Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c12.23

c12.23

The inhabitants of Burma-Siam are described as being "fair, shaggy, squat-figured and flat-nosed,"—a very good description on the whole. It is clear, from the frequent mention of marts, river-mouths and the like, that Ptolemy gets his information from traders who have been up and down the coast. Even more interesting is the evidence that these traders penetrated beyond the Sunda Straits into the Eastern Seas. Ptolemy had a good deal to say about the Malay Archipelago. Among the "Islands of Transgangetic India," he mentions Sindae, inhabited by cannibals; the Isle of Good Luck ('Αγαθοῦ δαίμονος); the Sabadeibae and Barusae Isles, also inhabited by cannibals; the island of Iabadius, or Isle of Barley, very fertile, producing much gold and having as its capital Argyre, or Silver Town, at its western extremity; the Isle of the Satyrs, where the inhabitants have tails; and the magnetic rocks of the Maniolae, which attract ships, unless they are built with wooden pegs instead of nails. Of these islands, Sindae¹, the Isle of Good Luck, and the Sabadeibae Isles, have been located off the coast of Sumatra; the Barusae Islands are probably the Nicobars; while the Isle of Satyrs no doubt took its name from the apes which the mariners saw on it. The story of the fabulous rocks of Maniolae, which attracted ships, is familiar to readers of the Arabian Nights. Far more important, however, is the reference to the island of Iabadius, or *Java dvīpa*. The mention of this important island shews a very great advance in Western knowledge of the Far East. That there is no doubt about the identification, is shewn by the fact that Ptolemy knows that the word signifies in Sanskrit the “Isle of Barley¹.” It is characteristic, however, of the vague and inaccurate information supplied by his illiterate informers, that Ptolemy confuses Java with the neighbouring island of Sumatra. The description given is obviously of Sumatra and not of Java at all. Sumatra, not Java, is rich in gold, and Argyre, the capital on the western extremity of the island, is in all probability Achin². Java became later an important Hindu colony, as its great ruins testify; both it and Cambodia became the seats of important bodies of settlers, perhaps partly owing to the extension of the China trade. Java, if we may judge from the narrative of Fa Hian, was an entrepôt for traffic with the Far East, like the Arabian ports in the West; and the island was visited again by Ibn Batuta in the fourteenth century. After rounding the coast of Indo-China, Ptolemy’s account becomes more and more vague. He thinks that the coast-line, instead of bearing away to the north, turns southwards, finally connecting Asia and Africa, and enclosing the Indian Ocean so as to form, like the Mediterranean Sea, a huge landlocked expanse of water. After crossing the Gulf of Beasts (the Gulf of Tongking), we come to Kattigara, the last port in the known expanse of the ancient world, and here Ptolemy’s account ends. Kattigara is probably Kian-chi in Tongking, for we learn from the Chinese annalist who tells us of the Roman embassy to China that the Romans (Ta-tsin) came there in great numbers to trade. Inland lay the great " Metropolis of China¹," which had not, says Ptolemy, the brazen walls or other fabulous attributes usually assigned to it. It was probably Nankin. It had already been vaguely known to the Western world as a vast city exporting silk to Barygaza and the Ganges².