II. 65; Navarrete (Fr. Ed.), II. 101;
Cathay, 467; Bullet. de la Soc. de Geog. ser. IV. tom iii. 36-37;
J.A.S.B. u.s.; Reinaud's Abulfeda, I. 315; J. Ind. Arch., N.S.,
III. I. 105; La Porte Ouverte, p. 188.) [I shall refer to my edition of
Odoric, 206-217, for a long notice on dog-headed barbarians; I
reproduce here two of the cuts. - H.C.]
CHAPTER XIV.
CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF SEILAN.
When you leave the Island of Angamanain and sail about a thousand miles in
a direction a little south of west, you come to the Island of SEILAN,
[NOTE 1] which is in good sooth the best Island of its size in the world.
You must know that it has a compass of 2400 miles, but in old times it was
greater still, for it then had a circuit of about 3600 miles, as you find
in the charts of the mariners of those seas. But the north wind there
blows with such strength that it has caused the sea to submerge a large
part of the Island; and that is the reason why it is not so big now as it
used to be. For you must know that, on the side where the north wind
strikes, the Island is very low and flat, insomuch that in approaching on
board ship from the high seas you do not see the land till you are right
upon it.[NOTE 2] Now I will tell you all about this Island.
[Illustration: MAP to Illustrate POLO'S Chapters on India
MAP to Illustrate POLO's Chapters on the Malay Countries]
They have a king there whom they call SENDEMAIN, and are tributary to
nobody.[NOTE 3] The people are Idolaters, and go quite naked except that
they cover the middle. They have no wheat, but have rice, and sesamum of
which they make their oil. They live on flesh and milk, and have tree-wine
such as I have told you of. And they have brazil-wood, much the best in
the world.[NOTE 4]
Now I will quit these particulars, and tell you of the most precious
article that exists in the world. You must know that rubies are found in
this Island and in no other country in the world but this. They find there
also sapphires and topazes and amethysts, and many other stones of price.
And the King of this Island possesses a ruby which is the finest and
biggest in the world; I will tell you what it is like. It is about a palm
in length, and as thick as a man's arm; to look at, it is the most
resplendent object upon earth; it is quite free from flaw and as red as
fire. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be
named at all. You must know that the Great Kaan sent an embassy and begged
the King as a favour greatly desired by him to sell him this ruby,
offering to give for it the ransom of a city, or in fact what the King
would. But the King replied that on no account whatever would he sell it,
for it had come to him from his ancestors.[NOTE 5]
The people of Seilan are no soldiers, but poor cowardly creatures. And
when they have need of soldiers they get Saracen troops from foreign
parts.
[NOTE 1. - Mr. Geo. Phillips gives (Seaports of India, p. 216 et seqq.)
the Star Chart used by Chinese Navigators on their return voyage from
Ceylon to Su-men-ta-la. - H.C.]
NOTE 2. - Valentyn appears to be repeating a native tradition when he says:
"In old times the island had, as they loosely say, a good 400 miles
(i.e. Dutch, say 1600 miles) of compass, but at the north end the sea
has from time to time carried away a large part of it." (Ceylon, in vol.
v., p. 18.) Curious particulars touching the exaggerated ideas of the
ancients, inherited by the Arabs, as to the dimensions of Ceylon, will be
found in Tennent's Ceylon, ch. i. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang has
the same tale. According to him, the circuit was 7000 li, or 1400 miles.
We see from Marco's curious notice of the old charts (G.T. "selonc qe se
treuve en la mapemondi des mariner de cel mer") that travellers had begun
to find that the dimensions were exaggerated. The real circuit is under
700 miles!
On the ground that all the derivations of the name SAILAN or CEYLON from
the old Sinhala, Serendib, and what not, seem forced, Van der Tuuk has
suggested that the name may have been originally Javanese, being formed
(he says) according to the rules of that language from Sela, "a precious
stone," so that Pulo Selan would be the "Island of Gems." [Professor
Schlegel says (Geog. Notes, I. p. 19, note) that "it seems better to
think of the Sanskrit sila, 'a stone or rock,' or saila, 'a mountain,'
which agree with the Chinese interpretation." - H.C.] The Island was really
called anciently Ratnadvipa, "the Island of Gems" (Mem. de H.Y., II.
125, and Harivansa, I. 403); and it is termed by an Arab Historian of
the 9th century Jazirat al Yakut, "The Isle of Rubies." [The (Chinese)
characters ya-ku-pao-shih are in some accounts of Ceylon used to express
Yakut. (Ma-Huan, transl. by Phillips, p. 213.) - H.C.] As a matter of
fact, we derive originally from the Malays nearly all the forms we have
adopted for names of countries reached by sea to the east of the Bay of
Bengal, e.g. Awa, Barma, Paigu, Siyam, China, Japun, Kochi
(Cochin China), Champa, Kamboja, Maluka (properly a place in the
Island of Ceram), Suluk, Burnei, Tanasari, Martavan, etc. That
accidents in the history of marine affairs in those seas should have led
to the adoption of the Malay and Javanese names in the case of Ceylon also
is at least conceivable.
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