active 1302-1330 Bishop of Columbum Catalani Jordanus

“ In the third year of the palm’s growth the fronds begin to fall, a new frond appearing at the end of every month. Of these there are twenty-eight, more or less, on a full-grown tree. On a single tree there are about twelve branches, or spadices, of nuts. Most of the young fruit falls off, only a few coming to perfection; but as from ten to fifteen nuts on an average are produced on one branch, a single tree may produce eighty to one hundred nuts every year. (Drury’s Useful Plants of India.) ”

“ In this India never do [even] the legitimate sons of great kings, or princes, or barons, inherit the goods of their parents, but only the sons of their sisters; for they say that they have no surety that those are their own sons, because wives and mistresses may conceive and generate by some one else; but ’tis not so with the sister, for whatever man may be the father they are certain that the offspring is from the womb of their sister, and is consequently thus truly of their blood. ”

“ Between this country of Persia and India the Less is a certain region where manna falls in a very great quantity, white as snow, sweeter than all other sweet things, delicious, and of an admirable and incredible efficacy. There are also sandhills in great numbers, and very destructive to men; for when the wind blows, the sand flows down just like water from a tank. [70] These countries aforesaid, to wit, [11] Persia, Armenia Major, Chaldeia, as well as Cappadocia and Asia Minor and Greece, abound in good fruits, meats, and other things, like our own country ”

“ There be also other pagan-folk in this India who worship fire; they bury not their dead, neither do they burn them, but cast them into the midst of a certain roofless tower, and there expose them totally uncovered to the fowls of heaven. ”

“ Every thing indeed is a marvel in this India! Verily it is quite another world!
37. There is also a certain part of that India which is called Champa. There, in place of horses, mules and asses, and camels, they make use of elephants for all their work. ”

“ In this India there is a scattered people, one here, another there, who call themselves Christians, but are not so, nor have they baptism, nor do they know anything else about the faith. Nay, they believe St. Thomas the Great to be Christ!
32. There, in the India I speak of, I baptized and brought into the faith about three hundred souls, of whom many were idolaters and Saracens. ”

“ The great king of Molebar, or Malabar, is, I suppose, the Samudra Raja, or Zamorin of the Portuguese, whose capital was at Calicut.
Singuyli is a nut hard to crack. Our friar’s contemporary, Odoricus, calls the two chief ports of the pepper country in his day Flandrina and Cyncilim. The former is no doubt the Fandaraina of Ibn Batuta, “a large and beautiful place,” the Colam Pandarani of Ramusio’s Geographer, lying a little north of Calicut, but not marked in our modern maps. ”

“ In this India there exists not, nor is found, any metal but what comes from abroad, except gold, iron, and electrum. There is no pepper there, nor any kind of spice except ginger.
29. In this India the greater part of the people worship idols, although a great share of the sovereignty is in the hands of the Turkish Saracens, who came forth from Multán, and conquered and usurped dominion to themselves not long since, and destroyed an infinity of idol temples, and likewise many churches, of which they made mosques for Mahomet, taking possession of their endowments and property. ”

“ Markham describes the Poliars, a race of wild and timid men of the woods in the Pulney Hills, east of Cochin, who are possibly the very people whom Jordanus had in his eye, as being said to have no habitations, but to run through the jungle from place to place, to sleep under rocks, and live on wild honey and roots. They occasionally trade with the peasantry, who place cotton and grain on some stone, and the wild creatures, as soon as the strangers are out of sight, take these and put honey in their place. But they will let no one come near them. (Peru and India, p. 404.) ”

“ Parrots also, or popinjays, after their kind, of every possible colour except black, for black ones are never found; but white all over, and green, and red, and also of mixed colours. The birds of this India seem really like creatures of Paradise. [121]
8. There is also told a marvellous thing of the islands aforesaid, to wit that there is one of them in which there is a water, and a certain tree in the middle of it. Every metal which is washed with that water becomes gold; every wound on which are placed the bruised leaves of that tree is incontinently healed. ”

“ Of India Tertia I will say this, that I have not indeed seen its many marvels, not having been there, but have heard them from trustworthy persons. For example, there be dragons in the greatest abundance, which carry on their [42] heads the lustrous stones which be called carbuncles. These animals have their lying-place upon golden sands, [151] and grow exceeding big, and cast forth from the mouth a most fetid and infectious breath, like the thickest smoke rising from fire. ”

“ There be also three or four kings on the island of Java, where the good spices grow. There be also other kings, as the king of Telenc, who is very potent and great. The kingdom of Telenc abounds in corn, rice, sugar, wax, honey and honeycomb, pulse, eggs, goats, buffalos, beeves, milk, butter, and in oils of divers kinds, and in many excellent fruits, more than any other part of the Indies. There is also the kingdom of Maratha which is very great; and there is the king of Batigala, but he is of the Saracens. ”

“ Polo says: “Here and throughout all India the birds and beasts are different from ours, except one bird, which is the quail.” (iii, 20.)
[94] A literally accurate description of the great Indian bat, or flying fox. They generally cluster on some great banyan tree. These, I presume, are what Marco Polo quaintly calls “bald owls which fly in the night: they have neither wings (?) nor feathers, and are as large as an eagle.” (iii, 20.) There is a good account of the flying fox, and an excellent cut, in Tennent’s Nat. History of Ceylon. ”

“ For there is nothing that either can or dare stand against the assault of an elephant in any manner. A marvellous thing! He kneeleth, lieth, sitteth, goeth and cometh, merely at his master’s word. In short, it is impossible to write in words the peculiarities of this animal.
3. In this India there are pepper and ginger, cinnamon, brazil, [115] and all other spices.
4. Ginger is the root of a plant which hath leaves like a reed. Pepper is the fruit of a plant something like ivy, which climbs trees, and forms grape-like fruit like that of the wild vine. ”

“ These fruits never grow upon the twigs, for these are not able to bear their weight, but only from the main branches, and even from the trunk of the tree itself, down to the very roots.
7. There is another tree which has fruit like a plum, but a very big one, which is called Aniba. This is a fruit so sweet and delicious as it is impossible to utter in words. [77]
8. There be many other fruit trees of divers kinds, which it would be tedious to describe in detail.
9. I will only say this much, that this India, as regards [15] fruit and other things, is entirely different from Christendom ”

“ The Talipat (Corypha umbraculifera) , or great fan-palm, abundant in Ceylon, and found in the southern part of the peninsula, in Burma, and in the Malay islands, but scarcely known in Bengal. The leaves, according to Sir J. E. Tennent, have sometimes an area of two hundred square feet.
[125] “The King [of Ceylon] has the most beautiful ruby that ever was or can be in the whole world. It is the most splendid object on earth, and seems to glow like fire; it is of such value as money could scarcely purchase.” ”

“ Here, however, at last, we find something to justify Marco Polo in regard to the position in which he introduces the kingdom of Coilon. For, after speaking of Coulam on the Malabar coast, Barbosa goes forward to Cape Comorin, where he says the country of Malabar indeed terminates, but the “aforesaid kingdom of Coulam” still goes on and comes to an end at the city of Cail, where the King of Coulam made his continual residence. So also the “Summary of kingdoms,” etc., in Ramusio, describes the kingdom of Colam as extending on both sides of Cape Comorin. ”

“ HERE FOLLOWETH CONCERNING INDIA THE GREATER.
1. Of India the Greater I say this; that it is like unto Lesser India as regards all the folk being black. The animals also are all similar, neither more nor less [in number] , except elephants, which they have [in the former] in very great plenty. These animals are marvellous; for they exceed in size and bulk and strength, and also in understanding, all the animals of the world. This animal hath a big head; small eyes, smaller than a horse’s; ears like the wings of owls or bats ”

“ In this Greater India many sacrifice themselves to idols in this way. When they are sick, or involved in any grave mischance, they vow themselves to the idol if they should happen to be delivered. Then, when they have recovered, they fatten themselves for one or two years continually, eating and drinking fat things, etc. ”

“ In this India are many and divers precious stones, among which are the best diamonds under heaven. These stones never can be dressed or shaped by any art, except what nature has given. But I omit the properties of these stones, not to be prolix. ”

“ There is also in this India a certain bird, big like a kite, having a white head and belly, but all red above, which boldly snatches fish out of the hands of fishermen and other people, and indeed [these birds] go on just like dogs. ”

“ Coming down to later times, Barbosa, in the first years of the sixteenth century, speaks of Coulon still as the great pepper port, the seat of one of the three (chief) kings of Malabar, and where lived many Moors, Gentiles, and Christians, who were great merchants, and had many ships trading to Coromandel, Ceylon, Bengal, Pegu, Malacca, Sumatra, etc. ”

“ There be serpents with horns, and some with precious stones. [157]
8. The men of that land are very black, pot-bellied, fat, but short; having thick lips and squab nose, overhanging forehead, and hideous countenances, whilst they go altogether naked.
9. I have seen many of them. They hunt the most savage beasts, such as lions, ounces, and leopards, and most dreadful serpents; wild men they be, wild against wild beasts!
10. In this India is found embar, which is like wood, and exceeding fragrant, and is called gemma marina, or the Treasure of the Sea. ”

“ It is the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis) , a tree found from Malabar along the coast to Bengal, and thence down the transgangetic coast through Burma and the great islands, and also up the Ganges to Cawnpore, a little above which it ceases. The fruit is of no value. The wood is much used for rafters, etc., and it is better than that of any other Indian palm; but the tree is chiefly used for the derivation of the liquor to which, as taken from this and other palms, we give the slightly corrupted name of toddy, a name which in Scotland has received a new application. ”

“ If there were cats with wings in Malabar, [ii] as he had seen, [1] why should there not be people with dogs’ heads in the Islands of the Ocean? [2] If black men cut off their own heads before their gods at Columbum, [3] why should not “white and fat men” be purchased as delectable food in Java? [4] If there were rats nearly as big as foxes in India Major, [5] why should there not be rocs that could fly away with elephants in India Tertia? ”

“ In this India, and in India the Less, men who dwell a long way from the sea, under the ground and in woody tracts, seem altogether infernal; neither eating, drinking, nor clothing themselves like the others who dwell by the sea. [140]
29. There serpents too be numerous, and very big, of all colours in the world; and it is a great marvel that they be seldom or never found to hurt anybody unless first attacked. ”

“ For, whilst I was among those schismatics and unbelievers, I believe that more than X thousand, or thereabouts, were converted to our faith, and because we, being few in number, could not occupy, or even visit, many parts of the [56] land, many souls (wo is me!) have perished, and exceeding many do yet perish for lack of preachers of the Word of the Lord. And ’tis grief and pain to hear how, through the preachers of the perfidious and accursed Saracens, those sects of the heathen be day by day perverted. ”