He Started From The Latter
Place On The 8th Of April, 1503, “In Familiaritie And Friendshyppe With A
Certayne Captayne Mameluke” (Which Term He Applies To “Al Such Christians
As Have Forsaken Theyr Fayth, To Serve The Mahumetans And Turks”), And In
The Garb Of A
[P.334] “Mamaluchi renegado.” He estimates the Damascus Caravan to consist
of 40,000 men and 35,000 camels,
Nearly six times its present
number.[FN#2] On the way they were “enforced to conflict with a great
multitude of the Arabians:” but the three score mamluks composing their
escort were more than a match for 50,000 Badawin. On one occasion the
Caravan, attacked by 24,000 Arabians, slew 1500 of the enemies, losing
in the conflict only a man and a woman.[FN#3] This “marveyle”—which is
probably not without some exaggeration—he explains by the “strength and
valiantness of the Mamalukes,” by the practice (still popular) of using
the “camells in the steede of a bulwarke, and placing the merchaunts in
the myddest of the army (that is), in the myddest of the camelles,
whyle the pilgrims fought manfully on every side;” and, finally, by the
circumstance that the Arabs were unarmed, and “weare only a thynne loose
vesture, and are besyde almost naked: theyr horses also beyng euyll
furnished, and without saddles or other furniture.” The Hijazi Badawi of
this day is a much more dangerous enemy; the matchlock and musket have
made him so; and the only means of crippling him is to prevent the
importation of firearms and lead, and by slow degrees to disarm the
population. After performing the ceremonies of pilgrimage at Al-Madinah
and Meccah, he escaped to Zida or Gida (Jeddah), “despite the trumpetter
of the caravana giving warning to all the Mamalukes to make readie
their horses, to direct their journey toward Syria, with proclamation
of death to all that should refuse so to
[p.335] doe,” and embarked for Persia upon the Red Sea. He touched at
certain ports of Al-Yaman, and got into trouble at Aden, “where the
Mahumetans took him,” and “put shackles on his legges, which came by
occasion of a certayne idolatour, who cryed after him, saying, O,
Christian Dogge, borne of Dogges.[FN#4]” The lieutenant of the Sultan
“assembled his council,” consulted them about putting the traveller to
death as a “spye of Portugales,” and threw him ironed into a dungeon. On
being carried shackled into the presence of the Sultan, Bartema said
that he was a “Roman, professed a Mamaluke in Babylon of Alcayr;” but when
told to utter the formula of the Moslem faith, he held his tongue,
“eyther that it pleased not God, or that for feare and scruple of
conscience he durst not.” For which offence he was again “deprived of ye
fruition of heaven.”
But, happily for Bartema, in those days the women of Arabia were “greatly
in love with whyte men.” Before escaping from Meccah, he lay hid in the
house of a Mohammedan, and could not express his gratitude for the good
wife’s care; “also,” he says, “this furthered my good enterteynement, that
there was in the house a fayre young mayde, the niese of the Mahumetan,
who was greatly in loue with me.” At Aden he was equally fortunate. One
of the Sultan’s three wives, on the departure of her lord and master,
bestowed her heart upon the traveller. She was “very faire and comely,
after theyr maner, and of colour inclynyng to blacke:” she
[p.336] would spend the whole day in beholding Bartema, who wandered
about simulating madness,[FN#5] and “in the meane season, divers tymes,
sent him secretly muche good meate by her maydens.” He seems to have
played his part to some purpose, under the colour of madness,
converting a “great fatt shepe” to Mohammedanism, killing an ass because he
refused to be a proselyte, and, finally, he “handeled a Jewe so euyll
that he had almost killed hym.” After sundry adventures and a trip to
Sanaa, he started for Persia with the Indian fleet, in which, by means
of fair promises, he had made friendship with a certain captain. He
visited Zayla and Berberah in the Somali country, and at last reached
Hormuz. The 3rd book “entreateth of Persia,” the 4th of “India, and of the
cities and other notable thynges seene there.” The 8th book contains the
“voyage of India,” in which he includes Pegu, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java,
where, “abhorryng the beastly maners” of a cannibal population, he made but
a short stay. Returning to Calicut, he used “great subtiltie,” escaped to
the “Portugales,” and was well received by the viceroy. After describing in
his 7th book the “viage or navigation of Ethiopia, Melinda, Mombaza,
Mozambrich (Mozambique), and Zaphala (Sofala),” he passed the Cape called
“Caput Bonæ Spei, and repaired to the goodly citie of Luxburne (Lisbon),”
where he had the honour of kissing hands. The king confirmed with his
great seal the “letters patentes,” whereby his lieutenant the viceroy of
India had given the pilgrim the order of knighthood. “And thus,” says
Bartema by way of conclusion, “departing from thence with the kyngs
pasporte and safe conducte, at the length after these my long and great
trauayles and
[p.337] dangers, I came to my long desyred native countrey, the citie
of Rome, by the grace of God, to whom be all honour and glory.”
This old traveller’s pages abound with the information to be collected in
a fresh field by an unscrupulous and hard-headed observer. They are of
course disfigured with a little romancing. His Jews at Khaybor, near
Al-Madinah, were five or six spans long. At Meccah he saw two unicorns,
the younger “at the age of one yeare, and lyke a young coolte; the horne
of this is of the length of four handfuls.[FN#6]” And so credulous is he
about anthropophagi, that he relates of Mahumet (son to the Sultan of
Sanaa) how he “by a certayne naturall tyrannye and madnesse delyteth to
eate man’s fleeshe, and therefore secretly kylleth many to eate
them.[FN#7]” But all things well considered, Lodovico Bartema, for
correctness of observation and readiness of wit, stands in the foremost
rank of the old Oriental travellers.
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