Many Of The People Of This
Country Cause One Of The Arms Of Their Children To Be Cut Open When Young,
Putting One Of These Stones Into The Wound, Which They Heal Up By Means Of
The Powder Of A Certain Fish, With The Name Of Which I Am Unacquainted.
And
through the virtue of these wonderful stones, the natives are generally
victorious in their wars, both by sea and land.
There is a stratagem,
however, which their enemies often successfully use against them, to
counteract the power of these stones. Providing themselves with iron or
steel armour, to defend them from the arrows of these people, they use
wooden stakes, pointed like weapons of iron, and arrows not having iron
heads, but infused with poison which they extract from certain trees, and
they thus slay some of their foes, who, trusting to the virtue of these
stones, wear no defensive armour. From the canes formerly mentioned, named
cassan, they build themselves small houses, and manufacture sails for their
ships, and many other things are made from them. From thence, after many
days travel, I came to another kingdom, called Campa[4], which is a very
rich and beautiful kingdom, abounding in all kinds of provisions. The king
who reigned at the time of my being there, had so many wives and
concubines, that he had three hundred sons and daughters. He had likewise
10,004[5] tame elephants, which were pastured in droves as we feed flocks
and herds.
[1] Hakluyt endeavours to explain this on the margin by Malasmi. It is
possible the river Banjar, and the port of Masseen, otherwise called
Bendermassin, or Banjar-massin, in the great island of Borneo, may be
here indicated. Panten, Petan, or perhaps Bentam, is perhaps a small
woody island mentioned by Marco Polo, near great Java or Borneo. The
names of places, however, in these early travellers, have been so
confounded by ignorant transcribers as often to defy all criticism.
- E.
[2] This seems an ill-collected account of Sago. - E.
[3] The Pacific Ocean, the navigation of which was then so much unknown,
that those who ventured to navigate it never returned. - E
[4] Probably Siampa, called likewise Ciampa, and Tsiompa. - E.
[5] In the Latin, this number is decies millesies et quatuor, which may
even be read 14,000; certainly a vast exaggeration either way. - E.
SECTION VIII.
Of vast multitudes of Fish, which throw themselves on the dry Land.
The following most wonderful circumstance is to be observed in this country
of Siampa. All the kinds of fishes which frequent those seas, swim towards
the shore at certain times in such abundance, that nothing can be seen for
a great way but the backs of fishes. The fish throw themselves upon the
shore, and for the space of three days allow the people to take up as many
of them as they please. At the end of these three days this shoal returns
again to sea, and a different kind comes to the shore in the same manner,
and remains for a similar period.
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