IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
CHAP. XXXV. ABYSSINIA STYLED MIDDLE INDIA
431
of Saracens should lord it over good Christian people !
Now you have heard the story.'
I have still some particulars to tell you of the same
province. It abounds greatly in all kinds of victual ;
and the people live on flesh and rice and milk and
sesame. They have plenty of elephants, not that they
are bred in the country, but they are brought from the
Islands of the other India. They have however many
giraffes, which are produced in the country ; besides
bears, leopards, lions in abundance, and many other
passing strange beasts. They have also numerous wild
asses ; and cocks and hens the most beautiful that exist,
and many other kind of birds. For instance, they have
ostriches that are nearly as big as asses ; and plenty of
beautiful parrots, with apes of sundry kinds, and baboons
and other monkeys that have countenances all but
humans
There are numerous cities and villages in this
province of Abash, and many merchants ; for there is
much trade to be done there. The people also manu-
facture very fine buckrams and other cloths of cotton.
There is no more to say on the subject ; so now let
us go forward and tell you of the province of Aden.
NOTE I.—Abash (Abasce) is a close enough representation of the Arabic Habsiz or Habash, i.e. Abyssinia. He gives as an alternative title Middle India. Ì am not aware that the term India is applied to Abyssinia by any Oriental (Arabic or Persian) writer, and one feels curious to know where our Traveller got the appellation. We find nearly the same application of the term in Benjamin of Tudela :
" Eight days from thence is Middle India, which is Aden, and in Scripture Eden in Thelasar. This country is very mountainous, and contains many independent Jews who are not subject to the power of the Gentiles, but possess cities and fortresses on the summits of the mountains, from whence they descend into the country of Maatum, with which they are at war. Maatum, called also Nubia, is a Christian kingdom and the inhabitants are called Nubians," etc. (p. 17). Here the Rabbi seems to transfer Aden to the west of the Red Sea (as Polo also seems to do in this chapter) ; for the Jews warring against Nubian Christians must be sought in the Falasha strongholds among the mountains of Abyssinia. his Middle India is therefore the same as Polo's or nearly so. In Jordanus, as already mentioned, we have India Tertia, which combines some characters of Abyssinia and Zanjibar, but is distinguished from the Ethiopia of Prester John, which adjoins it.
But for the occurrence of the name in R. Benjamin I should have supposed
•
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.