National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 |
CX | PRELIMINARY ESSAY. |
productions. Thence to KANTU, six days, also having the sane productions.' In all the ports of China you find a great navigable river affected by the tide. In that of Kantu there are geese, ducks, and other wild fowl. The greatest length of coast from AL MAID to the other extremity of China is two months' voyage. China includes three hundred prosperous and famous cities. It is bounded by the sea, by Tibet, and by the country of the Turk. Strangers from India are established in the eastern
provinces.
What is beyond China is unknown. But in front of Kantu rise high mountains. These are in the country of SILA, which abounds in gold. Musulmans who visit this country are often induced to settle for good because of the advantages of the place. The products exported are ghorraib (a kind of plant), gum kino, aloes, camphor, sails, saddles, porcelain, satin, cinnamon, and galanga."
83*. Masudi is our next writer ; who in the Meadows of Gold2 treats of all things in Nature and History, and of all at once rather than all in succession ; of China among the rest. He travelled far and wide, and from a very early age, visiting Sind in 912 when quite a youth, and afterwards, according to his own account, Zanzibar and the Island of Kanbalu,3 Champa, China, and the country of Zabaj (supra, p. civ), besides travelling a long way into Turkestan. If he really visited China it must have been in a very cursory manner. I can find nothing of any interest
1 Janku is probably the Janku of others, and to be identified with Yangcheu (infra, p. 123). Kantu, from the mountains of Sila or Japan opposite to it, as mentioned below, should be either Shanghai or about the mouth of the Yellow River, if there was ever a port there.
2 Les Prairies cl' Or—translated by MM. Barbier de Me ynard and Pavet de Courteille, Paris, 1861-66. Four volumes are published and more to follow.
3 The French translators take this for Madagascar. Masudi describes it as an island in the sea of Zanj, well cultivated and inhabited by Musulmans speaking the Zanj language. The Mahomedans got possession of it about the beginning of the Abasside .dynasty, capturing the whole Zanj population (this never could be true of Madagascar). Sailors reckoned it roughly about five hundred farsangs to Oman. I should think it must be the Island of Zanzibar, or perhaps the Great Comoro, which has some resemblance in naine, and is occupied by people of Arab
descent.
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