The Island of Java Minor
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 9. The Island of Java the Less. The Kingdoms of Ferlec and Basma.
When you leave the Island of Pentam and sail about 100 miles, you reach the Island of Java the Less.
It has an area of 2,000 miles or more.
It has 8 kingdoms and 8 crowned kings.
The people are all Idolaters, and every kingdom has a language of its own. The Island hath great abundance of treasure, with costly spices, lign-aloes and spikenard and many others that never come into our parts.{2}
This Island lies so far to the south that the North Star, little or much, is never to be seen!
The kingdom of Ferlec and Basma.
This kingdom is so much frequented by the Saracen merchants that they have converted the native townspeople to Islam.
The hill-people live like beasts, eating human flesh and all other kinds of flesh, clean or unclean.
They worship this, that, and the other thing; for in fact the first thing that they see on rising in the morning, that they do worship for the rest of the day.{3}
When you quit the kingdom of Ferlec you enter upon that of Basma.
This also is an independent kingdom, and the people have a language of their own.
But they are just like beasts without laws or religion.
They call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan, but they pay him no tribute.
They are so far away that his men could not go thither. Still all these Islanders declare themselves to be his subjects, and sometimes they send him curiosities as presents.{4} There are wild elephants in the country, and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big.
They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick.
They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles [and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue].
The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud.
’Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, ’tis altogether different from what we fancied.{5} There are also monkeys here in great numbers and of sundry kinds; and goshawks as black as crows.
These are very large birds and capital for fowling.{6}
When people bring home pygmies which they allege to come from India, ’tis all a lie and a cheat. For those little men, as they call them, are manufactured on this Island, and I will tell you how. You see there is on the Island a kind of monkey which is very small, and has a face just like a man’s.
They take these, and pluck out all the hair except the hair of the beard and on the breast, and then they dry them286 and stuff them and daub them with saffron and other things until they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere in India nor anywhere else in the world were there ever men seen so small as these pretended pygmies.
CHAPTER 10. The Kingdoms of Samara and Dagroian
When you leave the kingdom of Basma you come to another kingdom called Samara, on the same Island.
In that kingdom, Marco Polo was detained for 5 months by the weather.
Here, neither the Pole-star nor the stars of the Maestro were to be seen, much or little.
The people here are wild Idolaters.
They have a king who is great and rich.
But they also call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan.
When Messer Mark was detained on this Island 5 months by contrary winds, [he landed with about 2000 men in his company; they dug large ditches on the landward side to encompass the party, resting at either end on the sea-haven, and within these ditches they made bulwarks or stockades of timber] for fear of those brutes of man-eaters;
[for there is great store of wood there; and the Islanders having confidence in the party supplied them with victuals and other things needful.]
There is a lot of fish, the best in the world.
The people have no wheat, but live on rice. Nor have they any wine except such as I shall now describe.
They derive it from a kind of tree.
When they want wine they cut a branch of this, and attach a great pot to the stem of the tree at the place where the branch was cut; in a day and a night they will find the pot filled.
This wine is excellent drink, and is got both white and red.
[It is of such surpassing virtue that it cures dropsy and tisick and spleen.] The trees resemble small date-palms; … 293and when cutting a branch no longer gives a flow of wine, they water the root of the tree, and before long the branches again begin to give out wine as before.
They have also a lot of Indian nuts as big as a man’s head, which are good to eat when fresh [being sweet and savoury, and white as milk.
The inside of the meat of the nut is filled with a liquor like clear fresh water, but better to the taste, and more delicate than wine or any other drink that ever existed.
The Dagroian Kingdom.
When you leave the kingdom of Samara you come to another which is called Dagroian.
It is an independent kingdom with its own language.
The people are very wild, but they call themselves the subjects of the Great Kaan.
When one of them is ill they send for their sorcerers and ask them if the sick man shall recover or not.
If they say that he will recover, then they let him alone till he gets better.
But if the sorcerers foretell that the sick man is to die, the friends send for certain judges of theirs to put to death him who has thus been condemned by the sorcerers to die.
These men come, and lay so many clothes upon the sick man’s mouth that they suffocate him.
When he is dead they have him cooked, and gather together all the dead man’s kin, and eat him.
They suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them.
They say that if any nourishment remained in the bones this would breed worms.
Those worms would then die for lack of food.
The death of those worms would be laid to the charge of the deceased man’s soul.
And so they eat him up stump and rump.
When they have thus eaten him they collect his bones and put them in fine chests, and carry them away, and place them in caverns among the mountains where no beast nor other creature can get at them.
If they take prisoner a man of another country, and he cannot pay a ransom in coin, they kill him and eat him straightway.
It is a very evil custom and a parlous.
CHAPTER 11. The Kingdoms of Lambri and Fansur.
When you leave that kingdom you come to another which is called Lambri.
Its people are Idolaters, and are subjects of the Great Kaan.
They have plenty of Camphor and of all sorts of other spices.
They also have brazil in great quantities.
This they sow, and when it is grown to the size of a small shoot they take it up and transplant it. Then they let it grow for three years, after which they tear it up by the root.
Marco Polo brought some seed of the brazil, such as they sow, to Venice with him, and had it sown there. But it never grew.
I think it was because the climate was too cold.
In Lambri, there are men with tails.
These tails are of a palm in length, and have no hair on them.
These people live in the mountains and are a kind of wild men.
Their tails are about the thickness of a dog’s.
There are also plenty of unicorns in that country, and abundance of game in birds and beasts.
Another kingdom is called Fansur.
The people are Idolaters, and also call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan.
They are still on the same Island that I have been telling you of.
In this kingdom of Fansur grows the best Camphor in the world called Canfora Fansuri.
It is so fine that it sells for its weight in fine gold.{3}
The people have no wheat, but have rice which they eat with milk and flesh.
They also have wine from trees such as I told you of. And I will tell you another great marvel.
They have a kind of trees that produce flour, and excellent flour it is for food.
These trees are very tall and thick, but have a very thin bark. Inside the bark, they are crammed with flour.
Marco Polo witnessed all this. He related how he and his party did sundry times partake of this flour made into bread, and found it excellent.
Out of those 8 kingdoms we have told you about six that lie at this side of the Island.
I shall tell you nothing about the other 2 kingdoms on the other side of the Island because Marco Polo never was there.
Howbeit we have told you about the greater part of this Island of the Lesser Java.
We now go to a very small Island called Gauenispola.