It Comes In Pursuit Of Shoals Of Anchovies, Very Much
Like The Mediterranean Fish Also.
(I. B. II.
231; Sir B. Frere.)
[Friar Odoric (Cathay, I. pp. 55-56) says: "And there you find (before
arriving at Hormuz) people who live almost entirely on dates, and you get
forty-two pounds of dates for less than a groat; and so of many other
things."]
NOTE 3. - The stitched vessels of Kerman ([Greek: ploiaria rapta]) are
noticed in the Periplus. Similar accounts to those of our text are given
of the ships of the Gulf and of Western India by Jordanus and John of
Montecorvino. (Jord. p. 53; Cathay, p. 217.) "Stitched vessels," Sir
B. Frere writes, "are still used. I have seen them of 200 tons burden; but
they are being driven out by iron-fastened vessels, as iron gets cheaper,
except where (as on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts) the pliancy of a
stitched boat is useful in a surf. Till the last few years, when steamers
have begun to take all the best horses, the Arab horses bound to Bombay
almost all came in the way Marco Polo describes." Some of them do still,
standing over a date cargo, and the result of this combination gives rise
to an extraordinary traffic in the Bombay bazaar. From what Colonel Pelly
tells me, the stitched build in the Gulf is now confined to
fishing-boats, and is disused for sea-going craft.
[Friar Odoric (Cathay, I. p. 57) mentioned these vessels:
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