whose inhabitants have much gold. They live on coconuts, also using them as a condiment and as the source of an oil to apply to their skin. If one of them wishes to marry, he is only allowed to do so in return for a skull taken from one of their enemies. If he kills two of the enemy, he marries two women. Similarly, if he kills fifty, he marries fifty woman in return for the fifty skulls. The reason for this is that they have so many enemies that the more of them a man dares to kill, the more desirable they find him. In this island—I mean al-Rāmanī—there are many elephants, and also sapan wood and rattans.16 There is also a tribe who eat people. The island faces two seas, those of Harkand and Salāhiṭ.
1.2.5
After al-Rāmanī lies a group of islands called Lanjabālūs. In them live a numerous people who are naked, both the men and the women, except that the women have the leaves of trees covering their pudenda. When the merchants’ ships pass by, these people come out to them in boats both small and large to barter with the crews, exchanging ambergris and coconuts for iron and such coverings as they need for their bodies, as it is neither hot nor cold in their land.17
Beyond these people are two islands separated by a sea that is called Andamān. Their inhabitants eat people alive. They are black and have frizzy hair,18 hideous faces and eyes, and long feet—the foot of one of them is about a cubit long (meaning his penis)19—and they are naked. They have no boats, and if they did, they would eat anyone who passed by them.20 It sometimes happens that ships make a slow passage and are delayed in their voyage because of unfavorable winds. As a result, the ships’ water runs out, and their crews make for these people’s islands to get water. When this happens, the islanders often catch some of the crew, although most of them get away.
1.2.6
After this island group, there are some rocky islets lying off the route the ships follow. It is said that there are silver mines in them. They are uninhabited, and not every ship that makes for them is able to find them. In fact they were only discovered when a ship passed one of the islets, which is called al-Khushnāmī, spotted it, and made for it. When day broke, the crew went ashore in a boat to gather firewood. They kindled a fire, and molten silver flowed from the ground, at which they realized that it was a source of the metal. They carried off with them as much as they wanted. When they set sail, however, the sea grew stormy, and they had to throw overboard all the silver they had taken. After this, people equipped expeditions to this islet but could not locate it. The sea is full of countless stories like this, of forbidden islands that the sailors cannot find, and of others that can never be reached.
1.2.7 Dangers in the Sea of Harkand
In this sea a white cloud may often be seen casting a shadow over the ships. From it a long thin tongue of vapor emerges and descends until it meets the water of the sea, at which the water boils up like a whirlwind. If this whirlwind makes contact with a ship, it swallows it up. Then the cloud rises, and from it falls rain containing debris from the sea. I do not know if the cloud draws up water from the sea, or how this happens.21
In each of these seas there is a wind that blows up and stirs the water, whipping it up until it seethes like cauldrons on the boil. When this happens, it casts up what it contains on to the islands that are in it, wrecking ships and casting ashore huge great dead fish. At times it even casts up boulders and entire outcrops of rock, as if they were arrows shot from a bow.
The Sea of Harkand, however, has another wind that blows from a bearing between the west and the Big Dipper.22 This makes the sea seethe like boiling cauldrons and causes it to cast up large quantities of ambergris. The deeper the sea and the lower its bottom lies, the better the ambergris is in quality. And when the waves of this sea—I mean Harkand—grow big, the water seems to you like a blazing fire.23 In this sea there is a fish called lukham, a predator that swallows people …24
MARITIME COMMERCE BETWEEN THE ARABS AND THE CHINESE
1.3.1 The Chinese port of Khānfū
… in their hands …25 so that the goods are in short supply. One of the reasons for such a shortage is the frequent outbreak of fire at Khānfū, the port of the China ships and entrepôt of Arab and Chinese trade, and the resulting destruction of goods in the conflagration. This is because their houses there are built of wood and split bamboo. Another reason for shortages is that outbound or returning ships might be wrecked, or their crews might be plundered or forced to put in to some place en route for long periods and thus end up selling their goods somewhere other than in Arab lands.26 It can happen too that the wind forces them to land in Yemen or elsewhere, and they end up selling their goods there. They might also have to put in somewhere for a long time to repair their ships, or for some other reason.
1.3.2
Sulaymān the Merchant reported that, in Khānfū, the meeting place of the merchants, there was a Muslim man appointed by the ruler of China to settle cases arising between the Muslims who go to that region, and that the Chinese king would not have it otherwise. At the time of the ʿĪds, this man would lead the Muslims in prayer, deliver the sermon, and pray for the sultan of the Muslims.27 The Iraqi merchants, Sulaymān added, never dispute any of the judgments issued by the holder of this office, and they all agree that he acts justly, in accordance with the Book of God, mighty and glorious is He, and with the laws of Islam.
1.3.3 Sīrāf in the Arabian/Persian Gulf
Regarding the ports where the merchants regularly go ashore, they have said that most of the China ships28 take their cargoes on board at Sīrāf. Goods are carried from Basra, Oman, and elsewhere to Sīrāf and loaded there onto the China ships. The reason for this is that, at the other ports on this sea,29 the water is often too rough and too shallow for the bigger vessels to put in.
THE SEA ROUTE FROM SĪRĀF TO KHĀNFŪ
1.4.1 From Basra to Muscat via Sīrāf
The sailing distance from Basra to Sīrāf is 120 farsakhs. Once the goods have been loaded at Sīrāf, they take on board freshwater there, then they “take off”30 (an expression used by seamen meaning “set sail”) for a place called Muscat. This is at the end of the territory of Oman, the distance there from Sīrāf being about two hundred farsakhs. At the eastern end of this sea, the territories between Sīrāf and Muscat include Sīf Banī l-Ṣaffāq and the Island of Ibn Kāwān. Also in this sea are the rocks of Oman.31 Among them is the place called “the Whirlpool,” which is a narrow channel between two rocks through which small ships can pass but not the China ships.32 Among the rocks of Oman are also the two rocks known as Kusayr and ʿUwayr, of which only small parts appear above the surface of the water. When we have passed all these rocks we reach a place called Ṣuḥār of Oman. Then we take on board freshwater at Muscat, from a well that is there. There are also sheep and goats in plenty for sale, from the land of Oman.
1.4.2 From Muscat to Kūlam Malī
From Muscat the ships set sail for the land of India, making for Kūlam Malī. The distance from Muscat to Kūlam Malī is a month, if the wind is constant.33 At Kūlam Malī there is a guard post belonging to that country that exacts customs duty from the China ships, and there is also freshwater to be had from wells. The sum taken from the China ships is a thousand dirhams, and from other ships it ranges from ten dinars down to one dinar. The distance between Muscat and Kūlam Malī and the start of the Sea of Harkand is about a month. In Kūlam
