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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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266
MARCO POLO BOOK III.
So also Abulfeda : " This is the sea which flows from the Ocean Sea. . . . This sea takes the names of the countries it washes. Its eastern extremity is called the Sea of Chin . . . the part west of this is called the Sea of India . . . then comes the Sea of Firs, the Sea of Berbera, and lastly the Sea of Kolzum " ( Red Sea).
NOTE 4. --The Ramusian here inserts a short chapter, shown by the awkward way in which it comes in to be a very manifest interpolation, though possibly still an interpolation by the Traveller's hand :--
" Leaving the port of Zayton you sail westward and something south-westward for 1500 miles, passing a gulf called CHEINAN, having a length of two months' sail towards the north. Along the whole of its south-east side it borders on the province of Manzi, and on the other side with Anin and Colorran, and many other provinces formerly spoken of. within this Gulf there are innumerable Islands, almost all well-peopled ; and in these is found a great quantity of gold-dust, which is collected from the sea where the rivers discharge. There is copper also, and other things ; and the people drive a trade with each other in the things that are peculiar to their respective Islands. They have also a traffic with the people of the mainland, selling them gold and copper and other things ; and purchasing in turn what they stand in need of. In the greater part of these Islands plenty of corn grows. This gulf is so great, and inhabited by so many people, that it seems like a world in itself."
This passage is translated by Marsden with much forcing, so as to describe the China Sea, embracing the Philippine Islands, etc. ; but, as a matter of fact, it seems clearly to indicate the writer's conception as of a great gulf running up into the continent between Southern China and Tong-king for a length equal to two months' journey.
The name of the gulf, Cheinan, i.e. IIeinan, may either be that of the Island so called, or, as I rather incline to suppose, 'An-nan, i.e. Tong-king. But even by Camoens, writing at Macao in 1559-1560, the Gulf of Hainan is styled an unknown sea (though this perhaps is only appropriate to the prophetic speaker) :-
` Vês, corre a costa, que Champa se chama, Cuja mata he do pao cheiroso ornada : Vés, Cauchichina está de escura fama, E de Ainűo vL a incoç vita enseada " (X. 129).
And in Sir Robert Dudley's Arcane del illare (Firenze, 1647), we find a great bottlenecked gulf, of some 52° in length, running up to the north from Tong-king, very much as I have represented the Gulf of Cheinan in the attempt to realise Polo's Own Geography. (See map in Introductory Essay.)
CHAPTER V.
OF THE GREAT COUNTRY CALLED CHAMBA.
,1
Is
You must know that on leaving the port of Zayton you
sail west-south-west for 1500 miles, and then you come
to a country called CHAMBA,1 a very rich region, having
a king of its own. The people are Idolaters and pay a
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