, the very word used by our author here for pearls. Masudi is one of the earliest Arabic writers who gives us a description of the pearl-fisheries in the Persian Gulf, and it very much accords with Benjamin's account. See Sprenger's translation of Masudi's Meadows of Gold, p. 344. At the present time more than 5,000 boats are engaged in this industry along this coast, and it yields an annual income of £1,000,000. See P. M. Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia, 1902.
Khulam, now called Quilon, was a much frequented seaport in the early Middle Ages where Chinese shippers met the Arab traders. It afterwards declined in importance, being supplanted by Calicut, Goa, and eventually by Bombay. It was situated at the southern end of the coast of Malabar. Renaudot in a translation of The Travels of Two Mohammedan Traders, who wrote as far back as 851 and 915 respectively, has given us some account of this place; Ibn Batuta and Marco Polo give us interesting details. Ritter, in the fifth volume of his Geography, dilates on the cultivation of the pepper-plant, which is of indigenous growth. In Benjamin's time it was thought that white pepper was a distinct species, but Ritter explains that it was prepared from the black pepper, which, after lying from eight to ten days in running water, would admit of being stripped of its black outer covering. Ritter devotes a chapter to the fire-worship of the Guebers, who, as Parsees, form an important element at the present day in the population of the Bombay Presidency. Another chapter is devoted to the Jewish settlement to which Benjamin refers. See Die jüdischen Colonien in Indien, Dr. Gustav Oppert; also Semitic Studies, (Berlin,1897), pp. 396-419.
Under the heading of "Cochin", the Jewish Encyclopaedia gives an account of the White and Black Jews of Malabar. By way of supplementing the Article, it may be well to refer to a MS., No. 4238 of the Merzbacher Library formerly at Munich. It is a document drawn up in reply to eleven questions addressed by Tobias Boas on the 12 Ellul 5527 (= 1767) to R. Jeches Kel Rachbi of Malabar. From this MS. it appears that 10,000 exiled Jews reached Malabar A. C. 68 (i. e. about the time of the destruction of the Second Temple) and settled at Cranganor, Dschalor, Madri and Plota. An extract of this MS. is given in Winter and Wünsche's Jüdische Literatur, vol III, p. 459. Cf. article on the Beni-Israel of India by Samuel B. Samuel, The Jewish Literary Annual, 1905.
The British Museum text has Ibrig, and the Casanatense has Ibriag: neither can be identified. The printed editions have
the islands of Candig, which Asher thinks may be taken to refer to Ceylon, having regard to the name of the capital, Kandy. It was not the capital in Benjamin's time. The difficulty still remains that it does not take twenty-three days, but about four days, to reach Ceylon from Quilon. Renaudot states that in the tenth century a multitude of Jews resided in the island, and that they took part in the municipal government as well as other sects, as the King granted the utmost religious liberty. See Pinkerton's Travels, vol. VII, p. 217. A full description is also given of the ceremonial when any notability proceeds to immolate himself by committing himself to the flames.
Benjamin's statements as to India and China are of course very vague, but we must remember he was the first European who as much as mentions China. Having regard to the full descriptions of other countries of the old World by Arabic writers of the Middle Ages, and to the fact that the trade route then was principally by sea on the route indicated by Benjamin, it is surprising that we have comparatively little information about India and China from Arabic sources. In none of their records is the Sea of Nikpa named, and it is not improbable that Benjamin coined this name himself from the root