The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2

as detained five months by the weather, which would not allow of his going on. And I tell you that here again neither the Pole-star nor the stars of the Maestro[NOTE 2]

the sea-haven, and within these ditches they made bulwarks or stockades of timber] for fear of those brutes of man-eaters; [for there is great store of wood there; and the Islanders having confidence in the party sup

te and red. [It is of such surpassing virtue that it cures dropsy and tisick and spleen.] The trees resemble small date-palms; ... and when cutting a branch no longer gives a flow of wine, they water the root of the tree, and before long the branches again begin to give out wine as before.[NOTE 3] They have als

about this kingdom, let us quit it

om of Samara you come to

endent kingdom, and has

t they call themselves t

you a wicked custo

he sick man's mouth that they suffocate him. And when he is dead they have him cooked, and gather together all the dead man's kin, and eat him. And I assure you they do suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them; for they say that if any nourishment remained in the bones this would breed worms, and then the worms would die for want of food, and the death of those worms would be laid to the charge of the deceased man's s

this kingdom let us leave it,

ame was really Samatra, and it is possible that we have a t

ted 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-Sálih. He married the daughter of the King of Parlák, by whom he had two sons; and to have a

eligious discussions, as well as a great warrior and a powerful prince. The city was 4 miles from its port, which the traveller calls Sarha; 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 Mahome

hing of Mahomedanism; the people are still wild idolaters; but the king is already a rich and powerful prince. This may have been Malik Al-Salih before his conversion; b

, 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

ly 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

te 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-Salih, 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 S

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 Ald

ke intimation in a curi

s, written from Lisbo

was probably the same

he Portuguese edition o

xtremely accurate concep

la la quale è chiamata d

si chiama Sumotra, d

De Gubernatis, Viagg

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 Pas

(Ming, 325, 20, 24), which states that in 1521 Pieh-tu-lu (Pestrello [for Perestrello ?]) having failed in China 'went fo

mselves 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 (pr

vos di que l'estoilles dou Meistre ne aparent ne pou

e Père l'

'il semblas

se mu

toile vont

et lor vo

nt la tres

Provins in Barbazan

gister or Magistra in mediaeval 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

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

ays 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

re unintelligible to me: "et sunt

tsiu made from 'coir trees like cocoa-nut palms' manufactured by the Burmese. Therefore it seems more likely that Samara is Siam (still pronoun

st have been near PEDIR, and perhaps it was practically the same. Pedir was th

he Archipelago Dalmian, which may perh

rst Nakú-urh, the second Liti. Nakú-urh, which seems to be the Ting-'ho-'rh of Pauthier's extracts, which sent trib

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

Lidé of De Barros, which by his list lay immediately east of Pedir. This would place Nakú-urh about Sama

arlangka, called Darián-Gadé (Great Darian?). This is the nearest approa

nd 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). Si

lk woneth t

he hatte

eldrynges

wen hemse

leeth, a

etc.

, I. p

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 so

ects ... 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 s

s 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 ma

en, 1st e

Atchin, 1

a had stolen from Serano; but the boo

ouses 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 accou

map and quotations, as to date, author, etc., it wou