WORKS ISSUED BY
The Hakluyt Society.
THE WONDERS OF THE EAST,
BY
FRIAR JORDANUS.
M.DCCC.LXIII.
MIRABILIA DESCRIPTA.
THE
WONDERS OF THE EAST,
BY
FRIAR JORDANUS,
OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS AND BISHOP OF COLUMBUM
IN INDIA THE GREATER,
(CIRCA 1330).
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN ORIGINAL,
AS PUBLISHED AT PARIS IN 1839, IN THE RECUEIL DE VOYAGES
ET DE MÉMOIRES, OF THE SOCIETY OF GEOGRAPHY,
WITH THE ADDITION OF A COMMENTARY,
BY
COLONEL HENRY YULE, C.B., F.R.G.S.,
LATE OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS (BENGAL).
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
M.DCCC.LXIII.
LONDON: T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET.
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, G.C.St.S., F.R.S., D.C.L., Corr.
Mem. Inst. F., Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad. Sc. St. Petersburg, etc.,
etc., PRESIDENT.
REAR-ADMIRAL C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B. }
THE RT. HON. SIR DAVID DUNDAS, M.P. } VICE-PRESIDENTS.
J. BARROW, ESQ., F.R.S.
RT. HON. LORD BROUGHTON.
CAPTAIN CRACROFT, R.N.
SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S.
JOHN FORSTER, ESQ.
R. W. GREY, ESQ., M.P.
T. HODGKIN, ESQ., M.D.
JOHN WINTER JONES, ESQ., F.S.A.
HIS EXCELLENCY THE COUNT DE LAVRADIO.
R. H. MAJOR, ESQ., F.S.A.
SIR CHARLES NICHOLSON, BART.
SIR ERSKINE PERRY.
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR HENRY C. RAWLINSON, K.C.B
WILLIAM STIRLING, ESQ., M.P.
CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, ESQ., HONORARY SECRETARY.
DEDICATION.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY SIR H. B. E. FRERE, K.C.B., GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY.
DEAR SIR BARTLE FRERE,
There is no time to ask your assent to this dedication. But I have trust
enough in your love for old travellers, and in your good-will to the
editor, to venture it without permission. I have some hope too that I
introduce to you a new acquaintance in the Bishop of Columbum, whose book
seems little known.
Like many other old travellers of more fame, whilst endeavouring to speak
only truth of what he has seen, Jordanus retails fables enough from
hearsay. What he did see in his travels was so marvellous to him, that he
was quite ready to accept what was told him of regions more remote from
Christendom, when it seemed but in reasonable proportion more marvellous.
If there were cats with wings in Malabar, 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?[6]
Apart from this credulity, it might be well if the heads of some of
our modern sojourners in India could be endowed with a little more of
that Organ of Wonder which gave these old story-tellers such a thorough
enjoyment of the real marvels of the East, and could by its help see
something worthier there than a howling wilderness, affording no
consolation but that silver fruit, which, like the coco-nut described by
our author, is borne twelve times in the year.[7]
Were Jordanus to come to life again, he would see many changes no doubt,
but he would still find many landmarks standing after the five and a
half centuries. To say nothing of the “Coquodriles”[8] and the horrible
heat,[9] he would find the Parsis still disposing of their dead in their
strange old fashion,[10] the Nairs still handing down their succession in
oblique descent,[11] the Dóms still feeding on offal and doing the basest
drudgeries,[12] the poor Poliars still dwelling in dens and howling by
the wayside,[13] the ox still “honoured like a father,”[14] and the idols
still “dragged through the land like the Virgin at Rogationtides;”[15]
he might even hear now and then of “living women taking their places
on the fire and dying with their dead.”[16] Much therefore of evil he
would find very persistent. How on the other side? He would indeed also
find the Hindus still “clean in feeding,” but would he still pronounce
them to be “true in speech and eminent in justice?”[17] Is it not to be
feared that he would find not only the wealth of that Columbum, which
in the days of his bishopric was hidden by the masts of all the East
from Yemen to Cathay, as far gone by as the splendours of the kings of
Telinga and Narsinga, but the natural life and genius of the people
degenerate and their inborn arts in decay? He would indeed see vigorous
efforts in action to introduce a new life into the country; instead of
Diabolus roaring in the woods by night[18] he might hear the scream of
the locomotive; and he would meet among those Western conquerors who, in
strange fulfilment of the prophecies of his own day,[19] are now ruling
India, some confident believers in the renovation of the land through the
introduction of the material progress of Europe.
Will that belief be justified? I am not likely to undervalue the work
in which my best years have been spent; but surely that alone will not
serve. The question that carried Jordanus to the East five hundred and
forty years ago is still the great question for India, however Providence
may solve it. Till India becomes Christian there is no hope of real life
and renovation. Would Jordanus Redivivus discern much progress in this
direction since the days of his episcopate? How like his talk about the
matter is to that of our own missionaries in the nineteenth century![20]
Hindu Christians are still a feeble and scattered folk,[21] and the
advance towards Christian light seems to all who care not, and to many
who do care, almost nothing. But it is encouraging to know that you think
very differently, and few indeed have had at once your capacity and your
opportunity for a just judgment.
I am ever, dear Sir Bartle,
Your faithful friend and servant,
H. YULE.
Genoa, October 14th, 1863.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See p. 29.
[2] See p. 44.
[3] See p. 33.
[4] See p. 31.
[5] See p. 29.
[6] See p. 42.
[7] See p. 15.
[8] See p. 19.
[9] See p. 22.
[10] See p. 21.
[11] See p. 32.
[12] See p. 21.
[13] See p. 35.
[14] See p. 25.
[15] See p. 33.
[16] See p. 21.
[17] See p. 22
[18] See p. 37.
[19] See p. 30.
[20] See p. 55.
[21] See p. 23.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE.
Source, iii, iv. Particulars known of the author, iv-viii. Another
work ascribed to him, ix. Extract from this, narrating the martyrdom
of four friars in India, x-xii. Identity of Columbum, his see,
with the modern Quilon, xii-xvii. The author’s Latinity, xvii.
Coincidences with other travellers, xvii, xviii.
CHAPTER I.
[THE MEDITERRANEAN.]
§ 1. The whirlpool of the Faro. 2. The flux of Euripus. 3.
Earthquakes at Thebes.