The Kingdom of Kesmacoran

CHAPTER 30. The Kingdom of Kesmacoran

Kesmacoran is a kingdom having a king of its own and a peculiar language. [Some of] the people are Idolaters, [but the most part are Saracens].

They live by merchandize and industry, for they are professed traders, and carry on much traffic by sea and land in all directions. Their food is rice [and corn], flesh and milk, of which they have great store. There is no more to be said about them.{1}

Kesmacoran is the last in India as you go towards the west and north-west.

From Maabar on, this province is what is called the Greater India, and it is the best of all the Indies.

I have now detailed to you all the kingdoms and provinces and (chief) cities of this India the Greater, that are upon the seaboard; but of those that lie in the interior I have said nothing, because that would make too long a story.{2}

I will tell you of some of the Indian Islands, beginning with 2 Islands called Male and Female.

CHAPTER 31. Why the Two Islands are called Male and Female

When you leave this kingdom of Kesmacoran on the mainland, you go by sea some 500 miles towards the south you find 2 Islands, Male and Female, lying about 30 miles distant from one another.

The people are all baptized Christians, but maintain the ordinances of the Old Testament.

Thus when their wives are with child they never go near them till their confinement, or for forty days thereafter.

In the Island however which is called Male, dwell the men alone, without their wives or any other women.

Every year when the month of March arrives the men all set out for the other Island, and tarry there for three months, to wit, March, April, May, dwelling with their wives for that space.

At the end of those three months they return to their own Island, and pursue their husbandry and trade for the other nine months.

They find on this Island very fine ambergris.

They live on flesh and milk and rice. They are capital fishermen, and catch a great quantity of fine large sea-fish, and these they dry, so that all the year they have plenty of food, and also enough to sell to the traders who go thither.

They have no chief except a bishop, who is subject to the archbishop of another Island, of which we shall presently speak, called Scotra. They have also a peculiar language.

As for the children which their wives bear to them, if they be girls they abide with their mothers; but if they be boys the mothers bring them up till they are fourteen, and then send them to the fathers. Such is the custom of405 these two Islands. The wives do nothing but nurse their children and gather such fruits as their Island produces; for their husbands do furnish them with all necessaries.{1}

CHAPTER 32. The Island of Scotra

When you leave those 2 Islands and go about 500 miles further towards the south, then you come to an Island called Scotra.

The people are all baptized Christians. They have an Archbishop.

They have a great deal of ambergris and plenty also of cotton stuffs and other merchandize; especially great quantities of salt fish of a large and excellent kind.

They also eat flesh and milk and rice, for that is their only kind of corn; and they all go naked like the other Indians.

The ambergris comes from the stomach of the whale. It is a great object of trade and so the people contrive to take the whales with barbed iron darts, which, once they are fixed in the body, cannot come out again.

A long cord is attached to this end, to that a small buoy which floats on the surface, so that when the whale dies they know where to find it. They then draw the body ashore and extract the ambergris from the stomach and the oil from the head.

There is a lot of trade there.

Many ships come from all quarters with goods to sell to the natives.

The merchants also purchase gold there, by which they make a great profit; and all the vessels bound for Aden touch at this Island.

Their Archbishop has nothing to do with the Pope of Rome, but is subject to the great Archbishop who lives at Baudas. He rules over the Bishop of that Island, and over many other Bishops in those regions of the world, just as our Pope does in these.{2}

A multitude of corsairs frequent the Island; they come there and encamp and put up their plunder to sale; and this they do to good profit, for the Christians of the Island purchase it, knowing well that it is Saracen or Pagan gear.{3}

This Island has the best enchanters in the world.

Their Archbishop forbids the practice to the best of his ability.

But ’tis all to no purpose, for they insist that their forefathers followed it, and so must they also. I will give you a sample of their enchantments.

Thus, if a ship be sailing past with a fair wind and a strong, they will raise a contrary wind and compel her to turn back.

In fact they make the wind blow as they list, and produce great tempests and disasters; and other such sorceries they perform, which it will be better to say nothing about in our Book.{4}

CHAPTER 33. The Island of Madeigascar

Madeigascar is an Island towards the south, about a thousand miles from Scotra.

The people are all Saracens, adoring Mahommet.

They have 4 Esheks, i.e. four Elders, who govern the whole Island.

It is a most noble and beautiful Island, and one of the largest in the world at about 4000 miles in compass.

The people live by trade and handicrafts.

In this Island, and in another beyond it called Zanghibar, there are more elephants than in any country in the world.

The amount of traffic in elephants’ teeth in these two Islands is something astonishing.

In this Island they eat no flesh but that of camels. Of these they kill an incredible number daily. They say it is the best and wholesomest of all flesh; and so they eat of it all the year round.{1}

They have in this Island many trees of red sanders, of excellent quality; in fact, all their forests consist of it.

They have also a quantity of ambergris, for whales are abundant in that sea, and they catch numbers of them; and so are Oil-heads, which are a huge kind of fish, which also produce ambergris like the whale.

There are numbers of leopards, bears, and lions in the country, and other wild beasts in abundance.

Many traders, and many ships go thither with cloths of gold and silk, and many other kinds of goods, and drive a profitable trade.

In this Island lies so far south that ships cannot go further south or visit other Islands in 412that direction, except this one, and that other of which we have to tell you, called Zanghibar.

This is because the sea-current runs so strong towards the south that the ships which should attempt it never would get back again.

The ships of Maabar which visit this Island of Madeigascar, and that other of Zanghibar, arrive thither with marvellous speed, for great as the distance is they accomplish it in 20 days, whilst the return voyage takes them more than 3 months.

This is because of the strong current running south, which continues with such singular force and in the same direction at all seasons.{4}

’Tis said that in those other Islands to the south, which the ships are unable to visit because this strong current prevents their return, is found the bird Gryphon, which appears there at certain seasons. The description given of it is however entirely different from what our stories and pictures make it.

For persons who had been there and had seen it told Messer Marco Polo that it was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its wings covered an extent of 30 paces, and its quills were 12 paces long, and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air, and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him the bird gryphon swoops down on him and eats him at leisure. The people of those isles call the bird Ruc, and it has no other name.{5} So I wot not if this be the real gryphon, or if there be another manner of bird as great. But this I can tell you for certain, that they are not half lion and half bird as our stories do relate; but enormous as they be they are fashioned just like an eagle.

The Great Kaan sent to those parts to enquire about these curious matters.

The story was told by those413 who went thither. He also sent to procure the release of an envoy of his who had been despatched thither, and had been detained; so both those envoys had many wonderful things to tell the Great Kaan about those strange islands, and about the birds I have mentioned.

They brought (as I heard) to the Great Kaan a feather of the said Ruc, which was stated to measure 90 spans, whilst the quill part was two palms in circumference, a marvellous object! The Great Kaan was delighted with it, and gave great presents to those who brought it.

They also brought two boars’ tusks, which weighed more than 14 lbs. a-piece; and you may gather how big the boar must have been that had teeth like that!

They related indeed that there were some of those boars as big as a great buffalo. There are also numbers of giraffes and wild asses; and in fact a marvellous number of wild beasts of strange aspect.{7}