Of this Palace
is past all bounds and all belief.[NOTE 3]
[Illustration: Ancient Japanese Emperor. (After a Native Drawing; from
Humbert.)]
They have also pearls in abundance, which are of a rose colour, but fine,
big, and round, and quite as valuable as the white ones. [In this Island
some of the dead are buried, and others are burnt. When a body is burnt,
they put one of these pearls in the mouth, for such is their custom.] They
have also quantities of other precious stones.[NOTE 4]
Cublay, the Grand Kaan who now reigneth, having heard much of the immense
wealth that was in this Island, formed a plan to get possession of it. For
this purpose he sent two of his Barons with a great navy, and a great
force of horse and foot. These Barons were able and valiant men, one of
them called ABACAN and the other VONSAINCHIN, and they weighed with all
their company from the ports of Zayton and Kinsay, and put out to sea.
They sailed until they reached the Island aforesaid, and there they
landed, and occupied the open country and the villages, but did not
succeed in getting possession of any city or castle. And so a disaster
befel them, as I shall now relate.
You must know that there was much ill-will between those two Barons, so
that one would do nothing to help the other. And it came to pass that
there arose a north wind which blew with great fury, and caused great
damage along the coasts of that Island, for its harbours were few. It blew
so hard that the Great Kaan's fleet could not stand against it. And when
the chiefs saw that, they came to the conclusion that if the ships
remained where they were the whole navy would perish. So they all got on
board and made sail to leave the country. But when they had gone about
four miles they came to a small Island, on which they were driven ashore
in spite of all they could do; and a large part of the fleet was wrecked,
and a great multitude of the force perished, so that there escaped only
some 30,000 men, who took refuge on this Island.
These held themselves for dead men, for they were without food, and knew
not what to do, and they were in great despair when they saw that such of
the ships as had escaped the storm were making full sail for their own
country without the slightest sign of turning back to help them. And this
was because of the bitter hatred between the two Barons in command of the
force; for the Baron who escaped never showed the slightest desire to
return to his colleague who was left upon the Island in the way you have
heard; though he might easily have done so after the storm ceased; and it
endured not long. He did nothing of the kind, however, but made straight
for home. And you must know that the Island to which the soldiers had
escaped was uninhabited; there was not a creature upon it but themselves.
Now we will tell you what befel those who escaped on the fleet, and also
those who were left upon the Island.
NOTE 1. - +CHIPANGU represents the Chinese Jih-pen-kwe, the kingdom of
Japan, the name Jih-pen being the Chinese pronunciation, of which the term
Nippon, Niphon or Nihon, used in Japan, is a dialectic variation,
both meaning "the origin of the sun," or sun-rising, the place the sun
comes from. The name Chipangu is used also by Rashiduddin. Our Japan
was probably taken from the Malay Japun or Japang.
["The name Nihon ('Japan') seems to have been first officially employed
by the Japanese Government in A.D. 670. Before that time, the usual native
designation of the country was Yamato, properly the name of one of the
central provinces. Yamato and O-mi-kuni, that is, 'the Great August
Country,' are the names still preferred in poetry and belles-lettres.
Japan has other ancient names, some of which are of learned length and
thundering sound, for instance, Toyo-ashi-wara-no-chi-aki-no-naga-i-ho-
aki-no-mizu-ho-no-kuni, that is 'the Luxuriant-Reed-Plains-the-Land-of-
Fresh-Rice-Ears-of-a-Thousand-Autumns-of-Long-Five-Hundred-Autumns.'"
(B.H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 222.) - H.C.]
It is remarkable that the name Nipon occurs, in the form of Al-Nafun,
in the Ikhwan-al-Safa, supposed to date from the 10th century. (See
J.A.S.B. XVII. Pt. I. 502.)
[I shall merely mention the strange theory of Mr. George Collingridge that
Zipangu is Java and not Japan in his paper on The Early Cartography of
Japan. (Geog. Jour. May, 1894, pp. 403-409.) Mr. F.G. Kramp (Japan or
Java?), in the Tijdschrift v. het K. Nederl. Aardrijkskundig
Genootschap, 1894, and Mr. H. Yule Oldham (Geog. Jour., September,
1894, pp. 276-279), have fully replied to this paper. - H.C.]
NOTE 2. - The causes briefly mentioned in the text maintained the abundance
and low price of gold in Japan till the recent opening of the trade. (See
Bk. II. ch. 1. note 5.) Edrisi had heard that gold in the isles of Sila
(or Japan) was so abundant that dog-collars were made of it.
NOTE 3. - This was doubtless an old "yarn," repeated from generation to
generation. We find in a Chinese work quoted by Amyot: "The palace of the
king (of Japan) is remarkable for its singular construction. It is a vast
edifice, of extraordinary height; it has nine stories, and presents on all
sides an exterior shining with the purest gold." (Mem.
