CHAPTER XXIX.
CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF SEMENAT.
Semenat is a great kingdom towards the west. The people are Idolaters, and
have a king and a language of their own, and pay tribute to nobody. They
are not corsairs, but live by trade and industry as honest people ought.
It is a place of very great trade. They are forsooth cruel Idolaters.
[NOTE 1]
[Illustration: 'The Gates of Somnath,' preserved in the British Arsenal at
Agra, from a photograph (converted into elevation)]
NOTE 1. - SOMNATH is the site of the celebrated Temple on the coast of
Saurashtra, or Peninsular Guzerat, plundered by Mahmud of Ghazni on his
sixteenth expedition to India (A.D. 1023). The term "great kingdom" is
part of Polo's formula. But the place was at this time of some importance
as a commercial port, and much visited by the ships of Aden, as Abulfeda
tells us. At an earlier date Albiruni speaks of it both as the seat of a
great Mahadeo much frequented by Hindu pilgrims, and as a port of call for
vessels on their way from Sofala in Africa to China, - a remarkable
incidental notice of departed trade and civilisation! He does not give
Somnath so good a character as Polo does; for he names it as one of the
chief pirate-haunts.
