202 J. HORNELL ON 



at the end of the fourth century, and in the ninth century Arab narratives, as we 

 have seen, deplore the costHness of Chinese goods in the Basra and Bagdad bazaars 

 owing to the dangers of the sea and the attacks of pirates. 



Probably the earliest notice of Chinese vessels in Indian seas belong^s to the first 

 half of the fifth century when according to Hamza of Ispahan and Ma'sudi, the ships 

 of India and Ceylon were constantly to be seen moored as high up the Euphrates as 

 Hira, near Kufa, a city lying some 45 miles south-west of ancient Babylon.' 



As Yule points out, after this a gradual recession took place in the position of the 

 headquarters of Indian and Chinese trade. From Hira, it descended to Obolla, the 

 ancient Apologos ; from Obolla, it was transferred to the neighbouring city of Basra ; 

 from Basra to Siraf on the northern shore of the Gulf and from Siraf successively to 

 Kish and Hormuz. Chinese annals of the T'ang dynasty (618-907) of the 7th and 

 8th centuries describe the course followed of their junks in the voyage from Kwang- 

 chau (Canton) to the Euphrates. It also appears that Chinese ships in equally early 

 times voyaged as far as Aden.^ 



By the 12th century the furthest port of exchange resorted to by Chinese vessels 

 appears to have been Debal, the then most famous port in Sind — probably Karachi; 

 Al Idrisi describes it as a station whither came "ships laden with the productions of 

 U'man and the vessels of China and India." Broach (Baruh), he also states, was a 

 port for the vessels coming from China as also for those from Sind.^ 



From this time onwards to the early part of the fifteenth century, contemporary 

 notices of Chinese trading ships in Indian ports become frequent. 



The chief Indian ports resorted to by Chinese junks during the thirteenth and 

 fourteenth centuries appear to have been Kayal (the Cael of Marco Polo) on the 

 Gulf of Mannar, Quilon in South Travancore, with Calicut and the fine bay south of 

 Mount Deli in North Malabar. On the site of " the noble city" of Kayal, which had 

 ceased to be a seaport before the arrival of the Portuguese about 1500 A.D. owing to 

 the silting up of its harbour, I have found innumerable fragments of Chinese pottery, 

 much of it thick and coarse and suggestive of preserved ginger — a sweet highly 

 esteemed by Indians. Here Marco Polo landed at the end of the thirteenth century, 

 and it is he also who mentions Delai (Mount Deli) as a place where " the ships of Mangi 

 come." Quilon he mentions, but not as a terminal port for Chinese ships, though 

 from other sources it is clear that this port was used as a clearing house by Arab and 

 Chinese traders. In the long intercourse between China and India it is plain that 

 with altering circumstances — the wane of one coast power and the rise of another, to 

 say nothing of mercantile changes — a port occupying the premier position in one cen- 

 tury might be supplanted in the next by another. Kayal, Quilon, Calicut,* and Deli 

 are four regarding which we have clear evidence. In passing it is notable that early 



1 Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, I, p. 83. L,ondon, 1915. Some doubt seems however to attach to the possi- 

 bility of Hira having ever been a haven for Eastern trade. 



2 Yule, loc. cit., p. 87. 3 Sir H. Elliot, History of India, Vol. I, pp. 77-87. 



^ Ibn Batuta who travelled extensively in the East from 1325 to 1349, after taking his passage for China in one of 

 thirteen Chinese junks anchored off Calicut, records how a sudden storm drove ashore several of these vessels with the 

 loss of many lives, the remainder of the fleet heading for the open sea as the only chance of safety. 



