[608] MS. 5,650 adds: “also artificially made.” Naga in Sanskrit is the name of a fabulous snake or dragon, and is found in all the cultivated languages throughout the Indian Archipelago. See Crawfurd’s Dictionary, p. 290.
[609] This passage reads as follows in MS. 5,650: “Each circle or enclosure of the wall has a gate. At the first is a porter who holds in his hand a large stout iron club called satu horan. In the second is a dog called satu hain; in the third a man with an iron mace called satu horan with pocun bessin; in the fourth a man with a bow in his hand called satu horan with anach panan; in the fifth a man with a lance called satu horan with satu tumach; in the sixth a lion called satu hurimau; and in the seventh, two white elephants called two gaggia pute.” Mosto has houman for the horiman of our text and the hurimau of MS. 5,650; while Stanley has hurimau. Mosto also prints the word con meaning “with,” as a part of the various Malayan words. The meaning of these words as given by Stanley and corroborated by Mosto are as follows: satu orang, “one man;” anjing, a “dog;” pokoh bisi, “club of iron;” panah, a “bow;” tombak, a “lance;” horiman, a “tiger.”
[610] MS. 5,650 omits the remainder of this sentence; and continuing reads: “If one stops to examine the palace thoroughly, he finds four halls, where the principal men go at times to visit and converse with the king.” Eden (p. 261) says: “In this pallaice are lxxix. haules, in the which is an infinite number of women that ſerue the kynge hauynge euer lyght torches in theyr handes for the greater magnifycence.”
[611] See description of Peking with map showing the palace in Williams, Middle Kingdom, i, pp. 55–66.
[612] Eden (p. 261) reads: “They haue the croſſe in ſum eſtimation, but knowe not the cauſe whye.”
[613] The remainder of this sentence is omitted in MS. 5,650.
[614] “Commaru” in MS. 5,650.
[615] MS. 5,650 reads: “Then it is steeped in the urine of the said cat.”
[616] MS. 5,650 adds instead of the following sentence: “But the real musk comes from the blood abovesaid, and if that be made into little round pellets, it evaporates.”
[617] Mosto (p. 110, note 5) thinks it more probable that this passage refers to the animal Moschus moschiferus, or the musk deer, which is found in the high Himalayas, Tibet, and Eastern Siberia, rather than to the civet cat, which Pigafetta names. Castor is derived from the Sanskrit kasturi, which is used by the Malays and Javanese for the perfume of the civet cat (although they also use native and Arabic names). It is very probable that Pigafetta has confused musk and civet. However, Cosmas says also that the Kasturi produces the musk (see Yule’s Cathay, Hakluyt Society edition, i, p. clxxiv). Friar Jordanus gives a very superficial account of the musk deer and the preparation of musk (Wonders of the East, pp. 47, 48). Early descriptions of preparing musk and prices are given by Varthema (Travels, Hakluyt Society edition, p. 102), Barbosa (East African and Malabar Coasts, Hakluyt Society edition, pp. 186, 187, 222), who mentions the leeches, and Linschoten (Voyage, Hakluyt Society edition, i, p. 149, ii, pp. 94, 95), who also describes civet (ii, pp. 95, 96). Wallace (Malay Archipelago, p. 41) notes that leeches are very abundant and annoying on the peninsula of Malacca.