Background
Niccolo de Conti was a merchant of noble family, who left Venice about 1419, on what proved an absence of 25 years.
Niccolo de Conti was a merchant of noble family, who left Venice about 1419, on what proved an absence of 25 years.
We next find Niccolo de Conti in Damascus, whence he made his way over the north Arabian desert, the Euphrates, and southern Mesopotamia, to Bagdad.
Of this city Conti gives an elaborate description, one of the most interesting portions of his narrative.
From Vijayanagar and the Tungabudhra he travelled to Maliapur near Madras, the traditional resting-place of the body of St Thomas, and the holiest shrine of the native Nestorian Christians, then " scattered over all India, " the Venetian declares, " as the Jews are among us. "
The narrative next refers to Ceylon, and gives a very accurate account of the Cingalese cinnamon tree; but, if Conti visited the island at all, it was probably on the return journey.
His outward route now took him to Sumatra, where he stayed a year, and of whose cruel, brutal, cannibal natives he gained a pretty full knowledge, as of the camphor, pepper and gold of this " Taprobana. "
From Sumatra a stormy voyage of sixteen days brought him to Tenasserim, near the head of the Malay Peninsula.
We then find him at the mouth of the Ganges, and trace him ascending and descending that river (a journey of several months), visiting Burdwan and Aracan, penetrating into Burma, and navigating the Irawadi to Ava.
He appears to have spent some time in Pegu, from which he again plunged into the Malay Archipelago, and visited Java, his farthest point.
Here he remained nine months, and then began his return by way of Ciampa (usually Cochin-China in later medieval European literature, but here perhaps some more westerly portion of Indo-China); a month's voyage from Ciampa brought him to Coloen, doubtless Kulam or Quilon, in the extreme south-west of India.
Thence he continued his homeward route, touching at Cochin, Calicut and Cambay, to Sokotra, which he describes as still mainly inhabited by Nestorian Christians; to the " rich city " of Aden, " remarkable for its buildings "; to Gidda or Jidda, the port of Mecca; over the desert to Carras or Cairo; and so to Venice, where he arrived in 1444.
