IIIF Color HighRes
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
AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 469
especially the aloes-wood of KAKITLA' and KAMARA, places which were both in that country.
The port which they entered was that of Kakula, a fine city with a wall of hewn stone wide enough to admit the passage of three elephants abreast. There were war junks in the harbour equipt for piratical cruising, and also to enforce the tolls which were exacted from foreign vessels. The traveller saw elephants coming into the town loaded with aloes-wood, for the article was so common as to be popularly used for fuel. Elephants were also employed for all kinds of purposes, whether for personal use or for the carriage of goods ; everybody kept them, and everybody rode upon them.
The traveller was presented to the Pagan king, in whose presence he witnessed an extraordinary act of self-immolation,2 and was entertained at the royal expense for three days, after which be proceeded on his voyage.
But in connexion with Mul-Jawa, where there was a market for the productions of the Archipelago, he takes occasion to state " what he knew of these from actual observation, and after verifying that which he had heard," and these statements it is well to quote at length, as throwing light on some of our author's qualifications as a traveller.
On Incense.
The incense tree is small, and at most does not exceed a
1 Kakula is mentioned by Edrisi also, as a city towards China, standing upon a river which flowed into the Indian Ocean. Its people, according to that geographer, raised much silk, whence the name of Kakali was given to a kind of silk stuff (Jaubert's Edrisi, i, 185).
The position of Kumu,ra or Komar, the place from which the Kumari aloes came, has been inextricably confused by the Arabian geographers, for whilst some applications of the name point distinctly to the region of Cape Comorin, other authorities as well as Ibn Batuta place it in the vicinity of the Archipelago, and others again appear to confound it with Kamru or Assam. Mr. Lane considers Sindbad's Komari to have been on one or other shore of the Gulf of Siam, and this quite agrees with the view taken by the editor of the position of Mul-J awa. Abulfeda also places Komar to the west of Sanf or Champa, with a short day's voyage between the countries. If his Sanf, as is probable, includes Cambodia, this also would indicate the northern part of the Malay Peninsula.
See k'r•. Jorclaiw , p. 33 note.
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