CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF MUTFILI.
When you leave Maabar and go about 1,000 miles in a northerly direction
you come to the kingdom of MUTFILI. This was formerly under the rule of
a King, and since his death, some forty years past, it has been under
his Queen, a lady of much discretion, who for the great love she bore
him never would marry another husband. And I can assure you that during
all that space of forty years she had administered her realm as well as
ever her husband did, or better; and as she was a lover of justice, of
equity, and of peace, she was more beloved by those of her kingdom than
ever was Lady or Lord of theirs before. The people are Idolaters, and
are tributary to nobody. They live on flesh, and rice, and milk.{1}
It is in this kingdom that diamonds are got; and I will tell you how.
There are certain lofty mountains in those parts; and when the winter
rains fall, which are very heavy, the waters come roaring down the
mountains in great torrents. When the rains are over, and the waters
from the mountains have ceased to flow, they search the beds of the
torrents and find plenty of diamonds. In summer also there are plenty
to be found in the mountains, but the heat of the sun is so great
that it is scarcely possible to go thither, nor is there then a drop
of water to be found. Moreover in those mountains great serpents are
rife to a marvellous degree, besides other vermin, and this owing to
the great heat. The serpents are also the most venomous in existence,
insomuch that any one going to that region runs fearful peril; for many
have been destroyed by these evil reptiles.
Now among these mountains there are certain great and deep valleys, to
the bottom of which there is no access. Wherefore the men who go in
search of the diamonds take with them pieces of flesh, as lean as they
can get, and these they cast into the bottom of a valley. Now there are
numbers of white eagles that haunt those mountains and feed upon the
serpents. When the eagles see the meat thrown down they pounce upon
it and carry it up to some rocky hill-top where they begin to rend
it. But there are men on the watch, and as soon as they see that the
eagles have settled they raise a loud shouting to drive them away. And
when the eagles are thus frightened away the men recover the pieces of
meat, and find them full of diamonds which have stuck to the meat down
in the bottom. For the abundance of diamonds down there in the depths
of the valleys is astonishing, but nobody can get down; and if one
could, it would be only to be incontinently devoured by the serpents
which are so rife there.
There is also another way of getting the diamonds. The people go to
the nests of those white eagles, of which there are many, and in their
droppings they find plenty of diamonds which the birds have swallowed
in devouring the meat that was cast into the valleys. And, when the
eagles themselves are taken, diamonds are found in their stomachs.
So now I have told you three different ways in which these stones are
found. No other country but this kingdom of Mutfili produces them, but
there they are found both abundantly and of large size. Those that are
brought to our part of the world are only the refuse, as it were, of
the finer and larger stones. For the flower of the diamonds and other
large gems, as well as the largest pearls, are all carried to the
Great Kaan and other Kings and Princes of those regions; in truth they
possess all the great treasures of the world.{2}
In this kingdom also are made the best and most delicate buckrams, and
those of highest price; in sooth they look like tissue of spider’s
web! There is no King nor Queen in the world but might be glad to wear
them.{3} The people have also the largest sheep in the world, and great
abundance of all the necessaries of life.
There is now no more to say; so I will next tell you about a province
called Lar from which the Abraiaman come.
NOTE 1.—There is no doubt that the kingdom here spoken of is that
of TELINGANA (_Tiling_ of the Mahomedan writers), then ruled by
the Kákateya or Ganapati dynasty reigning at Warangol, north-east
of Hyderabad. But Marco seems to give the kingdom the name of that
place in it which was visited by himself or his informants. MUTFILI
is, with the usual Arab modification (_e.g._ Perlec, Ferlec—Pattan,
Faitan), a port called MOTUPALLÉ, in the Gantúr district of the
Madras Presidency, about 170 miles north of Fort St. George. Though
it has dropt out of most of our modern maps it still exists, and a
notice of it is to be found in W. Hamilton, and in Milburne. The
former says: “_Mutapali_, a town situated near the S. extremity
of the northern Circars. A considerable coasting trade is carried
on from hence in the craft navigated by natives,” which can
come in closer to shore than at other ports on that coast.—[Cf.
_Hunter_, _Gaz. India_, _Motupalli_, “now only an obscure fishing
village.”—It is marked in _Constable’s Hand Atlas of India_.—H. C.]
The proper territory of the Kingdom of Warangol lay inland, but the
last reigning prince before Polo’s visit to India, by name Kakateya
Pratapa Ganapati Rudra Deva, had made extensive conquests on the
coast, including Nellore, and thence northward to the frontier of
Orissa. This prince left no male issue, and his widow, RUDRAMA
DEVI, daughter of the Raja of Devagiri, assumed the government
and continued to hold it for twenty-eight, or, as another record
states, for thirty-eight years, till the son of her daughter had
attained majority. This was in 1292, or by the other account
1295, when she transferred the royal authority to this grandson
Pratapa Vira Rudra Deva, the “Luddur Deo” of Firishta, and the last
Ganapati of any political moment. He was taken prisoner by the
Delhi forces about 1323. We have evidently in Rudrama Devi the just
and beloved Queen of our Traveller, who thus enables us to attach
colour and character to what was an empty name in a dynastic list.
(Compare _Wilson’s Mackenzie_, I. cxxx.; _Taylor’s Or. Hist. MSS._
I. 18; _Do.’s Catalogue Raisonné_, III. 483.)
Mutfili appears in the _Carta Catalana_ as _Butiflis_, and is there
by some mistake made the site of St. Thomas’s Shrine. The distance
from Maabar is in Ramusio only 500 miles—a preferable reading.
NOTE 2.—Some of the Diamond Mines once so famous under the name of
Golconda are in the alluvium of the Kistna River, some distance
above the Delta, and others in the vicinity of Kaḍapa and Karnúl,
both localities being in the territory of the kingdom we have been
speaking of.
The strange legend related here is very ancient and widely
diffused. Its earliest known occurrence is in the Treatise of St.
Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, concerning the twelve
Jewels in the _Rationale_ or Breastplate of the Hebrew High
Priest, a work written before the end of the 4th century, wherein
the tale is told of the _Jacinth_. It is distinctly referred to
by Edrisi, who assigns its locality to the land of the _Kirkhîr_
(probably Khirghiz) in Upper Asia. It appears in Kazwini’s _Wonders
of Creation_, and is assigned by him to the Valley of the Moon
among the mountains of Serendib. Sindbad the Sailor relates the
story, as is well known, and his version is the closest of all to
our author’s. [So _Les Merveilles de l’Inde_, pp. 128–129.—H. C.]
It is found in the Chinese Narrative of the Campaigns of Hulaku,
translated by both Rémusat and Pauthier. [We read in the _Si Shi
Ki_, of Ch’ang Te, Chinese Envoy to Hulaku (1259), translated by
Dr. Bretschneider (_Med. Res._ I. p. 151): “The _kin-kang tsuan_
(diamonds) come from _Yin-du_ (Hindustan). The people take flesh
and throw it into the great valleys (of the mountains). Then birds
come and eat this flesh, after which diamonds are found in their
excrements.”—H. C.] It is told in two different versions, once of
the Diamond, and again of the Jacinth of Serendib, in the work on
precious stones by Ahmed Taifáshi. It is one of the many stories in
the scrap-book of Tzetzes. Nicolo Conti relates it of a mountain
called Albenigaras, fifteen days’ journey in a northerly direction
from Vijayanagar; and it is told again, apparently after Conti, by
Julius Caesar Scaliger. It is related of diamonds and Balasses in
the old Genoese MS., called that of Usodimare. A feeble form of the
tale is quoted contemptuously by Garcias from one Francisco de
Tamarra. And Haxthausen found it as a popular legend in Armenia.
(_S. Epiph. de_ XIII. _Gemmis_, etc., Romae, 1743; _Jaubert,
Edrisi_, I. 500; _J. A. S. B._ XIII. 657; _Lane’s Ar. Nights_, ed.
1859, III. 88; _Rém. Nouv. Mél. Asiat._ I. 183; _Raineri, Fior di
Pensieri di Ahmed Teifascite_, pp. 13 and 30; _Tzetzes, Chil._ XI.
376; _India in xvth Cent._ pp. 29–30; _J. C. Scal. de Subtilitate_,
CXIII. No. 3; _An. des Voyages_, VIII. 195; _Garcias_, p. 71;
_Transcaucasia_, p. 360; _J. A. S. B._ I. 354.)
The story has a considerable resemblance to that which Herodotus
tells of the way in which cinnamon was got by the Arabs (III. 111).
No doubt the two are ramifications of the same legend.
NOTE 3.—Here _buckram_ is clearly applied to fine cotton stuffs.
The districts about Masulipatam were long famous both for muslins
and for coloured chintzes. The fine muslins of _Masalia_ are
mentioned in the Periplus. Indeed even in the time of Sakya Muni
Kalinga was already famous for diaphanous muslins, as may be seen
in a story related in the Buddhist Annals. (_J. A. S. B._ VI. 1086.)