14 miles in circuit. It was still in high prosperity in the early
part of the 16th century, abounding in commerce and luxury, and one of the
greatest Indian marts. Its trade continued considerable in the time of
Federici, towards the end of that century; but it has now long
disappeared, the local part of it being transferred to Gogo and other
ports having deeper water. Its chief or sole industry now is in the
preparation of ornamental objects from agates, cornelians, and the like.

The Indigo of Cambay was long a staple export, and is mentioned by Conti,
Nikitin, Santo Stefano, Federici, Linschoten, and Abu'l Fazl.

The independence of Cambay ceased a few years after Polo's visit; for it
was taken in the end of the century by the armies of Alauddin Khilji of
Delhi, a king whose name survived in Guzerat down to our own day as
_Alauddin Khuni_--Bloody Alauddin. (_Ras Mala_, I. 235.)

CHAPTER XXIX.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF SEMENAT.

Semenat is a great kingdom towards the west. The people are Idolaters, and
have a king and a language of their own, and pay tribute to nobody. They
are not corsairs, but live by trade and industry as honest people ought.
It is a place of very great trade. They are forsooth cruel Idolaters.
[NOTE 1]

[Illustration: 'The Gates of Somnath,' preserved in the British Arsenal at
Agra, from a photograph (converted into elevation)]

NOTE 1.--SOMNATH is the site of the celebrated Temple on the coast of
Saurashtra, or Peninsular Guzerat, plundered by Mahmud of Ghazni on his
sixteenth expedition to India (A.D. 1023). The term "great kingdom" is
part of Polo's formula. But the place was at this time of some importance
as a commercial port, and much visited by the ships of Aden, as Abulfeda
tells us. At an earlier date Albiruni speaks of it both as the seat of a
great Mahadeo much frequented by Hindu pilgrims, and as a port of call for
vessels on their way from Sofala in Africa to China,--a remarkable
incidental notice of departed trade and civilisation! He does not give
Somnath so good a character as Polo does; for he names it as one of the
chief pirate-haunts. And Colonel Tod mentions that the sculptured memorial
stones on this coast frequently exhibit the deceased as a pirate in the
act of boarding. In fact, piratical habits continued in the islands off
the coast of Kattiawar down to our own day.

Properly speaking, three separate things are lumped together as Somnath:
(1) The Port, p