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INTRODUCTIOX. 9
by Balkh, Peshawar, Tibet and Nepaul, but in the latter part of the seventh
century the sea-route became nearly exclusively used^ the port of enibar-.
kation being Canton, whence the travellers made western Java (Ho-ling), or
more usually Palembang in Sumatra. Here they changed ships and, taking
5 a course along the northern coast of Sumatra and by the, Nicobar Islands,
came to Ceylon, where they usually took ship for Tamlook at the mouth of
the Ganges and thence reached the holy places of India by land. The voyage
took about three months, one month from Canton to Palembang, one to the
northrwest point of Sumatra and one to Ceylon; it was always made with the
10 north-east monsoon in winter, and the return voyage to China in summer,
from April to October — with the south-west monsoon.
It seems that by this time the sea-trade of the Hindus and Arabs with
the Malay Archipelago and China had assumed very considerable unportance,
and this accounts partly for the fuller and more accurate accounts of the
15 countries of southern Asia and the Archipelago given in the Chinese Annals
of the sixth and seventh centuries.
The earliest Chinese testimony we have concerning this trade is of the
eighth century 2. From it we learn that the ships engaged in this trade and
wMch visited Canton were very large, so high out of the water that ladders
20 several tens: of feet in length had to be used to get aboard. The foreign
(Fan ^) captains who commanded them were registered in the office of the
Inspector ofMaritime Trade (Shi-po-shi). This office (the existence of which, by
the way, proves the importance of this trade), before allowing the ships to clear
required that the manifests should be submitted to it, and then collected export
25 duty and also the freight charges. The export of «precious and rare articles))
was forbidden, and attempts at smuggling were punished with imprisonment.
With the exception of the chapters devoted to foreign lands in the
Annals, very little has come down to us concerning the extent of Chinese
geographical knowledge in the eighth century. One document of great value
30 has fortunately been preserved in the itineraries compiled bv Kia Tan between
785 and 805*. The one dealing with the sea-route from Canton to the Per-
II)
I-ts;ng mentions 60 Chinese pilgrims who in the latter part of the seventh century made
the journey to India. Of these 22 travelled overland and 37 took the sea-ronte. See Chavannes,
Mem. sur les Eeligieux emiuents, passim.
35 2) T'ang-Kuo-sM-pu, by Li Chan, a work of the beginning of the ninth century, but
purporting to record historical facts concerning the period from 713 to 825.
3) Given in T'ang-shu, 43^ See also Pelliot, Deux itineraires de Chine en Inde, 131
et seqq. (in B. E. F. E. 0., IV). On Kia Tan, who died in 805, see Mem. cone, les Chinois, XVI.
151—152. 'I
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