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observer of a modern Malay wedding, a striking proof, were proof needed, of the extraordinary conservatism of this people. For the rest he has nothing new to tell us concerning these regions, though he shows us incidentally that ships still adhered as of old to the few well-known ports of call and rarely strayed far beyond the beaten track which had been in use for centuries.

Friar John de Marignolli, a Franciscan like Odoric, was born in Florence between 1280 and 1290. In December, 1338, he was sent from Avignon on a mission to the Great Kaan, and travelled overland to China, returning to India via Zayton and the Malay Archipelago in 1346 or 1347. Beyond the bare fact that he left Zayton and eventually arrived at Columbum (Quilon) he tells us absolutely nothing, but after some travels in India he paid a visit to an island which he names Saba, and clearly imagines it to be the same as the Saba of the Scriptures. The island, we learn, was so far to the south that the polar star was no longer visible; it was ruled by women; its queen possessed a fine palace, the walls of which were decked with historical pictures; there was a huge mountain on the island, and there were beasts in its forests nearly resembling human beings; elephants were in use, especially among the women; a few Christians lived there, and when he quitted its shores he was storm driven into a port of Ceylon. These are all the data which we have concerning Friar John's Saba, and it has been identified with Java by Meinert, and with the Maldives by Professor Kunstmann. Colonel Yule has shown that this latter theory is untenable, and declines