Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

IXTKODUCTIOX. 25
This extract naturally suggests an inquiry into the general geographical
knowledge of the Chinese concerning the world of the Barbarians in the time
of this author. Fortunately he has left us a comprehensive and complete
statement (the like of which is found in no other Chinese writer of the Sung
5 period) of his notions on the physical and political geography of the world in
his time. It reads as follows:
«The Great (World)-encircling-Ocean-Sea bounds the Barbarians' coun-
tries; in every quarter there are kingdoms of them, each has its peculiar
products, each its trading centre (^ ^) from which it derives its(commer-
10 -cial) prosperity. The (Barbarian) kingdoms due south have San-fo-ts'i as their
commercial centre. Sh5-p*o is the centre ofthose to the south-east. The countries
to the south-west are so vast in extent that they cannot all be described. The
nearest are Chan-ch'ong and Chon-la as the commercial centres of Wa-li^
(m. ^)- "^^ o^* distant is Ta-ts'in as the commercial centre of the coun-
15 tries of Western Indian Among the distant ones Ma-li-pa^ (^ "^ :f^) is
the commercial centre of the countries of the Ta-sM, and beyond these there
same country Mo-k'ie-la (^ -^ |^).
Wu-ssMi, asusedbyChau J u-ku a, is certainly Egypt;
whether our author applies this name in the present case to the same country or to some other
it is impossible to say. In another passage (SiS*) Ch6u uses three characters with the same sounds
20 {'^ ^ ^) for Mosul (al Mawsil).
1) Chau Ju-kua (infra, p. 54) mentions Wa-li as a dependency of Chon-la (Kamhoja).
Chou K'ii-fei (2, 11") says it was 60 days journey from P'u-kan on the Irrawadi, without men-
tioning any direction. It may have been either the Laos country or that of the Karens.
2) The whole of Western Asia is sometimes covered by this term in Chinese works. For
25 example in the modern work Hai-kuo-t'u-chl (30), Persia, Arabia, Syria and their ancient equi-
valents are discussed under the heading of Si-Yin-t'u, i. e.. Western India.
3) Ma-li-pa, or Ma-lo-pa as Chau also writes it, appears to be Merbat on the Hadramaut
coast of southern Arabia. At the time of which our author writes, Aden was perhaps the most
important port of Arabia for the African and. Arabian- trade with India and the countries beyond.
30 It seems highly probable that the Ma-li-pa of the Chinese must be understood as including
Aden— of which they make no mention whatsoever, but which was one of «the great commercial
centres of the Arabs». In another passage of his work (3,2) Chou says that Ma-li-pa was
reached from Lan-li (N. W. Sumatra) by ships sailing with the N. E. wind in some 60 days.
It was also some 80 days by land from Mekka (Ma-kia). Chau Ju-kua says it was 120
35 stages from Ma-lo-pa to Ki-tz'I-ni (possibly Ghazni) and 300 stages to Lu-mei (Rto,— Syria,
Rome or Constantinople?). There is nothing in these indications which can help us locate this
place. The ancient Merbat or Robat was, according to Theo. Bent (Geogr, Journ. VI,
115—116, 124 — 125), near the modern Takha, about half way between Cape Risut and
the modern Merbat. From Bent's examination of the locality, it had a good spacious
40 and commodious harbor with an island protecting the entrance. It is, he says, the Abyssa-
polis ('ApuffffaTToXii;) of Ptolemy, the Moscha (Mo'uxa) of the Periplus. Ibn Khaldun uses
the name Mirbat. See also Mailer, Geogr. Graeci min. I, 282, § 32 and Mo Crindlo,
Periplus, 95.