Chapter V: Of the Great Country Called Chamba

You must know that on leaving the port of Zayton you sail west-south-west for 1500 miles, and then you come to a country called CHAMBA,{1} a very rich region, having a king of its own. The people are Idolaters and pay a yearly tribute to the Great Kaan, which consists of elephants and nothing but elephants. And I will tell you how they came to pay this tribute.

It happened in the year of Christ 1278 that the Great Kaan sent a Baron of his called Sagatu with a great force of horse and foot against this King of Chamba, and this Baron opened the war on a great scale against the King and his country.

Now the King [whose name was Accambale] was a very aged man, nor had he such a force as the Baron had. And when he saw what havoc the Baron was making with his kingdom he was grieved to the heart. So he bade messengers get ready and despatched them to the Great Kaan. And they said to the Kaan: “Our Lord the King of Chamba salutes you as his liege-lord, and would have you to know that he is stricken in years and long hath held his realm in peace. And now he sends you word by us that he is willing to be your liegeman, and will send you every year a tribute of as many elephants as you please. And he prays you in all gentleness and humility that you would send word to your Baron to desist from harrying his kingdom and to quit his territories. These shall henceforth be at your absolute disposal, and the King shall hold them of you.”

When the Great Kaan had heard the King’s ambassage he was moved with pity, and sent word to that Baron of his to quit that kingdom with his army, and to carry his arms to the conquest of some other country; and as soon as this command reached them they obeyed it. Thus it was then that this King became vassal of the Great Kaan, and paid him every year a tribute of 20 of the greatest and finest elephants that were to be found in the country.

But now we will leave that matter, and tell you other particulars about the King of Chamba.

You must know that in that kingdom no woman is allowed to marry until the King shall have seen her; if the woman pleases him then he takes her to wife; if she does not, he gives her a dowry to get her a husband withal. In the year of Christ 1285, Messer Marco Polo was in that country, and at that time the King had, between sons and daughters, 326 children, of whom at least 150 were men fit to carry arms.{2}

There are very great numbers of elephants in this kingdom, and they have lignaloes in great abundance. They have also extensive forests of the wood called _Bonús_, which is jet-black, and of which chessmen and pen-cases are made. But there is nought more to tell, so let us proceed.{3}

NOTE 1.—✛The name CHAMPA is of Indian origin, like the adjoining
Kamboja and many other names in Indo-China, and was probably taken
from that of an ancient Hindu city and state on the Ganges, near
modern Bhágalpúr. Hiuen Tsang, in the 7th century, makes mention of
the Indo-Chinese state as Mahāchampā (_Pèl. Boudd._, III. 83.)

The title of Champa down to the 15th century seems to have been
applied by Western Asiatics to a kingdom which embraced the whole
coast between Tong-king and Kamboja, including all that is now
called Cochin China outside of Tong-king. It was termed by the
Chinese _Chen-Ching_. In 1471 the King of Tong-king, Lê Thanh-tong,
conquered the country, and the genuine people of Champa were
reduced to a small number occupying the mountains of the province
of Binh Thuan at the extreme south-east of the Coch. Chinese
territory. To this part of the coast the name Champa is often
applied in maps. (See _J. A._ sér. II. tom. xi. p. 31, and _J. des
Savans_, 1822, p. 71.) The people of Champa in this restricted
sense are said to exhibit Malay affinities, and they profess
Mahomedanism. [“The Mussulmans of Binh-Thuan call themselves _Bani_
or _Orang Bani_, ‘men mussulmans,’ probably from the Arabic _beni_
‘the sons,’ to distinguish them from the Chams _Djat_ ‘of race,’
which they name also _Kaphir_ or _Akaphir_, from the Arabic word
_kafer_ ‘pagans.’ These names are used in _Binh-Thuan_ to make
a distinction, but Banis and Kaphirs alike are all Chams.... In
Cambodia all Chams are Mussulmans.” (_E. Aymonier, Les Tchames_, p.
26.) The religion of the pagan Chams of Binh-Thuan is degenerate
Brahmanism with three chief gods, Po-Nagar, Po-Romé, and
Po-Klong-Garaï. (_Ibid._, p. 35.)—H. C.] The books of their former
religion they say (according to Dr. Bastian) that they received
from Ceylon, but they were converted to Islamism by no less a
person than ’Ali himself. The Tong-king people received their
Buddhism from China, and this tradition puts Champa as the extreme
flood-mark of that great tide of Buddhist proselytism, which went
forth from Ceylon to the Indo-Chinese regions in an early century
of our era, and which is generally connected with the name of
Buddaghosha.

The prominent position of Champa on the route to China made its
ports places of call for many ages, and in the earliest record of
the Arab navigation to China we find the country noticed under
the identical name (allowing for the deficiencies of the Arabic
Alphabet) of _Ṣanf_ or _Chanf_. Indeed it is highly probable that
the Ζάβα or Ζάβαι of Ptolemy’s itinerary of the sea-route to the
_Sinae_ represents this same name.

[“It is true,” Sir Henry Yule wrote since (1882), “that Champa,
as known in later days, lay to the east of the Mekong delta,
whilst Zabai of the Greeks lay to the west of that and of the μέγα
ακροτήριον—the Great Cape, or C. Cambodia of our maps. Crawford
(_Desc. Ind. Arch._ p. 80) seems to say that the Malays include
under the name _Champa_ the whole of what we call Kamboja. This may
possibly be a slip. But it is certain, as we shall see presently,
that the Arab _Ṣanf_—which is unquestionably Champa—also lay west
of the Cape, _i.e._ within the Gulf of Siam. The fact is that the
Indo-Chinese kingdoms have gone through unceasing and enormous
vicissitudes, and in early days Champa must have been extensive
and powerful, for in the travels of Hiuen Tsang (about A.D. 629)
it is called _Mahâ_-Champa. And my late friend Lieutenant Garnier,
who gave great attention to these questions, has deduced from such
data as exist in Chinese Annals and elsewhere, that the ancient
kingdom which the Chinese describe under the name of _Fu-nan_, as
extending over the whole peninsula east of the Gulf of Siam, was a
kingdom of the _Tsiam_ or Champa race. The locality of the ancient
port of Zabai or Champa is probably to be sought on the west coast
of Kamboja, near the Campot, or the Kang-kao of our maps. On this
coast also was the _Ḳomâr_ and _Ḳamârah_ of Ibn Batuta and other
Arab writers, the great source of aloes-wood, the country then of
the _Khmer_ or Kambojan People.” (_Notes on the Oldest Records of
the Sea-Route to China from Western Asia, Proc. R. G. S._ 1882, pp.
656–657.)

M. Barth says that this identification would agree well with the
testimony of his inscription XVIII. B., which comes from Angkor and
for which _Campā_ is a part of the _Dakshiṇāpatha_, of the southern
country. But the capital of this rival State of Kamboja would thus
be very near the Trêang province where inscriptions have been found
with the names of _Bhavavarman_ and of Īçānavarman. It is true
that in 627, the King of Kamboja, according to the Chinese Annals
(_Nouv. Mél. As._ I. p. 84), had subjugated the kingdom of Fu-nan
identified by Yule and Garnier with _Campā_. Abel Rémusat (_Nouv.
Mél. As._ I. pp. 75 and 77) identifies it with Tong-king and Stan.
Julien (_J. As._ 4ᵉ Sér. X. p. 97) with Siam. (_Inscrip. Sanscrites
du Cambodge_, 1885, pp. 69–70, note.)

Sir Henry Yule writes (_l.c._ p. 657): “We have said that the Arab
_Ṣanf_, as well as the Greek _Zabai_, lay west of Cape Cambodia.
This is proved by the statement that the Arabs on their voyage
to China made a ten days’ run from _Ṣanf_ to Pulo Condor.” But
Abulfeda (transl. by _Guyard_, II. ii. p. 127) distinctly says
that the Komār Peninsula (Khmer) is situated _west_ of the Ṣanf
Peninsula; between Ṣanf and Komār there is not a day’s journey by
sea.

We have, however, another difficulty to overcome.

I agree with Sir Henry Yule and Marsden that in ch. vii. _infra_,
p. 276, the text must be read, “When you leave _Chamba_,” instead
of “When you leave _Java_.” Coming from Zayton and sailing 1500
miles, Polo arrives at Chamba; from Chamba, sailing 700 miles he
arrives at the islands of Sondur and Condur, identified by Yule
with Sundar Fúlát (Pulo Condore); from Sundar Fúlát, after 500
miles more, he finds the country called Locac; then he goes to
Pentam (Bintang, 500 miles), Malaiur, and Java the Less (Sumatra).
Ibn Khordâdhbeh’s itinerary agrees pretty well with Marco Polo’s,
as Professor De Goeje remarks to me: “Starting from Mâit (Bintang),
and leaving on the left Tiyuma (Timoan), in five days’ journey,
one goes to Kimèr (Kmer, Cambodia), and after three days more,
following the coast, arrives to Ṣanf; then to Lukyn, the first
point of call in China, 100 parasangs by land or by sea; from
Lukyn it takes four days by sea and twenty by land to go to
Kanfu.” [Canton, see note, _supra_ p. 199.] (See _De Goeje’s Ibn
Khordâdhbeh_, p. 48 _et seq._) But we come now to the difficulty.
Professor De Goeje writes to me: “It is strange that in the
_Relation des Voyages_ of Reinaud, p. 20 of the text, reproduced by
Ibn al Fakîh, p. 12 _seq._, Sundar Fúlát (Pulo Condore) is placed
between Ṣanf and the China Sea (_Sandjy_); it takes ten days to go
from Ṣanf to Sundar Fúlát, and then a month (seven days of which
between mountains called the Gates of China). In the _Livre des
Merveilles de l’Inde_ (pp. 85, 86) we read: ‘When arrived between
Ṣanf and the China coast, in the neighbourhood of Sundar Fúlát, an
island situated at the entrance of the Sea of Sandjy, which is the
Sea of China....’ It would appear from these two passages that Ṣanf
is to be looked for in the Malay Peninsula. This Ṣanf is different
from the Ṣanf of Ibn Khordâdhbeh and of Abulfeda.” (_Guyard’s
transl._ II. ii. 127.)

It does not strike me from these passages that Ṣanf must be looked
for in the Malay Peninsula. Indeed Professor G. Schlegel, in a
paper published in the _T’oung Pao_, vol. x., seems to prove that
Shay-po (Djava), represented by Chinese characters, which are the
transcription of the Sanskrit name of the China Rose (_Hibiscus
rosa sinensis_), Djavâ or Djapâ, is not the great island of Java,
but, according to Chinese texts, a state of the Malay Peninsula;
but he does not seem to me to prove that Shay-po is Champa, as he
believes he has done.

However, Professor De Goeje adds in his letter, and I quite agree
with the celebrated Arabic scholar of Leyden, that he does not
very much like the theory of two Ṣanf, and that he is inclined
to believe that the sea captain of the _Marvels of India_ placed
Sundar Fúlát a little too much to the north, and that the narrative
of the _Relation des Voyages_ is inexact.

To conclude: the history of the relations between Annam (Tong-king)
and her southern neighbour, the kingdom of Champa, the itineraries
of Marco Polo and Ibn Khordâdhbeh as well as the position given
to Ṣanf by Abulfeda, justify me, I think, in placing Champa in
that part of the central and southern Indo-Chinese coast which the
French to-day call Annam (Cochinchine and Basse-Cochinchine), the
Binh-Thuan province showing more particularly what remains of the
ancient kingdom.

Since I wrote the above, I have received No. 1 of vol. ii. of the
_Bul. de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient_, which contains a
note on _Canf et Campā_, by M. A. Barth. The reasons given in a
note addressed to him by Professor De Goeje and the work of Ibn
Khordâdhbeh have led M. A. Barth to my own conclusion, viz. that
the coast of Champa was situated where inscriptions have been found
on the Annamite coast.—H. C.]

The Sagatu of Marco appears in the Chinese history as _Sotu_, the
military governor of the Canton districts, which he had been active
in reducing.

In 1278 Sotu sent an envoy to Chen-ching to claim the king’s
submission, which was rendered, and for some years he sent his
tribute to Kúblái. But when the Kaan proceeded to interfere in
the internal affairs of the kingdom by sending a Resident and
Chinese officials, the king’s son (1282) resolutely opposed these
proceedings, and threw the Chinese officials into prison. The Kaan,
in great wrath at this insult (coming also so soon after his
discomfiture in Japan), ordered Sotu and others to Chen-ching to
take vengeance. The prince in the following year made a pretence
of submission, and the army (if indeed it had been sent) seems to
have been withdrawn. The prince, however, renewed his attack on the
Chinese establishments, and put 100 of their officials to death.
Sotu then despatched a new force, but it was quite unsuccessful,
and had to retire. In 1284 the king sent an embassy, including
his grandson, to beg for pardon and reconciliation. Kúblái,
however, refused to receive them, and ordered his son Tughan to
advance through Tong-king, an enterprise which led to a still more
disastrous war with that country, in which the Mongols had much the
worst of it. We are not told more.

Here we have the difficulties usual with Polo’s historical
anecdotes. Certain names and circumstances are distinctly
recognisable in the Chinese Annals; others are difficult to
reconcile with these. The embassy of 1284 seems the most likely to
be the one spoken of by Polo, though the Chinese history does not
give it the favourable result which he ascribes to it. The date in
the text we see to be wrong, and as usual it varies in different
MSS. I suspect the original date was MCCLXXXIII.

One of the Chinese notices gives one of the king’s names as
_Sinhopala_, and no doubt this is Ramusio’s _Accambale_ (Açambale);
an indication at once of the authentic character of that
interpolation, and of the identity of Champa and Chen-ching.

[We learn from an inscription that in 1265 the King of Champa was
Jaya-Sinhavarman II., who was named Indravarman in 1277, and whom
the Chinese called _Che li Tseya Sinho phala Maha thiwa_ (Çri Jaya
Sinha varmma maha deva). He was the king at the time of Polo’s
voyage. (_A. Bergaigne, Ancien royaume de Campā_, pp. 39–40; _E.
Aymonier, les Tchames et leurs religions_, p. 14.)—H. C.]

There are notices of the events in De Mailla (IX. 420–422) and
Gaubil (194), but Pauthier’s extracts which we have made use of are
much fuller.

Elephants have generally formed a chief part of the presents or
tribute sent periodically by the various Indo-Chinese states to the
Court of China.

[In a Chinese work published in the 14th century, by an Annamite,
under the title of _Ngan-nan chi lio_, and translated into French
by M. Sainson (1896), we read (p. 397): “Elephants are found only
in Lin-y; this is the country which became Champa. It is the habit
to have burdens carried by elephants; this country is to-day the
Pu-chêng province.” M. Sainson adds in a note that Pu-chêng, in
Annamite Bó chańh quân, is to-day Quang-binh, and that, in this
country, was placed the first capital (Dong-hoi) of the future
kingdom of Champa thrown later down to the south.—H. C.]

[The Chams, according to their tradition, had three capitals:
the most ancient, _Shri-Banœuy_, probably the actual Quang-Binh
province; _Bal-Hangov_, near Hué; and _Bal-Angoué_, in the
Binh-Dinh province. In the 4th century, the kingdom of _Lin-y_ or
_Lâm-âp_ is mentioned in the Chinese Annals.—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—The date of Marco’s visit to Champa varies in the MSS.:
Pauthier has 1280, as has also Ramusio; the G. T. has 1285; the
Geographic Latin 1288. I incline to adopt the last. For we know
that about 1290, Mark returned to Court from a mission to the
Indian Seas, which might have included this visit to Champa.

The large family of the king was one of the stock marvels. Odoric
says: “ZAMPA is a very fine country, having great store of victuals
and all good things. The king of the country, it was said when I
was there [_circa_ 1323], had, what with sons and with daughters, a
good two hundred children; for he hath many wives and other women
whom he keepeth. This king hath also 14,000 tame elephants.... And
other folk keep elephants there just as commonly as we keep oxen
here” (pp. 95–96). The latter point illustrates what Polo says of
elephants, and is scarcely an exaggeration in regard to all the
southern Indo-Chinese States. (See note to Odoric u.s.)

NOTE 3.—Champa Proper and the adjoining territories have been from
time immemorial the chief seat of the production of lign-aloes or
eagle-wood. Both names are misleading, for the thing has nought
to do either with aloes or eagles; though good Bishop Pallegoix
derives the latter name from the wood being speckled like an
eagle’s plumage. It is in fact through _Aquila_, _Agila_, from
_Aguru_, one of the Sanskrit names of the article, whilst that is
possibly from the Malay _Kayu_ (wood)-_gahru_, though the course
of the etymology is more likely to be the other way; and Αλόη is
perhaps a corruption of the term which the Arabs apply to it, viz.
_Al-’Ud_, “The Wood.”

[It is probable that the first Portuguese who had to do with
eagle-wood called it by its Arabic name, _aghāluḥy_, or malayālam,
_agila_; whence _páo de’ aguila_ “aguila wood.” It was translated
into Latin as _lignum aquilae_, and after into modern languages,
as _bois d’aigle_, _eagle-wood_, _adlerholz_, etc. (_A. Cabaton,
les Chams_, p. 50.) Mr. Groeneveldt (_Notes_, pp. 141–142) writes:
“_Lignum aloes_ is the wood of the _Aquilaria agallocha_, and
is chiefly known as _sinking incense_. The _Pen-ts’au Kang-mu_
describes it as follows: ‘_Sinking incense_, also called _honey
incense_. It comes from the heart and the knots of a tree and sinks
in water, from which peculiarity the name _sinking incense_ is
derived.... In the Description of Annam we find it called _honey
incense_, because it smells like honey.’ The same work, as well
as the _Nan-fang Ts’au-mu Chuang_, further informs us that this
incense was obtained in all countries south of China, by felling
the old trees and leaving them to decay, when, after some time,
only the heart, the knots, and some other hard parts remained. The
product was known under different names, according to its quality
or shape, and in addition to the names given above, we find _fowl
bones_, _horse-hoofs_, and _green cinnamon_; these latter names,
however, are seldom used.”—H. C.]

The fine eagle-wood of Champa is the result of disease in a
leguminous tree, _Aloexylon Agallochum_; whilst an inferior kind,
though of the same aromatic properties, is derived from a tree of
an entirely different order, _Aquilaria Agallocha_, and is found as
far north as Silhet.

The _Bonus_ of the G. T. here is another example of Marco’s use,
probably unconscious, of an Oriental word. It is Persian _Abnús_,
Ebony, which has passed almost unaltered into the Spanish _Abenuz_.
We find _Ibenus_ also in a French inventory (_Douet d’Arcq_, p.
134), but the _Bonús_ seems to indicate that the word as used by
the Traveller was strange to Rusticiano. The word which he uses
for pen-cases too, _Calamanz_, is more suggestive of the Persian
_Ḳalamdán_ than of the Italian _Calamajo_.

“Ebony is very common in this country (Champa), but the wood
which is the most precious, and which is sufficiently abundant,
is called ‘Eagle-wood,’ of which the first quality sells for its
weight in gold; the native name is _Kínam_.” (_Bishop Louis_ in J.
A. S. B. VI. 742; _Dr. Birdwood_, in the _Bible Educator_, I. 243;
_Crawford’s Dict._)