Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
to England with his wealth and pornography, the EIC pulled the plug on the Japan
factory and called Richard Cocks home, a place he never reached.
____________________
FromthecircleofroutesthattheSeldenmapdepicts,therewasonlyonewestward
exit. You can find it by going to Johor, at the end of the Malay Peninsula, the spot
that Selden may have worn away with too much touching. There you will find the
final spur of the Western Sea route as it runs up the Malay Strait to Aceh at the
north end of Sumatra. The route does not end there. It splits. The western strand
curls around the top of Sumatra and runs down the outer side, a zone that no sur-
vivingrutterrecords,althoughtherewereportsalongthatcoast.Theeasternstrand
finds a
renzi
bearing (355°) almost due north in the direction of Burma. And then
it comes to an abrupt dead-end at Calicut, a port city in Kerala, on the west coast
of India.
What is Calicut doing here? The spot marked on the Selden map corresponds
roughly to Rangoon. What happened to the Bay of Bengal, to say nothing of the
Indian subcontinent? The Selden cartographer is not fazed by the sudden collapse
ofthemaritimeworldbeyondAceh.Hejustkeepsgoing,notinspacebutinwords.
This is the only place on the map where he inserts a cartouche, a box explain-
ing what is going on (Fig. 17). Here tight to the left-hand margin of the map he
provides three striking notes in bullet form. The first reads:
• Calicut to Aden: go north-west for 185 watches.
Aden is in Yemen, on the south coast of Arabia near the mouth of the Red Sea.
The cartographer clearly treats the place he has labelled Calicut as Calicut, and is
explaining a route that crosses not the Bay of Bengal but the Arabian Sea. For the
first time on the map he provides no compass bearing, only the ordinal direction
'north-west'.
The second note is much the same:
• Calicut to Djofar: go north-west 150 watches.
Djofar is further east along the same coast in what is today's Oman.
The final direction is more detailed and, in lieu of an ordinal direction, supplies
precise compass bearings:
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