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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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388
MARCO POLO BOOK III.
or
ships of the Moors and Gentiles that navigate in this sea of India sight this mountain when coming from without, and make their reckoning by it ; . . . . after this, at the foot of the mountain to the south, is a town called Mai-ave, very ancient and well off, in which live Moors and Gentiles and Jews ; these Jews are of the language of the country ; it is a long time that they have dwelt in this place."
(Stanley's Correa, Hak. Soc. pp. 145, 312-313 ; Gildem. p. 185 ; Elliot, I. 68 ; I. B. IV. Si ; Conti, p. 6 ; ]Madras Journal, X I I I. No. 31, pp. 14, 99, 102, 104 ; De Barros, III. 9, cap. 6, and IV. 2, cap. 13 ; De Couto, IV. 5, cap. 4. )
NOTE 2.—This is from Pauthier's text, and the map with ch. xxi. illustrates the fact of the many wide rivers. The G. T. has " a good river with a very good estuary " or mouth. The latter word is in the G. T. faces, afterwards more correctly foces, equivalent to faeces. We have seen that Ibn Batuta also speaks of the estuary or inlet at Hili. It may have been either that immediately east of Mount d'Ely, communicating with Kavváyi and the Nileshwaram River, or the Madai River. Neither could be entered by vessels now, but there have been great littoral changes. The land joining Mt. d'Ely to the main is mere alluvium.
NOTE 3.—Barbosa says that throughout the kingdom of Cananor the pepper was of excellent quality, though not in great quantity. There was much ginger, not first-rate, which was called Hely from its growing about Mount d'Ely, with cardamoms (names of which, Eld in Sanskrit, Hel in Persian, I have thought might be connected with that of the hill), mirobolans, cassia fistula, zerumbet, and zedoary. The two last items are two species of curcuma, formerly in much demand as aromatics ; the last is, I believe, the setewale of Chaucer :-
" There was eke wexing many a spice,
As clowe gilofre and Licorice,
Ginger and grein de Paradis,
Canell and setewale of pris,
And many a spice delitable
To eaten when men rise from table."—R. of the Rose.
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The Hely ginger is also mentioned by Conti.
NOTE 4.—This piratical practice is rioted by Abdurrazzak also : " In other parts (than Calicut) a strange practice is adopted. When a vessel sets sail for a certain point, and suddenly is driven by a decree of Divine Providence into another roadstead, the inhabitants, under the pretext that the wind has driven it thither, plunder the ship. But at Calicut every ship, whatever place it comes from, or wherever it may be bound, *hen it puts into this port, is treated like other vessels, and has no trouble of any kind to put up with " (p. 14). In 1673 Sivaji replied to the pleadings of an English embassy, that it was " against the Laws of Conchon " (Ptolemy's Pirate Coast!) " to restore any ships or goods that were driven ashore." (Flyer, p. 261. )
NOTE5.—With regard to the anchors, Pauthier's text has just the opposite of the G. T. which we have preferred : " Les nefs du Manzi portent si grans ancres de fust, que it seuffrent moult de grans fortunes aus plajes." De Mailla says the Chinese consider their ironwood anchors to be much better than those of iron, because the latter are subject to strain. (Lett. Edif. XIV. Io.) Capt. Owen has a good word for wooden anchors. (1Ararr. of Voyages, etc., I. 385.)
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