58» 



MEDLEVAL HISTORY. 



[Part V. 



arms and naphtha, to defend themselves against the 

 pirates of India.' 



On this point we have the personal testimony of 

 the Chinese traveller Fa Hian, who at the end of the 

 fourth century sailed direct from Ceylon for China, in a 

 merchant vessel so large as to accommodate two hun- 

 dred persons, and having in tow a smaller one, as 

 a precaution against dangers by sea^ : — and Ibn Batuta 

 saw, at Cahcut, in the fourteenth century, junks from 

 China capable of accommodating a thousand men, of 

 whom four hundred were soldiers, and each of these 

 large ships was followed by three smaller.^ With 

 vessels of such magnitude, it would be neither ex- 

 pedient nor practicable to navigate the shaUows in the 

 \dcinity of Manaar ; and besides, Mantotte, or, as it was 

 anciently called, Mahatitta or Maha-totta, "the great 

 ferry," although it existed as a port upwards of four 

 hundred years before the Christian era, was at no period 

 an emporium of commerce. Being situated so close to 

 the ancient capital, Anarajapoora, it derived its notoriety 

 from being the point of arrival and departure of the 

 Malabars who resorted to the island ; and the only 

 trade for wliich it aflbrded facihties was the occasional 



' See the " Katab-al-adjajah, " 

 probably -vNTitteu by Massotjdi. Rei- 

 NAITD, Memoires sur Vlnde, p. 200 ; 

 Relation et Disemirs, pp. Ix. Ixviii. ; 

 Aboulfeda, Introd. cdxii. May not 

 this early mention of the use of 

 ''naphtha" by the Chinese for biuii- 

 ing the ships of an enemy, throw some 

 light on the disquisitions adverted to 

 by GiBBO?^, ch. lii., as to the natiu-e 

 of "the Greek fire,^'' so destructive to 

 the fleets of their assailants during 

 the first and second siege of Coustau- 

 linople in the seventh and eighth 

 centimes ? Gibbon says that the 

 principal ingredient was naphtha, and 

 that the Greek emperor learned the 

 secret of its composition from a Sjiian 

 who deserted from the service of the 

 Khalif. Did the Khalif acquire the 



knowledge from the Chinese, whose 

 ships, it appears, were armed with 

 some preparation of this nature in 

 their voyages to Bassora ? 



2 Fue-kone-ki, ch. xl. p. .359. In a 

 previous passage, Fa Hian describes 

 the large vessels in which the ti'ade 

 was carried between Tamlook, on the 

 Hoogly, and Ceylon : — '' A cette 

 epoque, des marchands, se mettant 

 en mer avec de grands vaisseaux, 

 firent route vers le sud-ouest ; et an 

 commencement de I'hiver, le vent 

 etant favorable, apres une navigation 

 de quatorze nuits et d'autant de jours, 

 on arriva au Hoyaume des Lions' — 

 Ihid. chap, xxxvi. p. 328. 



^ Ibn Batttta, Lee's 'translation, 

 p. 172. 



