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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

230. FEMELES (ISLAND OF WOMEN)   671

tory called Kandilli (Qandilii), which means « Which has the Lamp », or « Provided with lamps », but hesitated because it is on the Asiatic coast. This consideration is enough to ruin the hypothesis; the Far must be on the European side of the Bosphorus. There is a Fänär-qapusi, « Gate of the Lantern », called by foreign historians of the siege of 1453 « Portha Phani » and « Porta del Pharo », and, in an earlier document (1351) Tono6Eaka Toy cpavâp.; but, although there must have been a beacon there, it was located quite inside the Golden Horn (cf. A. VAN MILLINGEN, Byzantine Constantinople, London, 1899, 8vo, 206, and the map at the beginning of the book), and cannot come into account here. But there was also in Constantinople a Pharos, and I think it must be the place meant by Polo. According to Dr. PASPATES' researches, it was located « at Domus-Dama, a short distance east of the Hippodrome, and to the west of the Seraglio enclosure» (VAN MILLINGEN, 189). On VAN MILLINGEN'S sketch map facing p. 269, there is an « old light-house », just east of the Mosque of Kemal Pasha, at the north-eastern corner of the Palace of Justinian (north of the Bucoleon). I think that this is Polo's Far; but, if so, his « mountain » was hardly more than a mound.

230. FEMELES (ISLAND OF WOMEN)

According to Polo (Vol. I, 424-425), there were two islands near together, one called «Male» the other « Female », located 500 miles south of Kesmacoran, and another 500 miles south of these islands was Socotra. The inhabitants of the Male Island (and of the Female) were « baptized Christians », with a bishop placed under the authority of the archbishop of Socotra. The men of the Male Island only spent March, April, and May with the women of the Female Island. The women would bring up the children, but boys, when they were fourteen years of age (or « twelve » according to Z, VB, and R, a more likely age of puberty in tropical countries), were sent to the Male Island.

« Kesmacoran » (q. v.) is the Mekran or Persian Baluchistan of our maps, north of the Gulf of Oman. Having reached that point in the account of his return journey, Polo embarks into a long digression to describe countries to the west and south-west, of which he is only speaking by hearsay from the accounts of Mussulman sailors. Socotra is not due south, but south-west of Mekran; the only islands of any importance between the two are Masirah, and the group of islands in the Kurian Murian Bay. Although the whole chapter clearly has a legendary character, Masirah seems to be too much to the north-east to be possibly connected, even as a legend, with Socotra. The Kurian Murian Bay is about 500 miles to the south-west of Mekran, and 350 miles to the north-east 01 Socotra; and this is evidently why PAUTHIER (Pa, 669-671) located there the Male and Female Islands.