HKB
account of Java (which I fear is fiction) ascribes it to some people of that island. Richard Eden tells it of the Laplanders. (Notes on Russia, Hak. Soc. II. 224.)
NOTE 4.—Basma, as Valentyn indicated, seems to be the PASEI of the Malays, which the Arabs probably called Basam or the like, for the Portuguese wrote it PACEM. [Mr. J. T. Thomson writes (Proc. R. G. S. XX. p. 221) that of its actual position there can be no doubt, it being the Passier of modern charts.—H. C.] Pasei is mentioned in the Malay Chronicle as founded by Malik al-Ṣálih, the first Mussulman sovereign of Samudra, the next of Marco’s kingdoms. He assigned one of these states to each of his two sons, Malik al-Dháhir and Malik al-Mansúr; the former of whom was reigning at Samudra, and apparently over the whole coast, when Ibn Batuta was there (about 1346–47). There is also a Malay History of the Kings of Pasei to which reference has already been made.
Somewhat later Pasei was a great and famous city. Majapahit, Malacca, and Pasei being reckoned the three great cities of the Archipelago. The stimulus of conversion to Islam had not taken effect on those Sumatran states at the time of Polo’s voyage, but it did so soon afterwards, and, low as they have now fallen, their power at one time was no delusion. Achin, which rose to be the chief of them, in 1615 could send against Portuguese Malacca an expedition of more than 500 sail, 100 of which were galleys larger than any then constructed in Europe, and carried from 600 to 800 men each.
[Dr. Schlegel writes to me that according to the Malay Dictionary of Von de Wall and Van der Tuuk, ii. 414–415, Polo’s Basman is the Arab pronunciation of Pasĕman, the modern Ophir in West Sumatra; Gūnung Pasĕman is Mount Ophir.—H. C.]
[Illustration: The three Asiatic Rhinoceroses; (upper) Indicus, (middle) Sondaicus, (lower) Sumatranus.[2]]
NOTE 5.—The elephant seems to abound in the forest-tracts throughout the whole length of Sumatra, and the species is now determined to be a distinct one (E. Sumatranus) from that of continental India and identical with that of Ceylon.[3] The Sumatran elephant in former days was caught and tamed extensively. Ibn Batuta speaks of 100 elephants in the train of Al Dháhir, the King of Sumatra Proper, and in the 17th century Beaulieu says the King of Achin had always 900. Giov. d’Empoli also mentions them at Pedir in the beginning of the 16th century; and see Pasei Chronicle* quoted in *J. As. sér. IV. tom. ix. pp. 258–259. This speaks of elephants as used in war by the people of Pasei, and of elephant-hunts as a royal diversion. The locus of that best of elephant stories, the elephant’s revenge on the tailor, was at Achin.
As Polo’s account of the rhinoceros is evidently from nature, it is notable that he should not only call it unicorn, but speak so precisely of its one horn, for the characteristic, if not the only, species on the island, is a two-horned one (Rh. Sumatranus),[4] and his mention of the buffalo-like hair applies only to this one. This species exists also on the Indo-Chinese continent and, it is believed, in Borneo. I have seen it in the Arakan forests as high as 19° 20′; one was taken not long since near Chittagong; and Mr. Blyth tells me a stray one has been seen in Assam or its borders.
[Ibn Khordâdhbeh says (De Goeje’s Transl. p. 47) that rhinoceros is to be found in Kâmeroun (Assam), which borders on China. It has a horn, a cubit long, and two palms thick; when the horn is split, inside is found on the black ground the white figure of a man, a quadruped, a fish, a peacock or some other bird.—H. C.]
[John Evelyn mentions among the curiosities kept in the Treasury at St. Denis: “A faire unicorne’s horn, sent by a K. of Persia, about 7 foote long.” Diary, 1643, 12th Nov.—H. C.]