CHAPTER XIV.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF SEILAN.

When you leave the Island of Angamanain and sail about a thousand miles in a direction a little south of west, you come to the Island of SEILAN, [NOTE 1] which is in good sooth the best Island of its size in the world.  You must know that it has a compass of 2400 miles, but in old times it was greater still, for it then had a circuit of about 3600 miles, as you find in the charts of the mariners of those seas.  But the north wind there blows with such strength that it has caused the sea to submerge a large part of the Island; and that is the reason why it is not so big now as it used to be.  For you must know that, on the side where the north wind strikes, the Island is very low and flat, insomuch that in approaching on board ship from the high seas you do not see the land till you are right upon it.[NOTE 2] Now I will tell you all about this Island.

[Illustration:  MAP to Illustrate POLO’S Chapters on India MAP to Illustrate POLO’s Chapters on the Malay Countries]

They have a king there whom they call SENDEMAIN, and are tributary to nobody.[NOTE 3] The people are Idolaters, and go quite naked except that they cover the middle.  They have no wheat, but have rice, and sesamum of which they make their oil.  They live on flesh and milk, and have tree-wine such as I have told you of.  And they have brazil-wood, much the best in the world.[NOTE 4]

Now I will quit these particulars, and tell you of the most precious article that exists in the world.  You must know that rubies are found in this Island and in no other country in the world but this.  They find there also sapphires and topazes and amethysts, and many other stones of price.  And the King of this Island possesses a ruby which is the finest and biggest in the world; I will tell you what it is like.  It is about a palm in length, and as thick as a man’s arm; to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth; it is quite free from flaw and as red as fire.  Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named at all.  You must know that the Great Kaan sent an embassy and begged the King as a favour greatly desired by him to sell him this ruby, offering to give for it the ransom of a city, or in fact what the King would.  But the King replied that on no account whatever would he sell it, for it had come to him from his ancestors.[NOTE 5]

The people of Seilan are no soldiers, but poor cowardly creatures.  And when they have need of soldiers they get Saracen troops from foreign parts.

[NOTE 1.—­Mr. Geo. Phillips gives (Seaports of India, p. 216 et seqq.) the Star Chart used by Chinese Navigators on their return voyage from Ceylon to Su-men-ta-la.—­H.C.]