Chapter LV: Concerning the Province of Bangala

Bangala is a Province towards the south, which up to the year 1290, when the aforesaid Messer Marco Polo was still at the Court of the Great Kaan, had not yet been conquered; but his armies had gone thither to make the conquest. You must know that this province has a peculiar language, and that the people are wretched Idolaters. They are tolerably close to India. There are numbers of eunuchs there, insomuch that all the Barons who keep them get them from that Province.{1}

The people have oxen as tall as elephants, but not so big.{2} They live on flesh and milk and rice. They grow cotton, in which they drive a great trade, and also spices such as spikenard, galingale, ginger, sugar, and many other sorts. And the people of India also come thither in search of the eunuchs that I mentioned, and of slaves, male and female, of which there are great numbers, taken from other provinces with which those of the country are at war; and these eunuchs and slaves are sold to the Indian and other merchants who carry them thence for sale about the world.

There is nothing more to mention about this country, so we will quit it, and I will tell you of another province called Caugigu.

NOTE 1.—I do not think it probable that Marco even touched at any
port of Bengal on that mission to the Indian Seas of which we hear
in the prologue; but he certainly never reached it from the Yun-nan
side, and he had, as we shall presently see (_infra_, ch. lix. note
6), a wrong notion as to its position. Indeed, if he had visited it
at all, he would have been aware that it was essentially a part of
India, whilst in fact he evidently regarded it as an _Indo-Chinese_
region, like Zardandan, Mien, and Caugigu.

There is no notice, I believe, in any history, Indian or Chinese,
of an attempt by Kúblái to conquer Bengal. The only such attempt
by the Mongols that we hear of is one mentioned by Firishta, as
made by way of Cathay and Tibet, during the reign of Aláuddin
Masa’úd, king of Delhi, in 1244, and stated to have been defeated
by the local officers in Bengal. But Mr. Edward Thomas tells me
he has most distinctly ascertained that this statement, which has
misled every historian “from Badauni and Firishtah to Briggs and
Elphinstone, is founded purely on an erroneous reading” (and see a
note in Mr. Thomas’s _Pathan Kings of Dehli_, p. 121).

The date 1290 in the text would fix the period of Polo’s final
departure from Peking, if the dates were not so generally corrupt.

The subject of the last part of this paragraph, recurred to in the
next, has been misunderstood and corrupted in Pauthier’s text, and
partially in Ramusio’s. These make the _escuillés_ or _escoilliez_
(vide _Ducange_ in v. _Escodatus_, and _Raynouard, Lex. Rom._
VI. 11) into _scholars_ and what not. But on comparison of the
passages in those two editions with the Geographic Text one cannot
doubt the correct reading. As to the fact that Bengal had an evil
notoriety for this traffic, especially the province of Silhet, see
the _Ayeen Akbery_, II. 9–11, _Barbosa’s _chapter on Bengal, and
_De Barros_ (_Ramusio_ I. 316 and 391).

On the cheapness of slaves in Bengal, see _Ibn Batuta_, IV.
211–212. He says people from Persia used to call Bengal _Dúzakh
pur-i ni’amat_, “a hell crammed with good things,” an appellation
perhaps provoked by the official style often applied to it of
_Jannat-ul-balád_ or “Paradise of countries.”

Professor H. Blochmann, who is, in admirable essays, redeeming
the long neglect of the history and archæology of Bengal Proper
by our own countrymen, says that one of the earliest passages, in
which the name _Bangálah_ occurs, is in a poem of Hafiz, sent from
Shiraz to Sultan Ghiássuddín, who reigned in Bengal from 1367 to
1373. Its occurrence in our text, however, shows that the name
was in use among the Mahomedan foreigners (from whom Polo derived
his nomenclature) nearly a century earlier. And in fact it occurs
(though corruptly in some MSS.) in the history of Rashiduddin, our
author’s contemporary. (See _Elliot_, I. p. 72.)

NOTE 2.—“Big as elephants” is only a _façon de parler_, but Marsden
quotes modern exaggerations as to the height of the _Arna_ or
wild buffalo, more specific and extravagant. The unimpeachable
authority of Mr. Hodgson tells us that the Arna in the Nepal Tarai
sometimes does reach a height of 6 ft. 6 in. at the shoulder, with
a length of 10 ft. 6 in. (excluding tail), and horns of 6 ft. 6 in.
(_J. A. S. B._, XVI. 710.) Marco, however, seems to be speaking
of _domestic_ cattle. Some of the breeds of Upper India are very
tall and noble animals, far surpassing in height any European oxen
known to me; but in modern times these are rarely seen in Bengal,
where the cattle are poor and stunted. The _Aín Akbari_, however,
speaks of Sharífábád in Bengal, which appears to have corresponded
to modern Bardwán, as producing very beautiful white oxen, of
great size, and capable of carrying a load of 15 _mans_, which at
Prinsep’s estimate of Akbar’s _man_ would be about 600 lbs.