DEDICATION.

TOHIS EXCELLENCYSIR H. B. E. FRERE, K.C.B.,GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY.

Dear Sir Bartle Frere,

There is no time to ask your assent to this dedication. But I have trust enough in your love for old travellers, and in your good-will to the editor, to venture it without permission. I have some hope too that I introduce to you a new acquaintance in the Bishop of Columbum, whose book seems little known.

Like many other old travellers of more fame, whilst endeavouring to speak only truth of what he has seen, Jordanus retails fables enough from hearsay. What he did see in his travels was so marvellous to him, that he was quite ready to accept what was told him of regions more remote from Christendom, when it seemed but in reasonable proportion more marvellous. If there were cats with wings in Malabar,as he had seen,[1]why should there not be people with dogs’ heads in the Islands of the Ocean?[2]If black men cut off their own heads before their gods at Columbum,[3]why should not “white and fat men” be purchased as delectable food in Java?[4]If there were rats nearly as big as foxes in India Major,[5]why should there not be rocs that could fly away with elephants in India Tertia?[6]

Apart from this credulity, it might be well if the heads of some of our modern sojourners in India could be endowed with a little more of that Organ of Wonder which gave these old story-tellers such a thorough enjoyment of the real marvels of the East, and could by its help see something worthier there than a howling wilderness, affording no consolation but that silver fruit, which, like the coco-nut described by our author, is borne twelve times in the year.[7]

Were Jordanus to come to life again, he would see many changes no doubt, but he would still find many landmarks standing after the five and a half centuries. To say nothing of the “Coquodriles”[8]and the horrible heat,[9]he would find the Parsis still disposing of their dead in their strange old fashion,[10]the Nairs still handing down their succession in oblique descent,[11]the Dóms still feeding on offal and doing the basest drudgeries,[12]the poor Poliars still dwellingin dens and howling by the wayside,[13]the ox still “honoured like a father,”[14]and the idols still “dragged through the land like the Virgin at Rogationtides;”[15]he might even hear now and then of “living women taking their places on the fire and dying with their dead.”[16]Much therefore of evil he would find very persistent. How on the other side? He would indeed also find the Hindus still “clean in feeding,” but would he still pronounce them to be “true in speech and eminent in justice?”[17]Is it not to be feared that he would find not only the wealth of that Columbum, which in the days of his bishopric was hidden by the masts of all the East from Yemen to Cathay, as far gone by as the splendours of the kings of Telinga and Narsinga, but the natural life and genius of the people degenerate and their inborn arts in decay? He would indeed see vigorous efforts in action to introduce a new life into the country; instead of Diabolus roaring in the woods by night[18]he might hear the scream of the locomotive; and he would meet among those Western conquerors who, in strange fulfilment of the prophecies of his own day,[19]are now ruling India, some confident believers in the renovation of the land through the introduction of the material progress of Europe.

Will that belief be justified? I am not likely to undervalue the work in which my best years havebeen spent; but surely that alone will not serve. The question that carried Jordanus to the East five hundred and forty years ago is still the great question for India, however Providence may solve it. Till India becomes Christian there is no hope of real life and renovation. Would Jordanus Redivivus discern much progress in this direction since the days of his episcopate? How like his talk about the matter is to that of our own missionaries in the nineteenth century![20]Hindu Christians are still a feeble and scattered folk,[21]and the advance towards Christian light seems to all who care not, and to many who do care, almost nothing. But it is encouraging to know that you think very differently, and few indeed have had at once your capacity and your opportunity for a just judgment.

I am ever, dear Sir Bartle,

Your faithful friend and servant,

H. Yule.

Genoa, October 14th, 1863.

FOOTNOTES[1]See p. 29.[2]See p. 44.[3]See p. 33.[4]See p. 31.[5]See p. 29.[6]See p. 42.[7]See p. 15.[8]See p. 19.[9]See p. 22.[10]See p. 21.[11]See p. 32.[12]See p. 21.[13]See p. 35.[14]See p. 25.[15]See p. 33.[16]See p. 21.[17]See p. 22[18]See p. 37.[19]See p. 30.[20]See p. 55.[21]See p. 23.

[1]See p. 29.

[2]See p. 44.

[3]See p. 33.

[4]See p. 31.

[5]See p. 29.

[6]See p. 42.

[7]See p. 15.

[8]See p. 19.

[9]See p. 22.

[10]See p. 21.

[11]See p. 32.

[12]See p. 21.

[13]See p. 35.

[14]See p. 25.

[15]See p. 33.

[16]See p. 21.

[17]See p. 22

[18]See p. 37.

[19]See p. 30.

[20]See p. 55.

[21]See p. 23.

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