The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 41

All this is very perplexed, and it is difficult to trace what may have been the true readings. The 30 miles beyond the straits, whether we give the direction _south-east_ as in G.T. or no, will not carry us to the vicinity of any place known to have been the site of an important city. As the point of departure in the next chapter is from _Pentam_ and not from Malaiur, the introduction of the latter is perhaps a digression from the route, on information derived either from hearsay or from a former voyage.

But there is not information enough to decide what place is meant by Malaiur. Probabilities seem to me to be divided between _Palembang_, and its colony _Singhapura_. Palembang, according to the Commentaries of Alboquerque, was called by the Javanese MALAYO. The List of Sumatran Kingdoms in De Barros makes TANA-MALAYU the _next_ to Palembang. On the whole, I incline to this interpretation.

[In _Valentyn_ (V. 1, _Beschryvinge van Malakka_, p. 317) we find it stated that the Malay people just dwelt on the River _Malayu_ in the Kingdom of Palembang, and were called from the River _Orang Malayu.--MS.

Note_.--H.Y.]

[Professor Schlegel in his _Geog. Notes_, IV., tries to prove by Chinese authorities that Maliur and Tana-Malayu are two quite distinct countries, and he says that Maliur may have been situated on the coast opposite Singapore, perhaps a little more to the S.W. where now lies Malacca, and that Tana-Malayu may be placed in Asahan, upon the east coast of Sumatra.--H.C.]

Singhapura was founded by an emigration from Palembang, itself a Javanese colony. It became the site of a flourishing kingdom, and was then, according to the tradition recorded by De Barros, the most important centre of population in those regions, "whither used to gather all the navigators of the Eastern Seas, from both East and West; to this great city of Singapura all flocked as to a general market." (Dec. II. 6, 1.) This suits the description in our text well; but as Singhapura was in sight of any ship pa.s.sing through the straits, mistake could hardly occur as to its position, even if it had not been visited.

I omit _Malacca_ entirely from consideration, because the evidence appears to me conclusive against the existence of Malacca at this time.

The Malay Chronology, as published by Valentyn, ascribes the foundation of that city to a king called Iskandar Shah, placing it in A.D. 1252, fixes the reign of Mahomed Shah, the third King of Malacca and first Mussulman King, as extending from 1276 to 1333 (not stating _when_ his conversion took place), and gives 8 kings in all between the foundation of the city and its capture by the Portuguese in 1511, a s.p.a.ce, according to those data, of 259 years. As Sri Iskandar Shah, the founder, had reigned 3 years in Singhapura _before_ founding Malacca, and Mahomed Shah, the loser, reigned 2 years in Joh.o.r.e _after_ the loss of his capital, we have 264 years to divide among 8 kings, giving 33 years to each reign. This certainly indicates that the period requires considerable curtailment.

Again, both De Barros and the Commentaries or Alboquerque ascribe the foundation of Malacca to a Javanese fugitive from Palembang called Paramisura, and Alboquerque makes Iskandar Shah (_Xaquem darxa_) the _son_ of Paramisura, and the first convert to Mahomedanism. _Four_ other kings reign in succession after him, the last of the four being Mahomed Shah, expelled in 1511.

[G.o.dinho de Eredia says expressly (Cap. i. _Do Citio Malaca_, p. 4) that Malacca was founded by _Permicuri, primeiro monarcha de Malayos_, in the year 1411, in the Pontificate of John XXIV., and in the reign of Don Juan II. of Castille and Dom Juan I. of Portugal.]

The historian De Couto, whilst giving the same number of reigns from the conversion to the capture, places the former event about 1384. And the Commentaries of Alboquerque allow no more than some ninety years from the foundation of Malacca to his capture of the city.

There is another approximate check to the chronology afforded by a Chinese record in the XIVth volume of Amyot's collection. This informs us that Malacca first acknowledged itself as tributary to the Empire in 1405, the king being _Sili-ju-eul-sula_ (?). In 1411 the King of Malacca himself, now called _Peilimisula_ (Paramisura), came in person to the court of China to render homage. And in 1414 the Queen-Mother of Malacca came to court, bringing her son's tribute.

Now this notable fact of the visit of a King of Malacca to the court of China, and his acknowledgment of the Emperor's supremacy, is also recorded in the Commentaries of Alboquerque. This work, it is true, attributes the visit, not to Paramisura, the founder of Malacca, but to his son and successor Iskandar Shah. This may be a question of a _t.i.tle_ only, perhaps borne by both; but we seem ent.i.tled to conclude with confidence that Malacca was founded by a prince whose son was reigning, and visited the court of China in 1411. And the real chronology will be about midway between the estimates of De Couto and of Alboquerque. Hence Malacca did not exist for a century, more or less, after Polo's voyage.

[Mr. C.O. Blagden, in a paper on the Mediaeval Chronology of Malacca (_Actes du XI'e Cong. Int. Orient. Paris_, 1897), writes (p. 249) that "if Malacca had been in the middle of the 14th century anything like the great emporium of trade which it certainly was in the 15th, Ibn Batuta would scarcely have failed to speak of it." The foundation of Malacca by Sri Iskandar Shah in 1252, according to the _Sejarah Malayu_ "must be put at least 125 years later, and the establishment of the Muhammadan religion there would then precede by only a few years the end of the 14th century, instead of taking place about the end of the 13th, as is generally supposed" (p. 251). (Cf. _G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes_, XV.)--H.C.]

Mr. Logan supposes that the form _Malayu-r_ may indicate that the Malay language of the 13th century "had not yet replaced the strong naso-guttural terminals by pure vowels." We find the same form in a contemporary Chinese notice. This records that in the 2nd year of the Yuen, tribute was sent from Siam to the Emperor. "The Siamese had long been at war with the _Maliyi_ or MALIURH, but both nations laid aside their feud and submitted to China." (_Valentyn_, V. p. 352; _Crawford's Desc.

Dict._ art. _Malacca_; _La.s.sen_, IV. 541 seqq.; _Journ. Ind. Archip._ V.

572, II. 608-609; _De Barros_, Dec. II. 1. vi. c. 1; _Comentarios do grande Afonso d'Alboquerque_, Pt. III. cap. xvii.; _Couto_, Dec. IV. liv. ii.; _Wade_ in _Bowring's Kingdom and People of Siam_, I. 72.)

[From I-tsing we learn that going from China to India, the traveller visits the country of _Shih-li-fuh-shi_ (_cribhoja_ or simply _Fuh-shi_ = Bhoja), then _Mo-louo-yu_, which seems to Professor Chavannes to correspond to the _Malaiur_ of Marco Polo and to the modern Palembang, and which in the 10th century formed a part of cribhodja identified by Professor Chavannes with Zabedj. (_I-tsing_, p. 36.) The Rev. S. Beal has some remarks on this question in the _Merveilles de l'Inde_, p. 251, and he says that he thinks "there are reasons for placing this country [cribhoja], or island, on the East coast of Sumatra, and near Palembang, or, on the Palembang River." Mr. Groeneveldt (_T'oung Pao_, VII. abst. p.

10) gives some extracts from Chinese authors, and then writes: "We have therefore to find now a place for the Molayu of I-tsing, the Malaiur of Marco Polo, the Malayo of Alboquerque, and the Tana-Malayu of De Barros, all which may be taken to mean the same place. I-tsing tells us that it took fifteen days to go from Bhoja to Molayu and fifteen days again to go from there to Kieh-ch'a. The latter place, suggesting a native name Kada, must have been situated in the north-west of Sumatra, somewhere near the present Atjeh, for going from there west, one arrived in thirty days at Magapatana; near Ceylon, whilst a northern course brought one in ten days to the Nicobar Islands. Molayu should thus lie half-way between Bhoja and Kieh-ch'a, but this indication must not be taken too literally where it is given for a sailing vessel, and there is also the statement of De Barros, which does not allow us to go too far away from Palembang, as he mentions Tana-Malayu _next_ to that place. We have therefore to choose between the next three larger rivers: those of Jambi, Indragiri, and Kampar, and there is an indication in favour of the last one, not very strong, it is true, but still not to be neglected. I-tsing tells us: 'Le roi me donna des secours grace auxquels je parvins au pays de _Mo-louo-yu_; j'y sejournai derechef pendant deux mois. Je changeai de direction pour aller dans le pays de _Kie-tcha_.' The change of direction during a voyage along the east coast of Sumatra from Palembang to Atjeh is nowhere very perceptible, because the course is throughout more or less north-west, still one may speak of a change of direction at the mouth of the River Kampar, about the entrance of the Strait of Malacca, whence the track begins to run more west, whilst it is more north before. The country of Kampar is of little importance now, but it is not improbable that there has been a Hindoo settlement, as the ruins of religious monuments decidedly Buddhist are still existing on the upper course of the river, the only ones indeed on this side of the island, it being a still unexplained fact that the Hindoos in Java have built on a very large scale, and those of Sumatra hardly anything at all."--Mr. Takakusu (_A Record of the Buddhist Religion_, p. xli.) proposes to place Shih-li-fuh-shi at Palembang and Mo-louo-yu farther on the northern coast of Sumatra.--(Cf. _G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes_, XVI.; _P. Pelliot, Bul. Ecole Franc. Ext. Orient_, II. pp.

94-96.)--H.C.]

CHAPTER IX.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF JAVA THE LESS. THE KINGDOMS OF FERLEC AND BASMA.

When you leave the Island of Pentam and sail about 100 miles, you reach the Island of JAVA THE LESS. For all its name 'tis none so small but that it has a compa.s.s of two thousand miles or more. Now I will tell you all about this Island.[NOTE 1]

You see there are upon it eight kingdoms and eight crowned kings. The people are all Idolaters, and every kingdom has a language of its own. The Island hath great abundance of treasure, with costly spices, lign-aloes and spikenard and many others that never come into our parts.[NOTE 2]

Now I am going to tell you all about these eight kingdoms, or at least the greater part of them. But let me premise one marvellous thing, and that is the fact that this Island lies so far to the south that the North Star, little or much, is never to be seen!

Now let us resume our subject, and first I will tell you of the kingdom of FERLEC.

This kingdom, you must know, is so much frequented by the Saracen merchants that they have converted the natives to the Law of Mahommet--I mean the townspeople 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 worship this, that, and the other thing; for in fact the first thing that they see on rising in the morning, that they do worship for the rest of the day.[NOTE 3]

Having told you of the kingdom of Ferlec, I will now tell of another which is called BASMA.

When you quit the kingdom of Ferlec you enter upon that of Basma. This also is an independent kingdom, and the people have a language of their own; but they are just like beasts without laws or religion. They call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan, but they pay him no tribute; indeed they are so far away that his men could not go thither. Still all these Islanders declare themselves to be his subjects, and sometimes they send him curiosities as presents.[NOTE 4] There are 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 p.r.i.c.kles [and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue].

The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. 'Tis a pa.s.sing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, 'tis altogether different from what we fancied.[NOTE 5] There are also monkeys here in great numbers and of sundry kinds; and goshawks as black as crows.

These are very large birds and capital for fowling.[NOTE 6]

I may tell you moreover that when people bring home pygmies which they allege to come from India, 'tis all a lie and a cheat. For those little men, as they call them, are manufactured on this Island, and I will tell you how. 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 stuff them and daub them with saffron and other things until they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere in India nor anywhere else in the world were there ever men seen so small as these pretended pygmies.

Now I will say no more of the kingdom of Basma, but tell you of the others in succession.

NOTE 1.--Java the Less is the Island of SUMATRA. Here there is no exaggeration in the dimension a.s.signed to its circuit, which is about 2300 miles. The old Arabs of the 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 accuracy of these estimates of Sumatra, which the navigators knew in its entire compa.s.s, with the wild estimates of Java Proper, of which they knew but the northern coast.

Polo by no means stands alone in giving the name of Java to the island now called Sumatra. The terms _Jawa, Jawi_, were applied by the Arabs to the islands and productions of the Archipelago generally (e.g., _Luban jawi_, "Java frankincense," whence by corruption _Benzoin_), but also specifically to Sumatra. Thus Sumatra is the _Jawah_ both of Abulfeda and of Ibn Batuta, the latter of whom spent some time 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. _Jau_ 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 partake of the civilisation diffused from Java. In Siamese also the Malay language is called _Chawa_; and even on the Malay peninsula, the traditional slang for a half-breed born from a Kling (or Coromandel) father and a Malay mother is _Jawi Pakan_, "a Jawi (i.e. Malay) of the market." De Barros says that all the people of Sumatra called themselves by the common name of _Jauijs_. (Dec. III. liv. v. cap. 1.)

There is some reason to believe that the application of the name Java to Sumatra is of very old date. For the oldest inscription of ascertained date in the Archipelago which has yet been read, a Sanskrit 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, ent.i.tles the monarch whom it commemorates, Adityadharma by name, the king of "the First Java" (or rather Yava). This Mr. Friedrich interprets to mean Sumatra. It is by no means impossible that the _Iabadiu_, or Yavadvipa of Ptolemy may be Sumatra rather than Java.

An accomplished Dutch Orientalist suggests that the Arabs originally applied the terms Great Java and Little Java to Java and Sumatra respectively, not because of their imagined relation in size, but as indicating the former to be Java _Proper_. Thus also, he says, there is a _Great Acheh_ (Achin) which does not imply that the place so called is greater than the well-known state of 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 the three.

But the others look upon it as the most ancient. The Burmese are alleged to call the _Rakhain_ or people of Arakan _Mranma Gyi_ or Great Burmese, and to consider their dialect the most ancient form of the language. And, in like manner, we may perhaps account for the term of _Little Thai_, formerly applied to the Siamese in distinction from the _Great Thai_, their kinsmen of Laos.

In after-days, when the name of Sumatra for the Great Island had established itself, the traditional term "Little Java" sought other applications. Barbosa seems to apply it to _Sumbawa_; Pigafetta and Cavendish apply it to _Bali_, and in this way Raffles says it was still used in his own day. Geographers were sometimes puzzled about it. Magini says Java Minor is almost _incognita_.

(_Turnour's Epitome_, p. 45; _Van der Tuuk, Bladwijzer tot de drie Stukken van het Bataksche Leesboek_, p. 43, etc.; _Friedrich_ in _Bat.

Transactions_, XXVI.; _Levchine, Les Kirghiz Kazaks_, 300, 301.)

NOTE 2.--As regards the _treasure_, Sumatra was long famous for its produce of gold. The export is estimated in Crawford's History at 35,530 ounces; but no doubt it was much more when the native states were in a condition of greater wealth and civilisation, as they undoubtedly were some centuries ago. Valentyn says that in some years Achin had exported 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 Tena.s.serim. Both this and spikenard are mentioned by Polo's contemporary, Kazwini, among the products of Java (probably Sumatra), viz., _Java lign-aloes (al-' Ud al-Jawi)_, camphor _spikenard (Sumbul)_, etc.

_Narawastu_ is the name of a gra.s.s with fragrant roots much used as a perfume in the Archipelago, and I see this is rendered _spikenard_ in a translation from the Malay Annals in the _Journal of the Archipelago_.

With regard to the kingdoms of the island which Marco proceeds to describe, it is well to premise that all the six which he specifies are to be looked for towards the north end of the island, viz., in regular succession up the northern part of the east coast, along the north coast, and down 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 contee de cesti roiames que sunt de ceste partie de scele ysle, et des autres roiames de_ l'autre _partie ne voz conteron-noz rien._" Most commentators have made confusion by scattering them up and down, nearly all round the coast of Sumatra. The best remarks on the subject I have met with are by Mr. Logan in his _Journal of the Ind. Arch._ II. 610.

The "kingdoms" were certainly many more than eight throughout the island.

At a later day De Barros enumerates 29 on the coast alone. Crawford reckons 15 different nations and languages on Sumatra and its dependent isles, of which 11 belong to the great island itself.

(_Hist. of Ind. Arch._ III. 482; _Valentyn_, V. (Sumatra), p. 5; _Desc.

Dict._ p. 7, 417; Gildemeister, p. 193; _Crawf. Malay Dict._ 119; _J. Ind.

Arch._ V. 313.)

NOTE 3.--The kingdom of PARLaK is mentioned in the _Shijarat Malayu_ or Malay Chronicle, and also in a Malay History of the Kings of Pasei, of which an abstract is given by Dulaurier, in connection with the other states of which we shall speak presently. It is also mentioned (_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) _Parlak_ of the N.E.

horn of Sumatra, called by European seamen "Diamond Point," whilst the river and town of _Perla_, about 32 miles south of that point, indicate, I have little doubt, the site of the old capital.[1] Indeed in Malombra's Ptolemy (Venice, 1574), I find the next city of Sumatra beyond _Pacen_ marked as _Pulaca_.

The form _Ferlec_ shows that Polo got it from the Arabs, who having no _p_ often replace that letter by _f_. It is notable that the Malay alphabet, which is that of the Arabic with necessary modifications, represents the sound _p_ not by the Persian _pe_ ([Arabic]), but by the Arabic _fe_ ([Arabic]), with three dots instead of one ([Arabic]).

A Malay chronicle of Achin dates the accession of the first Mahomedan king of that state, the nearest point of Sumatra to India and Arabia, in the year 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 1205, or for centuries after (unless indeed _Lambri_ is to be regarded as Achin), but the introduction of Islam may be confidently a.s.signed to that age.

The notice of the Hill-people, who lived like beasts and ate human flesh, presumably attaches to the Battas or Bataks, occupying high table-lands in the interior of Sumatra. They do not now extend north beyond lat. 3. The interior of Northern Sumatra seems to remain a _terra incognita_, and even with the coast we are far less familiar than our ancestors were 250 years ago. The Battas are remarkable among cannibal nations as having attained or retained some degree of civilisation, and as being possessed of an alphabet and doc.u.ments. 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 inst.i.tution. (See _Junghuhn_, _Die Battalander_, II. 158.) And it is evident that human flesh is also at times kept in the houses for food.

Junghuhn, who could not abide Englishmen but was a great admirer of the Battas, tells how after a perilous and hungry flight he arrived in a friendly village, and the food that was offered by his hosts was the flesh of two prisoners who had been slaughtered the day before (I. 249).

Anderson was also told of one of the most powerful Batta chiefs who would eat only such food, and took care to be supplied with it (225).