Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume II.
complete book, e-book

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CHAPTER XIII.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF ANGAMANAIN.

Angamanain is a very large Island. The people are without a king and are Idolaters, and no better than wild beasts. And I assure you all the men of this Island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in the face they are all just like big mastiff dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel generation, and eat everybody that they can catch, if not of their own race.[NOTE 1] They live on flesh and rice and milk, and have fruits different from any of ours.

Now that I have told you about this race of people, as indeed it was highly proper to do in this our book, I will go on to tell you about an Island called Seilan, as you shall hear.

NOTE 1.—Here Marco speaks of the remarkable population of the Andaman Islands—Oriental negroes in the lowest state of barbarism—who have remained in their isolated and degraded condition, so near the shores of great civilised countries, for so many ages. "Rice and milk" they have not, and their fruits are only wild ones.

[From the Sing-ch'a Sheng-lan quoted by Professor Schlegel (Geog. Notes, I. p. 8) we learn that these islanders have neither "rice or corn, but only descend into the sea and catch fish and shrimps in their nets; they also plant Banians and Cocoa-trees for their food."—H.C.]

I imagine our traveller's form Angamanain to be an Arabic (oblique) dual—"The two ANDAMANS," viz. The Great and The Little, the former being in truth a chain of three islands, but so close and nearly continuous as to form apparently one, and to be named as such.

[Illustration: The Borús. (From a Manuscript.)]

[Professor Schlegel writes (Geog. Notes. I. p. 12): "This etymology is to be rejected because the old Chinese transcription gives So—(or Sun) damân…. The Pien-i-tien (ch. 107, I. fol. 30) gives a description of Andaman, here called An-to-man kwoh, quoted from the San-tsai Tu-hwui."—H.C.]

The origin of the name seems to be unknown. The only person to my knowledge who has given a meaning to it is Nicolo Conti, who says it means "Island of Gold"; probably a mere sailor's yarn. The name, however, is very old, and may perhaps be traced in Ptolemy; for he names an island of cannibals called that of Good Fortune, [Greek: Agathou daímonos]. It seems probable enough that this was [Greek: Agdaimóuos Naesos], or the like, "The Angdaman Island," misunderstood. His next group of Islands is the Barussae, which seems again to be the Lankha Bálús of the oldest Arab navigators, since these are certainly the Nicobars. [The name first appears distinctly in the Arab narratives of the 9th century. (Yule, Hobson-Jobson.)]

The description of the natives of the Andaman Islands in the early Arab Relations has been often quoted, but it is too like our traveller's account to be omitted: "The inhabitants of these (...)

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