At Zayton Ibn
Batuta First Landed In China, And From It He Sailed On His Return.
All that we find quoted from Chinese records regarding T'swan-chau
corresponds to these Western statements regarding Zayton.
For centuries
T'swan-chau was the seat of the Customs Department of Fo-kien, nor was
this finally removed till 1473. In all the historical notices of the
arrival of ships and missions from India and the Indian Islands during the
reign of Kublai, T'swan-chau, and T'swan-chau almost alone, is the port of
debarkation; in the notices of Indian regions in the annals of the same
reign it is from T'swan-chau that the distances are estimated; it was from
T'swan-chau that the expeditions against Japan and Java were mainly fitted
out. (See quotations by Pauthier, pp. 559, 570, 604, 653, 603, 643;
Gaubil, 205, 217; Deguignes, III. 169, 175, 180, 187; Chinese
Recorder (Foochow), 1870, pp. 45 seqq.)
When the Portuguese, in the 16th century, recovered China to European
knowledge, Zayton was no longer the great haven of foreign trade; but yet
the old name was not extinct among the mariners of Western Asia. Giovanni
d'Empoli, in 1515, writing about China from Cochin, says: "Ships carry
spices thither from these parts. Every year there go thither from Sumatra
60,000 cantars of pepper, and 15,000 or 20,000 from Cochin and Malabar,
worth 15 to 20 ducats a cantar; besides ginger (?), mace, nutmegs,
incense, aloes, velvet, European goldwire, coral, woollens, etc.
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