National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF Graphics   Japanese English
0364 The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 364 (Color Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000269
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

jected because the old Chinese transcription gives So—(or Sun) damân. . . . The
Pien-i-tien (ch. 107, I. fol. 30) gives a description of Andaman, here called
An-to-man kwok, quoted from the San-tsai Tu-hwui."—H. C.]

The origin of the name seems to be unknown. The only person to my knowledge
who has given a meaning to it is Nicolo Conti, who says it means "Island of Gold";
probably a mere sailor's yarn. The name, however, is very old, and may perhaps be
traced in Ptolemy; for he names an island of cannibals called that of Good Fortune,
'Αγαθοῦ δαίμονος. It seems probable enough that this was 'Αγδαμάνων Νῆσος, or the
like, "The Angdaman Island," misunderstood. His next group of Islands is the
Barussae, which seems again to be the Lankha Bâlûs of the oldest Arab navigators,
since these are certainly the Nicolars. [The name first appears distinctly in the
Arab narratives of the 9th century. (Yule, Hobson-Jobson.)]