‘The travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508’ [‎239] (404/492)

LUDOVICO 1)1 VARTHKMA.
239
here in one street about five hundred money-changers, and
these because a very great number of merchants come to
this city, where they carry on a very extensive traffic. 1 For
the sleeping of these people, there are good beds of cotton,
covered with silk and cotton sheets. In this island they
have an extreme abundance of timber, and they make here
great ships which they call giunchi, which carry three
masts, and have a prow before and behind, with two rudders
before and two behind. And when they navigate through
any archipelago, (for here there is a great sea like a canal,)
while sailing, the wind will sometimes come in their face,
they immediately lower the sail, and quickly, without turn
ing, hoist sail on the other mast, and turn back. And you
must know that they are the most active men I have ever
met with. They are also very great swimmers, and excel
lent masters of the art of making fire-works. 2
civilized nations of the Archipelago. The neck-chains of Manilla are
examples of very delicate workmanship, and the filagree work of the
Malays of Sumatra is still more remarkable. In all these cases, what
is most striking is the beauty of the work compared with the rudeness
and simplicity of the workmen and their tools." Id., p. 145.
1 This remark undesignedly confirms Varthema's former statement
respecting the coins which were current at Sumatra. (See note on p.
232 ante.) The money-changers were probably foreigners, natives of
India, like those at Malacca, where Crawfurd says " a colony of the
Hindus of Telingana still exists, whose profession it is to try gold by the
touch and to refine it." Id., p. 287.
a " Fuochi artificiati." Crawfurd has collected abundant evidence to
prove that fire-arms were in use among the more advanced Malay
nations when the Portuguese first arrived in the Archipelago, and he
concludes that their knowledge of artillery was communicated by the
Arabs, who had acquired it from the Christians. If such was the case,
it must have been from the Arabs of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , for, as has been
shown in a former note, (p. 65,) those of Yemen were generally un
acquainted with fire-arms when the Egyptians invaded that country in
1515. I think Mr. Crawfurd's conclusion very probable, but I venture
to question one of the premises as contained in the following quotation:
—"The name by which fire-arms are usually called [among the Malays]
is bddil, a general one for any missile, and mariam, which is Arabic, and