Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c20.s2.69

v2.c20.s2.69

Chau Ju-kua also gives some account of the trade activities in Java (Sho-po) which agrees with that in the History of the Sung dynasty.² Java was a rich agricultural country and produced rice, hemp, millet, sugarcane, beans, but no wheat. It had also gold, silver, elephant's tusks, rhinoceros-horns, pearls, camphor, tortoise-shell, aloes, sandalwood, aniseed, cloves, cardamoms, cubebs, laka wood, mats, foreign sword-blades, pepper, betel-nuts, sulphur, saffron, sapanwood and parrots. The people make salt by boiling sea-water. They also paid attention to the raising of silkworms and the weaving of silk; they had various coloured brocaded silks, cotton, and damasked cotton gauzes (or damasks and cotton cloth). The foreign merchants gave, in exchange for these goods, gold and silver of various degrees of fineness, vessels made of gold and silver, silk stuffs, black damasks, orrisroot, cinnabar, copperas, alum, borax, arsenic, lacquer ware, iron tripods, and green and white porcelain ware.