SECTION XXI.
Of Madagascar, Ethiopia, Abyssinia, and several other Countries[1].
[1] This concluding section may be considered as a kind of appendix, in which Marco has placed several unconnected hearsay notices of countries where he never had been personally.--E.
A thousand miles south from Socotora is Magaster[2] or Madagascar, one of the largest and richest islands in the world[3], 3000 miles in circumference, which is inhabited by Saracens, and governed by four old men. The currents of the sea in those parts are of prodigious force. The people live by merchandize, and sell vast quantifies of elephants teeth [4]. Mariners report strange stories of a prodigiously large bird like an eagle, called Ruch, said to be found in this country.
[2] Mandeigascar in the Trevigi edition, and certainly meant for Madagascar.--E.
[3] Madagascar has no pretensions to riches or trade, and never had; so that Marco must have been imposed upon by some Saracen or Arab mariner. Its size, climate, and soil certainly fit it for becoming a place of vast riches and population; but it is one almost continued forest, inhabited by numerous independent and hostile tribes of barbarians. Of this island, a minute account will appear in an after part of this work.--E.
[4] There are no elephants in Madagascar, yet these teeth might have been procured from southern Africa.--E.
Zensibar or Zanguebar, is also said to be of great extent, and inhabited by a very deformed people; and the country abounds in elephants and antelopes, and a species of sheep very unlike to ours.
I have heard from mariners and skilful pilots, much versant in the Indian seas, and have seen in their writings, that these seas contain 12,700 islands, inhabited or desert.
In the Greater India, which is between Moabar or the Coromandel coast on the east, round to Chesmacoran on the north-west, there are thirteen kingdoms. India Minor is from Ziambo to Murfili[5], in which are eight kingdoms and many islands.