The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2

d of JAVA THE LESS. For all its name 'tis none so small but that it has a compass

and every kingdom has a language of its own. The Island hath great abundance of treasure, with

t of them. But let me premise one marvellous thing, and that is the fact that this Isl

bject, and first I will

RL

le only, for the hill-people live for all the world like beasts, and eat human flesh, as well as all other kinds of flesh, clean or unclean. And they worshi

of Ferlec, I will now tell of

re wild elephants in the country, and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big. They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles [and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue]. The head resemb

You see there is on the Island a kind of monkey which is very small, and has a face just like a man's. They take these, and pluck out all the hair except the hair of the beard and on the breast, and then they dry them and s

kingdom of Basma, but tell y

9th century give it a circuit of 800 parasangs, or say 2800 miles, and Barbosa reports the estimate of the Mahomedan seamen as 2100 miles. Compare the more reasonable a

me on the island, both in going to China and on his return. The Java also of the Catalan Map appears to be Sumatra. Javaku again is the name applied in the Singalese chronicles to the Malays in general. Jáu and Dawa are the names still applied by the Battaks and the people of Nias respectively to the Malays, showing probably that these were looked on as Javanese by those tribes who did not parta

t one from Pagaroyang, the capital of the ancient Malay state of Menang-kabau in the heart of Sumatra, bearing a date equivalent to A.D. 656, entitles the monarch whom it commemorates, Adityadharma by n

Achin (of which it is in fact a part), but because it is Acheh Proper. A like feeling may have suggested the Great Bulgaria, Great Hungary, Great Turkey of the mediaeval travellers. These were, or were supposed to be, the original seats of the Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Turks. The Great Horde of the Kirghiz Kazaks is, as regards numbers, not the greatest, but the smallest of th

other applications. Barbosa seems to apply it to Sumbawa; Pigafetta and Cavendish apply it to Bali, and in this way Raffles s

Stukken van het Bataksche Leesboek, p. 43, etc.; Friedrich in Ba

ted 80 bahars, equivalent to 32,000 or 36,000 Lbs. avoirdupois (!). Of the other products named, lign-aloes or eagle-wood is a product of Sumatra, and is or was very abundant in Campar on the eastern coast. The Ain-i-Akbari says this article was usually brought to India from Achin and Tenasserim. Both this and spikenard are mentioned by Polo's co

the northern part of the west coast. This will be made tolerably clear in the details, and Marco himself intimates at the end of the next chapter that the six kingdoms he describes were all at this side or end of the island: "Or vos avon contée de cesti roiames que sunt de ceste partie de sc

De Barros enumerates 29 on the coast alone. Crawford reckons 15 different nations and lan

ra), p. 5; Desc. Dict. p. 7, 417; Gildemeister, p.

entioned (Barlak), as a city of the Archipelago, by Rashiduddin. Of its extent we have no knowledge, but the position (probably of its northern extremity) is preserved in the native name, Tanjong (i.e. Cape) Parlák of the N.E. horn of Sumatra, called by European s

otable that the Malay alphabet, which is that of the Arabic with necessary modifications, represents the sound

r answering to A.D. 1205, and this is the earliest conversion among the Malays on record. It is doubtful, indeed, whether there were Kings of Achin in

cuments. Their anthropophagy is now professedly practised according to precise laws, and only in prescribed cases. Thus: (i) A commoner seducing a Raja's wife must be eaten; (2) Enemies taken in battle outside their village must be eaten alive; those taken in storming a village may be spared; (3) Traitors and spies have the same doom, but may ransom themselves for 60 dollars a-head. There is nothing more horrible or extraordinary in all the stories of mediaeval travellers than the facts of this institution. (See Junghuhn,

nlargement of the time, is disposed to accept their story of the practice being comparatively modern. This cannot be, for their hideous custom is alluded to by a long chain of early authorities. Ptolemy's anthropophagi may perhaps be referred to the smaller islands. But the Arab Relations of the 9th century spea

tells it of the people of Gilolo, and Varthema in his account of Java (which I fear is fiction) ascribes it

doubt, it being the Passier of modern charts.-H.C.] Pasei is mentioned in the Malay Chronicle as founded by Malik-al-Sálih, the first Mussulman sovereign of Samudra, the next of Marco's kingdoms. He assigned one of these states to each of his two sons,

n those Sumatran states at the time of Polo's voyage, but it did so soon afterwards, and, low as they have now fallen, their power at one time was no delusion. Achin, which rose to be the chief of

e that according to the M

k, n. 414-415, Polo'

an, the modern Ophir i

s Mount O

Asiatic Rhinoceroses, (

(lower) Sum

was caught and tamed extensively. Ibn Batuta speaks of 100 elephants in the train of Al Dhahir, the King of Sumatra Proper, and in the 17th century Beaulieu says the King of Achin had always 900. Giov. d'Empoli also mentions them at Pedir in the beginning of the 16th century

species on the island, is a two-horned one (Rh. Sumatranus),[4] and his mention of the buffalo-like hair applies only to this one. This species exists also on the Indo-Chinese continent and, it is

borders on China. It has a horn, a cubit long, and two palms thick; when the horn is split, inside is fou

asury at St. Denis: "A faire unicorne's horn, sent by a K.

usted, and the rhinoceros cannot effect his escape without considerable difficulty and exertion. The Semangs prepare themselves with large quantities of combustible materials, with which they quietly approach the animal, who is aroused from his reverie by an immense fire over him, which being kept well supplied by the Semangs with fresh fuel, soon completes his destructio

so clean, that he leaves neither skin nor flesh to cover his bones." (A. Hamilton, ed. 1727, II. 24. M.S. Note of Yule.) Compare what is said of the tongue of the Yak, I. p. 277.-H.C.] The Chinese have the belief, and the Jesuit Lecomte attests it from professed observation of the an

aning in his note), is also an old and general one. It will be found, for example, in Brunetto Latini, in the Image du Monde, in the Mirabilia of Jordanus,[6] and in the verses of Tzetzes. The l

smen hasten up, aba

ey chop his horn, priz

d luckless beast esca

399,

aight but twisted ([Greek: eligmoús échon tinás], Hist. An. xvi. 20). The mistake may also be traced in the illustrations to Cosmas Indicopleustes from his own drawings, and it long endured, as may be seen in Jerome Cardan's description of a unicorn's horn which he saw suspended in the church

Monoceros and

e from the Bestiary of Philip de Thaun, published by

Beste, un corn

a nun, de b

prise; or vez

lt cacer et pre

l forest ù si

cele hors de

ment Monosce

Pucele, et si b

se dort, issi

t atant ki l'

e prent, si fais

ose sign

on to morali

alaiensis, black, with a double white-and-brown spotted tail, said to be

Valentyn. (Sumatra, in vol. v. p. 21.) Marsden remarks that a terminal k is in Sumatra always softened or omit

was made a fourth speci

s, found nea

dia has 6 true ribs an

ylon has 6 tru

es say that a one-horned

tra (3rd ed. of his H

sil remains of a bogged mastodon, which had been killed precisely in th

; N. and E., V. 26

n Les Arts au Moyen Age, p. 499, from the binding of a book.