CHAPTER VIII.

FARTHER INDIA, MALAYSIA AND THE BANDA ISLANDS.

Alas! the visit was of little profit. As in Ibn Batûta’s time, nearly two centuries before, the island was divided between four kings, and “for that they were waging fierce war with each other, we could not tarry long time there.” Another reason for the short stay made in Ceylon was that Cazazionor got alarmed at false information concerning the good faith of one of the Kings to whom he was to carry his corals and saffron. This was given him by one of the Moorish traders who were settled in the ports of the island. This gentleman had the same kind of goods to dispose of as Cazazionor, and contrived to hoodwink the Persian with a commercial astuteness and subtlety worthy of a later age. Afraid that one of the kings would contrive to “convey” his merchandise he departed in haste, and Varthema with him.

The latter made marvellous use of eye and ear during his few days’ stay in Ceylon. He draws an admirable picture of the people, the climate, the cinnamon, the rich fruits and other vegetable produce, the roses and other flowers, the immense herds of elephants and the big rubies of the island. He was told of the impression of Adam’s foot on a high peak, but had no time to visit it, even had the fighting then going on allowed of it. It shows how feeble was the authority of an Indian overlord, and how little supreme sovereignty was concerned with matters other than tribute, that the warring Râjas were the subjects of the Râja of Narsinga, “because of rice, which is brought from the mainland.” “Some have lances of cane and swords, and they fight together with these; but they do not slaughter each other over much; for they are cowards.”

Three days rowing brought them to Pulicat, a town a little north of Madras. They abode with a Moorish trader, who eagerly bought the large store of corals, saffron, figured velvet and knives Cazazionor had with him. “As this land was waging fierce war with the King of Tarnassari, we were not able to stay very long. After a few days we set sail for the city of Tarnassari, which is at a thousand miles distance from here. And we arrived there in fourteen days.” In fact, they sailed across the Bay of Bengal to Tenasserim, a fertile province of the Malay Peninsula, at that time tributary to Siam. We find that the Râja “is a most powerful lord and is for ever at war with the King of Narsinga and the King of Bengal. He has an hundred elephants in armour, which are the largest I have ever seen. He keeps an army of 100,000 men, part on foot, part on horse, ready for war. They are armed with small swords and shields, some of which are made of the shell of the tortoise and some are like those used in Calicut; and they have store of bows and of lances, some of which are of cane and some of wood. When they go to war they wear a garment much stuffed with cotton.... Much silk is made there.” As usual, the domesticated and wild animals are described. Varthema was much surprised at the size of the cocks and hens. “In this land we took great pleasure from some of the things which we saw, and, in particular, at the Moorish traders making some cocks fight every day in the streets where they dwell; and the owners will wage even to a hundred ducats as to which will prove to fight best. And we saw two which fought five hours on end, so that, when it was over, both of them lay dead.”

Tenasserim retained traces of phallic worship to an even greater degree than Calicut did. The extreme mark of friendship, so far as the _jus primae noctis_ was concerned, was extended to every visitor, preference being given to white men from all lands; “for,” says Varthema of the natives, “they are a most liberal and agreeable people.” Yet, this obligation fulfilled, the husbands were most jealous of their wives, and whosoever should attempt to maintain relations with them would “put his life in jeopardy.”

At dead of night, the corpses “of every Brâhman and of the king are burned, with solemn sacrifice to the devil. And they keep the ashes in vessels of earth, baked into a kind of glass, with narrow mouths. Such a vessel, with the ashes therein, is buried within the house. The sacrifice is made under trees, as at Calicut. And the fire is fed with all the perfumes that can be gotten ... together with coral. And while the body is burning, all the music in the city is sounded; and fifteen or twenty men, who are dressed as devils, stand there, with much rejoicing. And the wife is there, making very great lamentation; but no other woman.” Here Varthema saw the horrible practice of Suttee. He tells us of another custom which strangely recalls the Romantic Service of Love in the days of Provençal minstrelsy. A passionate youth will burn his naked arm severely to prove to his mistress “that he loves her and that he is ready to do any great deed for her.”

“As to the manner of refection in this city, the Pagans eat all flesh, saving that of the ox, and eat on the ground from very beautiful vessels of wood, without a coverlet. They drink water, sweetened if it may be. They sleep on high beds of good cotton, with coverlets of silk or cotton. They wear a robe, with a quilt of cotton or silk.... Their ears are full of jewels; but of these the fingers are bare.”

We find that the son of the King succeeded to his father’s throne here; and not the sister’s son, as in Southern India. Deeds conveying property were written on paper instead of palm leaves. The bodies of Moorish traders who were unhappy enough to die here were first embalmed, and then buried, with the head turned towards Mecca. We are told of the flat-bottomed boat, the double canoe, and the junk; the latter carried small boats to Malacca, where they were unshipped and sailed on to the Spice Islands.

Cazazionor was able to dispose of some of his goods at Tenasserim; and then he and Varthema took ship for Bengal. Eleven days of fair wind bore them across the Bay of Bengal to a city which the ever whirling wheel of change has borne away, and the very site of which is indicated only on some ancient and imperfect map. Banghella was one of the first ports and one of the first cities of the age, situate on one of the mouths of the treacherous Ganges—a river of shifting currents and disappearing shores. Its Sultan was a Mohammedan, for ever at war with the Hindu Râja of Narsinga. “Here,” says our traveller, “are the richest traders I have ever met with. Every year, fifty ships are laden with stuffs of cotton or silk ... and these goods go throughout Turkey, Syria, Persia, Arabia Felix, Ethiopia, and India. Here also are many merchants of jewels from other lands.... The stuffs aforesaid are woven, not by women, but by men.” Like Ibn Batûta, he found Bengal the cheapest place to live in of the whole world.

The records of old pilgrims and travellers are a riot of surprise. Not one of the least unsuspected of Varthema’s adventures is his dropping here on Christian traders, who came from a Chinese city, which probably lay north of Pekin. “They had brought silken stuffs, aloes-wood, benzoin, and musk; and said that in their land were many Christian lords, subject to the great Khân of Cathay”—that is to say, to the Emperor of China. The reader will remember that the Chinese Government pronounced Christianity to be a satisfactory faith in Hiuen-Tsiang’s time. Fra Oderico tells us of the considerable number of Christians in China during the early years of the Fourteenth Century. Probably the Christian Chinese whom Varthema came across were Nestorians; strange products of the wasted subtlety of the Greek mind during its theological degeneracy; followers of the heretic Nestorius, who upheld that two natures, the human and divine, were in Christ’s body, but separate from one another. We may hope that, after so many centuries, such problems had ceased to perplex the good Christians of far-off Cathay. They said that their home was at Sarnau, a place probably identical with the Sanay or Sandoy of Fra Oderico. They wore their native silken breeches and red-cloth caps studded with jewels—a proof of the safety of the city-street and of the highways from land to land under Eastern despotism.

Men are not wont to carry the bitterness of religious prejudice into the market, where mundane profit is at stake; and Cazazionor, the Moslem; Varthema, the Catholic renegade; and the Nestorian heretics seem to have hobnobbed together very amicably. The latter were on their way to Burma, and told Cazazionor that there he might exchange some very fine branches of coral he had for rubies which would sell in Turkey for ten times as much. They proposed that our travellers should go on with them. So Cazazionor sold off all his merchandise, with the exception of “corals, saffron, and two pieces of cloth of Florence of a rose colour.... We departed from that place with the aforesaid Christians, and voyaged towards a city which is called Pego (Pegu), distant from Banghella some thousand miles.”

Now the King of Burma, being at war with the King of Ava, was away with his army. The party chartered a long dug-out canoe, and followed him; hoping to induce him to purchase. But they were forced to return, owing to the war; and five days afterwards the King of Burma, having gained a victory, returned to Pegu.

The very next day, the Chinamen, who, it would seem, had had previous dealings with the King, visited him, and were told to return two days later, “for that, the next day, he must sacrifice to the devil for having triumphed. When the time named had passed, directly the King had eaten, he sent for the aforenamed Christians and for my companion to bring the merchandise before him.” They found the Râja magnificently set in jewels: his head, limbs, fingers, and even all his toes sparkled with precious stones; jewelled ear-rings dragged down the lobes of his ears to the length of half a palm, and the rubies on him “were more than the value of a very great city.... At night-time he shone like the sun.” Yet this resplendent monarch was “so entirely human and homely that a child might speak to him.”

Then Cazazionor and other merchants who would seem to have become his partners in this business of the corals, uncovered them. The monarch was so unbusinesslike, or allowed himself to behave so indiscretely, as to show enthusiasm at the sight of such magnificent coral-branches; “and truly there were two of these the like of which had never come to India before.” Now begins an Oriental comedy, wherein the trader shall simulate munificence, and extract tenfold from the monarch by craftily working on his natural generosity or regal pride.

The King asked if the corals were for sale. The reply was that they were at his service. The King sighed that war had emptied his treasury; but he was willing to barter rubies for the corals. “We made him learn through these Christians that all we desired was his friendship: let him take the goods and do as pleased him. He answered: ‘I know that Persians are a free-handed people; yet did I never see one so free-handed as this man’; and he swore by God and the Devil that he would see which should excel in generosity, he or a Persian.” So he ordered a casket of rubies to be brought in, and commanded Cazazionor to choose those he would like to have. “My companion answered: ‘O sire, you show me so much benevolence that, by my faith in Mohammed, all these things are a present, which I offer you. And understand, sire, that I journey about the world not to gather merchandise, but merely to see the different races of men and their ways.’ The King replied: ‘I cannot overcome you in generosity, but take this which I give you.’ And so he took a large handful of rubies from each of the (six) divisions of the casket aforesaid, and gave them, saying, ‘Take these for the generosity which you have shown towards me.’ And in like manner, he gave two rubies each to the Christians aforesaid ... which were worth about 1,000 ducats; and those of my companion were given a value of 100,000 ducats.” The Chinamen were apparently content with a commission of one per cent., for nothing is said of the vendor paying any. “Wherefore,” Varthema continues, “by this, the King may be judged to be the most free-handed ruler in the world; and his income is of about a million a year in gold,” derived from lac, cotton, silk, and valuable woods; and this he spent on his army.

The King gave the travellers free quarters which they occupied five days; when there came news that war had again broken out with Ava. So, having seen the burning of two widows, and other sights of Pegu, and found the Burmese “very fleshly,” the Chinamen, Cazazionor and Varthema embarked for Malacca.

It is possible that Varthema was not the very first European to visit the city which had become the most important port in Eastern waters; but it is certain that he was the very first European to describe it. It had taken the place of Calicut; it was nearer the sources of supply; the enterprising Arab had settled there and ruled the city, subject to the payment of a tribute to the King of Siam; and the recent descent of the Portuguese on the coast of Malabar had increased its importance. Here were to be found the huge, unwieldy junks of China—those floating towns, with gardens blossoming on their decks—for there was no longer need for them to creep through the straits and take the perils of the Indian Ocean; and the most halcyon of summer seas is never to be quite trusted. Malacca was a cheaper market than Calicut; and hither were sent the drugs, dyes, perfumes, and spices, the precious woods and other productions of China, Banda, the Phillipines, Siam, the Moluccas, Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. “Verily,” writes Varthema, “I believe that more ships sail hither than to any other port in the world.” He remarks on the infertility of the soil; but speaks of the wealth of Malacca in sandal-wood and tin. The travellers were presented to the Moorish Sultan, who had appointed a Governor to do justice; but the inhabitants at that time were Javanese. “They take the law into their own hands; and are the vilest race ever created on earth. When the Sultan shall hinder, they say that they will no longer dwell on land, for that they are sea-farers”—that is to say they were quite able and ready to make a new settlement. “One may not go about here when it grows dark; for folk are killed as if they were so many dogs; and all the traders who come here sleep in their ships.” There was no market for jewels here; and the Chinamen, who still acted as guides to our travellers, advised them to be off. So a junk was hired, and the whole party turned back through the Straits for Pider, on the northern coast of Sumatra.

We are told that the natives of Sumatra were far from being a bellicose race. They were eager traders, very friendly to foreigners, excellent swimmers, and skilful in filigree work. “There were three crowned Pagan Kings; and their religion, way of life, dress, and habits are the same as at Tenasserim; moreover, the wives also are burned alive.” The houses were roofed with the shells of gigantic sea-turtles; and the ships were three-masted, with a prow fore and aft. Here were huge herds of elephants, finer than any he had seen; and the land was productive of long-pepper, benzoin, different kinds of perfumed wood and the silk-worm.

The Chinamen now became anxious to return to their own country; but Cazazionor wanted to see the land of nutmeg and clove: could they get there in safety? The Christians replied that they need fear no robbers; but there remained the chances of the sea; the island could not be reached in a large ship; a sampan must be bought. Two sampans were purchased, manned, and provisioned; and then the wily Persian who wished to keep the Christians as guides, began to work on them. “‘O dearest friends,’ said he, ‘although we be not of your race, we are all sons of Adam. Will you leave me and this other man, my companion, one who was born in your faith?’ ‘In our faith? Is not your companion a Persian?’ ‘He is a Persian now, because he was bought at Jerusalem.’” Whether this statement was a convenient lie, told by Varthema to Cazazionor, or was the calculated fabrication of the latter is not apparent; but it was effective; for “the Christians, hearing the name of Jerusalem, at once lifted up their hands towards Heaven; and kissed the ground thrice, and asked when I was sold at Jerusalem. We answered: ‘When I was fifteen years old.’” The Chinamen thought that Varthema must remember his native land, and Cazazionor at once saw his opportunity and used it. Quoth he: “‘He does indeed remember it. For months my sole delight has been in listening to the things he told me thereof; and he has taught me the words for the parts of the body and for different sorts of food.’” This settled the matter. The Christians consented to go on with them; and if Varthema would return to China with them, he might remain a Mohommedan, and they would make a rich man of him. “‘Nay,’ said Cazazionor, ‘I am much pleased to have your company; but he may not remain with you: for, out of the love I bear to him, I have given my niece to be his wife.’” A money-bargain settled the question; in two days, the Sampan was ready. “We put many kinds of food on board; and, in particular, the most toothsome fruits I ever tasted; and took our course to the island of Banda.”

Not even Marco Polo or Fra Oderico had ventured so far towards the rising sun. Varthema was the very first of European travellers to reach the Spice Islands. One of those who “cannot rest from travel, but must drink life to the lees,” he might, had he been a better lettered man, have quoted the lines of his own great countryman:

“Ma misi me per l’alto mare aperto Sol con un legno e con quella compagna Picciola dalla qual non fui deserto.”

(“I put forth on the deep open sea, in but a single ship, and with that little band that had not deserted me.”) But if Varthema is no scholar, is he not for ever revealing himself as a single-minded, enthusiastic traveller; an excellent actor, and quite able to live up to his part, a man of sound judgment, native wit, sly humour, and pronouncedly brave; direct and unflinching of purpose; a little vainglorious, yet discrete?

The comrades traversed the landlocked straits of Malacca and the Java and Banda seas, and after fifteen days found themselves on an ugly, gloomy, and flat island, where dwelt “a beastly kind of men, without king or even governor.... The administration of justice is not needed; for the natives are so stupid that they could not do evil if they would. They are pagans.” Such was this specimen of the Nutmeg Islands. Two day spent here was more than enough for our travellers; so they set sail for the Moluccas—the Clove Islands—and found “the people even viler than those of Banda, but whiter; and the air is a little cooler.” We have a full description of the clove tree and are told that cloves were sold by measure, “for they understood not weights. We were now wishful to change to another land, in order to learn new things and all about them.” So Borneo was steered for; and, on the voyage, the Chinamen took delight in questioning Varthema concerning Christians and their faith. “And when I told them of the impress of our Saviour’s face, which is in St. Peter’s, and of the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul and many other saints, they advised me in secret that if I would go with them, I should be a very great lord, because I had seen these things. But I doubted if, after I had been led thither I should ever come to my own land again; and therefore I kept me back from going.” Varthema does not think of his indebtedness to his generous Persian host; he has no use for the inconvenient fidelities of friendship or the costly coercion of gratitude; such altruistic weakness did not afflict the men of the Renaissance; “ma per sè foro”—“they were for themselves.”

The temptation to visit China must have been strong for a man of Varthema’s spirit. A few missionary friars had reached Mongolia in the thirteenth century, a very few bold spirits had penetrated Asia as far as China at the end of that and the beginning of the next century; and Tartars kept up some commercial intercourse between Europe and China a little later. But when the great Tartar Empire fell into decay, and the Moslem recovered his grip of Central Asia, intercourse between West and Farthest East became impossible. The few missionaries who set forth for the Celestial Empire never returned, and China became a shadow and a name to Christian Europe. But it would be no easy matter for Varthema to slip away from the Persian just here and now; the difficulty of ever returning from China, even should he reach it, would indeed prove a formidable problem; and we may suspect, too, that the hardships of the voyage and the heat and discomforts of the climate were beginning to tell on Varthema’s iron nerve.

He found the natives of Borneo to be “Pagans, and good folk.... Every year much camphor is shipped; which they say is the gum of a tree that grows there. I have not seen it; and therefore I do not affirm it to be so. Here my companion hired a ship.... We directed our course to the very beautiful island called Java; and came there, always sailing southward, in five days.” On the voyage, the skipper pointed out the Southern Cross; and “told us that, to the south, beyond the island aforesaid (Java) dwell sundry other sorts of men, who steer by these stars which are set over against ours; and, further, they made known to us that the daylight stays but four hours in those parts, and that it is colder there than elsewhere in the world. Whereat we were much solaced and gratified.”

Now, there is no inhabited land to the south of Java where the shortest day is of four hours only; but the assertion of the Malay captain reads as if he had visited Australia, or had gotten some true information concerning that continent; and bold navigators of Malaysia _may_ have ventured or been driven much farther over the Southern Ocean to a very high latitude; or, the statement as to shortened hours of sunlight and cold _may_ have been a mere inference from the progressive diminution of the day and of heat in sailing south. It is said that indications of the discovery of Australia a very little after Varthema’s time are to be found on manuscript maps of unknown authorship. It is interesting to find that the skipper steered by means of a compass, which was not of Chinese make, for the magnet pointed to the north; and that he was provided with a chart intersected by perpendicular and horizontal lines.

Java was under the rule of several kings: “some adore idols as at Calicut; some worship the sun; others, the moon; many, an ox; very many, the first thing they shall meet of a morning; yet others, the devil.” Nonetheless, “I believe the natives to be the most true dealers in the world.... Some use pipes, from which they blow poisoned arrows from the mouth; which bear death however little blood they may draw.... Some eat bread made of corn; and some eat flesh of sheep or deer or wild pigs; and some eat fish and fruits. Among the flesh-eaters, when their fathers become so old as to be past labour, their children or relatives put them up for sale in the market-place; and those that buy them kill and eat them cooked. Likewise if any young man shall fall into any dire sickness; and if those that have knowledge deem that he shall die thereof, the father or brother of the sick one shall slay him; and they do not wait for him to die. And, having killed him, they sell him to be eaten of others. We, marvelling at such a business, some traders of this land, to us: ‘O you dull Persians, why do you leave such toothsome flesh to the worms?’ Whereupon, my companion cried out ‘Quick, quick, to the ship; for never again shall these folk come near me on land.’” This is a strange statement; but there is abundant evidence as to the prevalence of cannibalism throughout Malaysia at this period to confirm it. Yet, says Varthema, “justice was well administered”; the natives clothed themselves in silk, camelot and cotton garments; and traded with the gold and copper which their island furnished abundantly, as well as the finest emeralds in the world. They were a maritime people and fought their battles at sea.

Varthema had lost count of time. It was now the month of June. He was south of the equator, and had crossed the ecliptic; and, directed by the Chinamen, he found the sun casting a shadow in a direction the reverse of that of northern latitudes. “And thereby we learned how far we had come from our country, and stood amazed.... Having seen the manners of the island, we saw no great reason for remaining there; for we had to keep watch all night, lest some scoundrel should steal up to us, and bear us away, and eat us. Wherefore, having called the Christians, we told them that, as soon as they were ready, we would return to our land. Before we set off, however, my comrade bought two emeralds ... and two little male children with their private parts wholly cut away; for in this island there is a sort of merchants who follow no other calling than that of buying little children, from whom they cut all away, so that they are left as if women.”

It is obvious that different communities, at varying stages of civilization, inhabited Java; from “the truest dealers in the world,” and those who administered justice well, down to bestial savages. Tales, and perhaps evidence, of the cruel brutality of the Aborigines, affected the imagination of Cazazionor and Varthema strongly; they were not sure that the cannibals, finding themselves in the close neighbourhood of “Persians,” and therefore quite unusual visitors to Java, might not be tempted to try the flavour of a novelty; their Chinese guides, moreover, had taken them to most of the parts of Malaysia with which they were acquainted; the softening effect of an equatorial climate relaxed their desire to push on into that cold and gloomy region to the south, of which the Malay skipper had told them; and it would seem that, out of commercial jealousy or from rude humour, “merchants of the country” took a pleasure or sought a profit in playing upon their fears. So they hired a junk, and sailed boldly over the more open water, along the south-east coast of Sumatra, rounded the northern extremity of that great island, and saw Malacca again on the fifteenth day of voyage.

Here they stayed three days, while Cazazionor made up a cargo of spice, perfumes and silk; and here “our Christian companions stayed on. It were not possible to make a short history of how they wailed and lamented; so that, verily, had I not had a wife and children, I had gone with them” (this is the first and last time that Varthema mentions the relatively unimportant fact of his being a yoke-mate and father off the chain). “And likewise, they said they would have come with us, had they known how to travel safely.... So they stayed behind, saying that they would return to Sarnau; and we went on in our ship to Ciromandel” (Negropotam). Probably the Chinese would take passage in some junk of the fleet which came to Malacca every year.