief Nestorian Doctors, Theodorus of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of Tarsus (405).P. 1, and Note 3; Taissan. What renders the change of Thiantsé orsome similar term into Taissan more probable than it seems at firstsight, is the fact that Ssanang Ssetzen calls the title by which theChinese Emperor, Yngtsong, ascended the throne for the second time(A.D. 1457) Taissun, the real title being Thianshun, " Favoured byHeaven" (see Schmidt, p. 293, and Chine Ancienne, p. 405).P. lvi; Antu. With reference to this name, apparently indicatingAntioch, it is curious to read in Mas'udi that, at the time of the Musulman conquest there remained of the original name of the city only theletters Alif, Nun, and Tá (Ant or Anta, see Prairies d'Or, iii, 409) .P. lxxviii . The facts stated in Sir H. Rawlinson's paper in vol.xxvii of the J.R.G.S., p. 185, seem to throw very great doubt upon theallegation that Hira could have been a haven for eastern trade at thetime indicated, if ever it was so.P. lxxxiii, and Note 2; City of Siurhia; see also p. cxxv, Note 1 .Some clue to the origin of this name may perhaps lie in the circ*mstance that the Mongol Ssanang Ssetzen appears to give Daitu or Peking,as the capital of the Great Khan, the appellation of SIRO-Khaghan.The meaning of the title is not explained by Schmidt (see his work,p. 127) .ccxlii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.P. ci, Note, near bottom; Sornau. Mr. Badger, in his notes on Varthema (p. 213) , is not inclined to accept Mendez Pinto's authority,which he supposes to stand alone, for calling Siam Sornau. But I haverecently found that the name Sarnau is used several times by Varthema's contemporary, Giovanni d'Empoli, in a connexion that points toSiam. In one passage he speaks of Pedir in Sumatra as being frequented by " Junks, which are the ships of Bengala, Pecu ( Pegu) , Martamam (Martaban) , SARNAU, and Tanazzar” ( Tanasserim) . In anotherpassage he couples it again with Tenasserim as a place which suppliedthe finest white Benzoin, Lac, etc. The Italian editor interprets thename as Sirian, but for this I see no ground (see Letters of D'Empoliin Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendice, tom. iii, pp. 54, 80; Firenze,1845).P. cxxxi, § 103; Siege of Siangyangfu. As I learn from Pauthier(M. Polo, pp. xiii, and 472 seqq . ) , it is a mistake to suppose that Marcowas at this siege, which occurred before his arrival in China; and thoughmost editions represent him as present, two of the best MSS. do not.There are difficulties about the presence of even the two elder Poli, butthere is no call to discuss them here. For Hukong in this passage readHupé.P. clxxx; These people have a great fondness for the emerald stone, etc.So Mas'udi says one species of emerald from the country of the Bejah(Blemmyes? ) was called Bahri, because so much prized by the Kings ofTransmarine countries, such as Hind, Sind, Zinj, and Sín, who soughtit diligently "to set in their diadems” , etc. ( Prairies d'Or, iii , 44) .P. 27, near bottom; Odorici comes. This phrase is from the book DeOrbis Situ, quoted at p. cxli, supra.P. 32, second paragraph. The Munich MS. , No. 903, is of the editionof Henry of Glatz (see p. 21 ) . It was written in 1422, brought fromIreland to Bavaria in 1529, and has been printed in vol. iii of the StoriaUniv. delle Missioni Francescane, by P. da Civezza, alluded to at p. 39.These particulars I learn from the pamphlet noticed in the next note but one.P. 33. The two following notes of MSS. of Odoric were accidentallyomitted. I do not know in what language the second is , nor do I remember where I found the first, which I give as it is in my note- book.29. " IMPERIAL LIBRARY at Vienna. Parchment MS. , Memorabiliaquæ vidit Fr. Odoricus de Foro Julii Ord. Frat. Min. Scripta per Fr.Gul. de Solagna (Archiv, der Gesellschaft, etc. iii , 618, 639) . "30. " CITY LIBRARY , Nuremburg. There is a volume in this librarycontaining Polo, St. Brandan, Mandeville, Odoric of Friuli, and JohnSchildberger (Catal. Bibl. Solg. , i, No. 34, quoted in Mürr, Hist. Diplom.de Martin Behaim, p. 9). ”P. 39. Add to the Bibliography of Odoric:-26. " L'Itinerario del B. Odorico Mattiussi, Discorso con Appendici,"SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccxliiipublished in " Stato del Ginnasio Arcivescovile di Udine alla fine dell'Anno Scolastico, 1865. Udine Tip. Jacob e Colmenga" .For this pamphlet I am indebted to the kind attention of Dr. Vincenzo Joppi of Udine. It is a prize essay by a student of the seminary,and is a creditable performance, taking, however, the high clerical viewof Odorico's saintship, and maintaining the notion that the Travels havebeen largely interpolated, which is a mistaken one.P. 55, Note 3; India Infra Terram. Mas'udi mentions that at thetime of the Mahomedan conquest the country about Basrah was calledArz- ul- Hind, " The Land of India" ( Prairies d'Or, iv, 225) .P. 72, Note; Malé of Cosmas, etc. This is wrong.mas is a region ( Malabar) , not a sea -port.The Malé of CosP. 82, Note 2; Tank into which offerings were cast. Odoric's story iscorroborated by the Masúlak- al- Absár, which says that among the townsin the south of India conquered by Mahomed Tughlak ( a few yearsafter Odoric's visit) was one standing by a lake in the middle of whichwas an idol-temple which enjoyed a great reputation in that country,and into which the people used continually to cast their offerings. Afterthe capture of the city the Sultan caused the lake to be drained and thewealth which he found accumulated in it sufficed to load two hundredelephants and several thousand oxen (Not. et Extraits, xiii, 220-221) .P. 84, Note 2; Lambri. The reference to Debarros should have beencited from Murray's Polo (pt. iii , ch. 14) . And a circ*mstance notedthere which I had overlooked shows that Lambri lay south of Daya, andnot between Daya and Achin.P. 92, Note 2. A modern authority states that the islands from Javato Timor " are separated from one another by narrow channels of unfathomable depth, through which the current from the Pacific, causedby the prevalence of easterly winds, rushes with great force" ( WindsorEarle in J.R.G.S., xv, 359).P. 105, Note 3. It is wrong to say that Ibn Batuta speaks of Khánfú.He speaks of Khansá, of which Khanfu was probably the port, thoughthe names were interchanged by the Arabs.P. 107, Note 1. The Chinese goose. A zoological friend , Mr. HenryGiglioli, attached to the Italian Expedition of circumnavigation, writesto me from Singapore ( May 18th, 1866) , that among a flock of " knobbed"geese in the Chinese quarter there he had seen one " with a welldeveloped membrane hanging under its beak". So that Odoric's accountcan be justified.P. 109, Note 1 , and p. 110; The barrel of horn. Hiwen Thsang describes a horn of some three feet in height as worn by the marriedwomen of Himatala, apparently a district of Upper Badakhshan ( Vie de H. T., P. 269).P. 154, Note; Melistorte or Millescorte. The occurrence of the nameccxliv PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Malascorti (for Malasjird) in the Catalan Map, suggests that the titlegiven to the Assassins' country may have been in some way confounded with that name.P. 156, Note 2; Musical Sounds from Sand in Motion. To the examples of this noted here and at p. 398, I may add at least two more,making six in all. One is communicated by my friend Mr. C. R. Markham, who says: -"The musical sounds caused by moving sand, which astonished Odoric, are heard also in the deserts of the west coast of Peru.Mrs. Markham and I heard them when we halted amidst the medanosor hills of light sand in the Arequipa Desert. " Another case was discovered by the late Hugh Miller in the Island of Eigg (see Cruise ofthe Betsy, quoted in Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1858, p. 405) . See alsoMr. Bollaert's notice of the Bramador or Rumbling Mountain of Tarapaca, which appears to be an instance distinct from Mr. Markham's(J.R.G.S., xxi, 104) .P. 179, Note; Metropolitan Sees of the Nestorian Church. The lists,as given by the original authors in Assemani's second volume (pp.458-9) differ somewhat from these. I take the opportunity of presentingthem here with some more precise geographical explanations.The earlier list as given by Elias Metropolitan of Damascus (A.D.893) , is as follows: -1. Province of the Patriarch (resident at Baghdad); 2. Jandisapúr;3. Nisibis; 4. Mosul; 5. Bethgarma; 6. Damascus; 7. Rai; 8. Herat;9. Armenia; 10. Kand (supposed Samarkand); 11. Fars; 12. Barda'a;13. Halwán.The later list as given by Amru, who wrote about 1349, runs thus --:-1. JANDISABUR [ or Jandishápúr, a city of Khuzistan built by Sapor I;identified by Rawlinson with the traces of a great city at Sháhábád between Dizfúl and Shuster (J.R.G.S., ix, 72) ] .2. NISIBIN [ Nisibis ].3. BASRAH.4. MOSUL and ATHUR [or Nineveh] .5. ARBIL and HAZAH [ Chazene and part of Adiabene; see p. 53] .6. Bajarma, i.e. , Beth- Garma [ in the region of Ptolemy's Garamæi,north of Baghdad. The see is also called Karkha and Beth- Seleucia;and Assemani identifies it with " the ancient Seleucia Elymaidis adjoining the river Hedyphon or Hedypnus"; but here he goes strangelyastray, some four hundred miles indeed. Rawlinson points out the truesite as that called now Eski Baghdad, a little east of the Tigris, and below Dúr (J.R.G.S. , x, 93-94) . It was apparently the Charcha mentionedby Ammianus Marcellinus in the retreat of Jovian after Julian's death(Ritter, x, 157; Am. Marc. , xxv, 6). ]7. HALWAN [ called also, according to Assem. , Halacha, and believedto be the Calah of Gen. x, 11 , and the Hulah of the Captivity; eightBaghdad P Marw Rai Tús Jandishapur Balkh Basra HarahFars SejistanKotrobah°70HindColumbianKashimghar &•Nauakath?SZebyton20°110 Edwa Weller Rd Lion Square .

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccxlvmiles south of the modern Zoháb in the Province of Kirmanshah (seeRawlinson, as above, ix, 35) . It was a hot- weather residence of theKhalifs].8. FARS.9. MARW.10. HARAH [ Herat] .11. KOTROBAH. [ According to Edrisi this was an island inhabited byChristians, which by his description must have been near Socotra. Asthere is no island suiting the description but Socotra itself, and as Polospecifies that the latter island had an archbishop, there can be littledoubt that Kotrobah is another name for Socotra] .12. Sín [ i.e. , China. The see was probably at Singanfu].13. HIND [ i.e., India] .14. BARDA'A. [ This city was the metropolis of the Province of ArRán on the Kur. It is often mentioned in the History of Timur.Arrowsmith's Map to Burnes marks it on the R. Terter a considerabledistance to the south-east of the modern Elisabetpol. See also J.R.G.S. ,vol. iii, p. 31 ].15. DAMASHK [ Damascus] .16. RAI and TABARISTAN [ country E. of Tehran] .17. DAILAM [ S.W. of the Caspian, the hill country above Gilán. ]18. SAMARKAND.19. TARK [ Turkish Tribes beyond Samarkand probably] .20. HALAHA [as we have already had Halwán , considered to be thesame with Halaha , Assem. proposes to read Balkh] .21. SEJISTAN.The remaining names are entered in the margin of the MS. , viz.:—22. JERUSALEM. [This became a metropol. see in 1200. ]23. KHANBALIK and AL FALIK [qu. Almálik?]24. TANGAT.25. KASHIMGHAR and NAUAKATH. [ The former name is probablyintended for Kashghar, as Assemani in one place interprets it, thoughin the list at p. 179 he has given it in addition to Kashghar. Nauakathis found as the name of a place in Turkestan in Edrisi (ii , 217) . Hereit may possibly represent Yanghi-Hisar near Kashgar, or Yanghikandnear Talas, the names of which are of like meaning. The provinces 24and 25 were probably subdivisions of the former province of Tark. ]P. 185; Ilchikdai and Tarmashirin Khan. There is a Khan (dateless) between these two in D'Ohsson's list; probably of very brief reign .This, however, rather strengthens the argument.P. 191; near bottom. The date 1232 for Burchard's visit to Palestinewas taken from the Biographie Universelle. But the editor of Peregrinatores Quatuor, etc., shows that the journey occurred about 1283.P. 205; end of note. The Syriac part of the inscription of Singanfuccxlvi PRELIMINARY ESSAY.(supra, p. xciii) is in vertical lines. (See Pauthier's work L'InscriptionSyro-Chinoise, etc. )P. 206; 4th para. of Note. The passage from Theophylactus alludedto has been omitted in the Introductory Essay; and indeed the relationbetween his Ogor and the Uigurs of Eastern Turkestan seems doubtful.P. 241. Trutius or Trucins. The last is perhaps after all a correctreading. For Mendoza says the Generals of the Chinese orders of Monkswere called in their language Tricon. I cannot find an elucidation ofthis word unless it be a corruption of Ta-hoshang, which is given as anappellation of the Superiors of the Bonzes (Mendoza, HAK. Soc. , i , 56;Astley, iv, 209) .P. 263; Taifu. This is a genuine Chinese title; see Chine Ancienne,pp. 149 , 150, 151 , where it is translated " grands fonctionnaires ” and"grands dignitaires."P. 268; Note 2; Namking. The note is right in its main purport,but not in the reference to M. Polo's Nanghin, which Pauthier showsto be Ngan-king on the left bank of the Kiang, capital of the existingprovince of Nganhoei.P. 286, Note 2; Raba. This word must be the Arabic Rahbah" Amplum spatium loci; Area ampla” (Freytag) . It is used by IbnJubair in his description of Palermo for " an esplanade " (Jour. Asiat. ,Jan. 1846, p. 222) .P. 344; The Pillars of Alexander. In the Pseudo-Callisthenes, editedby Müller, we are told that Alexander got to Serice where the Seresproduce silk, and there erected a stone pillar and wrote upon it:Alexander, King of the Macedonians, got as far as this spot (p. 102) .P. 370-371; The Sons of Cain. Mas'udi says there was a race ofIndians descended from Cain in the country of Kumár where the aloeswood came from ( Prairies d'Or, i, 72) .P. 372. There seems to be no doubt that the White Sea of Fra Mauro,and probably, therefore, that of Marignolli, is an exaggeration of theRussian Lake called BIELO OSERO, which does mean White Lake, andout of which flows the R. Szesna, an important feeder of the Wolga.P. 389; The Dead Sea seen from Mt. Zion. This is remarked alsoby Mas'údí.P.399; Last para. of Note 2. In the MS. followed by Pauthier, Marcomakes no such mistake as is here referred to. See Pauthier's edition.p. 703.P. 416, Note 3; Kakam. It is quite possible that this word is only acorruption of the old Italian Cocca, a kind of ship. There has alwaysbeen great interchange of words connected with navigation.P. 433, Note 2; Hannibal's Chemistry. Another parallel is found inthe Singhalese tradition of the destruction of the great Dam at Padivilby fire and sour milk ( see Tennent's Ceylon , ii, 504) .SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccxlviiP. 434, Note. The uncompleted Minaret is 82 feet in diameter. Itwas begun by ' Alá-ud-dín, the penultimate predecessor of Mubárik Shah.(For this note, as for much other assistance, I have to thank my friendCol. R. Maclagan, R.E.)P. 438, Note. I now have a copy of Lee's Ibn Batuta, and I find thatthe circ*mstance here alluded to as resting in my memory of that versionarose only out of a difference of translation and reading. Compare thestory of the man taught by the Jogis in Lee, p. 159 with the same inDefremery, iv, p. 35.P. 439-443; Note A, On the Indian coins mentioned by Ibn Batuta.Shortly after this note had been printed I saw from the Athenæum(February 3d, 1866 ) that Mr. Edward Thomas, the eminent Indiannumismatologist, had been treating of the Bengal coinage of this period.before the Royal Asiatic Society, and on my application to him forcertain information, he was kind enough to send me a copy of apamphlet containing his paper (" The Initial Coinage of Bengal) aswell as of some former papers of his on the coinage of the PatanSovereigns of Hindustan.It appears to me that these papers fairly confirm from numismatichistory the conclusions arrived at in Note A from the passages in IbnBatuta and the Masálak- al- Absár.The chief points, as far as that note is concerned , to be gathered fromMr. Thomas's researches are these:(1.) That the capital coins of Delhi, from the time of Altamsh (A.D.1211-1236) to the accession of Mahomed Tughlak ( A.D. 1325 ) were agold and silver piece of equal weight, approximating to a standard of175 grains Troy' (properly 100 Ratis).These coins appear to have been officially termed respectively Sikkahand Fizzat; but both seem eventually to have had the popular name of Tankah.The word Sikkah just mentioned, involves a curious history.Originally it appears to mean a die; then it applies to the coin struck,as here. In this application (in the form of Sicca Rupees) , it still has aghostly existence at the India office. Going off in another direction at an early date, the word gave a name to the Zecca, or Cecca, or Mint, of the Italian Republics; thence to the Zecchino or Cecchino which issued therefrom. And in this shape the word travelled back to the East, where the term Chickeen or Chick survived to our own day as a comprehensiveAnglo-Indian expression for the sum of Four Rupees.We see how much the commerce and marine of Italy must have owed to Saracen example in the fact that so many of the cardinal institutions of these departments of affairs drew names from Arabic originals; e.g.—The Mint (Zecca, as above) , the Arsenal (Darsena) , the Custom- House (Dovana, Dogana), the Factory (Fondaco, see p. 355), the Warehouse Magazzino from Makhzan) , the Admiral (from Amir) , the Broker ( Sensale from Simsar), the Caulker (Calafato from Kilafat) , to say nothing of the Cantaro and the Rotolo. It has been doubted whether Darsena is ofArabic origin. I see, however, that Mas'udi uses Dúr Sina'at ( House of Craftsman's work) in speaking of the Greek Arsenal at Rhodes (Prairiesd'Or, ii, 423; iii , 67) . And at p. 284 infra, a note speaks hesitatingly aboutccxlviii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.(2.) That Mahomed Tughlak in the first year of his reign remodelledthe currency, issuing gold pieces under the official name of dínár,weighing two hundred grains, and silver pieces under the name of ' adalí,weighing one hundred and forty grains.(3.) That the coinage of silver at least was gradually and increasinglydebased till A.D. 1339, when Mahomed developed his notable scheme ofa forced currency consisting entirely of copper tokens (alluded to at p.291 infra) . This threw everything into confusion, and it was not tillsix years later that any sustained issues of ordinary coin recommenced.¹(4. ) From this time the old standard ( 175 grains) of Mahomed's predecessors was readopted for gold, and was preserved to the time of SherShah. It does not appear that the old standard was resumed for silver.For though Mr. Thomas alludes to one example of a coin of a.í. 734(A.D. 1334, and therefore previous to the resumption of a systematiccoinage) as containing 168 grains of pure silver, his examples show inthe reign of Mahomed's successor Firuz Shah the gold coin of 175 grainstandard running parallel with continued issues of the silver (or professedly silver) coin of 140 grains.(5.) During this time in Bengal the local coinage of silver retained anapproximation at least to the old standard of 175 grains, though fromabout 1336 this seems to descend to a standard of 166. But one goldcoin of Bengal of this period is quoted in the papers. It is a piece ofinferior execution weighing 158 grs.(6.) The old standard silver tankah of 175 grains represented 64 of acoin or value called kani, or gani.In applying these facts to the interpretation of Ibn Batuta I conceivethat the coin which he calls Tangah was the 175 grain gold piece, andnot the new dinar of 200 grains; and that what he calls dinar was theold 175 grain silver piece, and not the new ' adali of 140 grains, i.e. itwas the coin of which the modern rupee is the legitimate representativeand nearly the exact equivalent .the derivation of dogana from Diwán. But in Amari's Diplomi Arabi the word Diwán frequently occurs as the equivalent of Dogana (op. cit., pp.76, 88, 90, 91) .It is said (July 1866) that the Italian Government is about to issuecopper tokens to represent the different silver coins current in the king- dom (Absit omen!)2 I considered that the passages referred to in Note A showed suffi- ciently the sense in which Ibn Batuta uses the terms tangah and dinar,and also that the tangah was equal to ten dinars. But as there seemssome doubt about this I will here quote all the passages in which the terms are used so as to be of any value.(I.) Tangah always means with Ibn Batuta a gold coin. Sometimes he calls it a gold dinar.1. Locality, Dehli. "The weight of the tangah in dinars of maghrib is two dinars and a half" (i, 293) .2. Locality, Sind. " The lak is 100,000 dinars, and this is equal toSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. cexlixThis, as regards the silver coin, seems tolerably clear from a comparisonof Ibn Batuta's statement (as rendered by Defrémery) that " a silverdinar (in Bengal) was worth eight dirhems, and their dirhem was exactlyequivalent to the dirhem of silver, " with the statement of the Masálakal- Absár that "the silver tangah of India was equivalent to eight of thedirhems called Hashtkání (eight-káni), these hashtkani dirhems beingof the same weight with the dirhems of Egypt and Syria. " For it wasthe 175 grain piece that represented 64 kánis (and was therefore equivalent to 8 hashtkanis) and not the 140 grain piece."10,000 dinars in gold of India, and the dinar of India is equal to 2!dinars of gold of Maghrib" (iii, 106) .3. Locality, Dehli. " 1000 tangahs. 2500 dinars of Maghrib" (iii, 187) .4. Locality, Dehli. "2000 tangahs of gold" (iii, 264) .5. Locality, Dehli . Ibn Batuta receives 6233tangahs as the equivalent of67,000 6700 dinars (iii, 426) .6. Locality, Dehli. The tangah = 24 dinars of Maghrib (Ibid.)- 7. Locality, Bengal. The dinar of gold = 24 dinars of Maghrib (iv, 212) .(II.) Dinár, though sometimes applied by Ibn Batuta to an Indian gold coin,as we have just seen, is the only name he uses for the standard Indian silver coin. Sometimes the term used is Dinár Diráham, which Defrémery in some instances renders " Dinars of Silver" , and in others 66 Dinars inDirhems". Sometimes the term used is Dinánir fizzat (see ii, 373).8. Locality, Shiraz. 10,000 dinars of silver changed into gold ofMaghrib would be 2500 dinars of gold (ii, 65) .9. Locality, Dehli . 100 dinars of silver of Maghrib (ii, 76) .10. Locality, Upper India. 100 dinars(ii, 374).==25 dinars of gold, presumably25 dinars in gold of Maghrib11. Locality, Upper India. "1000 dinars, the change of which in gold of Maghrib is equal to 250 dinars" (ii, 401).12. Locality, Sind. Passage about the lak, quoted under No. 2.13. From Dehli . Mah. Tughlak sends Burhanuddin of Ságharj a pre- sent of 40,000 dinars (iii, 255). Masalak-al-Absár says 40,000 tangahs.14. Loc. , Dehli . Mahom. Tughlak sends the Khalif's son on arrival 400,000 dinars (iii, 262); and assigns Ibn Batuta a salary of 12,000 dinars (iii, 398) . These are evidently silver coins.15. Locality, Bengal. Passage about the dinar being worth 8 dirhems,quoted in text (iv, 210) .No. 2 asserts in reference to Sind that the gold dinar was equal to 10 silver dinars.Nos. 9, 10, 11 , show that the silver dinar of Dehli was worth one-fourthof the gold dinar of Maghrib.-Nos. 1 , 2, 3, 6, 7, show that the tangah of India was a gold coin equal to 2 gold dinars of Maghrib, and that Ibn Batuta asserts this equally in reference to Sind, Dehli, and Bengal. And, from the combination of these last two deductions, again the gold tangah ten silver dinars.1 Mr. Thomas warns me that the passage from Ibn Batuta about the dirhem of silver is very obscure; and indeed he has interpreted it in his pamphlet on the Bengal coinage in quite a different sense.But the passage from the Masálak- al- Absar appears to be free from obscurity, and to have substantially the same meaning as the version of Defrémery;which is surely an argument of some weight in favour of the latter.2 Yet the existence of the latter piece perhaps explains the alternativestatement (alluded to at p. 440) that the silver dinar of India was equi- valent to 6 dirhems only. The 140 grain piece would in fact be equiva- lent to 6.4.8ccl PRELIMINARY ESSAY.Mr. Thomas has also considered the question, to which I was necessarily led as to the relative values of gold and silver at that day in India.His conclusions are in the same direction to which my remarks (at p .442) point in the words, " it is very conceivable that the relative valueat Delhi should have been ten to one, or even less, " but they go muchfurther, for he estimates it at eight to one.It seems probable that ten to one or thereabouts was the normal relation in the civilised kingdoms of Asia during the thirteenth century,but it is reasonable to suppose that the enormous plunder of gold in theDekkan during the reign of Mahomed Tughlak himself and his immediate predecessors must for a time at least have diminished the relativevalue of gold considerably.¹1 Some illustration of the popular view of this influx of gold is given at p. 442. Another anecdote bearing on the subject is quoted at p. ccxliii (supra). And the Masálak-al- Absár says that Mahomed Bin Yusuf Thakafi found in the province of Sind 40 bahar of gold, each bahar equal to 333 mann, i.e. , in all some 333,000 pounds of gold.Mr. Thomas seems to be of opinion that 8 to 1 was about the normal relation of gold to silver in Asia during the time of Mahomed Tughlak and the preceding age, and he quotes in support of this the state- ment of Marco Polo, which I have referred to in a different viewat p. 442, that gold in Caraian (part of Yunan) bore that relation to silver. But this was a remote province immediately adjoining still more secluded regions producing gold in which the exchange went down to 6 and 5 to 1. I understand Polo as mentioning the exchange of even8 to 1 as something remarkable.The relation between the two metals has followed no constant progression. American silver raised the value of gold in the sixteenth and succeeding centuries, whilst recent gold discoveries are now lowering it again. Minor influences of like kind no doubt acted before. Such autho- rities as I have been able to refer to say that in the time of the earlyRoman Empire the relation was 12 to 1; under the Lower Empire,about the time of Justinian, a little more than 14 to 1; in the early Mahomedan times it varied from 13 to 15 to 1. In the " dark ages" ofEurope it sunk in some countries as lowas 10 to 1; in the time of Charles the Bald in France (843-877) it was 12 to 1. In Florence in 1356 it was 12 to 1; in England about the same time 12 to 1; and this seems tohave been the prevailing relation till the American discoveries took effect. But it seems improbable that 8 to 1 could have been maintained for many years as the relation in India and other kingdoms of Asia whilst the relation in Europe was so different. The former relation wasmaintained I believe in Japan to our own day, but then there was a wall of iron round the kingdom.Supposing, as I do, that Ibn Batuta's tangah and dinar were the old standard gold and silver coins of 175 grs. each, then the fact that the tangah was worth 10 dinars is in my view an indication of what had been at least the relative value of the two metals. And the statement of theTarikh-i-Wassaf (see pp. 116, 442) that the gold balísh was worth ten times the silver balísh comes in to confirm this.It has occurred to me as just possible that the changes made by Ma- homed Tughlak in the coinage may have bad reference to the deprecia- tion of gold owing to the " Great Dekkan Prize- money" of that age.Thus, previous to his time, we have the gold and silver coins of equal weight and bearing (according to the view which has been explained) aSUPPLEMENTARY NOTES . ccliPp. 443-444. I find that memory misled me here as to Lee's interpretations. He appears (by writing Goa for Kawé or Káwa) to identifythe latter name with the modern Goa, not with Gogo, and he attemptsno identification of Kuka.I may add to the remarks on Sandabur that the place is mentionedby Mas'udi, thus: "Crocodiles abound in the ajwán or bays formed bythe Indian Sea, such as the Bay of SANDABURA in the Indian kingdomof Baghrah. " I cannot discover what Bághrah represents (Prairiesd'Or, i, 207) .P. 452. Eli or Hili. We have perhaps another trace of this city inthe Elima of the Ravenna Geographer, which he puts in juxtapositionwith Nilcinna ( Berlin ed . , 1860, p. 42) .P. 458. Mr. Thomas in one of his pamphlets referred to above(Coins of the Palan Sultans, etc. , p. 137) gives the maund of that dayas consisting of forty sirs of twenty-four tolas each. Taking these tolaseven at the present rate of 180 grains (and they were probably less , seeInitial Coinage of Bengal, p. 10) this would give the maund of that dayas equivalent only to 24.680 lbs. instead of 28.8 as deduced from thedata quoted at p. 458.With regard to Bengal cheapness I may add that Hamilton, writingof the end of the seventeenth century, says that an acquaintance of hisbought at Sundiva (an island near Chittagong) 580 lbs. of rice for a rupee,eight geese for the same money, and sixty good tame poultry for thesame (New Account of the East Indies, ed. 1744, ii, 23) .P. 459 Note 2. Bengal divided into Laknaoti Sunarganw andChatganw . The last, as appears from a quotation by Mr. Thomasnominal ratio of 10 to 1. Mahomed on coming to the throne finds that in consequence of the great influx of gold the relative value of that metalhas fallen greatly, say to something like 7 to 1 , which as a local result where great treasure in gold had suddenly poured in, is, I suppose, con- ceivable. He issues a coinage which shall apply to this new ratio, andyet preserve the relation of the pieces as 10 to 1. This accounts for his200 gr. gold and 140 gr. silver pieces. Some years later, after the dis- astrous result of his copper tokens, the value of gold has risen, and hereverts to the old gold standard of 175 grs. , leaving (as far as I can gather) the silver piece at its reduced weight. At the exchange of tensilver pieces for one of gold this now represents a relative value of 8 to 1 .Bengal, meanwhile, has not shared in the plunder of the south, and there the old relations remain, nominally at least, unaffected. This is a mere speculation, and probably an airy one. Indeed, I find that Mr. Thomasis disposed to think that the object of Mahomed Tughlak's innovations was to ensure a double system of exchange rates, reviving the ancient local weight of 80 Ratis ( 140 grs. ) , and respecting the Hindu ideal of divi- sion by 4, with which was to be associated the Mahomedan preference for decimals.Thus the 64 gani silver piece of 175 gr. was reduced to a 50 gani piece of 140 gr. , 10 of which went to the current 175 gr. gold Tangah, while the new 200 gr. gold Dinar was intended to exchange against sixteen 50 gani pieces.cclii PRELIMINARY ESSAY.(Initial Coinage, p. 65) , should be Satganw, a much more probabledivision. This has been loosely indicated in the sketch map to IbnBatuta's Bengal travels.P. 459 Note 3, and p. 460 Note. Early Sovereigns of Bengal. Thelight thrown by Mr. Thomas on the history of these sovereigns from hisnumismatic and other researches.corrects in various points the authorities(loose in this matter) followed by Stewart. Following the former, wehave as the first Sultan mentioned by Ibn Batuta'1. NASIR- UD- DÍN MAHMUD, called also Baghrá Khan, the son of theEmperor Balban. From A.H. 681 ( A.D. 1282) . It is not known howor when his reign terminated.2. RUKN-UD-DIN KAI- KAUS-Supposed doubtfully to be a son of thepreceding, being known only from coins dating A.H. 691-695 ( a.d. 1292-1296) .3. SHAMS- UD- DIN FIRUZ, son of Násiruddin, reigning at Laknaoti,probably from A.н. 702 ( a.d. 1302) and up to 722-3 ( 1322-23) .4. SHAHAB- UD- DIN BUGHRAH SHAH, son of the preceding, expelledafter a brief reign in A.H. 724 ( 1324) , by5. GHIAS-UD- DIN Bahadur Shah, surnamed according to Ibn BatutaBúrah, “meaning in the language of India Black" (?) , another son ofShamsuddin. It is a difficulty about this prince that coins of his arefound of A.H. 710-12 ( possibly, Mr. Thomas thinks, from " originally imperfect die-rendering " for 720-722) , and certainly of the latter dates.On the application of Shahabuddin, Tughlak Shah intervened, and carried Bahadur Búrah captive to Dehli. Mahomed Tughlak on his accession restored him to power, but some years later was displeased with him,and marched an army against him. The Bengal prince was beaten ,killed, and skinned, circa 733 ( A.D. 1332) .It was on this occasion apparently that Mahomed left Kadr Khánin charge of Laknaoti, and Tátár Khan, surnamed Bahram Khan, anadopted son of his father Tughlak Shah, in charge of Sunarganw. Onthe death of Bahrám Khan ( 737 or 739),6. FAKHRUDDÍN MUBARAK his silah dar (" armour-bearer ") took possession of the government and proclaimed independence. He retainedhis hold on Sunárganw and its dependencies, as his coins show, till 751(A.D. 1350) . Meanwhile7. ALI SHAH, erroneously styled by Stewart's authors (as at p. 460)Ali Mubarak, on the death of Kadr Khan (circa 742) assumed sovereigntyin Western Bengal under the title of Ala-ud-din. After 746 (the lastdate of his coinage) he was assassinated by Hájji Iliyás.8. IHKTIYAR- UD-Dín Ghazi Shah, whose coins show him reigning atSunarganw 751-753 ( a.d. 1350-51 ) appears to have been a son of Fakhr1 Several governors of Bengal before this had assumed royal titles and declared independence.SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. ccliiiuddin . At the latter date he is displaced by Hajji Iliyas under thename of9. SHAMS-UD-DÍN ILIYAS SHAH. This chief had coined money atFiruzabád (at or near Pandua) as early as 740; about 746-7 ( 1345-6) hehad killed and succeeded ' Alá-uddin in Laknaoti, and now he conqueredSunarganw, so that he appears to have ruled all Bengal. His reignextends to the end of 759 ( 1358) . We are not concerned to follow thesesovereigns further.P. 467, Note 1. Javaku is a term applied to the Malays generally, inthe Singhalese Chronicles. See Turnour's Epitome, p. 45.P. 487. Offerings for the Shaikh Abu Ishak of Kazerún. This shaikhwas a sort of patron saint of the mariners in the India and China trade,who made vows of offerings to his shrine when in trouble at sea, andagents were employed at the different ports to board the vessels as theyentered, and claim the amounts vowed, which generally came to largesums. Applicants to the shrine for charity also used to receive circularnotes payable by parties who had vowed. When the recipient of such anote met anyone owing an offering to the shrine he received the amounton presenting his bill endorsed with a discharge (Ibn Batuta, ii, 90-91) .P. 541 , Note; Talikhan. There were in fact three places so called;that in Badakhshan, that in Khorasan, and a third in Dailam, the hillcountry adjoining Kazbin . This last is the duplicate of Nasiruddin'sTables and not that in Khorasan. (See Quatremère's Rashid, pp.214, 278).P. 562. Tangi-Badakhshan. This precise expression is used in theAkbar-Namah as quoted by Quatremère ( Not. et Extr. xiv, Pt. i, 222) .

I.ODORIC OF PORDENONE.

View of Pordenone from near the Railway Station.ODORIC OF PORDENONE.NICHOLLSBIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTICES.THE first place in this collection has been given to the narrativeof Odoric of Pordenone, a Beatus or semi- saint of the RomanChurch, not as the first in time, nor perhaps in value, but as onthe whole the most curious and as that which was the originalnucleus of the volume.Odoric was a native of Friuli, a country which was perhapsbetter known to travellers before there was a railway through it.Few now, in passing from Trieste to Venice, or from Venice toVienna, think it worth while to break their journey for the sakeof seeing such places as Pordenone, Udine, or Cividale; and thusthose interesting cities, though on or near a great thoroughfare,still keep a rare old-world flavour and simplicity.This border land had in old times closer relations to Germanythan to Italy. It has again close relations of a certain kind to12 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.Germany, but in no region of Italy, it is believed, is the Italianfeeling stronger.The Patria del Friuli borrowed its name from Forum Julii, acity represented by modern Cividale, and became the seat of adukedom under the nephew of Alboin when the Lombards firstburst into Italy.Charlemagne extinguished the Lombard dukes, and fromFriuli for a time was governed the Eastern March of the Frankish empire. In the end of the ninth century or thereabouts, theadministration of the province fell into the hands of the Patriarchsof Aquileia, whose seat had been at Cividale since 737; and in1029 the Emperor Conrad II formally conferred on the PatriarchPoppo the Duchy of Friuli and the Marquisate of Istria.This ecclesiastical principality continued to exist, with territory of fluctuating extent, until 1420, when the Patriarch,engaging in war with Venice, lost his temporal dominion, andFriuli became subject to the Republic. It was remarkable asperhaps the only Italian state, excluding Sicily, which possesseda genuine Parliament. This consisted of three Estates, assembling in one house.Friuli divides naturally into three zones. The first and widestis a great level, subsiding near the Adriatic into swamp, elsewhere well cultivated and fairly productive, but without irrigation, and far behind the wealth of the Lombard plain, exceptingtowards the west, where water lies nearer the surface, the streamshave a more perennial character, and there is seen an almosttropical luxuriance of vegetation.The second zone consists of undulating hills, dotted with whitevillages, and covered with fine grass carefully reserved for thescythe. The brilliant verdure of these undulating meadows, asseen under a July sun, was alike surprising and delightful. Thethird zone is that of the mountain country.The dialect of the Friuli country is a Romance one, said to bevery distinct from the Venetian, and to come very near to Provençal. Many of the local names are alleged to be quite French incharacter, and I remember one, Martignac, which struck me particularly. It may be only a fancy that this quasi- French idiomBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 3may sometimes be traced through the thin veil of Odoric'sLatin.The native district of Odoric was Pordenone, in that richerpart of the Friulian plain which lies towards the river Livenza.Pordenone itself, called in Latin, I know not of what antiquity,Portus Naonis, is a quaint but thriving little city of some seventhousand inhabitants, standing on the banks of the Nonicello, atributary of the Livenza, and by which boats ascend from the seato the town. The beautiful gardens which environ it, and thevery fine campanile which rises beside the cathedral, group intoa singularly pleasing picture, even as seen by a railway traveller.Odoric is said to have sprung from one of the garrison established in this district by Ottokar, King of Bohemia, to whomthe territory had passed from his cousin Udalric, Duke of Carinthia.and Lord of Pordenone.¹ A curious confirmation of this tradition is found in the manuscript from which we print the Latintext of his travels, for in it he is designated " Frater OdericusBoemus. " The name of his family is alleged to have beenMattiussi, and the place of his birth was Villa Nuova, a hamletof cottages dispersed among vineyards and mulberry trees, abouta mile and a half from the town.A substantial two- storied cottage is still shown at Villa Nuovaas the house in which Odoric was born; and in the half-openarcade which forms a part of the lower story, a rude old fresco,representing the friar holding forth the crucifix, much defacedby the contact of firewood and farming gear, is evidence at least1 "De reliquiis seminis eorum quos olim Rex Otakerus apud PortumNaonis ad custodiam deputavit." This is quoted from an anonymouschronicler of Laybach, in Monumenta Ecclesiæ Aquilejensis, etc. , Argentinæ, 1740, p. 866. Ottokar succeeded to the throne of Bohemia in 1254;Rudolf of Hapsburgh was chosen emperor in 1262; their wars about theAustrian provinces held by Ottokar, including part of Friuli, terminatedin 1279 in the rout and death of Ottokar. See also Venni, p. 3.2 This name does not seem to appear in print before the work of Gabelli in 1639. Zeno quotes as authority for it a MS. work on thePatriarchs of Aquileia by Jac. Valvasone (Dissertaz. Vossiane, 1751, ii,297). It is also given by Asquini in his Life of Odoric, on the authorityof a MS. of Lugrezio Treo, author of Sacra Monumenta Prov. Forojulii,1724."1 24 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.of the antiquity of the tradition. Even the room is pointed outin which the traveller and saint was born! and the bed, a vastand ponderous expanse of timber, looked as if it also might have.officiated at the auspicious event. The parish priest assertedthat the house had passed through only a second transfer since itquitted the family of Mattiussi.CP.HICHOLLSTraditional Birthplace of Odoric.The name Odorico is the same that occurs north of the Alpsas Ulric, and it is found in various shapes besides, such asUdalric, Vodaric, etc. It would seem to have been common inthis region of the world, for it turns up frequently in old Friulanlists, and was borne by Aquileian patriarchs and Carinthiandukes. And it is said to be still common about Pordenone, bothas surname and Christian name. Our friar, therefore, mightcome by it in many ways, but perhaps he got it actually from thepatron saint of his parish church, for that is saint Udalric. Oneof the old Franciscan writers calls our traveller Ludovicus Odoricus, but it seems likely, that this was a mistake.The date of his birth is assigned to 1286, whilst the PatriarchRaymond della Torre was reigning in Friuli. In naming thisdate later writers appear to have followed Gabelli, who published1 Bartholomew Albizzi of Pisa, in the work cited below, ed. Mediolan.1510, f. cxxiiii.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 5a life of Odoric in 1639. Asquini, another biographer in the lastcentury, quotes as authority for it " Osuald. Ravenn.," a reference respecting the age or value of which I have no knowledge.Judging, however, from the effigies of Odoric on his tomb atUdine, I should have guessed the date of his birth to stand adozen years earlier than that mentioned .The authorities for the circ*mstances of Odoric's life , exclusiveof such as can be gathered from the story of his travels, are theannalists or hagiologists of his order. Whether the man whomthey describe after the regular saint-model of the middle agesanswers in any degree to the author of the travels, as he indicateshis own likeness however faintly, appears to me most questionable. The contemporary notices of him, except the local recordsof the miracles which were said to have followed his death, arevery brief.It is alleged that Odoric is treated of in a catalogue ofFranciscan saints, written only five years after his death;2but I find no quotation from this work, and the earliest notice ofhim that I can discover (apart from the exceptions just specified) is in the chronicle of his German contemporary, John ofWinterthur, who seems to have written about 1348-50 , andwhose reference shows that he was already acquainted with theItinerary. His travels, alleged missionary work, and miraclesare also briefly spoken of by Bartholomew Albizzi, of Pisa, in histreatise concerning the Conformity of the Life of St. Francis to theLife of Our Lord Jesus Christ, from which the passages are quotedin the Acta Sanctorum.¹ This work was written, according to1 Vita e Viaggi del B. Odorico, etc., Udine, 1737.2 Sbaralea, Supp. et Castigatio ad Scriptores Trium Ordinum S. Francisci, etc. Romæ, 1806, p. 443.3 After giving a notice of the martyrdom at Tana, and some other circ*mstances related by our author, the chronicler adds: Hæc testaturSanctus Odoricus de Padua oriundus, qui peragratis cunctis regionibus orientalibus et incolumis ad terram nativam reversus, hæc et alia mira et stupendaillic visa et audita ab eo, rogatus et compulsus a suis confratribus minoribusin scripturam redegit; opusculum valde solatiosum et delectabile, de hujusmodi raris et a seculo quasi inauditis, relinquens. " (Joan. Vitodurani Chron.in Eccard Corp. Historicum, i , 1894) .4 De Conformitate, etc., bk. i, pa. 2, conf. 8.6 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.Professor Kunstmann, about 1380, fifty years after Odoric'sdeath, but the author was fully entitled to be termed a contemporary, for one of his works, cited by Wadding, was dated asearly as 1347, and at his death in 1401 he is said to have beenover a century old.¹According to the ecclesiastical biographers, however, havingin early years taken on him the vows of the Franciscans, andjoined their convent in Udine, he speedily became eminent forascetic sanctity, living on bread and water, going barefoot,scourging himself severely, and wearing ever next his skin haircloth or iron mail. His humility refused promotion, and withthe leave of his superior he retired for a long time into the wildsto pass a solitary life. A local reputation for sanctity andmiracles is ascribed to him before his wanderings began.2On these he started sometime between 1316 and 1318 (inclusive) , and from them he returned shortly before the spring of1330. That he was in Western India soon after 1321, that hespent three of the years between 1322 and 1328 in NorthernChina, and that he died in January 1331, are all the chronologicalfacts that we know, or can positively deduce, from his narrative,and contemporary evidence.3I shall not here give any detailed view of his travels; the particulars of these, with the fullest explanations that I can provide,will be found in the ensuing text and notes. Suffice it to say thathis route lay by Constantinople to Trebizond; thence to Erzerum, Tabriz, and Soltania; and that in all probability he spenta considerable part of the time previous to 1322 in the Houses ofhis Order in those cities . From Soltania he passed to Kashanand Yezd, and thence turning by Persepolis he followed a somewhat devious route, probably by Shiraz, and perhaps a part ofKurdistan, to Baghdad. From Baghdad he wandered to the1 Cave, Script. Eccles. , App., p. 48; Wadding, vol. vii.2 Acta Sanctorum, January 14th; Wadding, vol. vi, under 1331; Liruti,Notizie delle Vite ed opere scritte da' Letterati di Friuli. Venez., 1760, i,274 et seq.3 D'Avezac, in the very valuable dissertation prefixed to Carpini'saccount of the Tartars, says that Odoric reached Trebizond in 1317, andTana in 1322; but I do not trace the authority for such precision.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 7Persian Gulf, and at Hormuz embarked for Tana in Salsette.Here, or from Surat, where Jordanus had deposited them, hegathered the bones of the four brethren who had suffered therein 1321, and carried them with him on his voyage eastward.He went on to Malabar, touching at Pandarani, Cranganor, andKulam, and proceeded thence to Ceylon and the shrine of St.Thomas at Mailapoor, the modern Madras. From this he sailedtediously to Sumatra, visiting various parts of the coast of thatisland, Java, probably Southern or Eastern Borneo, Champa, andCanton. Hence he travelled to the great ports of Fokien, andfrom Fucheu across the mountains to Hangcheufu and Nanking.Embarking on the Great Canal at Yangcheufu, he proceeded byit to Cambalec or Peking, and there remained for three years,attached, it may be presumed, to one of the churches founded byArchbishop John of Montecorvino, now in extreme old age.Turning westward at length through Tenduc (the Ortu countryof our maps), and Shensi, to Tibet and its capital Lhassa, wethere lose all indication of his further route, and can only conjecture on very slight hints, added to general probabilities, thathis homeward journey led him by Kabul, Khorasan, and thesouth of the Caspian, to Tabriz, and thence to Venice by theway he had followed thirteen or fourteen years before, whenoutward bound.The companion of Odoric on a part, at least, of these longjourneys was Friar James, an Irishman, as appears from a recordin the public books of Udine, showing that on the 5th April afterOdoric's death a present of two marks was paid to the Irish friar"Socio Beati Fratris Odorici, amore Dei et Odorici. "The assertion of Wadding and the other biographers thatOdoric had sowed everywhere the seed of the Gospel, and hadbaptised more than 20,000 Saracens, would appear to rest on abasis of pure imagination only. No hint of such a thing appearsin his travels, nor indeed any indication of his having acted as aMissionary at all; though probably in the years he spent atCambalec, and perhaps also in Armenia, he may have taken partin the missionary duties of his brethren.1 Venni, p. 27.In his contemporary8 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.Jordanus the spirit of the missionary breaks out strongly andclearly, showing his heart in the work. Odoric's narrative againgivesone decidedly the impression ofa man of little refinement, witha very strong taste for roving and seeing strange countries, butnot much for preaching and asceticism. Qui peregrinantur rarosanctificantur, says Thomas a- Kempis. And one wonders whatodd chance picked out Odoric as the wanderer to be accreditedwith such exceptional sanctity. " Molto diverso il guiderdon dall'opre! " Had the simple and hardly bestead Jordanus of Séverac,or that zealous patriarch John of Montecorvino striving for thefaith at the world's end to the age of fourscore years, been madea saint of, one could have understood it better.Miracles also, and miraculous experiences, are assigned to thefriar by his biographers, of which no trace will be found in hisown story. Thus we are told that as he was on his way backfrom Tartary, commissioned by the Great Khan to call morebrethren to the work of preaching to that monarch's subjects (acommission which seems again to be purely imaginary) he wasmet by the Great Enemy, who reviled him, and taunted himwith the bootlessness of his errand, seeing that he was fatednever to return. The assailant was repelled by the sign of thecross, but his words proved true.So bowed and changed was Odoric by the hardships andstarvation that he had endured in his years of wandering, saythe biographers, that his nearest of kin could scarcely be broughtto recognise him.2It was after visiting them no doubt that he betook himself tothe House of his Order attached to St. Anthony's at Padua, andthere in the month of May, 1330, he related his story, which wastaken down and done into homely Latin by William of Solagna, abrother of the Order; Friar Marchesinus of Bassano also afterwards lending a hand in the redaction, and adding at least oneinteresting anecdote from his recollection of Odoric's stories .1 Wadding, 1. c. " Sub formâ mulieris gravida!" says Mark of Lisbon,quoted in the Acta Sanctorum.2 Wadding; Petrus Rodulphius, Hist. Seraphicæ Religionis, Ven. , 1586,p. 125.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 9Whether the traveller had not already written or dictated a briefsketch of his journeys will be spoken of below.From Padua he is said to have proceeded to Pisa in order totake ship for the Papal Court at Avignon, that he might makehis report ofthe affairs of the church in the far East, and askrecruits for the missions in Cathay. At Pisa he was sorelytroubled by what he heard of the mischief wrought in thefraternity by the schisms of Caesenas and Corbarius, ¹ and becameall the more anxious to prosecute his voyage. But he fell intoserious illness, and being ´warned in a dream by St. Francis to"return to his nest, " he caused himself to be transported backto his own province.There at Udine, he took to his bed, to rise no more. Havingconfessed, on the priest's pronouncing the absolution Odoric isrelated to have said: " Do thine office, reverend Father, for Idesire like a humble child to submit to the keys of the church;but know that the Lord hath signified to me that he hath pardoned all my sins." And so he died on the 14th January, 1331.2The friars of the convent were about to bury him the same dayprivately, contrary to the custom of the country. But when thisbecame known in the city, Conrad Bernardiggi, the Gastald orchief magistrate of Udine, who had a great regard for Odoric,interfered to prevent such a hurried interment, and appointed asolemn funeral for the next day. This was attended by all the1 Petrus Rainalduccius de Vico Corbario was a Minorite venerated forhis age, learning, and piety, who to the great scandal of his order let himself be set up at Rome as Antipope by the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria.In 1330 he asked pardon of Pope John with a halter on his neck. MichaelCaesenas was the general of the order, who absconded from Avignon totake part with the emperor (Wadding) .2 This is the date given by the postscripts to Odoric's narrative, andall the subsequent accounts. Wadding adds, " On a Monday, about theninth hour." The 14th January 1331 might mean in modern style 14thJanuary 1332, especially as the postscript to the narrative in the extractspublished by the Bollandists specifies "Anno Dominica Incarnationis,"which I believe indicates properly the year commencing on Lady Day.But it seems not to be so. For the date assigned fell on a Monday in1331, and, moreover, the order by the Patriarch for an inquiry into themiracles is dated May 1331, which is not open to ambiguity.10 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.dignitaries, and created a public excitement. The people beganto push forward to kiss the hands and feet of the dead friar, orto snatch a morsel of his clothing. Rumours of miracles roseand spread like wildfire. A noble dame, the Patriarch's sister,who had long suffered from a shrunken arm, declared aloud thatshe had received instant relief on touching the body. The wholetown then rushed to the convent church. Lucky were those whocould put but a finger on the friar's gown, whilst those who hadsuch a happy chance grasped at his hair and beard; just as Ihave seen the Bengalis snatch at the whiskers of a dead tiger,and from like motives. One virago made a desperate attempt tosnip off the saint's ear with her scissars , but miraculously thescissars would not close! The public voice urged that suchwonder-working matter should be kept longer available, and theinterment was deferred for two days. The third day the bodywas buried in the church, but only to be taken up again on theday following. For the excitement had now spread far beyondthe walls of Udine. The country gentlemen from the castles ofthe district with their wives and families began to throng in.Then came the nobles and burgesses of the neighbouring cities;the nuns of Cividale and Aquileia followed, walking two and twoin procession; and, at last, the stream arrived from the remoterparts of Friuli, and from Carniola, and crowds continued to flockin, day and night, scourging themselves, and chaunting thepraises of God and his servant Odoric. The great lady of thecountry, Beatrice of Bavaria, Countess Dowager and Regent ofGoritz, came with a vast cortège; the Patriarch himself, Paganodella Torre, was present, and superintended the transfer of thebody to another and more splendid coffin. The sanctity of thefriar was now fully recognised, and the notion was at last takenup by his own community, who employed an eminent preacher todeclaim to the people the history and pious deeds of this brother,whom it is most likely they had till now regarded only as aneccentric, much addicted to drawing the longbow about theGrand Cham and the Cannibal Islands.¹1 Wadding; Documenti per la Storia del Friuli, raccolti dall' AbbateG. Bianchi, Udine, 1844-5 , ii, 471.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 11The Patriarch, or the Municipality (for they supplied thefunds) , then gave orders for the construction of a noble shrine; ¹whilst three discreet persons, the Canon Melioranzi, Maffeo Cassini, and the notary Guecelli or Guccelli, were commissioned toinvestigate and compile the miracles ascribed to the deceased.Seventy such miracles are alleged to have been authenticated;2and indeed so says the heading of the notary's report of thecommission (which is extant) , though, (like the cotton reels ofManchester which profess to contain two hundred yards ofthread) , as a matter of fact it only enumerates twenty- seven.The miracles are all much alike, and substantially in this strain:"A. B. was very ill, and vowed a lump of wax to Odoric, andbegan immediately to mend, and is firmly convinced that it wasall owing to Odoric. "Two alleged miracles which unfortunately have not found aplace in this authenticated report, but only in recorded tradition,stand out from the rest as singular or startling.In one case, Friar Michael, a preacher and doctor of theologyat Venice, having suffered for seven years from a fistula in thethroat, betook himself to Friar James, the Irish comrade of Odoric's travels, and from him got a letter of introduction to hisdefunct and sainted friend, begging him to do what was needfulfor the divine. This proved immediately effectual.3¹ Records extant in the last century showed that the cost of the shrine,and of the formalities attending the miracle- commission, was defrayed bythe city. (See Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, 1789, vol. ii,pp. 124-129. )2 There is a MS. copy, which I saw, in the Library at San Daniele inFriuli, a curious and valuable collection bequeathed by Archbishop Fontanini to the place of his birth; a place where the books enjoy almostundisturbed repose in a delicious atmosphere. The Report, however, isprinted in the Roman blue book noticed further on. The heading runs:" Hic inferius sunt scripta et annotata amplius quam septuaginta miraculaquæ Deus operatus est per B. Odoricum, " etc. It would appear that thenotary got tired of recording such matter, and perhaps trusted that noone would count them! Indeed he says in a document which is printedin Hakluyt as a postscript to Odoric's narrative: " Scripsi sicut potui bonafide et fratribus minoribus exemplum dedi; sed non de omnibus quia suntinnumerabilia, et mihi difficilia ad scribendum; "-in fact "what no fellow could do."3 Asquini, Vita e Viaggi, p. 206.12 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.In the other case, it is asserted that a friar six days in hisgrave was raised to life by the power of the saint, in answer tothe prayers of a sister.¹The official detail of the miracles was sent to Guido Candidus(Bianchi?) Bishop of Udine, then at the Papal court , in orderthat the name of Odoric might be enrolled among the saints;but nothing was effected at that time, owing it is said to thedeath of the prelate. Nor, perhaps, had Pope John any greatzeal towards the exaltation of members of an order which hadbred such thorns in his side as Corbarius, Cesena, and Occam.In the very year of Odoric's death, we find recorded the bequest by a certain woman of Vercelli of a legacy to the altar ofthe Beatus at Udine; whilst a long chain of incidental notices ofbequests, of repairs to his chapel, of celebrations of his festival,etc., show that his memory has been continuously preserved assacred in Udine since his death.3But for four centuries his claim to the honours of beatificationrested only on popular acclamation sanctioned by the Aquileianpatriarch. It was not till 1755 that the question was formallydiscussed by the Roman court, whether the cult rendered toOdoric from time immemorial should be solemnly sanctioned bythe Pontiff.I have inspected the record of the process which then tookplace, a very curious ecclesiastical Blue-book of more than onehundred and twenty folio pages. The discussion is entitled"Positio super dubio an sententia lata per Eminentissimum et Reverendissimum Ordinarium Utinensem super cultu ab immemorabilitempore prædicto Beato præstito, sive casu excepto a decretis sanc.mem. Urbani Papæ VIII sit confirmanda in casu, etc. The firstpart is entitled Informatio super dubio, etc. This alleges thegrounds and maintains the validity of the Bishop's judgment,traces the worship of the Friar from the time of his death, and1 66 Quem vidit suscitatum F. Henricus Generalis Minister, ut mihiMagistro Bartholomeo dixit ipse ore tenus" (Barth. Pisanus in op. sup.citat.; from the Acta Sanctorum) . This legend was commemorated in aninscription which stood in the convent church at Pordenone, but datingonly from 1591. (MS. copy of Gabelli's Panegyric on Odoric at S. Daniele. )2 Asquini, p. 199. 3 Roman documents cited below.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 13gives a long list of those who have borne testimony to his virtues.This is followed by a Summarium super dubio, etc. , which is asort of collection of pièces justificatives in which every creditablemention of Odoric is cited at length, with the whole detail of hisalleged posthumous miracles, and the official report of a visitation.of his shrine by Daniel Patriarch of Aquileia in 1749. The nextdocument in the series consists of Animadversiones R. P. D. Promotoris Fidei super dubio, etc., being, in fact, the counterpleadingof the official vulgarly termed the Devil's Advocate . He raisesobjections to the beatification , hints that Odoric and his sanctitywere scarcely other than mythical, and almost sneers at the marvels of the Itinerary. In fact, this R. P. D. is worse than a profane Lutheran in the way he treats the Beatus. There is then aResponsio super dubio, etc., which disposes of these gibes; andthough the book in question does not contain the Pope's decision,we know that it was issued by Clement XIII, July 2nd, 1755,fully sanctioning the beatification of Odoric. 'In May 1332, the monument, which had been commissionedby the authorities of Udine from Philip de' Santi at Venice, wascompleted, and a solemn transfer of the body was celebrated bythe Patriarch. The shrine consisted of a handsome sarcophagusof oriental alabaster, adorned with small reliefs and statuettes,and elevated on dwarf columns of white marble.2In 1735, when the church of the Franciscans in Udine was' repaired and beautified, " a new chapel was erected for Odoric,and a second solemn translation accomplished.3 But he was notyet to lie quiet. In 1770 the Franciscans were compelled toremove to a house which had belonged to a suppressed Society ofThe copy of the process in question which I examined was kindlyshown me by Count Pietro Montereale of Pordenone. The Pope's decisionis given by Venni, p. 32. Authorities do not seem precisely to agree asto what constitutes beatification; an article in the English Cyclopædia,however, may be referred to for an explanation in what respects it fallsshort of canonisation. The word canonisation is indeed used in the Papaldecision of 1755, but in terms it only sanctions the worship rendered toOdoric from time immemorial.2 According to the process just quoted this elevation of the body abovethe ground was one of the honours paid to a beatified or canonised person.3 lenni, p. 29.14 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.Carmelites near the Aquileian gate, their own buildings beinggiven up for a public hospital. In their removal they carriedwith them all their reliques, including the body of Odoric,which was accompanied in solemn procession by all the civil andecclesiastical authorities, headed by the lieutenant of the Venetian Republic, to its new resting place in the church of the" Beato Vergine del Carmelo. "1 The Franciscan Convent wasalso suppressed in the days of the first Napoleon, and the church.was then made over to parochial use. Odoric still lies there,but shorn of his sepulchral glories. Whether to facilitate theremoval, or by accident during that operation, the sarcophagusшихC.P NICHOLLSwas brokenThe Sarcophagus as it stood in the last century.up, and never again put together as such. Portionshave, however, been built into an altar dedicated to Odoric, andwithin this his coffin is deposited.21 It is now called both the " Carmine" and " San Pietro."2 The information as to the past in this paragraph has been kindlysupplied by Dr. Vincenzo Joppi of Udine.The altar of Odoric is the second on the left as you enter the church.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 15I could hear nothing of the other reliques, such as fragmentsof an iron girdle, portraits, etc., which existed in the last century, before the removal of the convent. But the body is therestill, and is still exposed , on every fourth recurrence of his festival, to the eyes of the congregation . Had I but known thiswhen at Udine, perhaps my Protestant eyes also might havebeen permitted (for a consideration), to behold the very corpusbeatum whose hands had presented the Grand Cham with atrencher full of apples, and whose stout heart carried him chaunting the Credo through the Valley Perilous! It is perfect, theysay, except one leg , which was frittered away in reliques; Pordenone obtaining a tibia, and Villa Nuova an ankle-bone. Thevirtues of the Odorician reliques were still in high esteem in thelast century, if they be not now. Venni assures us that in his dayPolvere del B. Odorico was (like the James's powders of ouryouth) potent in fevers, and in demand as far as Florence.Odoric seems to have been the subject of a good deal of badverse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the chief perpetrators being, in the latter age, John Baptist Gabelli, priest ofVilla Nuova, and in the former Girolamo Monteniani or Montignac, a zealous devotee, and syndic of the convent in Udine.This gentleman had the convent copy of the Friar's travels, withthe documents about his miracles, etc., re- transcribed at his ownexpense in 1542. His hymns to Odoric are chiefly composed ofprayers for his own unbounded comfort and prosperity."Da nunc Alme tuis, da mihi jugiterPacem, Divitias, Sæcula Nestoris! "is but a sample of the demands he makes upon his local divus.¹As there seems to be no doubt of the date of the sculpturesIt bears the following inscription, whatever may be the meaning thereof:"Altare hoc omnipotenti DeoIn honore B. Odorici Conf. erectumPrivilegio quotidiano perpetuo ac liberoPro omnibus defunctis ad quoscumque sacerdotes ,Vigore brevis Benedicti P. xiv. die iv. Oct. mdccli insignitumAtque a Ministro Gen. Ordinis die x. Maii mdccliii designatum.”¹ Some of these verses, including that here quoted, are given in theVita e Viaggi of Asquini.16 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.which originally formed part of the sarcophagus, we have in themrepresentations of our traveller erected in the year following thatof his death, and executed by no incompetent hand. There are,or were, no less than three effigies of him upon the sarcophagus,and at least two of these remain upon the altar where his bodynow lies. One of these represents him preaching to a crowd ofIndians; in the other, he is being lowered into the tomb by thehands of the Patriarch, the Gastald, and the Brethren of theOrder. In these two the heads are fairly like each other; bothpresenting a bluff, benevolent, Socratic countenance, but theyare certainly suggestive of sixty years rather than forty- six.ness.Another statuette stands in the church of his native parish ofVillanuova. It is of higher style than the sculptures at Udine,but of so much later date that it can have no authority as a likeThe work was ascribed by the parish priest to an artistcalled Pilacorte, who carved the doorway of the Duomo at Pordenone. It stands above the altar, paired with a correspondingstatuette of St. Udalric Bishop of Augsburg, patron of thechurch. There are some splendid fresco heads of prophets andapostles overhead, remains of the work of John Antony Sacchiense, called Pordenone, which once covered the choir.In the early part of the last century, there were extant otherold effigies of Friar Odoric. One, in an altar piece which stoodin the sacristy of the convent church, was said to have beenpainted only twenty-four years after his death.3 And Vennisays there was a portrait of him in the Loggia of the Parliamentof Friuli.Engravings of him, of course, can have no value except as theyapproach the old sculptures. There is one good vigorous wood1 Possibly the third, but if so it escaped my notice. Unluckily myvisit to Udine was on a local festival, when a constant succession ofmasses was going on in the church, and I had barely time to make thesketch given further on between two of them.2 John Antony Pilacorte was a native of Spilembergo in Friuli . Manyof his works exist in the churches of Pordenone; and the font as well asthe doorway of the Cathedral is his work. The latter bears the date 1511 .There is no Friulan sculptor known by name of earlier date than 1428.(Maniago, Storia delle belle Arti Friulane, Udine 1823, pp. 158-9, 201 ) .3 Asquini, p. 214. 4 l'enni, p. 29.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 17cut in the old Italian style, purporting to be the Vera B. OdoriciEffigies, intheHistoria Seraphicae Religionis of Petrus Rodulphius.¹And Gabelli is said to have published a print of the " very oldimage of the Beatus preaching to the Indians and other barbarians, which is found in the church of S. Udalric at Villanuova. This would seem to be different from the work ofPilacorte. Gabelli's works will be noted below; but I have notsucceeded in finding any of them, nor do I know which has thisengraving.12Some of the Franciscan authors assert that Odoric, besides hisitinerary, left behind him various sermons and epistles , ³ but if so ,no one seems to know anything about them. Wadding, in theAnnales Minorum , also repeatedly quotes as the work of Odoric achronicle extending from the beginning of the world to the deathof Pope John XXII; forgetting, it would seem, that the popesurvived the saint three years. Indeed, the notion that the workwas written by Odoric seems to have been altogether unfounded .This chronicle is the manuscript cited in the account of Jordanusas Liber de Etatibus, formerly at Rome, but now in the Bibl.Impériale at Paris. From it Wadding derived the interestingletters of Montecorvino, Jordanus, and Andrew Bishop of Zaiton,which are given in the present collection: Sbaralea considersthat the real author of the book was probably another Minorite,John of Udine, otherwise of Mortiliano, who died in Friuli in1363, and who wrote a work called Pantheon, supposed tobe lost."Very recently another work has been published in Germany asOdoric's, on the authority of the closing paragraph of the manuscript from which it is printed: " Istud scripsit Frater Odoricus de1 Venice, 1586, p. 125.2 Acta Sanctorum, 1. c.3 Acta Sanctorum, 1. c.4 See Annales Minorum, tom. vi and vii, passim.5 See Preface to English Jordanus, p. v.6 In the work cited above (at p. 5), p. 443.7 See Peregrinatores Medii Evi Quatuor, Lipsia, J. C. Heinrichs,1864; edited by J. C. Laurent, and containing Itineraries in the Holy Land by Burchardus de Mte. Sion, Ricold of Monte Croce, this Pseudo- Odoric, and Wilbrand of Oldenburg.218 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.Foro Julii cum remeasset de partibus infidelium ad suam provinciam, Anno Domini MCCC XXX temporibus Domini JohannisPapae XXII. " This is a manuscript of the fifteenth century inthe Berlin library, entitled De Terrâ Sanctâ, consisting of shortchapters, containing a detailed itinerary in Palestine with thedistances, etc., and is of very little interest. It ends with achapter on " Machomet" of a short denunciatory kind. I do notbelieve the book to be Odoric's. It is, of course, possible that hereturned from the East through Palestine, as we are ignorant ofhis route from Tibet westward. But there is no hint whateverof his having visited that country, either in his own narrative, orin the biographies. And there is not the slightest likeness in themanner of the two books.The numbers of manuscripts of Odoric's narrative that havecome down to us from the fourteenth century show how speedilyhis work was spread abroad, and how popular it must have been .In the next century it is easy to trace the use made of his narrative in the great map of Fra Mauro at Venice.Liruti speaks of Odoric's " love of letters and science, " whilstMeinert calls him " one of the most learned of his Order" -theOrder that had produced, in one little country only, such men asOccam, Duns Scotus, and RogerBacon! These statements are evenmore preposterous than the very opposite view expressed by theeditors of that meritorious collection called Astley's Voyages, whenthey say of Odoric's narrative in the unpleasant tone of the lastcentury, " This is a most superficial relation, and full of lies. . .In short, it seems plain from the names of places and other circ*mstances that he never was in those countries (China andTartary), but imposed on the public the few informations he hadfrom others, mixed with the fictions of his own." many Whilstin the Index to the work he fares as ill , his name being thus entered: " Oderic, Friar, Travels of, IV, 620 a. Agreat Liar. Ibid."It is evident however, from the formal affidavit which Odoric1 There is a MS. of " Oderici de F. Julii Descriptio Terræ Sanctæ," alsoin the Basle Public Library (Hanel, Catalogi Libr. MSS. , etc. , p. 545.)2 In his Essay on Marignolli; see Introduction to that Traveller'snotices in this collection.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 19was called on to append to his narrative, as well as from thetenor of the apologies of his ecclesiastical biographers, that manyof his tales were considered to try the faith of readers, even ofhis own time, and of his own cloth since. Thus Henry of Glatzin the notę appended to his transcript of Odoric, declares that ifhe had not heard such great things of Odoric's perfections andsanctity, he could scarcely have credited some of his stories.¹Wadding, with scepticism scarcely disguised, says that much inthe book will seem incredible, unless the holy character of thenarrator find belief or force it.2 And Asquini is reduced toplead that so saintly a man would never have told what wasuntrue, much less have taken his oath to it as Odoric has done!3It is true indeed that our friar is not merely undiscriminatingin the acceptance of what he has heard, but also sometimeslooser in his statements of what he relates, or professes to relate,from actual experience, than other travellers of his day such asJordanus and Marignolli. But this seems to come rather fromthe fact that Odoric is a man of inferior refinement, both morallyand intellectually, than that he introduces wilful figments;whilst the notes attached to his narrative will prove I trust howcertainly they are the footsteps of a genuine traveller that weare following. And in judging him we must not forget the disadvantages under which his story labours in coming to us bydictation, or mainly so, and that a dictation accomplished inillness, and taken down by a friar of probably still less literaturethan his own.5I must, however, after the examination of a considerablenumber of versions and MSS. , entirely reject the notion put.forward so positively by Tiraboschi, and accepted by later1 In Acta Sanctorum."Nisi fidem exstruat vel extorqueat sanctitas auctoris."3 Vita e Viaggi, p. 13.“ Dumjaceret infirmus, " says Wadding after some older writer.5 It is singular that the narratives of Marco Polo, Odoric, Nicolo Conti,and Ibn Batuta, the four most remarkable Asiatic itineraries of themiddle ages, should all have come down to us under the disadvantages of dictation.6 See Storia della Letteratura Italiana, Modena, 1789, v, pp. 124-129 .2220 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.writers, that Odoric's narrative has been largely interpolatedwith lying wonders by medieval editors and copyists. Thoughthere are great differences of expression in the various MSS. , andsome unaccountable ones of fact, the substance of all the chiefMSS. is the same, and especially in regard to the principaldifficulties; whilst some of the stories that Tiraboschi brands asinterpolations and fictions, are indeed the very seals of truth.¹It may be well here to point out a few of those passages whichstamp Odoric as a genuine and original traveller. He is thenthe first European who distinctly and undoubtedly mentions thename of Sumatra. He also (though on this the variety ofreadings may cast a shade of doubt) mentions the Rejang of thesame island, a people not known to Europe otherwise for centuries after his time. The cannibalism and community of wiveswhich he attributes to certain races in that island do certainlybelong to it, or to islands closely adjoining. And it is to be remembered that Odoric travelled with neither the scepticism of aman of science nor the experience of a man of the world.His good faith is indicated if his stories are those reallycurrent about the places which he visited . His descriptionof sago in the Archipelago is not free from errors, but they arethe errors of an eyewitness. His mention of the annoyancefrom leeches in the forests of Ceylon, and of a two-headed¹ I am excluding here those few Italian MSS. which are classifiedbelow as the fourth type of versions of Odoric. Some remarks will bemade on them separately.One of the examples of interpolation adduced by Tiraboschi is Odoric's account ofthe Tulsi trees before the doors of the Hindus, a passage, apparently, a little obscured by the misapprehension of the scribe. Anotheris the statement about the king of Champa's having fourteen thousandelephants, the printed version in Ramusio giving only fourteen. Buthere it is certain that it is the Ramusian version which has dropt the M,and not the others, which have interpolated it . The region in questionis the very metropolis of elephants, and for Odoric to have said that theking kept fourteen elephants would have been a ludicrous bathos .On the other hand the real difficulties of Odoric's story are the accountsof the Islands of Nicoverra and Dondin, and the Passage through the Terrible Valley, with, perhaps, one or two more. The former of theseare found in all the versions of Odoric, and the latter in all but thetruncated narrative which we call here the Minor Ramusian.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 21bird in that island, are shown to be the notes of a real visitor;so is his whole account of southern China. His notices of thecustom of fishing with cormorants, of the habits of letting thefinger-nails grow long, and of compressing the women's feet, aswell as of the division of the Khan's empire into twelve provinces,with four chief Vizirs, are peculiar to him, I believe, among allthe European travellers of the age. Polo mentions none ofthem.The names which he assigns to the Chinese post- stations, and tothe provincial Boards of Administration; the technical Turkiterm which he uses for a sack of rice, &c . , &c . , are all tokens ofthe reality of his experience.No two versions or MSS. that I have compared are exactlyalike, and in all there are considerable differences of expression,difficult to account for unless we suppose that the practice inmultiplying copies of such works was not to attempt verbaltranscription, but merely to read over a clause, and then write.down its gist in such language as came uppermost. Yet whyshould a practice have applied to the transcription of thesenarratives different from that which applied to the multiplication of the classics?But apart from the slighter differences of expression and theaccidental omissions which may be supposed thus to arise, thevarious versions of Odoric's story appear to divide themselvesinto four distinct types.The first type is probably that which comes nearest to Odoric'sactual dictation, or would do so if we had really good MSS. of it.It is represented by the Latin MS. in St. Mark's library (No. 26 ofthe list below) , and by the copious extracts which are given inthe Acta Sanctorum from another MS. transcribed at Avignonthe year after Odoric's death, by Henry of Glatz, a BohemianFranciscan. These copies make no mention of William ofSolagna, but have two postscripts appended. The first, writtenby Friar Marchesino of Bassano, adds as a supplementary story,from his own recollection of Odoric's conversation, an anecdote¹1 There is a freshness and simple picturesqueness about this little storywhich suggests the notion that perhaps Odoric was a higher style of manthan we see him through the penmanship of William de Solagna; andthat the tone of the latter scribe may have deteriorated the rest of the narrative.22 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.which the other versions introduce as part of the dictated narrative. The second postscript relates briefly the circ*mstancesof the traveller's death.The second type is that from which Venni published, and isthat of the best existing MSS. both Latin and Italian, so far asI have seen them. It differs from the first in the points justnoticed, and ends with a postscript, in which William of Solagnadeclares himself to have been the amanuensis of the traveller,whilst he, or some other, also records Odoric's death .The third type is that of the MSS. in the British Museum(Nos. 1 and 2 below) , of which one was published and translatedby Hakluyt. These MSS. also contain the postscript of W. ofSolagna, but they differ a great deal from those of the two preceding types in expression, often substituting passages of morediffuse phraseology, which are in fact glosses on the narrative,but are often quite erroneous in the turn they give to themeaning.The fourth type is that which appears in what is quoted hereafter as the Minor Ramusian version. For Ramusio, or theeditor who took up his work after his death, without preface orexplanation gives two versions of Odoric's narrative, the secondbeing much shorter than the first, and exhibiting some remarkable differences from it, whilst at the same time it contains someadditional touches which carry with them a strong stamp ofgenuineness. I know of only two copies partaking of this typebesides that printed in Ramusio, the original of which seems notto have been traced. These two are both at Florence, one atruncated copy in the Riccardian library, and the other in thePalatine; both in Italian. This last has some remarkable differences from the version of Ramusio, and is much fuller in thelatter part, as if completed from a version of the first type.The extracts given below from Latin copies of the first threetypes, and from a most careful Italian MS. at Venice, will1 Ramusio himself died in 1557, after having published only the first(1550) and third (1556) volumes of his Navigationi. The second volumecame out under the editorship of the printer, Thomas Giunti, in 1559,but Odoric did not appear therein till the publication of the secondedition in 1574. ( D'Avezac in Rec. de Voyages , iv. )BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 23illustrate what has been said of their variations in expression,though it is difficult to select one passage which shall well showthe peculiarities of each.From the version of Henry deGlatz in the ACTA SANCTORUM ."Deinde magnas duos sportasaccepit plenas quæ mensæ superfuerant fragmentorum, etapertâ portâ nos in quoddamviridarium introduxit. Eratautem in eo monticulus quidamplenus arboribus amoenis; acceptoque uno tintinnabulo cœpit pulsare. Ad cujus sonitummox animalia multa et diversade illo monticulo descenderunt,sicut essent simiæ, cati . . . . etplura alia, et quædam quæ faciem hominis videbantur habere.Et cum videremus de bestiisusque ad tria millia circa ipsumordinate convenisse, ille paropsides posuit, (et ) illis sportissecundum naturæ suæ . . . distribuit illis cibum. Et cumcomedissent iterum cymbalumpulsans, animalia ad loca propria remeabant. Ego autemmultum ridens illi seni dixi:Edissere mihi quid ista significat, " etc.From Manuscript in BritishMuseum (No. 2 below) ." Tunc accepit ille religiosus duo magna vasa fragmentisFrom Venni's published Textin ELOGIO STORICO DEL B.ODORICO." Tune ergo duos magnos mastellos accepit plenos hiis quæsuperfuerant mensâ; et aperienscujusdam vindarii portam inipsum intravimus. In hoc viridario est monticulus quidamplenus arboribus amoenis. Accepit ergo timpanum quemdamquem pulsare coepit; ad cujussonum multa animalia varia etdiversa de hoc monticulo descenderunt, sicut sunt simiægattimaymones et multa aliaanimalia quæ faciem habebanthumanam, quæ erant circa triamillia. Quæ circa se aptaverunt ad se invicem ordinata.Dum autem sic circa ipsumordinata manerent, parossidesposuit ante illa et sicut competebat eis comedere dabat.Quæ dum comedissent cymbalum pulsare coepit; et sic adsua loca reversa sunt. Tuncmultum ridere cœpi, dicens:Dicas quid hoc indicare vellit? "etc.From Italian MS. in the St.Mark's Library (No. 1. below)." Et allotta tolse duo grandibigonci di quello che gl' era24 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.illoquæ superaverant de mensârepleta, et duxit me ad unamcujusdam viridarii parvam portam. Quam cum clave aperiensviridarium intravimussimul. In illo autem viridarioerat unus monticulus amoenisherbis et arboribus plenus. Subquo dum ad invicem staremus,ipse unum cimbalum accepit etillum incepit percutere et pulsare. Ad cujus sonitum multaanimalia varia et diversa, aliquaut simiæ, aliqua ut cati et maymones, et aliqua faciem hominis habentia, de illo monticulodescenderunt. Et dum sicstaremus animalia illa benecciii millia se circa ipsum aptaverunt ad invicem ordinata.Quibus sic circum ipsum ordinatis et positis ipse paropsidesante ea posuit et ut competebatcomedere eis dabat. Et cumcomedissent cymbalum suumiterum percussit et omnia adloca propria redierunt. Tuncadmiratus quæ essent animaliaista, quasi ridendo multum inquisivi, " etc.avanzato da desinare, et apersela porta d'uno giardino per laquale noi entramo in quellogiardino. Et in quello era unmonticello pieno d'alberi dilettevoli . Et stando cosi et eglitolse uno cembalo e cominciolloa sonare. Al suono del qualemolti e diversi animali di quellomonticello discesono, fatti amodo di simie ghatti maimonie molti altri animali et qualiavenno faccia d'uomo.Et essendo venuti cosi questi animalich'erano apresso di iii , et ordinatamente s'acconciorono intorno a costui, et essendo cosiintorno costui egli mise le scodelle dinanzi di loro, e davaglimangiare come si conveni. Etquando ebbono mangiati eglicominciò a sonare il cembalo,et tutti ritornavano agli lorluoghi. Et io vedendo cosiqueste cose cominciai a rideredicendo: Dimmi che vuole dimostrare questo? " etc.The differences exhibited by the Italian copies of the fourthtype are much more perplexing. Many of these differenceseither show marked character which looks genuine, or containtrue information not contained in the other versions, so that Iam strongly inclined to believe that the basis of this type ofnarrative has been a genuine document, and very possibly onewritten by Odoric himself, prior to the dictation of his longerstory at Padua. But it bears also traces of having passed throughignorant hands which have misrendered the narrative put intoBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 25them. In a note below I give examples of what is meant undereach of the characteristics that have been named.¹The greatest difficulty in the whole of Odoric's narrative liesin his account of the Islands of Nicoverra and Dondin, and themanner in which these are introduced in the longer versions ofhis story.In the minor version of Ramusio no mention is made ofMalabar or Maabar, though many particulars regarding thecontinent of India, which in the longer versions are connectedwith those two countries, are in the shorter embraced in theaccount of Tana.Moreover the Minor Ramusian mentions intermediately between India and China only the islands of Nicoverra and Dondin,whereas the longer versions speak in detail of Sumatra, Java,Thalamasin (certainly a part of the Archipelago) , and Champa.After Champa China should naturally follow; but here comein quite anomalously Nicoverra and Dondin, and between themCeylon, which does not appear at all in the Minor Ramusian.The only probable suggestion I can offer in explanation of this1 1. Statements and peculiarities in the MINOR RAMUSIAN Version ofOdoric that have a look of genuine character, whether true or not. 1. Theassertion that Odoric commenced his travels in 1318. 2. The repeatedoaths (per lo vero Iddio) to the truth of the statements. 3. The story ofa convent of loose women at Erzrum. 4. The Description of the SandySea. 5. Description of a Marriage at Baghdad, and of another at Tanain India. 6. Comparison of the crowds in China to those in Venice onAscension Day, etc.II . Statements of true or probable circ*mstances, not found in the Latincopies. 1. Says nothing ofgoing abroad for love of souls, but merely that hewent with leave of his superiors . 2. Mentions mines of copper [and silver]near Trebizond. 3. Mentions that snow covers two- thirds of Ararat andrenders it inaccessible. 4. Mentions Minorite convent at Tauris. 5.[ Mentions crossing Fiume Rosso (Araxes) before reaching Tauris. ] 6.Locates the Wise Men of the East at Sabba instead of at Kashan, as theother copies do. 7. [The Sumpit or Blow-pipe in the Eastern Archipelago] , etc.III . Instances of ignorant alteration or interpolation. 1. Emperor ofConstantinople substituted for Emperor of Trebizond, near the beginning.2. Raisins of Yezd called very big, instead of very little, as in the othercopies. 3. Houses in China said to be eight or ten stories high. 4. Assertion that he saw the plant called the Tartar Lamb, etc.The references in brackets are to the copy in the Palatine Library at Florence.26 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.state of things is that the original incomplete sketch which formsthe substance of the Minor Ramusian, whether written or dictated by Odoric, was handed over to the amanuenses to aidthem in the redaction of the longer narrative, and that theyinterpolated this part about Nicoverra, &c . , where they thoughtmost convenient.This notion is somewhat strengthened by the following circ*mstance. Under Malabar, in the longer narrative, the practiseof Suttee is thus mentioned: "If the dead man had a wife, theyburn her alive with him, saying that she should abide with herhusband in the other world. " And again the same version, inconcluding the account of Champa, says: "When a married mandies in this country his body is burnt, and his wife is burnt alivealong with him; for they say that she should go with herhusband, to keep him company in another world. " And this isimmediately followed by the account of Nicoverra.Now a reference to the translation will show that the passageabout Suttee in Champa comes in inappropriately, after the authorhad apparently done with that country. And I do not think wehave any reason to believe that Suttee was practised in Champaor Cambodia, countries whose Indian religion seems to have beenBuddhism and not Brahmanism.¹ The last extract, therefore,I conceive, may have been merely a portion of the shorternarrative relating to India Proper, which was accidentallyinterpolated into the longer narrative along with the account ofNicoverra and Dondin. And its appearance confirms in somedegree my suggestion as to the fact of this interpolation. Otherand minor difficulties or exaggerations are, I dare say, to beaccounted for by accidents of dictation, and must not be judgedtoo hardly. For instance, the narrative says that Odoric saw atChampa a tortoise as big as the dome of St. Anthony's atPadua. The Friar, be it remembered, was in the convent of St.Anthony, when he dictated the story; perhaps lying ill as someof his biographers assert. He tells William de Solagna that he¹ I find, however, since writing the above, that the Sommario de' Regniin Ramusio ascribes the practice of suttee to the people of Cambodia.(Ramusio, i, 336.)BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 27saw a very bigtortoise .6How big? quoth Gulielmo all agape;Was it as big as the dome yonder? ' " Well, yes, ' says the sicktraveller, perhaps without turning to look, and certainly withoutmaking a very accurate comparison, ' I dare say it might be.'And down it goes in regular narration: " Vidi ibi testudinemmajorem revolutione trulli eglesiae Sancti Antonii de Padua. "177770Domes of St. Anthony's at Padua.Odoric's credit was not benefited by the liberties which SirJohn Mandeville took with his narrative . Because ignoranceformerly accused Herodotus and Marco Polo of multiplyingfalsehoods, the fashion of " rehabilitation " would extend itselftoo widely, and try to cover also such writers as FerdinandMendez Pinto and Mandeville. No one, of course, could regardMandeville as throughout writing bond fide; but he has beentreated by respectable authorities as if he had really travelled inthe far East. Now the fact is that the substance of his travelsto the Indies and Cathay is entirely stolen from Odoric, thoughlargely amplified with fables from Pliny and other ancients, aswell as from his own imagination, and garnished with his ownwonderfully clear astronomical notions.These coincidences were so obvious to former ages that Mandeville is, I think, said to have been termed on his tomb, OdoriciComes, whilst the MS. of Odoric in the library of Mentz Cathedralentitles the latter, " Socius Militis Mendavill." Sir Thomas Herbert, too, calls Odoric " travelling companion of our Sir John. "28 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.I subjoin in a note details which will give an idea of the extentof these wholesale robberies . Naturally Mandeville has oftenmisunderstood what he appropriates, and that in a way whichshows that he never travelled in the countries spoken of; of thismany instances might be given if it were worth while. He iscrafty enough now and then to suggest the probability of hishaving travelled in company with Odoric, and having thusshared his experiences . For instance he says, in describing thePerilous Valley (which loses nothing in his telling) , that therewere with him " two worthy men, Friars of Lombardy, who saidthat if any man would enter they would go in with us. " (p. 269) .Indeed his borrowings are so large, and date from a time sonearly contemporary with Odoric, that his readings of the propernames have some positive value for collation , and have occasionally suggested amendments of the text, which in some instanceshave afterwards been confirmed by superior MSS. of Odoric, andin others still need that corroboration.2The following passages of Odoric are appropriated bodily by Mandeville. 1. The notice of Trebizond, and that of the body of Athanasiusthere. (Mand. , p. 202.) 2. The account of Erzrum ( p. 203) . 3. AboutArarat, and including the difficult name of Sobissacalo (ib . ). 4. Noticesof Cassan and the Three Kings; of the Sandy Sea; of Comum or Cornaaand its ruins; and the land of Job ( p . 205) . 5. Of the Tower of Babel,and the dress of the men and women of Chaldæa (p. 206). 6. Of Shipswithout nails (with the addition of the legend of the loadstone rocks)(p. 211) . 7. Notice of Thana (called Chana) ib. 8. All about Malabar,and the pepper, &c. , with fictions added (p . 213-14) . 9. The odd passageof Odoric, about the women drinking and shaving, is repeated (p. 215) .10. Notice of Mabar; but giving the city of St. Thomas the name ofCalamy (the Calamina of ecclesiastical tradition ) which is not used byOdoric (ib . ) . 11. Voyage to Lamori, &c.; Notices of Sumatra, Java,Sago-making, &c. (218-223 ) . 12. Notice of Champa, with Odoric's storiesof shoals of fish, of 14,000 elephants, &c . , and fictions of his own added(p. 224-5) . 13. The accounts of Nicoverra, Ceylon, and Dondin, and allout ofplace just as in Odoric (p. 226-8) . 14. The whole account of Manziand Cathay, &c. , &c . It might be worth while if I had time and space totry to trace all the originals which Mandeville stole from. I suspect theknight would come out of the process almost in his buff. A large part istaken from Haiton, and something from Plano Carpini. It might evenprove on examination that his minute account of the Holy Land, the bestpart of his book, is stolen likewise. (The preceding references are toBohn's edition of Mandeville. )2 Thus I first got the true name of the city Chilenfu (see § 34 ofOdoric) instead of Chileso, Chilerapha, &c. , from Mandeville, though IBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 29The MSS of Odoric's travels scattered over Europe arenumerous, as has already been mentioned. A list of thosewhich I have seen or found notices of, with such particulars as Ihave been able to collect, is added here. But I suspect that itis very imperfect.¹Latin MSS. of Odoric's Itinerary.1. BRITISH MUSEUM. (Royal Colln. , xiv, c. 13) . A handsomefolio on parchment, very clean and clearly written. From thecollation of a large part of it I think there can be no doubt thatthis was the MS. from which Hakluyt printed Odoric's narrative.There are but one or two slight variations in proper names,which may well have been misprints or mistranscriptions. Thevolume contains much besides Odoric's work, which is entitled"Itinerarium Fratris Odorici Ordinis Fratrum minorum de Mirabilibus Orientalium Tartarorum ."2. BRITISH MUSEUM. (Arundel Colln. , xiii . f. 38 b. ) "Itinerarium Fr. Odorici de Ordine Minorum de Mirabilibus Indiæ." Asmall 4to. , in pale ink, and much discoloured. In the earlierpart the agreement with the preceding MS. is pretty close;afterwards the variations are greater. The two MSS. have,however, a great general conformity and marked peculiaritiescommon to both. "These two MSS. are pronounced on goodauthority to be of the earlier half of the fourteenth century, andmost probably a short time after the death of the author. "(Major's Preface to Herberstein) . However that may be, theyhave since found it in MSS. of Odoric . And the Cornaa which Mandeville has instead of Comum (see § 3) has suggested another reading andidentification.Old Purchas's judgment of the relative claims of the two travellersis most unjust. Mandeville he calls next to Polo, " if next ... the greatestAsian traveller that ever the World had"; whilst he has nought but ill tosay of " Odericus, a Friar and Traveller, in whom perhaps some Friarhath travelled with him at least in this author [ i.e. , Mandeville], whoseage was before him, and therefore could not cite anything out of him"[the reverse of the truth] . Purchas's Pilgrims, iii, 65, 127.1 The sources quoted by Haenel and Pertz, from whom I have derivednotices of several MSS. , are sometimes old; and the MSS. may notalways have survived in the libraries indicated .30 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.afford a version which has been in some manner and degreetampered with. I have examined this MS. and had a transcriptbefore me.3. BRITISH MUSEUM. (Cotton Colln. Otho. D. 1. ) I onlyknow this by a note kindly sent me by Mr. Major, and can sayno more of it.4. CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, Cambridge. ( No. 407. ) An8vo. on vellum of the commencement of the 15th century, containing also the Journey of Rubruquis and other matter. ( Seenotice in D'Avezac's Edition of Rubruquis; Rec. de Voyages,iv, p. 209) . There is perhaps another MS. of Odoric in Corpus.For Asquini in his life of Odoric says that the old MS. of hisnarrative, which formerly existed in the Convent at Udine, wassold in his own day to an English gentleman passing throughFriuli, by the heirs of a priest to whom it had been lent, and heunderstood that it was preserved in St. Benet's College, Cambridge. The MS. in question, however, only dated from 1448(see Venni, p. 38) .5. GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, Cambridge. (No. 162. ) Avolume containing Odoricus de Ritibus Orientalium, with Pipino'sversion of Marco Polo, and other works relating to Asia. (SeeCat. of MSS. of Gon, and Caius Coll. , by the Rev. J. J. Smith,M.A., Camb. , 1849. )6. BODLEIAN, Oxford . ( Digby MSS. , K. D. 11 ) . A square 12mo,considered by Mr. Coxe of the Bodleian to date from soon afterthe middle of the 14th century. It contains a tract De Angelis, &c. ,ODORIC'S ITINERARY, and sundry more. The Odoric is in a handfull of contractions, and is headed, Incipit Itinerarium Fri'sOdorici de Ordine Minor' approbatum sub manu notorii publici demirabilibus Indie. It has then this preface: "Noverint universiquorum interest quod quidam frater Ordinis Minorum Odoricusnomine, Provinciae Paduanae, volens accedere ad praesentiamSummi Pontificis Dni Johannis Papae XXII, monitu angelicoad locum et conventum unde exierat regressus est; eo quod infradecendium fuerat moriturus, prout idem angelus sibi enunciavit.In suo igitur regressu scripsit modum martirii quatuor frminorum et alia quae audivit mirabilia in partibus orientis in (?)BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 31infidelis diversarum nationum et specialiter Indiarum hoc modo. "It seems to be of the second type.7. BODLEIAN, Oxford. ( Digby MSS. , K. D. , 166. ) A smallfolio, considered to be of about the same date as No. 6. It contains several geometrical tracts, poems, The ITINERARY of ODORIC,An Epistle of Satan to the Universal Church, etc., etc., endingwith a Rhythmica Defensio Uxorum Sacerdotalium. This copy seemsto be nearly the same as the last, but I found both too crampfor effective comparison. There is a preface nearly the same asthat just cited, but the postscript about the death of Odoric isomitted.8. LIBRARY OF SIR T. PHILLIPPS at Middlehill. ( 1789, 650) .A parchment MS. of the fourteenth century, containing theItinerary of Odoric, preceded by Palladius Rutilius TaurusÆmilianus on Agriculture (see Haenel, Catalogi Libr. MSS. quiin Bibliothecis Galliæ Helvetia Belgii, etc., asservantur, p. 859) .9. BIBL. IMPERIALE, Paris. (Fonds Latin, No. 2584. ) This isthe MS. which I have printed in the Appendix to this collection .It is careful, and generally gives the proper names in a goodform. It is the only one I know of that calls Odoric " Boemus. ”10. BIBL. IMPERIALE, Paris. (Fonds Latin, No. 3195. ) Oneor two passages in the transcript of the preceding, which wasmade for me, have been corrected from this copy. I believe it isone of what I have called the first type, after Henry of Glatz.11. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, Strasburg. (A. vi, 7.) " Oderici Ord.Minorum Itinerarium, A. 1340" (see G. HI. Pertz, Archiv derGesellschaft für ältere Deutsche Geschichtskunde, vol. viii, p. 461 ) .6612. DITTO, DITTO. Another (paper) MS. of the fourteenth century. Incipit peregrinacio Fr. Odorici de Ord. Minorum. Innomine Patris," etc. (Ib . p. 466) .13. BIBLIOTH. PUBLIQUE, Strasburg. Avolume containing withVita Romoaldi, Hist. de Alexandro Magno, and other matter,"Relatio Oderici de Terris ignotis" (see Haenel, as above, p. 462) .14. PALATINE LIBRARY, Vienna. (Codd. Ascet. , No. dcxv. )This MS. contains a manifold collection . No. 23 is the Itineraryof Odoric (see Codd. MSS. Theolog. Biblioth. Palat. Vindobonensis,etc., by Michael Denis, vol. i , part ii, col. 2352 ) .32 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.15. ROYAL LIBRARY, Berlin. No. 141 under Theologici is a 4to,containing the Journey in the Holy Land, ascribed to Odoric(vid. sup. , p. 17); Detmar and Burchard on the Holy Land;Odorici Itinerarius, commencing Licet multa, etc., and much besides (Pertz as above, p. 846).16 and 17. ROYAL LIBRARY, Munich. ( Codd. Lat. , No. 903 andanother. ) From a note kindly sent by Prof. Kunstmann. Nofurther particulars.18 and 19. METROPOLITAN LIBRARY (Dom- Capitel) at Prague.For these two, see Pertz, Archiv, as above, ix 474, seq.20. BOHEMIAN MUSEUM at Prague. A parchment MS. , "Odericifratris Itinerarium in Orientem" (Ibid. p. 478).21. METROPOLITAN LIBRARY at Mentz. No. 52. This commences with " Incipit Itinerarius fidelis fratris Oderici socii MilitisMendavill per Indiam; licet hic prius et alter posterius peregrinationem suam descripsit. " The volume also contains Friar Pipino'sLatin version of Polo, the Itinerary of Ricold of Montecroce, andItinerarius Nobilis Viri Dni Wilhelmi Beldensele (Boldensel) .(From Recensus Codicum Antiq. tam MSS. quam impressorumMoguntia in Rmi. Capituli Metropol. Biblioth. latitantium, Pars, I.In Sylloge I Variorum Diplomatariorum, etc., by " Val. Fred. deGudenus." Frankfurt, 1728, p. 381. )22. CITY LIBRARY, Bremen. A parchment 4to, containing theHistory of the Three Kings; the Chron. of the Counts of Mark,and in an Italian hand of the fourteenth century the Itineraryheaded: " Ista infrascripta sunt mirabilia quæ vidit frater Odoricusde Foro Julii Ordinis Fratrum Minorum ultra mare", etc. (Pertz,as above, vol. vii, p. 691).23. EPISCOPAL SEMINARY, Eichstadt. (Membr. fol. N. 50. )Contains, with other matters, Odorici Itinerarium de MirabilibusMundi (Id., vol. ix, p. 559) .24. WOLFENBÜTTEL LIBRARY. (Weiss MSS. , No. 40. ) Thevolume contains Marco Polo, Odoric, Ricold of Montecroce, andWilliam of Boldensel. ( See Peregrinatores Medii Evi Quatuor,etc., quoted ante p. 17) .25. AMBROSIAN LIBRARY at Milan. I noted this from theCatalogue, but have no other particulars.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 3326. ST. MARK'S LIBRARY at Venice. (MSS. Lat. , Class xiv, Cod.xliii. ) This MS. is described (as No. lxxii ) in the printed Catalogue raisonné called Biblioteca Manoscritta di Tommaso GiuseppeFarsetti, Venez. , 1771. It is of the fourteenth century, and probably early, but is not very carefully written. I have had atranscript of it in preparing this translation, but it has not provedso useful as I expected.27. CAVAL. CICOGNA'S LIBRARY, at Venice. This is one of thoseused by Venni in printing his text, of which there were two.The other also is preserved at Venice or in Friuli, but I cannotgive the place, having unluckily lost a note by Signr. Cicognaon the subject. Signr. Cicogna's, if it is, as I believe, that whichbelonged to Liruti, was transcribed in 1401 by Filippo, notaryand student in Padua. (See work by Liruti, quoted at p. 6.)28. CAPITULAR LIBRARY, at Udine. A paper MS. of the earlypart of the 15th century. Dr. Joppi, of Udine, in a note mentioning this, says it is pretty correct, and apparently somewhatlike that used by Venni in his notes as " Udinese " (but, I gather,not the same) . There is an Italian version attached to it,transcribed about the same time.Italian MSS. of Odoric.1. ST. MARK'S LIBRARY, Venice. (Cl. vi. , Cod. 102. ) Paper8vo, and certainly of the 14th century. It is described in awork called " Codd. MSS. Bibliotheca Naniana a Jacobo Morelliorelati, Venet. , 1771, " in high terms of praise for its " diligenza epulitezza di stilo." I can speak as to the former; it is the mostcareful and intelligently executed copy of Odoric that I haveseen. I have examined the MS. and used a transcript of it inpreparing this work.2. ST. MARK'S LIBRARY, Venice. (Cl. vi. , Cod. 208.) Paper4to. Not earlier than the 16th century. The volume containsother matter, including Polo, Alonzo Cadamosto, voyages ofVasco de Gama and Columbus. It is noticed in Marsden'sPolo, p. lxii. I have examined it, but made no use of it.3. RICCARDIANA, at Florence. (No. 683.) Small 4to. , containing many other pieces. This is one of the peculiar type334 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.which I have classed with Ramusio's Minor version. It seemedto me, as far as I went through it, to be the same as the next onthe list, but it is truncated, going no further than the sons anddaughters of the King of Champa (see § 23) . This MS. ismentioned by Brunet in his article on Odoric, and is noticed inLami's " Catalogus Codd. MSS. qui in Bibl. Riccard. Florentiæadservantur" , Liburni, 1756, p. 203.4. PALATINE, at Florence. (E. 5, 9, 6, 7) . A thin square 8vo,containing only Odoric and a short narrative about three monkswho visited the Terrestrial Paradise. According to the MS.Catalogue by G. Molini it is of the 14th century. It is writtensomewhat carelessly, and in a most barbarous style, but hasremarkable peculiarities. The earlier part coincides with theMinor Ramusian (not minutely), and traces of the same basisappear throughout, but also many things that are in no othercopy that I know of. For this reason it has been thoughtdesirable to print it.5. BIBL. LUCCHESINI, at Lucca.century, which also contains Polo.Paper MS. of the fifteenthBoth in the Venetian dialect .(From Lazari's ed. of Polo, Venezia 1847, p. 452.)6. CAPIT. LIBRARY, Udine. See No. 28 Latin MSS. above.French MSS. of Odoric.1, 2, 3. BIBL. IMPERIALE. (Nos. 7500 C. , 8392, and 1103 Suppl.Français ) . The version of John le Long, of Ypres, made in themiddle of the 14th century. The first MS. is a collection containing Haiton, Ricold, Odoric, Boldensel, and the Archbishopof Soltania's Livre du Grant Caan. The second is a magnificentvolume on vellum, with many miniatures, containing Polo andMandeville in addition to the preceding. (Davezac. )4. BRITISH MUSEUM. ( Cotton Coll. Otho D. 2. ) This was acollection similar to those in the Paris Library, but it suffered inthe fire of the last century, and only a fragment remains.5. CITY LIBRARY, Berne. This is a collection similar to theParis MS. No. 8392, and is also highly embellished.I add what I have been able to collect as to the Bibliography of Odoric's narrative, and other works specially devotedBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 35to him. Of the more comprehensive ecclesiastical biographiescontaining notices of Odoric, I mention only a few of thechief.1. The FIRST PRINTED EDITION of the Itinerary was publishedby Pontico Virunio, of Belluno, in 4to, at Pesaro in 1513, underthe title of Odorichus de Rebus Incognitis. It was printed byGirolamo Soncino, who had presses also at Rimini, Fano, andOrthona ad Mare, from a MS. which Pontico obtained from oneFrancesco Olivieri of Jesi. It is in the vernacular, in whatZeno calls lingua inculta e rozza, and which Pontico consideredto be Odoric's own language (Apostolo Zeno, Dissertazioni Vossiane, Venez. 1751 , ii , p. 257) . I have not, I regret to say, beenable to find a copy of this work. I suppose it is of extremerarity.2. In 1529 was printed at Paris for John St. Denys a smallfolio in black letter with some woodcuts, containing the collectionindicated above as French MS. No. 7500 c., under the title of"L'hystoire Merveilleuse Plaisante et Recreative du Grand Empereur de Tartarie, Seigneur des Tartres, nommé le Grand Can,"&c. In this, Odoric's work (in French) occupies from f. 53 textto f. 66. It is thus described in the title: " Le cinquiesme contientcomment ung aultre religieux des freres Mineurs alla oultre mer pourprescher les infidelles et futjusques en la terre du Prebstre-Jan ou ilvit plusieurs aultres choses fort admirables et dignes de grantmemoire comme il racompte ci- dedans. " There are two othereditions in small 4to. (Davezac; and Bibliog. in " ChineModerne," by Pauthier and Bazin. ) I have not seen it.3. Ramusio, Navigazioni e Viaggi. Odoric first came out in thesecond edition of the second volume, which appeared in 1574.There are two versions given without any prefatory matter orexplanation. The first and longest of these is almost certainly atranslation from the MS. used by Venni in his edition as Udinese.The coincidence of peculiarities in proper names and other particulars shows this. The second is probably an original oldItalian text, and is of a peculiar type, as has been set forthfully in a preceding page.4. " Historiarum Seraphica Religionis, etc., A. F. Petro Rodulphio 3236 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.Tossinianensi Con. Fran. Venetiis, 1586. " At p. 125 of thiswork there is a life of Odoric, with a wood- cut portrait (seeante p. 17).5. The second volume of the Principal Navigations, Voyages,Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, etc. , by RichardHakluit, Preacher, and sometime Student of Christ Church inOxford. Imprinted at London by George Bishop, Ralph Newberie,and Robert Barker. Anno 1599.This contains a Latin text of Odoric (p. 39) , printed as I apprehend from No. 1 Latin MS. mentioned above, and also at p. 53a quaint English translation from the same copy, but omittingthe martyrdom of the Friars at Tana.6. "Panegyris de B. Odorico de Portu Naonis Ord. Min. Convent. S. Francisci, Auct. Jo. Bapt. Gabello, cum esset in ecclesiaS. Udalrici de Villa Nova in diœcesi Concordiensi Servus. Utiniapud Lorium 1627." 4to . (From Bibliografia del Friuli, daGiuseppe Valentinelli, (the learned Librarian of St. Mark's)Venezia, 1861, p. 384) .7. I know not if the last mentioned work be a previous editionof one published at Udine in 1635, which contains a Hymn to theBeato by the same Gabelli, and also a copy of the old Anthemand collect used on the 14th January, which used to hang in theConvent Church at Udine, over against the sarcophagus ofOdoric (Acta Sanctorum and Liruti in work noted below) . Ihave seen a MS copy of these at San Daniele. The hymn is inIambic dimeter, a dismal flat of forty stanzas.8. " Vita del Beato, etc. , dell' Ordine de' Minori di San Francesco, con li sacri miracoli, descritta dal M. R. B. F. Marco daLisbona, nella seconda parte delle Chroniche -il cui corpo si conserva· nella Chiesa de' RR. PP. Minori Convent. di S. Francesco dentrodella città di Udine. In Udine 1639, appresso Nicolo Schiratti,con licenza de' Superiori. " I saw this at San Daniele. It is asmall pamphlet of 24 pp. 12mo, by a native. of Pordenone, andhas a very rude cut of Odoric preaching.Valentinelli has a work, apparently the same, under date 1634(See the work cited above) .9. Giambattista Gabello, Vita del B. Odorico Matthiuzzi.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 37Udine, Schiratti, 1639. (FromValentinelli, U.S. ) Possibly thesame as No. 8, but the title does not correspond.10. The Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists under xiv January.This gives copious extracts from the MS. of the Itinerary transcribed by the monk Henry of Glatz at Avignon in the year ofOdoric's death, with a postscript added at Prague in 1340.Sprengel has said, and others have repeated, to account for theomissions in the narrative, that Henry of Glatz wrote it downfrom memory. There is no foundation for this, however. TheBollandists say expressly that they extract only such passages asshow the zeal and magnanimity of Odoric in propagating theFaith (not that the extracts do show this). And the writersays nothing about writing from memory. He only says thatwhen at Avignon he heard Odoric's story related at greaterlength. ( See the postscript quoted at the end of the Latin textin Appendix.11. The Annales Minorum of Luke Wadding, an Irish Franciscan-1st edition, in 8 vols. folio, 1625-1654; 2nd edition, in 19vols . , Rome, 1731-65 -contain several pages devoted to Odoric,under the year 1331 .12. " Vita e Viaggi del B. Odorico da Udine, descritti da DonBasilio Asquini, Bernabita, e dedicata alli MM. RR. PP. Guardiano e Religiosi tutti del Ven. Convento di San Francesco dellastessa Città. In Udine 1737 nella Stamperia di GiambattistaMurero." Small 8vo. Examined in St. Mark's Library.is a respectable book; there is a poor engraving of theBeato.It13. " Compendio della Vita, Virtu, Morte, e Miracoli del B.Odorico da Udine. Udine, 1758, Murero " (Valentinelli, U.S.)14. The Discussion before the Papal Court concerning thesanction demanded for the Beatification of Odoric, as fullynoticed at p. 12. Romæ, 1755. Ex Typographia Rev. CameræApostolicæ. Pp. 21 , 70, 9, 25, altogether 125 pp. folio.15. " Notizie delle Vite ed Opere scritte da' Letterati del Friuli;Raccolte da Gian Giuseppe Liruti Signor di Villa fredda, Venezia,1760." Vol. i , pp. 274-290 contains notices of Odoric's life, etc. ,of some interest.38 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.16. " Elogio Storico alle Gesta del Beato Odorico &c . con laStoria da lui dettata de' suoi Viaggi Asiatici. Illustrata da unReligioso dell' ordine stesso, e presentata agli amatori delle antichità.In Venezia1761 presso AntonioZatta. " 4to; with a (very poor)map, a handsomefrontispiece of Odoric baptising converts, anda plate of the tomb at Udine as it stood in the last century. Theeditor was Padre GIUSEPPEVENNI, and we have already had frequent occasion to refer to his work, for a copy of which I havebeen indebted to the kindness of my friend Mr. Perry, Consulgeneral at Venice.The text is taken from a MS. which belonged to Liruti (Ibelieve that numbered 27 above) , and on the whole it seems tome the best Latin copy to which I have had access. Variedreadings are given from a second MS. which was then in theconvent at Udine, and which I have before mentioned as thatfrom which Ramusio appears to have translated his larger version of Odoric's travels . There is a large appendix of illustrativenotes, but they are washy and in general valueless. The mostuseful part of the work is the ample and laborious collection ofnotices of Odoric's life and posthumous history.17. Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, 2da ed . , Modena,1789, vol. v, pp. 124-129 , has some useful references about Odoric,and some remarks upon his travels, which are of much lessvalue.18. Mathias Christian Sprengel: " Geschichte der WichtigstenGeographischen Entdeckungen, &c. , 2d ed. , Halle, 1792." Thisvery interesting little book has some pages ( 340-359) devoted toOdoric. It is printed with desperate inaccuracy.19. " Sacrum Rituum Congregatio, Eminent. et Reverend. D.Cardinal. Somalia Præfecto et Ponenti Utinensi seu Ord. MinorumS. Francisci approbat lectiones proprias in officio B. Odorici Matthiussiinstant. Rev. Episc. Utin. Romæ, 1822. Ex typ. Cameræ Apostolicæ ." Pp. 16, folio ( Valentinelli, U.S.)20. " Ragguaglio Breve della Vita del B. Odorico Mattiuzzi.Udine, Murero, 1824." 16mo. (Valentinelli, U.S. )21, 22, 23. Macfarlane's Romance of Travel (C. Knight, 1846);and Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. i (by Mr. Cooley) bothBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES . 39contain some account of Odoric's travels . So, I believe, doesMr. Hugh Murray's Asia, but I have not as yet seen it.24. "Historische Politische Blättern von Phillips' und Görres."This Roman Catholic periodical, published at Munich, contains(1856-1859) a series of Papers on the Eastern Missions in theMiddle Ages, of great interest, written by Professor FredericKunstmann of Munich; and I desire to acknowledge the advantage I have had from their perusal since becoming acquaintedwith them. More than once Professor Kunstmann has earnedfrom the present editor that benediction which is due to thosequi ante nos nostra dixerint, but his remarks and indications havebeen often useful even when I have differed from his conclusions.The following is a list of the papers which I was able to obtainthrough Professor Kunstmann's own courtesy.1. Die Mission in Meliapor und Tana, Bd. 37, p. 25.2. Die Mission in Columbo, ib. , p. 135.3. Die Mission in China, ib. , p. 225, and Bd. 43, p. 677.4. Der Missions-Bericht des Odericus von Pordenone, Bd. 38,507.p.5. Der Reisebericht des Johannes Marignola, ib. , pp. 701 and793. Besides a separate pamphlet-" Die Kenntniss Indiens imfunfzehnten Jahrhunderte, München, 1863."25. " Storia Universale delle Missioni Francescane, del P. Marcellino da Civezza, Roma, 1860." This is quoted by ProfessorKunstmann in the last-named pamphlet. I have not been ableto see it; attempts to procure it through a Turinese and througha Roman bookseller having equally failed .After what has been said about the variations in the differentcopies of Odoric, it will be obvious that before preparing a translation, it becomes necessary (on the principle of catching yourhare before cooking it) to ascertain the text which is to betranslated. The determination verbatim of a standard text isnot possible under the circ*mstances, but fortunately a largeproportion of the variations disappear in translation, as they arenot variations in sense. As regards the variations in propernames, in most cases it is possible to deduce from the facts whichreading is nearest the truth, though often considerable study has40 ODORIC OF PORDENONE.been necessary to ascertain their real indications. Among thevariations in other matters, the editor has exercised his judgmentin selecting what seemed to be the most probable readings. Andwhere it seemed a pity to omit additional particulars that werecurious or interesting, though depending on doubtful or exceptional authority, these have been interpolated into the translationwithin brackets.A translation however thus formed requires what theFrench call "justificative pieces, " that the editor's authority foreverything may be traced, and that he may not be thought tohave developed a new Odoric out of his " moral consciousness."It seemed therefore indispensable to print a Latin text with notesofthe collations made.I had wished to print this text from the copy of Henry ofGlatz, the only type of the four already discriminated whichnever has been printed in full; and a transcript of the ParisMS. (No. 10 above) , which was understood to be of thistype, was commissioned. By some mistake, or for some unexplained reason, the transcript was made from the other ParisMS. (No. 9 above) , and I have therefore been obliged to printthis as my Latin text; for the Farsetti MS. in St. Mark's (No.26) is not correct enough for the purpose, and there werestronger reasons against using the Arundel MS. (No. 2) , the onlyother one available to me which is not already in print. It did notsuit the object to print an Italian text only, or the St. Mark'sMS. (Italian No. 1 above) would have been unexceptionable.To the Latin text, however, I have added the Italian of theFlorence Palatine MS. In introducing this version, I feeltempted to borrow a formula from a late venerable personage, who presented a newly married lady to his friends asselected " not for her looks, as they saw, but because she wasgood. " The MS. is indeed in the basest style, and has neitherlooks nor goodness to recommend it . But it is eminently curious,as containing so many remarkable passages which appear in noother copy of Odoric, and when one is trying to dispose ofOdoric once for all it seems worthy of print. The most notablepassages in which the Minor Ramusian deviates from this, as wellBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 41as from the Latin copies, are brought forward in the notes to thisversion. In printing it, what seemed mere vulgarisms of spelling, such as rengno for regno, pripristeli for pipistrelli, have notbeen followed.In the comparison of the Latin copies a word by word collation has been out of the question, but it has been intended to record all important variations of proper names, all importantvariations of sense, and such variations of mere expression asthere seemed any sufficient reason for noting.The subdivision of the narrative into chapters is in all theMSS. very various, irregular and capricious. I have made a newdivision, assigning short headings in my translation, and forreasons of obvious convenience have extended this also to theLatin and Italian texts. It is to be understood, therefore, thatthe marginal headings of chapters in these are interpolations, andno part ofthe originals.It remains only to add a statement of the copies , printed orMSS. , which have been used in these collations , with the abbreviations by which they are respectively referred to in the notes.Indication of Copy.Paris Latin MS. No. 2584 Bibl. Imp.Venice Latin MS. formerly in FARSETTI Collection British Museum Latin MS.in Arundel Collection Paris Latin MS. No. 3195 .No. in List at Abbreviations.p. 29 seq.No. 9. (The Printed Text. )No. 26. FAR.No. 2.No. 10.Mus.PAR. 2 (only one or two collations from this).Venice Italian MS. St. Mark'sFlorence Italian MS. inPalatine LibraryItal. No. 1. MAR.Ital. No. 4. PAL.Hakluyt's Latin printed TextVenni's printed Latin Text Venni's printed collation of Udine MS.Ramusio's Italian version(the Longer)Ditto ditto (the Lesser)HAK.VEN.UT.RAM.MIN. RAM.

THE EASTERN PARTS OF THE WORLDDESCRIBED ,BYFRIAR ODORIC THE BOHEMIAN, OF FRIULI, IN THEPROVINCE OF SAINT ANTHONY.1. What the Friar saw at Trebizond and in the Greater Armenia.ALBEIT many other stories of sundry kinds concerning thecustoms and peculiarities of different parts of this worldhave been related by a variety of persons, yet would I haveyou to know that I also, Friar Odoric of Friuli, can trulyrehearse many great marvels which I did hear and seewhen, according to my wish, I crossed the sea and visitedthe countries of the unbelievers in order to win some harvest of souls [ and this I did with the leave of my superiors,who have power to grant it by the rules of our Order. ]¹[ Wherefore I purpose to relate briefly and compendiouslyunder sundry chapters of this little work a multitude of thethings which I have seen and heard in the East and theNorth and the South. Of all I purpose not to speak,though I shall be the first to tell of many which will seemto a number of people past belief. Nor, indeed, could Imyself have believed these things, had I not heard themwith my own ears or seen the like myself. Fourteen yearsand a half, in the habit of Francis, that blessed confessor of1 BOLL.44 THE TRAVELS OFChrist, I sojourned in those parts of the world. And nowbeing at Padua, I have here compiled this little work at therequest of the reverend Friar Guidotto, the minister of theprovince of Saint Anthony. If, then, the studious readershall find anything good in it, let him ascribe that to thedivine bounty and not to my poor skill. And if he findanything too hard for belief, and wherein he judgeth me tostray from truth, let him remark thereon with a student'scharity, and not with insolent bitterness and spiteful snarling. ]¹First, then, [going with the galleys from Venice ] Icrossed over the Greater Sea, and so passed to TREBIZOND,which was of old called Pontus. This city is situatedpassing well, and is a haven¹ for the Persians, Medes, andall the people on the further side of the sea. And in thiscountry I saw a very pretty sight [which I am the more boldto tell, because many persons with whom I have spoken inVenice assure me that they have seen the like] .5 I behelda certain man taking about with him more than four thou1 FAR.MIN. RAM. , which also specifies April 1318 as the time of his departure. Giov. da Uzzano in the next century says the galleys for Romaniaand Trebizond used to leave Venice between the 8th and 20th of July.(Della Decima, iv, 104.)3 Mare Majus, as the Euxine was usually called by the Franks inOdoric's time and long after. It is so called (M. Maggiore) by MarcoPolo in the preceding century, by Haiton the Armenian, by Barbaroin the following century, and even (Mer Majour) by Vincent Le Blanc atthe beginning of the seventeenth. Carpini and Ricold Montecroce haveMare Magnum; Rubruquis, " the Sea of Pontus, commonly called MareMajus," the former name also being given by Edrisi in the shape ofBuntus.The title Greater was no doubt given at Constantinople with referenceto the Propontis, as several have suggested. Marsden aptly quotes thelike title given by the Hebrews to the Mediterranean.Mandeville, like Jordanus, uses Mare Maurum; µaûpos having in Byzantine and modern Greek the sense of Black; and this we find already inplain Latin used by Paschal of Vittoria, and indeed by Jordanus himself(Mare Nigrum).4 Scala, which appears still to be the technical word for a trading portin those seas, as well as in Italy.5 MIN. RAM.FRIAR ODORIC. 45sand partridges. For as the man went along the ground,the partridges followed him flying in the air. These partridges he was then taking to a certain castle which is calledZEGANA, ¹ distant three days' journey from Trebizond, [ wherethey dig copper and crystal] . And the way with thesepartridges was this, that whenever the man wanted to liedown or go to sleep, they all gathered about him likechickens about a hen. And in this manner he took themalong to Trebizond, to the palace of the emperor; ³ and he,when they were thus brought before him, took as manypartridges as he desired; but the rest of them the manled back to the place whence he had first brought them.¹In this same city (of Trebizond) is deposited the body ofAthanasius, over one of the gates of the city; of him, thatis, that made the creed which beginneth Quicumque vult1 Ziganah is twelve leagues from Trebizond on the road to Erzrum,and gives name to a pass called the Ziganah Dagh. Clavijo, on the thirdday from Trebizond encamped near a " castle called Sigana, on the topof a high rock, and belonging to a Greek knight” ( Curzon's Armenia, pp.31 , 173, 175; Brant's Map in J. R. Geog. Soc. , vi; Journ. Asiat. , 1st series,ix, 228; Markham's Clavijo, HAK. Soc. , p. 65) . Some of the old popularItalian versions of Marco Polo have this partridge story interpolatedtherein.2 PAL. has " silver and crystal". The whole of the Valley of the KarsputRiver south of Ziganah abounds in ores of copper and lead. There arealso silver-mines, as mentioned by Polo. (Brant, u.s., p. 221.)3 Alexius II, of the house called " Grand-Comnenus," reigned at thistime (1297-1330) independently and prosperously over the long strip ofcoast called the empire of Trebizond. This state endured till 1461 .(Finlay's H. of Greece (Medieval) and ofthe Emp. of Trebizond, 1851.)4 This is one of the stories which have been accounted most absurd inOdoric's narrative. Yet the accurate Tournefort, after telling how thepeasants in Scio keep tame partridges which are sent out to feed everyday like flocks of sheep under the charge of a public keeper, to whosewhistle they come readily, goes on to say: " I have seen a man in Provence in the neighbourhood of Grasse, who used to take whole flocks ofpartridges out to the fields, and made them come to his call; he wouldtake hold of them, put them in his bosom, and then send them offa*gain to feed with the others." Voyage du Levant (Lyon, 1727) , ii, 79.Precisely the same account of the partridges at Scio is given at anearlier date in Busbequii Epist. , Amsterd. , 1660, p. 164.46 THE TRAVELS OFsalbus esse.¹ Departing thence, I came into Armenia theGreater, to a certain city which is called ARZIRON,2 which intime long past was a fine and most wealthy city, and itwould have been so unto this day but for the Tartars and theSaracens, who have done it much damage. It aboundethgreatly in bread and flesh, and many other kinds of victual,but not in wine or fruits. For the city is mighty cold, andfolk say that it is the highest city that is at this day inhabited on the whole face of the earth. But it hath mostexcellent water, the reason whereof seems to be that thesprings of this water are derived from the River Euphrates ,which floweth at about one day's journey from the city.3And this city is just midway to Tauris.¹¹ I find no confirmation of this. Venni says the Acta Sanctorum contain no allusion to the story. The body of Athanasius was buried atAlexandria, but afterwards transferred to Constantinople and laid in achurch bearing his name. On the capture of the city the relics weresaid to have been carried to Venice and solemnly placed in the church ofSta. Croce della Giudecca. (Venni, 87.)Can this have to do with Odoric's statement? "Over one of the principal gates (of Trebizond) is a long inscription, which refers to a Christian bishop and one of the emperors of Constantinople. It is evidentlynot in its original position." (Brant. , u. s . , p. 189.)2 Erzrum, corrupted from Arzan-al- Rum, or Roman Arzan, was takenwith pillage and havoc by the Tartars in 1241. Even in Tournefort'stime the Franks commonly pronounced the name Erzeron. Though notthe highest city, even of the old world, it stands at a height of some 7,000feet above the sea, and is noted for the severity of its winters, insomuchthat a late Italian traveller calls it the Siberia of the Ottoman Empire.In 1855-56 the centigrade thermometer sunk to 35° below 0°. Sir J.Sheil saw a heavy snowstorm at Erzrum in July. "The weather as ageneral rule," says Curzon, " may be considered as on the way from bad to worse." Fruit does not grow, but great quantities of " victual, ” i. e. ,of corn and meal, are brought from more genial regions, as it is the placewhere the great caravans between Persia and Turkey recruit their stores .(Curzon, pp. 36, 51, 115, 117, 141; Lady Shiel's Glimpses of Life, etc., inPersia; De' Bianchi, V. in Armenia, etc., 1863; Tournefort, iii , 126. ) TheFranciscans at this time had a convent at Erzrum, in the custodia of Kars.3 The town is on a sort of peninsula formed by the sources ofEuphrates. The first of these flows at a day's journey from the city."(Tournefort, iii , 114.)......4 MIN. RAM. , and PAL. insert here a strange and unseemly story whichis in none of the Latin copies.FRIAR ODORIC. 47Departing from it, I came to a certain hill which is called.SARBISACALO; and in that country is the mountain whereonis Noah's Ark. And I would fain have ascended it, if mycompanions would have waited for me. But the folk of thecountry told us that no one ever could ascend the mountain,for this, as it is said, hath seemed not to be the pleasure ofthe Most High.22. Concerning the City of Tauris and the City of Soldania, wheredwelleth the Persian Emperor.From that country I passed to TAURIS, a great city and aroyal, which anciently was called Susis, and was the city ofthe King Ahasuerus. In it they say the Arbor Seccoexisteth in a mosque, that is to say, in a church of the31 This puzzling name occurs also in Balducci Pegolotti's detail ofstages on the road to Tauris, under the form of Sermessacalo. I can onlysuggest that these Italian corruptions contain the name of the station ofHassan-Kala'a, some twenty-four miles from Erzrum, near where theroads to Kars and Tabriz separate, perhaps under some such form asSerai-Hassan-Kala'a. It was once a considerable place, and the site ofone of the Genoese castles which protected the road from Trebizond.There are also hot springs at the place. (Brant. , u. s. , p. 230.) The namemay however contain the Armenian Surp or Surpazan, holy.2 MIN. RAM. "For the mountain is most holy, and moreover is inaccessible on account of the deep snow that covers at least two-thirds of it ."On Ararat, see note to Jordanus, p. 3. Rubruquis gives a curiouspopular reason why no one should ascend the mountain (p. 387) . Haitonsays that though nobody dares mount because of the snow, yet something black appears on the top which is vulgarly called Noah's Ark.The usual Mussulman tradition places the grounding of the Ark not onArmenian Ararat, but on the Jibul Judi in Kurdistan, whence Benj . of Tudela says "Omar Ben Khatab removed the Ark from the summit andmade a mosque of it " (p. 93) . Sir H. Rawlinson considers Judi to bemuch higher than Demawend, and as Demawend is believed to be fully4,000 feet higher than Ararat, the claims of Judi to be the mountain ofthe Ark are very intelligible. (See President's Address in Jour. R. Geog.Soc., xxix, p. clxx .)8 "And on the way I passed the Red River, where Alexander routedDarius the King of Asia; and in that city we have two convents." Pal.It is correct that the Franciscans had two convents in Tauris (Wadding) .Respecting the Red River ( Fiume Rosso), see note to Pegolotti infra .Tauris (Tabriz) was the capital of more than one dynasty, and48 THE TRAVELS OFSaracens. And this is a nobler city and a better for merchandise than any other which at this day existeth in theworld. For there is not on the face of the earth any kind ofthroughout the middle ages a chief point of contact and trade between the Latin and Oriental worlds. It has been identified not only withShushan of Esther, and the Achmetha of the Apocrypha, but with the northern Ecbatana and half a dozen other ancient cities of fame. Rawlinson, however, considers it not to be older than the third century(Chardin, Amsterd. , 1735, i, 258; Journ. Asiat. , S. ii, iv, 117; J. R. G. S.,x, 109) . There are now no traces of magnificence at Tabriz, though itwas still in splendour in the seventeenth century (see note in Jordanus,p. 7) . Tauris was made the See of a Roman bishop (William de Gigiis)in 1329, and a successor is traced as late as the following century (LeQuien).1 The Arbor Secco is repeatedly spoken of by Marco Polo, especially as existing in north- east Persia. Marsden (p. 111 ) identifies it with thechínár or plane tree, observing that " the epithet seems to imply nothingmore than this; that when the form of the fruit promises an edible nut,the stranger who gathers it is disappointed on finding no perceptiblecontents, or only a dry and tasteless seed." This is accepted by later commentators; but none explain the evident interest with which Marcorefers to it, or why the Christians should be specified as giving it this pe- culiar name. It is clear that the tree was the subject of some Christianlegend. This I have not met with in full, but the following passagefrom Mandeville throws some light upon it. At Mamre, he says, "thereis an oak tree which the Saracens call Dirpe, which is of Abraham's time,and people call it the Dry tree. They say that it has been there sincethe beginning of the world, and that it was once green, and bore leaves till the time that our Lord died on the cross, and then it died...and thereis a prophecy that a lord, a prince of the west side of the world, shall winthe Land of Promise, i.e. , the Holy Land, with the help of the Christians,and he shall cause mass to be performed under that dry tree, and thenthe tree shall become green, and bear both fruit and leaves" (p. 162) .The Arbor Secco is sprinkled about Central Asia by Fra Mauro, in hiscelebrated map, now in the Sala dello Scudo at Venice.Clavijo, in the beginning of the next century mentions the Arbor Seccoat Tauris, as still standing in the street "near an open space" , and tellsa story (in which there is some hiatus) about it in connection with a certain bishop who came to convert the city.The stories of the dry tree were perhaps spun out of the words of theVulgate in Ezekiel xvii, 24, " Humiliavi lignum sublime et exaltavi lignumhumile; et siccavi lignum viride, et frondere feci lignum aridum. ”Polo it will be remembered gives a topographical sense to Arbor Seccoin Persia. Lazari, the late Venetian editor, ingeniously suggests that hemay have meant Elborz-Kuh, Mount Elborz, near which his Arbor Seccocertainly lay.FRIAR ODORIC. 49provision, or any species ofgoods, but you will find great storethereof at Tauris. It is admirable for situation, and so opulent a city that you would scarcely believe the things to befound there; for the whole world, almost, hath dealingswith that city for merchandise. And the Christians willtell you that the emperor¹ there hath more revenue fromthat one city than the king of France hath from his wholerealm. Near that city is a mountain of salt, which furnisheth great store of salt for the whole place. And of thissalt taketh every man as much as he listeth, and payethnothing to any man.2 In that city, also, there dwell manyChristians of every description, but the Saracens have therule over them in all things. And there are many thingselse to be said of that city, but it would take too long torelate them.Departing from this city of Tauris, I travelled for tendays, and reached a certain city called SOLDANIA,³ in whichdwelleth the emperor of the Persians in the summer season .1 The " Emperor of Persia" at this time was Abusaid Bahadur Khán,the last of the Mongol dynasty who had real power.2 I do not find recent mention of this salt mine. But Ricold de Montecroce, in entering Persia from this side, speaks with wonder of its mountains of salt, which had to be quarried like stone and broken with iron tools; whilst the Arabian geographer Bakui notices specifically at Tabriz"a mountain of salt, which is extracted in blocks, " and Chardin alsospeaks of an important salt mine close to the city. (Peregrin. Quat. , p.122; Notices et Extraits, ii, 477; Chardin, i, 258.)3 Sultâniah was built as a royal residence by Oljaïtu, son ofArgon, theeighth of the Mongol Khans of Persia, in 1305. Long after the destruction ofthe city by Timur, indeed into the seventeenth century, the tombof Oljaïtu was still magnificent, and especially noted for its colossal gatesof damasked steel. The city was reoccupied by some of the Persiankings in the sixteenth century, till Shah Abbas transferred the seat ofgovernment to Ispahan. The ruins were of vast extent in Chardin'stime. The present Persian dynasty has again adopted Sultâniah as asummer residence. Pope John XXII set up an archbishopric at Sultâniahin 1318, in favour of Francis of Perugia, a Dominican, and the series ofarchbishops is traced down to 1425. (Desguignes, iv, 277, 279; Barbaro inRamus. , ii, 105; Chardin, i, 271; Le Quien, iii, 1359-1368; De Sacy inMem. de l'Acad. des Inscr. , vi, 503 seq.)450 THE TRAVELS OFBut in the winter he goeth to a certain other place [ calledAxam] which is on the sea called the Sea of Bacuc.2 Thiscity (of Soldania) is a great one, and a cool place, with anexcellent supply of water, and many costly wares arebrought thither for sale."3. Concerning the City of the Magi; also of the Sea of Sand, and ofthe Land of Huz.Departing from this city with a caravan, that is to saywith a certain company, I proceeded in the direction ofUpper India, and after travelling that way for many days Ihalted at the city of the three Magi, which is called CASSAN,a royal city and of great repute . But the Tartars haveBOLL.2 The Caspian was very generally called so in the middle ages, fromBaku, the chief port on the western shore. The archives ofGenoa contain a curious document relating how, in 1374, one Lucchinus Tarigus ofthat city, with certain comrades as penniless as himself, started fromCaffa with a fusta or light galley, which they took up the Don, anddragged sixty miles overland to the Edil (Wolga), and so descended tothe Sea of Bacu, which they scoured, taking many prizes and muchplunder, with which they returned, abandoning their vessel. On theirway back, however, the heroes of this surpassing feat of buccaneeringwere taken and stript of much of their gains . (Gräberg de Hemso,Annali di Geog. e di Stattist. , ii, 290.)The Bollandist version says the winter quarter of the Emperor on the sea was called Axam. The usual winter resort of the Il-Khans was theplain of Moghan, on the Caspian, near the mouth of the Kur, which hadbeenthe quarter to which the hosts of their predecessors used to retire aftertheir annual ravages. Axam ( Asham?) might however be Auján, not farfrom Tabriz, which was often the spring and winter camp of the later IlKhans, the Hujan of Clavijo, and where Gazan Khan built a fine city(D'Ohsson, v, 277; Quatremère's Rashid, p . 21-23) . But in that case themention of the sea of Baku is a mistake. If not, it may perhaps be Actam,which is several times mentioned in the life of Timur, as a place on theplain of Moghan where he used to pitch, especially for great huntingmatches. (Chereffeddin, by Petis de la Croix, ii , 390; iii , 208, 398; D'Ohsson,iv, 151 , 483.)3 And in it there is a House ofthe Preaching Friars and likewise one of the Minor Friars." PAL.4 Instead of this, PAL. has: " I came to the city of SABA, the placewhence the three Magi came."FRIAR ODORIC. 51greatly destroyed it . It is a city which aboundeth greatlyin bread and wine, and in many other good things. Fromthis city to Jerusalem, (whither the Magi found their way,not surely by human strength but by Divine strength working by miracle, seeing how quickly they went) , is a goodfifty days' journey. And there be many other things withregard to that city which it boots not much to rehearse.¹Passing thence I travelled to a certain city called IEST, 21 Kashan, a city of Persia, still tolerably flourishing, standing abouthalfway between Ispahan and Tehran, and also about halfway betweenSultaniah and Yezd, long noted for its brocades and velvets, and also forits scorpions.Sir T. Herbert alludes to the story of the Magi coming from Kashan,but as he quotes Odoric I suspect his knowledge was derived from himonly. For it is remarkable that in the Palatine and Minor Ramusianversions of Odoric, it is at SABA, and not at Kashan that he speaks ofthe Magi. And this agrees with Marco Polo, who places at Sava theorigin and sepulchres of the three kings. One he says was King of Sava,another of Ava, the third of the castle of the fire-worshippers. BothSaba and Ava still exist between Sultania and Kashan, or at least theirnames and remains do. They retain no traditions now about the kings .Herbert observes that various authors have brought the Magi fromBabylon, Shushan, Hormuz, and Ceylon, to which we may add thatArmenian tradition brings them from Lake Van, Haiton the Armenianfrom Chinese Tartary, and John de' Marignolli from the Indian Archipelago. It was impossible to bring the wise men of the East from Europe,so they were taken there after death, surely by the strangest fable everinvented!It is most likely that the location of the wise men at Saba in Persiarose out of a misapplication of Psalm lxxii, 10: " The Kings of Tarshishand the Isles shall bring presents, the Kings of Sheba and Seba shall offergifts." And it was probably through some mistake in dictation that allthe versions of Odoric but the two mentioned refer the Magi to Kashaninstead of Saba ( Chardin, i, 297, 300, 301; Herbert's Travels; Haiton,ch. ii; Assemanni, p. 750; Abbott in J. R. G. S., xxv, p. 6) .2 Yezd, occupying an oasis in the great Persian desert, is mentionedby Barbaro in the following century as a most industrious place, flourishing by its silk and cotton manufactures, and supplying with these a large part of Asia. These manufactures still continue. Many importantcaravan routes converge at Yezd, whilst the desert has given it security,and thus it has become a considerable mart.The figs, pomegranates, grapes, and melons of the oasis are noted. Thesmall raisins, not very much larger than Greek currants, are well knownin India, into which they are largely imported under the name of Kishmis;4 252 THE TRAVELS OF[which is the furthest city of Persia towards India] , ¹ fromwhich the Sea of Sand is but one day distant. Now thatsea is a wondrous thing, and right perilous. [And therewere none of us who desired to enter on that sea. For it isAnd it all of dry sand without the slightest moisture.shifteth as the sea doth when in storm, now hither, nowthither, and as it shifteth it maketh waves in like manneras the sea doth; so that countless people travelling thereonhave been overwhelmed and drowned and buried in thosesands . For when blown about and buffeted by the winds,they are raised into hills, now in this place, now in that,according as the wind chanceth to blow] . In this city ofIest there is very great store of victuals and all other goodthings that you can mention; but especially is found theregreat plenty of figs; and raisins also, green as grass andvery small, are found there in richer profusion than in anyother part of the world. This is the third best city whichthe Emperor of the Persians possesses in his whole realm .The Saracens say of it that no Christian is ever able to livein it beyond one year. And there are many other mattersthere.Departing thence, and passing by many cities and towns,I came to a certain city by name COMERUM,3 which formerlyperhaps from the island of Kishm, from which the trade to India wasconducted?Yezd is regarded as holy by the Mussulmans; a sanctity perhapsborrowed from the fire-worshippers who still linger here in degradationand scanty numbers. (Ramusio, ii, 106; Ritter, viii, 265-270; J. R. A. S.,viii, 349).1 From MIN. RAM.2 From MIN. RAM. Whatever may be the exaggeration in this interpolated passage, as regards the Persian desert, the absolute extravaganceof the account will seem less to those who will refer to the descriptionby Baron Wrede of the desert in Southern Arabia, called " The Sea ofSaffi", from a king who is said to have perished with his army therein(J. R. G. S., xiv, p. 110-111 ) . Tavernier also speaks of the danger ofbeing lost in the desert of Yezd, on account of the mobility of the sand.3 The readings of this name are very various (see Latin text). Butboth Odoric's description and the manner in which I understand hisFRIAR ODORIC . 53was a great city, and in the olden time did great scathe tothe Romans. The compass of its walls is a good fifty miles,and there be therein palaces yet standing entire, but without inhabitants. It aboundeth however in many kinds ofvictual.Leaving this and going on through many towns and citiesI reached the city called Huz, ¹ which abounds in all kindsof victuals, and is beautifully situated . For near this city aremountains, which afford in great abundance the finest of pastures for cattle. There also is found manna of better qualityand in greater abundance than in any part of the world. Inthat country also you can get four good partridges for lessthan a Venetian groat. In those parts also you see verycomely elders; and ' tis the custom there for the men to knitand spin, and not the women. And this land adjoineth theextremity of Chaldæa towards the North.3route, seem to identify the remains of which he speaks with those of Persepolis. The name Comerum will then probably represent the grossa villaof Camara, at which Barbaro places the ruins, and this is perhaps thesame with the Kinara of Rich. The great platform and columns of thepalace, probably then more perfect than now, and the vast circuit assigned to the ruins by Persian tradition, varying from twelve to forty- fourparasangs (forty to a hundred and fifty miles, the former estimate notexaggerated if the remains in that neighbourhood be supposed withinthe compass ofone city), answer well to the brief words of our traveller.1 Some copies have the land (or city) of Job"; others " the land ofJob, called Huz" (see Latin text).662 The Huz of Odoric I at first supposed to be Ahwáz (or Hawáz) , orsome other city of Khuzistan. Assemanni in Latin calls that countryHuzia, and sometimes Huzitis; whilst Magini in Italian calls it Cus. Job'sname, which appears in many copies, is probably an interpolation suggested by the name of the country. However, Chardin tells us thatMayn, north-west of Shiraz, was pointed out as the residence of Job;and probably the nearest approximation in modern times to the Patriarch's wealth in cattle is to be found amongst the nomade chiefs ofPersia. It is , however, more probable that the Huz of Odoric is theHazah of Eastern writers, frequently coupled with Mosul, and identifiedby Assemanni with Adiabene (see Assemanni, pp. 5 , 11, 12, 13, 209, 710).This would certainly be more consistent with the accuracy of the last clause of the chapter.3 I suppose Odoric to pass through a part of the hill country of Luristan54 THE TRAVELS OF4. Fr. Odoric treateth of the manners of the people of Chaldæa; ofIndia within land; and of Ormes.Departing thence I went into CHALDEA, ¹ which is a greatkingdom, and as I went thither I passed by the Tower ofBabel, which is distant perchance four days' journey from(the city) . And in this land of Chaldæa they have a language of their own; and the men are comely, but thewomen in sooth of an ill favour.3 The men indeed gosmartly dressed and decked as our women go here, and ontheir heads they wear a kind of fillet of gold and pearls;whilst the women have nothing on them but a miserableshift reaching to the knees, and with sleeves so long andor the regions adjoining, if he does not indeed proceed north as far asMosul, before descending into Chaldæa. The fine hill pastures, abundantmanna, profusion of partridges, and fine old men (" many of them, "says an authority quoted by Ritter, " attaining a hundred years in fullpossession of their bodily and mental faculties") , are all characteristic ofthe mountains of Kurdistan, embracing the Hus of Odoric according tothe second interpretation just given, though I can find little of a specifickind on record as to the hill countries of Khuzistan and Luristan. Theknitting and spinning of the men I do not find anywhere mentioned; itis a well-known circ*mstance in the Himalayan villages. (Ritter, ix, 611,622; J. R. G. S. ix, 100, 104, etc.)1 Though he calls Chaldæa a great kingdom, he would appear to meanthe city of Baghdad. The peculiar language would be Arabic. Hithertohe has been in countries that speak Persian chiefly.2 Ab eâ, i.e., Chaldæ , showing that Baghdad is meant, which is aboutsixty miles from the Birs Nimrud, and somewhat less from the ruins ofBabylon. Probably the mass called Babel at the latter is Odoric's Tower(see note to Marignolli infra) . It is not clear, however, how Odoric shouldhave come by this to Baghdad.3 In countries where Mahommedan manners prevail, and now including India, the women in the streets have a much meaner appearancethan the men, because women of the better class are so little seen. Ofthe women of Baghdad Ker Porter says: "The humbler females generallymove abroad with faces totally unveiled, having a handkerchief rolledround their heads, from beneath which their hair hangs down over theirshoulders; their garment is of a shift form reaching to their ankles, openbefore, and ofa grey colour. Their feet are completely naked. " (Travels,ii, 268).FRIAR ODORIC. 55wide that they sweep the ground. And they go barefootwith drawers¹ hanging about their feet, and their hair neither plaited nor braided, but in complete dishevelment; andas here among us the men go first and the women follow,so there the women have to go before the men. [HereI saw a young man who was taking to wife a beautifulyoung woman, and she was accompanied by other beautifulmaidens, who were weeping and wailing, whilst the youngbridegroom stood by in very gay clothes, with his head.hanging down. And by and bye the young man mountedhis ass, and the bride followed him barefoot and wretchedlydressed, and holding by the ass, and her father went behindblessing them until they reached the husband's house] .*And many other matters there be in this city which itbooteth not greatly to detail.So going thence I came to inland India, a region whichthe Tartars have greatly wasted.³ And there you find1 Sarabulas is the word in the Latin, Anglo- Indicé paijamas. The termappears in various forms in Ducange as meaning bracca, and derived froma Chaldee word, which has been adopted into the Vulgate in Daniel, iii,94. Ducange does not specify the word, but I suppose it is the counterpart of the Arabic Sarwal, plural Saráwal, better known in India underthe Persian form Shalwar, and from which in its former shape the Spaniards have made Zaraguelles. (See Dozy, Dict. des Vêtements chez lesArabes, p. 233.) Ricold Montecroce says the Nestorians thought thesacrament profaned if any one entered with the head covered or withoutSorrabula. Whereon his German editor says: " Soccabula fortasse suntsocci, calceorum genus. Ducangium frustra consului, qui nec Sorrabulahabeat nec Soccabula." (Peregrin. Med. Æv. IV, &c. , Lipsiæ, 1864, p. 129) .But if he had given Ducangius a little more tether in spelling he wouldhave found not only Sarabula, but Serabula, Saraballa, Sarabella, Sarabola,Sarabara, and yet more! The Bollandist Odoric has Scrobullas, a sheererror; but Ducange has inserted it as muliebris vestis on that authority.2 From MIN. RAM.3 “ India quæ est infra terram. The infra is to be taken in the Italiansense. It is plain that he means some region adjoining the PersianGulf, and the following extract illustrates the matter more precisely:“ The Talmudic writers ...... confounded Obillah [ on the Lower Euphrates]with the Mosaic Havilah...... and thus rendered Havilah everywhere56 THE TRAVELS OFpeople who live almost entirely on dates, and you get fortytwo pounds of dates for less than a groat; and so of manyother things.¹Quitting this India and traversing many places, I came tothe Ocean Sea. And the first city on it that I reached iscalled ORMES, a city strongly fenced and abounding in costlywares.2 [ The city is on an island some five miles distantfrom the main; and on it there grows no tree, and there isno fresh water. There is indeed great plenty of bread andfish and flesh. But it is not a healthy place nor safe for life,and the heat is something incredible . The people both menand women are all very tall . And where I passed by oneday there was one just dead; and they had got together allthe players in the place, and they set the dead man on hisbed in the middle of the house, whilst two women dancedround about him, and the players played on their cymbalsand other instruments of music. Then two of the womentook hold of the dead man, embracing him and chauntinghis praises, and the other women stood up one after anotherand took a pipe and piped on it awhile, and when one hadby Hindeki or India, precisely as the early Arabs state that Obillah isalso called Hind or India, and as the people of Busrah still constantlyspeak of the districts at the mouth of the river as Hind, from the circ*mstance of their being the nearest points to India, and the places wherethe vessels from India rendezvous. " (Sir H. Rawlinson, in J. R. G. S.,xxvii, 186.)1 Edrisi, two centuries before, relates that five hundred rotoli of dateswere to be had at Basrah for a dínár, according to the report of merchantswho were there in 1141 (Fr. Trans. , i, 368) .2 Hormuz, at this time and long after, a great entrepôt of Indian trade,situated on a barren island near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and apparently representing the ancient Armuza which stood on the mainlandopposite, and appears in Ptolemy. (An island, Armuza, is also shown insome copies at least of the Ptolemaic maps, though not in the text) . Theplace, therefore, cannot have derived its name, as D'Herbelot says, fromHormisdas, son of Sapor. It now belongs to the Sultan of Oman (Maskat), and gives him a revenue from the salt which it produces. Hormuzon the mainland still flourished at the end of the tenth century, andthe date of its tranfer to the island seems uncertain.FRIAR ODORIC. 57done piping she sat down; and so they went on all night.And in the morning they carried him to the tomb] .'5. Of ships that have no iron in their frame; and in such an oneFr. Odoric passeth to Tana in India.In this country men make use of a kind of vessel which theycall Jase, which is fastened only with stitching of twine. Onone of these vessels I embarked, and I could find no iron atall therein. And having thus embarked, I passed over intwenty-eight days to TANA, 3 where for the faith of Christ fourof our Minor Friars had suffered a glorious martyrdom . Thecity is excellent in position, and hath great store of breadand wine, and aboundeth in trees. This was a great placein days of old, for it was the city of King Porus, who wagedso great a battle with King Alexander. The people thereofare idolaters, for they worship fire, and serpents, and treesThis passage is only in the PAL. An account of the ceremonies ofa wake at Baghdad very like this is given by Tavernier.Here follows in all the Latin MSS. an untranslatable statement ofthe marvellous effects of the heat at Hormuz. It seems like a confusionof some complaint like hernia with the guinea-worm, which did prevailat Hormuz, or as if some one had hoaxed the friar as to the nature of thelatter malady. It is worthy of note that Mandeville here omits thisstatement of Odoric's and substitutes another as to the inhabitants beingobliged by the heat to sleep in water, which he does not seem to havecopied from Polo. This custom prevailed long after, and is mentionedby Peter della Valle among others. Even monks followed it in his day.Punkahs of our Anglo-Indian fashion were already in use at Hormuz inthe end of the sixteenth century. Linschoten calls them cattaventos(Polo, ii, 14; Pietro della Valle, ed. Brighton, 1843, ii, 471; Linschoten, p. 16) .2 Jaház (Pers.), a ship.8 An ancient city at the north end of the island of Salsette, once thecapital of Konkan and a haven of importance, but long superseded byBombay; it is mentioned as a cotton port by Marco Polo.How Porus was brought to these parts it is hard to say. But GasparoBalbi ( 1580) , speaking of the Cave of Elephanta "at Cape Bombain",says that it was formed by Alexander the Great to mark his furthestconquest. This may have been a current Mahomedan story, and mightaccount for Porus being translated to Tana.4 PAL. has "abundance of victual, but specially of butter, of susuan(susine? or sesamo?), and of rice.58 THE TRAVELS OFalso. The land is under the dominion of the Saracens, whohave taken it by force of arms, and they are now subject tothe Empire of DILI.¹Here be found sundry kinds of beasts, and especially blacklions in very great numbers, besides monkeys and baboons,and bats as big as pigeons are here . There be also rats asbig as here are our dogs called scherpi. And for this reasonrats are there caught by dogs, for the mousers or cats are ofno use for that.³ In this country every man hath before his1 I have ventured here, in justice to Odoric, to restore this name as Ibelieve he really employed it. It is in the Latin text " subjacentes Daldili." Odoric, doubtless, in his dictation, said "sotto la signoria del Dili.”Thus, in Fra Mauro's map, we find tolerably well placed, " DELI cittadegrandissima," and the rubrick attached, " Questa cittade nobilissima zadominava tuto el Paese DEL DELI over India Prima, " and again to the cityof Here (Herat) , “ Quella era za sotto la Signoria DEL DELI" , etc.The same kind of fusion and confusion which has created a KingDaldili has led to many other strange perversions. The ancient Malabarport and point of Hili survives in our maps only as Mount Deli. MarcoPolo is made to call Lahore the city of Dilivar, and the Cilician port ofAias-Laias; whilst the name of King D'or, by which (according toMarsden's happy suggestion) he translated the title of the Chinese Kinor Golden Dynasty, appeared in the Latin editions as Darius. So weshall afterwards find that the Tartar name Talai, which Odoric gives tothe Yangtsekiang, becomes in most MSS. Doltalay; and in the EnglishMandeville we find the land of Dengadda and the Lake of Dasfetidee, forEngaddi and Asphaltites. An analogous case to that of King Daldilialso occurs in the city where I write this. An English Archbishop ofPalermo, whose name is believed to have been Walter (o' the) Mill, has been handed down as Gualterus Ofamilius.A reverse process also is often found to have taken place. The Arabshave made the Lazarus of the Gospel into ' Azár; we often see Germanyspoken of in Italy as La Magna; and from the Portuguese Laranja, a corruption of the Indian Naranja, we have got our English Orange, and themodern Latin form (implying a false etymology) Aurantia.The west coast and the Deccan had been overrun by the Khilji Kingsof Dehli in the early years of the fourteenth century, and were more orless subject to that empire at this time.2 This word is written also scepi, depi, scoipi, sarpi, etc. , because (it maybe supposed) the transcribers, like the present editor, could make no- thing of it.3 As to the great bats and rats enough has been said in the notes toJordanus (pp. 19, 29).The word which I have translated bats is noctuæ, but I think bats areFRIAR ODORIC. 59house a plant of twigs as thick as a pillar would be here,and this never withers as long as it gets water. And And manyother strange things are there which it would be pretty tohear tell.¹[ The women go naked there, and when a woman is marriedshe is set on a horse, and the husband gets on the crupperand holds a knife pointed at her throat; and they havenothing on except a high cap on their head like a mitre,wrought with white flowers, and all the maidens of the placego singing in a row in front of them till they reach thehouse, and there the bride and bridegroom are left alone,and when they get up in the morning they go naked asbefore.2]3[In this country there are trees which give wine whichthey call loahc, and which is very intoxicating. And herethey do not bury the dead, but carry them with great pompto the fields, and cast them to the beasts and birds to be demeant. Nottola in Italian means not an owl but a bat; and the MIN.RAM., and PAL. confirm this. They also say " as big as our ducks",which is more germane than pigeons. The "black lions" are tigers, wemay presume. Polo always calls tigers lions. Nigri leones, apparentlyfor tigers, will be found in the Latin translation of Arabshah's Life ofTimur, i, p. 466.1 This passage must have been mangled in the dictation . But it isevident that what is spoken of is the sacred Tulasi or Basil (OcymumSanctum). The following extract describes intelligibly and correctlywhat Odoric's amanuensis apparently did not understand. " Almostall the Hindus......adore a plant like our Basilico Gentile, but of morepungent odour.…………..Everyone before his house has a little altar, girt witha wall half an ell high, in the middle of which they erect certain pedestalslike little towers, and in these the shrub is grown. They recite theirprayers daily before it, with repeated prostrations, sprinklings of water,etc. There are also many of these maintained at the bathing places,and in the courts of their pagodas." (Vincenzo Maria, p. 300; see alsoWard's Hindoos, iii, 203) .? From MIN. RAM.3 This may be the term which is used by the old materia medicawriters for an essence or extract, Lohoc and Loch. It is doubtless, assuggested by Mr. Badger, the Arabic Rúhh, generally pronounced Rúahh,a spirit, an essence.60 THE TRAVELS OFvoured. And they have here very fine oxen; which have hornsa good half pace in length [ girth?] , and have a hump on theback like a camel. And from this city to Panche [ Paroche?]is fourteen days' journey] . And it was in this place calledTana, as I have said before, that the four Minor Friarssuffered a glorious martyrdom for the faith of Christ, and ittook place after the manner following.6. History of the martyrdom of the four Friars in the city of Tana.When the friars aforesaid were at Ormes they made a bargain for a certain ship to take them to Polumbum, but beingonce on board they were taken against their will to Tana.Here there be fifteen houses of Christians, that is to say ofNestorians, who are schismatics and heretics. And the friarshaving thus come hither, found harbour in the house ofone ofthose Christians. And whilst they were staying there, oneday there arose a quarrel between the good man of the houseand his wife, and in the evening he gave her a sound beating.And in the morning the woman went and made a complaintof the beating to the Cadi, i.e. , in their tongue the Bishop .And the cadi having asked her if she had any proof of whatshe alleged, she answered that she could well prove it," For," quoth she, " there were four Frank Rabbans, " 2(which is to say in our tongue four men of a religious order)"there in the house when he handled me thus. Questionthem and they will tell you the truth." And when the womansaid this, there was a certain man of Alexandria there presentwho begged the cadi to send for them, saying that they weremen of great learning and knowledge in the Scriptures, andthat it would be good to have a dispute with them concerningreligion. The cadi, hearing this, sent for them. And so whenthose brethren were brought before him, to wit, Friar Thomas1 From PAL.2 Rabban, “my master, " is the usual address to a monk in the Syrianchurch (Assem. , p. 537).FRIAR ODORIC. 61.of Tolentino in the March of Ancona,' Friar James of Padua,and Friar Demetrius, a Georgian lay brother good at thetongues, (Friar Peter of Sienna being left at home to takecare of their things) , the cadi began at once to disputewith them about our Faith. And when the infidels disputedwith them in this manner, alleging that Christ was mereThomas of Tolentino was a venerable soldier of his Order, whose nameoccurs several times in its annals. He had been twice in the precedingcentury imprisoned by his superiors for his unwelcome zeal in urgingobservance of the vow of poverty, and in disputing the Pope's authorityto relax this obligation . Wadding says he suffered in his sixtieth year,but as his first imprisonment took place in 1275, and his death in 1321or 1322, he must have attained nearly if not quite threescore and ten.Raymund Fitz-Geoffry becoming general of the order in 1290, andfinding Thomas and his friends in durance, released them with goodwords, but to prevent further trouble with their zeal, sent them on amission to Armenia ( i.e. Lesser Armenia, or Cilicia) the king of whichcountry had invited a party of friars. In 1292 the king, apparentlyHethum or Hayton II, sent Thomas and another monk to the kings ofFrance and England to beg help against the Saracens. Again in 1302he came to Europe to ask aid for the missionary work in which he wasengaged, as holding out great promise of success. He obtained twelvechosen friars, and departed with them.In 1307, Thomas, who had been preaching in Tartary, returned to thePapal Court, and gave the Pope an account of the success of John ofMonte Corvino and others, a report which apparently led to the nomination ofthat missionary as Archbishop of Cambalec. As Thomas was himself the bearer of a letter from Monte Corvino, it is possible that he hadbeen as far as Cathay himself. He probably returned to the east withthe bishops who were then appointed to act under the archbishop inCathay (see preface to Letters of Monte Corvino in this collection) , but Itrace him no more till he accompanied Jordanus to India and suffered atTana as the text relates.Though Odoric claims to have carried the bones of all his martyredbrethren to China, the (alleged) skull of Thomas was afterwards broughtfrom India to Italy, and was in the 17th century preserved, as it may bestill, at his native place Tolentino. His feast also was celebrated by histownsmen, who held a fair on that day. ( Wadding, v, 211, 236, 291; vi,353 and seq.; ix, 181; Acta Sanctorum, 1st April).Nothing seems to be known of the three other friars beyond what their names tell. The account in Wadding, derived from the letter of oneFrancis of Pisa, is substantially the same as that in the text. It calls thelay brother Demetrius of Teflis . On the cloister wall of St. Anthony's atPadua I have seen a rude fresco of Friar James, with a symbol of decapitation, and the label, Ss Jacobus Martyr Patavinus.62 THE TRAVELS OFman and not God, Friar Thomas took it in hand, andproved by arguments and instances that He was God andMan in one, and so confounded the Saracens that they wereabsolutely unable to maintain the contrary.7. The same continued.Then the Cadi seeing himself thus put to confusion bythem before the whole people, began to call out with a loudvoice: " But what sayest thou of Machomet? What sayestthou of Machomet?" For such is the wont of the Saracens ,that when they cannot maintain their cause with arguments,they take to maintaining it with swords and fists . And asthe Cadi thus questioned Friar Thomas, the brethren answered saying: "We have proved to thee by argumentsand instances that Christ who delivered a religion to theworld was true God and Man, and since him Machomet hathcome and hath delivered a religion which is contrary to theformer. Ifthou be wise then well mayst thou wot what tothink of him." Then the Cadi and the other Saracens onlyshouted the louder: " But again what sayest thou of Machomet?" Then Friar Thomas replied: " Since ye can onlyrepeat What do I say of him, I should blush to refuse thereply ye seek. I reply then, and tell you that Machomet isthe son of perdition , and hath his place in hell with thedevil his father, and not he only but all such as follow andkeep his law, false as it is, and pestilent and accursed,hostile to God and the salvation of souls. " And when theSaracens heard this they all began to shout with a loudvoice together: " Let him die; Let him die, for he hathblasphemed the Prophet! " And then they took the friarsand bound them there in the sun, that they might die adreadful death by the intense heat. For there the heat isso great that if one shall stand [bareheaded] in the sun forthe space of a single mass he will die outright. Yet therethey abode in the sun praising and glorifying God from theFRIAR ODORIC. 63third until the ninth hour, cheerful and unscathed. Andwhen the Saracens saw this they took counsel together, andcame to the brethren, saying: "We mean to kindle a greatblazing fire, and to cast you into it. And if the doctrine yehold be true the fire will not burn you, but if it be false andevil ye shall be utterly consumed."Then the brethren answered , saying: "We are ready,O Cadi, to go into the fire and into prison, or to endurewhatever thou canst inflict on us for our religion; and readythou shalt ever find us. But this one thing thou oughtest toknow, that if the fire consume us, think not this cometh from(the fault of) our religion, but only from our sins, seeingthat on account of our sins God may well let us burn. Andfor all that, our religion is not the less good and perfect asanything in the world ever can be; nor is there in the worldany other faith whereby men may be saved but this."8. The same history continued.And as order was thus being taken for the burning of thefriars, the report thereof spread like lightning throughoutthe whole city; and from the said city great and small, menand women, flocked together to see what should come of it .But the brethren were meanwhile brought out to the Medan¹i.e. , the piazza of the city, where an exceeding great firehad been kindled . And Friar Thomas went forward to casthimself into the fire, but as he did so a certain Saracencaught him by the hood, saying: " Nay, thou shalt not go,for thou art old, and mayest have upon thee some craftydevice whereby the fire could not burn thee; so let anotherthan thou go in! " Then incontinently four Saracens laidviolent hands on Friar James of Padua in order to cast himinto the fire; but he said to them, " Suffer me and I will of' Maidan. We generally employ this word in India for an open plain ,or the esplanade outside a city; but in Western Asia it seems to be usedspecially for the public square or piazza (in the Italian sense) of a city,as here.64 THE TRAVELS OFmy own free will cast myself in. " But they, heeding notwhat he said, straightway threw him into it. And whenthey had done so, and he was there abiding in the fire, itblazed so high and far abroad that no one was able to seehim, but they heard his voice continually invoking the nameof the Blessed Virgin. And when the fire was quite spent,there was Friar James standing on the embers, joyous andexultant, with his hands raised to heaven making the sign ofthe cross, and with sound mind and pure heart praising theLord without ceasing. And though the fire had been sogreat the slightest hurt or burn could not be found uponhim. And when the people saw this they began to call outwith one consent, "They are saints! They are saints! "Tissin to do them hurt. And we see that in truth their religion is good and holy. " And when they had said thus, FriarJames was called forth from the fire, and came out soundand unhurt. And when the Cadi saw this, he too began tocry out saying: " He is no saint! he is no saint! But thereason why he is not burnt is that he hath on his back agarment from the land of Abraham. ' Wherefore let him bestript naked and so cast into the fire!"And that this might be done effectually then came somevillains of Saracens, and kindled a fire twice as great asbefore. And then they stript Friar James, and washedhim, and anointed him copiously with oil, and that the firemight blaze more fiercely and burn up the friar the faster,they poured great quantities of oil upon the pile of wood,and then flung Friar James with a forcible fling into themiddle of it. And the Friars Thomas and Demetrius abodewithout upon their knees, engaged fervently and instantly1 The tradition respecting Abraham's being cast into a fire by Nimrodfor his contempt of idol worship is well known, and may be read at lengthin Weil's Biblical Legends, both in its Jewish and Mussulman shapes.The legend forms the subject of one of the great frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa.FRIAR ODORIC . 65in prayer. And thus also Friar James came forth a secondtime without hurt as he had done before.9. The same history continued.And when the people saw this they shouted again withone consent: ""Tis a sin! "Tis a sin to hurt them , for saintsthey be! " And so there was a very great noise among thepeople. And on seeing this second miracle the Melic, i.e.the podesta ofthe city, ¹ called to him Friar James, and madehim put on his clothes, and said: " Go, brethren, with thegrace of God, for ye shall suffer no harm at our hands. Forwe see well that ye are good and holy men;and that yourreligion is good and holy and true, we see past question .But to provide the better for your safety we counsel you toquit this place as speedily as ye may; for the Cadi will dohis uttermost and spare no pains to take your lives ."While he was thus speaking it was about the hour ofcomplines, and the whole people, idolaters and others, werestanding about in a state of awe and astonishment, saying:"We have seen from these men things so great and marvellous, that we know not what law we ought to follow andkeep." And as they thus spake, the Melic caused thosethree friars to be taken and conveyed away across a certainarm of the sea that was at a little distance from the city,and where there was a certain suburb, whither the man inwhose house they had been lodged accompanied them, andso they found harbour in the house of a certain idolater.1 66 Lomelic, scilicet Potestas." The Kotwal. Ibn Batuta about thistime tells us that the title Malik (King) was used by the Mahomedans ofIndia, where the people of Egypt would use Amir. However, in Egypt in1384, the Italian Frescobaldi tells us that the Governor of Alexandria wascalled Lamelech (Al Malik) .2 The narrative of Francis of Pisa, quoted in Wadding's Annals, sayshere: "adoppidum situm ex alia parte fluminis seu marini brachii quo civitascircumcingitur." These are touches from real knowledge. Tana standson a river-like arm of the sea separating Salsette from the main, and nowcrossed by a railway bridge.566 THE TRAVELS OFAnd whilst they abode there the Cadi went to the Melic andsaid: "What are we about? for the law of Machomet isgoing to destruction unless something else be done. Forthese Frank Rabbans will now go preaching through thewhole country, and as they have done such great marvelshere which the whole of the people have seen, all will beconverted to them, and so the law of Machomet will lose allpower. And that this be not so there is a thing you oughtto consider, and that is that Machomet hath ordered in theAlchoran (i.e. in his law) that if any one shall slay aChristian he shall have as much merit as if he had gone toMecha." (Now ye must know that Alchoran is the law ofthe Saracens as the Gospel is the law of the Christians; andMecha is the place where Machomet is buried, and theSaracens go there on pilgrimage just as Christians go totheSepulchre. ) ¹Then the Melic answered the Cadi: " Go then and do asthou wilt."10. The same history continued.And when he had thus spoken the Cadi immediately tookfour armed men and sent them to slay the friars . But bythe time these men had crossed the water it was night, andso at that late hour they could not find them. And nowtheMelic caused all the Christians who were in the city to beseized and put in prison. But when midnight was come thefriars got up to say matins, and so the men who had beensent to slay them discovered where they were, and tookthem away outside the town beneath a certain tree, and saidto them: " Ye must know that we have orders from the Cadiand the Melic to slay you; and we are reluctant to do it, forye are good and holy men. But we can do no otherwise .It is curious how persistently the error of Mahommed's being buriedat Mecca was repeated. Even Mandeville, who had served the Saracensin Egypt, repeats it.FRIAR ODORIC. 67For if we do not their behests we and all our children andour wives shall die!" And the friars answered them saying:"Since ye come hither that we through death temporal mayattain to life eternal, do that which ye are bidden. For weare ready to bear manfully whatever tortures ye may inflicton us for our religion and for the love of Jesus Christ ourLord. " And when they answered with this boldness andconstancy, that Christian who had joined their company gotinto deep altercation with those four evil men. For hespake to them in this wise, saying: " Had I but a sword Iwould hinder your doing this, or ye should slay me alongwith them." Then they caused the friars to strip . Andstraightway Friar Thomas, joining his hands in the sign ofthe cross, suffered first, his head being cut off.them then smote Friar James on the head andthe eyes, and then immediately cut his head off.metrius also first received a desperate stab in the breast andthen his head was cut off. And as they thus rendered theirsouls to God in martyrdom, straightway the air was illuminated, and it became so bright that all were stricken withamazement, and at the same time the moon waxed wonderfully light and lustrous. And after this there were so greatthunderings, lightnings, and flashings of fire, that almost allthought their end was come. And that ship which ought tohave taken them to Polumbum, but carried them to Tanaagainst their will, went to the bottom, so that nothing everwas known of her or her crew.11. The same continued.And one ofclove him toFriar DeAnd in the morning the Cadi sent to the house to takepossession of the friars' gear; they found there Peter ofSienna, the comrade of the other three friars, and took himto the Cadi. So the Cadi and other Saracens addressedhim, and made him promises of great things if he woulddeny the faith, and confess that of Machomet. But he only5 268 THE TRAVELS OFridiculed them and scorned their proposals in a way thatmade them marvel. So they began torturing him, and didso from morning until noon with sundry kinds of tortures.But he remained ever unshaken and firm in the faith, andmanfully demolishing their doctrine, and showing it to befalse . And when the Saracens saw that he was not to beturned from his purpose, they hung him up to a certain tree,and there he remained from the ninth hour until night. Butwhen night fell they took him down from the tree quite unhurt, and when they saw it was so, they clove him in sunder,and in the morning no trace of him was to be found. But itwas revealed to a person worthy of belief that God had concealed his body till in due season He should be pleased todisclose it.¹And that God might make manifest that their souls hadinherited the kingdom of heaven, on that very day when theseblessed friars became glorious martyrs, that Melic had fallen.There are different statements as to the date of the martyrdom ofthese four friars. Wadding puts it under 1321, the Acta Sanctorumunder 1322. The editors of the latter urge the authority of a MS. ofOdoric's narrative of the circ*mstances, which had been communicatedto them, and which named the Kalends of April as the day, combinedwith the assertion of Jordanus (see letter in this collection) that it wason the Thursday of the week before Palm Sunday, a combination whichwould fix the date to 1322. This, however, is inconsistent with the positive evidence of Jordanus in his following letter. For in it, dated Feastof Fabian and Sebastian, 1323—i.e. , in our reckoning, 20th January, 1324,he says that he had then been alone for two years and a half since he hadburied his comrades. Had their death occurred in 1322, the intervalwould have been only one year and eight months, which no rounding ofnumbers could convert into two years and a half; whereas if it had occurred in 1321, the interval might naturally have been so spoken of.It does not appear to be clear that those four friars ever received theofficial beatification of Rome, though they appear as Beati in the ActaSanctorum. The Order applied to John XXII to have this done, and heintimated approval; but certain schisms and controversies arising in theOrder about this time, the matter was lost sight of. According to oneauthor, however, quoted by Wadding, but apparently without much confidence, the beatification was sanctioned by John's successor, and thefeast ordered to be celebrated on the Wednesday of Holy Week.FRIAR ODORIC. 69asleep, and as he thus lay asleep , lo! there appeared to himthose glorious martyrs bright and shining like the sun, andholding swords in their hands, which they brandished overthe Melic in such a way as if they would have cloven himasunder. And at this sight the Melic began to roar out,and with his noise brought his whole family running to seewhat ailed him, and what he would have. And he told themin reply: Those Frank rabbans whom I have caused to beslain have come hither with swords to slay me! And so hesent for the Cadi, to whom he told what had befallen him,and asked his counsel as to what should be done in the matter, for he was convinced that he should perish utterly attheir hands. Then the Cadi advised him that he should dosome great work of charity on their account, if he would escape from the hands of those murdered men. So he sentstraightway for the Christians whom he held in durance, andhumbly asked their pardon for what he had caused to bedone to them, behaving to them like a fellow and a brother.And besides he ordered that any one who should hurt anythe Christians in future should suffer death. Afterwardsalso the Melic caused four mosques, i.e. churches, to be builtin honour of the Friars, and put Saracen priests in each ofthem to abide continually.12. The same history continued.ofAnd when the Emperor of Dili¹ heard that those friars hadundergone such a sentence, he sent and ordered the Melicto be seized and despatched to his presence with his handsbound. Being thus brought before the emperor, and questioned why he had so cruelly put those friars to death, hereplied: " I suffered them to die because they sought to over1 The Sultan of Dehli at this time must have been Gheiass-uddinToghlak, who assumed the throne in 1320, according to the latest corrections of the Chronology. (See French editor's preface to Ibn Batuta,vol. iii, p. xiii ) .70 THE TRAVELS OFthrow our law, and blasphemed the Prophet." Then theemperor said to him: "Most cruel hound, when thou sawest that God had twice delivered them from the fire howcouldst thou dare thus to inflict death upon them? " Andhaving spoken thus, he ordered him with his whole family tobe cut in sunder. Such a death therefore as he caused thosebrethren to undergo to their glory, he himself had now toundergo to his own damnation. And the Cadi hearing of thisfled from the city, and from the emperor's dominions.Now in that country it is the custom never to bury thedead, but bodies are only cast out in the fields, and thus arespeedily destroyed and consumed by the excessive heat . Sothe bodies of these friars lay for fourteen days in the sun,and yet were found quite fresh and undecayed as if on thevery day of their glorious martyrdom. And the Christians.who were in that place seeing this took the bodies, andcaused them to be committed to the tomb.¹13. How Fr. Odoric took up the bones of the four Friars; and thewonders wrought thereby.Then I, Friar Odoric, came into those regions, havingheard of their glorious martyrdom, and opening their tombsI humbly and devoutly took up their bones. And as Godofttimes worketh great marvels by means of his saints,through these also it pleased him to work powerfully. Thuswhen I had taken their bones, and wrapt them in fair napkins, and accompanied by one brother of the order and aservant, I was taking them to the house of our friars at acertain place in Upper India,2 I chanced to lodge in thehouse of a certain man, and when I went to sleep I placedthose bones, or sacred reliques rather as I would call them,It is remarkable that Odoric seems purposely to avoid all mention ofJordanus in connection with this, though we know that it was he whocarried off the bodies and buried them at Supera. (Friar Jord. , p. vii.)2 Upper India with Odoric is China.FRIAR ODORIC. 71under my head. And as I thus slept the house was suddenlyset fire to by the Saracens, that they might bring about mydeath by acclamation of the people. For this is the emperor's command, that any whose house is burnt shall sufferdeath. The house then being on fire my comrade and theservant made their escape from it, leaving me in it withthose bones. And I took the bones of the brethren, andseeking help from God I crouched into a corner of the burning house. And three corners thereof were consumed, andthat one only was left in which I was abiding. And as I satthere the fire was over my head, doing me no harm and notburning the corner of the house. And as long as I continuedthere with the bones, the fire never came lower but hungover me like an atmosphere. But as soon as I quitted thehouse it was entirely destroyed and many others adjoiningbesides. And so I escaped scatheless .14. The same continued.Another such thing happened to me also on that journey.For as I went by sea with those bones, towards a certaincity called Polumbum (where groweth the pepper in greatstore) the wind failed us utterly. Then the idolaters came1 This passage is very obscure in all the copies that have it.2 This is undoubtedly the Columbum of Jordanus and John de' Marignolli, Kulam, or the modern Quilon, thoughit is not easy to see how theP got into all, or nearly all, the MSS. of Odoric, unless the error occurredin the first transcription .In the preface to the translation of Jordanus, the high authority ofProfessor H. H. Wilson was quoted for the fact that Kulam dated onlyfrom the ninth century. But the era there alluded to may have beenthat of a re-foundation, an event often prominent in eastern annals, andwhich is found in the adjoining state of Cochin furnishing an era calledthe " New Foundation" (corresponding to A.D. 1341) . For there seemsreason to believe the city of Kulam to be more ancient than the time named. There is in Assemanni (p. 437) , a letter from one Jesujabusof Adiabene, who died in 660, addressed to Simon Metropolitan of Persia,which complains of his grievous neglect of duty, and alleges that in consequence not only is India, " which extends from the coast of the kingdom of72 THE TRAVELS OFbeseeching their gods to give them a fair wind; which however was all to no purpose. Next came the Saracens, andwrought greatly to have a wind granted to them; but neitherhad they anything for all their prayers. Whereupon theyenjoined on my comrade and me that we should pour forthour prayers to our God to bestow it upon us. And if thistook effect the greatest honour would be shown us. And theskipper said to me, speaking in the Armenian tongue, thatPersia to COLON, a distance of 1200 parasangs, deprived of a regularministry, but Persia itself is lying in darkness" . If this Colon be, as Isuppose, Kulam, we may also believe it to be the Malé of Cosmas in thesixth century, seeing that Kulam-Malé is the name applied by the Arabsof the ninth century to the great pepper-port.I find that Professor Kunstmann of Munich, in his Essays on the Medieval Missions, has taken up the view that Columbum lay upon the eastside of Cape Comorin, and was identical with the Cael of Marco Polo. Ido not, however, find any material ground alleged for this easterly position, except that it is so represented in the Catalan Map of 1375. This Icannot think of great weight against the chain of evidence for its identitywith Quilon, adduced in my preface to Jordanus, whilst the passage inMarco Polo which is therein alluded to, may very probably have misledthe geographer. When Giovanni d'Empoli in 1503 describes the firstvisit of the Portuguese to Colom, and the delight of the Christians calledNazzareni to receive them, who can doubt that these are the Columbumand the Nascarini of Jordanus? And Marignolli tells us precisely thatColumbum was in Mynibar (Malabar), which he as precisely distinguishesfrom Maabar where St. Thomas lay, i.e. the east side of the Peninsula.I suspect it will be found that the form Columbum or Columbo, as applied to Quilon, is founded on some form of the name Kulam formerly in use among the merchants and navigators of the Indian Seas. SirEmerson Tennent tells us of a Hebrew MS. in the possession of theCochin Jews, which in speaking of Sri Perumal the famous King ofMalabar, says his rule extended from Goa to Columbo. This, Tennenttakes for Columbo in Ceylon, but as Goa and Quilon would with tolerableprecision form the Dan and Beersheba of the Malabar coast, I have littledoubt that Quilon is the place meant.Columbum was often represented as an island, but this must not betaken for Ceylon. Thus Pegolotti (pp. 359, 360) speaks of the "Columbineginger which was the produce of the Island of Columbo of India". TheWorld-Map in the Portulano of Andrew Bianchi, in St. Mark's library atVenice, also shows opposite the south-west corner of India the “Ixola diColonbi", whilst Fra Mauro's great map has also " Isola Colombo", placedto the east of India, and noted in the rubric for its pepper, great resortof merchants, and black lions (i.e., tigers) .FRIAR ODORIC. 73others might not understand: "If we cannot have a windwe shall cast those bones of yours into the sea."Then mycomrade and I made prayers to God Himself, but seeing thatstill there was no wind to be had we began to promise everso many masses in honour of the blessed Virgin if we couldbut have a wind; but even so we could not obtain any windat all . So then I took one of those bones and gave it to ourservant, and told him to go to the bow of the ship with hasteand cast it into the sea. Then when the bone was so castinto the sea straightway a most favourable wind arose whichnever failed until it brought us into harbour; and thus wegot thither safely through the merits of those friars.¹15. The same continued.And when we were there in harbour at Polumbum we embarked on board another ship called a junk, and went as hasalready been said to Upper India, to a certain city calledZaiton, in which our friars have two houses, in order thereto deposit those sacred reliques. Now on board that shipthere were good seven hundred souls, what with sailors andwith merchants. And the idolaters have this custom, that1 Centuries later we find a man of considerable intelligence, FatherRipa, relating how, on his voyage to China, he went through just sucha process as this with a " holy Candle," whatever that may be, and hebelieved that the ship was saved thereby. Years afterwards also, on hisreturn to Europe, he repeats this operation with an Agnus Dei, and withsimilar success. (Mem. of F. Ripa, pp. 31 , 139.)Wadding relates additional wonders as wrought by the reliques ofthose friars, which are interesting for other reasons than the value of thealleged miracles. One story tells how Giovannino, son of Ugolino of Pisa,a merchant, having been lucky enough to appropriate the head of one ofthe martyrs, saved his ship when attacked by pirates, by holding out thishead as a buckler, whilst his two consorts were captured. Friar Jordanusalso cured the young Genoese, who had helped him to bury the bodies,of a bad dysentery, by help of a tooth of Thomas of Tolentino. Hedeposited a part of the relics in the house of his order at Sultaniah, andthese gave rise to further marvels. But let it be noted that neither thesestories nor the miracles alleged to have attended the slaughter of thefriars rest on anything that has come down to us from Jordanus himself.74 THE TRAVELS OFbefore they enter port they make search throughout the wholevessel to ascertain what is on board; and if any dead men'sbones should be found they would straightway cast them intothe sea, for they say that to have such things on board involves great peril of death. Though they did accordinglymake this diligent search, and though the bones were therein a great quantity, yet they never did get any inkling ofthem. And so by God's permission we brought them safelyto the house of our brethren, and there they were worthilydeposited with honour and great worship. And by means ofthese sainted friars doth Almighty God still work many otherwonders; and this is held true by both Pagans and Saracens.For when they are caught by any disease, they go andtake of the earth of the place where the friars were slain ,and wash it in water, and then drink the water, and so areimmediately freed from all their ailments.16. Fr. Odoric is done with the four friars; and now he telleth of thekingdom of Minibar and how pepper is got.And now that ye may know how pepper is got, let metell you that it groweth in a certain empire whereunto Icame to land, the name whereof is MINIBAR, and it growethnowhere else in the world but there. And the forest in31 This no doubt refers to the strict examination of papers and cargo onarrival of a ship in China, respecting which Ibn Batuta gives detailsafter his manner; see his Voyage to China, infra.2 We are told that the Christians of Malabar used to prepare theirholy water by mixing some particles of earth from the tomb of theapostle Thomas. See also the healing power ascribed by M. Polo toearth from that shrine. (Padre Paolino di S. Bart. , p. 136; M. Polo,iii, 22.)3 Minibar is Malabar, and seems to have been an old Arabic form of that name. It is the same that we shall find in Marignolli. Edrisihas Manibar, so has Abulfeda; and a Turkish work translated by VonHammer for the Bengal Journal, has Monebár. Ibn Batuta writes Mulebár, Bakui has Malibar, and Fra Mauro Milibar. (Jaubert's Edrisi, i, 175;Abulfeda in Gildemeister, p. 188, comparing p. 45 of the Arabic; Notices etExtraits, ii, 389; Journal A. S. Beng. v, pp. 458, 461; and see D'Herbelotin v. Manibar. )FRIAR ODORIC. 75which the pepper groweth extendeth for a good eighteendays' journey, and in that forest there be two cities, the onewhereof is called FLANDRINA and the other CYNGILIN.¹ In¹ Flandrina, as has been pointed out in a note on Jordanus (p. 40) , isdoubtless the Fandaraina of Ibn Batuta, and the Pandarani of theRamusian geographer. It is found as Fandaraina (also miswritten Kandaraina) in Edrisi, and is probably the Bandinánah (for Bandiránah) ofAbdarrazzak. It has vanished from the maps, but stood about twentymiles north of Calicut. Cyngilin is a greater difficulty. It is, however,evidently identical with the Cynkali of Marignolli, with the Singugli ofJordanus (p. 40) , which that author mentions as a kingdom betweenCalicut and Quilon, with Jangli (which I doubt not should be read Chinkali) of Rashiduddin, and perhaps with the Gingala of Benjamin ofTudela. And it is unquestionably the Shinkala or Shinkall of Abulfeda(see Gildermeister, p. 185, and Arab. text, p. 41), which he couples withShaliyat, as two cities of Malabar, one of which was inhabited by Jews,though his informant knew not which. Shaliyat, also mentioned underthat name by Ibn Batuta, and called by the European navigators Chaliaand Chale, was the port next below Calicut, and the next to that again,of any importance, was Cranganor. Now Assemani tells us incidentally(p. 440-see also p. 732): " SCIGLA (i.e. Shigla or Shikala -Shinkala ofAbulfeda) alias et Chrongalor vocatur ea quam Cranganoriam dicimusMalabariæ urbem, ut testatur idem Jacobus Indiarum episcopus, ad calcemTestamenti Novi ab ipso exarati ...... anno Christi 1510, " etc. Cynkali orCyncilim or Shinkala, then, is CRANGANOR, the seat of one of the oldMalabar principalities, and famous in the early traditions of both Jewsand Christians on that coast. It was there that, according to the former,the black Jews of the tribe of Manasseh first settled and abode for morethan one thousand years; it was there that St. Thomas is said to havefirst preached on the shores of India; and there also the Mahomedanswere first allowed to settle and build a mosque. Barbosa, in the beginning ofthe sixteenth century, notices Crangulor as occupied by a variedpopulation of " Gentiles, Moors, Indians (? ) , Jews, and Christians ofSt. Thomas." (J. R. A. Soc. , i, 173, 174; Sir H. M. Elliot, Historians ofMuham. , India, p. 43; Lassen, iv, 256; Ramusio, i , 311.) It is true thatOdoric says in the text that the Jews and Christians lived in Flandrina,but what follows shows that there is some confusion, and that he meanseither that Jews and Christians lived in both cities, or Jews in the oneand Christians in the other.To these notices of Cyncilim, I may add that the Chinese annals alsomention Sengkili, as one of the Western Kingdoms which sent tribute (i.e.,envoys and presents) to Kublai; and as it is coupled with other countrieswhich may be identified with Ma'bar and Somnath, it is highly probable

76 THE TRAVELS OFthe city of Flandrina some of the inhabitants are Jews¹ andsome are Christians; and between those two cities there isthat Shinkali or Cranganor is intended ( see the passage quoted in thepreliminary essay to this volume) .1 The Jews of Malabar were and are distinguished into black andwhite. The former are much more assimilated to the Hindu natives,and are regarded as inferiors by the latter. Thirty years ago, the whiteJews were reduced to about two hundred, living in Mattancheri, asuburb of Cochin, in which the black Jews also had a separate synagogue. The great body of the black Jews inhabited towns in the interior,and had many other synagogues. The tradition of these latter was thatthey were part of the tribe of Manasseh carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar, who emigrated at a later period to Cranganore. The white Jewsbelieve themselves to have come soon after the destruction of Jerusalem.A grant in favour of the Jews, by a native king in Malabar, is said to date from A.D. 231. Firishta testifies to their presence when the firstMahomedans settled on the coast.Padre Paolino, towards the end of last century, estimated the Jews ofMattancheri, Mutlam, and Kayan Kulam at between 15,000 and 20,000 .(J. R. A. Soc. , i, 173, and vi, p. 6; P. Paolino di S. Bartolomeo, Viaggi,p. 109; Briggs's Firishta, iv, 532, quoted by Ritter.)2 Some slight account of the present state of the Malabar Christianswill be found in a work lately published by the Rev. G. B. Howard,formerly a chaplain in those parts. It is some satisfaction to learn fromthis book that the Christians have not greatly diminished in numbersince the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Nestorian BishopJaballaha reported them as consisting of 30,000 families-say 150,000souls. For Mr. Howard states the last estimate of the Syrian Christiansin Travancore and Cochin to be 116,483; whilst those of the Syro- RomanChurch, who ought, perhaps, to be taken into account, are reckoned at117,000 more. It is also pleasant to learn that the Syrian Christians arestill held in respect by their heathen neighbours, and still retain thatcharacter "as a sensible honest people, remarkable for modesty andtruth," to which a long chain of witnesses has borne testimony. One ofthese is the Carmelite P. Vincenzo Maria, who was sent from Rome inthe middle of the seventeeth century to bring dissidents into the Romanpen; and his evidence is distinct as to their sobriety, courage, andsuperiority to the ordinary Gentiles " in disposition, intellect, andmanners . At the same time, he vividly depicts their Asiatic traits, theirflattery, fluent talk, ceremonies, politeness, and prolixity.66These things are pleasant to hear of, but almost everything else intheir history for three hundred and fifty years is painful. The contactof Eastern and Western, even when there are none of the more selfishinterests in collision , oftener breeds evil than good. The relations of theEnglish Church with the Syrian, initiated with the best feelings on oneside, and welcomed on the other, have ended only in disappointment andFRIAR ODORIC. 77•always internal war, but the result is always that the Christians beat and overcome the Jews.Now, in this country they get the pepper in this manner.First, then, it groweth on plants which have leaves like ivy,and these are planted against tall trees as our vines arehere, and bear fruit just like bunches of grapes; and thisfruit is borne in such quantities that they seem like to breakunder it. And when the fruit is ripe it is of a green colour,and ' tis gathered just as grapes are gathered at the vintage,and then put in the sun to dry. And when it is dried it isstored in jars [and of the fresh pepper also they make aconfection, of which I had to eat, and plenty of it . ] Andin this forest also there be rivers in which be many evil crocodiles, i.e. serpents. [ And there be many other kinds ofserpents in the forest, which the men burn by kindling towand straw, and so they are enabled to go safely to gatherpepper. ] [ And here there be lions in great numbers, anda variety of beasts which are not found in our Frank countries. And here they burn the brazil-wood for fuel, and inthe woods are numbers of wild peaco*cks] .At the extremity of that forest, towards the south, thereis a certain city which is called Polumbum, in which isgrown better ginger than anywhere else in the world. Andmutual offence. And as regards Her of Rome, scarcely anything in allher history is more odious than her conduct to the churches of Malabar.Did ever discovery seem more calculated to draw out brotherly kindnessthan when the Portuguese, emerging from their dim and venturousnavigation, lighted on this isolated Christian flock? And the result tothat flock was persecution, strife, and misery, from which they havenever recovered. (The Christians of St. Thomas and their Liturgies, by theRev. G. B. Howard, etc., 1864; Assemanni, p. 450; P. Vincenzo Maria, pp.139, 143, and seq. )From PAL.2 From HAK. and Mus. Marignolli has a mild sneer directed probablyat Odoric's talk about the pepper " forest;" apparently the latter did notstay any time in Malabar, and he probably derived his information from harbour gossip.3 Ginger is classed by Pegolotti as " Belledi, which is found in many78 THE TRAVELS OFthe variety and abundance of wares for sale in that city isso great that it would seem past belief to many folk.17. Fr. Odoric discourseth of the manners of the idolaters ofPolumbum.[Here all the people go naked, only they wear a cloth justenough to cover their nakedness, which they tie behind. ]All the people of this country worship the ox for their god[and they eat not his flesh]; for they say that he is, as itwere, a sacred creature. Six years they make him to workfor them, and the seventh year they give him rest from alllabour, and turn him out in some appointed public place,declaring him thenceforward to be a consecrated animal. "And they observe the following abominable superstition.Every morning they take two basins of gold or silver, andwhen the ox is brought from the stall they put these underhim and catch his urine in one and his dung in the other.With the former they wash their faces, and with the latterthey daub themselves, first on the middle of the forehead;secondly, on the balls of both cheeks; and, lastly, in themiddle of the chest. And when they have thus anointedthemselves in four places they consider themselves to beplaces in India [Ar. Balladi or country ginger] , Colombino, and Micchino,”the two last from the countries producing them; viz. , Colombo of India,i.e. our Columbum or Kulam, and the territories of Mecca.The same authority speaks of a kind of Brazil wood ( Verzino) whichwas called Colomni or Colombino, no doubt from the same place; and ofcinnamon also with the same epithet. (Della decima, iii, pp. 210, 296, 308,359-360, &c.)1 From PAL.

• This fuller explanation is from Mus. The copies which I am generally following (PAR. and VEN. ) have simply positus est in communi. The custom of setting free bulls to roam at large, as offerings I believe to Siva,

is here alluded to. They are known among Anglo- Indians as 66 Brahmini bulls", and, having the run of the bazars, are always fat. In Calcutta, where they were a dangerous nuisance, they used to be laid holdof by the police and yoked in the dust carts.What follows about cow-worship is little, if at all, exaggerated, as maybe seen by reference to Abbé Dubois (pp. 29, etc.)"FRIAR ODORIC . 79sanctified (for the day) . Thus do the common people; andthus do the king and queen likewise.They worship also another idol, which is half man andhalf ox. And this idol giveth responses out of its mouth,and ofttimes demandeth the blood of forty virgins to begiven to it. For men and women there vow their sons andtheir daughters to that idol, just as here they vow to placethem in some religious order. And in this manner manyperish.And many other things are done by that people which itwould be abomination even to write or to hear of, and manyother things be there produced and grown, which it bootethlittle to relate.¹ But the idolaters of this realm have onedetestable custom (that I must mention) . For when anyman dies, they burn him, and if he leave a wife they burnher alive with him, saying that she ought to go and keepher husband company in the other world. But if the womanhave sons by her husband she may abide with them, anshe will. And, on the other hand, if the wife die there isman.1 PAL. has: "And in this land there be trees that produce honey, and ' tisas good as is in the world. And there be others that give wine, and othersthat give wool wherewith cords and cables of all kinds are made. And therebe also trees which produce fruits so big that two will be a load for a strongAnd when they come to be eaten conviene che altri s'unga le mani ela bocca, (?) and they are of a fragrant odour and very savoury; the fruitis called chabassi." [ The wool-bearing tree in this doubtful passage isa reference to the coir or coco-nut fibre, I think, rather than to cotton.The large fruit, fragrant and savoury, is the jack, I doubt not, but thename chabassi is probably corrupted . ] "And here I heard tell that therebe trees which bear men and women like fruit upon them. They are aboutacubit in measurement, and are fixed in the tree up to the navel, and therethey be; and when the wind blows they be fresh, but when it does not blowthey are all dried up. This I saw not in sooth, but I heard it told by peoplewho had seen it." Here again we have a genuine Oriental story, relatedby several Arab geographers of the island of Wak-wak in the SouthernOcean (e. g. , see Bakui in Not. et Ext. , ii, 399) . Al Biruni denies that theisland is called so, "as is vulgarly believed, because of a fruit having theform of a human head which cries Wak! Wak!" (Journ. Asiat. S., iv, t. iv,p. 266).And Edrisi declines to repeat the " incredible story " relatedby Masudi on the subject, with the pious reservation, " But all thingsare in the power of the Most High ” (i, 92) .

80 THE TRAVELS OFno law to impose the like on him; but he, if he likes, cantake another wife . It is also customary there for the womento drink wine and not the men. The women also have theirforeheads shaven, whilst the men shave not the beard.2 Andthere be many other marvellous and beastly customs which'tis just as well not to write.18. Concerning the kingdom of Mobar, where lieth the body ofSt. Thomas.From this realm ' tis a journey of ten days to another realmwhich is called MOBAR, and this is very great, and hath1 Mr. Elphinstone says: "The practice of Suttee is by no means universal in India. It never occurs to the south of the River Kishna." Butthis absolute statement certainly conveys an erroneous impression. MarcoPolo states the practice of Southern India just as Odoric does, whilst in1580, Gasparo Balbi, an accurate and unimaginative traveller, describeswith seeming truth a suttee which he witnessed at Negapatam, andspeaks of the custom as common. In the middle of the seventeenthcentury, P. Vincenzo, the Procurator- General of the Carmelites, says itwas especially common in Canara; whilst he was told that on the deathof the Naik of Madura 11,000 women had offered themselves to theflames! These 11,000 suttees may have been as mythical as the 11,000virgins of Cologne, but they prove the practice. And in the beginningofthe last century it continued to be extremely prevalent in that region.P. Martin, in a letter from Marawar (or Ramnad, opposite Ceylon);dated in 1713, mentions three cases then recent, in which respectivelyforty-five, seventeen, and twelve women had performed suttee on thedeath of the husbands, princes of that state. The widow of the Raja ofTrichinopoly, being left pregnant, burnt herself after delivery. (Elphinstone's H. of India, p. 190; M. Polo, iii, 20; Viaggio di Gasparo Balbi,f. 83; P. Vincenzo, p. 322; Lettres Edifiantes, ed. Lyon, 1819, vii, 73, 75.)Suttees still occur in spite of our prohibition, and not very unfrequently,both in our own territory and in the native states.Ramusio quotes Propertius on suttee. I borrow a few lines, showinghow familiar this still -enduring Indian practice was to the Romans nine- teen hundred years ago:-Uxorum fusis stat pia turba comis;Et certamen habet lædi, quæ viva sequaturConjugium; pudor est non licuisse mori.Ardent victrices, et flammæ pectora præbent,Imponuntque suis ora perusta viris.2 This reasonable reading is from Venni's originals only. I have overlooked it in the Appendix, where the strange readings of other copieswill be seen (p. xiv, and note 9) .3 The Coromandel region; see note to Jordanus, p. 19. It is possibleFRIAR ODORIC. 81under it many cities and towns. And in this realm is laidthe body of the Blessed Thomas the Apostle. His churchis filled with idols, and beside it are some fifteen houses ofthe Nestorians, that is to say Christians, but vile and pestilentheretics. There is likewise in this kingdom a certain wonderful idol, which all the provinces of India greatly revere. Itis as big as St. Christopher is commonly represented by thepainters, and it is entirely of gold, seated on a great throne,which is also of gold. And round its neck it hath a collar ofgems of immense value. And the church of this idol isalso of pure gold, roof (and walls) and pavement.¹ Peoplecome to say their prayers to the idol from great distances,that the Arabic name (Ma'abar, the passage or ferry) was, as some onehas suggested, originally a corruption of Marawar, the name of the Hindustate which adjoined Adam's Bridge, and the chief of which state wascalled Setu Pati, " the lord of the bridge. " Such corruptions are often twisted for the sake of an apparent etymology among Orientals, and alsoamong Occidentals. Thus in India the English word receipt is convertedinto Rasid, and understood by many as deriving its meaning from thePers. Rasidan, to arrive. Jerusalem artichokes afford a Western instance.Marawar, or Marava, on the other hand, is perhaps also the Marulló ofCosmas Indicopleustes, which was on the continent adjoining Ceylon andproduced conch-shells. I know not if the obvious suggestion has beenput forward that the pearl fisheries in this vicinity originated the Pers.Marwáríd, from which we get Margarita.Ritter puts Ma'abar on the west coast, and Lassen (iv, 888) says thatthe name with Ibn Batuta signifies the southernmost part of the Malabar coast, but both learned authors are certainly wrong. Kunstmannagain says, "it has been recently pointed out that the name applies neitherspecially to the south-west coast nor to the south-east, but to the wholesouthern apex of the peninsula." I do not know what evidence can bealleged. All use of it that I have seen is clear for its being the southeast coast, as Abulfeda precisely says, commencing from Cape Comorin.(See Gildemeister, pp. 56 and 185.)Pure gold leaf perhaps. From what we see in Burma, where manyobsolete Indian practices have been preserved by Buddhism, we mayjudge that extensive gilding of sacred buildings was formerly much morecommon than it is now. An Indian example is still familiar in the Sikhsanctuary at Amritsar. There were, however, temples of enormous wealthin this part of India. A few years before, the soldiers of Ala-eddin Kingof Dehli had carried off a fabulous booty of gold and jewels from thetemples of Dwara- Samudra and Ma'abar. ( Briggs's Firishta, i, 373.)682 THE TRAVELS OFjust as Christian folk go from far on pilgrimage to St. Peter's.And the manner of those who come is thus:-Some travelwith a halter round their necks; and some with their handsupon a board, which is tied to their necks; others with aknife stuck in the arm, which they never remove until theyarrive before the idol, so that the arm is then all in a slough.And some have quite a different way of doing. For theseas they start from their houses take three steps, and at thefourth they make a prostration at full length upon theground. And then they take a thurible and incense thewhole length of that prostration . And thus they do continually until they reach the idol, so that sometimes whenthey go through this operation it taketh a very great whilebefore they do reach the idol . But when those who are goingalong in this way wish to turn aside to do anything, theymake a mark there to show how far they have gone, and sothey (come back upon this, and) continue until they reachthe idol.¹19. Concerning other customs of the Idolaters.And hard by the church of this idol there is a lake, madeby hand, into which the pilgrims who come thither castgold or silver or precious stones, in honour of the idol, andtowards the maintenance of the church, so that much goldand silver and many precious stones have been accumulatedtherein. And thus when it is desired to do any work uponthe church, they make search in the lake and find all thathath been cast into it.21 The word venia used here is a technical term in the Roman churchfor a prostration in worship, but being unfamiliar it has perplexed thecopyists. It is, however, clearly explained by the parallel passage inPAL. , "si stende in terra boccone." The performance described is a wellknown penance both of Hindus and Tibetan Buddhists. The newspaperslately contained a striking notice of penances of this kind in the Deccan.Omitting the incense the account is almost Odoric's. One man had come450 miles measuring his length continuously at the rate of about a milea day. (Allen's Indian Mail, Oct. 11th, 1864, p. 782.)PAL. has: and they call that place Celai in their tongue. There is a likeFRIAR ODORIC. 83But annually on the recurrence of the day when that idolwas made, the folk of the country come and take it down, andput it on a fine chariot; and then the king and queen andall the pilgrims, and the whole body of the people,¹ jointogether and draw it forth from the church with loud singing of songs and all kinds of music; and many maidens gobefore it by two and two chaunting in a marvellous manner.And many pilgrims who have come to this feast cast themselves under the chariot, so that its wheels may go overthem, saying that they desire to die for their God. And thecar passes over them, and crushes and cuts them in sunder,and so they perish on the spot. And after this fashion theydrag the idol to a certain customary place, and then theydrag him back to where he was formerly, with singing andplaying as before. And thus not a year passes but thereperish more than five hundred men in this manner; andtheir bodies they burn, declaring that they are holy, havingthus devoted themselves to death for their God.2And another custom they have of this kind. One willcome saying: " I desire to sacrifice myself for my God.And then his friends and kinsfolk, and all the players of thecountry, assemble together to make a feast for him who isdetermined to die for his God. And they hang round hisneck five very sharp knives, and lead him thus to the prestory in Masudi regarding the Maharajah of the Isles. His palace wasover a tank, which communicated with the sea. Every morning thetreasurer threw in a golden ingot. At the king's death the accumulationwas taken out and divided among his dependents and the poor. (Paristrans., 1861, i, 175.)¹ PAL. has: The Emperor, and their Pope and other priests, which arecalled Tuin, etc. It is curious to find this word used here. It was thename, or one of the names, which the Mongols applied to the Buddhistpriests. (See Rubruquis, p. 352, and D'Ohsson, ii, 264.)2 One might think Odoric had got to Juggurnath. But this practice wasnot peculiar to Orissa. (See Dubois, pp. 413, 414; and Gasp. Balbi, f. 84,etc.) A gross instance, involving three victims, has recently been reported within a few miles of Calcutta . (See Allen's Indian Mail of August15th, 1864.)6284 THE TRAVELS OFsence of the idol with loud songs. Then he takes one ofthose sharp knives and calls out with a loud voice, "ThusI cut my flesh for my God; " and cutting a piece of his fleshwherever he may choose, he casteth it in the face of theidol; and saying again, " I devote myself to die for myGod," he endeth by slaying himself there. And straightwaythey take his body and burn it, for they look on him as asaint, having thus slain himself for his idol. And manyother things greatly to be marvelled at are done by thesepeople, which are by no means to be written.But the king of this island¹ or province is passing rich ingold and silver and precious stones. And in this island arefound as great store of good pearls as in any part of theworld. And so of many other things which are found inthis island, which it would take too long to write.20. Concerning the country called Lamori, where the pole star ishidden; and also of Sumoltra.Departing from this region towards the south across theocean sea, I came in fifty days to a certain country calledLAMORI, in which I began to lose sight of the north star, as 2This is the only time that Odoric makes a mistake of this kind.Mandeville makes islands of nearly all the Eastern regions. It hasbeen noticed in a previous note that some of the mapmakers made Columbum an island. This probably came first from the loose use, by theArabs, ofthe word Jazirah, which means properly an island (see note to IbnBatuta.) But it is worthy of remark that Linschoten, who could nothave said it through ignorance, calls China "la dernière isle de la naviga- tion orientale." Was the word then used for a place reached by sea?2 Lamori is no doubt the Lambri of Marco Polo and De Barros, theLámúrí of Rashíduddín, and the Al- Rami, Ramin, and Ramni of Edrisiand other Arabian geographers, who extend the term to the whole islandof Sumatra. Lambri is mentioned also by the Malay annalists. It appears to have lain near the north- west end of the island, and being on thataccount probably the first port of Sumatra known to the Arabs, naturallygaveits name to the whole. I believe the exact position is not nowknown,but the list of kingdoms in De Barros places it between Daya and Achin;and if it lay between these it must have been very small indeed.Pegolotti speaks of cinnamon of Ameri, which is perhaps intended forthe same word ( Lamori, L'Amori, Ameri. ) Pegol. p . 361 .FRIAR ODORIC . 85the earth intercepted it . And in that country the heatis so excessive that all folk there, both men and women,go naked, not clothing themselves in any wise. And theymocked much at me on this matter, saying that God madeAdam naked, but I must needs go against His will and wearclothes. Now, in that country all the women be in common;and no one there can say, this is my wife, or this is myhusband! But when a woman beareth a boy or a girl shegiveth the child to whom she listeth of those with whomshe hath consorted, and calleth him the father. The wholeof the land likewise is in common; and no one can say withtruth, this or that part of the land is mine. But they havehouses of their own, and not in common.2It is an evil and a pestilent generation, and they eatman's flesh there just as we eat beef here. Yet the country initself is excellent, and hath great store of flesh-meats, andof wheat and of rice; and they have much gold also , andlign-aloes, and camphor, and many other things which areproduced there. And merchants come to this island fromfar, bringing children with them to sell like cattle to thoseinfidels, who buy them and slaughter them in the shamblesand eat them. And so with many other things both goodand bad, which I have not written .1 PAL. Unless it be that some women when they be near child-bearing wearthe leafofa tree to cover their nakedness, and tie it on with a strip ofbark.? I cannot point out any one region of Sumatra of which all thesestrange stories are true. But Odoric did not invent them, though it may be doubted if he witnessed all that he tells here. The community of women is positively asserted to exist among the Poggy or Pagi Islanders off the west coast of Sumatra, whilst their clothing is the merest strip ofbark cloth; and they have not even individual houses. Such a state ofthings may have been found on the main island of Sumatra five hundredand fifty years ago. Very strange things have been found there even inour own day. (For Pagi Islanders see Tydschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en-Volken Kunde, second year, No. 4.)3 This from VEN. PAR. has men; HAK. fat men; PAL. white men; forblack men, like themselves, they eat not.4 Gold, aloeswood, and camphor, are all true products of Sumatra;86 THE TRAVELS OFIn this same island towards the south is another kingdomby name SUMOLTRA, in which is a singular generation ofpeople; for they brand themselves on the face with a little.hot iron in some twelve places; and this is done by menand women both. And these folk are always at war withthe others who go naked. In this country there is greatabundance of produce; [ it is a great market for pigs andfowls and for butter and rice, and they have also the excellent fruit called mussi. And here also gold and tin are foundin great abundance] .2so also is cannibalism, though we must expect from Odoric, in regard tosuch stories, no more than that he repeat them in the current form.Here is a specimen of the modern evidence: -"' Persons caught in housebreaking or highway robbery, are publicly executed and immediatelyeaten.......A man taken in adultery may be eaten piecemeal withoutbeing first deprived of life .......Twelve months before, twenty personswere eaten in one day, in a village where the authors resided. Prisonerstaken in a great war (not a mere broil) were allowed to be eaten."(Burton and Ward, in Trans. R. As. Soc. , i, 506, 507; see also Jour. R. As.Soc. , ii, 49; Crawfurd's Dict. ofIndian Islands, art. Batak; and Marsden'sH. of Sumatra, 1811, p. 392.)Here is a specimen of the modern current stories: "Some years ago aBattak servant of a gentleman in Malacca, on seeing his master's childwashed, made the following remark: -' In our country it would not benecessary to wash that child; he might be roasted at once. '" (Moor'sNotices of the Ind. Archip. , p. 117.)1 Odoric may have the credit of being the first western traveller togive the name of Sumatra so distinctly, though I have little doubt thatthe Samara or Samarcha of Polo means the same place, and was probably uttered by him correctly enough. The city of Samudra, the nameof which has extended (no one well knows how) to the whole island, isfrequently mentioned in the Malay annals, and its king became Mussulman under the name of Malik-al- Sálah about Odoric's time, or a littlebefore. It is believed to have stood between Pasei and Pedir, near theplace now called Samarlanga. I do not know whether the tattooing described by Odoric is still practised by any nation of Sumatra, but amongthe Pagi islanders off the west coast, it is carried to a higher degree ofelaboration than perhaps anywhere in the world, and it is practised onIt is also found among the more civilised people of Nyas onthe same coast .both sexes.2 From PAL. This passage notices the tin, which is so prominent aproduct of the Malay countries. Mussi is, I presume, the (Ar. ) Mauzah orplantain.FRIAR ODORIC. 87And near this country is another realm called RESENGO,towards the south. Many things are there produced whereofI do not write.21. The friar speaketh of the excellent island called Java.In the neighbourhood of that realm is a great island,JAVA by name, which hath a compass of a good three thou- 21 It seems fair to adopt the one intelligible reading of a proper nameamong many of which nothing can be made, especially when that one isso unlikely to be the result of accident as here . Resengo I take to bethe territory of the REJANG, " one of the most civilised nations of Sumatra, having a peculiar language in an original written character” (Crawfurd in voce. ) The old British settlement of Bencoolen, which we held forone hundred and forty years to little profit, but which had Dampier forits gunner, and Raffles for its governor, lay in the Rejang territory.2 Whatever doubts may have been raised as to the Java Major of Polo,this of Odoric is the true Java. The circuit, indeed, of three thousandmiles is vastly exaggerated; it is the same which Polo and Conti ascribeto their Java Major, and was no doubt the traditional assertion of theArab sailors, who never visited the south of the island, and probably hadextravagant notions of its extension in that direction, as we know thatlater voyagers had.Though Odoric's statements are vague and superficial, and the historyof Java is excessively perplexed at this period, there are some positivelandmarks to be discerned, by which, in a degree, our traveller's narrativeis verified.A powerful dynasty about this time existed in Java, and in an inscription of ascertained date (A.D. 1294) the king Uttungadewa claims to havesubjected five kings, and to be sovereign of the whole island (Jawa-dwipa) .Nearly to the same date attaches the history of two unsuccessful expeditions dispatched by Kublai Khan to Java, one to claim homage and tribute, in which his envoy was handled much as king David's envoys weretreated by the children of Ammon, and a second to avenge this insult,but which ended, after various events, in the expulsion of the Mongolforce with loss and ignominy.It must, I fear, be quite uncertain where the royal residence was, whichOdoric describes in such glowing terms; for though Majapahit, in theeastern part of the island, was the seat of the most powerful sovereignsfrom a date believed to be somewhat later than our traveller's time till theestablishment of Mahomedanism one hundred and fifty years afterwards,the king abovenamed appears to have had his abode near Pajajaran inthe West.There is nothing improbable in Odoric's description of the palace, ifwe remember that gold leaf glitters as much as gold plate. The vivid88 THE TRAVELS OFsand miles. And the king of it hath subject to himself sevencrowned kings. Now this island is populous exceedingly,and is the second best of all islands that exist. For in itgrow camphor, cubebs, cardamoms, ' nutmegs, and manyimaginations of these old travellers would have seen almost similar goldenglories in the palaces and monasteries of Amarapura as they have existedin our own day; and the walls and corridors sculptured in relief withcourt-scenes and battle- scenes, are precisely what we do find, on a vastlyextensive scale, in the galleries of the great Buddhistic monument BoroBodor, completed, according to Crawfurd, about twenty years after our traveller's visit to the island . That the bas-reliefs of Boro Bodor weregilt, or were intended to be gilt, I have not the slightest doubt. I do notremember whether the halo or glory round sacred heads, to which Odoricrefers, is to be found round those sculptures; but it is essentially a Buddhist feature. Burnes mentions it on the paintings behind the great idolsat Bamian; and I have seen examples of figures so glorified in some ofthe ancient temples at Pagàn on the Irawadi, which were very strikingfrom their resemblance to Byzantine Apostles. (Lassen iv, 482; Walckenaer, Sur la chronologie, etc. des Javanais in Mem. Acad. Inscript. 1842,xv, 224; Gaubil, H. de Gentchis Can, etc. , pp. 217-219) . As to goldenpalaces, however, see Polybius's account of that at Ecbatana, quoted byRawlinson (Herodotus i , p. 194) .The word here translated cardamoms is Melegetæ, for which no otherconcise rendering seems practicable. One Italian dictionary indeed(Vocab. Universale Italiano) does give cardamomo as the explanation ofMeleghette; whilst Ducange gives nothing more precise than floris species,quoting this passage from Odoric, and another from Rolandus Patavinusout of Muratori, in which last Meleghetæ are coupled with camphor, cummin, cloves, and cardamoms. This, therefore, shows that the two werenot properly identical. In two passages also of Peglotti, I find cardamoniand meleghette mentioned at short intervals, as if they were differentspices. And in the book of G. da Uzzano (Della Decima iv) Meleghette andMeleaghette appear repeatedly, and as distinct from cardamoms. In yetanother passage of Pegolotti we have " meleghette o vuoli ti dire Nocisarche o in grano o in polvere che fussero, " which might settle what wasmeant by meleghette in the 14th century, if one could only tell what nocisarche may be!In later times the name has been applied (Mellighetta, Malagueta, Manighetta) sometimes to two kindred species of amomum exported from different parts of the West African coast (Am. Granum Paradasi and Am.Melegueta), and sometimes to a quite different article, the seeds of theUnona Ethiopica or Ethiopic Pepper. It appears to be one of the formerwhich Gerarde and Mattioli describe as the greater cardamoms or melegette, for Gerarde states they were said to come from " Ginny," andwere called in England " Graines of Paradise." The author of the articleMelligetta in Rees's Cyclopædia however asserts that the CardamomumFRIAR ODORIC. 89other precious spices . It hath also very great store of allvictuals save wine.The king of this island hath a palace which is truly marvellous. For it is very great, and hath very great staircases, broad and lofty, and the steps thereof are of gold andsilver alternately. Likewise the pavement of the palace hathone tile of gold and the other of silver, and the wall of thesame is on the inside plated all over with plates of gold, onwhich are sculptured knights all of gold, which have greatgolden circles round their heads, such as we give in theseparts to the figures of saints . And these circles are all besetwith precious stones. Moreover, the ceiling is all of puregold, and to speak briefly, this palace is richer and finerthan any existing at this day in the world.Now the Great Khan of Cathay many a time engaged inwar with this king; but this king always vanquished andgot the better of him. And many other things there bewhich I write not.majus of the old botanists came from Madagascar, and we find AndreaCorsali praising the meleghetta of that island . All this does not tend toclear up the subject, which seems densely entangled.Martin Behaim , the celebrated cosmographer of the 15th century, isfound among his other occupations voyaging to the coast of Africa forMalagueta, and Columbus calls the whole coast of Guinea Costa di Maniguetta. According to Humboldt, from whom the two last facts are borrowed, the malagueta used to come across the Sahra to the north coast,and was largely exported to Antwerp. This however was perhaps ratherthe Ethiopic pepper than the Grains of Paradise. Mattioli derives thename from the resemblance of the grains to those of Indian millet, calledmelega in some parts of Italy. But Humboldt connects it with molago, aMalabar name of pepper proper; and Zedler's Lexicon with Melega,city of Africa."66 аThere are several Asiatic species of amomum, producing aromatics resembling more or less the true cardamomum of Malabar (Elettaria cardamomum), two of which (A. Cardamomum and A. Maximum) are found inJava, and one of these may be the melegeta of Odoric, if indeed any precision is to be looked for.(Pegolotti in Della Decima iii, pp. 57, 114, 296-7; Ramusio i, f 115 v, and178; Mattioli, Discorsi ne' Sei Libri di Dioscoride, ed. Ven. 1744, p. 24;Gerarde's Herball, ed. 1633, p. 1542; Humboldt, Examen critique, etc. , i, 257seq.; English Cyclopædia, Arts and Sciences, Art. Cardamom, and Nat.Hist. Articles Amomum and Unona; Rees's Cyc. , vol. xxiii).90 THE TRAVELS OF22. Of the land called Thalamasin, and of the trees that give flour,and other marvels.Near to this country is another which is called PANTEN,but others call it THALAMASYN, the king whereof hath manyislands under him. Here be found trees that produce flour,and some that produce honey, others that produce wine,² and1 There are many places which might be supposed to answer in soundto the first of these names, Bantam, Bintang, Bandan, Patani, etc., butno one of them has a good claim to identification with it. And the probable meanings of the word have so large an application, as my respectedfriend Mr. Crawfurd tells me, (in Malay, Pantai or Pante, shore or beach,Pantan or Pantian, a place on the beach; Javanese, Panti, a dwelling,etc.), that they point to no definite locality. Thala Masyn, the sameauthority considers to be probably intended for (Malay or Javanese)Talaga Masin, "The Salt Lake", though with the remark that he knowsof no place so called in the Archipelago. (Might it not stand for Tanamasin, "Salt Land?")What, then, are the characteristics of the region to which Odoric givesthese names? They are as follows:-That it lies between Java andChampa; that it produces sago and toddy palms; a virulent vegetablepoison and great bamboos and rattans; the use of amulets inserted underthe skin; the use of the sumpitan or blow-pipe; and its adjacency to theSouthern Ocean. All these characters but the last apply to nearly thewhole Archipelago. The last appears to confine our choice to the southernpart of Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas. It is not improbable thatBanjarmasin (Banjar, Order, Array, Masin, Salt, generally rendered SaltGarden) is meant. This was established as a semi-civilised state in theeleventh century, and was tributary to Majapahit in the flourishing timeofthat monarchy.I may mention, however, as suggestive for further examination, that inSteiler's Hand- Atlas, a river-delta which is shown on the coast of Biruin the east of Borneo is marked Panteh; and that Crawfurd's own mapin his Dict. of the Indian Islands marks almost at the same spot a placecalled Talysian. Again, that the emporium of Cambodian trade threecenturies ago was called Ponteamas, which has also some resemblance toa combination of the names assigned by Odoric. And, lastly, that inExtracts of the Japanese Encyclopædia, given by Remusat, there occurs,in a list of foreign countries, the name of Tanmaling, as that of a regionten days south of Cambodia. It is moreover followed in the list by KwawaorJava, so that it would appear to hold the same position in regard to thosetwo countries that Odoric's Panten does. (Remusat, Mel. As. , ii, 166.)As in India, so in the islands, various palms furnish sugar and toddy.But the most important provision of these in the Archipelago comes fromFRIAR ODORIC. 91others a poison the most deadly that existeth in the world.For there is no antidote to it known except one; and that isthat if any one hath imbibed that poison he shall take ofstercus humanum and dilute it with water, and of this potionshall he drink, and so shall he be absolutely quit of the poison.[And the men of this country being nearly all rovers, whenthey go to battle they carry every man a cane in the handabout a fathom in length, and put into one end of it an ironbodkin poisoned with this poison, and when they blow intothe cane, the bodkin flieth and striketh whom they list, andthose who are thus stricken incontinently die] .2But, as for the trees that produce flour, ' tis after thisfashion. These are thick, but not of any great height; theyare cut into with an axe round about the foot of the stem, sothat a certain liquor flows from them resembling size . Nowthis is put into bags made of leaves, and put for fifteen daysin the sun; and after that space of time a flour is found tothe Sagwire or Aren (Borassus Gomuti). Herodotus uses the same expressions, wine and honey, in speaking of the produce of the date-palm.Honey in this way probably indicates the molasses or uncrystalised sugar.Thus we find Pegolotti (p. 64) distinguish between "Mele d'ape, Mele diCannamele, and Mele di Carrubi", " bees' honey, cane honey, and carob .honey".1 The poisons of the Archipelago are famous, and have given rise tothe fables of the upas. Dalton, in his account of the Kayans of Borneo,speaks of a man dying in four minutes from a poisoned arrow-wound inthe hand. The arrow-poison used in Cambodia is said sometimes to killan elephant in a fewminutes. (Moor's Notices ofthe Indian Arch.; J. R. G. S.,xxx, p. 196).The antidote to this poison mentioned in the text is the same that isused in Abyssinia for snake- bites. At least, so the Abyssinian AbbaGregory told Ludolf: “ nam excrementis humanis in aqua desumptis curaridicebat," and Ludolf adds: Quod remedium Panthera forte homines docuit,quæ si carnem a venatoribus aconito perfricatam voraverit, merda humanasibi medetur." (Hist. Ethiop. , lib. i, c. 13, § 8, 9.)2 From PAL. This is a remarkable passage from the Palatine MS. , andis, I suppose, the earliest mention of the sumpit or blow- pipe of the aborigines of the Archipelago. The length stated is a braccio, which I haverendered fathom, as nearest the truth, a meaning which the word seemsto have in sea phraseology.92 THE TRAVELS OFhave formed from the liquor. This they steep for two daysin sea-water, and then wash it with fresh water. And theresult is the best paste in the world, from which they makewhatever they choose, cates of sorts and excellent bread, ofwhich I friar Odoric have eaten for all these things have Iseen with mine own eyes. And this kind of bread is whiteoutside, but inside it is somewhat blackish.¹By the coast of this country towards the south is the seacalled the Dead Sea, the water whereof runneth ever towardsthe south, and if any one falleth into that water he is neverfound more. [And if the shipmen go but a little wayfrom the shore they are carried rapidly downwards and neverreturn again. And no one knoweth whither they are carried,and many have thus passed away, and it hath never beenknown what became of them] .21 Though Odoric's account of sago is incorrect, I think it is that of aneye-witness who did not clearly understand what he saw. The palm is agood deal thicker than the coco-palm, but not nearly so tall. The trunkis cut down and lopped; a strip is then removed from the upper side, exposing the pith, which is hewn out with an adze of stone or bamboo. Itis then carried to a stream, washed and strained into troughs made ofthe sago-trunk, and in that the starchy matter deposits . This is packedaway in conical baskets made of the sago-leaves (the sacci de foliis facti ofour author), and this is the raw sago of commerce.In some parts of New Guinea the sago pith is filled into a house withan open floor, and trampled with water till it flows through into troughsmade of the sago-trunk which are placed below. It is thus intelligiblehow the friar supposed the sago to flow in a starchy state (in modum collæ)from the stem.The Chinese at Singapore pass this crude sago through several additional processes to produce the granulated sago of our markets.Raw sago boiled with a little water forms a starchy mass eaten withchopsticks. More commonly it is baked into cakes in small clay pans.Fresh from the baking, these are said to taste like hot rolls.The total cost of a sago tree, and labour in preparing the sago, is abouttwelve shillings; and this feeds a man twelve months. But Mr. Wallacejustly remarks that this excessive cheapness is no blessing. Industry isnot acquired; labour is distasteful, and sago eaters have generally themost wretched of huts and clothing. (Wallace in J. R. G. S., xxxii; Journ.ofInd. Archip. , iii, 288) .2 From PAL. De Barros says that the natives believed that whoeverFRIAR ODORIC. 93In this country also there be canes or reeds like greattrees, and full sixty paces in length. There be also canes ofanother kind which are called Cassan, and these always growalong the ground like what we call dog's grass, and at eachof their knots they send out roots, and in such wise extendthemselves for a good mile in length. And in these canesare found certain stones which be such that if any man wearone ofthem upon his person he can never be hurt or wounded by iron in any shape, and so for the most part the men ofthat country do wear such stones upon them. And whenshould proceed beyond the Straits of Bali to the South, would be hurriedaway by strong currents, so as never to return . (Major's Early Voyages toTerra Australis, HAK. Soc. , p. lv. ) And Fra Mauro, towards the southeast of India, has the notification, " that ships sailing towards the south,which allow themselves to approach the Dim Islands (Isole Perse) will becarried by the currents into the Darkness, and once entered into thoseregions, through the density of the air, and of the tenacious waters, theymust perish." Similar rubrics occur elsewhere towards the south.The term Neкpòv is applied by Agathemerus to the Arctic Sea, and perhaps some notion of the Antarctic was involved in the like term heard ofby Odoric (see Hudson, Geog. Gr. Minores, ii, 56) .1 PAL. " These are not, however, of any great thickness, but muchabout the same as the canes in our Frank countries." Cassan is the reading of the majority of copies, which may be a mistake for either Cassar,representing Khaizurán (Arab. ) , a bamboo, ( and Casar is the reading inRamusio), or for Cassab ( Arab. Qassab) a cane in general. But in any casethere seems to be confusion. The first canes like trees, etc., are certainlybamboos; the Cassan, which runs along the ground for a mile, is certainlya Rattan. But the striking out roots at the knots appears to be a featuretaken from certain kinds of bamboo, and the stones of which he goeson to speak, must be the siliceous concretions (Tabashír) found in thebamboo, though perhaps they have been confounded with the bezoar stone,which has always been a notable product of Borneo, and is still an articleof trade there.The largest known bamboos (B. Maxima) are found in the Malay islandsand Cambodia. They reach to eighty and one hundred feet in length.In Pegu I have seen them close upon, if not quite, ten inches in diameter.Gosse quotes from Rumphius a rattan of twelve hundred feet in length.I cannot get nearer to Odoric's mile. (Rom. of Nat. Hist. , p. 130).2 PAL. " And when looking for these stones they strike every cane withsteel, and if the steel cannot cut it then they search that cane for thestone, getting a piece of wood of the hardest and sharpest, with whichthey hack and hew until they come at the stone. "94 THE TRAVELS OFtheir boys are still young they take them and make a littlecut in the arm and insert one of these stones, to be a safeguard against any wound by steel. And the little woundthus made in the boy's arm is speedily healed by applying toit the powder of a certain fish.¹And thus through the great virtue of those stones the menwho wear them become potent in battle and great corsairs atsea. But those who from being shipmen on that sea havesuffered at their hands, have found out a remedy for the mischief. For they carry as weapons of offence sharp stakes ofvery hard wood, and arrows likewise that have no iron onthe points; and as those corsairs are but poorly harnessedthe shipmen are able to wound and pierce them through withthese wooden weapons, and by this device they succeed indefending themselves most manfully.2Of these canes called Cassan they make sails for theirships, dishes, houses, and a vast number of other things ofthe greatest utility to them. And many other matters therebe in that country which it would cause great astonishmentPAL. has an expansion about the fish not worth giving.2 The Burmese formerly used to insert pellets of gold under the skin inorder to render them invulnerable. But Marco Polo specifically speaksof these "consecrated stones in the arm between the skin and the flesh,"in a story about Japan; and Conti mentions the amulet so used in JavaMajor, as a piece of an iron rod which is found in the middle of certainrare trees. (Mission to Ava, 1855, p. 208; Polo, iii, 2; Conti ( HAK. Soc. ) ,p. 32.)Dalton says the Dyaks of Borneo have a defensive armour of leatherwhich is proof against arrow, spear, and sword. This may have to dowith the story of these invulnerables . But we find St. John alluding toa belief among the Malays of Borneo that by certain ceremonies they canrender themselves invulnerable, though he does not specify what theprocess is. There is such a class of invulnerables also in Fiji. The usein the Archipelago of lances, etc., of cane and wood hardened in the fireis mentioned by Pigafetta. Such arms were used by the islanders ofMatan, in a fray with whom the great Magellan fell. (Crawfurd's Desc.Dict., 139; J. R. G. S., xxvii, 251; Pigafetta (Milan ed. ) , p . 97; Life in theForests ofthe Far East, i, 134.)3 Sestoria, perhaps for sessoria either seats or dishes. Or it may be for sextaria-measures for corn (It. sestieri).FRIAR ODORIC. 95to read or hear tell of; wherefore I am not careful to writethem at present.23. Howthe King of Zampa keepeth many elephants and many wives.At a distance of many days from this kingdom is anotherwhich is called Zampa, ' and ' tis a very fine country, havinggreat store of victuals and of all good things. The king ofthe country, it was said when I was there, had, what withsons and with daughters, a good two hundred children; forhe hath many wives and other women whom he keepeth.2This king hath also fourteen thousand tame elephants, whichhe made to be kept and tended by his boors as here oxenand various other animals are kept in partnership.3 [And1 The Cianba and Ziamba of Polo, the Sanf of the Arabian geographers(as Mr. Lane I believe first pointed out), the Champa of Jordanus, theTsiompa and Champa of our modern maps, to the south of Cochin China,of which it now forms a part. Remusat appears to consider that in themiddle ages Cochin China was included in Champa.Many of the copies read Campa, and this (Campaa) is the form inwhich the name appears in old Portuguese writers, and in Pigafetta(in Ramusio; the Milan Pigafetta has Chiempa) , Probably Campa wasthe intended form in these cases.Champa was the name of an ancient Buddhist royal city on the Ganges,near the modern Bhágalpúr, and was probably adopted by the IndoChinese country after its conversion to Buddhism according to the practice so generally followed in Indo-China and the great islands.2 Polo says that when he was in Champa in 1285 the king had three hundred and twenty-six sons and daughters. A Chinese account of the adjoining Chinla or Cambodia, translated by Remusat, says the king of thatcountry had five wives, and from three thousand to five thousand concubines. (Nouv. Mélanges As. i . 71) . The late well-known king of Persia,Futteh Ali Shah, left behind him nearly three thousand direct descendants, and his son Sheikh Ali Mirza used to ride attended by a bodyguardof sixty sons of his own. (Rawlinson's Herodotus, i, 221).3 "Sicut...tenentur ad Socedam. " Ital. Soccità, the name for a sort ofmetairie in cattle-keeping, the cattle being tended for the owners on adivision of profits.Cambodia and the adjoining regions abound in domesticated elephantsto a degree unknown elsewhere in Asia. See Jordanus and note (HAK.Soc. ) p. 37; also Ibn Batuta in this collection infra; Remusat in thearticle just quoted; J.R.G.S. xxvii, 93 , 105, and xxxii, p. 146) .96 THE TRAVELS OFother folk keep elephants there just as commonly as we keepoxen here.¹]And in that country there is one thing which is reallywonderful. For every species of fish that is in the sea visitsthat country in such vast numbers that at the time of theircoming the sea seems to consist of nothing else but fish.And when they get near the beach they leap ashore, and thenthe folk come and gather them as many as they list . And sothese fish continue coming ashore for two or three days together. And then a second species of fishes comes and doesthe same as the first; and so with the other species each inturn and in order until the last; and this they do but oncein the year. And when you ask the folk of that country howthis comes about, they tell you in reply that the fish comeand act in that fashion in order to pay homage to their emperor.2In that country also I saw a tortoise bigger in compassthan the dome of St. Anthony's church in Padua. Andmany other like things be there, which unless they were seenwould be past belief; wherefore I care not to write them.³1 PAL.662 I have not been able to trace the original basis of this mythical story.Indeed very little is to be known from any books accessible to me of thecoast of Champa. But perhaps this passage from Duhalde may throw alittle light on the matter. Dans la province de Kiangnan on voit surtoutde gros poissons venant de la mer, ou du Fleuve Jaune, qui se jettentdans des vastes plaines toutes convertes d'eau; tout y est disposé de tellesorte que les eaux s'écoulent aussitôt qu'ils y sont entrés. Ces poissonsdemeurants à sec, on les prend sans peine," etc. (ii, 140) .3 O friar! The smallest of St. Anthony's many domes is about fortyfeet in diameter. On big tortoises see Tennent's Ceylon, i, 190; Mr. Majorin introd. to India in the xvth cent. p. xliii; and Mr. Badger on Varthema,p. 240. But I do not understand the use these gentlemen make of Falconer and Cautley's fossil monsters. They did not flourish in the middleages.Vincent le Blanc (who is very bad authority) says that many houses inPegu were gilt and roofed with tortoise-shell, not with a shell. It is pos- sible that Odoric may have seen a temple so roofed, and taken it for asingle shell. But I believe the probable rationale of the story is thatFRIAR ODORIC. 97When a married man dies in this country his body isburned, and his living wife along with it . For they say thatshe should go to keep company with her husband in the otherworld also.24. Of the island of Nicoveran, where the men have dogs' faces.Departing from that country and sailing towards the southover the Ocean Sea, I found many islands and countries ,whereamong was one called NICOVERAN. And this is a greatisle, having a compass of a good 2,000 miles, and both themen and the women there have faces like dogs. And thesepeople worship the ox as their god, wherefore they alwayswear upon the forehead an ox made of gold or silver, in tokenthat he is their god. All the folk of that country, whethermen or women, go naked, wearing nothing in the world butan handkerchief to cover their shame. They be stalwart menwhich I have given in the introductory notice of Odoric, p . 27. The largestturtle that I can find mentioned on modern authority had a carapace ofabout seven feet in length . (Eng. Cyc. Art. Chelonia).1 The name no doubt is that of the Nicobar Islands, and is the sameas that used by Polo. But there seems to be no feature of the narrative,except the nakedness of the people, appropriate to those islands. Thewhole chapter is an anomalous jumble. The Dog-faces belong, accordingto the usual story of the period , to the Andaman Islands; the miniatureox worn on the forehead seems derived from one of Marco's chapters onMaabar; the king's great ruby appertains to Ceylon, in connexion withwhich it has been celebrated by Marco, Haiton, Jordanus and Ibn Batuta;whilst the great shield covering the whole body is a genuine feature ofthe wilder islands of the Archipelago, being found for example uponNyas, among the Dayaks, the more uncivilised races of the Moluccas, andon Formosa. Cannibalism is also a genuine feature characterising otherraces of the Archipelago besides the Battaks of whom we have spoken .Dalton, speaking of his own entertainer, the Raja of Selgie, a chief ofKayans in Borneo, says: " Should the Raja want flesh (on a war expedition)......one of the followers is killed , which not only provides a meal,but a head to boot." (Moor's Notices, p. 49) .The concluding passage of this account of the Dog-heads curiously coincides with one in Ctesias, who says of the Cynocephali , that "theyare just in their dealings and hurt no man" (Baehr's edition of CtesiaReliq., pp. 253 and 362) . Regarding the probable origin of stories ofDog-faces, see note on Ibn Batuta, infra.798 THE TRAVELS OFand stout in battle, going forth to war naked as they are withonly a shield that covers them from head to foot. And ifthey hap to take any one in war who cannot produce moneyto ransom himself withal they do straightway eat him . Butif they can get money from him they let him go.And the king of that country weareth round his neck astring of three hundred very big pearls, for that he makethto his gods daily three hundred prayers. He carrieth also inhis hand a certain precious stone called a ruby, a good spanin length and breadth, so that when he hath this stone in hishand it shows like a flame of fire. And this, it is said, is themost noble and valuable gem that existeth at this day in theworld, and the great emperor of the Tartars of Cathay hathnever been able to get it into his possession either by forceor by money, or by any device whatever. This king attends tojustice and maintains it, and throughout his realm all menmay fare safely. And there be many other things in thiskingdom that I care not to write of.25. Concerning the island of Sillan , and the marvels thereof.There is also another island called SILLAN,3 which hath acompass of good 2,000 miles. There be found therein aninfinite number of serpents, and many other wild animals ingreat numbers, especially elephants. In this country alsothere is an exceeding great mountain, of which the folk relate that it was upon it that Adam mourned for his son onehundred years. In the midst of this mountain is a certainbeautiful level place, in which there is a lake of no great size,but having a great depth of water. This they say was de1 MIN. RAM. "Ofthese beasts."2 MIN. RAM. "Albeit he is an idolater and hath a face like a dog's. "3 We need not wonder at the dimensions ascribed to Ceylon, when thesame have in the preceding chapter been assigned to Nicobar. But thepersistence of marine tradition in exaggerating the size of Ceylon, in theface of facts tolerably manifest, is curious. The examples may be seenin Sir Emerson Tennent's Ceylon, ch. i.VEN. has "at the summit of the mountain, " but the text is better.FRIAR ODORIC. 99rived from the tears shed by Adam and Eve; but I do notbelieve that to be the truth, seeing that the water naturallysprings from the soil.¹The bottom of this pool is full of precious stones, and thewater greatly aboundeth in leeches. The king taketh notthose gems for himself, but for the good of his soul once ortwice a-year he suffereth the poor to search the water, andtake away whatever stones they can find. But that they maybe able to enter the water in safety they take lemons² andbruise them well, and then copiously anoint the whole bodytherewith, and after that when they dive into the water theleeches do not meddle with them. And so it is that the poorfolk go down into the pool and carry off precious stones ifthey can find them.3The water which comes down from the mountain issuesforth by this lake. And the finest rubies are dug there;1 This " pulchra planities" and lake are afterwards spoken of by Marignolli also (v. infra) where some further remarks as to the place intendedwill be found. Ibn Batuta also speaks of a pool below the mountainfrom which gems were extracted . The chief gem locality in Ceylon isstill one at a short distance from the base of Adam's Peak, and gem-fisheryis the term applied to the search by Pridham . "The tears flowed in suchtorrents from Adam's eyes that those of his right eye started the Euphrates, while those of his left set the Tigris in motion" ( Weil's BiblicalLegends of the Mussulmans, p. 16. )2 UTIN. and RAM. have "take bavoyr, i.e., a certain fruit, which theybruise," etc. This may be intended for some Persian word. There isbajúra, a citron.3 There are water- leeches in Ceylon, which are annoying to cattlechiefly, by entering their nostrils; but the land-leeches are the greatpest of the island . See a fearful picture in Tennent (i, 304) . Ibn Batuta, on his ascent to the Peak, says: -" Here we saw the flying leech,which the natives call zulú. It holds on by the trees and grass nearwater, and when a man comes near it drops upon him...The natives takecare to keep ready a lemon and to squeeze its juice upon the leech," etc.This name of the flying leech, implying the power ascribed to it of springing upon a passing victim, has come down to our time (see Heber'sJournals, ed. 1844, ii, 167), Tennent also corroborates Odoric's mentionof lemon-juce as the Ceylonese remedy for leech-bites; and so doesRobert Knox (first edition, p. 25).72100 THE TRAVELS OFgood diamonds too are found and many other good stones."And where that water descends into the sea there be foundfine pearls. Wherefore the saying goes that this king hathmore precious stones than any other king in the world.In this island there be sundry kinds of animals, both ofbirds and other creatures; and the country folk say that thewild beasts never hurt a foreigner, but only those who arenatives of the island. There be also certain birds as big asgeese, which have two heads. And this island hath alsogreat store of victuals, and of many other good things whereof I do not write.226. Of the island called Dondin and the evil manners there.Departing from that island and going towards the south,I landed at a certain great island which is called DONDIN, 31 There are no diamonds in Ceylon, but some of the Arabian geographers say that there are. The gems were a royal monopoly under thenative dynasties . (Tennent, i, 38.)2 The history of this bird with two heads is a good example of thegradual resolution of a fable.In 1330 Odoric tells of a bird, as big as a goose, with two heads.In 1672 P. Vincenzo Maria describes a bird, also as big as a goose, butwith two beaks, the two being perfectly distinct, one going up and theother down; with the upper one he crows or croaks, with the lower hefeeds, etc. (Viaggio, p. 401.)In 1796 Padre Paolino, who is usually more accurate, retrogrades; forhe calls the bird " as big as an ostrich". According to him, this bird,living on high mountains where water is scarce, has the second beak as areservoir for a supply of water. He says the Portuguese call it Passarodi duos bicos. (Viag., p. 153.)Lastly, Lieut. Charles White describes the same bird in the AsiaticResearches: " It has a large double beak, or a large beak surmounted bya horn-like shaped mandible," etc. (Asiat. Res. , iv, 401.) The bird is ahornbill, of which there are various species having casques or protuberances on the top of the bill , the office of which does not appear to beascertained. How easy here to call Odoric a liar! but how unjust, whenthe matter has been explained.3 Much of what has been said on the chapter about Necuveran applieshere. These two narratives are destitute, it seems to me, of the appearance of being drawn from experience. I cannot identify Dondin withany known island, nor trace the etymology which the traveller assigns toFRIAR ODORIC. 101and this signifieth the same as "Unclean". They who dwellin that island are an evil generation, who devour raw fleshand every other kind of filth . They have also among theman abominable custom; for the father will eat the son, theson the father, the wife will eat the husband, or the husbandthe wife. And ' tis in this way:-Suppose that the father ofsome one is ill . The son goeth then to the astrologer orthe name. But it is just possible that Dondin or Dandin might be amisread contraction of Isola D'Andiman (d'andın?) . Stories like that related here, about the treatment of the sick or the aged were told in oldtimes (as by Herodotus) of the Paddæi and other people, and are stillvery rife in the East in regard to certain races, just as stories of menwith tails are, but the alleged locality shifts with the horizon. "I wasinformed," says Raffles, of the Battaks, "that formerly it was usual forthe people to eat their parents who were too old for work. The old peopleselected the horizontal branch of a tree, and quietly suspended themselvesby their hands, whilst their children and neighbours, forming a circle,danced round them, crying out, When thefruit is ripe it will fall' . Thispractice took place during the season of limes, when salt and pepper wereplenty, and as soon as the victims became fatigued and could hold on nolonger they fell down, when all hands cut them up and made a heartymeal of them." (Memoirs, p. 427) . Gasparo Balbi tells the same story ofthe same people, not omitting the salt and pepper, and so does a noticein Moor. And I have heard it almost exactly as told by Raffles, from anative of Arakan, when I was travelling in that country in 1853, thealleged actors being some of the wild tribes then to the north-east of us.Something similar is related by Edward Barbosa of a tribe in the interiorof Siam. Vincent Le Blanc says he was assured by the people of Pulowéthat the islanders of Sumatra eat their dead, " but we found it quite thecontrary," he goes on, " and saw them buried." He nevertheless tellsthe same story as true, of an island called Pulovois (apparently imaginary)south ofthe Maldives.•The custom, or its allegation, is not confined to the old world. Tribes(e. g.), both of Brazil and of Vancouver's Island, are stated to have been inthe habit of putting sick relatives to death, when the conjuror or medicine-man despaired of recovery. And the Brazilian tribe ate the bodies ofthose who were thus given over.The particular story related by Odoric is evidently the same as that toldby Marco Polo of "the kingdom of Dragoian" in the island of Java Minoror Sumatra. The situation of Dragoian has been much disputed, but ifMarco's kingdoms were, as they seem, recounted in geographical succession, it must have been nearly coincident with Achin. And it is worthnoticing that Balbi ascribes this cannibalism to the kingdom of theRey del Dagin", which he afterwards lets us see is meant for Achin.Can Odoric mean the same place by Dondin?66102 THE TRAVELS OFpriest (for ' tis the same) , and sayeth thus:-" Sir, go, Ipray, and inquire of our God whether my father shall behealed of this infirmity or shall die of it ." Then the priestand he whose father is ill go both unto the idol, which ismade of gold or silver, and make a prayer to it , and say:-"Lord, thou art our God! and as our God we adore thee!Answer to that we ask of thee! Such an one is ailinggrievously; must he die, or shall he be delivered from hisailment? We ask thee!" Then the demon replies by themouth of the idol, and says: -"Thy father shall not die,but shall be freed from that ailment. And thou must dosuch and such things and so he shall recover." And so thedemon shows the man all that he is to do for his father's recovery; and he returneth to his father accordingly, andtendeth him diligently until he be entirely recovered. Butif the demon reply that the father will die, then the priestgoeth to him and putteth a linen cloth over his mouth, andso suffocateth him and he dieth. And when they have thusslain him, they cut him in pieces, and invite all their friendsand relations and all the players of the country round aboutto come to the eating of him, and eat him they do, withsinging of songs and great merry-making. But they savehis bones and bury them underground with great solemnity.And any of the relatives who have not been invited to thiswedding feast (as it were) deem themselves to have beengrievously slighted.I rebuked these people sharply for so acting, saying tothem:-" Why do ye act thus against all reason? Why,were a dog slain and put before another dog he would byno means eat thereof; and why should you do thus, whoseem to be men endowed with reason?" And their answerwas:-"We do this lest the flesh of the dead should beeaten of worms; for if the worms should eat his flesh his2 MIN. RAM. " And the kinsfolk rejoice when any one gets ill, in hopeof eating him and having a merrymaking. ”FRIAR ODORIC. 103soul would suffer grievous pains; ¹ we eat his flesh thereforethat his soul suffer not. " And so, let me say what I would,they would not believe otherwise nor quit that custom oftheirs.27. A word in brief of India and the isles thereof.And there be many other strange things in those partswhich I write not, for unless a man should see them he nevercould believe them. For in the whole world there be nosuch marvels as in that realm (of India) . What things Ihave written are only such as I was certain of, and such as Icannot doubt but they are as I have related them.And as regards this India I have inquired from many whohave knowledge of the matter, and they all assured me aswith one voice that it includeth in its limits a good twentyfour thousand islands, in which there are sixty-four crownedkings . And the greater part of these islands is well peopled .So here I have done with this India, and will say no morethereof; but I will now tell you somewhat of Upper India.28. Friar Odoric cometh to Upper India and the Province of Manzi ,and discourseth of them.Ye shall know then that after I had sailed eastward overthe Ocean Sea for many days I came to that noble provinceMANZI, which we call Upper India. And as to that India Imade diligent inquiry from Christians, Saracens, and idola1 MIN. RAM. " For that God, offended at the stink, would refuse themadmittance into his glory."2 As late as the seventeenth century we find Martini, in his AtlasSinensis, calling China Asia Superior."Manzi," says Klaproth, " is the Chinese word Man- tsu, by which thepeople and country of Southern China were designated during the supremacy of the Mongols. " Davis says the name, which he writes Mantze,was originally applied by the Chinese to the barbarians of the south. AndMagaellanes, giving the same account of the original meaning, tells usthat in his own time (the latter part of the seventeenth century) the termMantzu, or barbarians, was applied by the Tartars scoffingly to the Chinese.This is perhaps copied from Martini, who says the same. It is, there-104 THE TRAVELS OFters, and from all the great Khan's officers, and they all toldme, with one consent as it were, that the province of Manzihath two thousand great cities; cities I mean of such magnitude that neither Treviso nor Vicenza would be entitled to benumbered among them. Indeed in that country the number of the people is so great that among us here it wouldbe deemed incredible; [and in many parts I have seen thepopulation more dense than the crowds you see at Venice onthe Ascension Day] . And the land hath great store ofbread, of wine, of rice, of flesh, and of fish of sorts, and offore, a mistake to suppose, as has been put forward by Assemanni andothers, that Manzi or Mangi is a corruption of the Machin and Masin ofthePersians and Arabs. These last are merely modifications of the SanscritMaha Chin, Magna China. But it seems probable that a confusion didtake place between the two words; for in the history of Rashideddin (asprobably in other Mahomedan writers) Machin is sometimes used for Manzi,as the special name of Southern China. (Journ. As. , ii, ser. xi, 337, 341,343; Davis's Chinese, i , 180; Baldello, i, 29; Martini, Atlas Sinensis. )Pauthier, it should be added, gives quite a different explanation of Manzi.He says that Fokien was formerly called the principality of Mán, a namestill applied in poetry. Hence the subjects of the Sung Emperors werecalled by the Northern Chinese Mán-jin, or Men of Mán (op. inf. cit. , p.117) . But M. Pauthier seems to have now abandoned this opinion; seehis fine new edition of Polo, p. lvii .1 So Wassaf says: "China possesses besides Khanzai, four hundred considerable cities, of which the smallest surpasses Baghdad and Shiraz."(D'Ohsson, ii, 418) . There is great exaggeration in Odoric's statement.The number of cities of different classes in China (which includes muchmore than Manzi) is, according to modern official statements, as follows:-Fu, or chief cities of Prefectures ...

-

Cheu, وو 39 of circles...Hien, 33 "" of districtsOther cities1821341281112(From Pauthier, Chine Moderne, p. 129.)Total, 17092 The feast of the Ascension was the first day of the great fair at Venice,in the middle ages one of the greatest fairs in the world. Like the fairsin India it combined religion and trade, for many then came as pilgrimseither to visit the relics of the saints at Venice, or to take passage for theshrines beyond sea, such as Loretto, Rome, Compostella, or Jerusalem.On the Ascension Day also took place the celebrated espousals of theAdriatic. Semedo likewise compares the throng habitually encounteredFRIAR ODORIC. 105all manner of victuals whatever that are used by mankind.And all the people of this country are traders and artificers,and no man ever seeketh alms, however poor he be, as longas he can do anything with his own hands to help himself.¹[But those who are fallen into indigence and infirmity arewell looked after and provided with necessaries] .The men, as to their bodily aspect, are comely enough,but colourless, having beards of long straggling hairs likemousers, -cats I mean. And as for the women, they arethe most beautiful in the world!29. Of the great city Censcalan .The first city to which I came in this country was calledCENSCALAN, and ' tis a city as big as three Venices. It isone day's voyage from the sea, standing upon a certain river,in China to that of great public festivals in Europe. (Rel. della Cina,1643, p. 7) .¹ Davis notices the "cheerful industry" of the Chinese as a characteristicwhich is "the first to strike all visitors of China." (Chinese, i, 200) .2 MIN. RAM.8 This name, which is grievously mangled in most of the MSS. andeditions of Odoric, is the Cynkalan of Marignolli, the Sínkalán of IbnBatuta, the Chinkalán of Rashideddin and Wassaf the Persian historiansofthe Mongols, and represents, I believe, without doubt the modern Canton. Odoric's description of it as the first port reached by him, with itsgreat estuary and vast amount of shipping, points to this identification.Ibn Batuta tells us the greatjunks for the Indian trade were built only atZaitún and at Sínkalán. Now Zaitun, Canton, and Kanfu are known tohave been the three ports for Indian trade; and of the first and thirdIbn Batuta speaks by those names, but does not mention Canton unlessit be Sínkalán. He also speaks more than once of the space from Khanbalik to Sínkalán, as of the Dan and Beersheba of China, whilst thelatter city is said to adjoin barbarous and cannibal tribes . All thispoints to Canton. Rashideddin too indicates its position as south of theport of Zaitun.Cincalan will also be found in its proper place, i . e. as the first port ofChina from the south, in the extraordinary Catalan map of 1375.The name I have no doubt is Persian, with the meaning ascribed to itby Marignolli, " Great China, " and is, therefore, simply a translation of Mahachín . This would consist with the practice which seems tohave prevailed among the Arab seafarers of giving a chief city the name106 THE TRAVELS OFthe water whereof is derived from the sea, and extendethtwelve days' journey into the land. The whole populationof this city, as well as of all Manzi and Upper India, worshipidols . And this city hath shipping so great and vast inamount that to some it would seem well nigh incredible.Indeed all Italy hath not the amount of craft that this onecity hath. And here you can buy three hundred pounds offresh ginger for less than a groat! 3 The geese too arebigger and finer and cheaper than anywhere in the world.For one of them is as big as two of ours, and ' tis all white asof the country to which it belonged, a practice which probably originatedthat city of Bengala which has given so much trouble to geographers.Indeed, I find that Rashid and Al Biruni distinctly apply the nameMahachin to a city, no doubt Canton.Though Zaitun and Kanfu (the ancient port of Kingsé or Hangcheufu)appear to have been the havens most frequented by western trade underthe Mongol dynasty, Canton was a very early resort of the Arabs andPersians. In 758 they were numerous enough to master and pillage andburn the city. ( See Marignolli infrà; Ibn Batuta, iv, 92, 255, 268, 274;D'Ohsson, 418, 638; Deguignes, i , 59; Elliott's Historians of M. India, p. 46;and Sprenger, Post-und-Reiserouten des Orients, p. 90.)This is very obscure; " cujus aqua propter ipsum mare ascendit ultraterram bene xii dietis". I have translated as if the tidal flow were alludedto, but with great doubt as to the meaning. Hakluyt's translation runs,"the water whereof, near unto the mouth where it exonerateth itselfinto the sea, doth overflow the land for the space of twelve days ' journey."It maybe a reference to the breadth of the estuary, which is about eightymiles at the mouth. But the passage seems corrupt in all copies.2 "Hundreds of thousands" of boats, says Fortune. " In the river andport alone, " says Linschoten, "there is more craft of different kinds(barques et frégates ) than in the whole of Spain." (Three Years' Wanderings, p. 148; Linsch. , p. 40) .3 MIN. RAM. has " 700 lbs. for a ducat."4 "In meliori foro," a dog- latinism which Venni does not seem to haveunderstood, for he proposes to read “meliori forma." Yet the Italians havebuon mercato, as the French have meilleur marché, and our old English hadgood cheap, though we have cut it down into an elliptical adjective. The oldtranslation of Mendoza says on the same matter, which continued to strikevisitors to a much later date: " All things is so good cheape that almostit seemeth they sell them for nothing." Early in last century from 3d.to 6d. a head covered the expences of Ripa's party for a good dinner,supper, and lodging. (Major's edit. of Mendoza, HAK. Soc. , i, 12; FatherRipa, p. 133.)FRIAR ODORIC. 107milk, but has a bone on the top of its head about the size ofan egg, which is of a blood colour; whilst under its throat ithas a skin hanging down for half a span.¹ And these geeseare as fat as fat can be, yet one of them well dressed andseasoned you shall have there for less than a groat. And asit is with the geese, so also with the ducks and fowls; theyare so big that you would think them perfectly marvellous.Here too there be serpents bigger than anywhere else inthe world, many of which are taken and eaten with greatrelish . These serpents [ have quite a fragrant odour and] 2form a dish so fashionable that if a man were to give adinner and not have one of these serpents on his table, hewould be thought to have done nothing.3 In short this cityhath a great abundance of all possible kinds of victual.30. Concerning the noble city called Zayton; and how the folk thereofregale their gods.Departing from that district, and passing through manycities and towns, I came to a certain noble city which is1 This description of Odoric's agrees almost precisely with the following: "Anser Cygnoides, the Guinea goose... approaching in size to theswan...it has a fleshy tubercle rising from the base of the bill ...and a pendant skin in the form of a pouch under the throat....The beak and tubercleare reddish," etc. (Nouveau Dict. de l'Hist. Naturelle, Paris, 1817, tom.xxiii. ) I am told on excellent authority that the modern domestic gooseof China has not the pendant skin, though it certainly has the knob ortubercle. Yet Odoric's evidence is curiously precise.2 MIN. RAM.3 Conti speaks of the large pythons of the Burmese forests as beinggreatly prized for food. But, more precisely, Chinese authors quoted byKlaproth speak of a great snake called Nan-che or southern serpent,from being found only south of the great chain of Southern China (therefore in Quangtung and the adjacent provinces), which is hunted andsold at a great price, the flavour of the flesh being in such high estimation. (Journ. As . , ser. 2, ii , 118.) Till I found this I suspected somemistake on Odoric's part, his expressions so closely resemble those of alater ecclesiastic in speaking of swallow-nest soup: 66 No entertainmentwithout this dish; if it is wanting the best is wanting; and without itno dinner can be deemed in worthy style. " (P. Marini, quoted by Kircher, China Illust. , 199.)108 THE TRAVELS OFcalled Zayton, where we friars minor have two houses; andthere I deposited the bones of our friars who suffered martyrdom for the faith of Jesus Christ.In this city is great plenty of all things that are needfulfor human subsistence. For example you can get threepounds and eight ounces of sugar for less than half a groat.The city is twice as great as Bologna,3 and in it are manymonasteries of devotees, idol worshippers every man of them.In one of those monasteries which I visited there were threethousand monks and eleven thousand idols . And one ofthose idols, which seemed to be smaller than the rest was as¹ Zayton, Zaitun, Zeithum, Çayton, the great port of Chinese trade withthe west in the middle ages; that from which Polo sailed on his memorable voyage; that at which Ibn Batuta landed, and from which Marignollisailed for India, is mentioned by nearly all the authors who speak ofChina up to the fourteenth century inclusive. A veil falls between Chinaand Europe on the expulsion of the Mongols, and when it rises in thesixteenth century, Zayton has disappeared.Martini had hinted, and De Guignes had conjectured, that Polo'sZeithum was the port of Thsiuancheufu, in the province of Fokien. Itremained for Klaproth to show from the Imperial Geography that the portin question was originally called Tseu-thung, the corruption of which toZeithum and Zayton would be easy.From this port sailed the expeditions of the Mongol sovereign againstJava and Japan, and for a time after the rediscovery of China it was oneofthe harbours frequented by the Portuguese, under the name of Cinceo;that of Zayton having passed away from common use, though it is notunlikely that an Arab or Malay skipper could have pointed out the placeso called. (Martini, in Thevenot, iii ( 1666) , p . 155; De Guignes iv, 169, 180;Klapr., Mem. ii, 200 and seq.; Polo, i, 81; iii, 2, 4; Hakluyt (reprint) , ii, 546).2 See both of these establishments spoken of by Bishop Andrew ofZayton in a letter below, which was written a year or two after Odoric'svisit. John Marignolli mentions a third house in his time, twenty years later.3 MIN. RAM.: "Men and women, both, are of pleasing manners, handsome and courteous, especially to foreigners."own.Far greater numbers of monks are ascribed by Fahian to monasteries of Ceylon in his day, and by Huc to Tibetan monasteries in ourThe great establishment at Pooto, an island off Chusan, had threethousand monks in the beginning of the last century, and even in hermodern decay, in our own day, had two thousand monks, with idolsinnumerable (Astley, iv, 43; Davis ii, 189) . The Dutch embassy of 1655speaks ofa famous temple near Nanking, which had ten thousand images.FRIAR ODORIC. 109big as St. Christopher might be.¹ I went thither at thehour fixed for feeding their idols, that I might witness it;and the fashion thereof is this: All the dishes which theyoffer to be eaten are piping hot so that the smoke riseth upin the face of the idols, and this they consider to be theidols' refection. But all else they keep for themselves andgobble up. And after such fashion as this they reckon thatthey feed their gods well.2The place is one of the best in the world, and that as regards its provision for the body of man. Many other things.indeed might be related of this place, but I will not writemore about them at present.31. The friar telleth of the city Fuzo and its marvels; also of rarefashions of fishing.Thence I passed eastward to a certain city called Fuzo, ³which hath a compass of good thirty miles. And here beBut most of these were small. The monastery visited by Odoric atZaitun, or Thsiuancheu, was probably that called the Water- Lily, foundedin the eighth century and still magnificent, boasting two great sevenstoried towers. (See Chine Moderne, p. 117. )1 "The picture of St. Christopher, that is of a man of giant-like stature,bearing upon his shoulders our Saviour Christ, and with a staff in hishand wading through the water, is known unto children, common overall Europe, not only as a sign unto houses, but is described in manychurches, and stands colossus-like in the entrance of Nôtre Dame." (SirT. Brown, Vulgar Errors, ii, 52.)St. Christopher, I suppose, may be taken at nine to twelve feet high,But many of the Chinese Buddhas are from thirty to forty feet in height.2 The principal hall in the house was set in order, a large table wasplaced in the centre, and shortly afterwards covered with small dishesfilled with the various articles commonly used as food by the Chinese.All these were of the very best . . . . Candles were lighted, and columnsof smoke and fragrant odours began to rise from the incense which wasburning on the table .... By and bye, when the gods were supposed tohave finished their repast, all the articles of food were removed from thetable, cut up, and consumed by people connected with the family."Fortune's Three Years Wanderings, p. 190.)3 Undoubtedly Fucheu, capital of Fokien province, one of the mostwealthy and populous cities in China.110 THE TRAVELS OFseen the biggest co*cks in the world. And there be hensalso that are white as snow, and have no feathers, but havewool only upon them, like sheep. The city is a mighty fineone, and standeth upon the sea.Departing thence and travelling for eighteen days, I passedthrough many cities and towns, and witnessed a great varietyof things. And as I travelled thus I came to a certain greatmountain. And on the one side all the animals that dwellthere are black, and the men and women have a very strangeway of living. But on the other side all the animals arewhite, and the men and women have a quite different way ofliving from the others. All the married women there wear¹ Phasianus Lanatus, Gallus Lanatus, Coq à duvet, or Silk fowl. Kircherthus describes them, out of Martini: " Woolly hens, the wool of which ismuch like that of sheep. They are small, with very short legs, butcourageous, and much petted by the women." He adds: " It is generally owned that the wool of these hens cannot be woven into cloth (!)except it be first steeped in a lye, of which I have the secret. " (ChinaIllust. 196) . Martini is speaking of Szechuen, but Polo also speaks ofthese fowls in Fokien as "hens that have no feathers, but skins like acat," i.e. an Angora or Persian cat, a race of which Martini mentions inChina." It is this breed which gave rise in 1766 to the fable of the fowlrabbit, which was shown at Brussels as the produce of a rabbit and acommon hen." (Nouv. Dict. de l'Histoire Naturelle, vol. vii) .2 " Though on both one side and the other methought they lived anddressed in a beastly manner." MIN. RAM. It is difficult to explain precisely what this story means, but doubtless the range of mountains wasthat which separates Fokien from the rest of the empire, and whichOdoric may have crossed either northwards into Che- Kiang, or westwardsinto Kiangsi, which last we shall see was the route followed by IbnBatuta in going to Kingse or Hangcheufu.The differences between the races on the two sides of the mountainprobably point to the friar's having passed a part occupied by the Meau-tseor other aboriginal tribes. These do not now extend so far east, but whatPolo says of savage cannibals with blue-painted (i.e. tattooed) faces inFokien, seems to imply that they did so in his time; and some observations of Sir John Davis's corroborate this (Polo i, 78; Chinese, supp. vol.p. 260). And in the modern Chinese census one class of population in adistrict of the province of Canton appear as Blacks (Chine Mod. , p. 167) .Indeed Semedo ( about 1632) says there was still an independent kingdom,presumably of the Meautse, in the mountains dividing Fokien, Canton,and Kiangsi, viz. , those of which Odoric speaks (Rel. della Cina, p. 19).The habits and appearance of those races would, no doubt, stand inFRIAR ODORIC . 111on their heads a great barrel of horn, that they may beknown to be married.¹Passing hence, and travelling for eighteen days more,through many cities and towns, I came to a certain greatriver, and I tarried at a certain city [ called Belsa] ² whichmen.strong contrast to those ofthe Chinese, who call them Dogmen and WolfThe "barrel of horn" worn on the head may perhaps be identifiedwith the grotesque coiffure of the Meautse women, described by Duhaldeas "a light board, more than a foot long and five or six inches wide, whichthey cover with their hair, and fix it with wax, so that they seem to havea hair hat on. They can't rest the head nor lie down, except by puttingsomething under the neck, and they are obliged constantly to twist thehead right or left in passing along the forest paths. And the business ofcombing the hair is a still greater difficulty; they must then hold theirheads for hours by the fire to melt the wax," etc.The description of this head-dress in the Minor Ramusian version, however, rather recalls that of the wooden sugar-loaf headdress worn by theDruze women; and it is curious in connexion with this to remember theChinese origin of the Druzes, which their traditions maintain (see Mr.Cyril Graham on the Druzes of Bashan, in J.R.G.S.)MIN. RAM. has " wear on the head, in the middle of the forehead,a horn of wood covered with skin, and more than two spans in length."I suppose it is not possible to determine the city on a great riverwhere Odoric saw the fishing cormorants. Even if the name Belsa givenin the Min. Ram. be genuine, I find nothing nearer it than Wen-chu inChe-Kiang, and it is doubtful if Odoric's route could have lain that way.The story of the fishing birds is a perfectly accurate account of thepractice, as it still exists in China, and is described by Duhalde, Staunton,(these two give plates of the operation) , Mendoza, Martini, Father Ripa,Davis, Fortune, and many more. The last-named author says the bird" is as docile as a dog; he swims after his master, and allows himself tobe pulled into the sanpan, where he disgorges his prey, and again resumeshis labours. And what is more wonderful still, if one of the cormorantsgets hold of a fish of a large size, so large that he would have some difficulty in taking it to the boat, some of the others haste to his assistance,"etc. (Three years' Wand. , p. 110) . Fortune procured specimens to carryhome, but could not bring them alive to England. The price in Chinawas from six to eight dollars a pair.The bird, which is called by the Chinese, with contempt for generic accuracy, "Fishing Hawk, " or " Fishing Duck," is a cormorant, and has beentermed Phalacrocorax sinensis, as differing from the English species (Ph.Carbo). I learn however that Mr. Swinhoe considers it to be only avariety produced by domestication. The English bird was formerly usedfor fishing both in England and in Holland quite in the Chinese way.Charles II had a master of the cormorants. (Knight's Mus. of AnimatedNature, ii, 781) .112 THE TRAVELS OFhath a bridge across that river. And at the head of thebridge was a hostel in which I was entertained.¹ And minehost, wishing to gratify me, said: " If thou wouldst like tosee good fishing, come with me." And so he led me uponthe bridge, and I looked and saw in some boats of his thatwere there certain water-fowl tied upon perches. And thesehe now tied with a cord round the throat that they mightnot be able to swallow the fish which they caught. Next heproceeded to put three great baskets into a boat, one at eachend and the third in the middle, and then he let the waterfowl loose. Straightway they began to dive into the water,catching great numbers of fish, and ever as they caught themputting them of their own accord into the baskets, so thatbefore long all the three baskets were full. And mine hostthen took the cord off their necks and let them dive again tocatch fish for their own food. And when they had thus fedthey returned to their perches and were tied up as before.And some of those fish I had for my dinner.After departing thence and travelling for many days, Iwitnessed another fashion of fishing. The men this time1 MIN. RAM. This edition has in this passage an exceedingly curiousvariation, difficult to account for. It runs thus: " Mine host ......took usto one side of the bridge where the river was wider, and there we foundmany boats, and there was one of them employed in fishing by aid of acertain fish called Marigione. The host had another such, and this hetook and kept it by a cord attached to a fine collar. And this indeed is acreature that we have seen in our own seas, where many call it the seacalf. It had the muzzle and neck like a fox's, and the forepaws like adog's, but the toes longer, and the hind feet like a duck's, and the tailwith the rest of the body like a fish's. Mine host made him go in thewater, and he began to catch quantities of fish with his mouth, alwaysdepositing them in the boat. And I swear that in less than two hours hehad filled more than two big baskets, " etc.Apollonius related that he had seen at Egæ, near Issus, a femalephoca, which was kept for fishing purposes. And the authority quoted atthe end of the preceding note, says the seal may be taught to assist infishing. So probably the story was altered by some one aware of thesefacts about the seal, but indisposed to believe in the cormorants, and theuse of the word marigione, apparently for marangone " a diver," appears to be a trace of the unaltered narrative.FRIAR ODORIC. 113were in a boat, wherein they had a tub full of hot water; andthey were naked, and had each of them a bag slung over hisshoulder. Now they dived under water [ for half a quarterof an hour or so] , and caught the fish with their hands,stowing them in those bags that they had. And when theycame up again they emptied the bags into the boat, whilstthey themselves got into the tub of hot water, and otherswent in their turn and did as the first; and so great numbersof fish were taken.232. Concerning the city of Cansay, which is the greatest city on earth.Departing thence, I came unto the city of Cansay, a namewhich signifieth "the City of Heaven. " And ' tis the greatest1 MIN. RAM.2 Fortune describes this mode of fishing also. "The fisherman," hesays, "is literally amphibious. He is to be seen perfectly naked, halfwalking, half swimming; now he raises his arms and hands above hishead, and, bringing them down, strikes a sharp blow upon the water,making a loud and splashing noise. His feet are not idle: they warnhim that a fish is at hand, and they are now feeling for him amongst themud at the bottom of the pond. The next moment the fisherman hasdisappeared...... he appears rubbing his face and eyes with one hand, andin the other the poor little fish which he has just captured. It is immediately placed safely in his basket, and the work goes on as before."He says nothing of the tub of hot water (p. 109).3 Cansay or Campsay is, of course, the Quinsai of Marco Polo (see hismore detailed account of its marvels) , the modern Hangcheufu, calledat that time properly Lingan, but also popularly King- sze, Seat of theCourt or Capital, (the term now officially applied to Pekin) , from itshaving been the seat of the Sung dynasty from 1127 to 1279, whenNorthern China was in the hands of the Kin, or Tartars of Niuche andafterwards of the house of Chinghiz. That is, as Odoric expresses it: "itwas the royal city in which the Kings of Manzi formerly dwelt." Thecity is mentioned under various forms of the same name, representing theKingsze of the Chinese, by Marignolli, Pegolotti, Ibn Batuta and otherArabic and Persian writers. It seems to have retained the name, indeed,centuries after it ceased to be a capital. For it is marked Camse in Carletti's transcription of the name in the Chinese Atlas (dated 1595) whichhe brought home in 1603, and which is now in the Magliabecchian Librarh.(Baldello Boni, i, cxiii, cxxi. )The interpretation of the name as City of Heaven, given by Polo aswell as Odoric, was probably current among the Western Asiatics in the8114 THE TRAVELS OFcity in the whole world, [ so great indeed that I shouldscarcely venture to tell of it, but that I have met at Venicepeople in plenty who have been there] . It is a good hundred miles in compass, and there is not in it a span of groundwhich is not well peopled. And many a tenement is therewhich shall have ten or twelve households comprised in it .ports of China, and may have grown out of the proverb quoted by Duhaldeand Davis: "Above is Paradise, but Sucheu and Hancheu are here below."The glories of these sister cities have vanished under the barbarities ofTaeping occupation and imperial re-conquest, but they existed till theserecent events with no vast diminution of wealth and splendour. Themost enthusiastic corroboration, in comparatively modern times, of MarcoPolo's details, is probably that of Father Martini in the Atlas Sinensis.He even stands up, on a certain latitude of interpretation, for the tenthousand bridges, which meet with no corroboration from modern officialworks; the Imperial Geography, quoted in Chine Moderne, mentioningonly two as worthy of note. But Ibn Batuta's account in the presentvolume may be compared with Odoric's, and also the following fromWassaf, one of the Persian historians of the Mongols. " Khanzai,” hesays, "is the greatest city of China, having nearly twenty-four farsangsof compass. Its houses are of wood, adorned with beautiful paintings.From one end to the other there is a distance of three posts . Most ofthe streets have a length of three farsangs. The city contains sixty-foursquares bordered with houses uniformly built. The produce of the saltduty amounts daily to 700 balish of paper money. One may judge ofthe great number of its artizans by that of the working dyers, for ofthese there are 30,000. The garrison amounts to seven tománs (70,000) .The census lets us know that there are seventy tománs of families taxed.There are seven hundred temples, which look like fortified castles; allfull of monks. There are three hundred and sixty bridges [the numberwhich Odoric assigns to Nanking] . An innumerable multitude of boatsof all sizes serve for communication. One finds there a prodigious concourse of strangers of all countries on earth, merchants and others. Suchis the capital." ( In D'Ohsson, ii, 417) . Extracts of other accounts ofQuinsai or Khansa from Arabic and Persian authors are given by Quatremère (Introd. to Rashideddin, pp. lxxxvii seq.)1 MIN. RAM.2 This is absurdly converted in HAK. into "houses having ten or twelvestories, one above another;" a circ*mstance which Chinese habits notoriously contradict. The real reference is probably to the Chinese modeof living, which Davis calls " a universal system of clubbing upon themost economical plan. The Emperor observes in the Sacred Institutionsthat nine generations once lived under the same roof, and that in thefamily of Changshe of Kiangchow seven hundred partook of the samedaily repast" (iii, 162). I must add, however, that I find the Mesalat-al-FRIAR ODORIC . 115And there be also great suburbs which contain a greaterpopulation than even the city itself. For the city hathtwelve chief gates, and from each of them cities extend to adistance of some eight miles, each one greater than Veniceis or Padua. So that you may for six or seven days travelcontinually about one of these suburbs, and yet shall youseem to have gone but a very little way.This city is situated upon lagoons of standing water [ withcanals ] like the city of Venice. And it hath more thantwelve thousand bridges, on each of which are stationedguards guarding the city on behalf of the great Khan. Andat the side of this city there flows a river near which itis built like Ferrara by the Po, for it is longer than it isbroad.3I made diligent inquiry regarding the city, and askedquestions of Christians, Saracens, idolaters, and everybodyelse, and they all agreed as with one voice that it had a circuit of one hundred miles. And they have an edict fromtheir Lord that every fire shall pay to the great Khan annually a tax of one balis, i.e. of five pieces of paper like silk,a sum equal to one florin and a half. And their way ofabsar quoted by Quatremère (Rashideddin, p. lxxxviii) , says the houses ofKhansa "have five stories".! MIN. RAM.2 MIN. RAM. makes Odoric take an oath to this .3 The Arabic work Mesalek-al- Absar says "the city of Khansa extendsin length the space of a whole day's journey, and in breadth the space ofa half-day's journey." (In Quatremère's Rashideddin, p. lxxxviii. )A note on the Chinese paper currency will be found in the commenton Pegolotti. In the meantime there is something to be said about theterm balis which Odoric applies to it, or rather to a certain sum estimatedin that currency. It is a genuine word, applied by the Western Asiaticsin the same way. We shall meet with it in Pegolotti under the formbalish (balisci), and in Ibn Batuta as bálisht, plural bawalisht, identical inspelling with a word which he uses elsewhere for a kind of cushion. Twoquestions arise about the word; Whence is it? and what value did itindicate?As to the first, my friend Mr. Badger writes: "If corrupted from anArabic word, which is not improbable, I take this to be fals, a small coin,82116 THE TRAVELS OFmanaging is this, that ten or twelve households will unite tomoney; a term in common use throughout the East, but vulgarly pronounced fils . According to the author of the Kâmus it also signifies sigillo impressa charta in collo pendens, quo tributarium esse significabatur.Perhaps this term was similarly applied to the stamped paper money ofthe Tartar dynasty." This is almost satisfactory, but does not quite carry conviction, both because we find Arabic authors like Ibn Batuta usingbálisht as a distinct word, and because its meaning seems to have beenthat of a certain sum or monetary unit, apart from any connexion with paper currency. The Arabic fals, according to Reinaud (Mem. de l'Acad.des Insc. , xviii, 237) , is merely a corruption of obolus, representing coppercoin, as dirhem from drachma represents silver coin, and dínár fromdenarius gold. It seems therefore unlikely that it should be applied to a large sum of gold or silver. Ibn Batuta tells us that " bálisht meansthe same as a dínár or piece of gold with us," whilst we find that ShahRokh's embassy to the Ming Emperor in 1420 receives, amongst otherpresents, eight balish of silver. Another of the presents is five thousandchao, which was the genuine Chinese name for the paper money. In astory about certain merchants, related by Gregory Abulpharagius in connexion with the invasion of Turkestan by Chinghiz, we find the Khanordering one balish of gold to be paid for each piece of gold brocade, andtwo balish of silver for each piece of muslin. We are told also that Hulakudeposited his treasures in a castle on Lake Urumia, after casting his gold into balish.D'Ohsson does not explain the word, but he quotes three valuations ofit from Persian historians. The author of Tarikh Jahan Kushai (d. 1282)says that the balish, whether of gold or silver, was a weight of five hundred mithkals. Wassaf, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, saysthe balish of gold was equal to two thousand dínárs; the balish of silver,two hundred dínárs; and the balish cháo, or of paper money, was but tendínárs . The author of Rozát ul Janát, written in the fifteenth century,estimated the balish of gold at five hundred dínárs . I may add that theauthor of the Livre du Grant Caan, a contemporary of Odoric, says thebalisme of gold was equal to one thousand golden florins. Petis de laCroix says (but I do not know on what authority) that a balish of goldwas worth seventy-five golden dínárs , and adds that in short a balish waswhat in his own day was in Turkey called a purse. (Vie de Genghiz Can,Ital. tr. Ven. , 1737, p. 195.)With regard to the paper balish, Ibn Batuta tells us only that twentyfive notes went to it, whilst Odoric says five notes went to it , and that itwas worth a florin and a half, i.e., about fourteen shillings. Pegolotti saysfour balish were worth a sommo, and that was worth about five florins.This would make the balish about twelve shillings.It would seem from these various statements that the value of themetallic balish had varied, though perhaps a weight of five hundred mithkals was its original standard. The difference in value of the paper andsilver balish was probably entirely due to the depreciation of paper causedFRIAR ODORIC. 1172have one fire, and so pay for one fire only. Now of thesefires there are reckoned eighty- five tumans, and with fourmore of Saracens,3 making eighty-nine tumans. Now onetuman is equal to ten thousand fires . And besides thesethere are the Christians and the merchants and others onlypassing through the country.This being so, I greatly marvelled how such numbers ofhuman bodies could manage to dwell in one place, and yetthere is always there great plenty of bread and pork, and riceand wine, which wine is otherwise called Bigni, and isby the excessive issues and strange financial pranks of the Mongol emperors, including the great Kublai himself.Freytag's Lexicon gives the word and explains it as a Tartar designationfor a certain great sum of gold or silver, but offers no etymology. Richardson gives " BALISH, P., a cushion or pillow, bedding, a staple. A certainweight of gold; from balídan, to extend, spread, reach, overtake; to matchor equal, to grow long, to ripen, " etc.; and also " BALISHE, a little cushionput on a saddle, which it resembles in shape." Now may not the balishhave been an ingot of gold or silver resembling in form such a cushion,or some other object of like name? For instance, Richardson also gives" BALIK, a shoe or slipper;" and we find in Barrow's account of the presents given at the Chinese court to Lord Macartney's suite, that, as inthe case of their Persian predecessors centuries before, a part consistedof ingots of silver, and these were "cast in the form of a Tartar shoe,each being about an ounce in weight. "...More about balish is to be seen,I find, in Quatremère's notes on Rashideddin, pp. 320-21 .1 The term ' fires" (ignes) used by Odoric is technically correct, ornearly so. The official word used in the Chinese census is yen-hu, literallyfires-doors. Persons called Pao-kia, or " chiefs of ten fires, " are appointedto collect the numbers of their tithing, and this may have been misunder- stood by Odoric. (See Chine Moderne, p. 187.)2 Tuman in the Mongol language signifies ten thousand. It was borrowed by the Persians and Arabs, and with them means a weight or sumof money, originally equal to ten thousand mithkals or Arab drachms of silver. " The Mogols and Khwaresmians often use the word for ten thousand men, and say (e.g.) that the city of Samarkand affords seven tumans,i.e. seventy thousand men capable of bearing arms." ( D'Herbelot in voce. )Polo reckons the population of Quinsai at one hundred and sixty tumansof fires, but he does not add Odoric's exaggeration about each fire representing ten or twelve families .3 Fires of the Hoei-hu or Mahomedans appear as a separate class also in the modern Chinese census. (Chine Mod. , p. 167.)In calling this Chinese liquor wine, Odoric does the same as many118 THE TRAVELS OFreputed a noble drink; and indeed great abundance of allother victuals is found there.33. Of the marvellous sight that Friar Odoric beheld in a certainmonastery of the idolaters.This is the royal city in which the king of Manzi formerlydwelt. And four of our friars that were in that city had converted a man that was in authority there, in whose house Iwas entertained. And he said to me one day: "Atha (whichis to say Father) ¹ wilt thou come and see the place?" Andwhen I said that I would willingly go, we got into a boat,later travellers. Before his time Rubruquis says he could not distinguish*t except by the smell from the best wine of Auxerre ( Vinum Autisiodorense, qu. of the Chablis kind? ) . Ysbrandt Ides says when kept a yearor two it very much resembled in colour, taste, and strength the bestRhenish. Father Ripa: " Rice is bruised and compressed into solid cakes .When used these cakes are broken and put into vessels with hot waterand fermented. The liquor thus produced might be mistaken for excellent grape-wine. It is made sweet or acid at pleasure by the addition ofcertain herbs during the fermentation, and a colour is given to it as required." John Bell of Antermony calls it " clear and strong as Canary."A modern traveller's description quoted by Davis compares it to Madeirain colour, and a little in taste. (Rubruq., 299; Astley, iii, 567; FatherRipa, p. 51; Davis, ii, 21.)This liquor was called bythe Mongols darassun, the terracina of Rubruquis. The word bigini or bignii is probably the Persian bagni, “ maltliquor or beer," though this is not a good description of the Chinesebeverage. This word bagni is applied by some of the people of the Caucasus to their own beer (which Klaproth says is very like London porter),and might be used by the Alans, with whom, as disciples of the oldArchbishop John, Odoric would be much in contact whilst at Cambalec.(Richardson's Pers. Dict.; Klaproth, Voy. au Caucase, i, 243.)1 Atha is a Turkish word signifying, as Odoric says, father. Taking itin connection with Rabban, which occurs just below, it may be noted that in 1288 there came on a mission from the Ilkhan of Persia to the court ofFrance, a certain Nestorian bishop, who is termed by the chroniclers Rabban Ata. Remusat observes that this is probably no proper name,but the union of two titles in different languages, and cites a certainSyrian priest at the court of Okkodai Khan who was called by the sovereign Ata, father, and by the courtiers Rabban, master. (Mem. de l'Acad.des Insc., vii, 359.)It is curious that Ibn Batuta should quote this Turkish word Atha asbeing commonly addressed to old men in this very city of Cansai (iv, 288) .FRIAR ODORIC. 119and went to a certain great monastery¹ of the people of thecountry [which was called THEBE] . And he called to himone of their monks, saying: "Seest here this Franki Rabban?(which meaneth this Frank monk) . He cometh from wherethe sun sets, and goeth now to Cambalech to pray for thelife of the great Khan. Show him therefore, prithee, something worth seeing, so that if he get back to his own countryhe may be able to say, I have seen such and such strangethings in Cansai!" And the monk replied that he would doso with pleasure.3So he took two great buckets full of scraps from the table,and opening the door of a certain shrubbery which was therewe went therein. Now in this shrubbery there is a little hillcovered with pleasant trees [ and all full of grottoes ] .² Andas we stood there he took a gong, and began to beat uponit, and at the sound a multitude of animals of divers kindsbegan to come down from the hill, such as apes, monkeys,and many other animals having faces like men, to the number of some three thousand, and took up their places roundabout him in regular ranks. And when they were thusranged round about him, he put down the vessels beforethem and fed them as fast as he was able. And when theyhad been fed he began again to beat the gong, and all returned to their retreats. So I, laughing heartily, began tosay: " Tell me, prithee, what this meaneth?" And he answered: "These animals be the souls of gentlemen, whichwe feed in this fashion for the love of God!" But quoth I:"No souls be these, but brute beasts of sundry kinds.” AndThe monastery which they visited in a boat was probably on the lakecalled Sihu (" Western Lake") , of which, with the temples, monasteries,gardens, and palaces which bordered it, Polo gives a brilliant account,confirmed by Martini and Alvaro Semedo, and to some considerable extent in later times by Barrow. (Autobiog., p. 104.)2 MIN. RAM.3 Cimbalum. No doubt gong is the proper thing, though perhaps not the proper word to put into Odoric's mouth.120 THE TRAVELS OFhe said: " No, forsooth, they be nought else but the soulsof gentlemen. For if a man be noble his soul entereth theform of some one of these noble animals; but the souls ofboors enter the forms of baser animals and dwell therein! ”And say what I list against it, nought else would he believe.¹But if anyone should desire to tell all the vastness andgreat marvels of this city, a good quire of stationery² wouldnot hold the matter I trow. For ' tis the greatest and noblestcity, and the finest for merchandize, that the whole worldcontaineth.34. Of the city called Chilenfu , and of the great river Talay, andof certain Pygmies.Departing from that city and travelling for six days , Iarrived at another great city called CHILENFU,3 the wallsThat this exhibition really took place and was well known to travellersin China, is obvious from the allusion which John Marignolli makes to it(infra).2 Unus bonus quaternus stationis hæc talia tenere non posset. This use ofthe word statio for paper, though so directly leading to our use of theword stationer, does not occur among thirteen significations of statio inthe modern Paris edition of Ducange.The city of Chilenfu is undoubtedly Nankin, a conclusion at whichI had arrived before seeing that Professor Kunstmann had come to theSix days is , however, too short an estimate of the distance fromHangcheu, which in a straight line appears to be about 125 miles.same.Though the plan of Nankin in Duhalde does not show its canals andbridges, Martini says expressly of it: "This city has very many bridgesof stone, supported on arches"; and again, in speaking of Sucheu, he observes, "that though that city has a great number of bridges all of stone,and some of them magnificent, there are not so many as at the capital ofthe province." (In Thévenot, p. 120, 124.)The circuit of the modern walls of Nankin is about twenty miles; sothat if the suburbs were at all extensive the compass of the town mayhave been nearly what Odoric gives. Le Comte calls the circuit of thecity forty-eight miles; Gemello Carreri calls it thirty-six, and quotesothers who called it forty (Astley, iii , 553; Carreri, Giro del Mondo) . Thelatter also speaks of its canals as molti e profondi.It is well known that Nankin had been for several centuries, under theSung and some earlier dynasties, the capital of the empire; and afterOdoric's time it became so again for a short time on the expulsion of theFRIAR ODORIC . 121whereof have a circuit of forty miles. And in it there besome three hundred and sixty stone bridges, finer than thewhole world can show. In this city was the first residence ofthe king of Manzi, where he used to dwell. It is very wellpeopled, and there is such an amount of craft thereat as isright marvellous to behold. The city is planted passing well,and hath great store of all good things.And quitting this city, I came to a certain great riverwhich is called TALAY,' and this is the greatest river thatexists in the world. For where it is narrowest it is someseven miles in width. And this river passeth through theland of the Pygmies, or Biduini, whose city is called CATHAN,Mongols. With regard to the name which our traveller gives the city, itmust be noted that Nanking signifies merely " Southern Court"; the name ofthe city being Kianningfu. Kinlingfu is also given by Demailla as one ofthe ancient names of Nankin, and it would appear from Pauthier (ChineModerne, p. 60) that this name, signifying the " Golden Hill", is still inoccasional use. But perhaps the Chelinfu of Odoric is merely a provincialpronunciation of Kianningfu, putting l for n, as we find that the Portuguese in later days called Nankin Lankin and Ningpo Liampo, afterwhat was, as we are told, the Fokien pronunciation. Indeed, in Hakluyt's"Early Reports of China learned through the Portugals, " this provinceof Kiangnan or Nankin, “ the fift shire of China”, as he quaintly calls it,is termed Chelim, the very name that we have here. ( See Martini inThévenot, p. 120; Mendez Pinto passim; and Hakluyt, l. c.)It is true that Marco Polo mentions a city of the same name, Quelinfu,also noted for fine stone bridges . But this is Kienningfu in the interior ofFokien, a region which Odoric has now left far behind. Here, however,we see exactly the same change of letters that we have supposed.1 This name in some versions reads Tanay, which is a confusion withthe better known Tanais or Don (called Tanay in the Catalan map) , andin others Doltalay and the like, a mistake of the kind spoken of in note atpage 58. The great river is of course the Takiang or Yangtse, and thename given by Odoric (which seems to be mentioned by no other travellerof his time) is the Mongol Dalai or Talai, "the sea, " which lends a figurative title to the great Lama. That this word was applied as a name tothe Kiang by the Mongols, I learn by an incidental quotation (fromFischer de Origine Tartarorum, p. 76, cited by J. G. Meinert in his Essayon Marignolli's Travels; see Introd. to Marignolli infrà) . The use of theword Dalai in this way seems, therefore, to be quite parallel to that ofBahr as applied by the Arabs to the Nile. So also the Tibetans applythe term Samandrang (Samudra, " the Ocean" ) to the Indus and Sutlej(J.R.G.S, xxiii, 34) .122 THE TRAVELS OFand that is one of the best and finest cities in the world.These pygmies are three spans in height, and they do greaterwork in cotton, as it is called, than any people in the world.¹And the full-sized men who dwell there beget sons who aremore than half of them like those pygmies who are so small.The women are wedded in their fifth year, and so there areborn and begotten of these little people a countless number.These pygmies, both male and female, are famous for theirsmall size. But they have rational souls like ourselves.235. Concerning the cities of Iamzai and of Menzu.And as I travelled upon this river Talay, I passed many1 The Cathan of the text is only one out of many readings, but it is thatto which the others seem to point. It may be Khoten that is meant, if itis worth while to connect any real name with this legend. But the finecotton was an element nearer at hand, as the western part of the provinceof Kiangnan was noted for its enormous production of cotton cloth.Sir Thomas Brown points out that the stories of pygmies were broughtunder the shield of scripture by the Vulgate version of Ezekiel xxvii, 12 .Sed et Pygmæi qui erant in turribus tuis, etc., and goes on afterwards:"Though Paulus Jovius delivers that there are pygmies in Japan, Pigafetta about the Moluccas, and Olaus Magnus placeth them in Greenland,yet wanting frequent confirmation in a matter so confirmable, this affirmation carrieth but slow persuasion." (Vulgar Errors, i, 424) .Though we cannot tell how Odoric got hold of this story, there is aconsiderable combination of "authorities" to place pygmies in the inlandcountries west of China. We may cite two of these. Reinaud's Arabvoyagers say that in the mountains of China there is a town called Táyu,whose inhabitants are pygmies. But the story most in point is containedin a rubric of the Catalan world- map ( 1375) . Tothe N.W. of Catayo nearthe Himalayas it represents a combat of pygmies and cranes, with alegend that runs thus: " Here grow little men who have but five palmsin length; and though they be little, and not fit for weighty matters, yetbe they brave and clever at weaving, and at keeping cattle. And know yethat these men have children when they be but twelve years old; andthey live commonly to but forty years, and have not a proper age (?)And valiantly they defend themselves from the cranes, and take and eatthem. And here endeth the land of Catay." (See Ctesias xi, in Didot'sedit. 1858; Pliny vii, 2; Remusat, Nouv. Mel. Asiat. , i; Reinaud, Rel. desVoyages, etc., p. 47; Notices et Extraits, xiv, 141).This passage is very confused in almost all versions. I have nearlyfollowed Ramusio's (larger) which is the most intelligible.FRIAR ODORIC. 123cities and towns, and I came to a certain city called IAMZAI,1at which our minor friars have a house. And here also bethree churches of the Nestorians . This is a noble city, andhath good forty-eight to fifty- eight tumans of fire - places,every tuman being ten thousand. In this city are to be hadin great abundance all kinds of things on which Christianpeople live. And the lord of this city hath from salt alone arevenue of five hundred tumans of balis; and a balis beingworth a florin and a half, thus a tuman maketh fifteen thousand florins. But as a grace to this people the said lordmade a remission to them of two hundred tumans, lest distress should be created.2There is a custom in this city that if any one desire togive a great dinner or entertainment to his friends he goes1 This great city of Yamzai, which he approaches from Nanking bytheKiang, is, I think, undoubtedly Yangchufu, the first great city on thecanal north of the Kiang, and only a short distance from that river. It isthe Yangui of Marco Polo, who was governor there for three years. Atan earlier period the province under Yangchu had comprehended allKiangnan and part of Honan and Kiangsi. But it has always continueda place of great trade and population, insomuch that P. Bouvet and hisparty estimated the latter at two millions!Martini specifies that the emperor had in this city a revenue officewhich drew very large sums, chiefly from the distribution of salt, there beingmany salt works to the east of the city.The city appears as Iangio in the Catalan map, almost always surpassingin accuracy of knowledge; whilst in travellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we find Iamceu (Trigautius), Iangse (Nieuhof) , Yamsé(Montanus), forms close to that of Odoric. It is probably also the Yanekuor Janku of Arab writers.Marco Polo does not mention the Nestorian churches, and the Franciscan establishments were all subsequent to his time. (Duhalde, i, 69;Martini in Thevenot, p. 129, etc.)2 The numbers in this paragraph seem corrupt in all the MSS. Forsome state the revenue at fifty tumans of Balish, others at fifty thousandtumans, whilst all state the remission at two hundred tumans. As thiswould exceed the whole amount in the first reading, and be a too insignificant fraction of the second, I have thought that five hundred tumansmust have been the true reading of the amount of revenue. AtOdoric's estimate of the balish this would be equal to about £3,400,000 .According to a statement quoted by Pauthier the Chinese revenue fromsalt in 1753 was equivalent to about £1,779,372 ( Chine Moderne, p. 195).124 THE TRAVELS OFto one of the hostels which are established for this very purpose, and saith to the host thereof: "Make me a dinner forsuch a number of my friends, and I propose to expend suchand such a sum upon it. " Then the host does exactly asordered, and the guests are better served than they wouldhave been in the entertainer's own house.This city hath also a vast amount of shipping .AndAbout ten miles from this city, towards the mouth of thatgreat river Talay, there is a certain other city called MENZU.¹This city hath shipping finer and more numerous peradventure than any other city in the world. And all the vesselsare as white as snow, being coated with whitewash.on board of them you find halls and taverns and many otherconveniences, as handsome and well ordered as are anywhereto be found. Indeed it is something hard to believe whenyou hear of, or even when you see, the vast scale of theshipping in those parts.31 I believe that Odoric's expression, " in capite hujus fluminis", is correctly rendered above, though our inconsistent idiom puts a river's headand its mouth at opposite extremities. Thus Polo says of the same greatriver (Ramusian edition) , " E per lunghezza fine dove mette capo nel mareOceano, etc. And Barbaro says of the Erdil or Wolga, "il quale mettecapo nel Mar di Bachu." Fra Mauro, however, has not understood it so;for though here evidently making use of Odoric, he has put the name ofMenzu up the river from Iamzai.The distance and direction assigned would bring us to about Chinkiangfu, which was indeed celebrated for the vast numbers of vessels thatused to be gathered there. But it does not seem to have borne any nameresembling Menzu.The fact is, that Mingchu (or Menzu in Odoric's spelling) is the oldname of Ningpo, and there can be little doubt that there is some mistakein the text as to the position assigned to it . Perhaps Odoric was herespeaking only from hearsay, and had not visited the place himself.Mingio appears in the Catalan map as the next seaport northward fromZayton. (See Biot, Diction. des Noms Anciens et Mod. compris dans l'Empire Chinois.)"Gesso depicta." The Chinese caulk with " a kind of composition oflime, oil, or rather rosin which distils from the tree called tongshu, andokam of Bambu. When the stuff is dry one would take it for lime, whichis the chief ingredient, and nothing else." ( Astley, iv, 128. )3 Two examples are worth quoting of the view taken by more modernFRIAR ODORIC . 12536. Of the river Caramoran; and of certain other cities visited byFriar Odoric.Quitting that city and travelling by fresh water channels,I passed many cities and towns, and after eight days I cameto a certain city named LENZIN, which standeth on a rivercalled CARAMORAN.¹ This river passeth through the verymidst of Cathay, and doth great damage to that countrywhen it breaks its banks, just as the Po does by Ferrara.And as I travelled by that river towards the east, and passedmany towns and cities, I came to a certain city which istravellers of the vast amount of craft. One party of missionaries estimatedthat the vessels of all sizes which they met on the canal would suffice tobuild a bridge from Macao to Goa. (Astley, iv, 109.) And Barrow calculated that there were at the single city of Nanchangfu, south of thePoyang Lake, 100,000 tons of a class of vessels averaging 250 tons, besidesmultitudes of smaller craft. (Autobiog. , p. 107) .¹ Kara-muren (Mong. , “the Black River” ) , called by the Chinese HoangHo or the Yellow River. The embankment of the river is said to datefrom the twenty-second century B.C. Its regulation has ever been a sourceofanxiety to the Chinese Government, and there used to be a tax on theHong merchants at Canton expressly on account of this object. The willofthe Emperor Kea King, who died in 1820, has the following passage:-"The Yellow River has, from the remotest ages, been China's sorrow.Whenever the mouth of the stream has been impeded by sand-banks, ithas higher up its banks created alarm by flooding the country", etc. Thisseems to have been eminently the case in 1855 or 1856, when the streamof the Hoang Ho near the debouchment of the Great Canal was reducedto a few yards in width, the northern banks having given way far up, andthe inundations poured over Shantung. On this occasion, much of thewater was reported to have escaped into the Gulf of Pecheli, which theChinese believe to have been the original exit. During the reign ofthelast Mongol Emperor, a project was adopted for restoring it to thischannel. The discontent created by this scheme assisted in exciting themovement for the expulsion of the dynasty. (Davis, i, 137, 190; DeGuignes, iv, 216; J. R. G. S. , xxviii, 294 , see also Biot in Jour. As. , ser. iv,vols. i and ii .)Lenzin is probably Linching, which appears in Berghaus, and inKeith Johnston's Royal Atlas, on the Great Canal very near the 35thdegree of latitude. It is plain that Odoric either confounds the canalwith the Hoang Ho or takes it for a branch of that river. Indeed,the Chinese official geography quoted in Pauthier's Chine Moderne (p. 5),describes a river called the Yu-hoang-ho, as traversing Shantung and Pecheli, and introducing itself successively into the Y-ho, the Wen- ho, the126 THE TRAVELS OFcalled SUNZUMATU, which hath a greater plenty of silk thanperhaps any other place on earth, for when silk there is atit* dearest you can still have forty pounds for less than eightgroats. There is in the place likewise great store of all kindsof merchandize, and likewise of bread and wine, and all othergood things. [ And seeing that there were in this place morepeople than I had seen in any other, when I asked how thatcame to pass, they told me that it was because the air of theplace was so salubrious, insomuch that there were few thatdied of aught but old age] .2Wei-ho, the Chang-ho, and the Tien. This must surely be the canal itself,and the name seems to show that it has been in some way identified withthe Hoang-ho. Linching is probably also the Lingui of Polo, and theLincegam of Nieuhof.1 There can be little doubt this is the Singuimatu of Polo, who nearlyalways substitutes gui for zu or chu, a Tartar idiom according to Martini(p. 145). Matu (matheu) signifies a place of river trade; literally a "horse'shead", and so a "jetty". Marsden and Baldello Boni are probably rightin identifying Singuimatu with Lintsin- chu, a well known city of Shantung, near the junction of the canal with the Wei River coming from thesouth-west. I am aware of what Klaproth has written on this subject,identifying the place with that called Fenchui-nanwang, where the riverWen-ho, introduced from the north-east, is made to divide its waters northand south in the manner described by Marco. He supposes the name inPolo to be a corrupt transcript of Fenchui- matheu, " The Port of the Division ofthe Waters" . I venture to doubt this ingenious suggestion; first,because the independent occurrence of the name in Odoric shows that itis not corrupt; secondly, because Marco says distinctly that the streamin question comes from the south, which corresponds with the Wei and notwith the Wen; and, thirdly, because we have no evidence adduced thatthis Fenchui was a place of trade at all; whereas Trigautius MartiniNieuhof and others concur with later authorities in speaking of Lintsinas one of the most important commercial towns of the empire, in accordance with Odoric's notice. E.g. , Trigautius says: -" Lincinum urbsest e maximis, et commercio celebris in paucis (? ) , ad eam enim non provincialia solum mercimonia sed e toto quoque regno pervadunt." (Poloin Ram. , cliii; Klaproth, Mem. Rel. à l'Asie, iii, 325; Trigautii, Exp. Sinensis, 345; Martini Atlas Sinensis in loc.; Astley, iii , 418.)MIN. RAM. places Sunzomatu four days from Peking, which would tendto identify it with Tientsin . But Tientsin is said to be quite modern.(Biot in voc. ) P.S. I find since writing the above that Pauthier (LeLivre de Marc Pol, p. 444) considers the Singui of Polo to be certainlyThsiningcheu. And if he is right in saying that the vulgar pronunciationof that name would be Thsinju, this may well be accepted.2 MIN. RAM.FRIAR ODORIC . 12737. The Friar reacheth Cambalech, and discourseth thereof, and ofthe Great Caan's Palace there.And departing thence, I passed on through many a cityand many a town towards the east, until I came to that noblecity CAMBALECH, an old city of that famous province ofCATHAY. The Tartars took the city, and then built anotherat a distance of half- a-mile, which they called TAYDO.1 Khan-bálig (Mong. , "The Khan's city" ), the Cambalu of Marco,PEKING. The Chinese capital was still so called by the Turks in the timeof P. Ricci, and may probably be called so to this day.The city on this site was originally (multum est vetus et antiqua, as Odoricsays) the capital of the kingdom of Yan. B.c. 222, this was conqueredby the Thsin sovereigns of China, and the city lost its importance. A.D.936, it was taken by the Tartar Khitan, and became their " Nan-king" or"Southern Capital" . In 1125 , it fell to the Kin, ancestors ofthe Manchus,who gave it the name of Si-king or " Western Capital". In 1153, it received from the fourth Kin sovereign the name of Chung-tu or " CentralCourt". It seems also to have been known as Yen-king under this dynasty.It was captured by Chinghiz in 1215, and in 1264 Kublai made it his chiefresidence. In 1267 he built a new city, three li to the north-east of theold one, to which was given the name of Ta-tu or " Great Court", calledby the Mongols Daïdu, the Taydo of Odoric and Taidu of Polo, who givesa description of its dimensions, the number of its gates, etc., similar tothat in the text. The Chinese accounts give only eleven gates.This city was abandoned as a royal residence on the expulsion of theMongol dynasty in 1368, but re-occupied in 1421 by the third Ming Emperor, who built the walls as they now exist, reducing their extent andthe number of the gates to nine. This is what is commonly called theTartar city of the present day (called also by the Chinese Lau-chhing or"Old Town" ) , which therefore represents the Taydo of Odoric. The ruinsof the older Yen-king or Chungtu were still visible in the time of theMing, but theywere embraced in the new southern city called Waichhingor "Outer Town" , the wall of which was built in 1554.The circumference of the present Tartar city appears from the plans tobe about fifteen miles. Martini speaks of it as having still twelve gatesin his time, but he was almost certainly wrong. It has three on the southside, and two on each of the others . The circuit of the two cities togetheris about twenty-two miles according to the scale on the plan given byPauthier, though Timkowski states it at forty versts, or 263 miles . ButOdoric's dimensions may have been quite correct, for the Tartar city waslarger, and there was a space of more than half-a- mile between the two.(Timkowski, i, 315, etc. , etc. )128 THE TRAVELS OFThis latter city hath twelve gates, between every two ofwhich there is a space of two long miles; and betwixt thetwo cities also there is a good amount of population, thecompass of the two together being more than forty miles.Here the Great Khan¹ hath his residence, and hath a greatpalace, the walls of which are some four miles in compass.And within this space be many other fine palaces. [Forwithin the great palace wall is a second enclosure, with adistance between them of perhaps half a bowshot, and in themidst between those two walls are kept his stores and allhis slaves; whilst within the inner enclosure dwells theGreat Khan with all his family, who are most numerous, somany sons and daughters, sons-in- law, and grandchildrenhath he; with such a multitude of wives and councillors andsecretaries and servants, that the whole palace of four miles'circuit is inhabited. ]And within the enclosure of the great palace there hathbeen a hill thrown up on which another palace is built, themost beautiful in the whole world. And this whole hill isplanted over with trees, wherefrom it hath the name of theGreen Mount. And at the side of this hill hath been formeda lake [more than a mile round] , and a most beautiful bridgebuilt across it. And on this lake there be such multitudesof wild-geese and ducks and swans,3 that it is something to2I am not sure that a faithful version should not render MagnusCanis as the "Great Dog, " for in most copies the word is regularly declined,Canis, Cani, Canem, as if he were really a bow-wow. According to Ludolf,an old German translation of Mandeville does introduce the mightyprince as Der Grosse Hund. That author thinks that some such doubleentendre may have led to the story in Pliny about a people who have adog for their king, a suggestion which would have been a happy one hadthe people in question dwelt in the heart of Asia instead of the heart ofAfrica. (Ludolf, Supp. to Comm. in Hist. Æthiop. p. 26.) The familiarityof North Italy with the Can Grande of Verona may have made Odoricand his contemporaries look less strangely on the denomination.2 MIN. RAM.3 The word is in all the best MSS. Cesani or Cesena, for which Mus.substitutes a gloss "avium aquaticarum. " The word is not to be found inFRIAR ODORIC. 129wonder at; so that there is no need for that lord to go fromhome when he wisheth for sport. Also within the walls arethickets full of sundry sorts of wild animals; so that he canfollow the chase when he chooses without ever quitting thedomain.¹Ducange, or, I believe, any Italian dictionary. It occurs also in some ofthe MSS. of Marco Polo describing the Khan's falconry as Cesini, whereothers have Cycni, and where Baldello Boni considers it a copyist's errorfor that word. I do not believe it to be so, for I find Cecini also coupledwith gruve or cranes, in a list of poultry and game, etc., in the book ofGiovanni da Uzzano on Merchandize. (Della Decima, iv, 63.) It is,therefore, almost certainly a word which should be recognised, thoughmost likely it means swans, and so I have rendered it. Indeed the oldFrench Polo just edited by Pauthier has sesnes (p . 310) .In this account of the palace we have an instance of true particularsoccurring only in the Minor Ramusian version, e. g. the double enceinte .This is mentioned by Polo, and is found in the existing palace, whichappears to preserve many of the features of that of the Mongols, thoughthe latter was burnt about thirty years after their fall. Indeed thearrangement of royal enclosures in all the Indo-Chinese countries, including Burma and Java, appears to follow the same traditional rules,probably derived originally from India. The palace at Amarapura, withits square form, its successive enclosures , its masonry basem*nt eight ornine feet from the ground, its hall of gold and vermilion, etc., quite corresponded on a smaller scale with this description.The existing Tartar city at Pekin officially termed Nei-chhing or " InnerTown," encloses a second called Hoang-chhing or " Imperial (yellow?)Town," which, no doubt, represents the outer palace of Odoric's day, andthat includes a third called Fseu- kin- chhing, or " Red City, " which is the actual residence.The Green Mount, to which Kublai, anticipating the experiments ofzealous planters in our day, caused remarkable trees of every bulk to betransferred with the earth attaching to their roots, still stands conspicuous within the palace walls of Pekin. "Your eye rests with pleasureupon this round wood- covered hill , rising picturesquely from the middleof the glittering roofs and umbrageous trees within the palace walls."(Swinhoe, North China Campaign, p. 353.) It is called by the ChineseKing-Shan, "Court Mountain, " Wan- Su- Shan, "Ten thousand years Mount," or Mei- Shan, " Coal Hill," the last from the material of which itis traditionally said to be composed, as a reserve store in case of siege.It rises 160 feet above the natural soil , and on it the last Ming Emperormet a miserable end. The lake also (called Thai-i-chi) still exists as aswampy hollow; and the "beautiful bridge " is there in decay. (Polo,i, 10; Exped. de Chine par P. Varin, 1862; Davis, ii, 75; Timkowski,ii, 151; Swinhoe, u.s.; Pauthier, Chine Moderne, p. 19. )9 *130 THE TRAVELS OFBut his own palace in which he dwells is of vast size andsplendour. The basem*nt thereof is raised about two pacesfrom the ground, and within there be four-and- twenty columns of gold; and all the walls are hung with skins of redleather, said to be the finest in the world. In the midst ofthe palace is a certain great jar, more than two paces inheight, entirely formed of a certain precious stone calledMerdacas, [and so fine, that I was told its price exceededthe value of four great towns] . It is all hooped round withgold, and in every corner thereof is a dragon³ representedas in act to strike most fiercely. And this jar hath alsofringes of network of great pearls hanging therefrom, andthese fringes are a span in breadth. Into this vessel drinkis conveyed by certain conduits from the court of the palace;1 Certainly the oriental Jade or Yu of the Chinese, which stood as highin the estimation of the Mongols, and figures largely in their legendsand their poetry. Thus when Chinghiz was proclaimed Khagan on thegrassy meadows of the river Kerulan, a certain stone spontaneouslyflew asunder, and disclosed a great seal of graven jade, which was keptas a palladium by his descendants, and was almost the only thing savedby the last emperor of his house when flying from the Chinese insurgents.(Schmidt, pp. 71, 133.)The Mongol word for jade cited in this authority is khas, which is doubtless the termination of the name used in the text.66I cannot say what the first part of that name is. But it is worthy ofnotice that the mountain near Khotan, which supplies some of the bestjade, is called, according to Timkowski, Mirjái, or Kash- tash (Turk.Jade-rock") . Can Merdacas Mirjai-khas? Further, can the Tartarname have anything to do with the Persian khás, "royal, noble"?Crawfurd technically styles the Burmese jade " noble serpentine," andin the narrative of Goes we find the jade of Yarkand spoken of as"marmoris illius apud Sinas nobilissimi. "It may be added that Pegolotti names, among various kinds of silk in the Eastern markets, seta merdachascia; what does this mean?(Pegolotti, p. 301.) Since writing these words I find that Freytag'sArab. lexicon has " Midaqs; Sericum crudum, " found also in Armenianas Metaks (St. Martin on Lebeau, ix, 226), which is, therefore, probablythe seta merdachascia of Pegolotti, as well as the μéraça, μéraĝis of theByzantines. Is it possible that this word was an Orientalised reflexionof Mndikh which Procopius says had been the old Greek name for silk stuffs?3 Serpens. 2 MIN. RAM.FRIAR ODORIC. 131and beside it are many golden goblets from which thosedrink who list.In the hall of the palace also are many peaco*cks of gold .And when any of the Tartars wish to amuse their lord, thenthey go one after the other and clap their hands; upon whichthe peaco*cks flap their wings, and make as if they woulddance. Now this must be done either by diabolic art, or bysome engine underground.38. The friar setteth forth the state of the Khan's court.But when the Lord Khan is seated on his imperial throne,the Queen is placed at his left hand; and a step lower aretwo others of his women; whilst at the bottom of the stepsstand all the other ladies of his family. And. all who aremarried wear upon their heads the foot of a man as it were,a cubit and a half in length, and at the top of that foot thereare certain cranes' feathers, the whole foot being set withgreat pearls; so that if there be in the whole world any fineand large pearls they are to be found in the decorations ofthose ladies.1The coiffure of the Tartar married women is thus described byRubruquis: "They have an ornament for the head called Bocca ( or Botta,perhaps Bocta) . This is made of the bark of trees or similar light stuff,round, and large enough to require both hands to span it. It is morethan a cubit high, and is square above, like the capital of a pillar. Thewhole affair is covered with silk, and on the top or capital they put in themiddle a thin tuft of quills or slender canes, also of a cubit or more. Andthis tuft is adorned at top with peaco*ck's feathers, and round about withmallard's feathers and precious stones" (p. 232) . Carpini describes it inthe same way (p. 615) . And Ibn Batuta says of a princess of Kipchak:" On her head was a boghthak, that is, a high tiara incrusted with jewels,and decked at the apex with peaco*ck's feathers" (ii, 379 and 388) . Butthe only confirmation of Odoric about the " man's foot" that I find isgiven by Ricold of Montecroce. After telling a story of how the Tartarwomen helped to gain a great victory he adds: " In memory of this victory the Tartars granted leave to their wives to wear lofty crowns to the height of a cubit or more. But lest the woman should wax over proudthereupon, the Tartars also determined that these crowns should at thesummit take the form of a foot. And in fact at the top of such a greatcrown there is as it were a foot over it, as if to maintain a testimony 92132 THE TRAVELS OFOn the right hand of the king is placed his first- born sonthat shall reign after him; and below stand all who are of theblood royal. And there be four scribes also, to take downall the words that the king may utter. And in front of theking stand his barons and others, an innumerable multitude ,and nobody dares say a word unless the lord shall addresshim, except the jesters, who may say something to amusetheir lord. But even they must not be bold enough totransgress the bounds which the king hath laid down forthem.And before the gates of the palace stand barons as warders,to see that no one touch the threshold of the door; and ifthey catch anyone doing so they beat him soundly.¹And when that great lord wishes to make an entertainment he shall have fourteen thousand barons with coronetson their heads waiting upon him at the banquet. And everyone of them shall have a coat on his back such that the pearlson it alone are worth some fifteen thousand florins . And thecourt is ordered passing well, all being ranked by tens andhundreds and thousands, and all having their duties assigned,standing answerable one to another for any breach either totheir own charges or in the charges of those subordinateto them.I, Friar Odoric, was full three years in that city of his,that the women did not win the victory alone, but by help of their husbands, who came to their rescue; and as if it were said to them:-Crowned though ye be, forget not that ye be under the power of yourhusbands!' and so by a kind of natural reason they seem to have divinedthat which is written in the Law of God, Sub viri potestate eris ."" (Peregrinatores Quatuor, p. 116. ) Notices of relics of this Tartar headdressstill existing are quoted in the Journ. Asiat. , ser. iv, tom. x, 169, xvi, 157.It appears from one of these that the name Bogtac still indicates the headdress of women of a certain age among the Circassians and Ossetes."1 Marco Polo explains that it was a grievous offence to touch the imperial threshold, and strangers were officially warned of this before theirentrance. Rubruquis mentions the same; his comrade got into a scrapefor breaking the rule, and was not allowed again to visit the court. Carpini indeed says: "Si quis calcat limen stationis alicujus ducis interficitur. "(Polo, i, 15; Rub. , 255, 268; 320, 338; Carpini, 625, 741. )FRIAR ODORIC. 133and often present at those festivals of theirs; for we MinorFriars have a place assigned to us at the emperor's court, andwe be always in duty bound to go and give him our benison.So I took the opportunity to make diligent inquiry fromChristians, Saracens, and all kinds of idolaters, and likewisefrom our own converts to the faith, of whom there be somewho are great barons at that court, and have to do with theking's person only. Now these all told me with one voiceas follows: that the king's players alone amount to xiii tumans; that of those others who keep the dogs and wild beastsand fowls there be xv tumans; of leeches to take charge ofthe royal person there be four hundred idolaters, eightChristians, and one Saracen. And all these have from theking's court whatever provision they require. [ And therebe never more nor fewer, but when one dies another is appointed in his place. ] As for the rest of the establishmentit is past counting. [ In short, the court is truly magnificent, and the most perfectly ordered that there is in theworld, with barons, gentlemen, servants, secretaries, Chris-¹ MIN. RAM. , " in company with the Minor Friars, who have a monastery there; and they used to send us from the court supplies enough fora thousand friars! And, by the true God, there is as great a differencebetween that prince and those of Italy, as between a very rich man and abeggar."2 These great courtiers may have been some of the Christian Alans ofwhom we hear some years later in connection with the legation ofMarignolli.3 The Sultan of Dehli about this time was said to have 10,000 falconers,1200 musicians, 1200 physicians, and 1000 poets! (Notices et Extraits,xiii, 185) .It is not inappropriate to these statistics which Odoric puts forward sosolemnly, to refer to a passage in the history of Yesontimur, the Emperorat this time. Alarmed by evil prognostics, he called for an honest reportas to what fault in his administration could have excited divine displeasure.The report, after blaming the superstitious cherishing of Bonzes and Foworship, goes on; "Whilst the palace is crammed with eunuchs, astrologers, physicians, women, and other idlers, whose entertainment amountsto exorbitant sums, the people are plunged in extreme misery, etc., etc.(Deguignes, iv, 206; Gaubil, p. 259) .4 MIN. RAM.134 THE TRAVELS OFtians, Turks, and idolaters, all receiving from the court whatthey have need of. ] ¹39. Of the order of the Great Caan when he journeyeth.Now, this lord passeth the summer at a certain place whichis called SANDU,2 situated towards the north, and the coolesthabitation in the world. But in the winter season he abidethin Cambalech. And when he will ride from the one place tothe other this is the order thereof. He hath four armiesof horsem*n, one of which goeth a day's march in front ofhim, one at each side, and one a day's march in rear, so thathe goeth always, as it were, in the middle of a cross. Andmarching thus, each army hath its route laid down for it day1 MIN. RAM.2 The Ciandu of Marco Polo, where stood that magnificent park andpalace, his description of which set Coleridge a-dreaming (or dreamingthat he dreamt) that wonderful poem which tells how"In Xanadu did Kublai KhanA spacious pleasure dome decree."This becomes all the more curious when we are told on an authority ofwhich Coleridge could have known nothing, that the palace was designedto correspond with one which Kublai had seen in a dream, and of whichhis memory had retained the plan.The place was originally Kaiphingfu, called by the Tartars Kaiminfu,the Chemenfu (miswritten Clemenfu) of Polo; it stood about 150 li be- yond the wall, and ten days' journey from Pekin. From Kublai it receivedthe name of Shangtu or “ Upper Court"; more than one palace was builtin the vicinity, and from 1264 when Kublai began to visit this district,till the fall of the dynasty, these palaces continued to be frequented by the emperors as summer residences.In the wail which Ssanang Setzen, the Mongol historian, puts into themouth of Toghon Temur, the last of the dynasty, when flying from histhrone, the changes of lamentation are rung upon the loss of “ My Daïtu,my capital, my gloriously adorned! my SHANGTU, my cool and delicioussummer seat, pleasure dwelling of the earlier gods!"The ruins of the palace and city existed at the end of the seventeenthcentury, when they were seen by Gerbillon; and the imperial geographyof the existing dynasty mentions that those ruins contained an inscriptionof the reign of Kublai. The city is stated to be that which appears inD'Anville's map as Tchao-Naiman-Soumé-hoton. (Klaproth's Rashideddinin Journ. Asiat. , 2nd ser. , xi , 345-50; M. Polo, Introd. 6; i, 24; Duhalde,iv; Deguignes, i, 296; Schmidt, p. 137) .FRIAR ODORIC. 135by day, and findeth at its halts all necessary provender. Buthis own immediate company hath its order of march thus.The king travelleth in a two-wheeled carriage, in which isformed a very goodly chamber, all of lign-aloes and gold,and covered over with great and fine skins, and set withmany precious stones. And the carriage is drawn by fourelephants, well broken in and harnessed, and also by foursplendid horses, richly caparisoned. And alongside go fourbarons, who are called Cuthe, keeping watch and wardover the chariot that no hurt come to the king. Moreover,he carrieth with him in his chariot twelve gerfalcons; so thateven as he sits therein upon his chair of state or other seat,if he sees any birds pass he lets fly his hawks at them. Andnone may dare to approach within a stone's throw of the carriage, unless those whose duty brings them there. Andthus it is that the king travelleth.And so also his women travel, according to their degree;and his heir-apparent travels in similar state.As for the numbers which the lord hath with him on hisprogress, ' tis difficult to believe or conceive of them. Thenumber ofthe troops in those armies that attend the lord isfifty tumans, and these are entirely provided with everythingby the lord. And if anyone happen to die of those who areenrolled among them, another instantly replaces him; sothat the number is always complete.3¹ Most read Zuche or Çuche. This Cuthe, which seems best, is in Far.only.? Demailla and Gaubil relate that there were four Mongol captainswho had devoted themselves with singular fidelity to guarding the personof Chinghiz Khan; the descendants of these four Mongols were all employed in the body-guard, and were called the four Kie-sie (according toGaubil Kuesie); they were withdrawn from this office only to becomeministers of state. (Demailla, Hist. Gen. de la Chine, quoted in Il Milione,ii, 181; Gaubil, p. 6).Odoric's four barons undoubtedly were these Kuesie, whom Polo callsQuesitan, and the reading Cuthe has therefore been preferred to the Zuche of most MSS.3 Here MIN. RAM. has the following passage. [ And countless is the136 THE TRAVELS OF40. The greatness of the Khan's dominion; and how hostels areprovided therein; and how news are carried to the lord.This empire hath been divided by the lord thereof intonumber of strange beasts that he keeps. Among these were six horses,each of which had six feet and legs . And I saw two very great ostriches,and two smaller ones behind them, that had each two necks and twoheads with which they ate; not to mention the wild men who were in thelord's garden, and women all hairy with long grey hair though of humanform, which ate apples and drunk drinks such as were supplied to themby the lord's order. And among these were men not bigger than twospans, and these are called Gomiti (Cubits) . And in the court I saw menwith an eye in the forehead; and these were called Minocchi (Monoculi) .And at that time there were presented to the lord a pair, male and female, which had a span length of body, with big heads and long legs, andno hands, and which fed themselves with the foot. I also saw a giantabout twenty feet high who led two lions, one red and the other black;and another had in charge lionesses and leopards, and such like beasts,with which the lord went hunting stags, wild goats, wolves, boars, bears,and other wild animals. ]Though there is probably interpolation in this passage, and it has nottherefore been introduced into the text, there are symptoms of genuineness about it. Even the sagacious Kublai, the second founder of thedynasty, had a passion for curiosities and sent envoys far and near to procure them. Nowadays if Napoleon III were to turn his attention to thecollection of live monsters he would speedily have a very remarkable gathering, and the influence of the Grand Khan probably extended over a largerarea ofpopulation than his . As regards some of the monsters mentionedby the writer above, parallels will easily occur to many. I have myselfdescribed in print " a woman all hairy", as remarkable as his, though possibly those " in the lord's garden" were only some kind of monkey. Irecollect a tame hoolak or black gibbon at a station in India which " ateapples and drunk drinks supplied to it", and was universally called bythe natives round the Jangalí Admí, or wild man, which indeed is theliteral meaning of our Orang-otang. And I remember, when a boy, seeing both the Siamese twins and the seven legs of Pin-cushion Jenny, athorough-bred mare. Miss Biffin not only fed herself with her feet, butthreaded her needle and did embroidery work therewith. As to the heightof the giants and dwarfs, when very remarkable of their kind they makevery exaggerated impressions upon everybody. It is not long since wehave ceased to hear from respectable writers of elephants fifteen andeighteen feet high. The Minocchi, of course, I give up; they were doubtless factitious, if not fictitious, but the name is not like one that Odoricwould give. The names he assigns generally represent some Orientalword; and this is probably an interpolation .Live monsters are sometimes manufactured, as well as dead ones likeFRIAR ODORIC. 137twelve parts; each one whereof is termed a Singo. And ofthose twelve parts that of Manzi forms one which hath underit two thousand great cities. And, indeed, so vast is that empire of his, that if one wished to visit each of these provinceshe would have enough to do for six months; and that exclusive of the islands, five thousand in number, which arenot comprehended in the number of the twelve provinces.[Moreover, there be four chief ministers to govern the empireof this great lord. ]And that travellers may have their needs provided for,throughout his whole empire he hath caused houses andcourts to be established as hostelries, and these houses arecalled Yam. In these houses is found everything necessaryfor subsistence, [ and for every person who travels throughout those territories, whatever be his condition , it is ordainedthat he shall have two meals without payment] .³ And whenany matter of news arises in the empire messengers startBarnum's. I once saw, at Agra, going about as a show, a small bullockwhich had one or two (apparent) legs and hoofs growing out of its hump.These hung flabbily and boneless, but were certainly, as far as I couldjudge, vitally united to the flesh of the hump. My impression (be it justor not) was that they had been grafted in. Similar, perhaps, was the calfwhich Ælian says he saw at Alexandria, with a supernumerary foot hanging useless from the shoulder. (De Nat. Animal. , xi, 40. )" In the whole empire of the Kaan", says Rashideddin, " there aretwelve Sing". And Klaproth annotates: " This word Sing is the ChineseSing or Ching, by which is designated a province and its administration".(As above, p. 447) .It is correct that the empire of Cathay was divided, as Odoric says,into twelve great provinces, but not that Manzi constituted only one ofthose provinces . It is true, however, that the one province of Kiang- cheembraced all the great cities south of the Kiang which he had visited,except Canton. The twelve provinces as constituted by Kublai and hissuccessor, will be found stated in an extract from Rashideddin hereafter.2 MIN. RAM. This passage from the MIN. RAM. again shows the claimsof that version to attention. The four chief governors are the four wazirswhom the Mongols called Chingsang (Chin. Chhingsiang) . These wereMongolian princes, and were aided in their deliberations by four others,(Fanchan) , who were Chinese, Uigurs, or Persians. (See extracts fromRashideddin, and notes, infrà) .3 MIN. RAM.138 THE TRAVELS OFincontinently at a great pace on horseback for the court;but if the matter be very serious and urgent they set offupon dromedaries. And when they come near those yam,hostels or stations, they blow a horn, whereupon mine hostof the hostel straightway maketh another messenger getready; and to him the rider who hath come posting up delivereth the letter, whilst he himself tarrieth for refreshment.And the other taking the letter, maketh haste to the nextyam, and there doth as did the first. And in this mannerthe emperor receiveth in the course of one natural day thenews of matters from a distance of thirty days' journey.¹But the despatch of foot runners is otherwise ordered.For certain appointed runners abide continually in certainstation-houses called chidebeo, and these have a girdle witha number of bells attached to it. Now those stations aredistant the one from the other perhaps three miles; andwhen a runner approaches one of those houses he causesthose bells of his to jingle very loudly; on which the otherrunner in waiting at the station getteth ready in haste, andtaking the letter hastens on to another station as fast as heAnd so it goes from runner to runner until it reachesthe Great Khan himself. And so nothing can happen, inshort, throughout the whole empire, but he hath instantly,or at least very speedily, full tidings thereof.can.1 The MIN. RAM. describes these post-stations as " very high towers."But this seems a confusion arising from some knowledge of the beacon towers mentioned in a note below.2 With this account of the Chinese posts we may compare that givenby Shah- Rokh's ambassadors about a century later. We find in it theyam and the chidebeo of Odoric both named: " This city ( Sokcheu) is thefirst on passing the frontier of Cathay; thence to Kambálik, the emperor'sresidence, there are ninety-nine yams or post-houses .......Every yam issituated opposite to a city or town, and in the intervals between theyams you may count manykargús and kidifús. The word kargú is appliedto a tower of some sixty cubits in height, where two men are constantlyon duty. The tower is so placed that the next kargú is in sight from it;and when any event of importance occurs, like the approach ofan enemy'sarmy, the men on watch immediately light a fire, and this being seenfrom the next kargú they make haste to light another. And so the signalFRIAR ODORIC. 13941. Concerning the Khan's great hunting matches.When the Great Khan goes a hunting ' tis thus ordered.At some twenty days ' journey from Cambalech, there is afine forest of eight days' journey in compass; and in it aresuch multitudes and varieties of animals as are truly wonderful. All round this forest there be keepers posted onaccount of the Khan, to take diligent charge thereof; andpasses from one to another, till in the space of one day and night a pieceofnews passes over a distance of three months' march. Despatches arealso sent along without stopping, being passed from hand to hand andfrom one kidifu to another. The word kidifu is the name applied to aparty of men attached to a station with the following duty. Immediatelythat a letter or a piece of news reaches them, one who is waiting allready starts off with it to the next kidifu, and so on till it reaches thefoot of the imperial throne. The distance from one kidifu to another isten mereh; sixteen of which are equal to a parasang. The men posted atthe kargú are ten in number, and are relieved every ten days. But thoseof the kidifu live at their post, building themselves houses there andengaging in agriculture." (From Notices et Extraits, xiv, 396.) Thekidifu is Odoric's chidebeo, but I have not been able to make sure of thelanguage or etymology. I may observe however that Ibn Batutaapplies to the posts or stages of the foot-runners in India the termdáwuh (vol. iii, pp. 96, 145, 191), and the term may possibly be kad- idawuh or kad-dawuh, " the house of the runners or foot-post". On theother hand, Martini tells us that the arch which indicated a post stationwas called in Chinese P'u. And the word may be a hybrid, Kad-i-Pu,analogous to the equally hybrid Dak-House of India. Kargú is doubtlessconnected with the Karághúl " Excubitores," and "Viarum Custodes,"of Poco*cke's Abulpharagius (363, 369 ) . The double system of horse andfoot posts was also found by Ibn Batuta established in India in 1333.The posts of Timur are noticed by Clavijo (p. 105) . And Baber describeshis own post between Agra and Cabul, using the word yam, but addingthat it was called in India dak-choki, the term in use in all NorthernIndia to this day. (Erskine's Baber, p. 393.) Pauthier thinks yam to havebeen taken from the Chinese yi-ma, “'horse-post". (Marc. Pol. , p. 335) .Burnes was told of the continued existence of both post and fire beaconsbetween Yarkund and Pekin. The distance is more than five months'journey as usually travelled, but an express went in thirty-five days, andunder very great emergency in fifteen.The Chinese inns for the lodgment of public officers were, according toMartin, at eighty li, or a day's journey apart. According to Magalhaensthere were 1145 of these royal inns, or as we should say in India " Government Dak bungalows. "140 THE TRAVELS OFevery third or fourth year he goeth with his people to thisforest. On such occasions they first surround the wholeforest with beaters, and let slip the dogs and the hawkstrained to this sport, and then gradually closing in uponthe game, they drive it to a certain fine open spot that thereis in the middle of the wood. Here there becomes massedtogether an extraordinary multitude of wild beasts, such aslions, wild oxen, bears, stags, and a great variety of others,and all in a state of the greatest alarm. For there is sucha prodigious noise and uproar raised by the birds and thedogs that have been let slip into the wood, that a personcannot hear what his neighbour says; and all the [unfortunate ] wild beasts quiver with terror at the disturbance.sAnd when they have all been driven together into that openglade, the Great Khan comes up on three elephants¹ andshoots five arrows at the game. As soon as he has shot, thewhole of his retinue do likewise. And when all have shot theirarrows ( each man's arrows having a token by which theymay be discerned) , then the Great Emperor causeth to becalled out "Syo!" which is to say as it were Quarter!5 to thebeasts (to wit) that have been driven from the wood. Then[the huntsmen sound the recall, and call in the dogs andhawks from the prey] 2 the animals which have escaped withlife are allowed to go back into the forest, and all the barons1 MIN. RAM. " And lions and lionesses and other tamed beasts trainedto this business."2 MIN. RAM.3 ID. "Like slender reeds shaken by the strong and raging Boreas orAquilo, both because of what is passing before their eyes, and from theirremembrance of being so entrapped before; and so they are near to dieof fear."4 On some kind of litter carried by the elephants it may be supposed.Elephants are rather out of their latitude at Pekin; and were not in useby the Mongols, as Polo tells, until Kublai's capture of a number in thewar with Mien or Ava. A few continued to be kept at the Chinese Courtat Timkowski's visit in 1821; I know not if any are still maintained.5 May possibly be meant for Pers. Sheo, Este! Desine! (Meninski) , orTurkish Sáo, Siste! (Ib. )FRIAR ODORIC. 141come forward to view the game that has been killed and torecover the arrows that they had shot (which they can welldo by the marks on them); and every one has what hisarrow has struck. And such is the order of the Khan'shunting.¹42. Concerning the four great feasts that the Khan keepeth.Every year that emperor keepeth four great feasts, to wit,the day of his birth, that of his circumcision , and so forth.To these festivals he summons all his barons and all hisplayers, and all his kinsfolk; and all these have their established places at the festival. But it is especially at thedays of his birth and circumcision that he expects all to attend. And when summoned to such a festival all the baronscome with their coronets on, whilst the emperor is seated onhis throne as has been described above, and all the baronsare ranged in order in their appointed places. Now thesebarons are arrayed in divers colours; for some, who are thefirst in order, wear green silk; the second are clothed incrimson the third in yellow. And all these have coronetson their heads, and each holds in his hand a white ivorytablet³ and wears a golden girdle of half a span in breadth;1 Father Ripa's account of the Emperor Kanghi's hunting in the lastcentury closely resembles this; and so does the historian Mirkhond's ofthe great hunts maintained by the Mongol sovereigns in accordance withthe Yasa or Ordinances of Chinghiz. (Not. et Extraits, v, 212).2 The statement of the four feasts from MIN. RAM. is probably morecorrect. "The first is for his birthday; the second for the day of hiscoronation; the third for the day of his marriage when he took the Queento wife; the fourth for the birthday of his first-born son." No Mongol Khanof Cathay ever professed Islam, though the Khans of the three WesternEmpires all adopted it in succession. Buddhism was the state religion ofKublai and his house from about 1260, when he formally adopted it.3 Rubruquis, speaking of certain envoys of a Corean nation whom hesaw at the court of Karakorum, says: "The principal envoy had in hishand a tablet of polished ivory, about a cubit long by a palm broad, and whenever he addressed the Khan or any other great personage he kepthis eyes fixed on this tablet, looking neither right nor left, as if he readthere what he had to say” (p. 290) . The use of this tablet, called Kwei,was a very ancient Chinese etiquette. It is mentioned in Demailla's ver-142 THE TRAVELS OFand so they remain standing and silent. And round aboutthem stand the players with their banners and ensigns. Andin one corner of a certain great palace abide the philosophers,who keep watch for certain hours and conjunctions; andwhen the hour and conjunction waited for by the philosophers arrives, one of them calls out with a loud voice, saying, " Prostrate yourselves before the emperor our mightylord! " And immediately all the barons touch the groundthree times with their heads. Then he will call out again:"Rise all ofyou!" and immediately they get up again.¹ Andthen they wait for another auspicious moment, and when itcomes he will shout out again, "Put your fingers in yourears!" and so they do. And then, "Take them out: " andthey obey. And then they will abide awhile, and then hewill say, "Bolt meal! " and so they go on with a number ofother such words of command, which they allege to have adeep import. And there be also many officers to look diligently that none of the barons or of the players are absent.For any one of them who should absent himself would incurheavy penalties. And when the proper hour and moment forthe players comes, then the philosophers say, "Make an entertainment for the lord! " and incontinently they all begin toplay on their instruments of every kind, with such a clamourof music and song that ' tis enough to stun you. Then avoice is heard saying, "Silence all!" and they all cease. Andafter this all those of the famous princely families paradesion of the Chinese annals in connexion with Yu, one of the most notableworthies of ancient China, who is said to have flourished B.C. 2286.1 So the Dutch envoys in 1656 were "commanded by a herald to kneelthree times, and bow their heads to the ground. After a short pause theherald spoke aloud in Chinese the following words: Ka Shan, i.e., “Godhath sent the Emperor!' Que e, ' Fall upon your knees'; Ke e, ' Stand up!'lastly, Ko e, ' Range yourselves on one side'!" The Chinese Kowtow hadbeen fully adopted as the practice of the Mongol court. ( Astley, iii, 425;476; 476; 574; D'Ohsson, ii, 217) . Odoric is here curiously corroboratedby the official account of the Court Ceremonial of the Mongol Emperors,translated by Pauthier in his notes to Polo (p. 290 seq.)FRIAR ODORIC . 143with white horses. And a voice is heard calling, “ Such anone of such a family to present so many hundreds of whitehorses to the lord"; and then some of them come forwardsaying that they bring two hundred horses (say) to offer tothe lord, which are ready before the palace. And ' tis something incredible the number of white horses which are presented to the lord on such an occasion.¹ And then comebarons to offer presents of different kinds on behalf of theother barons of the empire; and all the superiors of themonasteries likewise come with presents to the Khan, andare in duty bound to give him their benison. And this alsodo we Minor Friars. And when all this ceremony has beengone through, then come certain singing men before him,and also certain singing women who sing so sweetly that itis quite delightful to listen to them [and this pleased me mostof all ] . Then come mummers leading lions whom they causeto salute the lord with a reverence.3 And jugglers causecups of gold full of good wine to fly through the air and offerthemselves to the lips of all who list to drink of it . Such1 Polo says 100,000 white horses were presented to the Khan on newyears' day. The Tartar chiefs continued, at least to the time of Kanghito present a tribute of white horses to the emperor. (Huc and Gabet,Eng. Tr. 239) .2 НАК.3 The same is mentioned by Polo, i, 18.Says Marco, "Whenthe monarch sits at table in his hall of state, andthe cups are ten paces distant, full of wine, milk, and other beverages,they cause them by their magical spells to rise from the pavement, andplace themselves before the prince, without anyone touching them; thisis done in the presence of 10,000 men: and the fact is real and true, without any lie" (i, 24; see also i, 7), This must have been a very ancientEastern juggle. At the collation given by the Brachmans to the king oftheir country in presence of Apollonius of Tyana, the company were servedby tripods which handed round the wines and dishes spontaneously.(Philostratus, Fr. tr. iii, c, 27) .So Homer also tells of Vulcan's art: Iliad, xviii, 373 in Pope's version:"That day no common task his labour claimed;Full twenty tripods for his hall he framed,That placed on living wheels of massy gold(Wondrous to tell) instinct with spirit rolled From place to place around the blest abodes,Self-moved, obedient to the beck of gods. "144 THE TRAVELS OFthings and many more are done in that lord's presence . Andany account that one can give of the magnificence of thatlord, and of the things that are done in his court must seemincredible to those who have not witnessed it.But no one need wonder at his being able to maintainsuch an expenditure; for there is nothing spent as moneyin his whole kingdom but certain pieces of paper which arethere current as money, whilst an infinite amount of treasure comes into his hands.43. Concerning a certain melon that produceth a beast like a lamb.Another passing marvellous thing may be related, whichhowever I saw not myself, but heard from trustworthy persons. For ' tis said that in a certain great kingdom calledCADELI there be mountains called the CASPEAN Mountains,on which are said to grow certain very large melons. Andwhen these be ripe, they burst, and a little beast is foundinside like a small lamb, so that they have both melons andmeat! And though some, peradventure, may find that hardto believe, yet it may be quite true; just as it is true thatthere be in Ireland trees which produce birds.¹ [ And here I1 The myth of the bernacle geese to which Odoric here refers, and forwhich he was perhaps indebted to his travelling companion the Irish FriarJames, came down to a comparatively recent period in full credit, andeven Sir Thomas Brown only ventures to "awake considerations ...whetherthe story be not too much enlarged ." The curious history of its origin hasbeen explained by Professor Max Müller in a lecture on mythology.But the story of the Tartar lamb was also familiar in the seventeenthcentury, much as that of the sea serpent is now. A full account may beread in J. C. Scaliger. " It is found," he says, " in the lands of the nobleTartar horde called Zavolha. The seed is like that of a melon, but theplant, which is called Borametz or the Lamb, grows to the height of aboutthree feet in the form of that animal, with feet, hoofs, ears, etc., complete,only having in lieu of horns two curly locks of hair. If wounded it bleeds;wolves are greedily fond of it; if well grown round with juicy herbagethe plant thrives like a lamb in fat pastures; if the grass be cleared awayit pines and dies," etc.Sir T. Brown, after a description which seems to be derived from thisof Scaliger's, adds: “ And yet, if all this be no more than the shape of aFRIAR ODORIC . 145would make an end of speaking of the Great Khan, for I amlamb in the flower or seed upon the top of the stalk, as we meet with theforms of bees, flies , and dogs in some others; he hath seen nothing thatshall much wonder at it."The plant about which these fables have gathered seems now to bereferred to the fern genus Cibotium, formerly to Aspidium. The Eng.Cyclopædia says, " The Rhizoma of Aspidium Baromez presents a ruderesemblance to an animal. It is covered with a silky down, and whencut into has a soft inside with a reddish, flesh-coloured appearance, sufficient to account for the origin of the fables with regard to its animalnature. It is not improbable that this fern dries up when the grass does,but of course the one has no dependence on the other."The word baromez is said to mean lamb in Russian. The locality ofthe plant, according to the Cyclopædia, is “ an elevated salt plain to thewest of the Wolga." The Zavolha country to which Scaliger refers it isdefined by one of Ramusio's authorities as being between the Caspian,Black Sea, Caucasus, and Wolga, whilst another places the tribe betweenthe Wolga and the Jaik.These indications enable us to explain the locus assigned by Odoric tothis marvellous plant-animal. The Caspian mountains are of courseCaucasus, or some part of it, whilst the kingdom of Cadeli is the countryon the Ethil, Adil, or Herdil, i.e. , the Wolga. The c is constantly substituted for an aspirate by the Italian travellers (e. g. , Polo's Cormos forHormuz) , whilst the name Athil was sometimes applied to the countryon the banks of the Wolga, or to the chief city there before the Tartarconquest, at one time the seat of a Chaldean bishop (on this point, seeLe Quien, Oriens Christianus, ii, 1301 ) . The " Caspian Hills" and theWolga are at some little distance, but that distance does not subtend agreat angle from China where Odoric heard the story!The vegetable curiosity which is the subject of this note, is thus apostrophised by Dr. Darwin:-"Cradled in snow, and fanned by Arctic air,Shines, gentle BAROMETZ! thy golden hair;Rooted in earth each cloven hoof descends,And round and round her flexile neck she bends;Crops the gray coral- moss, and hoary thyme,Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime.Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,Or seems to bleat, a Vegetable Lamb."See Loves ofthe Plants, 1799, ii, 37-39, which has a plate. Erman, I see,thinks the whole story a mythical view of the cotton plant.It may be noticed that the Chinese also have their barnacle stories inmore than one shape, as related by Martini and Kircher.(Vulgar Errors,i, 377, 366; J. C. Scaligeri Exoterica Exercitationes de Subtilitate, etc., 1537, f. 248, v; Eng. Cyc. Nat. Hist. , sub. v. Aspidium; Ramusio, ii, 71, 76; Kircher, Ch. Illust. , 178; Martini in Thévenot, p. 81.)10146 THE TRAVELS OFcertainly unable to tell the thousandth part of what I haveseen. In any case I think it best to pass to other matters. ] ¹44. The friar, passing from Cathay, describeth sundry lands as ofPrester John and others.Departing from that land of Cathay and travelling westward for fifty days through many cities and towns, I arrivedat the country of Prester John; but as regards him not1 MIN. RAM. These words are the conclusion of that version. Itmakes Odoric say that he saw the Tartar lamb at the court of the Khan:"One day among other creatures, I saw a beast as big as a lamb, allwhite, whiter than snow, and with wool like the skin of a silkworm whenmoulting," etc. The allusion to the Irish production is given more fullyin HAK. and Mus. , with the name Bernakles, and the latter MS. adds:"This is perfectly understood by those who have read the History of Ireland; " which reminds one of " the great Robinson Crusoe that we readofin history."2 Deferring a notice of Prester John to a later part of this collection,it is here to be remarked that the Prester John's country of the text appears to be the Tenduc of Marco Polo, which he states to have been "thechief seat of Prester John when he ruled over the Tartars", and also theresidence of his descendants in their reduced and subordinate position .Klaproth produced Chinese sources to show that Thiante or Thiante-Kiunwas the name of a district or cluster of cities near the Yellow River lyingto the north-east of the territory now called that of the Ortus in our maps.This entirely agrees with the indications of Polo, who describes Tenducbetween the province of Tangut and Shangtu, and who in another passage speaks of the Karamoran or Hoang-Ho in its lower course as'coming from the lands of Prester John". It is remarkable that theFrench version of Odoric by Long John of Yprès gives the land of PresterJohn the singular name of Penthexoire, which has been adopted by Mandeville in his pretended travels. I suspect this name may be genuine, andthat it may represent Tendek- Shahr.66M. Pauthier, in a pamphlet published in 1862 as a specimen of an edition of Marco Polo, which he had then in the press (and has issued sincethis went to the printer) , though assigning the same substantial positionto the Tenduc of Polo, finds somewhat acrimonious fault with Klaproth'sidentification of the name Tenduc with Thiante, because the latter was adenomination belonging to an age long past, the city of Thiante having been destroyed in 960. He himself considers Tenduc to be a corruption of Tathung, which was the name of a circle of administration immediately east of that of Ninghia, embracing a part of the present Ortuterritory, and extending to the eastward of the great northern bight ofthe Hoang Ho. On this one may venture to remark that the more thatFRIAR ODORIC. 147one hundredth part is true of what is told of him as if itwere undeniable. His principal city is called Tozan, andchief city though it is, Vicenza would be reckoned itssuperior. He has, however, many other cities under him,and by a standing compact always receives to wife the GreatKhan's daughter.¹Travelling thence for many days I came unto a certainsources of illustration have been opened, the more accurate Marco's nomenclature (with which such liberties used to be deemed lawful) has proved tobe. And it would be hard to believe that he could find no nearer approximation to the sound Tathung than that of Tenduc. The original of the lastmayhave been someTartar appellation not yet discovered. But it is at leastconceivable that the old name of Thiante-Kiun, though it had disappearedthree centuries before from Chinese official statistics, might have been retained among the Tartars, from whom rather than from the ChineseMarco takes his names of men and places; the city of Thiante when itstill stood, having been, according to an authority quoted by Pauthierhimself, “ the military post of Tathung" . And the very passage cited byKlaproth from a Chinese author of the Mongol era, describes the HoangHo as passing through the territory of the ancient Chinese city of Thiante.I may add that Klaproth was quite aware of the denomination Tathung,for a map representing the geography of the Mongol time in his TableauHistorique de l'Asie, indicates Tathung as the name of a district coveringa part of the Ortu country, and extending beyond the Yellow River to the north and north- east.But neither Klaproth nor Pauthier have noticed Odoric, who here inTOZAN names this identical Tathung as the seat of the Presbytero-Joannides! Tathung, according to Pauthier, is still a department of the Province of Shansi. Indeed, it appears in Stanford's new map of Asia.The fifty days assigned by Odoric to his journey from Cambalu is toolong if meant as a measure of the distance. This would be some 400or 450 miles ( 152 leagues, according to the Imperial Geography cited byPauthier), and is more fitly put by John Montecorvino at twenty days.The position thus assigned to Prester John's country entirely suits thenext step in Odoric's itinerary. Both Gerbillon and Huc note numerousruined cities in this region, and the Imperial Geography mentions theremains of forty such. (Klaproth in Jour. As. , i, ser. iv, 299-306; Ritter,ii, 248; Polo, i, 61, ii, 50; Astley, iv, 729, 737; Huc and Gabet; Pauthier,Le Pays de Tanduc, etc., Paris, 1862, pp. 13-23. )1 Polo says the Khans often gave their female relations in marriage tothe kings of this line (ii, 50). And other intermarriages were frequent.E.g., the Christian mother of Gayuk Khan, and Dokuzkhatun the Christian queen of Hulagu, were both princesses of the Kerait royal family,i.e., apparently of Prester John's. The mother of Hulagu was of the samefamily, and Chingiz, as well as several of his sons, took wives from it.10 2148 THE TRAVELS OFprovince which is called KANSAN, ' and that is the secondbest province in the world, and the best populated. Forwhere it is most narrow it hath a width of fifty days' journey, and its length is more than sixty. And everywhere ithas such a population that when you go forth from thegate of one city you already see the gate of another. Andit hath also great store of victuals, but above all of chestnuts. Rhubarb likewise grows in this province, and that insuch abundance that you may load an ass with it for lessthan six groats . And this province is one of the twelvedivisions of the empire of the Great Khan.45. Concerning the realm of Tibet, where dwelleth the Pope ofthe Idolaters.Quitting this province, I came to a certain great kingdomcalled TIBET, which is on the confines of India Proper, and issubject to the Great Khan. They have in it great plenty ofbread and wine as anywhere in the world.country dwell in tents made of black felt .royal city is all built with walls of black and white, and allits streets are very well paved. In this city no one shallThe folk of thatBut the chief and1 This great and populous province, one of the twelve, abounding inchesnuts and in rhubarb, is undoubtedly the Quengianfu of Polo, governedin his time by Mangala, the son of Kublai (i, 39). The Kansan of Odoricand Quengian of Marco represent the name Kenchán or Kenján, whichwas applied by the Mahomedans, as we gather from Rashideddin, to thecity of Singanfu, and to the province under its government. Previouslyto 1285 this province embraced not only Shensi and a large part of Kansubut the whole of Szechuen. And I suspect it was of this greater provincethat Odoric had heard those great dimensions which he states . Szechuenis noted for its chesnuts (Martini, p . 87), and Shensi for rhubarb. (SeeKlaproth in Jour. As. , ser. 2, i, 102-3. )Odoric's expressions as to the populousness of this territory resemblethose of Martini as to the empire in general:-" I have often thoughtthat if the great wall surrounded the whole of China, this great countrywould be like one great city, full of houses and inhabitants; for you nosooner quit one place closely cultivated and densely peopled, than youfind yourself entering another which is equally so" (p. 17).2 This no doubt was Lhassa. The only account of that city that I knowFRIAR ODORIC . 149dare to shed the blood of any, whether man or beast, for thereverence they bear a certain idol which is there worshipped.In that city dwelleth the Abassi, i.e. in their tongue thePope, who is the head of all the idolaters, and who has thedisposal of all their benefices such as they are after theirmanner.is so unsatisfactory ( Huc and Gabet's) that no picture of any distinctnesscan be formed from it . They say the chief streets are broad, well laidout, and tolerably clean, but do not specify if they are paved. I knownot if it is worth while to refer to their account of a suburb in which thewalls of the houses were inlaid with black and white horns of sheep andoxen, arranged in fantastic designs . I may observe, however, that theordinary way of building lofty houses in the higher Himalaya, and probably in Tibet, is with large longitudinal timbers inserted at frequentand regular intervals. The stone-work is generally whitewashed, whilstthe timber darkens with age, and some photographs of this style ofbuilding which I have lately seen give quite the impression of alternatebands of black and white material.A fatality has attended the accounts of Lhassa that should have been.Grueber and Dorville, who were there in 1661, give no account of the city.Father Desideri who travelled thither by Ladakh in 1715-16, a route notknown to have been travelled by any second European in modern times,gives no detail of his journey beyond Ladakh, and says nothing of Lhassa.The journal of Samuel Vanderput, a Dutchman who in the time of theEmperor Yungching reached Lhassa from India, acquired the languageand the friendship of the Lamas, and accompanied a deputation of themto Peking, was never published, and appears to have perished. Nothingtangible is to be got out of the notices of Giorgi in the AlphabetumTibetanum. Thomas Manning, an Englishman who reached Lhassa fromCalcutta in 1811, was arrested and sent back by the Chinese, and diedwithout publishing any particulars of his journey. For nearly thirtyyears the spirit of geographical exploration has been at a sadly low ebbin India; may it revive before foreign nations snatch the honour from usof solving such problems as the true course of the great river of Tibet,and the latitude of Lhassa, the last uncertain to the extent of more thana whole degree. (Kircher, Ch. Illust.; Lettres Edifiantes, vol. xv; Jour.As. 2de. Ser. , x, 322, and xiv, 191; and Prinsep's Tibet Tartary andMongolia, 1851) .¹ The title Lo Abassi, which Odoric gives to the Great Lama, is a difficulty for a wonderful hotchpotch of misplaced erudition on the subject,see Giorgi's Alphabetum Tibetanum, p. 688.

Three possible solutions have suggested themselves to me. First: inthe journey of Evesko Petlin, a Russian, in Tartary ( 1620) which is givenby Bergeron, the Mongol Lamas are called Lobaes. This seems to suggest some mode of pronunciation not unlike Lo abassi. (Berg. Traité des150 THE TRAVELS OFAnd the fashions of this kingdom are thus. The womenhave their hair plaited in more than one hundred tresses, andthey have a couple of tusks as long as those of wild boars.¹And another fashion they have in this country is this. SupTartares, p. 107) . Secondly: The term Ubashi is applied to some class ofthe Lamas among the Mongols. (Reuilly, Desc. du Thibet, p. 36; Huc andGabet in Jour. As. iv, ser. xi, 538). Lastly: among the Persian andArabic writers the name regularly applied to the members of the Buddhistic religious orders is Bakshi, supposed to be a corruption of theSanscrit Bhikshu, "a mendicant", which is one of their orthodox appellations. This term is used by Polo (Baksi, see i , 24) , and by Ricold ofMontecroce, who calls them "Baxitæ, sc . quidam pontifices ydolorum, " onwhich his editor can only observe in rather a helpless manner, "Fortassehoc vocabulum cohæret cum Russico Bog, Deus" (Peregrinatores Quatuor,Lips. , 1864, p. 117). This last (Bakshi) is probably the word intended byOdoric.Whatever be the origin of the name it is not improbable that it wasbrought into the precise form presented, by a lodgment in the head ofOdoric or his scribes of the name of the Abassi Khaliffs, the Popes of theSaracens. Compare these two passages:Odoric."In this city dwelleth Lo ABASSI,i.e. in their tongue the Pope, theHead of all the Idolaters, and whohas the disposal of all their benefices," etc.Benjamin ofTudela (p. 95)."The Khalif Emir Al Mumenin ALABASSI ...... who is the chief of theMohammedan religion, and holdsthe same dignity over them whichthe Pope enjoys over the Christians."¹ The plaits of hair covered with pieces of turquoise, etc. , may be seenin most drawings of Tibetan women. The boar's tusks (if there be nomisapprehension) must be a rash generalization; though the disfigurement of the women in other respects by certain fashions that they haveadopted is noticed in strong terms by both old and recent travellers.There is a hideous figure of a goddess (Prasrinmo) , which is representedwith boar's tusks, and is very common in Tibet.But I suspect that the statement is an error of the scribe's. For thewomenin Tibet do commonly use boar's tusks as ornaments, both attachedto the head and hung round the neck. (Giorgi, Alph. Tibet. , p. 688;Voyages de Tavernier, (small edition) iv, 179; Journ. Asiat. , Ser. 2,iv, p. 247).2 Rubruquis says the people of Tibet used to eat their dead parents, buthad left off the practice. "But they still make fine goblets from theheads of their parents, that, as they drink from these, in the midst of theirjollity they may keep their kin in mind. This was told me by an eyewitness" (p. 289) . Carpini heard of the same custom pro certo (p. 658).And Giorgi thus describes the Tibetan funeral rites: "The naked corpse,being doubled up like an unborn infant in the womb, is tied in a sack andFRIAR ODORIC. 151pose such an one's father to die, then the son will say, "Idesire to pay respect to my father's memory"; and so hecalls together all the priests and monks and players in thecountry round, and likewise all the neighbours and kinsfolk.And they carry the body into the country with great rejoicings. And they have a great table in readiness, uponwhich the priests cut off the head, and then this is presentedto the son. And the son and all the company raise a chantand make many prayers for the dead. Then the priests cutthe whole of the body to pieces, and when they have done sothey go up again to the city with the whole company, praying for him as they go. After this the eagles and vulturescome down from the mountains and every one takes hismorsel and carries it away. Then all the company shoutcarried outside the walls, followed by crowds of monks and neighbours,to an enclosed field in which dogs are kept. There the sextons, or I shouldrather say the butchers, tear all the flesh from the bones and fling it tothe mastiffs to eat. They then either break the bones into small pieces,and give these also to the dogs, or they cast them entire into the river.The top part of the skull, or some other entire bones, well cleansed, aregiven to the family to take home and keep devoutly" (Alph. Tib. p. 444) .To much the same effect is the account in Father Hyacinth's translationof the Chinese Description of Tibet (Journ. As. , u.s., p. 254). These practices appear to be less common now in Tibet, but not extinct.Klaproth quotes passages showing a knowledge of this mode of disposingofthe dead from Strabo, Cicero's Tusculan Questions, and Justin. Straboalso ascribes to the Caspii the opinion that those whose bodies the birdsappropriated were blessed. Herodotus and Mela ascribe such practicesto the Issedonians and Scythians, Corpora ipsa laniata et cæsispecorum visceribus immista epulando consumunt. Capita ubi fabri expolivere auro vincta pro poculis gerunt" (Pomp. Mela, ii, 1) .66Whatever spice of exaggeration there may be in Odoric's narrative iseasily accounted for. Tibetan Buddhists deal much in dead men's bones.A trumpet of human thighbone is a common appendage of their devotees;whilst the representations of some of their divinities show goblets orcrowns of human skulls. Giorgi also mentions a symbolical performance,which consisted in dancing round the effigy of a boy. This in the courseof the dance was cloven open by a leading performer, who seized the heartand devoured it; the others followed, tearing limb from limb and alsodevouring. This, even if it were not a cannibal tradition, might easilyprovoke the charge of cannibalism . (Journ. Asiat. , u.s .; Schlagintweit'sBuddhism in Tibet, 269, 216; Alph. Tib. , 462) .152 THE TRAVELS OFaloud, saying “ Behold! the man is a saint! For the angelsof God come and carry him to Paradise." And in this waythe son deems himself to be honoured in no small degree,seeing that his father is borne off in this creditable mannerby the angels. And so he takes his father's head, andstraightway cooks it and eats it; and of the skull he maketha goblet, from which he and all of the family always drinkdevoutly to the memory of the deceased father. And theysay that by acting in this way they show their great respectfor their father. And many other preposterous and abominable customs have they.46. Of a rich man in Manzi, and how he was fed by fifty maidens.When I was still in the province of Manzi, I passed bythe foot of the palace wall of a certain burgess whose mannerof life is thus. He hath fifty damsels, virgins, who wait onhim continually; and when he goeth to dinner and takethhis seat at table the dishes are brought to him by fives andfives, those virgins carrying them in with singing of songsand the music of many kinds of instruments . And theyalso feed him as if he were a pet sparrow, putting the foodinto his mouth, singing before him continually until thosedishes be disposed of. Then other five dishes are broughtby other five maidens, with other songs and kinds of music,whilst the first maidens retire. And thus he leadeth his lifedaily until he shall have lived it out. Now this man hath arevenue of xxx tuman of tagars of rice. And each tuman isten thousand, and each tagar is the amount of a heavy assload. The court of the palace in which he dwells hath an1 There are some things in this quaint story which Odoric heard inMangi, resembling what Marco tells of the splendid effeminacy of thedethroned king of that country, The idea of being served only by a company of musical maidens was set forth not long ago in a novel by Mr.Peaco*ck as realized in an English country house. The description of thedemesne, and reference to hills of gold, etc. , reminds us of the accounts ofthe island called Kinshan or Golden Hill in the Yangtse Kiang.66 2 Taghár (Turk. and Pers.), a large sack, of which horsem*n carry aFRIAR ODORIC . 153extent of two miles; and the pavement thereof hath one tileof gold and another of silver in turn . And in the said courtthere is a hill made of gold and silver, upon which are erectedmonasteries and bell- towers, and the like [in miniature ] suchas men make for their amusem*nt. And ' tis said that therebe four men such as he in the realm of Manzi.Moreover ' tis the mark of gentility in that country tohave the nails long; and some let their thumb- nails grow tosuch an extent that they grow right round the hand. Andwith the women the great beauty is to have little feet; andfor this reason mothers are accustomed, as soon as girls areborn to them, to swathe their feet tightly so that they cannever grow in the least.¹47. Of the old man of the mountain, and his end.After I had left the lands of Prester John and was travelling towards the west, I came to a certain country which iscalled Millestorte, a fair and very fertile region. In thiscountry used to dwell a certain one who was called the OldMan of the Mountain.2 Between two of the mountains ofpair slung over the horse, to contain provender" (Meninski) . The taghar,according to Timkowsky, contains about four poods, or one hundred andforty pounds, of flour. Revenues continued to be estimated in China insacks of rice until lately, if they are not so still. In Burma they arealways estimated in baskets of rice.1 It is remarkable that neither of these well-known Chinese fashions ismentioned by Polo. That of the men letting their nails grow long appears to have been becoming obsolete in Duhalde's time; and I am notaware of any recent notice of it.2 This account of the Old Man of the Mountain ( Shaikh-ul-Jibal) andhis Paradise, is almost exactly the same as that given by Marco Polo.But it would be a mistake to suppose that it is therefore copied. Bothrelated the story in the popular form in which it spread over the East.The Mussulman account in Deguignes is substantially the same; so, according to Zurla, is another Arabic account translated in the Mines del'Orient. And an extract from a Chinese history, given by Klaproth, tellsthe same story. (Polo, ii, 18 and 19; Deguignes, i, 341; Zurla, Dissert. , etc. ,i, 276; Klap. Mem. Rel. à l'Asie, i, 171.)The sect in its original form was a branch of the Shíyas, which wascalled Ismaelian, from Ismail the eldest son of the fifth Imám, whom they154 THE TRAVELS OFthat region he had built a wall, and this he carried rightround one of the mountains. And inside this wall were themost delightful fountains of water, and beside them were setthe most charming virgins on the face of the earth, as wellas splendid horses and everything else that could be thoughtoffor the gratification of man's senses. Wine and milk alsowere made to flow there by certain conduits; and the placehad the name of Paradise. And when he found any youthof promise he caused him to be admitted to his Paradise .recognised as his father's successor in opposition to the mass of theShíyas. Their doctrine took the form of a sort of gnosticism, giving anon-natural sense to all revelation, from which they had the name alsoof Bathenians, from a word signifying " esoteric" . Hassan Sabah, sonof an Arab at Rai, one of their converts in Persia, put himself at thehead of the sect in that country, and about 1090 made himself master ofthe mountainous part of Irak Ajami immediately south of the Caspian.This region included many strong castles, and at one time the power ofhis successors extended to the gates of Ispahan. From its character thecountry was called by the Arabs Ballád-ul- Jibal, " the Hill Country", andhence the chief's title. This was also applied to the head of a branch society which had its seat in Syria and became well known to the Crusaders.The name of Assassin is now, I believe, generally allowed to be derivedfrom hashish, the drug under the influence of which the emissaries of thesociety acted. (D'Ohsson, book iv, ch. iv. )The Old Man of the Mountain seems to have made his way into respectable political society, for it is mentioned that the Emperor FredericII took occasion on the " Saracen Easter" (i.e., the termination of theirfast) to give a grand dinner to the ambassadors of the Sultan and of theVetulus de Montanis, at which many bishops and lords were present.Probably this, however, was the Syrian Old Man. (Hist. Diplom. Frid. II,iv, 370.)The Chinese author quoted by Klaproth calls the country of the ShaikhMulahi; Rubruquis, Polo, Benjamin of Tudela, and the Armenians callit Mulhet or Mulehet. These terms are from ( Arab. ) Muláhidah, "atheistsor impious persons", one of the names applied to the sect by the orthodox.The name given by Odoric, Melistorte, evidently contains the same ele- ment. Ifthe termination do not arise from some error, it may representsome such form as Malhadistán, “"The Land of the Heretics " . Waddingindeed mentions, after Bartholomew of Pisa, that the Franciscans hadseveral houses " in Great Tartary near Millescorte", which might bequoted to show that there was a region so called. But, in fact, Bartholomew is here only building on Odoric's own narrative and misunderstanding it. (Wadding, vii, 258.)FRIAR ODORIC. 155And then when he desired to cause any king or baron to beassassinated, or poignarded, he called on the officer who wasset over that paradise to select some one who was most fittedfor the business, and who most delighted in the life led inthat paradise of his. To this young man a certain potionwas given which immediately set him fast asleep, and so inhis sleep he was carried forth from that paradise. And whenhe awoke again, and found himself no longer in paradise, hewent into such a madness of grief that he knew not what hedid. And when he importuned that Old One of the Mountain to let him back again into paradise, the reply was:"Thither thou canst not return until thou shalt have slainsuch a king or baron. And then, whether thou live ordie, I will bring thee back into paradise again. " And sothrough the youth's great lust to get back into his paradise,he got murdered by his hand whomsoever he list. Andthus the fear of this Old One was upon all the kings of theeast, and they paid him heavy tribute. But when the Tartars had conquered nearly the whole of the east, they camealso to the land of that Old Man, and at last took his dominion from him. And when they had done this, he sent forthmany of his assassins from his paradise, and by their handscaused many Tartars to be assassinated and slain . Andwhen the Tartars saw this, they came to the city wherein theOld Man dwelt, and besieged it, and quitted it not untilthey took it and the Old Man also . Him they bound inchains, and caused to suffer a miserable death.48. How the friars deal with devils in Tartary.In those regions God Almighty hath bestowed such graceupon the Minor Friars that in Great Tartary they think it amere nothing to expel devils from the possessed, no moreindeed than to drive a dog out of the house. For there bemany in those parts possessed of the devil, both men andwomen, and these they bind and bring to our friars from as156 THE TRAVELS OFfar as ten days' journey off. The friars bid the demons depart forth instantly from the bodies of the possessed in thename of Jesus Christ, and they do depart immediately inobedience to this command. Then those who have been delivered from the demon straightway cause themselves to bebaptised; and the friars take their idols, which are made offelt, and carry them to the fire, whilst all the people of thecountry round assemble to see their neighbour's gods burnt.The friars, accordingly, cast the idols into the fire, but theyleap out again. And so the friars take holy water andsprinkle it upon the fire, and that straightway drives awaythe demon from the fire; and so the friars again casting theidols into the fire, they are consumed. And then the devilin the air raises a shout, saying: -" See then, see then, howI am expelled from my dwelling- place." And in this wayour friars baptise great numbers in that country.¹49. The Friar telleth of a certain valley wherein he saw terrible things.Another great and terrible thing I saw. For, as I wentthrough a certain valley2 which lieth by the River of Delights,I saw therein many dead corpses lying. And I heard also1 Wadding, in his account of Odoric, ascribes these performances toour traveller himself, which must have been from careless reading. Forthe felt idols of the Tartars see Rubruquis (pp. 223, 287) and Carpini(p. 618) .2 The account of the terrible valley is one of the most striking bits ofnarrative in Odoric's story. Whether its exaggeration be wilful, or theunconscious work of an excited imagination, it seems based on some realexperience or combination of experiences.The account of the sandy hill, on which he heard the sound of invisiblenakkaras or drums, strikingly recals the phenomenon of the Khwaja Regruwán, forty miles north of Kabul, near the foot of the Indian Caucasus.Burnes describes the sounds heard there as loud and hollow, very likethose of a large drum, whilst Sultan Baber speaks of the sounds of drumsand nagarets, the very instruments specified by Odoric. A still more aptcomparison is afforded by Captain Newbold's fuller account of the likephenomenon in the Sinai desert, at the sand hill known as Jibal Nákús,'the Hill of the Bell." Dr. Wallin also was told, in crossing a Wadi ofthe Sinai desert called Hamade, near Wadi Araba, that sometimes very"FRIAR ODORIC . 157therein sundry kinds of music, but chiefly nakers, whichstrange sounds, like those of kettle drums (nakkaras again) were heard torise from the earth, without any discoverable cause.The awful and gigantic face in the cliff by the valley side, might perhaps have been suggested by the great figures at Bamian in the same region as the Regruwan, or some like image. Burnes gives a formidable description of the valley north of Bamian; the precipitous sides of the defilerising to two thousand and three thousand feet, and so closely as in someplaces to exclude the midday sun. It is not unlikely that Odoric crossedHindu Kush on hisjourney from Tibet of which we have no particulars . Itwas through Badakshan that the Persian merchants used to go into Tibet(D'Ohsson, i, 272), and Badakshan would probably be entered and left byone of the passes of the Hindu Kush. It is just about this quarter that FraMauro's map places the Valle dita Fausta, ne la quale se vede e aldesse spiritie altre cose monstruose," etc. If we could trace what Odoric means by theFlumen Deliciarum, it might enable us to fix the locality better. The namemay be either a translation, or (more probably) a misapprehension of theamanuensis. Suppose that Odoric in dictating called it (as Ramusiodoes in his Italian version) Fiume di Piaceri, we might perhaps recognizein this the river PANCHSHIR, which the Reg Rawán immediately adjoins.And Wood tells us that the valley of Koh-Daman, into which the Panchshir debouches, is full of places to which superstitious legends attach.Moreover Baber tells us that the Pass of Panchshir was that by whichwere constantly made the inroads of the robbers of Kafiristan, who usedto slay great numbers of the people in the neighbourhood.The belief that wildernesses are haunted places is a very old and general one. Our blessed Lord himself in a very solemn passage adopts theJewish phraseology as to this matter (Luke xi, 24.) Pliny says that inthe deserts of Africa phantoms in human shape appear to travellers andimmediately vanish again (vii, 2) . But the belief is especially prevalentamong the nations of Central Asia. Bythem " deserts ......and the like,where nature shows herself in vast forms, and in all the terrors of her influences, are held to be the especial headquarters and rendezvous ofmalignant spirits ......hence the wildernesses of Turan, and particularlythe great sand-waste of Gobi, have from hoar antiquity had an evil fame"(Schmidt, p. 352) . The Turks have a saying that evil spirits play at ballin desert places; both Fahian and Marco Polo allude to the evil genii ofthe deserts of Central Asia, and Rubruquis tells of a frightful defile, wherethe demons were said to snatch travellers off their horses. The Afghansbelieve each of the numerous solitudes in the mountains and deserts oftheir country to be inhabited by a lonely demon, whom they call theGhodlee Beaban, or Spirit of the Waste; a gigantic and frightful spectrewhich devours passengers .In an interesting little book, The Romance of Travel, which has a chapter upon Odoric, the story of the dreadful valley is alleged to be still partof the staple of the professed story-teller in Turkey. The author alsorefers to gigantic rock-sculptures as one of the elements at the base of158 THE TRAVELS OFwere marvellously played upon. And so great was the noise.thereof that very great fear came upon me. Now, this valley is seven or eight miles long; and if any unbeliever entertherein he quitteth it never again, but perisheth incontinently. Yet I hesitated not to go in that I might see oncefor all what the matter was. And when I had gone in I sawthere, as I have said, such numbers of corpses as no onewithout seeing it could deem credible. And at one side ofthe valley, in the very rock, I beheld as it were the face ofa man very great and terrible, so very terrible indeed thatfor my exceeding great fear my spirit seemed to die in me.Wherefore I made the sign of the cross, and began continuallyto repeat Verbum caro factum, but I dared not at all tocome nigh that face, but kept at seven or eight paces fromit. And so I came at length to the other end of the valley,and there I ascended a hill of sand and looked around me.But nothing could I descry, only I still heard those nakersto play which were played so marvellously. And when Igot to the top of that hill I found there a great quantity ofsilver heaped up as it had been fishes' scales, and some ofthis I put into my bosom. But as I cared nought for it,and was at the same time in fear lest it should be a snare tohinder my escape, I cast it all down again to the ground.the story, and describes the awe which certain such images in the defilesof Asia Minor were calculated to impress.One would almost think that John Bunyan had been reading this bitof Odoric in Hakluyt's version when he wrote his account of Christian'spassage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. E.g., " This frightful sight was seen, and those dreadful noises were heard by him forseveral days together; and coming to a place where he thought he hearda company of fiends coming to meet him, he stopt and began to musewhat he had best do......but when they were come even almost at him hecried out with a most vehement voice, ' I will walk in the strength of theLord God;' so they gave back and came no further," etc. (Journ. R. A. S.,vii, p. 78-83; Burnes, ii, 174; Wood's Journey to the Oxus, pp. 180-182;Foe Koue Ki, p. 2; Rubruquis, p. 295; Polo, ii, 34; Macfarlane's Rom. ofTravel, 1846, ii, 22 and 70; Elphinstone's Caubul, 1839, i, 291; Erskine'sBaber, p. 145, 146.)FRIAR ODORIC. 159And so by God's grace I came forth scathless . Then all theSaracens, when they heard of this, showed me great worship, saying that I was a baptised and holy man. But thosewho had perished in that valley they said belonged to thedevil.¹50. Friar Odoric attesteth the truth of his story.I, Friar Odoric the Bohemian of Friuli, from a certaintown called Pordenone, of the Order of Minorites and theProvince of St. Anthony, do solemnly declare and attest tomy reverend father the Friar Guidotto, the Minister of theProvince aforesaid of St. Anthony in the March of Treviso,in accordance with my vow of obedience and the injunctionwhich he hath laid upon me, that all these things hereinbefore written I either beheld with mine own eyes or heardfrom men worthy of credit. And as for such things as Isaw not myself, the common talk of those countries bearethwitness to their truth. And many things I have left out andhave not caused to be written lest they should be deemedtoo hard for belief by such as have not seen them with theirown eyes. But, as for me, from day to day I prepare myself to return to those countries in which I am content todie, if so it pleaseth Him from whom all good things docome.Now, all the things hereinbefore contained were faithfullytaken down in writing by Friar William of Solagna,³ just asthe aforenamed Friar Odoric the Bohemian uttered them,1 Here the scribe of the Palatine MS. inserts " Finita la diceria diFrate Oderico. Deo Grazias!" An end of Friar Odoric's long stories at last.2 I have here placed this attestation as it is in the FARSETTI and BOLLANDIST versions. No one MS. has the whole of the matter from this tothe end arranged exactly as here, but it is, I believe, the original arrangement, and the only one admitting of the introduction of the postscriptsofboth William of Solagna and Marchesino of Bassano.3 The position of the name-place of this friar appears to have causedsome considerable amount of writing to the Italian critics. It seems tobe settled that Solagna is a village on the Brenta, near Bassano. (NuovaRaccolta d'Opuscoli, etc., Venezia, 1794, vol . xxv, art. 9.)160 THE TRAVELS OFin the year of the Lord M.CCC.XXX, in the month of May, andat the house of St. Anthony in Padua. Nor did he troublehimself to adorn the matter with difficult Latin and conceitsof style, but just as the other told his story so Friar Williamwrote it, so that all may understand the more easily what istold herein .51. Friar Marchesino of Bassano addeth his say; and telleth apretty passage that he heard of Odoric.2I, Friar Marchesino of Bassano, ¹ of the Order of Minorites, desire to say that I heard the preceding relations fromthe aforesaid Friar Odoric when he was still living; and Iheard a good deal more which he has not set down. Amongother stories which he told, this was one:-He related thatonce upon a time, when the Great Khan was on his journeyfrom Sandu to Cambalech, he ( Friar Odoric) , with four otherMinor Friars, was sitting under the shade of a tree by theside of the road along which the Khan was about to pass .And one of the brethren was a bishop . So when the Khanbegan to draw near, the bishop put on his episcopal robesand took a cross and fastened it to the end of a staff, so asto raise it aloft; and then those four began to chaunt withloud voices the hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus! And thenthe Great Khan hearing the sound thereof, asked what itmeant? And those four barons who go beside him repliedthat it was four of the Frank Rabbans (i.e., of the Christian.monks) . So the Khan called them to him, and the bishopthereupon taking the cross from the staff presented it to theKhan to kiss. Now at the time he was lying down, but assoon as he saw the cross he sat up and doffing the cap that he ,1 I take this from FAR. and BOLL. The story as told by Marchesinoin their versions is more simple and genuine than as related in the othermanuscripts.2 This may have been the venerable John of Monte Corvino, or one ofhis suffragans appointed in 1312. The Khan was almost certainly Yesontimur, called by the Chinese Taiting, a great-grandson of Kublai, whor*igned from 1323 to 1328.FRIAR ODORIC. 161wore, kissed the cross in the most reverent and humble manner. Now, the rule and custom of that court is that no oneshall venture to come into the Khan's presence empty- handed.So Friar Odoric, having with him a small dish full of apples,presented that as their offering to the Great Khan. And hetook two of the apples, and ate a piece of one of them whilsthe kept the other in his hand, and so he went his way.Now, it is clear enough from this that the Khan himselfhad some savour of our Catholic faith, as he well mightthrough the Minor Friars who dwell at his court continually.And as for that cap which he doffed so reverently before thecross, I have heard Friar Odoric say that it was a mass ofpearls and gems, and was worth more than the whole Marchof Treviso.¹52. The blessed end of Friar Odoric.Now, the blessed man Odoric,2 after he had come backfrom foreign parts to his own province, to wit, the March ofTreviso, became desirous of visiting the Supreme Pontiff, inorder to obtain leave from him to take away with him againa body of fifty friars, no matter from what province, provided they had the will to go. So he departed from Friuli,1 FAR. here has the following nonsense, which is so great a falling offfrom the preceding pretty anecdote that I will not introduce it into thetext: " Also I heard another thing from him. For he said that onceevery year the Great Khan sends one of his Tartars to the Soldan ofBabylon, who receives him with great fear. And on an appointed day,the Soldan takes his place on one bank of a small stream, whilst theTartar takes his on the other bank, with a bow bent in his hand, and astrongly poisoned arrow fixed therein. The Soldan takes his place withhis knees bent and his hands clasped; he hath nought on his head,and nought on his back but a shirt. And the Tartar after giving him agreat deal of harsh language calleth on him three times, saying: ' Confessthen that thou hast thy life at the hand of the Great Khan, and that thouart his slave! And the Soldan in great fear answereth that it is even so.And if he did not the other would incontinently slay him. Now this theKhan causeth to be done in token of his power; and I think it ought notto be let pass into oblivion."This is from FAR. , comparing BOLL.11162 THE TRAVELS OF FRIAR ODORIC .the district of his birth. But when he got to Pisa he wasseized with a sore illness which forced him to return to hisown province. And so it was that in Udine, a city of Friuli,in the year of the Lord's Incarnation M.CCC.XXXI, and the daybefore the Ides of January, he passed triumphantly from thisworld to the glories of the blessed. And his virtues andmiraculous powers have been there most brilliantly displayed .For through his means the blind, the lame, the dumb, thedeaf, are, by the Lord's permission, made perfectly whole.Glory to God, Amen!II.LETTERS AND REPORTS OF MISSIONARYFRIARS FROM CATHAY AND INDIA.11 2

II.LETTERS AND REPORTS OF MISSIONARYFRIARS FROM CATHAY AND INDIA.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.THE two first letters in this part of our collection are from thepen of John of Monte Corvino, the founder of those Catholic missions in China which enjoyed so much apparent prosperity duringthe continuance of the Mongol dynasty, and also the first Archbishop of Cambalec or Peking. They are transcribed by Wadding from an old chronicle which he assigns to Odoric of Pordenone, erroneously as we have seen.¹The third document also, I believe, for reasons which will begiven, to contain a letter from the same ecclesiastic, of earlierdate than the two preceding.The birth of this John is fixed to about the year 1247, by anincidental allusion in the first of these letters. The place of hisbirth is doubtful, as the honour has been claimed by two townsor villages of the name; one in the Capitanata near Lucera, andthe other about fifteen miles east of Salerno in the PrincipatoCitra.2The first mention of him that I have found is on the occasion1 Ante, p. 17.2 Wadding (vi, p. 94) mentions the double claim . The former villageis marked in Murray's Map as Pietra Montecorvine, about twenty-two miles west of Foggia.166 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .of his being sent in 1272, already a Franciscan, by the EmperorMichael Palæologus to Pope Gregory X, with a communicationon the subject of that union of the Greek Church with Rome,which the Emperor, in his own supposed interest, professed topromote, though his efforts ended only in his being excommunicated by one of Gregory's successors, and denied Christian burialby his own.John was sent back to the east with several companions, probably soon afterwards, and appears to have remained abroad till1289, when he returned to the Papal Court bringing intelligenceof the wide reception of the Faith in Western Asia, and of thedesire of the princes and people for the preaching of the Word,the favourable dispositions of Argun, the reigning Khan of theHouse of Hulagu, ¹ being especially eulogised. The Pope thoughtit well to send back to the field of labour with additional aid amissionary so experienced as John now was, giving him letters ofcommendation to Argun, to the King and Queen of ( Lesser)Armenia, to the Patriarch of the Jacobites and Bishop of Tauris,and also to the great Kublai himself, and to Kublai's rival, Kaiduof Turkestan.John remained at Tabriz till 1291, and then proceeded to thefar east in order to fulfil his mission to Kublai, travelling by theway of India as he tells us in the first of the following letters. Itis not likely that he reached Cambalec in the lifetime of the oldKhan, who died in the beginning of 1294, for voyages were slow,and he stayed long at St. Thomas's and other places on the coastof Maabar or Coromandel.2It will be well here to say something of the third letter in the1 Reigned 1284-1291 .2 A party of friars had already been dispatched in April 1278 by PopeNicholas III on a mission to Cathay and with a very long letter from thePope to Kublai Khan, who was then alleged to have been baptised . Heisaddressed "Quolibey, Magnus Cham, Imperator et Moderator Omnium Tar- tarorum Illustris." The members of the mission were Gerard of Prato,Antony of Parma, John of St. Agatha, Andrew of Florence, and Matthew of Arezzo, all Minorites . There seems to be no further knowledge ofthem. The words of John of Montecorvino in the first of his letters seemto make it pretty certain that they did not reach Cambalec. ( See Mosheim,p. 68, and Append. , Nos. xxii, xxiii. )INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 167collection, which purports to be written from that coast. This isderived from a MS. in the Laurentian Library, of which I foundthe indication in Quétif's Script. Ord. Prædicatorum . The transcriber Friar Menentillus of Spoleto, in sending a copy or abstractof this letter to gratify the curiosity of an inquiring friend, informs him that it was written by a certain Franciscan missionaryproceeding to the court of the Sovereign of all India, and who hadbeenin company with their friend and brother Dominican Nicholasof Pistoia, when the latter died in India. Now we knowfrom oneof Montecorvino's authenticated letters that he was the Franciscanwho was in company with Nicholas of Pistoia, when he died atSt. Thomas's, or the modern Madras. And moreover this verydocument which we have here in an anonymous form is quotedas "a letter of Friar John the Cordelier, " or Franciscan, by a contemporary author, the celebrated physician and reputed sorcererPeter of Abano.2 The document itself as given by Friar Menentillus is none of the most lucid , and reads like a translation by anot very intelligent person, rather than like a transcript of theoriginal.Besides these letters of Montecorvino's already spoken of,Wadding has handed down the fragment of another, written onQuinquagesima Sunday, 1306 ( 13th February) . In this Johnmentions that a solemn deputation had come to him from a cer1 The original, which is in quaint Italian, was published by ProfessorKunstmann of Munich, in Münchner Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1855, Nos. 21 and22, and I am indebted to his kindness for a copy which I had failedto procure otherwise. There is also a brief notice by the same author inone ofhis papers already referred to. (Phillips and Görres, Bd. 37, p. 26-7.)Before I obtained the papers from Professor Kunstmann I had got atranscript of the MS. from Florence, from which the translation wasmade. I have now been able to correct some passages of this by comparison with Professor Kunstmann's edition.2 << Moreover, almost quite recently hath Friar John the Cordelierwritten a letter respecting the inhabitants of the climate in questionfrom the territory of Mohabar in India, in the coast where lieth the bodyof the Apostle Thomas. And in this he saith that you find it ever summer and never simmer (semper æstas et non æstus) , because there be continually breezes which moderate the heat"-and so on, quoting severalperiods out of this very letter. (Petri Aponensis, etc., Conciliator. , Venet.,1521 , f. 97; see note on Introductory Notices of Marignolli, infra.)168 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .tain part of Ethiopia, begging him to go or to send preachersthither, for they had had no preachers since the time of St. Matthew the Evangelist, etc., ( see below at the end of John's secondletter this fragment in full) .¹This is a singular circ*mstance, and difficult to elucidate, evensupposing that the deputation consisted only of some whom accident or trade had brought to such a centre of attraction as Cambalec. For even this is so improbable that I think we may adoptthe suggestion of Professor Kunstmann that this fragment isreally only the end of John's second letter from Cambalec, fromwhich it had been accidentally separated. The date, which isabsent in the second letter, fits in perfectly, and as it will be seenthat in the end of that letter the writer was recurring to his experiences in Southern India, we should then see that he is speaking of the Ethiopian party as having visited him in that country,and not in China. There is an old legend that St. Matthewpreached in Ethiopia, which is referred to Nubia by Ludolf, as theAbyssinians have no tradition ofhis visiting them.3 Onthe whole,however, perhaps no place to which the name of Ethiopia could beapplied is more likely to have been the country ofthese people thanSocotra, an island in which the traces of a debased Christianitystill faintly lingered in the 17th century.1 Wadding under 1307, § vi .2 Kunstmann in Phillips and Görres, Bd. 37, p. 236.3 The monk Burchard in the middle of the thirteenth century alsospeaks of Ethiopia quæ hodie Nubia dicitur as the field of St. Matthew'spreaching.This is suggested by Assemanni (p. 516) .The Christianity of the people of Socotra is mentioned by the Arabvoyagers edited by Renaudot and again by Reinaud. That work allegesthat Socotra was colonised with Greeks by Alexander the Great in orderto promote the cultivation of the Socotrine aloes, and that after the advent of our Lord, when the other Greeks had embraced Christianity, thesecolonists also adopted it, and had retained the profession till that day (theninth century) . Edrisi tells the same story. Marco Polo tells us thatthe people of Socotra, though greatly addicted to incantations, were baptised Christians and had an Archbishop subject to a patriarch at Bagdad.The next notice of the subject that I am aware of is found among thecurious extracts given by Quétif from a MS. in the Colbertian library, ofwhich some account will be given further on. The author, writingabout 1330, seems to speak of Socotra in the following extract: -" AsINTRODUCTORY NOTICES . 169The letter in question was brought home from Tartary by FriarThomas of Tolentino, who had already for some years beenyou proceed further to the south there is a certain island in theIndian Ocean of considerable size, where the people use both circumcisionand baptism. And if it were but more pertinent to our subject it wouldbe a very curious story to tell about that island, how I got there, as wellas about the circ*mstances ofthe people, their manners and mode of living,their customs and laws and strange system of government." That theSocotran Christians practised circumcision is alleged also by Maffei, inhis Indian History, in noticing the transactions of Albuquerque at Socotra, and this with others of their practices leads him to connect them distinctly with the Abyssinian church in which a kind of circumcision iswell known to have been maintained. They had sunk into an almostsavage state; but retained the practice of annual fasts, daily prayers(which he alleges were in Hebrew?) , and veneration for the cross, whichthey all wore round the neck. Marco Polo perhaps considered them asNestorians, and this also is asserted by Nicolo Conti, who spent twomonths on the island in the first half of the fifteenth century. In thebeginning of the sixteenth Barbosa speaks of their nominal profession of Christianity as still maintained, though in great ignorance andwithout baptism. That some faint traces of their former Christianitylingered even to the middle of the seventeenth century we learn from theTravels of Father Vincenzo Maria, who was sent from Rome in that ageto reconcile the differences of the Malabar Christians with the Romanhierarchy, a work containing many interesting particulars, and whichmight be worth the attention of the Hakluyt Society were it not solengthy. He says the people still retained a Christian profession, thoughhaving no true knowledge of the faith. They had in his day but a jumbleof doctrines and observances; worshipping and sacrificing to the moon;circumcising, abominating wine and pork. They had churches which theycalled Moquame [ Ar. Maqám locus, statio ] , dark, low, and dirty, the wallsofwhich they anointed daily with butter. On the altar they had a cross,and one candle in a candlestick. For the cross they retained a singularbut ignorant reverence, carrying it in their processions. Three times inthe day and three times in the night they were assembled in theirchurches by the striking on a piece of timber in lieu of a bell, and in theirworship burned much incense and fragrant wood. The priests were calledOdambo, were elected and consecrated by the people, and were changedevery year. They dressed like the rest of the people, being distinguishedonly by a cross full of eyes, upon the breast. These priests were also thejudges of the people. There was a fast of sixty days observed annually,beginning with the new moon of April, during which they abstained frommeat, milk, and fish, eating only raw vegetables and dried dates. Ofbaptism and the other sacraments they had lost all knowledge, and theirmarriages were very lax. There were two apparently distinct races onthe island, one of negroes with crisp hair; the other less black, of betteraspect, and with straight hair;-the first living on dates, butter, and170 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .preaching among the heathen in Asia; and the reports which hemade at the Papal Court of John's great devotion and successprobably led to the creation of the metropolitan see of Cambalecin the latter's favour.This seems to have taken place in the spring of 1307, ¹ and wasaccompanied or immediately followed by the appointment of sevenother Franciscans to be suffragan Bishops under the new metropolitan. The powers conferred on the Archbishop were unusuallyample, empowering him to rule like a Patriarch over all bishopsand prelates of those parts, subject only to his recognition of thesuperiority of the Roman see, and to the reception of the palliumfrom it by himself and his successors.The suffragan bishops thus nominated for Cathay were Gerard,Peregrine of Castello, Andrew of Perugia, Reader in Theology,Nicholas of Bantra or of Apulia, Minister (in the order) of theProvince of St. Francis, Andrutius of Assisi, Ulrich Sayfustordt,flesh; the others on fish. All used sour milk. They never shaved anypart ofthe body, so many of them looked like absolute satyrs (compare inPhotii Bibliotheca the notice from the Embassies of Nonnosus of a remoteisland in the Indian Sea inhabited by black hairy dwarfs who lived onfish and shell- fish) . They had no houses, but lived in caves and holes.Their only art was that of weaving a coarse camlet of goat's hair. Theycultivated a few palms and kept flocks; had no money, no writing, keptcount of their flocks by bags of stones. Each family had a cave in whichthey deposited their dead without covering the bodies. They often putthemselves to death when old or sick or vanquished. They had no remedies for disease except the aloe. When rain failed they selected avictim by lot and placing him within a circle addressed their prayers to themoon, and if without success they cut off the poor wretch's hands. Theyhad many who practised sorcery, and being very shy of communicationwith strangers, shut themselves out from better knowledge. The womenwere all called Maria, which the author regarded as one of the relics oftheir Christianity. The mountains abounded in wild hogs, wild asses,and partridges. The whole account is very curious. (Anciennes Relations,etc., of Renaudot, p. 113; Jaubert's Edrisi, i, 47; Maffei, Hist. Indic. ,lib. iii; Ludolf, Comment. , p. 268; Quétif, Scriptores Ord. Præd. , p. 573;Livro de Duarte Barbosa, p. 252; Marco Polo, ii, 34; India in the FifteenthCentury, Conti, p. 20; Viaggio all' Indie Orientali del P. F. Vincenzo Maria,etc., Roma, 1672, pp. 132 and 442.)1 Only a fragment without date remains of the bull of appointment.But the letter nominating William de Villa Nova to be one of the Suffragans is dated from Poitiers, 1st May, 1307. (Wadding, vi, pp. 93, 147.)INTRODUCTORY NOTICES . 171and William of Villeneuve. Of these, as we learn from the fourthletter in the present collection, only Gerard Peregrine and Andrewever reached their destination. They consecrated the Archbishop,and in course of time all three in succession officiated as Bishopsat Zaiton. The next three in the list were killed by their firstexperience of Indian climate, and William either never started ordid not prosecute his journey, for he certainly did not reachCathay, and sixteen years later he is found holding episcopaloffice in Europe.According to a story related by Wadding, the Emperor thenreigning in Cambalec, and his mother, were eventually convertedand baptized by John. Shortly afterwards the Khan died, andwas buried with imperial solemnity in the Convent church. Whenthe troubles broke out thirty (fifty? ) years later, and the friarshad to quit Cathay, they removed this imperial body with themto Saray, and when taken up it was found all fresh as when justburied. If the story of conversion were true the Emperor inquestion would probably be Ayur Balibatra, grandsonof Kublai,who died in 1311. But unfortunately there was scarcely a singleKhan of the dynasty regarding whose conversion some story didnot reach Europe; all probably alike baseless.3In 1312 the same Pope Clement nominated three more bishopsto serve under John of Montecorvino, by name Thomas, Jerome,and Peter of Florence. This last we hear of, in the Book of theGreat Caan, as presiding over one of the convents in Zaiton, whilstAndrew of Perugia ruled the other.And this appears to be the latest notice bearing upon the history1 There are some differences in regard to this list of bishops amongthe annalists. It is not worth while to go into detail, and I have followedthe list adopted by Dr. Kunstmann.2 Nominated to the diocese of Sagone in Corsica in 1323, and translatedin 1328 to Trieste, where his tomb existed in the seventeenth century.(Ughelli, Italia Sacra, quoted by Mosheim, p . 98.) A certain Tuscan saintessis said to have prognosticated from the face of one of the bishops that hewould not persevere in his mission. (Mosheim, ib. )3 Misled by such stories in relation to the Persian branch of the MongolHouse, Edward II writes to Oljaïtu proposing that they should unite todestroy the abominable sect of the Mahomedans; -the Khan himself belonging to the said sect. (Rymer, quoted by D'Ohsson, iv, 592-4. )Wadding, vi, p. 184.172 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS.of this venerable man's life, excepting the anecdote related byOdoric, and what can be gathered out of the letter of BishopAndrew given below.John died, aged upwards of eighty years, sometime about theyear 1328, as we gather from a letter addressed to the Pope bycertain christians of Cathay, which will be quoted in anothersection of this book. Pagans as well as Christians followed himto the grave with demonstrations of the deepest grief and veneration.3 No character so worthy of respect, except Benedict Goësin later days, appears among the ecclesiastical travellers withwhom our subject brings us into contact.He appears to have been not only the first, but the last effectiveArchbishop of Cambalec. In 1333, after the news of John's deathhad reached Avignon, one Friar Nicholas was appointed to theSee, and was sent forth accompanied by twenty friars and sixlaymen. But it is not known what became of the party. Theirarrival at Almalig and civil treatment there were heard of, butnothing beyond; there is no indication of their having everreached the Court of Cathay.The mission of John de' Marignolli and his companions succeeded, but there was no bishop at Cambalec in their time. Sometime before 1370 a certain Cosmas had been appointed, for wefind that in that year he was transferred from the see of Cambalec to that of Saray, and Friar William of Prato (Du Prè?)named in his place. Probably the Pope was not aware of therevolution which had recently ejected the Mongol family, and hecould not be aware of its full effect on European intercourse.Gulielmus Pratensis and the friars who followed him are heardof no more.A list embracing several other Archbishops or Bishops ofCambalec is indeed to be found in Le Quien's Oriens Christianus.Some ofthese it is probable were in fact prelates titularly named¹ Ante, p. 160. 2 See Introductory Notices of Marignolli.3 See the Livre du Grant Caan, infra.4 See a letter from Pope Benedict XII to the Khan of Chagatai, thanking him for his good reception of Nicholas. (Mosheim, p . 111, and App.No. lxxix. )5 Mosheim, p. 120.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 173to the see, though not approaching it within thousands of miles,but others were certainly bishops of a different diocese, which hasbeen confounded with that of Cambalec.¹There is a curious notice of the proceedings and success ofJohn of Montecorvino to be found in the chronicle of John ofWinterthur, a Suabian Minorite, who finished his annals aboutthe middle of the century. After mentioning the death of thefriars at Tana in India, he goes on to say that a few years beforethat event, a certain Franciscan of Lower Germany had set outon a pilgrimage of evangelisation, and had written a letter to thechief of the Northern Vicariate, which the chronicler had seen,and in which a detailed account was given of the traveller's proceedings. The substance of this letter is then recited, and wefind it to be in fact the same as that of the first letter of JohnMontecorvino from Cambalec, though his name is never mentionedbut all is supposed to relate to the acts and sufferings of the LowGerman friar. Professor Kunstmann³ identifies this person withthat Friar Arnold of Cologne whom Montecorvino mentions ashaving joined him about the year 1303-4 . It is possible that thisArnold is in some way connected with the mistake, but it seemspretty certain that what the chronicler had seen was merely acopy of Montecorvino's letter. There are one or two slight circ*mstances in the chronicle which are not mentioned in that letterbut they look very like such amplifications as would be naturalin such a case.John in the first of these letters makes interesting mention ofa certain King George of the family of Prester John. ThisGeorge is mentioned by Marco Polo as exercising a secondarysovereignty in Tenduc, the position of which has been explainedin a note on Odoric (p. 146) . Marco also names the same Georgeas one of the generals of Kublai's army in a great battle withKaidu, the Khan's inveterate rival. This seems the most suit1 Le Quien, iii, coll. 1346-1356. This see, as Prof. Kunstmann pointsout, is that of Cembalo in the Crimea ( I presume the Symbolōn Limen ofStrabo), and now famous under the name of Balaklava.2 In Eccard, Corpus Historicum , etc., i, coll. 1895-7. Winterthur is inthe modern Swiss canton Zurich.3 Phillips and Görres, xliii, 677. 4 Marco Polo, ii, 50, iii, 44.174 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .able place to introduce some account of the personage whosename of Prester John is so constantly recurring in the narrativesof that age.The first notice of a potentate so styled appears to have beenbrought to Europe by the Syrian Bishop of Gabala who came in1145 as envoy from the King of Armenia to Pope Eugene III.For he reported that not long before a certain John, inhabitingthe extreme east, king and Nestorian priest, and claiming descentfrom the three wise kings, had made war on the King of theMedes and Persians, and had taken Ecbatana his capital. Hewas then proceeding with his army to Jerusalem, but was stoppedby the Tigris which he could not cross, etc. We shall see hereafter what facts appear to lie at the bottom of these rumours of aconquering christian prince in Central Asia in the first half of thetwelfth century. But the Nestorians probably were glad to catchat a story which raised the importance of their sect, whilstthe Catholics also greeted with joy this intelligence of a counterpoise to the Mahomedan power rising in a quarter so unexpected.1 "Vidimus etiam ibi tunc prætaxatum de Syria Gabulensem episcopum .... Narrabat etiam quod ante non multos annos Joannes quidam(qui ultra Persidem et Armeniam in extremo oriente habitans, rex etsacerdos, cum gente suâ Christianus est sed Nestorianus) Persarum etMedorum reges fratres Samiardos dictos, bello petierit, atque Ecbatani... sedem regni eorum expugnaverit. Cui dum præfati reges cum Persarum Medorum et Assyriorum copiis occurrerent, triduo utrisque morimagis quam fugere volentibus dimicatum est, PRESBYTER JOANNES (sicenim eum nominare solent) tandem versis in fugam Persis, cruentissimâcæde victor extitit . Post hanc victoriam dicebat prædictum Joannem adauxilium Hierosolymitanæ Ecclesiæ procinctum movisse, sed dum adTygrim venisset, ibique nullo vehiculo traducere exercitum potuisset, adseptentrionalem plagam, ubi eundem amnem hyemali glacie congelarididicerat, iter flexisse. Ibi dum per aliquot annos moratus gelu expectaret, sed minime hoc impediente aeris temperie obtineret, multos ex insueto cœlo de exercitu amittens, ad propria redire compulsus est. Ferturenim iste de antiquâ progenie illorum, quorum in Evangelio mentio fit,esse Magorum, eisdemque quibus et isti gentibus imperans, tantâ gloriâet abundantiâ frui, ut non nisi sceptro smaragdino uti dicatur. Patrumitaque suorum, qui in cunabulis Christum adorare venerunt, accensusexemplo, Hierosolymam iter proposuerat, sed prætaxata causa impeditumfuisse asserunt. Sed hæc hactenus. "-Ottonis Frisingensis Chronicon, lib.vii, cap. 33, in Germanic. Historic. Illust. etc., Christiani Urstisii Basiliensis,Francofurdi, 1585.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 175The reports of Prester John's power, opulence, and sanctity expanded without limit, and letters were circulated throughoutEurope, and survive in many continental libraries, which he wasalleged to have addressed to the Emperor of the East and otherChristian princes. In these his great power and glory werevaunted with the most extravagant details; India and the tombof St. Thomas being always claimed as a prominent part of hisdominions. Large extracts from such a letter may be seen inAssemanni, and a translation has been given by Mr. Layard.¹By the circulation of these letters, glaring forgeries and fictionsas they are, the idea of this great Christian conqueror was plantedin the mind of the European nations, and twined itself roundevery rumour of revolution in further Asia that penetrated toEurope. Even when the noise of the real conquests of Chinghizbegan to make itself audible in the west, he was invested withthe character of a Christian king, and more or less confoundedwith the mysterious Prester John.2 After this delusion was dispelled and the diffusion of the Mongol power had opened up theeast, travellers naturally sought traces of the vast monarchy ofwhich Europe for a century past had heard so much, but withinvariable disappointment. Eventually the Chief of the Keraitetribe of Tartars became identified as the representative of PresterJohn, but a portion of the facts which combined with so muchfable to form the legend have another source.3Assemanni, p. 488-493; Layard's Nineveh, i, 250.2 See Eccard, Corpus Historic. , ii , 1451, “ Relatio de Davide Rege Tartarorum Christiano." The name Prester John does not, I think, occurin this, but the idea seems to be there.3 There is a letter in the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius , quotedfrom the Chronicle of Roger Hoveden, addressed, in 1177, from Veniceby Pope Alexander to “ Carissimo in Christo filio illustri et magnifico Indorum regi, sacerdotum sanctissimo. " The Pope recites how he had heardfrom his beloved son, Master Philip the physician, about the king's piousdesire to have instruction in Catholic doctrine, etc., and to possess achurch in Rome and an altar in Jerusalem. He found it too difficult, onaccount of the length and obstructions of the way, to send any onea latere, but he would despatch the said Philip to communicate instruction to him. It is not stated that Philip had actually been to the king'scourt, but only that he had heard of his majesty's pious desires from conversation with honourable persons of his kingdom, whom the physician176 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .Plano Carpini, the first traveller to Mongolia whose narrativewe have, says nothing of Prester John. Rubruquis, a few yearslater, goes into considerable detail on the subject.¹"At the time, " he says, " when the Franks took Antioch the sovereignty in these regions of Northern Asia was held by a certainCoir-Khan. Coir was his proper name, Cham his title, the wordhaving the meaning of soothsayer, which is applied to theirprinces, because they govern the people by means of divination.And we read in the history of Antioch that the Turks sent forsuccour against the Franks to King Coir- Cham; for all the Turkscame originally from those parts of the world. Now this Coirwas of Cara Catay: Cara meaning Black, and Catay being the nameof a nation, so that Cara Catay is as much as to say the BlackCathayans. And they were so called to distinguish them fromthe proper Cathayans, who dwell upon the ocean in the far east,of whom I shall tell you something hereafter. But these (Black)had met with in those parts (in partibus illis) . Baronius refers this to"the King of the Indians, vulgarly called Pretejanni, reigning far andwide over Ethiopia," and supposes it possible that the church possessedin his own time by the Abyssinians, at the back of the apse of St. Peter's ,might have been granted on this occasion. The commentator, Pagius,rejects this, and considers the king to have been Prester John of Asia.But I suspect that Baronius is right, and that the King of Abyssiniais in question. The illis partibus is vague, and may refer to Egypt or toPalestine, where Doctor Philip might well have met with Abyssinianpilgrims . There is no mention of the term Prester John in the documentit*elf; and the application of that title to the Abyssinian king was probably a good deal later than this, though earlier than has generally beensupposed, as will appear hereafter (Annal. Eccles. , Lucæ, 1746, vol. xix,p. 450) ..A letter given by Matthew Paris, which was written from the HolyLand, in 1237, by Philip, Prior of the Dominicans there, speaks of theheads of the various sects of oriental Christians; and among others, ofone who was over all the Nestorians in the east, and whose prelacy extended over India the Greater, and the kingdom Sacerdotis Johannis, andother realms still nearer the sun rising. Here it is, doubtless, the Asiaticpotentate who is spoken of (Rerum Angliæ Scriptores, etc. , Francofurti,1601 , p. 301) .1 Page 259 et seq.2 The old " medicine men" of the Tartars, before the introduction ofBuddhism, were really called Kams ( Qámán of the Persian writers, seeD'Ohsson, i, 17, and also between 429 and 435) . But I do not suppose thereis any connexion between Khán or Qán and this Kam.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 177Cathayans inhabited certain mountain pastures ( Alpes) which Ipassed through; and in a certain plain among those mountainsdwelt a certain Nestorian who was a mighty shepherd, and lordover the people called Naiman, who were Nestorian Christians .And when Coir Chan died that Nestorian raised himself to beKing (in his place) , and the Nestorians used to call him KingJohn, and to tell things of him ten times in excess of the truth.For this is the way of the Nestorians who come from those partsof the world; out of a mere nothing they will spin the most wonderful stories, just as they have spread all about that Sartach isa christian, and have told the same of Mangu Cham, and of KenCham; the fact being merely that they treat Christians withmore respect than other folk, but all the while are not christiansa bit. However in this way great tales went forth about this KingJohn; though even when I passed over the lands that had beenhis pasture grounds nobody knew anything about him except afew Nestorians. Those pastures are now occupied by Ken Cham,whose court was visited by Friar Andrew, and I passed that waymyself on myjourney back. Now this John had a brother, whowas also a great pastoral chief, whose name was Unc, and hedwelt on the other side of those Alps of Caracatay, some threeweeks' journey distant from his brother, being the lord of a certain little town called CARACORUM, and ruling over a people calledCrit and Merkit. These people were also Nestorian Christians,but their lord had abandoned Christianity and had taken toidolatry, keeping about him those priests of the idols who are alladdicted to sorcery and invocation of demons. Beyond his pastures again, some ten or fifteen days, were the pastures of theMoal, a very poor tribe without any captain, and without anyreligion except soothsaying and sorceries, such as are followed byall the people in those parts. Next to the Moal again was anotherpoor tribe called Tartar. Now King John being dead withoutleaving an heir, his brother Unc was brought in and caused himself to be called Cham, and his flocks and herds were spread aboutThe Kerit or Kerait, and the Merkit, two of the great tribes of Mongolia.? The Mongols.3 The tribe of Tartars proper dwelt to the eastward, near Lake Buyar.12178 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .even to the borders of the Moal. And at this time there was acertain Chingis a blacksmith among the tribe of Moal, and hetook to lifting the cattle of Unc Cham whenever he had a chance,so that great complaints were made by the herdsmen of Unc Chamto their lord. So Unc got together an army and made a raidinto the land of the Moal denouncing Chingis, and the latter fledinto the land of the Tartars and hid himself there, " etc.In this passage we have the two sources of the story of PresterJohn, to which we have alluded, mixed up together, as will beseen by a short statement of the histories referred to.The empire of Kara Khitai was founded by a prince of theKhitan dynasty of Leao, who escaped with a body of followersfrom Northern China, on the overthrow of that dynasty by theKin in the beginning of the twelfth century. This chief, calledby the Chinese Yeliu Tashi, and by Rashideddin, Fushi Taifu,was well received by the Uigurs, and some others of the tribeswest of the desert who had been subject to the Khitan empire.Gathering an army, he commenced a course of conquests whicheventually extended over the whole of Eastern and WesternTurkestan, including Khwarizm. In 1125 he took the title ofGur- Khan, or Universal Khan, fixing his residence at BelaSagun, and establishing the Buddhist faith, to which he adhered,as dominant in this new empire, which was known as KaraKhitai. A son and grandson successively occupied the throneafter him; and the latter was still reigning in 1208, when theson of the last Khan of the Christian tribe of Naimans soughtand found shelter at the court of Kara Khitai, and received thedaughter of the Gur- Khan in marriage. But he formed a plotto displace his benefactor, and was eventually successful in capturing him, and in mastering a large part of his dominions: heabandoned Christianity for Buddhism at the persuasion of hiswife, and eventually was attacked by the Mongols under Chinghizin 1218, and slain in the mountains of Badakshan.¹Here we see not only the source of a part of the story ofRubruquis, the domination of Coir Cham (the Gur- Khan) overKara Khitai, and the usurpation of the chief of the Naiman1 D'Ohsson, i, 163, seq.; 441, seq.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 179tribe of Nestorians in his place, but also the probable original ofthe stories of the conquering lord, brought to Europe by theBishop of Gabala not many years after the first Gur- Khan hadoverrun Turkestan to the borders of Persia. This Gur- Khan wasindeed a Buddhist, and not a Christian; but we shall have occasionto note hereafter the constant confusions of rumour between thetwo religions as they existed in Eastern Asia. The source of theother part of Rubruquis's story, and that which in the latterpart of the thirteenth century had superseded the memory oftheGur-Khan in connexion with the legends of Prester John, requires the recapitulation of a different history.The Nestorians, in the centuries succeeding the condemnationof their doctrine in the Roman empire, had sought to penetrateeastward. Their success may be gathered from their old establishment in India and in China, and from the long list of theirmetropolitan sees in the middle of the thirteenth century, embracing the regions from Armenia and the Persian Gulf in thewest to Tangut and Cambalec in the east.¹It is related by the Christian historian, Gregory Abulfaragius,that between 1001 and 1012 the patriarch of Baghdad receiveda letter from the metropolitan of Merw, in Khorasan, which related the miraculous conversion of the King of KERITH, a sovereign living far to the north-east, in the interior of the land ofthe Turks, who had sent to Merw to demand a Christian priest,and 200,000 of whose subjects were ready to follow him to1 These Metropolitan sees were as follow. 1. Of Elamitis or of Jandishapur (Khuzistan). 2. Nisibis . 3. Perath Mesenæ (Basrah). 4.Assyria and Adiabene (Mosul and Arbela). 5. Beth Garma or Beth Seleucia and Carcha in Assyria. 5. Halavan or Halaha (Zohab on confinesof Assyria and Media) 7. Persia or of Urumiah, Salmasa and Van. 8.Marw, or Khorasan. 9. Hara or Heriunitis, i.e. Herat. 10. Razichitis,or Arabia and Cotroba ( said to be an island in the Sea of Oman) . 11. Of the Sina ( China). 12. Of India. 13. Of Armenia. 14. Of Syria orDamascus. 15. Adherbijan. 16. Of Rai and Tabaristan. (Rai, an ancientcity of which vast traces exist near Tehran) . 17. Dailam, south of theCaspian. 18. Samarkand. 19. Cashgar. 20. Balkh. 21. Segestan (Seistán).22. Hamadan. 23. Khanbaleg (Peking) . 24. Tanchet (Tangut or N. W.China) . 25. Chasemgarah and Nuachet. (These seem to be Indian names,Hassan- or Kasimghar and Nyakot? but I do not know where.) SeeAssemanni, p. 630, and the list as given by Layard in his Nineveh, i, 257.122180 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .baptism. The patriarch gave the needful orders for the despatchof priests and teachers. The Christianity of the Keraits, as atribe, is also attested by Rashid- eddin, the Mahomedan historianof the Mongols.23The seat of these Keraits lay originally about the sources ofthe Amur; but on being invaded by the Khitan in the ninthcentury, a large body of them took refuge in the mountainsnorth of the Hoang Ho, called Inshan, and there became powerful, spreading across the river into the territory called in ourmaps the Ortu country; the region so occupied by them onboth banks being, as we have seen , the Tenduc of Marco Polo.Here they lived on good terms with their neighbours of the adjoining empire. The connexion between these people in Tenduc,or Tathoung, and those of their tribe who had remained northof the desert, appears to have heen maintained or renewed;but the light on this point is not very distinct. Certainly, however, we find that the chief of the Keraits in the time of Chinghiz and his father occupied the country about Kara Korum;whilst it is seen from Marco Polo that Tenduc was a part of thesame chief's dominions. Tribes of Keraite lineage are found tothis day in the country which Polo called Tenduc.The chief of the Kerait just alluded to is he who is introduced as Unc Cham in the second part of the story of Rubruquis, and whom Marco Polo, whilst giving him the same name,identifies with Prester John. His proper name is called Tuli bythe Chinese, and Togrul by the Persian historians, the name ofUnc being a corruption of the Chinese title Wang, or King,which had been conferred on him by the Kin sovereign ofNorthern China, after which he called himself Wang- Khan.The circ*mstance mentioned by Rubruquis of his having abandoned Christianity, does not appear to be alluded to by theeastern writers; but one would rather hope that it was true, forhis career does no credit to Christianity. He at first obtainedthe sovereignty of the Keraits by the murder of two of his1 So says Assemanni, pp. 484, 485. But I cannot find the story in Poco*cke's Abulfaragius.2 Quoted by St. Martin, Mémoires sur l'Arménie, ii, 280.3 See note on Odoric, p. 146.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 181brothers and several nephews. His father's brother, Gur- Khanby name (and here we have probably the origin of a part of theconfusions of Rubruquis) , who had taken refuge with the Naimans, got the chief of that tribe to take arms in his favour, andsucceeded in displacing Tuli-Wang- Khan. The latter fled forhelp to Yessugai, the father of Chinghiz, who gave it so effectually that Tuli was again restored to his dominions. After areign of many years, however, he was again ejected, and reducedto a destitute condition. Hearing, by- and- by, of the rising influence of Temugin, afterwards called Chinghiz Khan, the son of hisold friend, he visited him, was received in the most cordial manner,and was treated with the greatest consideration and liberality.This was in 1196. For some years the two chiefs conductedtheir raids in alliance, but differences sprang up between them;the son of Wang- Khan entered into a plot to kill Temugin, andin 1202-3 they were in open war with one another. In the latteryear, Temugin completely defeated the old Kerait in a battlefought between the Tuli and Kerulan rivers; and the vanquishedchief as he fled through the Naiman country, was slain by twoof that tribe. This Potente, as Marco Polo calls him, it is whom thattraveller identifies with Prester John, and in this Polo is followedby Montecorvino and Odoric. The idea must have been derivedfrom the oriental Christians; for the title of Malik Yuhana(King John) is applied expressly by Abulfaragius to the sameTuli-Wang- Khan. But we have seen that the name reachedEurope more than a century before that chief's time.¹There seems to have been discovered no corroboration fromoriental sources of the restoration of a measure of power anddignity to the descendants of the Kerait king who had wrongedChinghiz so grievously. But for this Marco's authority mightwell suffice, even were it not so fully confirmed by Montecorvino.Much ingenuity has been expended by learned men to littlepurpose in devising an origin for the name of Prester John.1 Poco*cke's Abulfaragius, p. 280; and for the preceding paragraphssee D'Ohsson, i, 48-83; Klaproth in Journ. Asiat. , ser. i, tom. ix, 299-306,Pauthier, Le Pays de Tanduc et les Descendants du Prêtre Jean, Paris, 1862;Ritter, vol. ii, pp. 253-295; and especially D'Avezac in his introduction toCarpini.182 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .The John alone has been derived from the Chinese title Wang,or has been connected with the old legends of the immortality ofJohn the Evangelist. Prester John has been interpreted as acorruption of Firishtaján, Paraster Khan, Presbyter Cohen, andwhat not, down to the Pedro Juan, and Preto Joam, or BlackJohn, which the Portuguese applied to the king of Abyssinia,and the Pretiosus Joannes, with which one of the Popes actuallyaddressed that potentate.The history of the transfer of the name to the King of Abyssinia, as the phantom conqueror of Central Asia faded into thinair, would too much lengthen this digression. It is sufficient toremark that though this transfer is usually referred, as by Ludolf,to the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese began to get acquainted with the quasi- Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, there isproof in this collection that the name was applied to the Africanmonarch already in the first half of the fourteenth century.¹1 See Marignolli in this collection . Friar Jordanus had already, according to my understanding of him, placed Prester John in Africa. Inthe middle of the next century Fra Mauro expressly identifies him withthe King of Abyssinia. In connection with this subject I may notice thata critic in the Spectator ( April 2nd, 1864, p. 397) blames me for referringin a note on this passage of Jordanus to the remarks of D'Avezac onPrester John "as if they supported my views, " whilst, he says, on turning to those remarks he found they did just the contrary.The implied censure has no ground. I did not refer to D'Avezac'sEssay as supporting any views, but as containing a comprehensive "dis- sertation on Prester John and the confusions which transferred a Christian prince of Central Asia to Central Africa," and this it certainly doescontain. Incidentally D'Avezac indicates the view that the India Tertiaof Jordanus is somewhere in Asia or in the far East, and not in Africa asI assumed. But this affects nothing in the reference to him. That theIndia Tertia and Ethiopia of Jordanus were both in Africa as a matter offact is plain, whatever the friar's own notions as to their whereaboutsmight be. India Tertia is the country of rhinoceroses, civet- cats, hornedadders, true negroes, ambergris, and zebras; that is to say it is in Africa.Between India Tertia and India Major (i.e. , India proper) also lay theMale and Female Islands, which we know from Polo were believed to lie between Persia and Africa, and from Conti to adjoin Socotra. TheEthiopia again of Jordanus is no Asiatic region, but simply Abyssinia.It adjoins India Tertia; its emperor rules over more than fifty kings, ac- cording to the old fable regarding the king of Abyssinia (see Ludolf, bk.ii, c. 18, § 1 , and Suppt. , p. 15); its people are all Christians but heretics;and its king, according to another old legend, received a large tributeINTRODUCTORY NOTICES . 183The fourth letter in the present section, written in 1326, isfrom the pen of ANDREW OF PERUGIA, Bishop of Zaiton, the lastsurvivor of the six bishops sent out twenty years before by PopeClement. Like the first two letters it is derived by Waddingfrom the chronicle which he ascribed to Odoric, now preservedin the Imperial Library at Paris. The impression which theletter gives of Bishop Andrew is not quite a favourable one, andit is plain that he did not pull well with Archbishop John. Ihave elsewhere suggested the possibility that this bishop mighthave been that Andrew the Frank who came to Pope Benedictin 1338 as the head of the Great Khan's embassy. Even anaged man might have been tempted to revisit the Latin world.before he died, and Andrew need not have been a very aged manin 1338.We hear of but one successor to Andrew as Bishop of Zaiton,and of him only his death. Under 1362 Wadding records that" Friar James of Florence, Archbishop of Zaiton, and Friar William the Campanian, two Minorites, were slain as Christian confessors in the empire of the Medes. "3from the Sultan of Egypt (as a bribe not to stop the Nile; see note onMarignolli, infra) . I may add that Friar Burchard the Dominican,nearly a century before Jordanus, knows Ethiopia as including Nubia (seeabove, p. 168) .It is very probable that the application of the name of India to a partof Africa connected itself with geographical notions alluded to by theReviewer, of which there are indications in Ptolemy and Marcianus ofHeraclea, and more plainly in Edrisi, and according to which Africa ranfar to the East, and so as to meet, or nearly to meet, the coast of S. E.Asia. Even in Fra Mauro's map the African coast trends considerablyeastward from the Red Sea (see cut in Marignolli, infra) . But I believethe India Minor, India Major, and India Tertia of Jordanus will be found to answer pretty closely to the SIND, HIND, and ZINJ of the Arabs, andthat these names are the origin of the three Indias.1 Wadding, vii, p. 53. There is an Andrew of Perugia mentioned by Quétif as writing against the Emperor Lewis in 1330. But even if hewere not a Dominican (which Quétif is not sure of) it is most improbablethat this should have been our Andrew come back from the East. (Quét.and Echard, p. 567.)2 See introduction to Marignolli.3 See this expression (Empire of the Medes) explained in a note on theseventh letter below.184 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .The next letters are those of FRIAR JORDANUS the Dominican,the author of the Mirabilia, of which a translation was publishedby the HAKLUYT SOCIETY in 1863. There are a few remarks tomake in addition to what was said of Jordanus in the preface tothat translation.We have nothing to guide us as to the age of Jordanus at thetime of his appointment to be Bishop in India. But it is justpossible that we trace the journey of his party to the East asearly as 1302, when Thomas of Tolentino took out with him toAsia twelve friars, of whom it is reported incidentally that theyproceeded first to Negropont, and afterwards to Thebes. Now,it is obvious from the second and third pages of the Mirabiliathat this was precisely the route followed by Jordanus, and as itseems a somewhat peculiar one the coincidence is worthy of note.The company doubtless was chiefly composed of Franciscans,but so was that party with which he went to India.¹One of the letters translated here appears perhaps to implythat Jordanus had been to Columbum before his landing at Tanawith the Franciscans. And it seems to me certain that he wrotethe Mirabilia before he went out again as bishop. His appointment to that office appears to have taken place in 1328, ³ thoughhe did not leave Europe till 1330, and as the heading of the booksets forth his episcopal designation, it is probable that he noteddown the Mirabilia in the interval between those two dates.That he had been at Columbum before he was made bishop isconfirmed by the following circ*mstance. Among the Ecclesiastical Records, besides the Pope's letter to the Christians of thatplace there is another in like terms commending the new bishop"to the whole body of Christian people dwelling in Molephatam. "1 Wadding, vii, p. 11 .Loca sunt tria ubi Fratres multum fructificare poterunt et communitervivere, quas ego scio: et unus est Supera ... et alter est in contracta de Parocco...et alter Columbus. " This is the only place I know in which the lattername appears in the nominative case, so that it would seemingly havebeen more correct to call it Columbus than Columbum as I have done,following the French editor of the Mirabilia.8 Bzovii Annal. Ecclesiast. , Coloniæ, 1618, tom. xiv, col. 531.4 Odoric. Raynaldi Annales Ecelesiast. , 1330, lv. Molephatam (Malifatan) is mentioned by the historian Rashideddin as one of the cities ofINTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 185Now, this kingdom is mentioned by no one else that we know ofexcept Jordanus himself in his Mirabilia, where he spells thename precisely as in the Pope's letter, a very unusual agreementwhen Asiatic names are in question. Hence, to me it seems certain that the information which led the Pope to write to Molephatam was given by Jordanus himself, and derived from his personal knowledge.Indications of date, though slight, may also be gathered fromthe book. In it (p. 54) he speaks of Elchigaday as the reigningsovereign of the second Tartar ( or Chagatai) empire. Ilchikdaïbecame Khan in 1321, and the date of his death is not given.Some of the histories, indeed, put the death of his successor in1327, but this is certainly inaccurate as will be shown below.Still, as that successor ( Tarmashirin Khan) appears to have hada reign of some length and certainly was dethroned about 1334at latest, it seems pretty clear that Ilchikdaï must have been deadlong before Jordanus could have returned from exercising hisepiscopate in India. Hence he must have written his workbefore he went on that mission.Before the printing of the Mirabilia the name of Jordanuswas known, from his connexion with the friars put to death atTana, but it was not known of what country he was. Hence thePortuguese claimed him as a countryman, and the PortugueseHagiologist Cardoso declares that Jordanus himselfwas eventuallya martyr to the faith, but with no particulars or evidence. ' It isnot known that he ever reached Columbum as bishop; we onlyknow that there is no mention of him or any other bishop onMarignolli's visit twenty years later.I have taken the opportunity of inserting at the end of theseremarks a few additional notes to the Mirabilia of Jordanus, incorrection of my own mistakes or in further illustration of theauthor's text.The last letter is one from PASCAL, a young Spanish Franciscanon a mission to Tartary, written in August 1338 from Almalig,Ma'abar, in a passage quoted at the end of the third letter in this collec- tion1 Kunstman in Phillips and Görres, xxxvii, p. 152.186 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS .the capital of the Khans of Turkestan or Chagatai. It describeshis proceedings from his quitting his convent at Vittoria in Spainto his arrival at Almalig, and shows a burning zeal for his work,which had the consummation which he seems almost to have anticipated, in the martyrdom which befel him together with several of his brethren, probably within less than a year from the dateof this letter.1The letter is derived from Wadding, who also relates the storyof the martyrdom. Its circ*mstances are likewise briefly told byJohn de' Marignolli, who was at Almalig the year after they occurred. And another reference to the story, of earlier date perhaps than the composition of Marignolli's book, is found in Johnof Winterthur's chronicle. The narrative is given most fullyby one of the Franciscan hagiologists, Bartholomew of Pisa, whowrote later in the same century, and his account, with whichWadding's is nearly identical, runs as follows:3"In the Vicariat of Cathay or Tartary, in the city of Armalecin the Middle Empire of Tartary, in the year 1340 , the followingMinorites suffered for the faith- viz. , Friar Richard the Bishopof Armalec, Friar Francis of Alessandria, Friar Pascal of Spain,Friar Raymond of Provence; these four were priests; also FriarLawrence of Alessandria, and Friar Peter of Provence, both laybrethren, and Master John of India, a black man, belongingto the third order of St. Francis, who had been converted by ourfriars. All these had been very well treated in that empire bythe emperor then on the throne. Indeed, he had been cured ofa cancer by Friar Francis of Alessandria (more by prayer thanby physic) , and on this account the emperor used to call FriarFrancis his father and physician. And so it came to pass that hebestowed upon the brethren lands and privileges and full authorityto preach, and even made over to them his own son, then sevenyears of age, to be baptised; and so he was accordingly, by the1 Compare note on Marignolli, with the remarks on that traveller'schronology in the introductory notice. The data appear to fix the deathof the friars to 1339, whilst the time of year assigned by the ecclesiasticalwriters (midsummer) would be probably correct.2 Eccard, Corpus Histor. , i, col. 1877-78.³ Barthol. Pisan. , De Conformitate, etc. (as above, p. 5) f. lxxx ver.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 187name of John. But by the permission of God, the emperor himself, on his way to a hunting match, was taken off by poison, andhis four sons also were put to death. Then the empire was seizedby a certain villain of a falconer, a Saracen of the blood-royal,whose name was Alisolda . And as the brethren by their preaching had made many converts to the faith, this new emperorordered that all the Christians should be made Saracens, andthat whosoever should disobey the third order to this effectshould be put to death. And so when the brethren aforesaidwould not obey this order they were bound and all tied to onerope which was dragged along by the infuriated mob, who smoteand spat upon them, stabbed and slashed them, cutting off theirnoses and ears, and otherwise mutilating them, till at length theyfell by the sword and made a blessed migration to the Lord."But the aforesaid emperor before long was himself slain, andhis house destroyed by fire. Now, these brethren suffered in theyear before mentioned, about the Feast of St. John Baptist,and whilst Gerard Odo was General of the Order. "23It is impossible to reconcile the revolutions of government, asstated in this ecclesiastical story, with the chronology of theChagatai empire as given by Deguignes. But the latter admitsthe dates of succession to be very uncertain, and there seemssome ground for believing that the Franciscan statements aresubstantially correct.1? Falcherius.2 There is a little discrepancy in the list of friars. Wadding omitsRaymond, and adds that William of Modena, a Genoese merchant, movedby their example, also suffered with constancy. Marignolli omits Raymond, calls Lawrence of Ancona, and gives Gilott as the name of the merchant.The appointment of a bishop to Armalec seems to have escaped thenotice of the annalists, nor is any other besides this Richard named byLe Quien in Oriens Christianus. He may have been sent in 1328, whenJohn XXII is stated to have despatched bishops of the two orders withpriests to various Asiatic states, including Khorasan and Turkestan.(Wadding, vii, 88.) But it is pretty clear that Pope Benedict himself didnot know anything of the bishop, for in a letter to two ministers of theKhan of Chagatai, who were Christians, he praises their beneficence"cuidam Episcopo de Ord. Frat. Min . in civitate Armalech deputato."Mosheim, App., p. 177.)3 Deguignes, i, p. 286; and iv, p. 311 .188 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS.According to the lists of Deguignes Tarmeshirin Khan, thefirst Mussulman Khan of Chagatai, was dethroned in 1327 byhis brother Butan Khan; Butan again was dethroned by Zenkshior Jinkshi; he by his brother Yesuntimur; and he again by ALISULTAN of the descendants of Okkodai, who in 1332 was succeededby Kazan, who reigned till 1346.Again, in the narrative which is given in Astley's collectionfrom Abulghazi and others, the succession of the princes is thesame, but Tarmeshirin Khan dies in 1336, and no other date isgiven except the death of Kazan in 1348.If the dates in Deguignes be correct, the Ali- Sultan of the history certainly cannot be the Alisolda of the Franciscans. Theother statement has nothing inconsistent with this identificationwhich so obviously suggests itself. Now, the first dates are certainly incorrect; for Ibn Batuta visited Tarmeshirin Khan notmany months before he entered India, and that was in the end of1333. About two years later, he tells us, he heard of the dethronement of Tarmeshirin by his cousin Buzan Oglu (Butan Khan? ) . ¹This would place the event about 1334-5. Ibn Batuta also tellsus that this Buzan was an unjust sovereign who persecuted Islam,and allowed the Jews and Christians to rebuild their temples, etc.This looks very like a counterpart, from the Mussulman point ofview, of the favourable character given by the missionaries of thesovereign who patronised them.There is, however, a letter written in 1338, from Pope Benedict XII to the Khan of Chagatai, thanking him for his kindnessto the Christians in his territory, and especially to ArchbishopNicholas when on his way to Cambalec.2 And another letter tothe ministers of the Khan, already quoted, speaks of their havinggranted a piece of land to the mission to build a church on, etc.Now, this Khan is called in the Pope's letter Chansi, which seemsto identify him with the Jinkshi of the historical lists; whilst thecirc*mstances mentioned seem to identify him with the Khan1 There are some curious difficulties attending the chronology of IbnBatuta'sjourney, but though their solution might throwthe dates in question later, I believe it could not throw them earlier.2 Mosheim, App. , p . 175.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 189whose kindness to the mission is commemorated in the martyrology, and who would thus appear to be Jinkshi rather thanButan. As Nicholas was named Archbishop late in 1333, thedate of his being at Almalig was probably 1335 or 1336. Thereis, under these circ*mstances, nothing inconsistent with the revolt and success of Ali Sultan taking place in 1338 or 1339, orwith his being slain soon afterwards, as the ecclesiastical storytells; though there remain some minor discrepancies.It may be added that we have the positive statement of FriarPascal in the letter here translated, that when he arrived on thefrontiers of Chagatai, the emperor thereof had lately been slainby his natural brother. The letter is dated August 10th, 1338,and the event in question, which might have occurred from halfa year to a year earlier, must have been, it seems to me, the dethronement of Jinkshi by Yesontimur. We shall then have thedata afforded by Ibn Batuta, the Pope's letter, the ecclesiasticalstory of the martyrdom, and Pascal's own letter, all quite consistent with one another, though all inconsistent with the accepted historians. The succession of sovereigns will then run:-Ilchikdai dies probably aboutTarmeshirin Khan dethroned by ButanButanJinkshiYesuntimurAli Sultan...1327.1334."" by Jinkshi 1335.99 by Yesuntimur, 1337.99 by Ali Sultan, 1338-9.by Kazan 1339-40.And this Kazan was no doubt reigning when Marignolli was sowell treated at Almalig.¹Another piece inserted in this part of our collection is a shortaccount of "The Estate and Governance of the Grand Caan”(ie., of the Empire of Cathay under the Mongols) , which waswritten in Latin by a certain Archbishop of Soltania under instructions from Pope John XXII. I have not been able to hearof a copy of this Latin original, but at an early date the work wasdone into French by that diligent Long John of Yprès whowrought so largely in that way, and seems to be the true prototype of all the Ramusios, Hakluyts, and Purchases. Of this1 See Marignolli, infra.190 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS.translation two copies exist in the Bibliothèque Impériale,¹ andone did exist formerly in the Cottonian collection . This Frenchversion was printed at Paris in 1529, and subsequently, as mentioned in the bibliography relating to Odoric, but I have notseen it.³ It was again printed from the MS. by M. Jacquet inthe second series of the Journal Asiatique (vi, pp. 57-72) , andfrom that impression I have translated .The names of several Archbishops of Soltania have been preserved, and as this work fixes its own date approximately as between the death of John Montecorvino, which it alludes to asrecent, and that of Pope John, it must have been written about1330, and therefore almost certainly by JOHN DE CORA, nominatedto the see of Soltania by that Pope in the beginning of the yearjust mentioned (or somewhat earlier) . It does not seem possibleto determine from the text whether the author had himself beenin Cathay, or only compiled from the reports and letters ofothers.*This Archbishop John, a Dominican, was perhaps also, as LeQuien has suggested, the author of a curious work described inQuétif's Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, as existing in the Colbertian library, which was presented to the French king, Philip1 In MSS. Nos. 7500 and 8392. See the list of MSS. of Odoric, supra,p. 34.2 Supra, p. 35.3 I cannot find the work in the Br. Mus. Catalogue.4 Cora, this John's name place, is a town of the Roman Campagna sixmiles from Villetri. M. d'Avezac says that the reference to Montecorvino'sfuneral implies the author's presence at it, but there appears to be a difference in the readings . The passage as given in Jacquet's publicationin the J. A. runs thus:"Cilz Arceuesques comme il plot a Dieu est nouuellement trespassezde ce siècle. A son obseque et à son sepulture vinrent tres grant multitude de gens crestiens et de paiens, et desciroient ces paiens leurs robesde dueil," etc. M. D'Avezac's quotation, which appears to be taken fromthe work as printed in 1529, has vis instead of vinrent.5 Quétifand Echard, pp. 571-4. It is entitled, " Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum editum per quemdam fratrem ordinis Prædicatorum scribentem experta et visa pocius quam audita, quod dirigitur serenissimo Domino Philippo Regi Francorum, comtatum anno Dni millesimo ccco trigesimo." There is a MS. of the same work in Magdalen College Library at Oxford.INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 191of Valois in 1330, and in which are discussed the various waysby which an army might be conducted to the Holy Land, howthe Byzantine Empire might be reconquered by the Latins, andits church subjected to Rome, how the Turks might be subdued,&c. Various passages quoted by Quétif from this work showthat the author was in Persia already in 1308, and had more thantwenty-four years' experience of residence among the infidels;that he had been a great labourer in the reconciliation of theArmenians to Rome; that he had seen armies of almost all thenations of the east go forth to war; that he had visited an islandof the Indian sea, which appears to have been Socotra; and thathe had been present with Don Martin Zacharia, the GenoeseCaptain of Chios, in some of his victories over the Turks.2 Therank of the author as Archbishop in the East is gathered byQuétiffrom the records of the French council, in which the proposals made in this work were discussed, vii Kal. August. 1330.D'Avezac indeed says that the work in question was written byFr. Burchard, the author of a celebrated description of the HolyLand, and informs us that this is stated in a French translation ofthe work, executed for the Duke of Burgundy in 1457, as well asin the catalogue of the Colbert MSS. drawn up by Baluze in theend of the seventeenth century. But there is certainly some mistake here, as Burchard or Brocard the Dominican, who wrotethe Descriptio Terra Sanctæ, went to the Holy Land in 1232, acentury before the date to which the Directorium described byQuétif most assuredly belongs. It is curious that so accurateand accomplished a writer as M. D'Avezac should have overlookedthis .1 See supra, p. 168.2 See Jordanus, p. 56, and additional notes to Jordanus, infra.192ADDITIONAL NOTES AND CORRECTIONS ΤΟTHE TRANSLATION OF THE MIRABILIA OFFRIAR JORDANUS.(HAK. Soc. 1863) .Preface, p . iv. The MS. of Jordanus is stated by a reviewerin the Spectator to be now in the British Museum.Page vii. Bishop of Semiscat. Prof. Kunstmann takes thisplace for Meshid, but we are both wrong. M. Coquebert- Montbret, the French editor, was right in identifying it with Samarkand, though the identification did not seem probable in absence of reasons alleged . But it is clear, from reading therecords in reference to this appointment in Wadding or Mosheim,that Samarkand is meant. The bishop in question, Thomas ofMancasola, is commended by the Pope to Elchigaday, Emperorof Turquestan, in whose territories he had been previously labouring, and was now promoted to a bishopric in civitate Semiscantensi, as it is written in one place, no doubt, correctly. For welearn from Clavijo that Samarkand was also called Cimesquinte.It is called Siemisekan also in old Chinese annals, which is, perhaps, an indication of the same form (Deguignes, iv, 49) .Page ix. Chronicle in the Vatican. The doubts as to thischronicle being written by our Jordanus are confirmed by a reference to Muratori ( Antiq. Ital. Medii Ævi, vol. iv, p. 949 etseq.) , who gives a number of extracts, and states the author'sapparent interests to be Venetian and Franciscan.Page xiv. Note referring to Conti. Being compelled to finishthis preface in great haste, I made a mistake here, for whichapology is due to Mr. Major. In the travels, as published in hisIndia in the Fifteenth Century, the first name is Peudefitania,which Mr. Major explains as " Durmapatnam, near Tellicherry";the second is Buffetania, which he explains as " Burdwan"; I believe, however, that the two names represent the same place,and I do not admit that either could mean Burdwan.ADDITIONAL NOTES AND CORRECTIONS , ETC.In the same note, for Baranási read Baránasí.193Page xvii. My surmise as to the reading of the first wordsof Jordanus is " emphatically wrong," a critic says, in the Spector; and I believe he is " emphatically" right.Text. Pages 4, 5. The Catholic Archbishop, Zachary by name.This personage, Zachary Archbishop of St. Thaddeus, is congratulated by Pope John XXII on his reconciliation and zeal forthe Catholic faith, in a letter dated in November, 1321. St.Thaddeus was a celebrated convent immediately south of Ararat(Od. Raynaldi Annales Eccl. , sub an. 1321 vi; Jour. Asiat. , ser.v, tom. xi, 446 ).Page 6. The tomb of Hulagu. Hulagu not only did build acastle, called Tala, on an island in the lake, in which were deposited his treasures; but he was himself buried there, and muchgold, etc., cast into the tomb with him. His successor, Abaka,was also buried there (D'Ohsson, iv, 257, 406-7, 538) .Page 7. Lake where Ten Thousand Martyrs were crucified, etc.This lake is not Sevan, north of Ararat, but the great lake ofVan, south of the mountain. The great city called Semur mustbe ancient Van, called by the Armenians Shamirama Kerta (thecity of Semiramis). There are vast remains. And six milesfrom Van is a monastery on a hill called Varac, where they relate that ten thousand martyrs were crucified, as Jordanus says.Another authority, however, speaks of their being crucified onMount Ararat, " under Adrian and Antoninus Pius, " and beingvalorous soldiers who refused to sacrifice . They are said to becelebrated in one of the sermons of Ephraim Syrus ( St. Martin,in Journ. As., ser. ii, tom. v, 161; Viaggi Orient. del P. Filippo,Venice, 1667, p. 1089; Breve Desc. dello Stato della Christianita,etc., nell' Armenia, per il R. P. Domenico Gravina, Roma, 1615,p. 38).Page 10. Pix, dico seu Pegua. There is rather a wild question in the note on this last word. I suppose now that it is aform of pegola, old Italian for pitch."Tal non per fuoco ma per divina arteBollia laggiuso una pegola spessa."Dante, Inf. , xxi , 16.13194 ADDITIONAL NOTES AND CORRECTIONSThe wordpegola is applied to the same thing, viz. the mineral pitchof Persia, by Cesar Frederic in Ramusio ( iii , 386 v. , ed. of 1606) .Page 12. Risis autem comeditur atque Sagina in aquâ tantummodo cocta. This is mistranslated; it should be " Rice, however,and millet are eaten merely boiled in water. " Saggina in Italyis the tall Asiatic millet, or sorghum, which in India we call jowar.The common dictionaries, with their usual imbecility, explain it,some as Turkey- wheat, some as buck- wheat, some as both!Page 13. Pliny's Pala and Ariena, the Jack. Ritter strangelyassumes these to be the banana. " Humboldt," he says, " writes,that many Indians ( of S. America) make their meal with a verylittle manioc and three bananas of the larger kind. Still lesssatisfied the Indian Brahmans, for one fruit of that kind wasenough for four." And he refers to the above- cited passage inPliny. Here the great geographer is all abroad. Four Brahmans would be as ill -pleased to dine off one plantain of thelargest kind known in India, as four Germans off one potato .The only feature suggesting the plantain in Pliny's description.is the greatness of the leaves; but the form (three cubits bytwo) is quite different, and the great leaves were probably suggested bythe great fruit; also the production of dysentery bythe fruit, which Pliny mentions, is entirely foreign to the plantain.Page 18. The Rhinoceros in Western India. The following references will show that the rhinoceros was in Sindh and thePunjab, at least as late as Jordanus's time, and in Peshawurprovince two hundred years later (Ibn Batuta, iii, 100; Baber,pp. 292, 316; Journ. Asiat. , ser. i , tom. ix, 201; Petis de la Croix,Timur, p. 158) .Page 24. Alleged Hindu Theism. On this subject GasparoBalbi says, that we must not assume that idol stands for Godwith those heathen, perchè questa gente credono anch'essi che vi siaun Dio che regge e governa la machina di questo mondo; ma adorano l'idolo come noi adoriamo nelle imagini quello che si rappresentano" (p. 68) .Page 30. Island of naked folk. The Carta Catalana exhibitsthis east of Java (which is there also called Jana ) , with the title"Insula nudorum in quâ homines et mulieres portant unumfolium ante et retro alium. "TO THE MIRABILIA OF FRIAR JORDANUS . 195Page 34. A star of great size, etc., called Canopus. Baber, ondescribing his first invasion of Cabul, and his passage of theIndian Caucasus, says: " Till this time, I had never seen the starSoheil (Canopus); but on reaching the top of a hill, Soheil appeared below, bright to the south. I said, 'This cannot beSoheil!' They answered, ' It is, indeed, Soheil!' Baki Cheghaniani recited the following verses:' O Soheil! how far dost thou shine, and where dost thou rise?Thine eye is an omen of good fortune to him on whom it falls!'Page 37. Even the Devil, too, speaketh to men, etc.certain, I can affirm, that oftentimes the Devil dothووBaber, p. 133." This, forcry with anaudible voice in the night: ' tis very shrill, almost like the barkingof a dog. This I have often heard myself, but never heard thathe did anybody any harm" (Robert Knox's Hist. Rel. of the Islandof Ceylon, p. 78; see also Campbell's Excursions, etc. , i, 311 ) .Page 40. Note. On Fandaraina and Singuyli, see note toOdoric (p. 75).Page 45. Fifty-two kings under the Lord of Ethiopia. On thenumerous tributaries ascribed to the " Emperor of Ethiopia, ”i. e. , the King of Abyssinia, sometimes one hundred and twenty(as in Fra Mauro) , sometimes sixty, sometimes fifty, sometimesforty, see Ludolf, book ii , c . xviii , § 1 , and suppt. , p. 15.Page 53. Moorish Sea. Read Black Sea (Mare Maurum) ,and see note near beginning of Odoric.Page 54. Dua, Cayda, Capac, and Elchigaday. Both Kaiduand Dua reigned in the Turquestan or Chagatai division of theMongol dominions in the latter part of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries. Kaidu long disputed withKublai the supreme Khanate, whilst Dua was the inheritor of thespecial Khanate of Chagatai. Capac, the Guébek of D'Ohsson orKapak of others was the fourth Khan from Dua, dying in 1321,and succeeded by Ilchikdai, the Elchigaday of our author.Page 56. A very noble Genoese, by name Martin Zachary, etc.The story of this worthy, and how the Emperor (AndronicusSenior) got Chios from him, and took him prisoner, may be readin Nicephorus Gregoras, ix, 9, vi, and in Joannes Cantacuzenus, ii,13 3196 ADDITIONAL NOTES AND CORRECTIONS , ETC.c. 10 and 11. In 1338 Pope Benedict XII and King Philip ofFrance wrote to the Emperor of the East to obtain Martin'sliberation, and probably with success, for a Genoese MartinJaqueria is found in command of the Pope's galleys two yearslater (Ducange, Hist. de Constant . Pt. ii, p. 103) .Page 57. Andreolo Cathani. For camp read castle. Thiscastle was that of Phocæa Nova or Foglia Nuova as the Latinscalled it, three hours from ancient Phocæa on the coast of Ionia.Here certain Genoese obtained a grant of the alum- mines in anadjoining hill during the time of Michael Palæologus, and workedthem to great profit. When the Turkish power became predominant they made terms with their Mussulman neighbours, andthe position was maintained by the Genoese at least till late inthe fifteenth century. Andrew Catanea or Cathani, the chief ofthe settlement in the reigns of the Andronici, is mentioned byseveral of the Byzantine Historians. The process of extractingthe alum at Phocæa is described much as by Jordanus, in theByz. History of Michael Ducas. (Ducange, Hist. de Constant. ed.1729. Pt. ii, p. 136; Georg. Pachymeres, v, 30; Duca MichaelisNepotis Hist. Byz. , cap. xx) .Page 58. St. John supposed to be asleep at Ephesus. I findthis belief is spoken of not only by Sir John Mandeville (p . 136 ) ,but by Saint Augustine himself as reported to him by respectableChristian folks of Ephesus. (Romance of Travel, ii, 88) .LETTERS AND REPORTS OF MISSIONARYFRIARS.NO. I. FIRST LETTER OF JOHN OF MONTECORVINO.I, FRIAR John of Monte Corvino, of the order of MinorFriars, departed from Tauris, a city of the Persians, in theyear of the Lord 1291 , and proceeded to India. And I remained in the country of India, wherein stands the churchof St. Thomas the Apostle, for thirteen months, and in thatregion baptized in different places about one hundred persons. The companion of my journey was Friar Nicholas ofPistoia, of the order of Preachers, who died there, and wasburied in the church aforesaid.I proceeded on my further journey and made my way toCathay, the realm of the Emperor of the Tartars who iscalled the Grand Cham. To him I presented the letter ofour lord the Pope, and invited him to adopt the CatholicFaith of our Lord Jesus Christ, but he had grown too old inidolatry. However he bestows many kindnesses upon theChristians, and these two years past I am abiding with him.The Nestorians, a certain body who profess to bear the1 The expression " nimis inveteratus est idololatria " might seem topoint to old Kublai. But the expressions that follow seem to imply thatthe same emperor continued to reign up to the date of the letter. Thiswas Timur, grandson of Kublai ( 1294-1307) , who had a strong propensity to the Lamas and their doctrines (Quatremère's Rashideddin, p.191).198 LETTERS AND REPORTSchristian name, but who deviate sadly from the christianreligion, have grown so powerful in those parts that theywill not allow a christian of another ritual to have ever sosmall a chapel, or to publish any doctrine different fromtheir own.To these regions there never came any one of the Apostles,nor yet of the Disciples. And so the Nestorians aforesaid,either directly or through others whom they bribed, havebrought on me persecutions of the sharpest. For they gotup stories that I was not sent by our lord the Pope, but wasa great spy and impostor; and after a while they producedfalse witnesses who declared that there was indeed anenvoy sent with presents of immense value for the emperor,but that I had murdered him in India, and stolen what hehad in charge. And these intrigues and calumnies went onfor some five years, And thus it came to pass that many atime I was dragged before the judgment seat with ignominyand threats of death. At last, by God's providence, theemperor, through the confessions of a certain individual,came to know my innocence and the malice of my adversaries; and he banished them with their wives and children .In this mission I abode alone and without any associatefor eleven years; but it is now going on for two years sinceI was joined by Friar Arnold, a German of the province ofCologne.I have built a church in the city of Cambaliech, in whichthe king has his chief residence. This I completed six yearsago; and I have built a bell- tower to it, and put three bellsin it. I have baptised there, as well as I can estimate, upto this time some 6,000 persons; and if those charges againstme of which I have spoken had not been made, I shouldhave baptised more than 30,000. And I am often stillengaged in baptising.Also I have gradually bought one hundred and fifty boys,the children of pagan parents, and of ages varying fromOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 199seven to eleven, who had never learned any religion. Theseboys I have baptized, and I have taught them Greek andLatin after our manner. Also I have written out Psaltersfor them, with thirty Hymnaries and two Breviaries. Byhelp of these, eleven of the boys already know our service,and form a choir and take their weekly turn of duty¹ as theydo in convents, whether I am there or not. Many of theboys are also employed in writing out Psalters and otherthings suitable. His Majesty the Emperor moreover delightsmuch to hear them chaunting. I have the bells rung at allthe canonical hours, and with my congregation of babes andsucklings I perform divine service, and the chaunting we doby ear because I have no service book with the notes.A certain king of this part of the world, by name George,belonging to the sect of Nestorian christians, and of theillustrious family of that great king who was called PresterJohn of India, in the first year of my arrival here attachedhimself to me, and being converted by me to the truth of theCatholic faith, took the lesser orders, and when I celebratedmass he used to attend me wearing his royal robes. Certainothers of the Nestorians on this account accused him ofapostacy, but he brought over a great part of his people withhim to the true Catholic faith, and built a church on a scaleof royal magnificence in honour of our God, of the HolyTrinity, and of our lord the Pope, giving it the name of theRoman Church.2This King George six years ago departed to the Lord atrue christian, leaving as his heir a son scarcely out of thecradle, and who is now nine years old . And after KingGeorge's death his brothers, perfidious followers of the errorsof Nestorius, perverted again all those whom he had brought1 "Tenent chorum et hebdomadas." The passage is quoted underHebdomade by Ducange, with the explanation of that word which thetext gives.2 Probably in Tathung, towards the Hoangho; see note to Odoric,p. 146.200 LETTERS AND REPORTSover to the church, and carried them back to their originalschismatical creed. And being all alone, and not able toleave his Majesty the Cham, I could not go to visit thechurch above-mentioned, which is twenty days' journeydistant.Yet, if I could but get some good fellow- workers to helpme, I trust in God that all this might be retrieved, for I stillpossess the grant which was made in our favour by the lateKing George before mentioned. So I say again that if ithad not been for the slanderous charges which I have spokenof, the harvest reaped by this time would have been great!Indeed if I had had but two or three comrades to aid me'tis possible that the Emperor Cham would have been baptized by this time! I ask then for such brethren to come,if any are willing to come, such I mean as will make it theirgreat business to lead exemplary lives, and not to make broadtheir own phylacteries.As for the road hither I may tell you that the way throughthe land of the Goths, subject to the Emperor of theNorthern Tartars, is the shortest and safest; and by it thefriars might come, along with the letter- carriers, in five orsix months. The other route again is very long and very"This is precisely the distance which the Imperial Geography assignsas the distance from the capital of the country occupied by the tribe ofUrat [a branch of the old Kerait still occupying the country adjoiningTathung] , that is to say, 1,520 li, or 152 leagues, of which about 7 go toa day's journey." Pauthier, Le Pays de Tanduc, etc., p. 38 .2 This first route is the way by Tana and Sarai as described byPegolotti. He, however, makes upwards of eight months actual travelling from Tana to Cambalec.Respecting the Goths of Gazaria see Rubruquis (p. 219) and Barbaro inRamusio (ii, 97 vers). Both of these travellers attest the Germanic dialect, and the latter had a German servant who spoke with them. "Theyunderstood each other reasonably well, much as a man of Forli mightunderstand a Florentine." Busbeck, who was the emperor's ambassadorat Constantinople between 1554 and 1560, saw two of these CrimeanGoths, and gives a list of some forty of their vocables, which are pureTeutonic, some of them pure English (one at least pure Scotch, criten, toweep or greet); other words which he gives are apparently not TeutonicOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 201dangerous, involving two sea- voyages; the first of which isabout as long as that from Acre to the province of Provence,whilst the second is as long as from Acre to England. Andit is possible that it might take more than two years to accomplish the journey that way. But, on the other hand,the first-mentioned route has not been open for a considerabletime, on account of wars that have been going on.2It is twelve years since I have had any news of the Papalcourt, or of our order, or of the state of affairs generally inthe west. Twoyears ago indeed there came hither a certainLombard leech and chirurgeon, who spread abroad in theseparts the most incredible blasphemies about the court ofRome and our Order and the state of things in the west, andon this account I exceedingly desire to obtain true intelligence. I pray the brethren whom this letter may reach todo their possible to bring its contents to the knowledge ofour lord the Pope, and the Cardinals, and the agents of theOrder at the court of Rome.I beg the Minister General of our Order to supply mewith an Antiphonarium,3 with the Legends of the Saints, a4at all. Their numerals are Germanic up to 100, but 100 itself and 1000are Persian (Sada and Hazar) . (Busbequii Opera Omnia, Amst. , 1660, p.321-326 . ) The Goths of the Crimea are also mentioned by the comradeof Plano Carpini, Benedict the Pole ( 776), who calls them Saxons; byNicephorus Gregorias (Hist. Byzant. , i, 5); by Laonicus Chalcondylas (iii,p. 68) , and probably by many others.1 This alternative route is that which John himself had followed toCathay. The first sea voyage alluded to is that from Hormuz to Malabar,and the second that from Malabar, or from St. Thomas's (Madras) toChina. The distances do fairly correspond with the voyages from Acrewhich he adduces in illustration.2 The wars carried on, since thirty years, against the Grand Khan byKaidu; or perhaps rather the wars of succession in Turkestan after hisdeath (see D'Ohsson, ii , 451, 512, etc. )3 The Antiphone now are short anthems from the Psalms and similarparts of Scripture, which are chanted in whole or in part before theappointed Psalms, and in whole after these. The Antiphonæ, or part ofone, before the Psalms, determines the pitch for the intonation of these.It would seem that the etymological meaning of the term has been202 LETTERS AND REPORTSGradual, and a Psalter with the musical notes, as a copy;for I have nothing but a pocket Breviary with the shortLessons, and a little missal: if I had one for a copy, theboys ofwhom I have spoken could transcribe others from it .Just now I am engaged in building a second church, withthe view of distributing the boys in more places than one.I have myself grown old and grey, more with toil andtrouble than with years; for I am not more than fifty- eight.I have got a competent knowledge of the language andcharacter which is most generally used by the Tartars.³ AndI have already translated into that language and characterthe New Testament and the Psalter, and have caused themto be written out in the fairest penmanship they have; andso by writing, reading, and preaching, I bear open and publictestimony to the Law of Christ. And I had been in treatywith the late King George, if he had lived, to translate thewhole Latin ritual, that it might be sung throughout thewhole extent of his territory; and whilst he was alive I usedto celebrate mass in his church according to the Latin ritual,reading in the before mentioned language and character thewords of both the preface and the Canon. *abandoned. But an Antiphonarium is or was also a name applied to a bookcontaining all that is sung by the choir during vespers.1 Graduale is a psalm or part of a psalm sung at mass between theEpistle and Gospel, some say because read on the steps of the altar. ButGraduale is also a name applied to a book containing all that is sung bythe choir in the service of the mass.2 The Lectio Brevis is a short passage of Scripture read at the end ofPrime and the beginning of Complines.The original seems to be corrupt here, and does not bear closer rendering: " Didici competenter linguam et litteram Tartaricam, quæ linguausualis Tartarorum est." Tartaricam can scarcely be the true reading.Perhaps it should be Tarsicam; see a passage in the following letter.4 Præfatio is that part of the service of the mass commencing with thewords Sursum Corda which immediately precedes the canon, by whichname is implied the series of prayers and ceremonies followed in the consecration of the Eucharist. In explaining these terms of the Romanservice I have consulted Ducange; a modern Italian encyclopædia (N.Encic. Popol. Italiano); and an Italian priest of my acquaintance.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 203And the son of the king before mentioned is called aftermy name, John; and I hope in God that he will walk in hisfather's steps.As far as I ever saw or heard tell, I do not believe thatany king or prince in the world can be compared to hismajesty the Cham in respect of the extent of his dominions,the vastness of their population, or the amount of his wealth .Here I stop.Dated at the city of Cambalec in the kingdom of Cathay,in the year . of the Lord 1305, and on the 8th day ofJanuary.¹NO. II. SECOND LETTER OF JOHN OF MONTECORVINO.To the Reverend Father in Christ the Vicar General of theOrder of Minor Friars, and to the Vicar of the said Order,and to the Master of the Order of Preachers, and to the Friarsofeither Order abiding in the province ofthe Persians;From Friar John of Montecorvino of the Order of MinorFriars, an unprofitable servant of Christ, Preacher of theHoly Christian Faith, Legate and Nuncio of the Apostolic SeeofRome;Health and Love in Him who is the True Love and Healthof all.The requirements of blessed brotherly love demand thatthose who are separated far and widely, and especially thosewho are Missionaries of Christ's Law in distant lands, whenthey cannot see each other face to face, should at least sendone another comforting communications by letter.1 I think that here January 1305 must mean our January 1305, and not1306. The next letter we shall find to be written about a year after this one. And that next letter had been read by the Pope when he createdJohn Archbishop, for the fragments of his bull on that occasion (seeWadding, vi, 93; or Mosheim, App. , p. 124) contain allusions to its contents . Now, though the date of this bull is not preserved, it is fixed byother circ*mstances to the spring of 1307. Hence, letter No. II couldnot have been written later than 1306, nor this letter, No. I, later than1305 .201 LETTERS AND REPORTSI have been thinking that you had some reason to be surprised that during my long residence in so distant a regionyou had never yet received a letter from me.¹ And I alsowas surprised that until this year I never received a letterfrom any friend or any Brother of the Order, nor even somuch as a message of remembrance, so that it seemed as ifI was utterly forgotten by everybody, And most of all Iwas grieved at this when I heard that rumours of my deathhad reached you.But now I wish to tell you that last year, in the beginning of January, by a certain friend of mine who was attached to the court of the Lord Kathan Khan,2 and whohad come to his majesty the Cham, I sent a letter to thefather vicar and the friars of the Province of Gazaria, givinga short account of the whole state of affairs with me. Andin that letter I begged the said vicar to send you a copy;and now I have learned from some persons who have justarrived with the messengers of the aforesaid Lord Kathanto his majesty the Cham, that my letter did reach you, thebearer of it from this having after a while gone on from thecity of Sarai to Tauris. I do not therefore think it necessary to detail the contents of my former letter nor to writethem over again. I will only mention that the first matterspoken of was about the persecutions which the Nestoriansraised against me, and the second was about the church andhouses which I had completed."I have now had six pictures made, illustrating the Oldand New Testaments for the instruction of the ignorant; 31 This is clearly what he means. But he says: Vos non sine causâmirari quod tot annis in provinciâ tam longinquâ consistentes, nunquammeis litteris recipistis."2 66 Qui fuit ex sociis Domini Kathan Cham." This seems to refer toGhazan Khan, sovereign of Persia; but, according to Deguignes andD'Ohsson, he died in 1304. It is, therefore, perplexing that in 1306 thewriter should still speak of the " Messengers of the said Lord Kathan" asjust arrived, which he does a little further on.3 This is the passage alluded to in the Pope's bull appointing John tothe archbishopric (see note above, p. 203).OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 205and the explanations engraved in Latin, Tarsic, ¹ and Persiancharacters, that all may be able to read them in one tongueor another."Tarsic letters, " says Remusat, quoting this passage, are " those ofthe Uigurs, to whose country the relations of that age gave the name ofTarsia from a Tartar word signifying infidel, and which appears to havebeen applied in Tartary successively to the followers of Zoroaster, and tothe Nestorian Christians." (Nouv. Melanges Asiat. , ii, 198).The name of Tarse is applied expressly to the kingdom of the Yogursby Hayton the Armenian; and Marino Sanudo the Elder also speaks ofthe kingdom of Tarse where the Tartars first learned letters and also idolworship; he is probably drawing from Hayton. (Secreta Fidel. Crucis, p.235.) Carpini likewise (p . 709) has Tarci in his list of nations conquered bythe Mongols, but the reading is doubtful. Tharze appears in Fra Mauroand Tarssia in the earlier Catalan Map, somewhere about Turkestan.The author was apparently also following Hayton, as he states that theThree Kings came from that country. Trigautius tells us that in his time(the beginning of the seventeenth century) the Mahomedans in Chinaspoke of the old professors of Christianity in that country as Terzai, theorigin of which appellation he was ignorant of; but he heard from anArmenian that the Armenian Christians in Persia were called by thesame name. (De Christiana Exped. apud Sinas, 1617, p. 137) . The word isapparently that given by Meninski as " Tarsá, a Christian, an infidel, afire-worshipper. " Its application to the Uigurs and their character perhaps indicates the extensive prevalence of Nestorian Christianity among them.Quatremère quotes the author of a book called Tabakati Naseri, as saying that the inhabitants of a certain city of Tibet professed the Dín Tarsayi, which he renders religion Chrétienne, though considering that thewriter had mistaken Buddhism for Christianity. (Rashideddin, p. 198.)The Uigur character was the original source of those still used by theMongols and Manchus, and was itself almost certainly derived from theold Syriac character through the Nestorians .The modern Tartar characters are written (and, I presume, read) invertical lines from top to bottom of the page, the lines succeeding eachother from left to right. It seems doubtful whether the Uigur itself wasthus written; at least, Remusat says that the only document in that character which was known to him was written in horizontal lines, though thelanguage of Rubruquis as to the Uigur writing most precisely describes the vertical direction of the modern Tartar alphabets. Remusat thinks thatthe vertical direction may have been acquired by the frequent necessityof interlining Chinese documents, a suggestion which seems ingeniousrather than convincing. It has, indeed, been maintained by some authorities that the ancient Syriac itself was vertical, and an old line is cited,"E cœlo ad stomachum relegit Chaldæa lituras,"but Remusat denies this .206 LETTERS AND REPORTSAs regards a third subject (I may add that) some of theboys whom I purchased and baptised have departed to theLord. A fourth matter mentioned was that since my firstcoming to Tartary I have baptised more than five thousandsouls.In that same year of the Lord 1305 , I began another newplace before the gate of the Lord Cham, so that there is butthe width of the street between his palace and our place,and we are but a stone's throw from his majesty's gate.I may venture to remark that the direction in which a character is read,and not that in which it is written, is the essential distinction. Everyone has acquaintances whose characters run, if not vertically, at least in aresultant direction between vertical and horizontal; and the IndianMunshi in writing the Persian character on a paper in his hand, according to the usual practice, does really by some natural necessity write ecœlo ad stomachum, a practice which, by becoming systematised or copiedby a people to whom writing was a new acquirement, might give rise toa modified character, read as well as written vertically.The language of the Uigurs appears to have been Turkish. So Rubruquis, who shows unusual discernment for his time in all linguistic matters,expressly testifies. Rashideddin says that Mangu Khan had secretariesto write his orders in Chinese, Tibetan, Tangutan, and Uigur. Unlessthe latter represent Turkish, that language, which was spoken over sogreat a part of his empire, was omitted altogether.Mr. Schmidt, the translator of Ssanang Setzen, maintains against thegeneral opinion that Uigur was Tangutan or Tibetan; his argumentsare not convincing, and his temper does not beget confidence. WhateverUigur may have meant in Mongol authors, the people and language socalled by the Western Asiatics were Turkish. The " Ugaresca" of theGenoese in the Crimea, and the Uigur character which Friar Pascallearned at Sarray (see below) could have nothing to do with Tibetan.The knowledge of the name in Europe goes back to the seventh century, as may be seen in a passage from Theophylactes, quoted in the introductory essay.Captain Valikhanoff speaks of the language now in use at Kashgar asbeing Uigur, but it is not clear whether he means that this term is knownto the natives. (Russians in Cent. Asia, p. 67.)On the original seat and migrations of the Uigurs, see D'Ohsson (i, 107seq., and 429 seq. )(Rubruquis, p 288, 289; Plano Carpini, 651; Klaproth in J. As. , ser. i,tom. v, 203; Remusat, Rech. sur les langues Tart., 38, 39, 60-63; St. Martin,Mem. sur l'Armenie, ii, 275; Schmidt, Ssanang Setzen, etc., pp. 211, 386,396-8, 406, 412.)OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 207Master Peter of Lucolongo, a faithful Christian man andgreat merchant, who was the companion of my travels fromTauris, himself bought the ground for the establishment ofwhich I have been speaking, and gave it to me for the loveof God. And by the divine favour I think that a moresuitable position for a Catholic church could not be found inthe whole empire of his majesty the Cham. In the beginning of August¹ I got the ground, and by the aid of sundrybenefactors and well- wishers it was completed by the Feastof St. Francis with an enclosure wall, houses, offices, courts,and chapel, the latter capable of holding two hundred persons. On account of winter coming on I have not been ableto finish the church, but I have the timber collected at thehouse, and please God I hope to finish it in summer. AndI tell you it is thought a perfect marvel by all the peoplewho come from the city and elsewhere, and who had previously never heard a word about it. And when they seeour new building, and the red cross planted aloft, and us inour chapel with all decorum chaunting the service, theywonder more than ever. When we are singing, his majestythe Cham can hear our voices in his chamber; and thiswonderful fact is spread far and wide among the heathen,and will have the greatest effect, if the divine mercy so disposes matters and fulfils our hopes.Fromthe first church and house to the second church whichI built afterwards, is a distance of two miles and a half withinthe city, which is passing great. And I have divided theboys into two parties, putting one of them in the first churchand the other in the second, and so each party performs theservice by itself. But I act as chaplain and celebrate mass1 This may perhaps mean August 1304, though, if we look at the beginning of this paragraph only, we should suppose it to be August 1305.But in his preceding letter written in January 1305, he says he was already in actu edificandi ecclesiam . And from August to St. Francis's day(4th October) in the same year, seems too short a time for the amount ofwork reported.208 LETTERS AND REPORTSin each church on alternate weeks, for none of those boysare priests .As regards the regions of the East, and especially the empire of the Lord Cham, I give you to knowthat there is nonegreater in the world. And I have a place in the Cham'scourt, and a regular entrance and seat assigned me as legateof our Lord the Pope, and the Cham honours me above allother prelates, whatever be their titles . And although hismajesty the Cham has heard much about the court of Rome,and the state of the Latin world, he desires greatly to seeenvoys arriving from those regions.Here are many sects of idolaters holding various beliefs;and here also are many persons attached to religious ordersof different sects, and wearing different habits; and thesepractise greater abstinence and austerity than our Latinmonks.I have seen the greater part of India and made inquiriesabout the rest, and can say that it would be most profitableto preach to them the faith of Christ, if the brethren wouldbut come. But none should be sent except men of the mostsolid character; for those regions are very attractive, abounding in aromatic spices and precious stones. But they possess few of our fruits, and, on account of the great mildnessand warmth of the climate, the people there go naked, onlycovering the loins. And thus the arts and crafts of ourtailors and cordwainers are not needed, for they have perpetual summer and no winter. I baptised there about a hundred persons.Here the letter, as given by the chronicler from whom Wadding copies, breaks off. But the same authority gives as thesubstance of part of another letter that had been presented, whatin fact appears to have been the end of this letter, perhaps accidently separated from what goes before: 1"6Besides what he wrote in the preceding year (i.e., 1305)1 See introductory notice, supra, p. 167:OF MISSIONARY FRIARS. 209Friar John of Monte Corvino this year relates in anotherletter of his that a solemn deputation had come to him froma certain part of Ethiopia, begging him either to go thitherto preach, or to send other good preachers; for since thetime of St. Matthew the Apostle and his immediate disciplesthey had had no preachers to instruct them in the faith ofChrist, and they had an ardent desire to attain to the trueChristian faith." Friar John also said that after the Feast of All Saintshe had baptised four hundred persons. And as he hadheard that a number of friars, both Minors and of the otherOrder, had arrived in Persia and Gazaria, he exhorted themto preach fervently the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and soto win a harvest of souls . The letter was dated at Cambalec,a city of Cathay, in the year of the Lord 1306, on Quinquagesima Sunday and in the month of February."NO. III . LETTER FROM FRIAR MENENTILLUS, A DOMINICAN, FORWARDING COPY OF A LETTER FROM JOHN OF MONTE CORVINO.To you Friar Bartholomew of Santo Concordio , yourbrother in all things, Menentillus of Spoleto, wisheth healthand wisdom in Christ!?1 This Bartolomeo a Santo Concordio, a Dominican monk, a Pisan bybirth, and eminent for his learning in canon and civil law as well as hisaccomplishments in Latin and Tuscan literature, flourished in the earlypart of the fourteenth century and died in 1347. He was best knownafterwards as the author of a Summa de Casibus Conscientiæ, arrangedalphabetically, which he completed in 1338. This was printed at a veryearly date and often again, being apparently much used as a handbook byconfessors, and known familarly as the Magistruccia or Pisanella. (Quétif,Scriptores Ord. Praed. , 623-625 . ) There is a work of the same author "Deorigine civitatis Pisana" in Muratori, Ital. Rer. Scriptor. tom. vi.The opening of this letter may be given as a sample of the style ofthe original:-"A vo' in Cristo frate Bartolomeo de Santo Concordio suo per tutte lecose frate Menentillo di Spuleto salute e sapienzia! Perciò che conoscoche voi grande cura avete in iscienzia, e molto sapete e vorreste tutte lecose sapere, spezialmente quelle che non sapete, e vorrest avere sapimento14210 LETTERS AND REPORTSAnd because I wot of the great curiosity that you have inregard to all science, and that, much as you do know, youwould fain know everything and especially things that arenew to you; and in truth that you are one whose desire isto have knowledge and information of all kinds; thereforetranscribe I for you certain matters just as they have beenwritten from India by a certain Minorite Friar (the travelling companion of Brother Nicolas of Pistoia, who died inUpper India) , when on his way to the court of the Lord ofall India. The bringer of the letter I have seen and spokenwith, and it was in his arms that the said Brother Nicholasdid die. The letter was to the effect following:1"The state of things [ with regard to climate] in the Indiesis such as shall now be related."In India it is always warm, and there never is any winter;yet the heat is not extravagant. And the reason is , thatthere be at all times winds which temper the heat of the air.And the reason why there can be no winter is the positionof the country with respect to the zodiac, as I shall now tell.That is to say, the sun when entering Virgo, i.e. on the 24thday of August, sends down his rays, as I have seen and inparticular noted with my own eyes, quite perpendicularly, soas to cast no shadow on either side. And in like mannerwhen he is entering Aries, i.e. at the end of March. Andwhen he has gone through Aries he passes towards the north,and casts shadows towards the south until . . . [the summere cognoscienzia di tutte le cose; imperciò scrivo a voi certe cose le qualiaguale sono scritte delle parte d' India Superiore per uno frate Minore,lo quale fue compagno di frate Nicolaio da Pistoia, lo quale moritte inIndia Superiore, andando al Signore di tutta l'India . Lo messo viddie parlai con lui, in delle cui braccia lo ditto frate Nicolaio moritte. Ecosi testificava."Professor Kunstmann speaks of Menentillus having metJohn of Montecorvino at the court of the Khan and got the information that followsfrom him. But this must surely rest on some misunderstanding. Menentillus is merely a monk in Italy, who chances on a letter of John's andsends it to a learned friend to gratify his curiosity.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 211solstice] and then turns to Virgo, and after he has pastthrough the sign of Virgo he then casts his shadows towardsthe north. And thus there is never so great an elongation¹of the sun as to admit of cold, and there are not two seasons.Or as I have said before there is no winter or cold season."As regards the length of the day and the night I havetried to determine them by such measures and indications asI could. I have observed that at the two epochs beforementioned, when the sun's rays strike perpendicularly without casting any shadow, the day is fifteen hours long, andthe night nine. And when the sun is at the solstice ofCancer, the day is a little less than fourteen hours long, andthe night is a little more than ten, perhaps by a quarter of anhour. But when the sun is in the solstice of Capricorn, thatis to say in the month of December, the day has a length ofeleven hours and the night of thirteen. For the sun's elongation is somewhat greater when it is in Capricorn than whenit is in Cancer."Moreover, the star which we call the Pole- star is thereso depressed, i.e. so low, that it can scarcely be seen . Andmethought that if I had been on a lofty point I could haveseen the other Pole- star which is in the opposite quarter.3I looked many a time for a sight of it, and I saw severalconstellations which moved round about it, from observingwhich I gathered that they were exceedingly near to it.1 The transcript made for me gives congiungimento, but ProfessorKunstmann's has elongamento.2 I am afraid we cannot throw the blame of these extraordinary statements on anybody but Friar John himself. He considers that at a givennorth latitude within the tropic the day is at its longest when the sunpasses towards the north, and diminishes up to midsummer day, increasesagain till it repasses the given latitude, and then diminishes till mid- winter.3 "L'altra tramontana la quale è posta in contrario."4 This runs " Molto guardai di vederla e vidi più segni che gl' andavanointorno per li quai li conovi et parvemi ch' elli fusseno vicini veramenteperchè le fumosità vi sono continue chontra quella parte si tene per li calori e per li venti ella è molto al disotto non me ne potei certificare ."14 2212 LETTERS AND REPORTSBut because of the continual haze on the horizon in thatquarter, caused by the heat and the winds, and because of thestars being so low, I never could satisfy myself. HoweverIndia is a very extensive region, and perhaps in some placesit would be seen at a greater elevation, in others at a less.I have examined the matter to the best of my ability. Somuch as to [the climate of] Upper India, which is calledMAEBAR, in the territory of St. Thomas."Concerning the state of things as to the country itself inUpper India. The condition of the country of India aforesaid is this. The land is well enough peopled; and therebe great cities therein, but the houses are wretched, beingbuilt of sandy mud, and usually thatched with leaves of trees.Hills there are few; rivers in some places are many, inothers few. Springs there are few or none; wells in plenty;and the reason is this, that water is generally to be found atthe depth of two or three paces, or even less. This wellwater is indeed not very good to drink, for it is somewhatsoft and loosens the bowels; so they generally have tanks orexcavations like ponds, in which they collect the rain water,and this they drink. They keep few beasts. Horses thereare none, except it be in possession of the king and greatbarons. Flies there be few, and fleas none at all.¹ Andthey have trees which produce fruit continually, so that onthem you find fruit in every stage up to perfect ripeness atone time. In like manner they sow and reap at almost allseasons, and this because it is always warm and never cold.Aromatic spices are to be had good cheap, some more so andsome less so, according to what spices they be. They havetrees that produce sugar, and others that produce honey, andothers that produce a liquor that has a smack of wine. AndThe words underlined are read by Prof. Kunstmann Conobbi and Sottane.The last I have adopted, but not the former, which he understands to bethe name (Canopi) given to the stars, certainly a misapprehension.1 They must have come with the Portuguese then!2 The sentence is apparently corrupt, but this seems to be the meaning.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS. 213this the natives of those countries use for drink.three things are to be had at very small cost.And thoseAnd thepepper plant is here also. It is slender and knotty like avine; and indeed ' tis altogether very like a vine, exceptingthat it is more slender, and bears transplanting."Ginger is a reed-like plant, and, like a cane-root, it canbe dug and transplanted . But their canes here are more liketrees, being sometimes a cubit in girth and more, withslender prickly branches round about, and small leaves."The Brazil tree' is a slender lofty and thorny tree, all redas it were, with leaves like fern . The Indian nuts are as bigas melons, and in colour green like gourds. Their leaves.and branches are like those of the date tree."The cinnamon tree is of a medium bulk, not very high,and in trunk, bark, and foliage, is like the laurel; indeed,altogether it resembleth the laurel greatly in appearance.Great store of it is carried forth of the island which is hardby Maabar.3"As regards men of a marvellous kind, to wit, men of adifferent make from the rest of us, and as regards animalsof like description, and as regards the Terrestrial Paradise,much have I asked and sought, but nothing have I beenable to discover."Oxen are with these people sacred animals, and they eatnot their flesh for the worship they bear them. But theymake use of cows' milk, and put their cattle to labour likeother folk." The rain falleth at fixed seasons."The state of things as regards the inhabitants of India1 Bersi.2 The word is chocosse. I can find nothing nearer than cocuzza, which isgiven as a South Italian word for a gourd (cucurbita). The comparisonseems probable.3 Ceylon. I believe this is one of the earliest notices of the Ceyloncinnamon trade. Sir Emerson Tennent, I think, quotes Ibn Batuta asthe earliest.214 LETTERS AND REPORTS.is as follows:-The men of this region are idolaters, withoutmoral law, or letters, or books. They have indeed an alphabet which they use to keep their accounts, and to writeprayers or charms for their idols; albeit they have no paper,but write upon leaves of trees like unto palm leaves. Theyhave no conscience of sin whatever. They have idol- housesin which they worship at almost all hours of the day; forthey never join together to worship at any fixed hour, buteach goes to worship when it pleases himself. And so theyworship their idols in any part of these temples, either by dayor by night. They frequently set forth their fasts and feasts,but they have no fixed recurring day to keep, either weeklyor monthly. Their marriages take place only at one time ofthe year; and when the husband dies the wife cannot marryagain. The sin of the flesh they count not to be sin, norare they ashamed to say so."In the regions by the sea are many Saracens, and theyhave great influence, but there are few of them in the interior.There are a very few Christians, and Jews, and they are oflittle weight. The people persecute much the Christians,and all who bear the Christian name." They bury not their dead but burn them, carrying themto the pile with music and singing; whilst apart from thisoccasion the relatives of the deceased manifest great griefand affliction like other folk." But India is a region of great extent, and it hath manyrealms and many languages. And the men thereof are civiland friendly enough, but of few words, and remind me somewhat of our peasants. They are not, strictly speaking,3As to the great influence of the Saracens on the coast of Maabar seethe extract from Rashid at p. 219, which shows that at this very time aSaracen" was the king's chief minister and governor of the seaports ofPattan, Malipattan, and Káíl (in the original Wazir wa Mushir wa Sahibi-tadbir). 2 Rancori. Kunstmann has ramori.3 "Sono li omini assai dimestichi e familiari e di poche parole, e quasicome omini di villa."OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 215black, but of an olive colour, and exceedingly well formedboth women and men. They go barefoot and naked, exceptthat they wear a cloth round the loins, and boys and girlsup to eight years of age wear nothing whatever, but gonaked as they came from their mother's womb. They shavenot the beard; many times a day they wash; bread andwine they have none. Of the fruits that we make use ofthey have few or none; but for their daily food they userice and a little milk; and they eat grossly like pigs, to wit,with the whole hand or fist, and without a spoon. In fact,when at their food they do look more like pigs than men!"There is great security in the country. Bandits androbbers are seldom met with; but they have many exactionsto pay. There are few craftsmen, for craft and craftsmenhave little remuneration, and there is little room for them.They commonly use swords and daggers like ourselves; andif actually they have a battle they make short work of it,however great the forces be, for they go to battle naked, withnothing but sword and dagger. They have among them afew Saracen mercenaries, who carry bows.1"The state of things in regard to the Sea of India is this.The sea aboundeth greatly with fish; and in some parts of itthey fish for pearls and precious stones. The havens arefew and bad; and you must know that the sea here is theMiddle Sea or Ocean. Traversing it towards the south thereis no continent found but islands alone, but in that sea theislands are many, more than 12,000 in number. And manyof these are inhabited, and many are not."You can sail (upon that sea) between these islands andORMES and (from Ormes) to those parts which are called[MINIBAR] is a distance of 2,000 miles in a direction betweensouth and south- east; then 300 miles between east and southeast from Minibar to Maabar, which (latter however) you enter1 "Pedaggi molti vi si pagano." This I take from Kunstmann. Mytranscript has Per arti molti vi si pagano. ”216 LETTERS AND REPORTSsteering to the north; and from Menabar [ Maabar? ] you sailanother 300 miles between north- east and north to SIU SIMMONCOTA.¹ The rest I have not seen, and therefore I saynothing of it.1 I have endeavoured to reduce to shape and congruity this passage,which is a good deal bungled in the MS. It runs thus: " Navicavisi daisse (or da Issa) infine ad Ormesse et a quelle parti le quali si dice che siano due miglia migliaia di miglia e intra scilocco e levante da Minabar a Maabarch' entra a tramontana ccc miglia intra levante e scirocco da Menabar a SiuSimmoncota altre ccc migliaia navicavisi intra greco e tramontana.”In the text I have taken da isse, as read by Kunstmann (for esse), torefer to the islands, and this requires rather a forced translation to be intelligible. But if it be a proper name, Issa, as in my transcript, then weshould read-" You can sail from Issa to Ormes and so to those parts,"etc. In that case Issa must be a port of the Persian Gulf, perhaps AlAhsa, which is a port on the west shore below Al- Katif, and is mentionedby our author's contemporary, Rashid, in connexion with Indian trade,in a passage which will be given presently.The first section of the voyage, then, I understand to be from the Persian Gulfto one of the ports of Malabar (called Minabar, see p. 74, supra);the second from the said port to some city on the Gulf of Manaar; andthe third from the Gulf of Manaar to some place on the Coromandelcoast, at least as far north as the church of St. Thomas, i . e. , Madras. Isay " some city on the Gulf of Manaar, " because we shall see presentlythat Mabar is, with the present writer, a city, and is probably to beidentified with that where Marco Polo locates his chief king of Mabar.As Polo seems to specify this as sixty miles west of Ceylon, I judge thatit must have been somewhere near Ramnad. It is not Cail, because hesays distinctly that Cail was subject to another of the chiefs, and Cailis a good deal more than sixty miles from any part of Ceylon.The extreme point which our author visited, whether Siu Simmoncotaor Giu Gimmoncota (for it is so read by Kunstmann) , I cannot determine. It must have been at least as far up the coast as Madras, becausehe tells us in the first letter that his companion Nicholas of Pistoia wasburied in the church of St. Thomas. Samulcotta (S'yámala Kotta-BlackFort, or Fort of Durga?), the nearest approach to the name that I cantrace among existing towns seems to be too far north. The Buddhistswere called Samanas and Samanals in South India, and Saman-Kotta,"The Fort of the Buddhist," might be a probable enough name.The name, however, taking it abstractedly as it stands, would mostnearly represent Siva- Samundra-Kotta. Siva appears constantly in popularpronunciation as Siu or Seo, as in Seodasheogarh, Seopoor, Seoganga, etc.,and we find the analogous name of Dwara- Samudra to be written by thePersian and Arabian historians Dur- sammund and Dur- Saman (see Dow'sFerishta, i, 256, 281; Masálak al-ábsár in Not. et. Extr. , xiii , 170; andWassaf in Von Hammer, op. inf. cit . , ii, 202) . The only place I can traceOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 217"The shores of the said sea in some places run out in shoalsfor 100 miles or more, so that ships are in danger ofgrounding. And they cannot make the voyage but once ayear, for from the beginning of April till the end of Octoberthe winds are westerly, so that no one can sail towards thewest; and again ' tis just the contrary from the month ofOctober till March. From the middle of May till the endof October the wind blows so hard that ships which by thattime have not reached the ports whither they are bound, runa desperate risk, and if they escape it is great luck. Andthus in the past year there perished more than sixty ships;and this year seven ships in places in our own immediateneighbourhood, whilst of what has happened elsewhere wehave no intelligence. Their ships in these parts are mightyfrail and uncouth, with no iron in them, and no caulking.They are sewn like clothes with twine. And so if the twinebreaks anywhere there is a breach indeed! Once every yeartherefore there is a mending of this, more or less, if theypropose to go to sea. And they have a frail and flimsyrudder like the top of a table, of a cubit in width, in themiddle of the stern; and when they have to tack, it is donewith a vast deal of trouble; and if it is blowing in any wayhard, they cannot tack at all. They have but one sail andbearing at present the name of Siva- Samundra (the Sea or Lake of Siva)is a very holy and ancient site on an island in the Caveri south-east ofSeringapatam, whilst the site we seek must have been on the coast.Perhaps, however, there is some indication of the existence of a place ofimportance on the coast in the name of which Samudra was an element,in passages of Firishta and Wassaf. The latter, in speaking of the civilwars of Maabar about this very time, says that the Raja had laid up 1,200 krors of gold besides jewels in the treasures of Shahrmandi; whilstthe latter, after describing the prodigious spoils carried from the Peninsula by Malik Kafur in 1310, observes that he understood Dwara Samudrato have been since destroyed by the encroachment of the sea, and to lie inruins. But Dwara Samudra the capital of the Belal Rajas was an inlandcity, which has been identified with Halabidu in Mysore (Wassaf in Hammer Purgstall's Ilchane, ii, 204; Briggs's Firishta, iv, 374) .¹ Here he refers apparently to the reefs and shoals between Ceylon andthe mainland.218 LETTERS AND REPORTSand one mast, and the sails are either of matting or of somemiserable cloth. The ropes are of husk.¹"Moreover their mariners are few and far from good.Hence they run a multitude of risks, insomuch that they arewont to say, when any ship achieves her voyage safely andsoundly, that ' tis by God's guidance, and man's skill hathlittle availed."This letter was written in MAABAR, a city of the provinceof SITIA in Upper India, on the 22d day of December in theyear of the Lord мCCX(CII or CIII) . "1 Resti. I am doubtful of the meaning of the word.2 The date in the MS. at Florence is obscure, but м.CC.X... at least islegible. Quétif, in his mention of it in Script. Ord. Prædicatorum, gives the date as M.CCC.XX. But this is not correctly transcribed . John leftTauris in 1291 , and on his way passed thirteen months in Southern India,Hence the date is doubtless M.CC.XCII or M.CC.XCIII. It is worth notingthat as Marco Polo, if Rashid's statements quoted below be exact, could not have been later than 1292 in visiting Maabar on his way westward,the two Italian travellers may have met in that region.The "Province of Sitia" is named by no other traveller that I know of.The island or peninsula of Ramisseram was, however, called Sethu, “TheBridge" or Causeway, from which the chiefs of the adjoining territoryof Ramnad or Marawa derived their title of Sethupati or "Lord of theBridge, " and perhaps this name is disguised under the form Sitia. It ispossible that the same name is intended in a passage quoted by VonHammer Purgstall from the Persian historian Wassaf, where the chiefsof Maabar are mentioned, and where they are unaccountably spoken of(without attempt at comment or explanation on the part of the editor)as "sharing the lordship of the land of Sind." This may have beenسیت or سيتو( Set ,or Set misread as سنت or سنتو Sint or Sintu ); if it 1were not Pandi, misread as Sindi, which is equally possible.It seems impossible to derive any distinct notion of the political stateof this part of the peninsula at the end of the fourteenth century fromthe confused and mystified genealogies of the Tamul chronicles as exhibited by Professor Wilson and Mr. W. Taylor. Something however isto be learned from Marco Polo and his Persian contemporaries, whosestatements are in remarkable agreement as to the leading facts.Marco tells us that going sixty miles westward from Ceylon you cometo the noble province of Maabar, which in his time was divided amongfive kings who were brothers (the Ramusian Polo says four kings). Thechief of these, who reigned at Maabar proper, was called SENder BandiDAVAR; another, who reigned at Cail, was called ASCIAR (Ishwar?); thenames of the others he does not state. It seems also to be implied thatOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 219

the territory of these chiefs extended at least as far north as St. Thomas's.The brothers were constantly at strife, and Marco expresses his opinionthat as soon as their mother, who tried hard to keep peace among them,should die, they would infallibly quarrel and destroy each other. He tellsus also that the treasure accumulated by the sovereigns of this kingdomwas immense and that as no horses (or at least only ponies with crookedlegs) were reared in the country, large revenues were expended in procuring them. " The merchants of Curmos ( Hormuz), of Quisci (Kishm), ofDufar, of Soer ( Shahar) , and of Aden, whose provinces contain many steedsoffine quality, purchase, embark, and bring them to the king and his fourprincely brothers, selling them for 500 saggi of gold, worth more than 100marks of silver. I assure you, " he says, " this monarch buys annually morethan 2000," etc. (Polo, iii , 19-24. )Now read what Rashideddin says on the same subject: "Maabar extends from Kulam to Siláwar (this should be Niláwar, i.e. Nellore, as weshall see presently) 300 farsangs along the shore, ... The king is calledDEWAR, which means in the Maabar tongue the "lord of Wealth."Large ships called junks bring merchandize thither from Chin and Machin...Maabar is as it were the key of India. Within the last few yearsSINDAR LEDI" ( Ledi, misread for " BANDI) , who with his threebrothers obtained power in different directions, and Malik Taki-ullah binAbdarrahman bin Muhammed Et-Tibi, brother of Shaikh Jamaluddin,was his minister and adviser, to whom he assigned the government ofFATAN, MALIFATAN" (the Molephatam of Jordanus, see p. 184) , "andBAWAL" (probably a misreading for Kávil or Kail) . " And because there arenohorses in Maabar, or rather those which are there areweak, it was agreedthat every year Jamaluddin Ibrahim should send to the Dewar 1400Arab horses obtained from the islands of Kais, and 10,000 ( 1000?) fromall the islands of Fars, such as Katif, L'Ahsa, Bahrein, Hormuz, Malkat(Maskat?) , etc. Each horse is reckoned worth 220 dinars of red currentgold. In the year 692 H. (A.D. 1292) the Dewar died, and Sheikh Jamaluddin who succeeded him obtained, it is said, an accession of 7000 bullockloads of jewels and gold, and Takiuddin, according to previous agreement, became his lieutenant. Notwithstanding his immense wealth heestablished a rule that he should have the first option of purchasing allimports," etc. (In Sir H. M. Elliott, Historians of Muham. India, p. 44) .The statements of Wassaf are more diffuse, and have been confusedeither by the scribe or by Von Hammer in quoting them. The latterseems content, as we have seen, to accept the confusion of Sind with thepeninsula, and proceeds on his own authority to confound Maabar withMalabar. An abstract of Wassaf's statements, as well as I can understand Von Hammer's extracts, may be given as follows: " Maabar is thecoast which stretches from the Persian Sea through a length of 300 farsangs to NILAWAR. Its princes are called DIWAR or lord. Three princesat this time shared the dominion of the country, of whom the mostpowerful was Taki - uddin Abdarrahman bin Muhammed Et-Thaibi, whohad a contract for the supply of horses with Jamaluddin, the Malik- ul-220 LETTERS AND REPORTSIslam and Farmer- General ofthe Customs ofthe Persian Gulf, who residedat Kish. The contract price of the horses was fixed at 220 ducats a head,whilst the cost of those lost at sea was borne by the contractor in Persia.In the time of Abubekr, the Salghur Atabeg of Hormuz, when that kingdom was in its glory, 10,000 horses yearly used to be shipped to India,bringing to the sellers a revenue of 3,500,000 pieces of gold!"Two of the native chiefs of Maabar who contended for the thronewere SINDARBANDI and PIREBANDI, the former the legitimate, the latterthe illegitimate son of Gilishdiur Raja of Maabar" (probably KulesaDewar; Von Hammer does not seem to see that this diur is the titleDewar which has just been specified) , "a prince who had reigned prosperously for forty years without ever having been laid up by illness orattacked by a foe. He had named Pirebandi his successor, which soenraged Sindarbandi that he slew his father, and took forcible possessionof Shahrmandi, where his enormous treasures were laid up. Pirebandigathered an army to avenge his father's murder, and a battle took placebeside a lake which the people of India called Taláji” (Talà, a Tank? andperhaps the same as the Celai (for Telai) of Odoric, p. 65.) " EventuallyPirebandi, aided by his cousin Bermal (Perumal?) was successful; whereonSindarbandi fled to the court of Dehli, and sought help from Alauddinagainst his brother. " This led to the invasion of Kafur.This historian also speaks of Jamaluddin Abdarrahman Et- Thaibi asthe Farmer-General and Keeper of the Marches of Maabar, apparentlythe same whom Rashid states to have succeeded to the Dewar in1292. His son Surajjuddin , it is also stated, was plundered of all hiswealth by the army of Kafur, upon which his son Nizamuddin betookhimself to Dehli to make complaint, and obtained, with some partialrestoration of property, the administration of the finances in Maabar,which had been held by his father and grandfather. ( See Hammer Purgstall, Gesch. der Ilchane, ii, 51 seq., and 197 seq.) There are evident discrepancies between the accounts of Rashid and Wassaf, which it wouldbe vain to attempt to reconcile without further knowledge. Nor do eithertheir notices nor anything that I can gather from the works of Wilsonand Taylor suffice to show to what dynasty belonged these princes ofMaabar of whom Polo and the Persian historians speak. The names ofthe chiefs, Sindarbandi ( Sundara- Pandi) , Parèbandi ( Vira- Pandi) Gilish(Kalesa) , are all indeed such as occur repeatedly among the half-mythicallists of the Pandyan dynasty of Madura, but there seems some reason tobelieve that the chiefs in question may have been rather princes ofMarawa, or of some family of adventurers. The title Dewar, though notpeculiar to the Setupatis has been specially affected by all the Marawasdown to our own time, and Professor Wilson finds reason to believe thatthese were for a long time paramount over Madura, and for three reignsheld the whole of that kingdom in their hands. (Catal . ofMackenzie Coll., i,195; J. R. A. S., vol. iii , 165 and 223; Madras Journ. , 1836, p . 35, seq. ) Thetime indeed of this is left undetermined, except that it was before therise of Vijayanagar in the fourteenth century.The nearest approach in the Tamul Annals to an indication of theOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 221period with which we are dealing appears to be the following . After agreat deal of stuff about reigns of many thousand years, it is said: "Afterthat the Pandyan race became extinct; the children of concubines andof younger brothers in former ages, fought against one another; anddividing the country into factions they caused themselves to be crownedin various parts of the Pandyan kingdom, and ruled each over his owntown, and the surrounding neighbourhood. No one being permitted torule in Madura, each party strove in battle against the other; and theirseveral children continued for some generations to rule in those variousplaces." (Taylor, Orient. Hist . MSS. , i, 25. ) The Mahomedans are statedthen to have come in during this state of anarchy, in the twelve hundredand forty-sixth year of Salivahana (A.D. 1324) . But it is obvious that theyhad great power in the Peninsula thirty years before that date, and theinvasion by the armies of Ala-uddin took place some years before.M. Pauthier, in his new Marco Polo, has adduced curious references toMaabar, and to the five brother princes, from the Chinese Annals, and hasalso anticipated me in bringing forward the passage from Rashid at p. 219 in illustration ofthe traveller. It is curious that its remarkable concurrencewith the latter's statements should have escaped Sir Henry Elliott fromwhom we both derive the extract. Whilst referring to this part of Marco'snarrative it seems worth while to point out that when M. Pauthier concurs with Marsden and others in identifying the kingdom of MUTFILI,which the traveller describes, with Masulipatam he does the same injusticeto his author's accuracy which he so severely blames in others. Masulipatam, he says, is Machli-patam and Machli-bander, " d'où est venu sansdoute le nom de Mustfili." But Marco's name is Mutfili, and requires notorture. The name and place still exist. Mutapali or Mootapilly, which theArab sailors would call Mutafilly, as they call Pattan Fattan, is a port in theGantur district south of the Krishna, which still has, or had at the beginning of this century, a considerable amount of coasting trade. The kingdom of Mutafili was no doubt, as Marsden perceived, that of Warangal orTiling. "It is subject to a queen of great wisdom, whose husband diedforty years ago, and her love to him was such that she has never marriedanother. During this whole term she has ruled the nation with greatequity, and been beloved beyond measure by her people" (Polo, iii, 21) .Thejust and good queen of whom Marco here speaks can also be identifiedas Rudrama Devi, the daughter of the ruler of Dewagiri, and widow of SriKumara Kakatiya Pratapa Ganapati Rudra Deva King of Warangal,who made extensive conquests on the coast. This lady ruled after herhusband's death for twenty-eight, or thirty-eight years, and then in 1292or 1295 transferred the crown to her daughter's son Pratapa- Vira- RudraDeva, the Luddur Deo of Firishta. (See Taylor, Oriental Hist. MSS. , ii,81; Ditto, Catalogue Raisonné, etc., iii, 483; C. P. Brown, Carnatic Chronology, pp. 54-55 . The latter does not mention the queen. )P.S. After this went to press a brief examination of the passage quotedfrom Rashid (at p. 219) as it is in the MS. in the India Office Library,shows its readings as Niláwar, Sindar Bandi, and Káíl, for Silawar, Sindar Ledi, and Bawul. That is, the letters will bear the readings stated,and not those of Sir H. Elliott's copy, but there are no diacritical points.222 LETTERS AND REPORTSNO. IV. LETTER FROM ANDREW BISHOP OF ZAYTON IN MANZIOR SOUTHERN CHINA, 1326.Friar Andrew of Perugia, of the Order of Minor Friars, byDivine permission called to be Bishop, to the reverend fatherthe Friar Warden of the Convent of Perugia, health andpeace in the Lord for ever!.• On account of the immense distance by land and seainterposed between us, I can scarcely hope that a letter fromme to you can come to hand. . . . . You have heard then howalong with Friar Peregrine, my brother bishop of blessedmemory, and the sole companion of my pilgrimage, throughmuch fatigue and sickness and want, through sundry grievoussufferings and perils by land and sea, plundered even of ourhabits and tunics, we got at last by God's grace to the cityof Cambaliech, which is the seat of the Emperor the GreatChan, in the year of our Lord's incarnation 1308, as well asI can reckon.There, after the Archbishop was consecrated, according tothe orders given us by the Apostolic See, we continued toabide for nearly five years; during which time we obtainedan Alafa¹ from the emperor for our food and clothing. Analafa is an allowance for expenses which the emperor grantsto the envoys of princes, to orators, warriors, different kindsof artists, jongleurs, paupers, and all sorts of people of allsorts of conditions . And the sum total of these allowancessurpasses the revenue and expenditure of several of the kingsof the Latin countries.As to the wealth, splendour, and glory of this great em1 Arab. ' alaf, pabulum, and ' ulúfa, a soldier's wages, a stipend or provision.(Freytag.) But Quatremère points out that the exact word used here,'alafah is employed by Rashideddin to signify (1) the allowance made bythe prince for the keep of animals such as elephants, and ( 2) an allowancefor the entertainment of ambassadors and other like personages. He refersto the passage in the text. (Quat. , Rashideddin, p. 371.)2 "Jaculatoribus”, but I suppose a misprint for Joculatoribus.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS. 223peror, the vastness of his dominion, the multitudes of peoplesubject to him, the number and greatness of his cities, andthe constitution of the empire, within which no man dares todraw a sword against his neighbour, I will say nothing, because it would be a long matter to write, and would seemincredible to those who heard it. Even I who am here inthe country do hear things averred of it that I can scarcelybelieve....There is a great city on the shores of the Ocean Sea, whichis called in the Persian tongue Zayton; ¹ and in this city arich Armenian lady did build a large and fine enough church,which was erected into a cathedral by the Archbishop himself of his own free-will. The lady assigned it, with a competent endowment which she provided during her life andsecured by will at her death, to Friar Gerard the Bishop,and the friars who were with him, and he became accordingly the first occupant of the cathedral.After he was dead however and buried therein, the Archbishop wished to make me his successor in the church. Butas I did not consent to accept the position he bestowed itupon Friar and Bishop Peregrine before mentioned . Thelatter, as soon as he found an opportunity, proceeded thither,and after he had governed the church for a few years, inthe year of the Lord 1322, the day after the octave of St.Peter and St. Paul, he breathed his last.Nearly four years before his decease, finding myself forcertain reasons uncomfortable at Cambaliech, I obtainedpermission that the before mentioned alafa or imperialcharity should be allowed me at the said city of Zayton, whichis about three weeks journey distant from Cambaliech.³ This1 Wadding has Cayton. No doubt it was Çayton, for we constantly find the c for z. But printing it Cayton has led Ritter into the mistake ofputting Bishop Andrew at Canton. (Ritter's Lectures, Berlin, 1861 , p. 224.)2 July 7th .3 This is very short allowance, and an error in the number may besuspected.224 LETTERS AND REPORTSconcession I obtained as I have said, at my earnest request,and setting out with eight horsem*n allowed me by the emperor, I proceeded on myjourney, being everywhere receivedwith great honour. On my arrival (the aforesaid FriarPeregrine being still alive) I caused a convenient and handsome church to be built in a certain grove, quarter of a mileoutside the city, with all the offices sufficient for twenty-twofriars, and with four apartments such that any one of themis good enough for a church dignitary of any rank. In thisplace I continue to dwell, living upon the imperial dole before-mentioned, the value of which, according to the estimateof the Genoese merchants, amounts in the yearto 100 golden.florins or thereabouts. Of this allowance I have spent thegreatest part in the construction of the church; and I knownone among all the convents of our province to be comparedto it in elegance and all other amenities.And so not long after the death of Friar Peregrine I received a decree from the archbishop appointing me to theaforesaid cathedral church, and to this appointment I nowassented for good reasons. So I abide now sometimes inthe house or church in the city, and sometimes in my conventoutside, as it suits me. And myhealth is good, and as far asone can look forward at my time of life, I may yet labour inthis field for some years to come: but my hair is grey, whichis owing to constitutional infirmities as well as to age."Tis a fact that in this vast empire there are people of everynation under heaven, and of every sect, and all and sundryare allowed to live freely according to their creed. For theyhold this opinion, or rather this erroneous view, that everyone can find salvation in his own religion. Howbeit we areIn intrinsic value something less than £50; but with respect to bothtime and place equivalent to a vastly greater sum of money doubtless than £50 is to us.2 The Chinese "hold that all the sects may agree without dispensingwith their own observances, and have a text which says San chiao ye tao,i. e., The doctrines are three, but the reason of them is one." (AlvaroSemedo, Rel. della Cina, 116.)OF MISSIONARY FRIARS. 225at liberty to preach without let or hindrance. Of the Jewsand Saracens there are indeed no converts, but many of theidolaters are baptised; though in sooth many of the baptisedwalk not rightly in the path of Christianity.Four of our brethren have suffered martyrdom in India, atthe hands of the Saracens; and one of them was twice castinto a great blazing fire, but came out unhurt. And yet inspite of so stupendous a miracle not one of the Saracens wasconverted from his misbelief!!All these things I have briefly jotted down for your information, reverend father, and that through you they may becommunicated to others. I do not write to my spiritualbrethren or private friends, because I know not which ofthem are alive, and which departed, so I beg them to haveme excused. But I send my salutation to all, and desire tobe remembered to all as cordially as possible, and I pray you,father Warden, to commend me to the Minister and Custosof Perugia, and to all the other brethren. All the suffraganbishops appointed to Cambaliech and elsewhere by our lordPope Clement have departed in peace to the Lord, and Ialone remain. Friar Nicholas of Banthera, Friar Andrutiusof Assisi, and another bishop, died on their first arrival inLower India, in a most cruelly fatal country, where manyothers also have died and been buried.³2Farewell in the Lord, father, now and ever. Dated atZayton, A.D. 1326, in the month of January.NO. V. LETTER OF FRIAR JORDANUS OF THE ORDER OFPREACHERS.To the reverend fathers in Christ, the Preaching andMinorite Friars dwelling in TAURIS, DIAGORGAN, and MAROGA,1 No doubt Odoric had brought this history to Zayton with the bonesof the martyrs a year or two before.? Probably Ulrich Sayfusstorf (see p. 170).Probably at Hormuz.15226 LETTERS AND REPORTSFriar Jordanus of the Order of Preachers, the least of all,after saluting them and kissing their feet humbly, commendshimself with tears.¹All your venerable company of fathers is aware that I amleft alone a poor pilgrim in India, where for my sins I havebeen allowed to survive after the passion of those blessedmartyrs, Thomas the holy, James the glorious, Peter, andDemetrius. Nevertheless blessed over all be God who disposeth all things according to his will!After their blessed martyrdom, which occurred on theThursday before Palm Sunday in Thana of India, ² I baptisedabout ninety persons in a certain city called PAROCCO,³ tendays' journey distant therefrom, and I have since baptisedmore than twenty, besides thirty-five who were baptised¹ It is needful to remark on this and the following letter, the former ofwhich is taken from Quétif and the latter from Wadding, though both areunderstood to be derived from the same MS. , that both begin in the samemanner, an identity which continues down to " all our books ." My impression is, however, that these paragraphs belong properly to this firstletter, and have been transferred to the other by some mistake. Thereis an intense despondency about the second letter of which there is notrace in these paragraphs. Nor is it easy to see how he could talk ofleaving his things (robbam) and those of the deceased friars, and all thebooks, after he had been stripped to the shirt, as he represents himself inthe second letter.I have taken the names of the places partly from the version in Quétif,and partly from that in Wadding. In Wadding they run " Tauris, Diagorgan, and Merga." In Quétif, "Tauris, Tongan, and Maroga." Whenpublishing the Mirabilia of Jordanus I supposed Tongan to stand forDaumghan in Northern Persia, not knowing the grounds on which theFrench editor suggested " Djagorgan." There is no doubt, however,that Diagorgan is the proper reading. This is Dekergán (properly DehiKherkán or Dehi- Kherján), a city of some antiquity, and still the capitalof a district, between Tabriz and Maragha. The name of Diacoreganappears several times in Wadding's Annals in connexion with the Pope'scorrespondence with the Armenian clergy. A Catholic bishop, Bernardof Gardiola, was appointed to the see of Diagorgan in 1329. There werealso Latin bishops of Maraga. At least one, Bartholomew, is named in1320. (See F. Jordanus, HAK. Soc. , pref.; Journ. R. G. S., x, 3, 4; Lequien,iii, p. 1378-1394. )2 See note to Odoric on the date of the event, p. 68.3 Baruch or Broach, originally Barukachha.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 227between Thana and Supera.¹ Praise be to Christ the Creatorofall things; if I had but a comrade I would abide for sometime longer. But now I will get ready a church for thefriars who may be coming, and I will leave my things andthose of the martyrs, and all our books.I must come away myself, both on account of the canonization of the holy brethren above-mentioned, and on accountof religious and other business of a sufficiently perplexed anddifficult kind. The bearer hereof will be able to explain toyou what I cannot write myself for lack of time. I will onlysay a word as to the harvest to be expected, that it promisesto be great and encouraging. Let friars be getting ready tocome, for there are three places that I know where theymight reap a great harvest and where they could live incommon. One of these is Supera, where two friars mightbe stationed; and a second is in the district of Parocco,where two or three might abide; and the third is Columbus;besides many others that I am not acquainted with. But Ihave been told by our Latin merchants that the way toEthiopia is open for any one who wishes to go and preachthere, where once St. Matthew the Evangelist did preach.I pray the Lord that I may not die until I have been a pilgrim for the faith into those regions, for this is my wholeheart's desire. I bid you farewell; and pray ye for me and1 Respecting Supera, see note to Jordanus, p. vi, to which the followingnotices may be added. It is perhaps the Sibór of Cosmas, which he mentions as one of the five chief ports of (the west of) India. It has beenplausibly supposed to be the Ophir of Solomon, and to be connected withthe name which the Coptic language gives to India. It is called Subáraby Ibn Haukal and Edrisi, the former placing it four days, the latterfive days from Kambaia, and specifying it as one of the chief Indianentrepôts. It is the Sufálah of Abulfeda. Gildemeister says of it, "decujus situ omnis interiit memoria. " The following references, however,may assist, with those in the note already quoted, to ascertain it. Superaor Sufála, according to Reinaud quoting Langlois, answers to the placecalled by the Sanscrit writers Subahlika, which, if true, shows that Sufalarather than Supera was the genuine form of the name. Now, PadreVincenzo Maria, in the middle of the seventeenth century, when proceed- 152228 LETTERS AND REPORTScommend me to all the faithful. Dated from CAGA¹ the 12thday of October, in the year of the Lord 1321.NO. VI. A SECOND LETTER FROM FRIAR JORDANUS.2After the martyrs obtained their glorious crowns I cameto Thana, as I have before related, and buried the bodies.of those saints. Since then I have continued alone in thesaid city and the adjoining territory, for two years and ahalf, going out and in, but unworthy to partake of the crownof my happy comrades . Alas me, my fathers! alas me,thus left an orphan and a wayfarer in this pathless and wearywilderness! Alas for the evil and hateful day which, forthe salvation of other souls, so haplessly separated me frommy sainted comrades, unwitting of their coming crowns!Would that it had pleased the Lord most High that thenthe earth had swallowed me quick, and that I had not beenleft behind them, unhappy that I am, amid such miseries!ing to Surat, tells us that he landed at Suali. Tavernier also says thatships for Surat moor at Suali, which is only four leagues from Surat, andtwo to the north of the Tapti; and Suali is shown in the same positionby Rennell, agreeing with that assigned by Ptolemy to Suppara north ofthe Tapti. Is it rash to say that Suali, which is thus precisely identified,may mark for us the true site of Sufala or Supera? (Montfaucon Coll.Nova Patrum, ii, p. 336-339; Jaubert's Edrisi, i, 171; Gildemeister, pp. 45,179, 189; Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde, 221; P. Vincenzo Maria, Viag. , p. 109.)Lassen, however, gives Súrpáraka as the Sanskrit name of Suppara, without noticing the alleged Subahlika or the recently existing Suali, andidentifies the ancient city in site with the modern Surat. (Ind. Alterthumsk. , i, 107; iv, 957, and Map in the third volume. )Not having seen these letters when I translated the Mirabilia ofJordanus, I was led by the French editor's remarks on them to supposethat Caga was to be looked for in the Persian Gulf. With the letters before us we see that it is obviously to be looked for in the west of India,and there can be little doubt that it is, as has been explained by ProfessorKunstmann, the port of Gujerat, which we call Gogo, opposite to theParoço and Supera of Jordanus. Gogo appears in the Catalan Map of1375, and is mentioned by Ibn Batuta as Kúkah.2 The address and first part of this letter, as given by Wadding, areborrowed from the preceding letter. But the address probably was thesame.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 229Who is able to tell all the hardships that I have since endured?For I have been taken by pirates, cast into prison by theSaracens, been accused, cursed, reviled, and left this longtime past like some good-for-nothing vagabond, to go aboutin my shirt, without the habit of my holy order. O, whathunger and thirst, what cold and heat, yea burning rather,what curses, what diseases, what poverty and persecutions,what detraction from false Christians, what severities ofclimate, and what an infinite number of other hardships haveI not endured since those holy martyrs won their crowns!Where shall I find tears sufficient to bewail my desolateposition! But these things and more, even unto death, Iam ready to bear gladly for the sake of the beloved Jesus;and may He in the end reunite me in blessedness to myblessed comrades.In addition to all that I have mentioned, and to the extremity of poverty, I suffer continually from bodily ailments.Tortured by pains, sometimes in the head, sometimes in thechest, in the stomach, or in all my limbs in turn, here am Ileft in my solitude with no human aid. For there is a horridschism among the people in reference to me. One day theyare well disposed; another day quite the reverse, because ofthose who mislead them. I have, however, been happyenough to baptise more than a hundred and thirty of eithersex, and there would be a glorious harvest if the holy friarswould come; but they must be ready to bear all things withpatience, and martyrdom with gladness. To you then Iturn dear brethren, beseeching you with tears to grant thisconsolation to a hapless pilgrim bereft of his holy comrades.Let the holy friars come then, let them come with soulsestablished in patience, that the harvest of baptised soulsmay be kept from the evil one, and after it has beenthreshed, in the Lord's own time may be treasured in Hisgarner!But I must say a word as to the voyage to Ethiopia, which230 LETTERS AND REPORTSit would be very fitting that some friar willing to go thitherto preach should undertake. He might go thither at smallcost from the place where I now am, and, from what I haveheard, it would be a glorious journey for the diffusion of thefaith.Let me tell you that the fame of us Latins is more highlythought of among the people of India than among us Latinsourselves. Nay, they are in continual expectation of thearrival of the Latins here, which they say is clearly predictedin their books. And, moreover, they are continually prayingthe Lord, after their manner, to hasten this wished-for arrival of the Latins. If our lord the Pope would but establisha couple of galleys on this sea, what a gain it would be!And what damage and destruction to the Soldan of Alexandria! O, who will tell this to his holiness the Pope??For me, wayfarer that I am, ' tis out of the question . But Icommit all to you, holy fathers. Fare ye well, then, holyfathers, and remember the pilgrim in your prayers . Prayfor the pilgrim of Christ, all of you, that the Indian converts,black as they are, may all be made white in soul beforethe good Jesus, through his pitiful grace. I end my wordswith many a sigh, most heartily recommending myselfto theprayers of all.Dated in THANA of India, the city where my holy comradeswere martyred, in the year of the Lord 1323, in the monthof January, and on the feast of the holy martyrs Fabian andSebastian.3¹ These prophecies are also mentioned by Jordanus in his Mirabilia (p.23). Nieuhof says the Chinese also had an old prophecy that a nationof white men from afar should one day conquer their country. The liketales of the Mexicans will be remembered; and such also were said to becurrent among the Karens of Burma.2 Marino Sanuto also looked forward to the Pope having a fleet in theIndian Ocean, but he was first to get Egypt under his thumb. (SecretaFidel. Crucis, etc., p. 94.)3 20th January. The date (January 1323) must mean, I think, ourJanuary 1324. For he has been two and a half years alone since theOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 231NO. VIII. LETTER FROM PASCAL OF VITTORIA, A MISSIONARY FRANCISCAN IN TARTARY, TO HIS BRETHREN OF THE CONVENT OFVITTORIA, 1338.Dearly beloved fathers, your sanctities are aware that whenI quitted you I proceeded to Avignon in company with thedear father Friar Gonsalvo Transtorna. Thence we went,with the blessing of the reverend the general, to get thebenefit of the Indulgence at Assisi; and after that we embarked at Venice on board a certain carrack, and saileddown the Adriatic sea. We next sailed through the sea ofPontus, leaving Sclavonia to the left and Turkey to theright, and landed in Greece at Galata near Constantinople,where we found the father Vicar of Cathay in the Vicariatof the East. Then, embarking on another vessel, we sailedacross the Black Sea, whose depth is unfathomable, to Gazaria³ in the Vicariat of the North, and in the empire of theTartars. Then traversing another sea which has no bottom, *we landed at TANA.2And having got thither sooner than my comrade, I foundmy way with some Greeks by waggons as far as SARRAY;5martyrdom, whereas if 1323 were meant the time would really be considerably under two years.The Propontis or Sea of Marmora, is what he calls Mare Ponticum.It is curious to find the country so near the capital of the empire called Sclavonia.2 "Mare nigrum.”3 The Gazaria of Rubruquis is precisely the Crimea, but I believe theterm sometimes is extended towards the Don.4 A curiously erroneous notion of the Palus Mæotis. Tana is Azov.5 Sarai, the capital of the Khans of Kapchak, founded by Batu, stoodon the left bank of the Achtuba or northern branch of the Wolga. Pallasdescribes the remains of two cities on the river mentioned, one not farbelow its bifurcation from the main Wolga on a salt and sterile plaincalled Zarefpod, about two hundred and forty miles from the Caspian, theother at Selitrennoi Gorodok, much further down. The latter positionseems more consistent with Pegolotti's statement that you could go fromGittarchan to Sarai in one day (even supposing that Gittarchan or oldAstracan was somewhat higher than the present city) , and also with thestatements of Arabian geographers that Sarai was only two days from the232 LETTERS AND REPORTSwhilst my comrade, with some other friars, was carried onfurther to URGANTH. I was willing enough to go with him,but after taking counsel on the matter, I determined first tolearn the language of the country. And by God's help Idid learn the Chamanian language, and the Uigurian character; which language and character are commonly usedthroughout all those kingdoms or empires of the Tartars,Persians, Chaldæans, Medes, and of Cathay. My comradeturned back from Urganth and went to you again. But Icould not bear to return, like a dog to his vomit, and I wasdesirous to obtain the grace conceded by his holiness thePope, so I would not turn back. For you must know thatall of us friars who come into these parts have the sameCaspian. There are modern Russian authorities on the site and ruins ofSarai referred to by Von Hammer and Reinaud, but these are not availableto me. The name of the city merely means the Palace ( Serai, Serail, Seraglio) . Ibn Batuta says that starting at early morning to traverse the city he did not reach the opposite side till past noon. Sarai was twice takenby Timur, and was entirely destroyed by him. (Pallas, Voyages, Paris An.11, vii , 175, 388; Hammer- Purgstall, Gesch. der Goldenen Horde, pp. 9 and431, etc.; Reinaud's Abulfeda, 11.)1 Urghanj or Jorjaniah, formerly the chief city of Khwarezm, the countrynow known as Khyva. It stood on both banks of the Oxus, with a bridgeconnecting them. It was the scene of awful devastation and massacre bythe Mongols under Jenghiz in 1221 , and a hundred thousand of the onlyclass spared, the artizans, are said to have been transported to Mongolia.It must have recovered to some considerable extent in the next hundredyears, from the notices in Pegolotti and Ibn Batuta; but the river deserted it and it fell into entire decay. It is the Urgence of Anthony Jenkinson, who describes it in 1558 as an ill-built mud town in a depressedstate. New Urghanj , which is the present commercial capital of Khyva,is some sixty miles east of the site of the old city, near the present channelof the Oxus. The lists of Minorite convents in Kipchak, given by Wadding, contain a name which looks as if meant for Urghanj ( Organae, Orgune) , but it seems unlikely, considering the bigoted Islamism of the people, that this should have been the place.Col. James Abbott visited the ruins of Urghanj on his journey fromKhyva, but mentions nothing of much interest. (D'Ohsson, i, 265-270;Wadding, under 1400; Abbott's Journey, i, 214.)2 The Comanians were Turkish according to Klaproth, and Rubruquissays, " Apud Iugures est fons et radix idiomatis Turci et Comanici." Thename is supposed to be connected with the River Kuban. As to the character, see note above, p. 205.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 233privileges as those who go with licence to Jerusalem; thatis to say, the fullest indulgence both a pœnâ and a culpâ,and those who persevere unto the end, a crown of life .Therefore, my fathers, from the time when I had acquiredthe language, by the grace of God I often preached withoutan interpreter both to the Saracens and to the schismaticand heretical Christians . I then received a mandate frommy vicar to the effect that on receipt of his letter I shouldin salutary obedience to him, as in duty bound, proceed tofinish the journey which I had commenced.I had now been staying more than a year in the aforesaidSarray, a city of the Saracens of the Tartar empire, in theVicariat of the North, where three years before a certainfriar of ours, Stephen by name, suffered honourable martyrdom at the hands of the Saracens.¹ Embarking on a certain1 Pascal no doubt resided in one of the convents of his Order, of which there was one at Sarai, and a second , called St. John's, three miles fromthe city. The story of Stephen of Peterwaradin, belonging to the latter,may be read in Wadding, and is very interesting. This young monk, in1334, resenting some severe discipline, deserted and publicly professed Islam; but was afterwards seized with remorse, and as publicly recanted his apostasy . The enraged Mahomedans hacked him in pieces in sight of the fire that was to have burnt him. (Wadding, vii, 159-166 . )Wadding prints, under 1400, but apparently referring to a much earlier period in the fourteenth century, old lists of convents of the Order in the empire of Uzbek. These amounted to ten convents in the Custodia of Sarai, besides four in that of Gazaria or the Crimea. Those of Sarai are as follows:-ThanaAgitarcan SaraiComuch or CoinuchTarchis•Mamuui or Mauuiti .MagerUgueth, Uguech• i.e."" • دو9922دوAzov.ASTRACAN.The capital.The province of KUMUK or Land ofthe Kumuk Tribe south of R. Terek (Gumik of Masudi,ii, 40).TERKI at the mouth of the Terek, previouslySamander; now represented by Kisliar higher up. Distinct from modern Tarkhu(see Laprimaudaie, .p. 269; Hammer, Gold.Hord., p. 8; Prairies d'Or, ii, 7; V. du Chev.Gamba, ii, 351 ) .( Perhaps MEMAK, near Sarai (Hammer, p. 10;P. de la Croix, i, 294; ii, 101 ) .MAJARon the Kuma; see Intr. to Ibn Batuta,infra.UKEK, a city between Sarai and Bolgar onthe Wolga (P. de la Croix, ii, 355, 383),Oukaka of Marco Polo, Ukak of Ibn Batuta(ii, 414). Perhaps OWEKE of Anth. Jenkin- son, which he places in 51° 40' .

234 LETTERS AND REPORTSvessel with some Armenians, I departed thence by the rivercalled Tygris, ¹ and then along the shore of the sea which iscalled VATUK, till I came in twelve days' travel to SARACHIK.3From that place I got on a cart drawn by camels ( for to ridethose animals is something terrible) , and on the fiftieth dayreached Urganth, which is a city at the extremity of theempire of the Tartars and the Persians. The city is otherwise called Hus, and the body of the blessed Job is there.Thence I again mounted a camel- cart, and travelled witha party of accursed Hagarenes and followers of Mahomet, Ibeing the only Christian among them, with a certain servantcalled Zinguo, until by God's grace we reached the empireof the Medes. What my sufferings have been there, howAc- SaraiOrganæ, Orgune"White Building; " perhaps Al Baidha (same signif. ), which Edrisi couples with Saman- der, and possibly the Abserai (for Akserai?)of the Catalan Map, on coast below Terki.See Note 1, preceding page.From another list given by Wadding under 1314, we may add Beler,probably Bolar or Bolgar on the Wolga, and S. Joannes, the Monasteryof Stephen above-named.The Wolga; but why does he call it Tigris? Polo also calls theWolga by this name, as Pauthier shows (p. 8); whilst Josafat Barbarogives the same name to the Araxes ( Ram. , ii, 98) .2 Vatuk, for Bacuk or Bákú; the Caspian, see note, p. 50.3 Saraichik, " The Little Palace, " on the river Jaic or Ural, at a day'sjourney from the Caspian, in a low bad situation, was afterwards thehead- quarters of the Nogai Horde. Jenkinson mentions it as a placeexisting in 1558. Pallas found the fortifications still to be seen with acircuit of four or five versts (two and two-thirds to three and one-thirdmiles) . Ruins were traceable, with tiles of great size and many tombs.4 So Ibn Batuta says that between Sarai and Urghanj is a journey ofthirty or forty days, in which you do not travel with horses, for lack offorage, but in carts drawn by camels. Water is found at intervals oftwo or three days (ii, 451 , and iii, 2-3) . Pegolotti makes the distancetwenty days in camel-waggon. Jenkinson's companion, Richard Johnson, allows fifteen days only, but all his times appear too short.I can find nowhere else any story connecting Urghanj with Job or Hus.It looks like some misapprehension . There is a tomb of Job in Oudh!5 This title, given by the writer to the Tartar Khanate of Chagatai orTransoxiana, is a curious misnomer, originating no doubt in a blundereasily explained. This empire, lying as it did intermediate betweenCathay and Persia, was called "The Middle Empire, " Imperium Medium,as we actually find in a letter of Pope Benedict XII addressed to itsOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 235many and how great, God himself knoweth, and it would bea long story to tell in a letter. However, the Emperor ofthe Tartars had been slain by his natural brother, and thecaravan of Saracens with which I travelled was detained bythe way in the cities of the Saracens, for fear of war andplunder.Hence I was long tarrying among the Saracens, and Ipreached to them for several days openly and publicly thename of Jesus Christ and his gospel. I opened out andlaid bare the cheats, falsehoods, and blunders of their falseprophet; with a loud voice, and in public, I did confoundtheir barkings; and trusting in our Lord Jesus Christ Iwas not much afraid of them, but received from the HolySpirit comfort and light. They treated me civilly and setme in front of their mosque during their Easter; ¹ at whichmosque, on account of its being their Easter, there were assembled from divers quarters a number of their Cadini, i.e. ,of their bishops, and of their Talisimani, i.e., of theirsovereign (Wadding, vii, 212) , and in John Marignolli. In AndreaBianco's Map of the World in St. Mark's library it is called “ Imp. deMedio, i.e., seu Côbalek" (for Armalek) . But the Carta Catalana makesthe same mistake as Pascal, calling it the empire of " Medeia", and thePortulano Mediceo also, in the Laurentian library, makes Armaloc capitalof the "Imp. Medorum. " Media seems always to have bothered mediavaltravellers and geographers who thought it their duty to find Medes extant as well as Persians. Hayton's Media embraces Kurdistan and Fars;Clavijo puts it between Persia proper and Khorasan.1 The Bairam, one of the great Mahomedan festivals entitled ' Id, is(Herbelot says) " commonly called the Easter of the Turks." (See Note atp. 154.) The Christians applied this name to it, because of its followingthe fast of Ramazan, which was (more appropriately) termed the Mahom- edan Lent. And the Mahomedans also conversely applied the termBairam to the Easter of the Christians.2 Kadhi or Kazi is properly a judge, but from the quasi-identity of Mahomedan law and divinity, he deals with both. He is a Dr. Lushingtonrather than a bishop.3 I cannot make out what this word is. It is used (Thalassimani) inthe same sense by Barbaro in Ramusio (ii, 107); and, as Mr. Badger tellsme, also (Talismans) in Rycaut's History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire (p. 204) . Talismani are also repeatedly mentioned in the Turkish Annals translated by Leunclavius, and in his Pandecta appended236 LETTERS AND REPORTSpriests. And guided by the teaching of the Holy Ghost Idisputed with them in that same place before the mosque,on theology, and regarding their false Alchoran and itsdoctrine, for five-and-twenty days; and in fact I was barelyable once a- day to snatch a meal of bread and water.But by the grace of God the doctrine of the Holy Trinitywas disclosed and preached to them, and at last even they,in spite of their reluctance, had to admit its truth; and,thanks be unto the Almighty God, I carried off the victoryon all points, to the praise and honour of Jesus Christ and ofHoly Mother Church . And then these children of the deviltried to tempt and pervert me with bribes, promising mewives and hand- maidens, gold and silver and lands, horsesand cattle, and other delights of this world. But when inevery way I rejected all their promises with scorn, then fortwo days together they pelted me with stones, besides putting fire to my face and my feet, plucking out my beard, andheaping upon me for a length of time all kinds of insult andabuse. The Blessed God, through whom poor I am able torejoice and exult in the Lord Jesus Christ, knoweth that ' tisby his marvellous compassion alone I have been judgedworthy to bear such things for his name.And now I have been graciously brought to ARMALEC,¹ athereto he explains Talismani to occupy a certain degree among thelearned in Mahomedan law. He borrows a passage, which compares thechief mufti to the pope, the chief cadis to archbishops, cadis to bishops,hoggias (khwajas?) to presbyters, talismans to deacons, and dervishesto monks. (Corpus Byzant. Histor. , xxiv, pp. 318, 414, etc.)My friend Mr. Badger thinks that the title has probably been " derivedfrom Tailasán, a kind of hood of goat's or camel's hair, “ quale philosophiet religiosi, imprimis apud Persas, usurpare velut pro insigni solent, " justas Cappuccino comes from Cappuccio." If this is not the origin, may itbe a Frank corruption of talámiz, scholars, students?1 Armalec, the Almálik of the Mahommedan writers, which again is thecorruption of a Turkish name, and called by the Chinese Alimali, was thecapital of the Khans of the family of Chagatai. It had been, however, theseat of a Turkish principality before the rise of the Mongols. (D'Ohsson,i, 111.) It stood on or near the Ili River; Klaproth says, "in the vicinityof the Kurgos of our day on the banks of the Alimatu, a tributary of theOF MISSIONARY FRIARS. 237city in the midst of the land of the Medes, in the vicariatof Cathay. And thus, beginning at Urganth, which is thelast city of the Persians and Tartars, all the way to Armalec,I was constantly alone among the Saracens, but by wordand act and dress, publicly bore the name of the Lord JesusChrist. And by those Saracens I have often been offeredpoison; I have been cast into the water; I have sufferedblows and other injuries more than I can tell in a letter.But I give thanks to God under all that I expect to sufferstill greater things for his name, in order to the forgivenessof my sins, and that I may safely reach the kingdom ofHeaven through His mercy. Amen!Fare ye well in the Lord Jesus Christ, and pray for me,and for those who are engaged, or intend to be engaged, onmissionary pilgrimages; for by God's help such pilgrimagesare very profitable, and bring in a harvest of many souls.Care not then to see me again, unless it be in these regions,or in that Paradise wherein is our Rest and Comfort andRefreshment and Heritage, even the Lord Jesus Christ.And for that He hath said that when the Gospel shall havebeen preached throughout the whole world, then shall theend come, it is for me to preach among divers nations, toshow sinners their guilt, and to declare the way of salvation,but it is for God Almighty to pour into their souls the graceofconversion.Dated at Armalec, on the feast of St. Laurence, A.D. 1338,in the Empire of the Medes.¹Ili from the north. " It is, perhaps, however Old Kulja (some twentysix or twenty-eight miles above the modern Chinese frontier city of thatname on the Ili), which is mentioned in recent Russian surveys. If thiswas Almalik it stood in about 80° 58 ′ east longitude, and 43° 55' northlatitude. We shall find it spoken of again by Pegolotti and Marignolli.According to the translators of Baber the name of the city signifies inTúrki " a grove of apple-trees" (p. 1) . The Russian Captain Valikhanofsays that Almálik is now "a Turkestan village," and that he obtainedgold coins and ornaments dug up on its site, but unfortunately heneglects to indicate that essential point. (The Russians in Central Asia,etc., London, 1865, pp. 62, 63).1 If souls transmigrate, that of Henry Martyn was in Friar Pascal!238 LETTERS AND REPORTSNO. VIII . THE BOOK OF THE ESTATE OF THE GREAT CAAN, SETFORTH BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF SOLTANIA, CIRCA 1330.(Supposed to be the Dominican John de Cora. )Here beginneth the Book of the Estate and Governance ofthe Great Caan of Cathay, the Emperor Suzerain of theTartars, and concerning the administration ofhis empire, andthat of the others his princes, as these are set forth by a certainarchbishop, called the Archbishop of Soltaniah,¹ by commandof Pope John the XXIInd of that name; translated fromLatin into French by Friar John the Long, of Ypres, monk ofthe monastery of St. Bertin at St. Omer.1. The Great Caan of Cathay is one of the most puissantof all the kings in the world, and all the great lords of thatcountry be his lieges and do him homage; and in chief threegreat emperors; to wit, the Emperor of Armalech, theEmperor Boussay, and the Emperor Usbech. These threeemperors send year by year live libbards, camels, and gerfalcons, and great store of precious jewels besides, to thesaid Caan their lord. For they acknowledge him to betheirlord and suzerain. And great power and renown have thesethree emperors as it appeareth. For when the EmperorUsbech had war with the Emperor Boussaye and went forthto fight him, he brought upon the field 707,000 horsem*n,without pressing hard on his empire. What like then andhow great must needs be the power of the Great Caan whohath such and so puissant barons for his lieges under him?1 "Par un Arceusque que on dist larceusque Soltensis.”2 This is Cambalech in the text, but it is obviously an error of transcription; Cambalech being correctly mentioned afterwards as the chiefcity of Cathay itself.3 The Ilkhan of Persia, Abusaid Bahadur, 1317-1335.4 Khan of Kipchak, 1313-1341 .5 This was probably in 1318 when there was war between Abusaid andUzbeg, and the latter threatened the northern frontier of Persia with agreat army of horsem*n. "He advanced, " says the historian Wassaf, "withOF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 239His empire is called Cathan or Cathay. It beginneth atthe extremity of the east, and runneth down even unto Yndethe Greater; and stretcheth in a right line westward as faras one may travel in six months.In this empire there be two great cities, Cambalec andCassay. And all that are of the Caan's realm, great andsmall, be his serfs and slaves . And the folk of the land haveso great obedience and fear for their lord the Great Caan ofCathay that they dare not to oppose him in any matter ortransgress his commandment. Insomuch that once whenone of his great princes had misbehaved in battle so as todeserve death, the Grand Caan when he knew it sent him amessage desiring that he would send him his head. And assoon as he had read the letter, straightway there in the midstof his people without the slightest opposition or resistancehe bowed his head and patiently let them cut it off. TheCaan maintaineth justice right well, and that as well for greatas for small.Once a year, on the first day of the new moon of March,which is the first day of their year, the said emperor showshimself to his people dressed out in purple and gold andsilver and precious stones. Then all the folk drop on theirknees before him, and adore him, and say, " Lo this is ourGod upon earth, who giveth us in lieu of scarcity plenty andgreat riches, who giveth us peace and maintaineth justice!"Then the emperor refuseth justice to no man, but thanksbe to God Almighty, he delivereth the prisoners, and bestoweth his mercies and acts of compassion on all manner ofpeople, who have need thereof, and require a favour at hishand. Only there be three manner of folk to whom herendereth never mercy: to wit, such an one as hath laida vast army; the horses were clad in mail; the swords of countless horsem*n flashed in the sun; every rider had three led horses behind him;like a roaring flood and a raging lion this host devastated the countryround Darband. " ( V. Hammer-Purgstall, Gesch. der Ilchane, pp. 272, 372.)1 Khitan, and Khitai.240 LETTERS AND REPORTSviolent and reprobate hands upon his father or his mother;such as hath forged the king's money, which is of paper;and such as hath done any one to death by giving him poisonto drink. To these three rendereth he never mercy.On this day also he bestoweth many gifts, and great plentyof gold and silver and precious stones. And the smallest ofthe gifts that he bestoweth is worth at the least a balismelofgold, whilst they are often worth ......2 balismes . Andone balisme is worth a thousand golden florins.And the said emperor is pitiful and very compassionate.He provideth always for himself and for his lieges stores ofwheat and of rice and of all manner of corn; and for this hehath barns and garners uncountable; and so when there isdearth in the land he openeth his garners, and giveth forth ofhis wheat and his rice for a half what others are selling it at.And thus he maketh great abundance to arise in the time ofgreatest dearth.³ Likewise he maketh great alms to the poorfor the love of God, and when any one is so infirm of body thathe cannot win his bread, or so reduced to poverty that he hathnot wherewithal to live, nor hath friends to do him good,then the emperor causeth provision to be made for all hisneeds. And thus doth he throughout all his kingdom, nordoth he oppress any man throughout all his realm by extraordinary and strange exactions. And knowye for sure thathe hath such riches from his revenues, and from the produceof his taxes and customs,5 that his wealth and power are pasttelling. And he hath treasuries and great houses all full ofgold and silver, and gems, and of other kinds of wealth andprecious things, and especially in his chief towns.Also in all his realm from city to city hath he other houseswherein dwell couriers who are sped both on foot and on1 See note to Odoric, p. 115. 2 Wanting in the original.3 On these magazines for public relief, see Marco Polo, i, 29.4 See Jordanus, p. 46, and Marco Polo as above.3 11 Gables de truuaiges et de malestouttes."OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 241horseback. And these couriers and messengers have bellshung to their waists or to their whips. And so when one ofthese couriers cometh bringing the despatches of the emperor, and draweth near unto one of those houses aforesaid,he maketh his bells to jingle; and know that at this soundone of the other couriers in the house girdeth himself andtaketh those despatches, and carrieth them off to anotherhouse; and so with the rest. And they stop not running,day nor night, until the letters be arrived whither they wereto go. And thus the Emperor shall have in xv days newsof a country that shall be as far off as three months' journey.¹He receiveth also right courteously envoys and ambassadorsfrom any foreign country or lordship , and furnisheth themwith all that they require in coming and in going, throughout the extent of his realm.22. Concerning the Sovereign Bishop, who is the Pope ofthe Empire of Cathay.This realm of Cathay hath a sovereign bishop, such as thePope is with us. Those of the country and of his religion.call him the Grand Trutius.3 He is liegeman of the aforesaid Emperor the Great Caan, and obeyeth him as hissovereign lord. But the Emperor honoureth him above allother men. And when the Emperor rideth in his companyhe maketh him to ride close by his side. And the Emperor1 See Odoric, p. 138.2 See the narrative of Marignolli, and that of Shah Rukh's ambassadors in Notices et Extraits, tom . xiv. The rules for the provision ofaccommodation, etc., to ambassadors, may be seen in Pauthier's ChineModerne, p. 212.3 Afterwards written the Grand Trucins. I cannot track the word, orsay which is right. I suspect it is a mistranscription for Tyuinus. Tuinwas a name used among the Tartars (among the Uigurs properly according to Quatremère) for a Buddhist priest . See Rubruquis, pp. 352, 355;Quatremère's Rashideddin, p. 198; Hammer, Gesch. der Goldenen Horde,p. 217; King Hethum's Narrative in Jour . As. , s. ii, tom. xii, p. 289; andOdoric, ante, p. 83.16212 LETTERS AND REPORTSwithholdeth from him no favour that he seeketh . This GrandTrucins hath always the head and the beard shaven, andweareth on his head a red hat, and is always clothed in red.¹He hath the lordship and supremacy over all the clergy andall the monks of his law throughout all the said realm . Andto him it belongeth to correct them in doctrine and in discipline; nor do the Emperors meddle with him or his orders .And among those clerks and monks of theirs be great prelates, bishops , and abbots, but all be subject to the GrandTrucins.or more.In every city of the said empire there be abbeys of menunder Vows, and also of women, who dwell in them according to the religion of that country, subject to the obedienceand discipline of the Grand Trucins; so that there shallhardly be one city or town in the said empire wherein youshall not find an abbey, whilst in some there be eight or tenAnd every abbey shall have at the least twohundred inmates. They be passing rich, and with thatgreat wealth of theirs they do much alms before God. Theylive in great order, and keep their hours of service seventimes a-day, and they get up early to matins. They havebells made of metal in the shape of a pent-roof on whichthey strike their hours. They keep chastity, and none oftheir clerks and monks do marry. They be idolaters andworship divers idols. And over these idols they say thatthere be four gods; and these four gods they carve in goldand silver, so as to stand out entire before and behind.And above these four gods they say that there is a greaterGod who is over all the gods, great and small.1 See Jordanus, p. 46 and note.The four gods may be the four past terrestrial Buddhas who are foundin Burma occupying the four sides of some temples, and the greater Godover all may be the Adi Buddha of the Theistic Buddhists, who, according to Huc and Gabet, seems to be recognized in Mongolia and China,though unknown to the Buddhists of Ceylon and the Indo- Chinese coun- tries.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 2433. Concerning the state and condition of the realm ofCathay.The realm of Cathay is peopled passing well; and it hathno few cities that be greater than Paris or Florence; anda great multitude of places full of inhabitants, and smallercities past counting. It hath likewise store of fine meadowsand pastures, and of sweet- smelling herbs. And there bemany great rivers, and great sheets of water throughout theempire; insomuch that a good half of the realm and itsterritory is water. And on these waters dwell great multitudes of people because of the vast population that there isin the said realm. They build wooden houses upon boats,and so their houses go up and down upon the waters; andthe people go trafficking in their houses from one province toanother, whilst they dwell in these houses with all theirfamilies, with their wives and children, and all their household utensils and necessaries. And so they live upon thewaters all the days of their life .brought to bed, and do everything else just as people dowho dwell upon dry land. And if you ask of those folkwhere were they born? they can reply nought else than thatthey were born upon the waters, as I have told you. Andseeing that there be these great multitudes dwelling thusboth on water and on land, the folk are in such great numbersthat the cattle of the country suffice not for them, whereforethey have to bring them from other countries and for thatreason flesh-meat is dear there. But in this country thereis great store of wheat, rice, barley, and other kinds of corn.And so the Great Caan year by year collecteth of this greatplenty, and storeth it in his garners, as hath been told above.And they have a rice harvest twice in the year.And there the women beThere groweth not any oil olive in that country, nor wineof the vine, and they have none except what is brought fromabroad, and for that reason the price thereof is high. But1 See John Marignolli, infra.16 2244 LETTERS AND REPORTSthey make oil and wine from rice; ¹ and all fruits grow therein very great abundance, excepting filberts which they havenot. Sugar, however, they have in very great quantities,and therefore it is very cheap there.The country is mighty peaceable, nor dare anyone carryarms or stir war therein, except those only who are appointed by the emperor to guard him or any city of his.2In the empire of Boussaye aforesaid groweth a certainmanner of trees which from their sap are of great help tothe folk of the country. For there be some of them whichfrom their bark give forth a white liquor like milk, sweet,savoury, and abundant, and the people of the country make.drink and food of it as if it were goat's-milk, and that rightgladly. And when they cut those trees anywhere, whetherit be in the branches or elsewhere, they give forth wherethey were cut a manner of juice in great plenty, which juicehath the colour and savour of wine. And other trees therebe which bear a manner of fruit as big as filberts, or as nutsof St. Gratian; and when this fruit is ripe the folk of thecountry gather it, and open it, and find inside grains likewheat, of which they make bread and maccaroni³ and otherfood which they are very glad to eat.*4. On the ordering of the two cities of Cambalec andCassay.These two cities are very great, and right famous. Eachone of them hath good thirty miles of compass round thewalls thereof. And so vast is the number of people that thesoldiers alone who are posted to keep ward in the city ofCambalec are forty thousand men, by sure tale. And in the1 "Wine from rice and oil and from other seeds, " he should have said.2 See Andrew of Perugia's letter, ante, p. 223, and Ibn Batuta, infra.3 "Paste."4 I cannot explain these statements; nor tell what is called a nut ofSt. Gratian; (St. Gratian's day is December 18th. )OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 245city of Cassay there be yet more, for its people is greaterin number, seeing that it is a city of very great trade. Andto this city all the traders of the country come to trade;and greatly it aboundeth in all manner of merchandize.And the Saracens aforesaid do very diligently guard thesaid cities by night and by day.5. Concerning the money which is current in the saidrealm .The Grand Caan there maketh money of paper. Andthis hath a red token right in the middle, and round aboutthere be letters in black. And this money is of greateror of less value according to the token that is thereon;one is worth a groat and another is worth a denier; andso some are worth more and some less . And they fix thevalue of their money of gold and silver with reference totheir paper money.You find in this country a greater variety of merchandizethan in the territories of Rome or of Paris. They havegreat store of gold and silver and of precious stones. Forwhen any merchants from foreign parts come thither totrade, they leave there their gold and silver and preciousstones, and they carry away the products of the country;spices, silk, cloths of silk and cloths of gold, of which theyfind great quantities for sale here.The emperor above mentioned hath very great treasuries;indeed it is a marvel to see them; and these are for thispaper money.And when the said paper money is too oldThe Cansay of Odoric, etc., q. v. Pegolotti also calls it Cassay.2 There are no Saracens mentioned before. But the word translatedsoldiers is " servans," which perhaps was " Sarazins." Or vice versa, theSarazins in the second passage should be servans.3 "Maille."4 The phrase is avalicent leur monnoie dor et dargent à leur monnoiede pappier, which Jacquet explains as in the text. The explanation doesnot seem very satisfactory, and the statement certainly is not true.246 LETTERS AND REPORTSand worn, so that it cannot be well handled, it is carriedto the king's chamber, where there be moneyers appointedto this duty. And if the token or the king's name is atall to be discerned thereon, then the moneyer giveth newpaper for the old, deducting three in every hundred forthis renewal. All their royal grants are also made onpaper.6. Concerning the manner of life of the people of thiscountry.1 2The emperor's people are very worthily arrayed, and livein a rich and liberal manner. And though silk and goldand silver are in great plenty, they have very little linen,wherefore all have shirts of silk; and their clothes are ofTartary cloth, and damask silk, and other rich stuffs , ofttimes adorned with gold and silver and precious stones .They wear long sleeves, coming down over their finger nails .They have sundry kinds of dishes made of canes, which arethere very great and thick. They eat meat of all kinds ofbeasts, and when they will make a great feast they killcamels, and make fine dishes of the flesh after their ownfashion. They have fish in great abundance, and otherthings; and on these they live after their manner, as otherpeople do after theirs .3Tartary cloth is mentioned by Mandeville and other medieval writers .No doubt it was some rich Chinese stuff, for the Tartars proper couldscarcely have been entitled to a reputation for fine textures: Dante alludes to it-"Con più color sommesse e soprapostiNon fer mai in drappo Tartari ne Turchi Ne fur tai tele per Aracne imposta;"and his expressions seem to imply that it was of variegated colours;shawl- work or embroidery perhaps. I find that Dozy says Tatariyat wererobes of satin garnished with borders of gold stuff. (Dict. des noms desvêtements chez les Arabes, p. 94.)2 Tamotas (for Camocas, regarding which see a note upon Pegolotti,infra.)3 See Ibn Batuta, infra, and note.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 2477. Ofthe manner in which they do bury their dead.When a child is born they take good heed to register theday of his birth, and when he dies his friends and kinsfolkput the body on a bier of paper adorned with gold and withsilver; and on this bier they place myrrh and incense withthe body. And then they put the bier upon a car, and thiscar is drawn by all of the dead man's kin to the place appointed specially; and there they burn the dead, with bierand car and all. And they give a reason for this, for theysay that it is thus with fire that gold is purged, and so mustthe human body also be purged by fire, in order that it mayrise again in all purity. When they have thus burned theirdead they return to their houses, and in memory of the deadthey cause an image to be made in his likeness . And thisimage they set in a certain place, and every year on hisbirthday they burn before this image lignalocs and othermanner of fragrant spices; and so they keep the dead man'sbirthday in remembrance.¹8. Concerning the Minor Friars who sojourn in thatcountry.In the said city of Cambalec there was an archbishop,whose name was Friar John of Montecorvino, of the Orderof Minor Friars, and he was legate sent thither by PopeClement. This archbishop did establish in the said citythree houses of Minor Friars, and these are a good twoleagues apart one from another. He made also two othersin the city of Zaiton,3 which is distant from Cambalec athree months' journey, and standeth upon the seashore. In1 Though burial of the dead appears to be the universal custom in Chinanow, it is seen from many passages of Marco Polo that cremation was ausual practice in his day. See also Ibn Batuta, infra.2 We have seen the history of two of the churches in the archbishop's letters. The third must have been built at a later date.3 See Odoric, p. 97, and Ibn Batuta and Marignolli, infra. The latterabout 1346 found three churches at Zayton also.248 LETTERS AND REPORTSthose two houses were two Minor Friars as bishops . Theone was by name Friar Andrew of Perugia, and the otherwas by name Friar Peter of Florence.¹ That Friar Johnthe archbishop converted a multitude of people to the faithof Jesus Christ. He was a man of very upright life, pleasingto God and men, and stood in high grace with the emperor.The emperor at all times caused him and all his people tobe furnished with all that they required; and much was hebeloved by all, pagans as well as Christians. And certeshe would have converted that whole country to the Christian Catholic faith, if the Nestorians, those false Christiansand real miscreants, had not hindered him and done himhurt.The said archbishop was at great pains with those Nestorians to bring them under the obedience of our mother theholy Church of Rome; for without this obedience, he toldthem, they could not be saved. And for this cause thoseNestorian schismatics held him in great hate.This archbishop, as it hath pleased God, is lately passedfrom this world. To his obsequies and burial there came avery great multitude of people, both Christians and pagans.And those pagans rent their mourning garments as theirmanner is; and both Christians and pagans devoutly laidhold of the clothes of the archbishop, and carried them offas reliques with great reverence.So there he was buried with great honour, after themanner of faithful Christians. And they still visit the placeof his interment with very great devotion.9. Concerningthe Schismatics or Nestorian Christians whodwell in that country.In the said city of Cambalec there is a manner of schismatic Christians whom they call Nestorians. They followthe manner and fashion of the Greeks, and are not obedient1 One of the second batch of bishops, sent to the East in 1312.OF MISSIONARY FRIARS . 249to the holy Church of Rome, but follow another sect, andbear great hate to all the Catholic Christians there who doloyally obey the holy Church aforesaid. And when thatarchbishop of whom we have been speaking was buildingthose abbeys of the Minor Friars aforesaid, these Nestoriansby night went to destroy them, and did all the hurt thatthey were able . But they dared not do any evil to the saidarchbishop, nor to his friars, nor to other faithful Christiansin public or openly, for that the emperor did love these andshowed them tokens of his regard.These Nestorians are more than thirty thousand, dwellingin the said empire of Cathay, and are passing rich people,but stand in great fear and awe of the Christians . Theyhave very handsome and devoutly ordered churches, withcrosses and images in honour of God and the saints. Theyhold sundry offices under the said emperor, and have greatprivileges from him; so that it is believed that if theywould agree and be at one with the Minor Friars, and withthe other good Christians who dwell in that country, theywould convert the whole country and the emperor likewiseto the true faith.10. Concerning the great favour which the Grand Caanbeareth towards the Christians before mentioned.The Grand Caan supporteth the Christians in the saidkingdom who are obedient to the holy Church of Rome, andcauseth provision to be made for all their necessities; for hehath very great devotion towards them, and sheweth themgreat affection. And when they require or ask anythingfrom him, in order to furnish their churches their crossesor their sanctuaries to the honour of Jesus Christ, he dothmost willingly bestow it. But he desireth that they shouldpray God for him and for his health, and especially in theirsermons. And most willingly doth he suffer and encouragethe friars to preach the faith of God in the churches of the250 LETTERS AND REPORTS , ETC.pagans which are called vritanes.¹ And as willingly doth hepermit the pagans to go to hear the preachment of the friars;so that the pagans go very willingly, and often behave withgreat devoutness, and bestow upon the friars great alms.And so, also, this emperor most readily sendeth his peopleto lend aid and succour to the Christians when they haveany need, and ask it of the emperor.Here endeth the discourse concerning the governance ofthestate ofthe Grand Caan, sovereign Emperor ofthe Tartars.1 I have not been able to trace this term, but it probably contains theSanscrit Vihára, a Buddhist monastery; perhaps Vihárasthána, if therebe such a compound.

」

{{GFDL}}