Ethiopia (Pipalo)

Ethiopia has four cities. The other places are all villages which are constantly at fighting with each other.

The people are heathens and not Muslim, and eat the meat and milk of camels and with baked cakes.

The land produces many camels and sheep and is rich in:

• putchuck
• liquid storax gum
• myrrh
• very thick tortoise shell which is in great demand overseas

Other products are:

• ambergris
• big elephants’ tusks
• big rhinoceros horns

There are elephants’ tusks which’ weigh over 100 catties, and rhinoceros horns of over 10.

The country has the camel-crane (駱駝鶖) which measures from the ground to its crown from 6-7 feet.

• It has wings and can fly, but not to any great height.

There is also a wild animal called tsu-la (祖 螂).

• It resembles a camel in shape, an ox in size, and is of a yellow colour.
• Its fore legs are 5 feet long, its hind legs only 3 feet.
• Its head is high up and 20 turned upwards.
• Its skin is an inch thick.

There is also a kind of mule with brown, white and black stripes around its body.

These animals wander about the mountain wilds.

They are a variety of the camel (駱駝之別種也).

The people are great huntsmen who hunt these animals with poisoned arrows.

26. Yemen (Wupa)

Yemen is on the sea-coast and a land road leads to the Arabs.

The king has a dark brown complexion and wears a turban and a jacket. He is a Muslim and follows the Arab life.

27. Somali (Chungli)

The Somalis go bareheaded and barefooted. They wrap themselves in cotton stuffs.

Only the ministers and king’s courtiers wear jackets.

The king lives in a brick house covered with glazed tiles. The people live in huts made of palm leaves and covered with grass-thatched roofs.

Their eat baked flour cakes, sheep’s and camel’s milk. They have many cattle, sheep and camels.

This is the only Arab country that makes frankincense.

There have many sorcerers who change themselves into birds, beasts, or aquatic animals to terrorize the ignorant people.

If some of them in trading with some foreign ship have a quarrel, the sorcerers pronounce a charm over the ship, so that it can neither go forward nor backward, and they only release the ship when it has settled the dispute.

The government has formally forbidden this practice.

Every year, countless numbers of birds of passage alight in the desert parts of this country.

When the sun rises, they suddenly disappear. The people catch them with nets and eat them. They are remarkably savoury.

They are in season till the end of spring, but as soon as summer comes, they disappear, to come back the next year.

When a Somali dies, and they are about to bury him in his coffin, his kinsfolk from near and far to condole.

Each person has a sword in his hand, goes in and asks the mourners the cause of the person’s death. If he was killed by the hand of man, each one says, we revenge him on the murderer with these swords.

Should the mourners reply that he was not killed by any one, but that he came to his end by the will of Heaven, they throw away their swords and break into violent wailing.

Every year there are driven on the coast a great many dead fish 200 feet long and 20 feet wide.

The people do not eat the flesh of this fish. But they cut out the brains, marrow, and eyes, from which they get as much as 300 tong from a single fish.

They mix this oil:

• with lime to caulk their boats
• for their lamps

The poor people use:

• the ribs to make rafters
• the backbone to make door leaves
• the vertabrae to make mortars

There is a mountain which forms the boundary of Ethiopia (Pipalo). It has 4,000 li around it and is mostly uninhabited.

is procured

From this mountain is obtained:

• dragon’s-blood
• aloes
• tortoise-shells and ambergris from its waters.

It is not known whence ambergris comes. It suddenly appears in lumps from 3-10 catties in weight, driven to the shore by the wind.

The people hurry to divide it up or fish it up by ships.