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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Begin betimes to practise good, Lest fate surprise thee unawares Amid thy round of schemes and cares; To-morrow's task to-day conclude.
For who can tell how things may chance, And who may all this day survive? While yet a stripling, therefore, strive,On virtue's arduous path advance.
This is the Law and the Prophets.' (Vikramacharita, 158.)
In one short verse I here express The sum of tomes of sacred lore:
Beneficence is righteousness, Oppression sin's malignant core.*
III.-His Voyage to China.
On arriving at Sunârgâon from his excursion to Silhet, Ibn Batuta found there a junk about to start for Java, i.e. as we shall see, Sumatra, the Java Minor of Marco Polo, a voyage of forty days. On this he took his passage.
After fifteen days' voyage they touched on the coast of a country called Barahnagår, where the men had muzzles like dogs, whilst the women were very beautiful. The former went naked, the latter wore aprons of leaves. They had houses of reeds on the shore, and had plenty of plantains, areca palms, and pan. Some Musalman settlers there were, who lived apart from the natives. The people had tame elephants in numbers. Their Chief came to see the strangers, mounted on an elephant, and attended by some twenty followers, also on elephants: the Chief was clothed in goat-skins, and had three coloured silk handkerchiefs tied on his head.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF IBN BATUTA'S TRAVELS
BY COL. H. YULE, C.B. (Continued from page 212.)
Leaving this place, in twenty-five days more they reached the island of J a v a, which gives its name to the Jawi lubán (or benzoin).† Here they disembarked at a small town called Sarha, the port of the city of Sumathra, which was four miles distant.
[SEPTEMBER, 1874.
Good and Bad seem to be equally favoured here; not so hereafter. (Mahabh., XII. 2798 ff.) Both good and bad the patient earth sustains, To cheer them both the sun impartial glows, On both the balmy wind refreshing blows, On both at once the god Parjanya rains. So is it here on earth, but not for ever
I will not repeat here the discussion of the position of the city of SUMATRA which will be
The last two lines in the original, literally rendered, ran thus:-"Helping others is to be esteemed as virtue; the oppression of others as sin."
Shall good and bad be favoured thus alike; A stern decree the bad and good shall sever,
And vengeance sure, at last, the wicked strike. The righteous then in realms of light shall dwell, Immortal, pure, in undecaying bliss;
The bad for long, long years shall pine in hell, A place of woe, a dark and deep abyss. June 1874.
found in my notes on Marco Polo. Its locus on the north coast of the island is limited by Pedir on the west and Pasei on the east, i.e. between long. 96° and 97° 20' or thereabouts, whilst the strong probability is that it lay near the head of the estuary-like bay called in the charts Telo, or Taluk-Samawe.
Returning to Barahnagar, which we have not yet determined, we may first be certain that it was on the main-land, the elephants settle that point. Next, it should lie at about of the sea track from Sunargaon to Sumatra. This will place the probable locus about the southern part of the Arakan coast, near Sandowê or Gwa. A little further south we have the prominent points of Cape and Island Negrais, a name corrupted from the Nâ garit of the Burmese, and bearing re, ference to a story of a dragon or naga which lies in wait there to sink the ships of unbelieving navigators. § Nagar may be the same name. Dulaurier, however, has pointed out that Barah Nagâr may represent the Malay words Bárát Nagara, "West Country," and this is highly probable, as the crew of the junk were likely to be Malays. But this interpretation would be quite consistent with the position that I suggest; indeed one sees no part of the coast to which the term West
Benzoin, from lubanjawi taken as lo benzoi.
Book III. ch. X. note 1.
Phayre, in Jour. As. Soc. Ben. vol. XXVIII. p. 476.
