On the cheapness of slaves in Bengal, see Ibn Batuta, IV. 211-212. He
says people from Persia used to call Bengal Duzakh pur-i ni'amat, "a
hell crammed with good things," an appellation perhaps provoked by the
official style often applied to it of Jannat-ul-balad or "Paradise of
countries."
Professor H. Blochmann, who is, in admirable essays, redeeming the long
neglect of the history and archaeology of Bengal Proper by our own
countrymen, says that one of the earliest passages, in which the name
Bangalah occurs, is in a poem of Hafiz, sent from Shiraz to Sultan
Gbiassuddin, who reigned in Bengal from 1367 to 1373. Its occurrence in
our text, however, shows that the name was in use among the Mahomedan
foreigners (from whom Polo derived his nomenclature) nearly a century
earlier. And in fact it occurs (though corruptly in some MSS.) in the
history of Rashiduddin, our author's contemporary. (See Elliot, I. p.
72.)
NOTE 2. - "Big as elephants" is only a facon de parler, but Marsden
quotes modern exaggerations as to the height of the Arna or wild
buffalo, more specific and extravagant. The unimpeachable authority of Mr.
Hodgson tells us that the Arna in the Nepal Tarai sometimes does reach a
height of 6 ft. 6 in.
