In Our Time A Discovery Has Been Made, Of A Circumstance Quite New And
Unknown To Our Ancestors.
No one ever imagined that the great sea which
extends from the Indies to China had any communication with the sea of
Syria.
Yet we have heard, that in the sea of Rum, or the Mediterranean,
there was found the wreck of an Arabian ship, which had been shattered by a
tempest, in which all her men had perished. Her remains were driven by the
wind and weather into the sea of the Chozars, and thence by the canal of
the Mediterranean sea, and were at last thrown upon the coast of Syria.
Hence it is evident, that the sea surrounds all the country of China and
Sila or Cila, the uttermost parts of Turkestan, and the country of the
Chozars, and that it communicates by the strait with that which washes the
coast of Syria. This is proved by the structure of the wreck; of which the
planks were not nailed or bolted, like all those built in the
Mediterranean, or on the coast of Syria, but joined together in an
extraordinary manner, as if sewed, and none but the ships of Siraff are so
fastened. We have also heard it reported, that ambergris has been found on
the coast of Syria, which seems hard to believe, and was unknown to former
times. If this be true, it is impossible that amber should have been thrown
up on the sea of Syria, but by the sea of Aden and Kolsum, which has
communication with the seas where amber is found.
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