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passage through the Straits of Malacca and Odoric's visit to the island.

Near Java—a somewhat vague term—Odoric places a country called "Panten, but others call it Thalamasyn, the king whereof hath many islands under him." It produced sago, honey, toddy and a deadly vegetable poison, which was used to smear the blow-pipe darts of the natives who were "nearly all rovers," or pirates. All this points with some certainty to Borneo, and Banjarmasin, which was a flourishing kingdom as early as the eleventh century, may have been Odoric's Thalamasyn, or Panten may have stood for Kalamantan, a name by which a portion of Borneo was known in ancient times.

"By the coast of this country towards the south," Odoric continues, "is the sea called the Dead Sea, the water whereof runneth ever towards the south, and if any falleth into that water he is never found more."

At a later period de Barros relates a superstition of the natives to the effect that the currents beyond the Straits of Bâli acted in a similar manner, and it is possible that in this legend is to be found the germ of the tale concerning the current which wrecked Sindbad, and cast him up, more fortunate than his fellows, upon the bone-strewn island whence he escaped by means of the subterranean passage. To Odoric we also owe one of the earliest descriptions of the bamboo "canes or reeds like great trees," and of the rattan, while he further speaks of stones found in these "canes" which were regarded as charms that conferred the advantage of invul-