Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume II.
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CHAPTER XXX.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF KESMACORAN.

Kesmacoran is a kingdom having a king of its own and a peculiar language. [Some of] the people are Idolaters, [but the most part are Saracens]. They live by merchandize and industry, for they are professed traders, and carry on much traffic by sea and land in all directions. Their food is rice [and corn], flesh and milk, of which they have great store. There is no more to be said about them.[NOTE 1]

And you must know that this kingdom of Kesmacoran is the last in India as you go towards the west and north-west. You see, from Maabar on, this province is what is called the GREATER INDIA, and it is the best of all the Indies. I have now detailed to you all the kingdoms and provinces and (chief) cities of this India the Greater, that are upon the seaboard; but of those that lie in the interior I have said nothing, because that would make too long a story.[NOTE 2]

And so now let us proceed, and I will tell you of some of the Indian
Islands. And I will begin by two Islands which are called Male and Female.

NOTE 1.—Though M. Pauthier has imagined objections there is no room for doubt that Kesmacoran is the province of Mekran, known habitually all over the East as Kij-Makrán, from the combination with the name of the country of that of its chief town, just as we lately met with a converse combination in Konkan-tana. This was pointed out to Marsden by his illustrious friend Major Rennell. We find the term Kij Makrán used by Ibn Batuta (III. 47); by the Turkish Admiral Sidi 'Ali (J. As., sér. I. tom. ix. 72; and J.A.S.B. V. 463); by Sharifuddin (P. de la Croix, I. 379, II. 417-418); in the famous Sindian Romeo-and-Juliet tale of Sassi and Pannún (Elliot, I. 333); by Pietro della Valle (I. 724, II. 358); by Sir F. Goldsmid (J.R.A.S., N.S., I. 38); and see for other examples, J.A.S.B. VII. 298, 305, 308; VIII. 764; XIV. 158; XVII. pt. ii. 559: XX. 262, 263.

The argument that Mekrán was not a province of India only amounts to saying that Polo has made a mistake. But the fact is that it often was reckoned to belong to India, from ancient down to comparatively modern times. Pliny says: "Many indeed do not reckon the Indus to be the western boundary of India, but include in that term also four satrapies on this side the river, the Gedrosi, the Arachoti, the Arii, and the Parapomisadae (i.e. Mekran, Kandahar, Herat, and Kabul) …. whilst others class all these together under the name of Ariana" (VI. 23). Arachosia, according to Isidore of Charax, was termed by the Parthians "White India." Aelian calls Gedrosia a part of India. (Hist. Animal. XVII. 6.) In the 6th century the Nestorian Patriarch Jesujabus, as we have seen (supra, ch. xxii. note 1), considered all to be India from the coast of Persia, i.e. of Fars, beginning from near the Gulf. According to Ibn Khordâdbeh, the boundary between (...)

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