The Travels Of Marco Polo - Volume 2 Of 2 By Marco Polo And Rustichello Of Pisa











































 -  (GROENEVELT,
Notes on the Malay Archipelago, p. 65.) G. Ferrand writes (J. As.,
Mars-Avril, 1917, p. 335) that according - Page 344
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(GROENEVELT, Notes On The Malay Archipelago, P. 65.) G. Ferrand Writes (J. As., Mars-Avril, 1917, P. 335) That According

To the texts quoted by him in his article the island of Sumatra was known to the Chinese under the

Name Sumuta = Sumutra, during the first years of the eleventh century, nearly 300 years before Marco Polo's voyage; and under the name of Sumutra, by the Arab sailors, previously to the first voyage of the Portuguese in Indonesia.

IX., p. 287.

FERLEC.

Prof. Pelliot writes to me that the Ferlec of Marco Polo is to be found several times in the Yuan Shi, year 1282 and following, under the forms Fa-li-lang (Chap. 12, fol. 4 v.), Fa-li-la (Chap. 13, fol. 2 v.), Pie-li-la (Chap. 13, fol. 4 v.), Fa-eul-la (Chap. 18, fol. 8 v.); in the first case, it is quoted near A-lu (Aru) and Kan-pai (Kampei). - Cf. FERRAND, Textes, II., p. 670.

XI., pp. 304-5.

SAGO TREE.

Sago Palm = Sagus Rumphianus and S. Laevis (DENNYS). - "From Malay sagu. The farinaceous pith taken out of the stem of several species of a particular genus of palm, especially Metroxylon laeve, Mart., and M. Rumphii, Willd., found in every part of the Indian Archipelago, including the Philippines, wherever there is proper soil." (Hobson-Jobson.)

XII., p. 306. "In this island [Necuveran] they have no king nor chief, but live like beasts. And I tell you they go all naked, both men and women, and do not use the slightest covering of any kind."

We have seen (Marco Polo, II., p. 308) that Mr. G. Phillips writes (J.R.A.S., July, 1895, p. 529) that the name Tsui-lan given to the Nicobars by the Chinese is, he has but little doubt, "a corruption of Nocueran, the name given by Marco Polo to the group. The characters Tsui-lan are pronounced Ch'ui lan in Amoy, out of which it is easy to make Cueran. The Chinese omitted the initial syllable and called them the Cueran Islands, while Marco Polo called them the Nocueran Islands." Schlegel, T'oung Pao, IX., p. 182-190, thinks that the Andaman Islands are alone represented by Ts'ui-lan; the Nicobar being the old country of the Lo-ch'a, and in modern time, Mao shan, "Hat Island." Pelliot, Bul. Ecole Ext. Orient, IV., 1904, pp. 354-5, is inclined to accept Phillip's opinion. He says that Mao-shan is one island, not a group of islands; it is not proved that the country of the Lo ch'a is the Nicobar Islands; the name of Lo-hing-man, Naked Barbarians, is, contrary to Schlegel's opinion, given to the Nicobar as well as to the Andaman people; the name of Andaman appears in Chinese for the first time during the thirteenth century in Chao Ju-kwa under the form Yen-t'o-man; Chao Ju-kwa specifies that going from Lambri (Sumatra) to Ceylon, it is an unfavourable wind which makes ships drift towards these islands; on the other hand, texts show that the Ts'ui-lan islands were on the usual route from Sumatra to Ceylon. - Gerini, Researches, p. 396, considers that Ts'ui-lan shan is but the phonetic transcript of Tilan-chong Island, the north-easternmost of the Nicobars. - See Hirth and Rockhill's Chau Ju-kwa, p. 12n. - Sansk. narikera, "cocoanuts," is found in Necuveram.

XIII., p. 309.

ANGAMANAIN.

"When sailing from Lan-wu-li to Si-lan, if the wind is not fair, ships may be driven to a place called Yen-t'o-man [in Cantonese, An-t'o-man]. This is a group of two islands in the middle of the sea, one of them being large, the other small; the latter is quite uninhabited. The large one measures seventy li in circuit. The natives on it are of a colour resembling black lacquer; they eat men alive, so that sailors dare not anchor on this coast.

"This island does not contain so much as an inch of iron, for which reason the natives use (bits of) conch-shell (ch'oe-k'ue) with ground edges instead of knives. On this island is a sacred relic, (the so-called) 'Corpse on a bed of rolling gold....'" (CHAU JU-KWA, p. 147.)

XIII., p. 311.

DOG-HEADED BARBARIANS.

Rockhill in a note to Carpini (Rubruck, p. 36) mentions "the Chinese annals of the sixth century (Liang Shu, bk. 54; Nan shih, bk. 79) which tell of a kingdom of dogs (Kou kuo) in some remote corner of north-eastern Asia. The men had human bodies but dogs' heads, and their speech sounded like barking. The women were like the rest of their sex in other parts of the world."

Dr. Laufer writes to me: "A clear distinction must be made between dog-headed people and the motive of descent from a dog-ancestor, - two entirely different conceptions. The best exposition of the subject of the cynocephali according to the traditions of the Ancients is now presented by J. MARQUART (Benin-Sammlung des Reichsmuseums in Leiden, pp. cc-ccxix). It is essential to recognize that the mediaeval European, Arabic, and Chinese fables about the country of the dog-heads are all derived from one common source, which is traceable to the Greek Romance of Alexander; that is an Oriental-Hellenistic cycle. In a wider sense, the dog-heads belong to the cycle of wondrous peoples, which assumed shape among the Greek mariners under the influence of Indian and West-Asiatic ideas. The tradition of the Nan shi (Ch. 79, p. 4), in which the motive of the dog-heads, the women, however, being of human shape, meets its striking parallel in Adam of Bremen (Gesta Hamburg, ecclesiae pontificum, 4, 19), who thus reports on the Terra Feminarum beyond the Baltic Sea: 'Cumque pervenerint ad partum, si quid masculini generis est, fiunt cynocephali, si quid femini, speciosissimae mulieres.' See further KLAPROTH, J. As., XII., 1833, p. 287; DULAURIER, J. As., 1858, p. 472; ROCKHILL, Rubruck, p. 36."

In an interesting paper on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory, Dr. Laufer (T'oung Pao, July, 1916, p. 357) refers to dog-headed men with women of human shape, from a report from the Mongols received by King Hethum of Armenia.

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