And when the eagles are thus frightened
away the men recover the pieces of meat, and find them full of diamonds
which have stuck to the meat down in the bottom. For the abundance of
diamonds down there in the depths of the valleys is astonishing, but
nobody can get down; and if one could, it would be only to be
incontinently devoured by the serpents which are so rife there.
There is also another way of getting the diamonds. The people go to the
nests of those white eagles, of which there are many, and in their
droppings they find plenty of diamonds which the birds have swallowed in
devouring the meat that was cast into the valleys. And, when the eagles
themselves are taken, diamonds are found in their stomachs.
So now I have told you three different ways in which these stones are
found. No other country but this kingdom of Mutfili produces them, but
there they are found both abundantly and of large size. Those that are
brought to our part of the world are only the refuse, as it were, of the
finer and larger stones. For the flower of the diamonds and other large
gems, as well as the largest pearls, are all carried to the Great Kaan and
other Kings and Princes of those regions; in truth they possess all the
great treasures of the world.[NOTE 2]
In this kingdom also are made the best and most delicate buckrams, and
those of highest price; in sooth they look like tissue of spider's web!
There is no King nor Queen in the world but might be glad to wear them.
[NOTE 3] The people have also the largest sheep in the world, and great
abundance of all the necessaries of life.
There is now no more to say; so I will next tell you about a province
called Lar from which the Abraiaman come.
NOTE 1. - There is no doubt that the kingdom here spoken of is that of
TELINGANA (Tiling of the Mahomedan writers), then ruled by the Kakateya
or Ganapati dynasty reigning at Warangol, north-east of Hyderabad. But
Marco seems to give the kingdom the name of that place in it which was
visited by himself or his informants. MUTFILI is, with the usual Arab
modification (e.g. Perlec, Ferlec - Pattan, Faitan), a port called
MOTUPALLE, in the Gantur district of the Madras Presidency, about 170
miles north of Fort St. George. Though it has dropt out of most of our
modern maps it still exists, and a notice of it is to be found in W.
Hamilton, and in Milburne. The former says: "Mutapali, a town situated
near the S. extremity of the northern Circars. A considerable coasting
trade is carried on from hence in the craft navigated by natives," which
can come in closer to shore than at other ports on that coast. - [Cf.
Hunter, Gaz. India, Motupalli, "now only an obscure fishing
village." - It is marked in Constable's Hand Atlas of India. - H.C.]
The proper territory of the Kingdom of Warangol lay inland, but the last
reigning prince before Polo's visit to India, by name Kakateya Pratapa
Ganapati Rudra Deva, had made extensive conquests on the coast, including
Nellore, and thence northward to the frontier of Orissa. This prince left
no male issue, and his widow, RUDRAMA DEVI, daughter of the Raja of
Devagiri, assumed the government and continued to hold it for
twenty-eight, or, as another record states, for thirty-eight years, till
the son of her daughter had attained majority. This was in 1292, or by the
other account 1295, when she transferred the royal authority to this
grandson Pratapa Vira Rudra Deva, the "Luddur Deo" of Firishta, and the
last Ganapati of any political moment. He was taken prisoner by the Delhi
forces about 1323. We have evidently in Rudrama Devi the just and beloved
Queen of our Traveller, who thus enables us to attach colour and character
to what was an empty name in a dynastic list. (Compare Wilson's
Mackenzie, I. cxxx.; Taylor's Or. Hist. MSS. I. 18; Do.'s Catalogue
Raisonne, III. 483.)
Mutfili appears in the Carta Catalana as Butiflis, and is there by
some mistake made the site of St. Thomas's Shrine. The distance from
Maabar is in Ramusio only 500 miles - a preferable reading.
NOTE 2. - Some of the Diamond Mines once so famous under the name of
Golconda are in the alluvium of the Kistna River, some distance above the
Delta, and others in the vicinity of Kadapa and Karnul, both localities
being in the territory of the kingdom we have been speaking of.
The strange legend related here is very ancient and widely diffused. Its
earliest known occurrence is in the Treatise of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of
Salamis in Cyprus, concerning the twelve Jewels in the Rationale or
Breastplate of the Hebrew High Priest, a work written before the end of
the 4th century, wherein the tale is told of the Jacinth. It is
distinctly referred to by Edrisi, who assigns its locality to the land of
the Kirkhir (probably Khirghiz) in Upper Asia. It appears in Kazwini's
Wonders of Creation, and is assigned by him to the Valley of the Moon
among the mountains of Serendib. Sindbad the Sailor relates the story, as
is well known, and his version is the closest of all to our author's. [So
Les Merveilles de l'Inde, pp. 128-129. - H.C.] It is found in the
Chinese Narrative of the Campaigns of Hulaku, translated by both Remusat
and Pauthier. [We read in the Si Shi Ki, of Ch'ang Te, Chinese Envoy to
Hulaku (1259), translated by Dr. Bretschneider (Med.
