The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2

alled CHAMBA,[NOTE 1] a very rich region, having a king of its own. The people are Idolaters and pay a yearly tribute to t

alled, Sagatu with a great force of horse and foot against this King of Chamba,

id to the Kaan: "Our Lord the King of Chamba salutes you as his liege-lord, and would have you to know that he is stricken in years and long hath held his realm in peace. And now he sends you word by us that he is willing to be your liegeman, and will send you every year a tribu

nd to carry his arms to the conquest of some other country; and as soon as this command reached them they obeyed it. Thus it was then that this Kin

ter, and tell you other partic

her to wife; if she does not, he gives her a dowry to get her a husband withal. In the year of Christ 1285, Messer Marco Polo was in that

dance. They have also extensive forests of the wood called Bonús, which is jet-black, and of whi

and was probably taken from that of an ancient Hindu city and state on the Ganges, near modern Bhágalpúr. H

. p. 31, and J. des Savans, 1822, p. 71.) The people of Champa in this restricted sense are said to exhibit Malay affinities, and they profess Mahomedanism. ["The Mussulmans of Binh-Thuan call themselves Bani or Orang Bani, 'men mussulmans,' probably from the Arabic beni 'the sons,' to distinguish them from the Chams Djat 'of race,' which they name also Kaphir or Akaphir, from the Arabic word kafer 'pagans.' These names are used in Binh-Thuan to make a distinction, but Banis and Kaphirs alike are all Chams.... In Cambodia all Chams are Mussulmans." (E. Aymonier, Les Tchames, p. 26.) The religion of the pagan

ation to China we find the country noticed under the identical name (allowing for the deficiencies of the Arabic Alphabet) of Sanf or Chanf. Ind

t of the Cape, i.e. within the Gulf of Siam. The fact is that the Indo-Chinese kingdoms have gone through unceasing and enormous vicissitudes, and in early days Champa must have been extensive and powerful, for in the travels of Hiuen Tsang (about A.D. 629) it is called maha-Champa. And my late friend Lieutenant Garnier, who gave great attention to these questions, has deduced from such data as exist in Chinese Annals and elsewhere, that the ancient kingdom which the Chinese describe under the name of Fu-nan, as exte

a would thus be very near the Trêang province where inscriptions have been found with the names of Bhavavarman and of Icanavarman. It is true that in 627, the King of Kamboja, according to the Chinese Annals (Nouv. Mél. As. I. p. 84), had subjugated t

statement that the Arabs on their voyage to China made a ten days' run from Sanf to Pulo Condor." But Abulfeda (transl. by Guyard, II. ii. p. 127)

, another diffic

om Mait (Bintang), and leaving on the left Tiyuma (Timoan), in five days' journey, one goes to Kimèr (Kmer, Cambodia), and after three days more, following the coast, arrives to Sanf; then to Lukyn, the first point of call in China, 100 parasangs by land or by sea; from Lukyn it takes four days by sea and twenty by land to go to Kanfu." [Canton, see note, supra p. 199.] (See De Goeje's Ibn Khordadhbeh, p. 48 et seq.) But we come now to the difficulty. Professor De Goeje writes to me: "It is strange that in the Relation des Voyages of Reinaud, p. 20 of the text, reproduced by Ibn al Fak?h, p. 12 seq., Sundar Fúlát (Pulo

to prove that Shay-po (Djava), represented by Chinese characters, which are the transcription of the Sanskrit name of the China Rose (Hibiscus rosa sinensis), Djava or Djapa, is no

does not very much like the theory of two Sanf, and that he is inclined to believe that the sea captain of the Marvels o

ordadhbêh as well as the position given to Sanf by Abulfeda, justify me, I think, in placing Champa in that part of the central and southern indo-Chinese coast

nf et Campa, by M.A. Barth. The reasons given in a note addressed to him by Professor De Goeje and the work of Ibn Khordadhbeh have led M

ry as Sotu, the military governor of the Canton

at this insult, (coming also so soon after his discomfiture in Japan), ordered Sotu and others to Chen-ching to take vengeance. The prince in the following year made a pretence of submission, and the army (if indeed it had been sent) seems to have been withdrawn. The prince, however, renewed his attack on the Chinese establishments, and put 100 of their officials to death. Sotu then despatched a

difficult to reconcile with these. The embassy of 1284 seems the most likely to be the one spoken of by Polo, though the Chinese history does not give it the favo

ubt this is Ramusio's Accambale (A?ambale); an indication at once of the authent

d whom the Chinese called Che li Tseya Sinho phala Maha thiwa (?ri Jaya Sinha varmma maha deva). He was the king at the time

X. 420-422) and Gaubil (194), but Pauthier's ex

he presents or tribute sent periodically by the v

only in Lin-y; this is the country which became Champa. It is the habit to have burdens carried by elephants; this country is to-day the Pu-cheng province." M. Sainson adds in a note that Pu-

bably the actual Quang-Binh province; Bal-Hangov, near Hué; and Bal-Angoué, in the Binh-Dinh prov

the G.T. has 1285; the Geographic Latin 1288. I incline to adopt the last. For we know that about 1290,

1323], had, what with sons and with daughters, a good two hundred children; for he hath many wives and other women whom he keepeth. This king hath also 14,000 tame elephants.... And other folk keep elephants there ju

r eagles; though good Bishop Pallegoix derives the latter name from the wood being speckled like an eagle's plumage. It is in fact through Aquila, Agila, from Aguru, one of the Sanskrit names of the article, whilst that is

d is chiefly known as sinking incense. The Pen-ts'au Kang-mu describes it as follows: 'Sinking incense, also called honey incense. It comes from the heart and the knots of a tree and sinks in water, from which peculiarity the name sinking incense is derived.... In the Description of Annam we find it called honey incense, because it smells like honey.' The same work, as well as the Nan-fang Ts'au-mu Chuang, further informs us

ochum; whilst an inferior kind, though of the same aromatic properties, is derived from a tr

ltered into the Spanish Abenuz. We find Ibenus also in a French inventory (Douet d'Arcq, p. 134), but the Bonús seems to indicate that the word as used by the T

ently abundant, is called 'Eagle-wood,' of which the first quality sells for its weight in gold; the native n