Читать книгу Mirabilia descripta: The wonders of the East онлайн

11 страница из 27

We know that Kulam, on the coast of Malabar, was founded in the ninth century, and that its foundation formed an era from which dates were reckoned in Malabar.ssss1 In that same century we findssss1 that the sailing directions for ships making the China voyage from the Persian Gulf, were to go straight from Maskát to Kulam Malé, a place evidently, both from name and fact, on the coast of Malabar. Here there was a custom-house, where ships from China paid their dues.

The narrative of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela is very hazy. He calls Chulan only seven days from El-Cathif (which is a port on the west coast of the Persian Gulf), “and on the confines of the country of the Sun-worshippers.” However, his description of the pepper-gardens adjoining the city, the black Jews, etc., identify it with one of the Kulams on the Malabar coast, and doubtless with Quilon, which was the chief of them.

Then comes Polo’s notice of Coilon already alluded to, followed by our author’s mention of it, and residence there.