Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

ISTRODUCTION. 35
In tLe preceding pages an attempt has been made to trace briefly the
rise and development of the maritime intercourse between China and southern
and south-western Asia down to the latter part of the twelfth century, when
Chau Ju-kua, whose oDescription of the Barbarous Peoples* (Chu-fan-chi) is
5 translated in this volume, takes up the subject and tells of what the Chinese
at the beginning of the twelfth century knew of the foreign countries, peoples
and products of Eastern and Southern Asia, Africa and Europe.
Chau Ju-ku a was, as appears from the genealogical Records in the
Annals of the Sung *, a descendant of the Emperor Tai-tsung in the eighth
10 generation through the Prince of Shang,
Chon-tsung (A. D. 998—1023).
a younger brother of the Emperor
We know nothing concerning him beyond the briefest kind of notice of
his work in Ch'5n Chon-sun's (^ :^ ^) Descriptive Catalogue of his family
library, written about the middle of the thirteenth century *. It is there said, after
15 giving the title of Chau Ju-kua's book, and by way of explanation: — «The
Inspector of Foreign Trade (Shi-po-shi) in Fu-kien, Chau Ju-kua, records (in
this book) the several foreign countries and the merchandise which comes
from them».
This is little indeed, and yet it enables us to see the reason for Chau
20 Ju-kua's interest in foreign peoples and trade, to determine the probable
source of the information contained in those portions ofhis book, which cannot
be tracedto any previous written source, and it helps also to fix approximately
the date before which the Chu~fan-chi must have been written ^.
This is exactly the style and size of ships Fa-hie n has told us (supra, p. 27) he sailed on from
25 Ceylon in A. D. 412. Ibn Batuta, "Voyages, III, 88—91 says the largest class of Chinese ship
— which he calls Junk — had a crew of 1,000 men, viz., 600 mariners and 400 soldiers, and each
vessel had three tenders. These ships need not have been much larger than the ordinary Chinese
sea-going merchant junk (po) of the time — they were probably literally packed with people.
In 1612 Sir Henry Middleton stopped off Aden a ship of Surate with 1,500 persons aboard.
30 Captain John Saris had this ship measured. It was long «from stem to sterne-post, one hundred
three and fiftie foot. From 'the top of her sides in bredth, two and fortie. Her depth, one and
thirtie». Purchas, His Pilgrimea, III, 193, 396 (Mac Lehose edit).
We have to come down to the beginning of the fifteenth century, to Ch6ng Ho's famous
expedition to the West, to find mention in Chinese works of ships of the Mu-Ian-p'i type.
35 In this expedition there were ships measuring 440 feet in length and 180 feet beam. It is perhaps
unnecessary to add that we may doubt the correctness of these measurements.
1) Sung-shi, 231, 283. See Hirth, J. E. A. S., 1896, 57 et seqq.
2) Wvlie. Kotfis on Chinese literature, 60. The title of this work it Chi-chai-shu-lu-kie-ti
rib* 3) From a remark our author makes in his chapter on Baghdad it is possible to assign
klpjjj^Ujrk to about the middle of the thirteenth century.