The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2

[1] See Anderson’s Mission to East Coast of Sumatra, pp. 229, 233 and map. The Ferlec of Polo was identified by Valentyn. (Sumatra, in vol. v. p. 21.) Marsden remarks that a terminal k is in Sumatra always softened or omitted in pronunciation. (H. of Sum. 1st. ed. p. 163.) Thus we have Perlak, and Perla, as we have Battak and Batta.

[2] Since this engraving was made a fourth species has been established, Rhin. lasyotis, found near Chittagong.

[3] The elephant of India has 6 true ribs and 13 false ribs, that of Sumatra and Ceylon has 6 true and 14 false.

[4] Marsden, however, does say that a one-horned species (Rh. sondaicus?) is also found on Sumatra (3rd ed. of his H. of Sumatra, p. 116).

[5] An American writer professes to have discovered in Missouri the fossil remains of a bogged mastodon, which had been killed precisely in this way by human contemporaries. (See Lubbock, Preh. Times, 2d ed. 279.)

[6] Tresor, p. 253; N. and E., V. 263; Jordanus, p. 43.

[7] Another mediæval illustration of the subject is given in Les Arts au Moyen Age, p. 499, from the binding of a book. It is allegorical, and the Maiden is there the Virgin Mary.

Note 1.—I have little doubt that in Marco’s dictation the name was really Samatra, and it is possible that we have a trace of this in the Samarcha (for Samartha) of the Crusca MS.

The Shijarat Malayu has a legend, with a fictitious etymology, of the foundation of the city and kingdom of Samudra, or Sumatra, by Marah Silu, a fisherman near Pasangan, who had acquired great wealth, as wealth is got in fairy tales. The name is probably the Sanskrit Samudra, “the sea.” Possibly it may have been imitated from Dwára Samudra, at that time a great state and city of Southern India. [We read in the Malay Annals, Salalat al Salatin, translated by Mr. J. T. Thomson (Proc. R. G. S. XX. p. 216): “Mara Silu ascended the eminence, when he saw an ant as big as a cat; so he caught it, and ate it, and on the place he erected his residence, which he named Samandara, which means Big Ant (Semut besar in Malay).”—H. C.] Mara Silu having become King of Samudra was converted to Islam, and took the name of Malik al-Ṣálih. He married the daughter of the King of Parlák, by whom he had two sons; and to have a principality for each he founded the city and kingdom of Pasei. Thus we have Marco’s three first kingdoms, Ferlec, Basma, and Samara, connected together in a satisfactory manner in the Malayan story. It goes on to relate the history of the two sons Al-Dháhir and Al-Mansúr. Another version is given in the history of Pasei already alluded to, with such differences as might be expected when the oral traditions of several centuries came to be written down.

Ibn Batuta, about 1346, on his way to China, spent fifteen days at the court of Samudra, which he calls Sămăthrah or Sămŭthrah. The king whom he found there reigning was the Sultan Al-Malik Al-Dháhir, a most zealous Mussulman, surrounded by doctors of theology, and greatly addicted to religious discussions, as well as a great warrior and a powerful prince. The city was 4 miles from its port, which the traveller calls Sărha; he describes the capital as a large and fine town, surrounded with an enceinte and bastions of timber. The court displayed all the state of Mahomedan royalty, and the Sultan’s dominions extended for many days along the coast. In accordance with Ibn Batuta’s picture, the Malay Chronicle represents the court of Pasei (which we have seen to be intimately connected with Samudra) as a great focus of theological studies about this time.

There can be little doubt that Ibn Batuta’s Malik Al-Dháhir is the prince of the Malay Chronicle, the son of the first Mahomedan king. We find in 1292 that Marco says nothing of Mahomedanism; the people are still wild idolaters; but the king is already a rich and powerful prince. This may have been Malik al-Ṣálih before his conversion; but it may be doubted if the Malay story be correct in representing him as the founder of the city. Nor is this apparently so represented in the Book of the Kings of Pasei.

Before Ibn Batuta’s time, Sumatra or Samudra appears in the travels of Fr. Odoric. After speaking of Lamori (to which we shall come presently), he says: “In the same island, towards the south, is another kingdom, by name Sumoltra, in which is a singular generation of people, for they brand themselves on the face with a hot iron in some twelve places,” etc. This looks as if the conversion to Islam was still (circa 1323) very incomplete. Rashiduddin also speaks of Súmútra as lying beyond Lamuri. (Elliot, I. p. 70.)

The power attained by the dynasty of Malik al-Ṣálih, and the number of Mahomedans attracted to his court, probably led in the course of the 14th century to the extension of the name of Sumatra to the whole island. For when visited early in the next century by Nicolo Conti, we are told that he “went to a fine city of the island of Taprobana, which island is called by the natives Shamuthera.” Strange to say, he speaks of the natives as all idolaters. Fra Mauro, who got much from Conti, gives us Isola Siamotra over Taprobana; and it shows at once his own judgment and want of confidence in it, when he notes elsewhere that “Ptolemy, professing to describe Taprobana, has really only described Saylan.”

We have no means of settling the exact position of the city of Sumatra, though possibly an enquiry among the natives of that coast might still determine the point. Marsden and Logan indicate Samarlanga, but I should look for it nearer Pasei. As pointed out by Mr. Braddell in the J. Ind. Arch., Malay tradition represents the site of Pasei as selected on a hunting expedition from Samudra, which seems to imply tolerable proximity. And at the marriage of the Princess of Parlak to Malik Al-Ṣálih, we are told that the latter went to receive her on landing at Jambu Ayer (near Diamond Point), and thence conducted her to the city of Samudra. I should seek Samudra near the head of the estuary-like Gulf of Pasei, called in the charts Telo (or Talak) Samawe; a place very likely to have been sought as a shelter to the Great Kaan’s fleet during the south-west monsoon. Fine timber, of great size, grows close to the shore of this bay,[1] and would furnish material for Marco’s stockades.

When the Portuguese first reached those regions Pedir was the leading state upon the coast, and certainly no state called Sumatra continued to exist. Whether the city continued to exist even in decay is not easy to discern. The Aín-i-Akbari says that the best civet is that which is brought from the seaport town of Sumatra, in the territory of Achin, and is called Sumatra Zabád; but this may have been based on old information. Valentyn seems to recognise the existence of a place of note called Samadra or Samotdara, though it is not entered on his map. A famous mystic theologian who flourished under the great King of Achin, Iskandar Muda, and died in 1630, bore the name of Shamsuddín Shamatráni, which seems to point to the city of Sumatra as his birth place.[2] The most distinct mention that I know of the city so called, in the Portuguese period, occurs in the soi-disant “Voyage which Juan Serano made when he fled from Malacca,” in 1512, published by Lord Stanley of Alderley, at the end of his translation of Barbosa. This man speaks of the “island of Samatra” as named from “a city of this northern part.” And on leaving Pedir, having gone down the northern coast, he says, “I drew towards the south and south-east direction, and reached to another country and city which is called Samatra,” and so on. Now this describes the position in which the city of Sumatra should have been if it existed. But all the rest of the tract is mere plunder from Varthema.[3]

There is, however, a like intimation in a curious letter respecting the Portuguese discoveries, written from Lisbon in 1515, by a German, Valentine Moravia, who was probably the same Valentyn Fernandez, the German, who published the Portuguese edition of Marco Polo at Lisbon in 1502, and who shows an extremely accurate conception of Indian geography. He says: “La maxima insula la quale è chiamata da Marcho Polo Veneto Iava Minor, et al presente si chiama Sumotra, da un emporie di dicta insula” (printed by De Gubernatis, Viagg. Ita. etc., p. 170).

Several considerations point to the probability that the states of Pasei and Sumatra had become united, and that the town of Sumatra may have been represented by the Pacem of the Portuguese.[4] I have to thank Mr. G. Phillips for the copy of a small Chinese chart showing the northern coast of the island, which he states to be from “one of about the 13th century.” I much doubt the date, but the map is valuable as showing the town of Sumatra (Sumantala). This seems to be placed in the Gulf of Pasei, and very near where Pasei itself still exists. An extract of a “Chinese account of about A.D. 1413” accompanied the map. This states that the town was situated some distance up a river, so as to be reached in two tides. There was a village at the mouth of the river called Talumangkin.[5]

[Mr. E. H. Parker writes (China Review, XXIV. p. 102): “Colonel Yule’s remarks about Pasei are borne out by Chinese History (Ming, 325, 20, 24), which states that in 1521 Pieh-tu-lu (Pestrello [for Perestrello?]) having failed in China ‘went for’ Pa-si. Again ‘from Pa-si, Malacca, to Luzon, they swept the seas, and all the other nations were afraid of them.’”—H. C.]

Among the Indian states which were prevailed on to send tribute (or presents) to Kúblái in 1286, we find Sumutala. The chief of this state is called in the Chinese record Tu-‘han-pa-ti, which seems to be just the Malay words Tuan Pati, “Lord Ruler.” No doubt this was the rising state of Sumatra, of which we have been speaking; for it will be observed that Marco says the people of that state called themselves the Kaan’s subjects. Rashiduddin makes the same statement regarding the people of Java (i.e. the island of Sumatra), and even of Nicobar: “They are all subject to the Kaan.” It is curious to find just the same kind of statements about the princes of the Malay Islands acknowledging themselves subjects of Charles V., in the report of the surviving commander of Magellan’s ship to that emperor (printed by Baldelli-Boni, I. lxvii.). Pauthier has curious Chinese extracts containing a notable passage respecting the disappearance of Sumatra Proper from history: “In the years Wen-chi (1573–1615), the Kingdom of Sumatra divided in two, and the new state took the name of Achi (Achin). After that Sumatra was no more heard of.” (Gaubil, 205; De Mailla, IX. 429; Elliot, I. 71; Pauthier, pp. 605 and 567.)

Note 2.—“Vos di que la Tramontaine ne part. Et encore vos di que l’estoilles dou Meistre ne aparent ne pou ne grant” (G. T.). The Tramontaine is the Pole star:—

“De nostre Père l’Apostoille

Volsisse qu’il semblast l’estoile

Qui ne se muet ...

Par cele estoile vont et viennent

Et lor sen et lor voie tiennent

Il l’apelent la tres montaigne.”

—La Bible Guiot de Provins in Barbazan, by Méon, II. 377.

The Meistre is explained by Pauthier to be Arcturus; but this makes Polo’s error greater than it is. Brunetto Latini says: “Devers la tramontane en a il i. autre (vent) plus debonaire, qui a non Chorus. Cestui apelent li marinier Maistre por vij. estoiles qui sont en celui meisme leu,” etc. (Li Tresors, p. 122). Magister or Magistra in mediæval Latin, La Maistre in old French, signifies “the beam of a plough.” Possibly this accounts for the application of Maistre to the Great Bear, or Plough. But on the other hand the pilot’s art is called in old French maistrance. Hence this constellation may have had the name as the pilot’s guide,—like our Lode-star. The name was probably given to the N.W. point under a latitude in which the Great Bear sets in that quarter. In this way many of the points of the old Arabian Rose des Vents were named from the rising or setting of certain constellations. (See Reinaud’s Abulfeda, Introd. pp. cxcix.–cci.)

Note 3.—The tree here intended, and which gives the chief supply of toddy and sugar in the Malay Islands, is the Areng Saccharifera (from the Javanese name), called by the Malays Gomuti, and by the Portuguese Saguer. It has some resemblance to the date-palm, to which Polo compares it, but it is a much coarser and wilder-looking tree, with a general raggedness, “incompta et adspectu tristis,” as Rumphius describes it. It is notable for the number of plants that find a footing in the joints of its stem. On one tree in Java I have counted thirteen species of such parasites, nearly all ferns. The tree appears in the foreground of the cut at p. 273.

Crawford thus describes its treatment in obtaining toddy: “One of the spathae, or shoots of fructification, is, on the first appearance of the fruit, beaten for three successive days with a small stick, with the view of determining the sap to the wounded part. The shoot is then cut off, a little way from the root, and the liquor which pours out is received in pots.... The Gomuti palm is fit to yield toddy at 9 or 10 years old, and continues to yield it for 2 years at the average rate of 3 quarts a day.” (Hist. of Ind. Arch. I. 398.)

The words omitted in translation are unintelligible to me: “et sunt quatre raimes trois cel en.” (G. T.)

[“Polo’s description of the wine-pots of Samara hung on the trees ‘like date-palms,’ agrees precisely with the Chinese account of the shu theu tsiu made from ‘coir trees like cocoa-nut palms’ manufactured by the Burmese. Therefore it seems more likely that Samara is Siam (still pronounced Shumuro in Japan, and Siamlo in Hakka), than Sumatra.” (Parker, China Review, XIV. p. 359.) I think it useless to discuss this theory.—H. C.]

Note 4.—No one has been able to identify this state. Its position, however, must have been near Pedir, and perhaps it was practically the same. Pedir was the most flourishing of those Sumatran states at the appearance of the Portuguese.

Rashiduddin names among the towns of the Archipelago Dalmian, which may perhaps be a corrupt transcript of Dagroian.

Mr. Phillips’s Chinese extracts, already cited, state that west of Sumatra (proper) were two small kingdoms, the first Nakú-urh, the second Liti. Nakú-urh, which seems to be the Ting-’ho-’rh of Pauthier’s extracts, which sent tribute to the Kaan, and may probably be Dagroian as Mr. Phillips supposes, was also called the Kingdom of Tattooed Folk.

[Mr. G. Phillips wrote since (J. R. A. S., July 1895, p. 528): “Dragoian has puzzled many commentators, but on (a) Chinese chart ... there is a country called Ta-hua-mien, which in the Amoy dialect is pronounced Dakolien, in which it is very easy to recognise the Dragoian, or Dagoyam, of Marco Polo.” In his paper of The Seaports of India and Ceylon (Jour. China B. R. A. S., xx. 1885, p. 221), Mr. Phillips, referring to his Chinese Map, already said: Ta-hsiao-hua-mien, in the Amoy dialect Toa-sio-hoe (or Ko)-bin, “The Kingdom of the Greater and Lesser Tattooed Faces.” The Toa-Ko-bin, the greater tattooed-face people, most probably represents the Dagroian, or Dagoyum, of Marco Polo. This country was called Na-ku-êrh, and Ma Huan says, “the King of Na-ku-êrh is also called the King of the Tattooed Faces.”—H. C.]

Tattooing is ascribed by Friar Odoric to the people of Sumoltra. (Cathay, p. 86.) Liti is evidently the Lidé of De Barros, which by his list lay immediately east of Pedir. This would place Nakú-urh about Samarlangka. Beyond Liti was Lanmoli (i.e. Lambri). [See G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes, XVI. Li-taï, Nakur.—H. C.]

There is, or was fifty years ago, a small port between Ayer Labu and Samarlangka, called Darián-Gadé (Great Darian?). This is the nearest approach to Dagroian that I have met with. (N. Ann. des V., tom. xviii. p. 16.)

Note 5.—Gasparo Balbi (1579–1587) heard the like story of the Battas under Achin. True or false, the charge against them has come down to our times. The like is told by Herodotus of the Paddaei in India, of the Massagetæ, and of the Issedonians; by Strabo of the Caspians and of the Derbices; by the Chinese of one of the wild tribes of Kwei-chau; and was told to Wallace of some of the Aru Island tribes near New Guinea, and to Bickmore of a tribe on the south coast of Floris, called Rakka (probably a form of Hindu Rákshasa, or ogre-goblin). Similar charges are made against sundry tribes of the New World, from Brazil to Vancouver Island. Odoric tells precisely Marco’s story of a certain island called Dondin. And in “King Alisaunder,” the custom is related of a people of India, called most inappropriately Orphani:—

“Another Folk woneth there beside;

Orphani he hatteth wide.

When her eldrynges beth elde,

And ne mowen hemselven welde

Hy hem sleeth, and bidelve

And,” etc., etc. —Weber, I. p. 206.

Benedetto Bordone, in his Isolario (1521 and 1547), makes the same charge against the Irish, but I am glad to say that this seems only copied from Strabo. Such stories are still rife in the East, like those of men with tails. I have myself heard the tale told, nearly as Raffles tells it of the Battas, of some of the wild tribes adjoining Arakan. (Balbi, f. 130; Raffles, Mem. p. 427; Wallace, Malay Archip. 281; Bickmore’s Travels, p. 111; Cathay, pp. 25, 100).

The latest and most authentic statement of the kind refers to a small tribe called Birhōrs, existing in the wildest parts of Chota Nagpúr and Jashpúr, west of Bengal, and is given by an accomplished Indian ethnologist, Colonel Dalton. “They were wretched-looking objects ... assuring me that they had themselves given up the practice, they admitted that their fathers were in the habit of disposing of their dead in the manner indicated, viz., by feasting on the bodies; but they declared that they never shortened life to provide such feast, and shrunk with horror at the idea of any bodies but those of their own blood relations being served up at them!” (J. A. S. B. XXXIV. Pt. II. 18.) The same practice has been attributed recently, but only on hearsay, to a tribe of N. Guinea called Tarungares.

The Battas now bury their dead, after keeping the body a considerable time. But the people of Nias and the Batu Islands, whom Junghuhn considers to be of common origin with the Battas, do not bury, but expose the bodies in coffins upon rocks by the sea. And the small and very peculiar people of the Paggi Islands expose their dead on bamboo platforms in the forest. It is quite probable that such customs existed in the north of Sumatra also; indeed they may still exist, for the interior seems unknown. We do hear of pagan hill-people inland from Pedir who make descents upon the coast. (Junghuhn II. 140; Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal, etc., 2nd year, No. 4; Nouv. Ann. des. V. XVIII.)

[1] Marsden, 1st ed. p. 291.

[2] Veth’s Atchin, 1873, p. 37.

[3] It might be supposed that Varthema had stolen from Serano; but the book of the former was published in 1510.

[4] Castanheda speaks of Pacem as the best port of the land: “standing on the bank of a river on marshy ground about a league inland; and at the mouth of the river there are some houses of timber where a customs collector was stationed to exact duties at the anchorage from the ships which touched there.” (Bk. II. ch. iii.) This agrees with Ibn Batuta’s account of Sumatra, 4 miles from its port. [A village named Samudra discovered in our days near Pasei is perhaps a remnant of the kingdom of Samara. (Merveilles de l’Inde, p. 234.)—H. C.]

[5] If Mr. Phillips had given particulars about his map and quotations, as to date, author, etc., it would have given them more value. He leaves this vague.

Note 1.—The name of Lambri is not now traceable on our maps, nor on any list of the ports of Sumatra that I have met with; but in old times the name occurs frequently under one form or another, and its position can be assigned generally to the north part of the west coast, commencing from the neighbourhood of Achin Head.

De Barros, detailing the twenty-nine kingdoms which divided the coast of Sumatra, at the beginning of the Portuguese conquests, begins with Daya, and then passes round by the north. He names as next in order Lambrij, and then Achem. This would make Lambri lie between Daya and Achin, for which there is but little room. And there is an apparent inconsistency; for in coming round again from the south, his 28th kingdom is Quinchel (Singkel of our modern maps), the 29th Mancopa, “which falls upon Lambrij, which adjoins Daya, the first that we named.” Most of the data about Lambri render it very difficult to distinguish it from Achin.

The name of Lambri occurs in the Malay Chronicle, in the account of the first Mahomedan mission to convert the Island. We shall quote the passage in a following note.

The position of Lambri would render it one of the first points of Sumatra made by navigators from Arabia and India; and this seems at one time to have caused the name to be applied to the whole Island. Thus Rashiduddin speaks of the very large Island Lámúri lying beyond Ceylon, and adjoining the country of Sumatra; Odoric also goes from India across the Ocean to a certain country called Lamori, where he began to lose sight of the North Star. He also speaks of the camphor, gold, and lign-aloes which it produced, and proceeds thence to Sumoltra in the same Island.[1] It is probable that the verzino or brazil-wood of Ameri (L’Ameri, i.e. Lambri?) which appears in the mercantile details of Pegolotti was from this part of Sumatra. It is probable also that the country called Nanwuli, which the Chinese Annals report, with Sumuntula and others, to have sent tribute to the Great Kaan in 1286, was this same Lambri which Polo tells us called itself subject to the Kaan.

In the time of the Sung Dynasty ships from T’swan-chau (or Zayton) bound for Tashi, or Arabia, used to sail in forty days to a place called Lanli-poï (probably this is also Lambri, Lambri-puri?). There they passed the winter, i.e. the south-west monsoon, just as Marco Polo’s party did at Sumatra, and sailing again when the wind became fair, they reached Arabia in sixty days. (Bretschneider, p. 16.)

[The theory of Sir H. Yule is confirmed by Chinese authors quoted by Mr. Groeneveldt (Notes on the Malay Archipelago, pp. 98–100): “The country of Lambri is situated due west of Sumatra, at a distance of three days sailing with a fair wind; it lies near the sea and has a population of only about a thousand families.... On the east the country is bordered by Litai, on the west and the north by the sea, and on the south by high mountains, at the south of which is the sea again.... At the north-west of this country, in the sea, at a distance of half a day, is a flat mountain, called the Hat-island; the sea at the west of it is the great ocean, and is called the Ocean of Lambri. Ships coming from the west all take this island as a landmark.” Mr. Groeneveldt adds: “Lambri [according to his extracts from Chinese authors] must have been situated on the north-western corner of the island of Sumatra, on or near the spot of the present Achin: we see that it was bounded by the sea on the north and the west, and that the Indian Ocean was called after this insignificant place, because it was considered to begin there. Moreover, the small island at half a day’s distance, called Hat-island, perfectly agrees with the small islands Bras or Nasi, lying off Achin, and of which the former, with its newly-erected lighthouse, is a landmark for modern navigation, just what it is said in our text to have been for the natives then. We venture to think that the much discussed situation of Marco Polo’s Lambri is definitely settled herewith.” The Chinese author writes: “The mountains [of Lambri] produce the fragrant wood called Hsiang-chên Hsiang.” Mr. Groeneveldt remarks (l.c. p. 143) that this “is the name of a fragrant wood, much used as incense, but which we have not been able to determine. Dr. Williams says it comes from Sumatra, where it is called laka-wood, and is the product of a tree to which the name of Tanarius major is given by him. For different reasons, we think this identification subject to doubt.”

Captain M. J. C. Lucardie mentions a village called Lamreh, situated at Atjeh, near Tungkup, in the xxvi. Mukim, which might be a remnant of the country of Lâmeri. (Merveilles de l’Inde, p. 235.)—H. C.]

(De Barros, Dec. III. Bk. V. ch. i.; Elliot, I. 70; Cathay, 84, seqq.; Pegol. p. 361; Pauthier, p. 605.)

Note 2.—Stories of tailed or hairy men are common in the Archipelago, as in many other regions. Kazwini tells of the hairy little men that are found in Rámni (Sumatra) with a language like birds’ chirping. Marsden was told of hairy people called Orang Gugu in the interior of the Island, who differed little, except in the use of speech, from the Orang utang. Since his time a French writer, giving the same name and same description, declares that he saw “a group” of these hairy people on the coast of Andragiri, and was told by them that they inhabited the interior of Menangkabau and formed a small tribe. It is rather remarkable that this writer makes no allusion to Marsden though his account is so nearly identical (L’Océanie in L’Univers Pittoresque, I. 24.) [One of the stories of the Merveilles de l’Inde (p. 125) is that there are anthropophagi with tails at Lulu bilenk between Fansur and Lâmeri.—H. C.] Mr. Anderson says there are “a few wild people in the Siak country, very little removed in point of civilisation above their companions the monkeys,” but he says nothing of hairiness nor tails. For the earliest version of the tail story we must go back to Ptolemy and the Isles of the Satyrs in this quarter; or rather to Ctesias who tells of tailed men on an Island in the Indian Sea. Jordanus also has the story of the hairy men. Galvano heard that there were on the Island certain people called Daraque Dara (?), which had tails like unto sheep. And the King of Tidore told him of another such tribe on the Isle of Batochina. Mr. St. John in Borneo met with a trader who had seen and felt the tails of such a race inhabiting the north-east coast of that Island. The appendage was 4 inches long and very stiff; so the people all used perforated seats. This Borneo story has lately been brought forward in Calcutta, and stoutly maintained, on native evidence, by an English merchant. The Chinese also have their tailed men in the mountains above Canton. In Africa there have been many such stories, of some of which an account will be found in the Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog. sér. IV. tom. iii. p. 31. It was a story among mediæval Mahomedans that the members of the Imperial House of Trebizond were endowed with short tails, whilst mediæval Continentals had like stories about Englishmen, as Matthew Paris relates. Thus we find in the Romance of Cœur de Lion, Richard’s messengers addressed by the “Emperor of Cyprus”:—

“Out, Taylards, of my palys!

Now go, and say your tayled King

That I owe him nothing.”

—Weber, II. 83.

The Princes of Purbandar, in the Peninsula of Guzerat, claim descent from the monkey-god Hanumán, and allege in justification a spinal elongation which gets them the name of Púncháriah, “Taylards.”

(Ethé’s Kazwini, p. 221; Anderson, p. 210; St. John, Forests of the Far East, I. 40; Galvano, Hak. Soc. 108, 120; Gildemeister, 194; Allen’s Indian Mail, July 28, 1869; Mid. Kingd. I. 293; N. et Ext. XIII. i. 380; Mat. Paris under A.D. 1250; Tod’s Rajasthan, I. 114.)

Note 3.—The Camphor called Fansúrí is celebrated by Arab writers at least as old as the 9th century, e.g., by the author of the first part of the Relations, by Mas’udi in the next century, also by Avicenna, by Abulfeda, by Kazwini, and by Abu’l Fazl, etc. In the second and third the name is miswritten Ḳansúr, and by the last Ḳaisúri, but there can be no doubt of the correction required. (Reinaud, I. 7; Mas. I. 338; Liber Canonis, Ven. 1544, I. 116; Büsching, IV. 277; Gildem. p. 209; Ain-i-Akb. p. 78.) In Serapion we find the same camphor described as that of Pansor; and when, leaving Arab authorities and the earlier Middle Ages we come to Garcias, he speaks of the same article under the name of camphor of Barros. And this is the name—Kápúr Bárús—derived from the port which has been the chief shipping-place of Sumatran camphor for at least three centuries, by which the native camphor is still known in Eastern trade, as distinguished from the Kápúr Chíná or Kápúr-Japún, as the Malays term the article derived in those countries by distillation from the Laurus Camphora. The earliest western mention of camphor is in the same prescription by the physician Aëtius (circa A.D. 540) that contains one of the earliest mentions of musk. (Supra, I. p. 279.) The prescription ends: “and if you have a supply of camphor add two ounces of that.” (Aetii Medici Graeci Tetrabiblos, etc., Froben, 1549, p. 910.)

It is highly probable that Fansúr and Barús may be not only the same locality but mere variations of the same name.[2] The place is called in the Shijarat Malayu, Pasuri, a name which the Arabs certainly made into Fansúri in one direction, and which might easily in another, by a very common kind of Oriental metathesis, pass into Barúsi. The legend in the Shijarat Malayu relates to the first Mahomedan mission for the conversion of Sumatra, sent by the Sherif of Mecca viâ India. After sailing from Malabar the first place the party arrived at was Pasuri, the people of which embraced Islam. They then proceeded to Lambri, which also accepted the Faith. Then they sailed on till they reached Haru (see on my map Aru on the East Coast), which did likewise. At this last place they enquired for Samudra, which seems to have been the special object of their mission, and found that they had passed it. Accordingly they retraced their course to Perlak, and after converting that place went on to Samudra, where they converted Mara Silu the King. (See note 1, ch. x. above.) This passage is of extreme interest as naming four out of Marco’s six kingdoms, and in positions quite accordant with his indications. As noticed by Mr. Braddell, from whose abstract I take the passage, the circumstance of the party having passed Samudra unwittingly is especially consistent with the site we have assigned to it near the head of the Bay of Pasei, as a glance at the map will show.

Valentyn observes: “Fansur can be nought else than the famous Pantsur, no longer known indeed by that name, but a kingdom which we become acquainted with through Hamza Pantsuri, a celebrated Poet, and native of this Pantsur. It lay in the north angle of the Island, and a little west of Achin: it formerly was rife with trade and population, but would have been utterly lost in oblivion had not Hamza Pantsuri made us again acquainted with it.” Nothing indeed could well be “a little west of Achin”; this is doubtless a slip for “a little down the west coast from Achin.” Hamza Fantsuri, as he is termed by Professor Veth, who also identifies Fantsur with Bárús, was a poet of the first half of the 17th century, who in his verses popularised the mystical theology of Shamsuddin Shamatrani (supra, p. 291), strongly tinged with pantheism. The works of both were solemnly burnt before the great mosque of Achin about 1640. (J. Ind. Arch. V. 312 seqq.; Valentyn, Sumatra, in Vol. V., p. 21; Veth, Atchin, Leiden, 1873, p. 38.)

Mas’udi says that the Fansur Camphor was found most plentifully in years rife with storms and earthquakes. Ibn Batuta gives a jumbled and highly incorrect account of the product, but one circumstance that he mentions is possibly founded on a real superstition, viz., that no camphor was formed unless some animal had been sacrificed at the root of the tree, and the best quality only then when a human victim had been offered. Nicolo Conti has a similar statement: “The Camphor is found inside the tree, and if they do not sacrifice to the gods before they cut the bark, it disappears and is no more seen.” Beccari, in our day, mentions special ceremonies used by the Kayans of Borneo, before they commence the search. These superstitions hinge on the great uncertainty of finding camphor in any given tree, after the laborious process of cutting it down and splitting it, an uncertainty which also largely accounts for the high price. By far the best of the old accounts of the product is that quoted by Kazwini from Mahomed Ben Zakaria Al-Rázi: “Among the number of marvellous things in this Island” (Zánij for Zábaj, i.e. Java or Sumatra) “is the Camphor Tree, which is of vast size, insomuch that its shade will cover a hundred persons and more. They bore into the highest part of the tree and thence flows out the camphor-water, enough to fill many pitchers. Then they open the tree lower down about the middle, and extract the camphor in lumps.” [This very account is to be found in Ibn Khordâdhbeh. (De Goeje’s transl. p. 45.)—H. C.] Compare this passage, which we may notice has been borrowed bodily by Sindbad of the Sea, with what is probably the best modern account, Junghuhn’s: “Among the forest trees (of Tapanuli adjoining Barus) the Camphor Tree (Dryabalanops Camphora) attracts beyond all the traveller’s observation, by its straight columnar and colossal grey trunk, and its mighty crown of foliage, rising high above the canopy of the forest. It exceeds in dimensions the Rasamala,[3] the loftiest tree of Java, and is probably the greatest tree of the Archipelago, if not of the world,[4] reaching a height of 200 feet. One of the middling size which I had cut down measured at the base, where the camphor leaks out, 7½ Paris feet in diameter (about 8 feet English); its trunk rose to 100 feet, with an upper diameter of 5 feet, before dividing, and the height of the whole tree to the crown was 150 feet. The precious consolidated camphor is found in small quantities, ¼ lb. to 1 lb. in a single tree, in fissure-like hollows in the stem. Yet many are cut down in vain, or split up the side without finding camphor. The camphor oil is prepared by the natives by bruising and boiling the twigs.” The oil, however, appears also to be found in the tree, as Crawford and Collingwood mention, corroborating the ancient Arab.

It is well known that the Chinese attach an extravagantly superior value to the Malay camphor, and probably its value in Marco’s day was higher than it is now, but still its estimate as worth its weight in gold looks like hyperbole. Forrest, a century ago, says Barus Camphor was in the Chinese market worth nearly its weight in silver, and this is true still. The price is commonly estimated at 100 times that of the Chinese camphor. The whole quantity exported from the Barus territory goes to China. De Vriese reckons the average annual export from Sumatra between 1839 and 1844 at less than 400 kilogrammes. The following table shows the wholesale rates in the Chinese market as given by Rondot in 1848:—

Qualities of Camphor.	Per picul of 133⅓ lbs.
Ordinary China, 1st quality	20	dollars.
„ „ 2nd „	14	„
Formosa	25	„
Japan	30	„
China ngai (ext. from an Artemisia)	250	„
Barus, 1st quality	2000	„
„ 2nd „	1000	„

The Chinese call the Sumatran (or Borneo) Camphor Ping-pien “Icicle flakes,” and Lung-nau “Dragon’s Brains.” [Regarding Baros Camphor, Mr. Groeneveldt writes (Notes, p. 142): “This substance is generally called dragon’s brain perfume, or icicles. The former name has probably been invented by the first dealers in the article, who wanted to impress their countrymen with a great idea of its value and rarity. In the trade three different qualities are distinguished: the first is called prune-blossoms, being the larger pieces; the second is rice-camphor, so called because the particles are not larger than a rice-kernel, and the last quality is golden dregs, in the shape of powder. These names are still now used by the Chinese traders on the west coast of Sumatra. The Pên-ts’au Kang-mu further informs us that the Camphor Baros is found in the trunk of a tree in a solid shape, whilst from the roots an oil is obtained called Po-lut (Pa-lut) incense, or Polut balm. The name of Polut is said to be derived from the country where it is found (Baros.)”—H. C.] It is just to remark, however, that in the Aín Akbari we find the price of the Sumatran Camphor, known to the Hindus as Bhím Seni, varying from 3 rupees as high as 2 mohurs (or 20 rupees) for a rupee’s weight, which latter price would be twice the weight in gold. Abu’l Fazl says the worst camphor went by the name of Bálús. I should suspect some mistake, as we know from Garcias that the fine camphor was already known as Barus. (Ain-i-Akb. 75–79.)

(Mas’udi, I. 338; I. B. IV. 241; J. A. sér. IV. tom. viii. 216; Lane’s Arab. Nights (1859), III. 21; Battaländer, I. 107; Crawf. Hist. III. 218, and Desc. Dict. 81; Hedde et Rondot, Com. de la Chine, 36–37; Chin. Comm. Guide; Dr. F. A. Flückiger, Zur Geschichte des Camphers, in Schweiz. Wochenschr. für Pharmacie, Sept., Oct., 1867.)

Note 4.—An interesting notice of the Sago-tree, of which Odoric also gives an account. Ramusio is, however, here fuller and more accurate: “Removing the first bark, which is but thin, you come on the wood of the tree which forms a thickness all round of some three fingers, but all inside this is a pith of flour, like that of the Carvolo (?). The trees are so big that it will take two men to span them. They put this flour into tubs of water, and beat it up with a stick, and then the bran and other impurities come to the top, whilst the pure flour sinks to the bottom. The water is then thrown away, and the cleaned flour that remains is taken and made into pasta in strips and other forms. These Messer Marco often partook of, and brought some with him to Venice. It resembles barley bread and tastes much the same. The wood of this tree is like iron, for if thrown into the water it goes straight to the bottom. It can be split straight from end to end like a cane. When the flour has been removed the wood remains, as has been said, three inches thick. Of this the people make short lances, not long ones, because they are so heavy that no one could carry or handle them if long. One end is sharpened and charred in the fire, and when thus prepared they will pierce any armour, and much better than iron would do.” Marsden points out that this heavy lance-wood is not that of the true Sago-palm, but of the Nibong or Caryota urens; which does indeed give some amount of sago.

[“When sago is to be made, a full-grown tree is selected just before it is going to flower. It is cut down close to the ground, the leaves and leaf-stalks cleared away, and a broad strip of the bark taken off the upper side of the trunk. This exposes the pithy matter, which is of a rusty colour near the bottom of the tree, but higher up pure white, about as hard as a dry apple, but with woody fibres running through it about a quarter of an inch apart. This pith is cut or broken down into a coarse powder, by means of a tool constructed for the purpose.... Water is poured on the mass of pith, which is kneaded and pressed against the strainer till the starch is all dissolved and has passed through, when the fibrous refuse is thrown away, and a fresh basketful put in its place. The water charged with sago starch passes on to a trough, with a depression in the centre, where the sediment is deposited, the surplus water trickling off by a shallow outlet. When the trough is nearly full, the mass of starch, which has a slight reddish tinge, is made into cylinders of about thirty pounds’ weight, and neatly covered with sago leaves, and in this state is sold as raw sago. Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a rather astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and chilies. Sago-bread is made in large quantities, by baking it into cakes in a small clay oven containing six or eight slits side by side, each about three-quarters of an inch wide, and six or eight inches square. The raw sago is broken up, dried in the sun, powdered, and finely sifted. The oven is heated over a clear fire of embers, and is lightly filled with the sago powder. The openings are then covered with a flat piece of sago bark, and in about five minutes the cakes are turned out sufficiently baked. The hot cakes are very nice with butter, and when made with the addition of a little sugar and grated cocoa-nut are quite a delicacy. They are soft, and something like corn-flour cakes, but have a slight characteristic flavour which is lost in the refined sago we use in this country. When not wanted for immediate use, they are dried for several days in the sun, and tied up in bundles of twenty. They will then keep for years; they are very hard, and very rough and dry....” (A. R. Wallace’s Malay Archipelago, 1869, II. pp. 118–121.)—H. C.]

Note 5.—In quitting the subject of these Sumatran Kingdoms it may appear to some readers that our explanations compress them too much, especially as Polo seems to allow only two kingdoms for the rest of the Island. In this he was doubtless wrong, and we may the less scruple to say so as he had not visited that other portion of the Island. We may note that in the space to which we assign the six kingdoms which Polo visited, De Barros assigns twelve, viz.: Bara (corresponding generally to Ferlec), Pacem (Basma), Pirada, Lide, Pedir, Biar, Achin, Lambri, Daya, Mancopa, Quinchel, Barros (Fansur). (Dec. III. v. 1.)

[Regarding these Sumatrian kingdoms, Mr. Thomson (Proc. R. G. S. XX. p. 223) writes that Malaiur “is no other than Singapore ... the ancient capital of the Malays or Malaiurs of old voyagers, existent in the times of Marco Polo [who] mentions no kingdom or city in Java Minor till he arrives at the kingdom of Felech or Perlak. And this is just as might be expected, as the channel in the Straits of Malacca leads on the north-eastern side out of sight of Sumatra; and the course, after clearing the shoals near Selangore, being direct towards Diamond Point, near which ... the tower of Perlak is situated. Thus we see that the Venetian traveller describes the first city or kingdom in the great island that he arrived at.... [After Basman and Samara] Polo mentions Dragoian ... from the context, and following Marco Polo’s course, we would place it west from his last city or Kingdom Samara; and we make no doubt, if the name is not much corrupted, it may yet be identified in one of the villages of the coast at this present time.... By the Malay annalist, Lambri was west of Samara; consecutively it was also westerly from Samara by Marco Polo’s enumeration. Fanfur ... is the last kingdom named by Marco Polo [coming from the east], and the first by the Malay annalist [coming from the west]; and as it is known to modern geographers, this corroboration doubly settles the identity and position of all. Thus all the six cities or kingdoms mentioned by Marco Polo were situated on the north coast of Sumatra, now commonly known as the Pedir coast.” I have given the conclusion arrived at by Mr. J. T. Thomson in his paper, Marco Polo’s Six Kingdoms or Cities in Java Minor, identified in translations from the ancient Malay Annals, which appeared in the Proc. R. G. S. XX. pp. 215–224, after the second edition of this Book was published and Sir H. Yule added the following note (Proc., l.c., p. 224): “Mr. Thomson, as he mentions, has not seen my edition of Marco Polo, nor, apparently, a paper on the subject of these kingdoms by the late Mr. J. R. Logan, in his Journal of the Indian Archipelago, to which reference is made in the notes to Marco Polo. In the said paper and notes the quotations and conclusions of Mr. Thomson have been anticipated; and Fansúr also, which he leaves undetermined, identified.”—H. C.]

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.