The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 58

NOTE 1.--CAMBAET is nearer the genuine name of the city than our CAMBAY.

Its proper Hindu name was, according to Colonel Tod, _Khambavati_, "the City of the Pillar." The inhabitants write it _Kambayat_. The ancient city is 3 miles from the existing Cambay, and is now overgrown with jungle. It is spoken of as a flourishing place by Mas'udi, who visited it in A.D.

915. Ibn Batuta speaks of it also as a very fine city, remarkable for the elegance and solidity of its mosques, and houses built by wealthy foreign merchants. _Cambeth_ is mentioned by Polo's contemporary Marino Sanudo, as one of the two chief Ocean Ports of India; and in the 15th century Conti calls it 14 miles in circuit. It was still in high prosperity in the early part of the 16th century, abounding in commerce and luxury, and one of the greatest Indian marts. Its trade continued considerable in the time of Federici, towards the end of that century; but it has now long disappeared, the local part of it being transferred to Gogo and other ports having deeper water. Its chief or sole industry now is in the preparation of ornamental objects from agates, cornelians, and the like.

The Indigo of Cambay was long a staple export, and is mentioned by Conti, Nikitin, Santo Stefano, Federici, Linschoten, and Abu'l Fazl.

The independence of Cambay ceased a few years after Polo's visit; for it was taken in the end of the century by the armies of Alauddin Khilji of Delhi, a king whose name survived in Guzerat down to our own day as _Alauddin Khuni_--b.l.o.o.d.y Alauddin. (_Ras Mala_, I. 235.)

CHAPTER XXIX.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF s.e.m.e.nAT.

s.e.m.e.nat is a great kingdom towards the west. The people are Idolaters, and have a king and a language of their own, and pay tribute to n.o.body. They are not corsairs, but live by trade and industry as honest people ought.

It is a place of very great trade. They are forsooth cruel Idolaters.

[NOTE 1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'The Gates of Somnath,' preserved in the British a.r.s.enal at Agra, from a photograph (converted into elevation)]

NOTE 1.--SOMNATH is the site of the celebrated Temple on the coast of Saurashtra, or Peninsular Guzerat, plundered by Mahmud of Ghazni on his sixteenth expedition to India (A.D. 1023). The term "great kingdom" is part of Polo's formula. But the place was at this time of some importance as a commercial port, and much visited by the ships of Aden, as Abulfeda tells us. At an earlier date Albiruni speaks of it both as the seat of a great Mahadeo much frequented by Hindu pilgrims, and as a port of call for vessels on their way from Sofala in Africa to China,--a remarkable incidental notice of departed trade and civilisation! He does not give Somnath so good a character as Polo does; for he names it as one of the chief pirate-haunts. And Colonel Tod mentions that the sculptured memorial stones on this coast frequently exhibit the deceased as a pirate in the act of boarding. In fact, piratical habits continued in the islands off the coast of Kattiawar down to our own day.

Properly speaking, three separate things are lumped together as Somnath: (1) The Port, properly called Verawal, on a beautiful little bay; (2) the City of Deva-Pattan, Somnath-Pattan, or Prabhas, occupying a prominence on the south side of the bay, having a ma.s.sive wall and towers, and many traces of ancient Hindu workmanship, though the vast mult.i.tude of tombs around shows the existence of a large Mussulman population at some time; and among these are dates nearly as old as our Traveller's visit; (3) The famous Temple (or, strictly speaking, the object of worship in that Temple) crowning a projecting rock at the south-west angle of the city, and close to the walls. Portions of columns and sculptured fragments strew the soil around.

Notwithstanding the famous story of Mahmud and the image stuffed with jewels, there is little doubt that the idol really termed Somnath (Moon's Lord) was nothing but a huge columnar emblem of Mahadeo. Hindu authorities mention it as one of the twelve most famous emblems of that kind over India, and Ibn asir's account, the oldest extant narrative of Mahmud's expedition, is to the same effect. Every day it was washed with water newly brought from the Ganges. Mahmud broke it to pieces, and with a fragment a step was made at the entrance of the Jami' Mosque at Ghazni.

The temples and idols of Pattan underwent a second visitation at the hands of Alauddin's forces a few years after Polo's visit (1300),[1] and this seems in great measure to have wiped out the memory of Mahmud. The temple, as it now stands deserted, bears evident tokens of having been converted into a mosque. A good deal of old and remarkable architecture remains, but mixed with Moslem work, and no part of the building as it stands is believed to be a survival from the time of Mahmud; though part may belong to a reconstruction which was carried out by Raja Bhima Deva of Anhilwara about twenty-five years after Mahmud's invasion. It is remarkable that Ibn asir speaks of the temple plundered by Mahmud as "built upon 56 pillars of teak-wood covered with lead." Is it possible that it was a wooden building?

In connection with this brief chapter on Somnath we present a faithful representation of those Gates which Lord Ellenborough rendered so celebrated in connection with that name, when he caused them to be removed from the Tomb of Mahmud, on the retirement of our troops from Kabul in 1842. His intention, as announced in that once famous _paean_ of his, was to have them carried solemnly to Guzerat, and there restored to the (long desecrated) temple. Calmer reflection prevailed, and the Gates were consigned to the Fort of Agra, where they still remain.

Captain J.D. Cunningham, in his _Hist. of the Sikhs_ (p. 209), says that in 1831, when Shah Shuja treated with Ranjit Singh for aid to recover his throne, one of the Maharaja's conditions was the restoration of the Gates to Somnath. This probably put the scheme into Lord Ellenborough's head.

But a remarkable fact is, that the Shah reminded Ranjit of _a prophecy that foreboded the downfall of the Sikh Empire on the removal of the Ghazni Gates_. This is quoted from a report of Captain Wade's, dated 21st November, 1831. The gates were removed to India in the end of 1842. The "Sikh Empire" practically collapsed with the murder of Sher Singh in September, 1843.

It is not probable that there was any _real_ connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the ill.u.s.tration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable for its own character and indisputable history, as for the questionable origin ascribed to it. (_Tod's Travels_, 385, 504; _Burgess, Visit to Somnath_, etc.; _Jacob's Report on Kattywar_, p. 18; _Gildemeister_, 185; _Dowson's Elliot_, II. 468 seqq.; _Asiatic Journal_, 3rd series, vol. I.).

[1] So in _Elliot_, II. 74. But Jacob says there is an inscription of a Mussulman Governor in Pattan of 1297.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF KESMACORAN.

Kesmacoran is a kingdom having a king of its own and a peculiar language.

[Some of] the people are Idolaters, [but the most part are Saracens]. They live by merchandize and industry, for they are professed traders, and carry on much traffic by sea and land in all directions. Their food is rice [and corn], flesh and milk, of which they have great store. There is no more to be said about them.[NOTE 1]

And you must know that this kingdom of Kesmacoran is the last in India as you go towards the west and north-west. You see, from Maabar on, this province is what is called the GREATER INDIA, and it is the best of all the Indies. I have now detailed to you all the kingdoms and provinces and (chief) cities of this India the Greater, that are upon the seaboard; but of those that lie in the interior I have said nothing, because that would make too long a story.[NOTE 2]

And so now let us proceed, and I will tell you of some of the Indian Islands. And I will begin by two Islands which are called Male and Female.

NOTE 1.--Though M. Pauthier has imagined objections there is no room for doubt that _Kesmacoran_ is the province of Mekran, known habitually all over the East as Kij-Makran, from the combination with the name of the country of that of its chief town, just as we lately met with a converse combination in _Konkan-tana_. This was pointed out to Marsden by his ill.u.s.trious friend Major Rennell. We find the term _Kij Makran_ used by Ibn Batuta (III. 47); by the Turkish Admiral Sidi 'Ali (_J. As._, ser. I.

tom. ix. 72; and _J.A.S.B._ V. 463); by Sharifuddin (_P. de la Croix_, I. 379, II. 417-418); in the famous Sindian Romeo-and-Juliet tale of Sa.s.si and Pannun (_Elliot_, I. 333); by Pietro della Valle (I. 724, II. 358); by Sir F. Goldsmid (_J.R.A.S._, N.S., I. 38); and see for other examples, _J.A.S.B._ VII. 298, 305, 308; VIII. 764; XIV. 158; XVII. pt. ii. 559: XX. 262, 263.

The argument that Mekran was not a province of India only amounts to saying that Polo has made a mistake. But the fact is that it often _was_ reckoned to belong to India, from ancient down to comparatively modern times. Pliny says: "Many indeed do not reckon the Indus to be the western boundary of India, but include in that term also four satrapies on this side the river, the Gedrosi, the Arachoti, the Arii, and the Parapomisadae (i.e. Mekran, Kandahar, Herat, and Kabul) .... whilst others cla.s.s all these together under the name of Ariana" (VI. 23). Arachosia, according to Isidore of Charax, was termed by the Parthians "White India." Aelian calls Gedrosia a part of India. (_Hist. Animal._ XVII. 6.) In the 6th century the Nestorian Patriarch Jesujabus, as we have seen (supra, ch. xxii.

note 1), considered all to be India from the coast of Persia, i.e. of Fars, beginning from near the Gulf. According to Ibn Khordadbeh, the boundary between Persia and India was seven days' sail from Hormuz and eight from Daibul, or less than half-way from the mouth of the Gulf to the Indus. (_J. As._ ser. VI. tom. v. 283.) Beladhori speaks of the Arabs in early expeditions as invading Indian territory about the Lake of Sijistan; and Istakhri represents this latter country as bounded on the north and _partly on the west_ by portions of India. Kabul was still reckoned in India. Chach, the last Hindu king of Sind but one, is related to have marched through Mekran to a river which formed the limit between Mekran and Kerman. On its banks he planted date-trees, and set up a monument which bore: _"This was the boundary of_ Hind in the time of Chach, the son of Sflaij, the son of Basabas." In the Geography of Bakui we find it stated that "Hind is a great country which begins at the province of Mekran." (_N. and E._ II. 54.) In the map of Marino Sanuto India begins from Hormuz; and it is plain from what Polo says in quitting that city that he considered the next step from it south-eastward would have taken him to India (supra, I. p. 110).

["The name Mekran has been commonly, but erroneously, derived from Mahi Khoran, i.e. the fish-eaters, or _ichthyophagi_, which was the t.i.tle given to the inhabitants of the Beluchi coast-fringe by Arrian. But the word is a Dravidian name, and appears as Makara in the _Brhat Sanhita_ of Varaha Mihira in a list of the tribes contiguous to India on the west. It is also the [Greek: Makaraenae] of Stephen of Byzantium, and the Makuran of Tabari, and Moses of Ch.o.r.ene. Even were it not a Dravidian name, in no old Aryan dialect could it signify fish-eaters." (_Curzon, Persia_, II. p.

261, note.)

"It is to be noted that Kesmacoran is a combination of Kech or Kej and Makran, and the term is even to-day occasionally used." (_Major P.M.

Sykes, Persia_, p. 102.)--H.C.]

We may add a Romance definition of India from _King Alisaunder_:--

"Lordynges, also I fynde, _At Mede so bigynneth Ynde_: Forsothe ich woot, it stretcheth ferest Of alle the Londes in the Est, And oth the South half sikerlyk, To the cee taketh of Affryk; And the north half to a Mountayne, That is ycleped Caucasayne."--L 4824-4831.

It is probable that Polo merely coasted Mekran; he seems to know nothing of the Indus, and what he says of Mekran is vague.

NOTE 2.--As Marco now winds up his detail of the Indian coast, it is proper to try to throw some light on his partial derangement of its geography. In the following columns the first shows the _real_ geographical order from east to west of the Indian provinces as named by Polo, and the second shows the order as _he_ puts them. The Italic names are brief and general identifications.

_Real order_. _Polo's order_.

1. Mutfili (_Telingana_) 1. Mutfili MAABAR, / 2. St. Thomas's (_Madras_). 2. St. Thomas's including | 3. Maabar Proper, Kingdom of (Lar, west of do.).

| Sonder Bandi (_Tanjore_) 3. Maabar proper, or Soli.

4. Cail (_Tinnevelly_). 4. Cail.

5. Comari (_C. Comorin_). 5. Coilum.

MELIBAR, / 6. Coilum (_Travancore_). 6. Comari.

including 7. Eli (_Cananore_). 7. Eli.

GUZERAT, / 8. Tana (_Bombay_). 8. (MELIBAR).

or LAR, | 9. Canbaet (_Cambay_). 9. (GOZURAT).

including | 10. s.e.m.e.nat (_Somnath_). 10. Tana.

11. Kesmacoran (_Mekran_). 11. Canbaet.

12. s.e.m.e.nat.

13. Kesmacoran.

It is difficult to suppose that the fleet carrying the bride of Arghun went out of its way to Maabar, St. Thomas's, and Telingana. And on the other hand, what is said in chapter xxiii. on Comari, about the North Star not having been visible since they approached the Lesser Java, would have been grossly inaccurate if in the interval the travellers had been north as far as Madras and Motupalle. That pa.s.sage suggests to me strongly that Comari was the first Indian land made by the fleet on arriving from the Archipelago (exclusive _perhaps_ of Ceylon). Note then that the position of Eli is marked by its distance of 300 miles from Comari, evidently indicating that this was a run made by the traveller _on some occasion_ without an intermediate stoppage. Tana, Cambay, Somnath, would follow naturally as points of call.

In Polo's order, again, the positions of Comari and Coilum are transposed, whilst Melibar is introduced as if it were a country _westward_ (as Polo views it, northward we should say)[1] of Coilum and Eli, instead of including them, and Gozurat is introduced as a country lying _eastward_ (or southward, as we should say) of Tana, Cambaet, and s.e.m.e.nat, instead of including them, or at least the two latter. Moreover, he names no cities in connection with those two countries.

The following hypothesis, really not a complex one, is the most probable that I can suggest to account for these confusions.

I conceive, then, that Cape Comorin (Comari) was the first Indian land made by the fleet on the homeward voyage, and that Hili, Tana, Cambay, Somnath, were touched at successively as it proceeded towards Persia.

I conceive that in a former voyage to India on the Great Kaan's business Marco had visited Maabar and Kaulam, and gained partly from actual visits and partly from information the substance of the notices he gives us of Telingana and St Thomas's on the one side and of Malabar and Guzerat on the other, and that in combining into one series the results of the information acquired on two different voyages he failed rightly to co-ordinate the material, and thus those dislocations which we have noticed occurred, as they very easily might, in days when maps had practically no existence; to say nothing of the accidents of dictation.