The Year of Rice and Salt

They began to sail against a current from the south, but it was mild, and the winds were constant from the west. The fishing here was excellent, the weather mild. Day followed day in a perfect circle of sameness. The land fell away cast again, then ran south, most of the way to the equator, past a big archipelago of low islands, with good anchorages and good water, and seabirds with blue feet.

They came at last to a steeply rising coastline, with great snowy volcanoes in the distance, like Fuji only twice as big, or more, punctuating the sky behind a steep coastal range, which was already tall. This final giganticism put paid to anyone's ability to think of this place as an island.

'Are you sure this isn't Africa?' Kheim said to I Chen.

I Chen was not sure. 'Maybe. Maybe the people we left up north are the only survivors of the Fulanchi, reduced to a primitive state. Maybe this is the west coast of the world, and we sailed past the opening to their middle sea in the night, or in a fog. But I don't think so.'

'Then where are we?'

I Chen showed Kheim where he thought they were on the long strips of their map; east of the final markings, out where the map was entirely blank. But first he pointed to the far western strip. 'See, Fulan and Africa look like this on their west sides. The Muslim cartographers are very consistent about it. And Hsing Ho calculated that the world is about seventy five thousand li around. If he's right, we only sailed half as far as we should have, or less, across the Dahai to Africa and Fulan.'

'Maybe he's wrong then. Maybe the world occupies more of the globe than he thought. Or maybe the globe is smaller.'

'But his method was good. I made the same measurements on our trip to the Moluccas, and did the geometry, and found he was right.'

'But look!' Gesturing at the mountainous land before them. 'If it isn't Africa, what is it?'

'An island, I suppose. A big island, far out in the Dahai, where no one has ever sailed. Another world, like the real one. An eastern one like the western one.'

'An island no one has ever sailed to before? That no one ever knew about?' Kheim couldn't believe it.

'Well?' I Chen said, stubborn in the face of the idea. 'Who else before us could have got here, and got back to tell about it?'

Kheim took the point. 'And we're not back, either.'

'No. And no guarantee we will be able to do it. Could be that Hsu Fu got here and tried to return, and failed. Maybe we'll find his descendants on this very shore.'

'Maybe.'

Closing on the immense land, they saw a city on the coast. It was nothing very big compared to back home, but substantial compared to the tiny villages to the north. It was mud coloured for the most part, but several gigantic buildings in the city and behind it were roofed by gleaming expanses of beaten gold. These were no Miwok!

So they sailed inshore warily, feeling unnerved, their ships' cannons loaded and primed. They were startled to see the primitive boats pulled up on the beaches fishing canoes like those some of them had seen in the Moluccas, mostly two prowed and made of bundled reeds. There were no guns to be seen; no sails; no wharves or docks, except for one og pier that seemed to float, anchored out away from the beach. It was perplexing to see the terrestrial magnificence of the gold roofed buildings combined with such maritime poverty. I-Chen said, 'It must have been an inland kingdom to start with.'

'Lucky for us, the way those buildings look.'

'I suppose if the Han dynasty had never fallen, this is what the coast of China would look like.'

A strange idea. But even mentioning China was a comfort. After that they pointed at features of the town, saying 'That's like in Cham,' or 'They build like that in Lanka,' and so forth; and though it still looked bizarre, it was clear, even before they made out people on the beach gaping at them, that it would be people and not monkeys or birds populating the town.

Though they had no great hope that Butterfly would be understood here, they took her near the shore with them nevertheless, in the biggest landing boat. They kept the flintlocks and crossbows concealed under their seats while Kheim stood in the bow making the peaceful gestures that had won over the Miwok. Then he got Butterfly to greet them kindly in her language, which she did in a high, clear, penetrating voice. The crowd on the beach watched, and some with hats like feathered crowns spoke to them, but it was not Butterfly's language, nor one that any of them had ever heard.

The elaborate headdresses of part of the crowd seemed faintly military to Kheim, and so he had them row offshore a little bit, and keep a lookout for bows or spears or any other weapons. Something in the look of these people suggested the possibility of an ambush.