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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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| 300 | MARCO POLO BOOK III. | ||||||
| The people have no wheat, but have rice which they eat with milk and flesh. They also have wine from trees such as I told you of. And I will tell you another great marvel. They have a kind of trees that produce flour, and excellent flour it is for food. These trees are very tall and thick, but have a very thin bark, and inside the bark they are crammed with flour. And I tell you that Messer Marco Polo, who witnessed all this, related how he and his party did sundry times partake of this flour made into bread, and found it excellent.' There is now no more to relate. For out of those eight kingdoms we have told you about six that lie at this side of the Island. I shall tell you nothing about the other two kingdoms that are at the other side of the Island, for the said Messer Marco Polo never was there. Howbeit we have told you about the greater part of this Island of the Lesser Java : so now we will quit it, and I will tell you of a very small Island that is called GAUENISPOLA.5 | |||||||
| NOTE I.—The name of Lambri is not now traceable on our maps, nor on any list of the ports of Sumatra that I have met with ; but in old times the name occurs frequently under one form or another, and its position can he assigned generally to the north part of the west coast, commencing from the neighbourhood of Achin Head. De Barros, detailing the twenty-nine kingdoms which divided the coast of Sumatra, at the beginning of the Portuguese conquests, begins with Daya, and then passes round by the north. He names as next in order LAMBRIJ, and then Achenz. This would make Lambri he between Daya and Achin, for which there is but little room. And there is an apparent inconsistency ; for in coming round again from the south, his 28th kingdom is Quinchel (Singkel of our modern maps), the 29th alias-opa, " which falls upon Lambrij, which adjoins Daya, the first that we named." Most of the data about Lambri render it very difficult to distinguish it from Achin. The name of Lambri occurs in the Malay Chronicle, in the account of the first Mahomedan mission to convert the Island. We shall quote the passage in a following note. The position of Lambri would render it one of the first points of Sumatra made by navigators from Arabia and India ; and this seems at one time to have caused the name to be applied to the whole Island. Thus Rashiduddin speaks of the very large Island L.ÁMÚRI lying beyond Ceylon, and adjoining the country of Sumatra; Odoric also goes from India across the Ocean to a certain country called LAi'toRI, where he began to lose sight of the North Star. He also speaks of the camphor, gold, and lign-aloes which it produced, and proceeds thence to Sumoltra in the | |||||||
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