[160] This is probably a legendary notice of the Andaman islanders, whom Polo represents as “having a head, teeth, and jaws like those of a mastiff dog” (iii. c. 16). And Ibn Batuta, describing the people of “Barahnakár” (under which name he seems to have mixed up the stories of the Andamans which he had heard, with his experience of some port on the main at which he had touched on his way from Bengal to Sumatra), says, “Their men are of the same form with ourselves, except that their mouths are like those of dogs; but the women have mouths like other folks” (Lee’s Trans., p. 198). The stories of the Andaman islanders are as old as Ptolemy, whose Agmatæ (compare Polo’s Angaman) and adjacent islands, they doubtless are. Till Dr. Mouat’s account, just published, we had little more knowledge of them than these 1800-year-old legends gave us, and even now we do not know much, near as they are to Calcutta.
[161] He had probably, during his voyages in the Persian Gulph, touched at some point of the north-east of Arabia, where Wellsted notices the peculiar wildness and low civilization of the people, “of a darker hue than the common race of Arabs;” “the greater number residing in caves and hollows;” “their principal food dates and salt fish, rice being nearly unknown to them;” whilst they testified as much surprise at the sight of looking-glasses, watches, etc., as could have been exhibited by the veriest savage of New Holland. (Wellsted’s Travels in Arabia, i. 241-2.)
[162] “Duplarum.”
[163] As we say in later times, “The Great Mogul”.
[164] See the same statement in Marco Polo, i. 29.
[165] As M. Polo says, with a facetiousness unusual in him, “With regard to the money of Kambalu, the great Khan is a perfect alchymist, for he makes it himself” (i. 26).
[166] From Rubruquis to Père Huc all travellers in Buddhistic Tartary and Thibet have been struck by the extraordinary resemblance of many features of the ecclesiastical system and ritual to those of the Roman Church. Father Grueber, in 1661, speaking of the veneration paid to the Lama, ascribes it to “the manifest deceits of the devil, who has transferred the veneration due to the sole Vicar of Christ to the superstitious worship of barbarous nations, as he has also, in his innate malignity, parodied the other mysteries of the Christian faith.” (In Kircher’s China Illustrata.) Huc and Gabet say, “The crosier, the mitre, the dalmatica, the cope or pluvial (which the Grand Lamas wear in travelling), the double-choired liturgy, the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer ... the benedictions ... the rosary, the ecclesiastical celibate, the spiritual retreats, the worship of saints; fasts, processions, holy water; in all these numerous particulars do the Buddhists coincide with us.” The cardinal’s red hat among the Lamas is a modern fact. (Abridged from a paper by the present writer in Blackwood for March 1852.)
[167] Ibn Batuta describes how at the funeral of the Great Khan four female slaves and six favourite Mamluks were buried alive with him, and four horses were impaled alive upon the tumulus; the same being done in burying his relatives, according to their degree (Lee, p. 220).
[168] This is perhaps the Tartar city of Iymyl, called by the Chinese Yemi-li, built by Okkodai, the son of Chengiz Khan, somewhere to the east of Lake Balkash. (See D’Avezac’s Notice of Travels in Tartary, Recueil de Voyages, iv. p. 516). But the description rather suggests one of the vast cities of China, such as Marco Polo describes Kinsai (Hang-choo-foo).
[169] “Vasa pulcherrima et nobilissima atque virtuosa et porseleta.” Perhaps “full of good qualities, and of fine enamelled surface”?