The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2

As there is nothing about them worth mentioning, let us go on five hundred miles beyond Sondur, and then we find another country which is called LOCAC. It is a good country and a rich; [it is on th

at it, the Great Kaan would soon b

credible quantity. They have elephants likewise, and much game. In this kingdom too are gathered all

nor does the king desire that any strangers should frequent the country, and so find out about

a being a digression; and the retention of the latter name here would throw us irretrievably into the Southern Ocean. Certain old geographers, we may observe, did follow that indication,

dai islands are dropt far away. But it would not be difficult to show that Ptolemy's islands have been located almost at random, or as from a pepper castor." (Yule, Oldest Records, p. 657.)] The group consists of a larger island about 12 miles long, two of 2 or 3 miles, and some half-dozen others of insignificant dimensions. The large one is now specially called Pulo Condore. It has a fair harbour, fresh water, and wood in abundance. Dampier visited the group and recommended its occupation. The E.I. Company did establish a post there in 1702, but it came to a speedy end in the massacre of the Europeans by their Macassar garrison. About the year 1720 some attempt to foun

a Kun-lun, Chen mi t'uo sh

nin

starboard, and l

our compass, w

s' Locker go ve

18; A. Hamilton, II. 402; Mém

dings of the G.T., Lochac and Locac, which are supported by Ramusio. Pauthier'

oast of the Malay Peninsula, or (as I conceive) to the territory now called

me south of Chen-ching. "It originally consisted of two kingdoms, Sien and Lo-hoh. The Sien people are the remains of a tribe which in the year (A.D. 1341) began to

latter half of the name may be either the second syllable of Lo-Hoh, for Polo's c often represents h; or it may be the Chinese Kwo or Kwé, "kingdom," in the Canton and Fo-kie

ans Siam and Laos; but this I cannot accept, if Laos is to bear its ordinary geographical sense, i.e. of a country bordering Siam

o 1341 a country called Lohoh (in Amoy pronunciation Lohok) existed, as Yule says, in what is now called Lower Siam, and at that date became incorporated with Sien. In the 4th year of Hung-wu, 1372, it sent tribute to China, under the name of Sien Lohok. The country was first called Sien Lo in the first yea

") [son of Sri Indratiya], who reigned in Sukkothai, whilst his dominions extended from Vieng-chan on the Mekong River (lat. 18°), to Pechabur, and Sri-Thammarat (i.e. Ligór, in lat. 8° 18"), on the coast of the Gulf of Siam. [This inscription gives three dates-1205, 1209, and 1214 s'aka = A.D. 1283, 1287 and 1292. One passage says: "Formerly the Tha?s had no writing; it is in 1205 s'aka, year of the goat = A.D. 1283, that King Rama Kamhêng sent for a teacher who invented the Tha? writing. It is to him tha

er supposes) of the Thai-nyai, Great Thai, or Laotian branch of the race. H

Little Thai, which in 1351, under another Phra Rama, foun

ame Locac, either with Lophaburi (or Lavó, Louvo), a very ancient capital near Ayuthia, or with Lawék, i.e. Kam

th the other Siamese or Laotian countries of Yuthia, Tennasserim, Sukkothai, Pichalok, Lagong, Lanchang (or Luang Prabang), Zimmé (or Kiang-mai), and Kiang-Tung, in the vast list of s

his would bring us to the Peninsula somewhere about what is now the Siamese province of Ligor,[5] and this is the only position accurately consistent with the next in

Ritter speaks of three small towns on it as entirely surrounded by trees of this kind. And higher up, in the latitude of Tavoy, the forests of sappan-wood find a prominent place in some maps of Siam. In mediaeval intercourse between the courts of Siam and China we find Brazil-wood to form the bulk of the Siamese present. ["Ma Huan fully bears out Polo's statement in this matter, for he says: This Brazil (of which Marco speaks) is as plentiful as firewood. On Ch'êng-ho's chart Brazil and other fragrant woods are marked as

r Malay Chronicle), and it is used also by Abdurrazzák. It appears among the early navigators of the 16th century, as Da Gama, Varthema, Giovanni d'Empoli and Mendez Pinto, in the shape of Sornau

the King of Lukyn had just invaded the kingdom of Sanf and taken possession of it. According to Ibn Khordadhbeh (De Goeje, p. 49) Lukyn is the first port o

Amyot, XIV. 266, 269; Pallegoix, I. 196; Bowring, I. 41, 72; Phayre in J.A.S.B. XXXV

r Locac), introduced in their maps a continent in that situation. (See e.g. the map of the world by P. Plancius in Linschoten.) And this has sometimes b

ing-ch'a Sheng-l

stance I owe to the kindness of Professo

or light on this subject, which has led to an entire reform in the present note. (See his excellen

be Khmer, or Kamboja Proper. (See I.B. IV. 240; Cathay, 469, 519.) Kakula and Kamarah were both in "Mul-Java"; and the king of this undetermined country, whom

it. But it seems to me pretty clear from what has been said the Lo-kok though including Ligor