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DECEMBER, 1884.]
PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VII, CH. 2, SS 29-31.
385
regarded the Island of Agatho-Daimon as belonging to the Sindai group, but this does not appear to me to be sanctioned by the text. Yule says: "Possibly Sundar-Fulát, in which the latter word seems to be an Arabized plural of the Malay Pulo 'island' is also to be traced in Sindae Insula e, but I have not adopted this in the map."
The Barou sai Islands :-"The (Arab) navigators," says Yule in his notes already referred to, "crossing the sea of Horkand with the west monsoon, made land at the islands of Lanja-Lanka, or Lika-Balds, where the naked inhabitants came off in their canoes bringing ambergris and cocoanuts for barter, a description which with the posi- tion identifies these islands with the Nikobars, Nekaveram of Marco Polo, Laka-Varam of Rashidu'd-din, and, I can hardly hesitate to say, with the Barusae Islands of Ptolemy.
Saba dei bai Islands:-The latter part of this name represents the Sanskrit dwipa, 'an island.' The three islands of this name are pro. bably those lying east from the more southern parts of Sumatra.
29. The island of I a badios (or Sabadios) which means the island of Barley. It is said to be of extraordinary fertility, and to produce very much gold, and to have its capital called Argyré (Silver-town) in the extreme west of it. It lies in ............ .....167° 8° 30' S. and the eastern limit lies in ...169° 8° 10' S.
30. The Islands of the Satyrs, three in number, of which the centre is in 171° 2° 30' S. The inbabitants are said to have tails like those with which Satyrs are depicted.
31. There are said to be also ten other islands forming & continuous group called Maniolai, from which ships fastened with iron nails are said to be unable to move away, (perhaps on account of the magnetic iron in the islands) and hence they are built with wooden bolts. The inhabitants are called Maniolai, and are reputed to be cannibals.
The island of Iabadios:-Iaba, the first part of this name, is the Sanskrit word for 'barley,' and the second part like deiba, diba, diva, and din ur diu, represents dufpa,' an island.' We have here therefore the Island of Java, which answers in most respects to Ptolemy's description of it. The following note regarding it I take from Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography (pp. 643-4): "The name of Java has certainly some resemblance with Iabadius, supposing that to be the correct form of the name, and, what is of more consequence, Ptolemy adds that it signifies the island of barley,' which is really the meaning of the name of
Java. The position in latitude assigned by him to the island in question (8) degrees of south latitude) also agrees very well with that of Java : but his geographical notions of these countries are in general so vague and erroneous that little or no value can be attached to this coincidence. On the other hand, the abundance of gold would suit well with Sumatra, which has always been noted on that account; while there is little or no gold found in Java. The metropolis at its western extremity would thus correspond with Achin, a place that must always have been one of the principal cities of the island. In either case he had a very imperfect idea of its size, assigning it a length of only about 100 Geog. miles, while Java is go or 540 G. miles in length, and Sumatra more than 900 G. miles. It seems not improbable that in this case, as in several others, he mixed up particulars which really referred to the two different islands, and applied them to one only : but it is strange that if he had any information concerning quch islands as Sumatra and Java, he should have no notion that they were of very large size, at the same time that he had such greatly exaggerated ideas of the dimensions of Ceylon." Mannert took Iabadios to be the small island of Banka on the S.E. of Sumatra. For the application of the name of Java to the Island of Sumatra, see Yule's Marco Polo, vol. II, p. 266, note 1.
Regarding the Islands of the Satyrs, Lassen says (Ind. Att., vol. III, p. 252): The three islands, called after the Satyrs, mark the extreme limits of the knowledge attained by Ptolemy of the Indian Archipelago. The inhabitants were called Satyrs because, according to the fabulous accounts of mariners, they had tails like the demi-gods of that name in Greek mythology. Two of these must be Madura and Bali, the largest islands on the north and east coaste of Java, and of which the first figures prominently in the oldest legends of Java; the second, on the contrary, not till later times. The third island is probably Lombok, lying near Bali in the east. A writer in Smith's Dictionary of Classical Geography thinke these islands were perhaps the Anamba group, and the Satyrs who inhabited them apes resembling men. Yule says in the notes :-"Sandar-Fulat we cannot hesitate to identify with Pulo Condor, Marco Polo's Sonder and Condur. These may also be the Satyrs' islands of Ptolemy, but they may be his Sindai, for he has a Sinda city on the coast olose to this position, though his Sindai islands are dropped far way. But it would not be difficult to show that Ptolemy's islands have been located almost at random, or as from a pepper-castor."
Ptolemy locates the Maniolai Islands, of
