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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
446 IBN BATUTA'S TRAVELS IN BENGAL AND CHINA.
P. 889. " From Ktlikodu or Kalikut, the capital of the Zamorin, he (Ibn Batuta) visited the Maldives... .On this voyage he met the ships on their voyage from Zaitun... On their decks were wooden huts for the crew, which consisted of five and twenty men."
The captains were Amirs, i.e., Arabs."
This kind of ship was only built in Zaitun."
" From the Malabar coast Ibn Batuta sailed to Ceylon."
" The next land that he mentions is Bengal. Our traveller visited this country (about 1346) and found that between it and the southernmost part of the Dekkan a most active traffic had sprung up, and also with China."
Pp. 889-890. "From this (Bengal) he directed his travels to Java, as the name of that island is here given according to the more modern pronunciation ; the island of Sumatra he calls Jâonah, which, we should rather have expected to be Jdvonah, as it is known to be called by Marco Polo Java Minor." (In a note) :
analogous to that of Ma'bar (or the Passage) to the Barbary coast from Tunis westward, which was called Barul-Adwah, Terra Transitûs, because thence they used to pass into Spain (tlmari in Journ. Asiat., Jan. 1846, p. 228). And it is some corroboration of the idea that the name Ma'bar was given to the coast near Ramnad as the place of passage to Ceylon, that a town just opposite on the Ceylonese coast was called Mantotte, because it was the lllahatotta, the " Great Ferry" or point of arrival or departure of the Malabars resorting to the island (Tennent, i, 564).
Nothing is said by Ibn Batuta of meeting these ships on his voyage to the Maldives. He describes them at Calicut, where they were in port. He speaks of the crew as consisting of one thousand men.
See supra, p. 417.
et. These ships are distinctly stated to have been built in Zaitun, and in Sinkalan.
On the contrary, he sailed from the Maldives.
I can find no ground for this statement in the narrative, except that Ibn Batuta got a passage somehow from the Maldives to Bengal, and afterwards in a junk which was going from Bengal to Java (Sumatra). At the latter place the sultan provided a vessel to carry him on to China..
From this we should gather (1) that Ibn Batuta calls Java by that name, and (2) calls Sumatra Jaonah, whilst (3) Lee introduces a name, M ui-Java, unknown to the correct narrative, as that of the port of Sumatra.
The fact is that Defrémery (whom Lassen cites) and Lee are in perfect accordance here. Sumatra Island is called Java ; some other country, which
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