Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

1,25 BEKBEKA COAST. 129
((yVhen Po-ssii (Persian) traders wish to enter this country, they form a caravan of several
thousand men, and after having made (the natives) a present of strips of cloth (? ^^ 'ffi)) *11
of them both young and old draw blo.od by pricking themselves and take an oath (ife] mr jV
^t), after which they trade their goods.
5 «From of old (this country) has never been subject to any foreign power. In fighting they
use elephant's tusks, ribs, and wild cattle's horns as spears, and they have corselets (ffl ^?),
and bows and arrows. They have twenty myriads of foot-soldiers. The Arabs are continually
making raids on thema. In a slightly abridged form, T'ang-shu, 222Bj1b1> snbstantially reproduces
the above..See Hirth, J. C. B. R. A. S., XXI, 219 and J. A. 0. S. XXX, 47—51.
10 The four towns referred to were probably Berbera — the Barbara of western mediaeval
writers, Zeila, which Ibn Batuta says was the capital of the country, Magadoxo, IbnBatuta's
Makdashan, and possibly Brawa. Ibn Batuta, op. cit., II, 180 says the Berbera country
extended from Zeila to Magadoxo.
2) Our author presumably refers only to the inhabitants of the four cities as being Moslims.
15 3) Ibn Batuta, op. cit., II, 180— 181 says the people of Zeila and Magadoxo killed
several hundred camels daily for food. He also refers to the wealth in sheep of the people of the
latter place. See also what our author says of the people of Chung-li (infra, Ch. XXVII), which
is also Somaliland.
4) The Periplus, in the first century, mentions among the exports from the Berbera coast
20 myrrh, a little frankincense, tin, ivory, tortoise-shell, odoriferous gums and cinnamon. On the
various products here mentioned, see infra, Ch. XXVII, and Pt. II.
5) Quotation from Ling-wai-tai-ta, 3,6". The ostrich was first made known to the Chinese
in the beginning of the second century of our era, when some were brought to the court of China
from Parthia. The Chinese then called them An-si-tsio (^ J^^ ^ aParthian bird»). See
25 H6u-Han-shu, 88, and Hirth, China and Roman Orient, 39. In the Wei-shu, 102,12'', no name
is given them, they are simply «big birds which resemble a camel, which feed on herbs and
flesh and are able to eat fire». In the T'ang-shu, 22lB,7=' it is said that this bird is commonly-
called