MEDLEVAL HISTORY. 



[PART V. 



ships availing themselves of the monsoons to cross the 

 Indian Ocean, crept along the shore to Cape Comorin ; 

 and passed close by Adam's Bridge to reach their destined 

 ports. 1 



An opinion has been advanced by Bertolacci that the 

 entrepdt was Mantotte, at the northern extremity of the 

 Gulf of Manaar. Presuming that the voyages both ways 

 were made through the Manaar channel, he infers that 

 the ships of Arabia and India, rather than encounter 

 the long delay of waiting for the change of the mon- 

 soon to effect the passage, would prefer to " flock to the 

 Straits of Manaar, and those which, from their size, could 

 not pass the shallow water, would be unloaded, and their 

 merchandise trans-shipped into other vessels, as they 

 arrived from the opposite coast, or deposited in stores to 

 await an opportunity of conveyance." 2 Hence Mantotte, 

 he concludes, was the station chosen for such combined 

 operations. 



But Bertolacci confines his remarks to the Arabian and 

 Indian crafts alone : he leaves out of consideration the ships 

 of the largest size called in the Periplus xoXavS/oc^ovra, 

 which kept up the communication between the west and 

 east coast of India, in the time of the Eomans, and he 

 equally overlooks the great junks of the Chinese, which, 

 by aid of the magnetic compass 3 , made bold passages 

 from Java to Malabar, and from Malabar to Oman, 

 vessels which (on the authority of an ancient Arabic MS.) 

 Eeinaud says carried from four to five hundred men, with 

 arms and naphtha, to defend themselves against the 

 pirates of India. 4 



1 ABOU-ZEYB, vol. i. p. 128 ; REI- 

 NAtTD, Discours, Sfc., pp. Ix. Ixix. ; 

 Introd. ABOULFEDA, p. cdxii. 



2 BEETOLACCI'S Ceylon, pp. 18, 19. 



3 The knowledge of the mariner's 

 compass, probably possessed by the 

 Chinese prior to the twelfth century, 

 is discussed by KLAPROTH in his 

 " Lettre a M. le Baron Humboldt sur 

 T invention de la boussole" Paris. 

 1834. 



4 See the " Katab-al-adjajab, " 

 probably written by MASSOTJDI. REI- 

 KATTD, Memoires sur Vlnde, p. 200 ; 

 Relation et Discours, pp. Ix. Ixviii. ; 

 ABOTTLFEDA, Introd. cclxii. May not 

 this early mention of the use of 

 " naphtha" by the Chinese for burn- 

 ing the ships of an enemy, throw some 

 light on the disquisitions adverted to 

 by GIBBOX, ch. Hi., as to the nature 

 of "the Greek Jire" so destructive to 



