Andaman islands, the natives of which were naked and bestial savages, though the country produced excellent cloves, cocoanuts, Brazil wood, red and white sandal wood, and various kinds of spices. They next touched at Ceylon, which appeared to Marco Polo, and not altogether without reason, to be the finest island in the world. Here no grain, except rice, was cultivated; but the country produced a profusion of oil, sesamum, milk, flesh, palm wine, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, and the best rubies in the world. Of this last kind of gem the King of Ceylon was said to possess the finest specimen in existence, the stone being as long as a man's hand, of corresponding thickness, and glowing like fire. The wonders of Adam's Peak Marco Polo heard of, but did not behold. His account of the pearl-fishery he likewise framed from report.
From Ceylon they proceeded towards the Persian Gulf, touching in their way upon the coast of the Carnatic, where Marco learned some particulars respecting the Hindoos; as, that they were an unwarlike people, who imported horses from Ormus, and generally abstained from beef; that their rich men were carried about in palankeens; and that from motives of the origin of which he was ignorant, every man carefully preserved his own drinking-vessels from the touch of another.
At length, after a voyage of eighteen months, they arrived in the dominions of Argûn, but found that that prince was dead, the heir to the throne a minor, and the functions of government exercised by a regent. They delivered the princess, who was now nearly nineteen, to Kazan, the son of Argûn; and having been magnificently entertained for nine months by the regent, who presented them at parting with four tablets of gold, each a cubit long and five fingers broad, they continued their journey through Kurdistan and Mingrelia, to Trebizond, where they embarked upon the Black Sea; and, sailing down the
