FARTHER INDIA, MALAYSIA AND THE BANDA ISLANDS.
Alas! the visit was of little profit. As in Ibn Batûta’s time, nearly
two centuries before, the island was divided between four kings, and
“for that they were waging fierce war with each other, we could not
tarry long time there.” Another reason for the short stay made in
Ceylon was that Cazazionor got alarmed at false information concerning
the good faith of one of the Kings to whom he was to carry his corals
and saffron. This was given him by one of the Moorish traders who were
settled in the ports of the island. This gentleman had the same kind
of goods to dispose of as Cazazionor, and contrived to hoodwink the
Persian with a commercial astuteness and subtlety worthy of a later
age. Afraid that one of the kings would contrive to “convey” his
merchandise he departed in haste, and Varthema with him.
The latter made marvellous use of eye and ear during his few days’ stay
in Ceylon. He draws an admirable picture of the people, the climate,
the cinnamon, the rich fruits and other vegetable produce, the roses
and other flowers, the immense herds of elephants and the big rubies
of the island. He was told of the impression of Adam’s foot on a
high peak, but had no time to visit it, even had the fighting then
going on allowed of it. It shows how feeble was the authority of an
Indian overlord, and how little supreme sovereignty was concerned with
matters other than tribute, that the warring Râjas were the subjects
of the Râja of Narsinga, “because of rice, which is brought from
the mainland.” “Some have lances of cane and swords, and they fight
together with these; but they do not slaughter each other over much;
for they are cowards.”
Three days rowing brought them to Pulicat, a town a little north of
Madras. They abode with a Moorish trader, who eagerly bought the
large store of corals, saffron, figured velvet and knives Cazazionor
had with him. “As this land was waging fierce war with the King of
Tarnassari, we were not able to stay very long. After a few days we set
sail for the city of Tarnassari, which is at a thousand miles distance
from here. And we arrived there in fourteen days.” In fact, they sailed
across the Bay of Bengal to Tenasserim, a fertile province of the Malay
Peninsula, at that time tributary to Siam. We find that the Râja “is a
most powerful lord and is for ever at war with the King of Narsinga and
the King of Bengal. He has an hundred elephants in armour, which are
the largest I have ever seen. He keeps an army of 100,000 men, part on
foot, part on horse, ready for war. They are armed with small swords
and shields, some of which are made of the shell of the tortoise and
some are like those used in Calicut; and they have store of bows and
of lances, some of which are of cane and some of wood. When they go
to war they wear a garment much stuffed with cotton.... Much silk is
made there.” As usual, the domesticated and wild animals are described.
Varthema was much surprised at the size of the cocks and hens. “In this
land we took great pleasure from some of the things which we saw, and,
in particular, at the Moorish traders making some cocks fight every
day in the streets where they dwell; and the owners will wage even to
a hundred ducats as to which will prove to fight best. And we saw two
which fought five hours on end, so that, when it was over, both of them
lay dead.”
Tenasserim retained traces of phallic worship to an even greater degree
than Calicut did. The extreme mark of friendship, so far as the _jus
primae noctis_ was concerned, was extended to every visitor, preference
being given to white men from all lands; “for,” says Varthema of the
natives, “they are a most liberal and agreeable people.” Yet, this
obligation fulfilled, the husbands were most jealous of their wives,
and whosoever should attempt to maintain relations with them would
“put his life in jeopardy.”
At dead of night, the corpses “of every Brâhman and of the king are
burned, with solemn sacrifice to the devil. And they keep the ashes
in vessels of earth, baked into a kind of glass, with narrow mouths.
Such a vessel, with the ashes therein, is buried within the house. The
sacrifice is made under trees, as at Calicut. And the fire is fed with
all the perfumes that can be gotten ... together with coral. And while
the body is burning, all the music in the city is sounded; and fifteen
or twenty men, who are dressed as devils, stand there, with much
rejoicing. And the wife is there, making very great lamentation; but
no other woman.” Here Varthema saw the horrible practice of Suttee. He
tells us of another custom which strangely recalls the Romantic Service
of Love in the days of Provençal minstrelsy. A passionate youth will
burn his naked arm severely to prove to his mistress “that he loves her
and that he is ready to do any great deed for her.”
“As to the manner of refection in this city, the Pagans eat all flesh,
saving that of the ox, and eat on the ground from very beautiful
vessels of wood, without a coverlet. They drink water, sweetened if it
may be. They sleep on high beds of good cotton, with coverlets of silk
or cotton. They wear a robe, with a quilt of cotton or silk.... Their
ears are full of jewels; but of these the fingers are bare.”
We find that the son of the King succeeded to his father’s throne
here; and not the sister’s son, as in Southern India. Deeds conveying
property were written on paper instead of palm leaves. The bodies
of Moorish traders who were unhappy enough to die here were first
embalmed, and then buried, with the head turned towards Mecca. We are
told of the flat-bottomed boat, the double canoe, and the junk; the
latter carried small boats to Malacca, where they were unshipped and
sailed on to the Spice Islands.
Cazazionor was able to dispose of some of his goods at Tenasserim; and
then he and Varthema took ship for Bengal. Eleven days of fair wind
bore them across the Bay of Bengal to a city which the ever whirling
wheel of change has borne away, and the very site of which is indicated
only on some ancient and imperfect map. Banghella was one of the first
ports and one of the first cities of the age, situate on one of the
mouths of the treacherous Ganges—a river of shifting currents and
disappearing shores. Its Sultan was a Mohammedan, for ever at war
with the Hindu Râja of Narsinga. “Here,” says our traveller, “are the
richest traders I have ever met with. Every year, fifty ships are
laden with stuffs of cotton or silk ... and these goods go throughout
Turkey, Syria, Persia, Arabia Felix, Ethiopia, and India. Here also are
many merchants of jewels from other lands.... The stuffs aforesaid are
woven, not by women, but by men.” Like Ibn Batûta, he found Bengal the
cheapest place to live in of the whole world.
The records of old pilgrims and travellers are a riot of surprise. Not
one of the least unsuspected of Varthema’s adventures is his dropping
here on Christian traders, who came from a Chinese city, which probably
lay north of Pekin. “They had brought silken stuffs, aloes-wood,
benzoin, and musk; and said that in their land were many Christian
lords, subject to the great Khân of Cathay”—that is to say, to the
Emperor of China. The reader will remember that the Chinese Government
pronounced Christianity to be a satisfactory faith in Hiuen-Tsiang’s
time. Fra Oderico tells us of the considerable number of Christians
in China during the early years of the Fourteenth Century. Probably
the Christian Chinese whom Varthema came across were Nestorians;
strange products of the wasted subtlety of the Greek mind during its
theological degeneracy; followers of the heretic Nestorius, who upheld
that two natures, the human and divine, were in Christ’s body, but
separate from one another. We may hope that, after so many centuries,
such problems had ceased to perplex the good Christians of far-off
Cathay. They said that their home was at Sarnau, a place probably
identical with the Sanay or Sandoy of Fra Oderico. They wore their
native silken breeches and red-cloth caps studded with jewels—a proof
of the safety of the city-street and of the highways from land to land
under Eastern despotism.
Men are not wont to carry the bitterness of religious prejudice into
the market, where mundane profit is at stake; and Cazazionor, the
Moslem; Varthema, the Catholic renegade; and the Nestorian heretics
seem to have hobnobbed together very amicably. The latter were on
their way to Burma, and told Cazazionor that there he might exchange
some very fine branches of coral he had for rubies which would sell in
Turkey for ten times as much. They proposed that our travellers should
go on with them. So Cazazionor sold off all his merchandise, with the
exception of “corals, saffron, and two pieces of cloth of Florence
of a rose colour.... We departed from that place with the aforesaid
Christians, and voyaged towards a city which is called Pego (Pegu),
distant from Banghella some thousand miles.”
Now the King of Burma, being at war with the King of Ava, was away with
his army. The party chartered a long dug-out canoe, and followed him;
hoping to induce him to purchase. But they were forced to return, owing
to the war; and five days afterwards the King of Burma, having gained a
victory, returned to Pegu.
The very next day, the Chinamen, who, it would seem, had had previous
dealings with the King, visited him, and were told to return two days
later, “for that, the next day, he must sacrifice to the devil for
having triumphed. When the time named had passed, directly the King had
eaten, he sent for the aforenamed Christians and for my companion to
bring the merchandise before him.” They found the Râja magnificently
set in jewels: his head, limbs, fingers, and even all his toes sparkled
with precious stones; jewelled ear-rings dragged down the lobes of his
ears to the length of half a palm, and the rubies on him “were more
than the value of a very great city.... At night-time he shone like the
sun.” Yet this resplendent monarch was “so entirely human and homely
that a child might speak to him.”
Then Cazazionor and other merchants who would seem to have become his
partners in this business of the corals, uncovered them. The monarch
was so unbusinesslike, or allowed himself to behave so indiscretely,
as to show enthusiasm at the sight of such magnificent coral-branches;
“and truly there were two of these the like of which had never come to
India before.” Now begins an Oriental comedy, wherein the trader shall
simulate munificence, and extract tenfold from the monarch by craftily
working on his natural generosity or regal pride.
The King asked if the corals were for sale. The reply was that they
were at his service. The King sighed that war had emptied his treasury;
but he was willing to barter rubies for the corals. “We made him learn
through these Christians that all we desired was his friendship:
let him take the goods and do as pleased him. He answered: ‘I know
that Persians are a free-handed people; yet did I never see one so
free-handed as this man’; and he swore by God and the Devil that he
would see which should excel in generosity, he or a Persian.” So he
ordered a casket of rubies to be brought in, and commanded Cazazionor
to choose those he would like to have. “My companion answered: ‘O
sire, you show me so much benevolence that, by my faith in Mohammed,
all these things are a present, which I offer you. And understand,
sire, that I journey about the world not to gather merchandise, but
merely to see the different races of men and their ways.’ The King
replied: ‘I cannot overcome you in generosity, but take this which I
give you.’ And so he took a large handful of rubies from each of the
(six) divisions of the casket aforesaid, and gave them, saying, ‘Take
these for the generosity which you have shown towards me.’ And in like
manner, he gave two rubies each to the Christians aforesaid ... which
were worth about 1,000 ducats; and those of my companion were given a
value of 100,000 ducats.” The Chinamen were apparently content with a
commission of one per cent., for nothing is said of the vendor paying
any. “Wherefore,” Varthema continues, “by this, the King may be judged
to be the most free-handed ruler in the world; and his income is of
about a million a year in gold,” derived from lac, cotton, silk, and
valuable woods; and this he spent on his army.
The King gave the travellers free quarters which they occupied five
days; when there came news that war had again broken out with Ava. So,
having seen the burning of two widows, and other sights of Pegu, and
found the Burmese “very fleshly,” the Chinamen, Cazazionor and Varthema
embarked for Malacca.
It is possible that Varthema was not the very first European to visit
the city which had become the most important port in Eastern waters;
but it is certain that he was the very first European to describe it.
It had taken the place of Calicut; it was nearer the sources of supply;
the enterprising Arab had settled there and ruled the city, subject to
the payment of a tribute to the King of Siam; and the recent descent of
the Portuguese on the coast of Malabar had increased its importance.
Here were to be found the huge, unwieldy junks of China—those floating
towns, with gardens blossoming on their decks—for there was no longer
need for them to creep through the straits and take the perils of the
Indian Ocean; and the most halcyon of summer seas is never to be quite
trusted. Malacca was a cheaper market than Calicut; and hither were
sent the drugs, dyes, perfumes, and spices, the precious woods and
other productions of China, Banda, the Phillipines, Siam, the Moluccas,
Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. “Verily,” writes Varthema, “I believe that
more ships sail hither than to any other port in the world.” He remarks
on the infertility of the soil; but speaks of the wealth of Malacca
in sandal-wood and tin. The travellers were presented to the Moorish
Sultan, who had appointed a Governor to do justice; but the inhabitants
at that time were Javanese. “They take the law into their own hands;
and are the vilest race ever created on earth. When the Sultan shall
hinder, they say that they will no longer dwell on land, for that they
are sea-farers”—that is to say they were quite able and ready to make
a new settlement. “One may not go about here when it grows dark; for
folk are killed as if they were so many dogs; and all the traders who
come here sleep in their ships.” There was no market for jewels here;
and the Chinamen, who still acted as guides to our travellers, advised
them to be off. So a junk was hired, and the whole party turned back
through the Straits for Pider, on the northern coast of Sumatra.
We are told that the natives of Sumatra were far from being a bellicose
race. They were eager traders, very friendly to foreigners, excellent
swimmers, and skilful in filigree work. “There were three crowned Pagan
Kings; and their religion, way of life, dress, and habits are the same
as at Tenasserim; moreover, the wives also are burned alive.” The
houses were roofed with the shells of gigantic sea-turtles; and the
ships were three-masted, with a prow fore and aft. Here were huge herds
of elephants, finer than any he had seen; and the land was productive
of long-pepper, benzoin, different kinds of perfumed wood and the
silk-worm.
The Chinamen now became anxious to return to their own country; but
Cazazionor wanted to see the land of nutmeg and clove: could they
get there in safety? The Christians replied that they need fear no
robbers; but there remained the chances of the sea; the island could
not be reached in a large ship; a sampan must be bought. Two sampans
were purchased, manned, and provisioned; and then the wily Persian who
wished to keep the Christians as guides, began to work on them. “‘O
dearest friends,’ said he, ‘although we be not of your race, we are all
sons of Adam. Will you leave me and this other man, my companion, one
who was born in your faith?’ ‘In our faith? Is not your companion a
Persian?’ ‘He is a Persian now, because he was bought at Jerusalem.’”
Whether this statement was a convenient lie, told by Varthema to
Cazazionor, or was the calculated fabrication of the latter is not
apparent; but it was effective; for “the Christians, hearing the
name of Jerusalem, at once lifted up their hands towards Heaven; and
kissed the ground thrice, and asked when I was sold at Jerusalem. We
answered: ‘When I was fifteen years old.’” The Chinamen thought that
Varthema must remember his native land, and Cazazionor at once saw his
opportunity and used it. Quoth he: “‘He does indeed remember it. For
months my sole delight has been in listening to the things he told me
thereof; and he has taught me the words for the parts of the body and
for different sorts of food.’” This settled the matter. The Christians
consented to go on with them; and if Varthema would return to China
with them, he might remain a Mohommedan, and they would make a rich
man of him. “‘Nay,’ said Cazazionor, ‘I am much pleased to have your
company; but he may not remain with you: for, out of the love I bear to
him, I have given my niece to be his wife.’” A money-bargain settled
the question; in two days, the Sampan was ready. “We put many kinds of
food on board; and, in particular, the most toothsome fruits I ever
tasted; and took our course to the island of Banda.”
Not even Marco Polo or Fra Oderico had ventured so far towards the
rising sun. Varthema was the very first of European travellers to reach
the Spice Islands. One of those who “cannot rest from travel, but must
drink life to the lees,” he might, had he been a better lettered man,
have quoted the lines of his own great countryman:
“Ma misi me per l’alto mare aperto
Sol con un legno e con quella compagna
Picciola dalla qual non fui deserto.”
(“I put forth on the deep open sea, in but a single ship, and with that
little band that had not deserted me.”) But if Varthema is no scholar,
is he not for ever revealing himself as a single-minded, enthusiastic
traveller; an excellent actor, and quite able to live up to his part, a
man of sound judgment, native wit, sly humour, and pronouncedly brave;
direct and unflinching of purpose; a little vainglorious, yet discrete?
The comrades traversed the landlocked straits of Malacca and the Java
and Banda seas, and after fifteen days found themselves on an ugly,
gloomy, and flat island, where dwelt “a beastly kind of men, without
king or even governor.... The administration of justice is not needed;
for the natives are so stupid that they could not do evil if they
would. They are pagans.” Such was this specimen of the Nutmeg Islands.
Two day spent here was more than enough for our travellers; so they set
sail for the Moluccas—the Clove Islands—and found “the people even
viler than those of Banda, but whiter; and the air is a little cooler.”
We have a full description of the clove tree and are told that cloves
were sold by measure, “for they understood not weights. We were now
wishful to change to another land, in order to learn new things and
all about them.” So Borneo was steered for; and, on the voyage, the
Chinamen took delight in questioning Varthema concerning Christians
and their faith. “And when I told them of the impress of our Saviour’s
face, which is in St. Peter’s, and of the heads of St. Peter and St.
Paul and many other saints, they advised me in secret that if I would
go with them, I should be a very great lord, because I had seen these
things. But I doubted if, after I had been led thither I should ever
come to my own land again; and therefore I kept me back from going.”
Varthema does not think of his indebtedness to his generous Persian
host; he has no use for the inconvenient fidelities of friendship or
the costly coercion of gratitude; such altruistic weakness did not
afflict the men of the Renaissance; “ma per sè foro”—“they were for
themselves.”
The temptation to visit China must have been strong for a man of
Varthema’s spirit. A few missionary friars had reached Mongolia in the
thirteenth century, a very few bold spirits had penetrated Asia as far
as China at the end of that and the beginning of the next century; and
Tartars kept up some commercial intercourse between Europe and China a
little later. But when the great Tartar Empire fell into decay, and the
Moslem recovered his grip of Central Asia, intercourse between West and
Farthest East became impossible. The few missionaries who set forth for
the Celestial Empire never returned, and China became a shadow and a
name to Christian Europe. But it would be no easy matter for Varthema
to slip away from the Persian just here and now; the difficulty of ever
returning from China, even should he reach it, would indeed prove a
formidable problem; and we may suspect, too, that the hardships of the
voyage and the heat and discomforts of the climate were beginning to
tell on Varthema’s iron nerve.
He found the natives of Borneo to be “Pagans, and good folk.... Every
year much camphor is shipped; which they say is the gum of a tree that
grows there. I have not seen it; and therefore I do not affirm it to
be so. Here my companion hired a ship.... We directed our course to
the very beautiful island called Java; and came there, always sailing
southward, in five days.” On the voyage, the skipper pointed out the
Southern Cross; and “told us that, to the south, beyond the island
aforesaid (Java) dwell sundry other sorts of men, who steer by these
stars which are set over against ours; and, further, they made known
to us that the daylight stays but four hours in those parts, and that
it is colder there than elsewhere in the world. Whereat we were much
solaced and gratified.”
Now, there is no inhabited land to the south of Java where the shortest
day is of four hours only; but the assertion of the Malay captain reads
as if he had visited Australia, or had gotten some true information
concerning that continent; and bold navigators of Malaysia _may_ have
ventured or been driven much farther over the Southern Ocean to a very
high latitude; or, the statement as to shortened hours of sunlight and
cold _may_ have been a mere inference from the progressive diminution
of the day and of heat in sailing south. It is said that indications of
the discovery of Australia a very little after Varthema’s time are to
be found on manuscript maps of unknown authorship. It is interesting
to find that the skipper steered by means of a compass, which was not
of Chinese make, for the magnet pointed to the north; and that he was
provided with a chart intersected by perpendicular and horizontal lines.
Java was under the rule of several kings: “some adore idols as at
Calicut; some worship the sun; others, the moon; many, an ox; very
many, the first thing they shall meet of a morning; yet others, the
devil.” Nonetheless, “I believe the natives to be the most true dealers
in the world.... Some use pipes, from which they blow poisoned arrows
from the mouth; which bear death however little blood they may draw....
Some eat bread made of corn; and some eat flesh of sheep or deer or
wild pigs; and some eat fish and fruits. Among the flesh-eaters, when
their fathers become so old as to be past labour, their children or
relatives put them up for sale in the market-place; and those that buy
them kill and eat them cooked. Likewise if any young man shall fall
into any dire sickness; and if those that have knowledge deem that he
shall die thereof, the father or brother of the sick one shall slay
him; and they do not wait for him to die. And, having killed him, they
sell him to be eaten of others. We, marvelling at such a business,
some traders of this land, to us: ‘O you dull Persians, why do you
leave such toothsome flesh to the worms?’ Whereupon, my companion cried
out ‘Quick, quick, to the ship; for never again shall these folk come
near me on land.’” This is a strange statement; but there is abundant
evidence as to the prevalence of cannibalism throughout Malaysia at
this period to confirm it. Yet, says Varthema, “justice was well
administered”; the natives clothed themselves in silk, camelot and
cotton garments; and traded with the gold and copper which their island
furnished abundantly, as well as the finest emeralds in the world. They
were a maritime people and fought their battles at sea.
Varthema had lost count of time. It was now the month of June. He was
south of the equator, and had crossed the ecliptic; and, directed by
the Chinamen, he found the sun casting a shadow in a direction the
reverse of that of northern latitudes. “And thereby we learned how far
we had come from our country, and stood amazed.... Having seen the
manners of the island, we saw no great reason for remaining there;
for we had to keep watch all night, lest some scoundrel should steal
up to us, and bear us away, and eat us. Wherefore, having called the
Christians, we told them that, as soon as they were ready, we would
return to our land. Before we set off, however, my comrade bought two
emeralds ... and two little male children with their private parts
wholly cut away; for in this island there is a sort of merchants who
follow no other calling than that of buying little children, from whom
they cut all away, so that they are left as if women.”
It is obvious that different communities, at varying stages of
civilization, inhabited Java; from “the truest dealers in the world,”
and those who administered justice well, down to bestial savages.
Tales, and perhaps evidence, of the cruel brutality of the Aborigines,
affected the imagination of Cazazionor and Varthema strongly; they
were not sure that the cannibals, finding themselves in the close
neighbourhood of “Persians,” and therefore quite unusual visitors to
Java, might not be tempted to try the flavour of a novelty; their
Chinese guides, moreover, had taken them to most of the parts of
Malaysia with which they were acquainted; the softening effect of an
equatorial climate relaxed their desire to push on into that cold and
gloomy region to the south, of which the Malay skipper had told them;
and it would seem that, out of commercial jealousy or from rude humour,
“merchants of the country” took a pleasure or sought a profit in
playing upon their fears. So they hired a junk, and sailed boldly over
the more open water, along the south-east coast of Sumatra, rounded the
northern extremity of that great island, and saw Malacca again on the
fifteenth day of voyage.
Here they stayed three days, while Cazazionor made up a cargo of spice,
perfumes and silk; and here “our Christian companions stayed on. It
were not possible to make a short history of how they wailed and
lamented; so that, verily, had I not had a wife and children, I had
gone with them” (this is the first and last time that Varthema mentions
the relatively unimportant fact of his being a yoke-mate and father off
the chain). “And likewise, they said they would have come with us, had
they known how to travel safely.... So they stayed behind, saying that
they would return to Sarnau; and we went on in our ship to Ciromandel”
(Negropotam). Probably the Chinese would take passage in some junk of
the fleet which came to Malacca every year.