"At sunrise the gilded disks of the
vane are lit up with dazzling glory, whilst the gentle breeze of
morning causes the precious bells to tinkle with a pleasing sound."
(Beal, p. 204.)
CHAPTER LV.
CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF BANGALA.
Bangala is a Province towards the south, which up to the year 1290, when
the aforesaid Messer Marco Polo was still at the Court of the Great Kaan,
had not yet been conquered; but his armies had gone thither to make the
conquest. You must know that this province has a peculiar language, and
that the people are wretched Idolaters. They are tolerably close to India.
There are numbers of eunuchs there, insomuch that all the Barons who keep
them get them from that Province.[NOTE 1]
The people have oxen as tall as elephants, but not so big.[NOTE 2] They
live on flesh and milk and rice. They grow cotton, in which they drive a
great trade, and also spices such as spikenard, galingale, ginger, sugar,
and many other sorts. And the people of India also come thither in search
of the eunuchs that I mentioned, and of slaves, male and female, of which
there are great numbers, taken from other provinces with which those of
the country are at war; and these eunuchs and slaves are sold to the
Indian and other merchants who carry them thence for sale about the world.
There is nothing more to mention about this country, so we will quit it,
and I will tell you of another province called Caugigu.
NOTE 1. - I do not think it probable that Marco even touched at any port of
Bengal on that mission to the Indian Seas of which we hear in the
prologue; but he certainly never reached it from the Yun-nan side, and he
had, as we shall presently see (infra, ch. lix. note 6), a wrong
notion as to its position. Indeed, if he had visited it at all, he would
have been aware that it was essentially a part of India, whilst in fact he
evidently regarded it as an Indo-Chinese region, like Zardandan,
Mien, and Caugigu.
There is no notice, I believe, in any history, Indian or Chinese, of an
attempt by Kublai to conquer Bengal. The only such attempt by the Mongols
that we hear of is one mentioned by Firishta, as made by way of Cathay and
Tibet, during the reign of Alauddin Masa'ud, king of Delhi, in 1244, and
stated to have been defeated by the local officers in Bengal. But Mr.
Edward Thomas tells me he has most distinctly ascertained that this
statement, which has misled every historian "from Badauni and Firishtah to
Briggs and Elphinstone, is founded purely on an erroneous reading" (and
see a note in Mr. Thomas's Pathan Kings of Dehli, p. 121).
The date 1290 in the text would fix the period of Polo's final departure
from Peking, if the dates were not so generally corrupt.
The subject of the last part of this paragraph, recurred to in the next,
has been misunderstood and corrupted in Pauthier's text, and partially in
Ramusio's. These make the escuilles or escoilliez (vide Ducange in
v. Escodatus, and Raynouard, Lex. Rom. VI. 11) into scholars and
what not. But on comparison of the passages in those two editions with the
Geographic Text one cannot doubt the correct reading. As to the fact that
Bengal had an evil notoriety for this traffic, especially the province of
Silhet, see the Ayeen Akbery, II. 9-11, Barbosa's chapter on Bengal,
and De Barros (Ramusio I. 316 and 391).
On the cheapness of slaves in Bengal, see Ibn Batuta, IV. 211-212. He
says people from Persia used to call Bengal Duzakh pur-i ni'amat, "a
hell crammed with good things," an appellation perhaps provoked by the
official style often applied to it of Jannat-ul-balad or "Paradise of
countries."
Professor H. Blochmann, who is, in admirable essays, redeeming the long
neglect of the history and archaeology of Bengal Proper by our own
countrymen, says that one of the earliest passages, in which the name
Bangalah occurs, is in a poem of Hafiz, sent from Shiraz to Sultan
Gbiassuddin, who reigned in Bengal from 1367 to 1373. Its occurrence in
our text, however, shows that the name was in use among the Mahomedan
foreigners (from whom Polo derived his nomenclature) nearly a century
earlier. And in fact it occurs (though corruptly in some MSS.) in the
history of Rashiduddin, our author's contemporary. (See Elliot, I. p.
72.)
NOTE 2. - "Big as elephants" is only a facon de parler, but Marsden
quotes modern exaggerations as to the height of the Arna or wild
buffalo, more specific and extravagant. The unimpeachable authority of Mr.
Hodgson tells us that the Arna in the Nepal Tarai sometimes does reach a
height of 6 ft. 6 in. at the shoulder, with a length of 10 ft. 6 in.
(excluding tail), and horns of 6 ft. 6 in. (J.A.S.B., XVI. 710.)
Marco, however, seems to be speaking of domestic cattle. Some of the
breeds of Upper India are very tall and noble animals, far surpassing in
height any European oxen known to me; but in modern times these are rarely
seen in Bengal, where the cattle are poor and stunted. The Ain Akbari,
however, speaks of Sharifabad in Bengal, which appears to have
corresponded to modern Bardwan, as producing very beautiful white oxen, of
great size, and capable of carrying a load of 15 mans, which at
Prinsep's estimate of Akbar's man would be about 600 lbs.
CHAPTER LVI.
DISCOURSES OF THE PROVINCE OF CAUGIGU.
