kiln-baked bricks, and shreds of pottery and glass. After heavy rain the peasantry search amongst the ruins for ornaments of stone, and rings and coins of gold, silver, and copper. The popular tradition concerning the city is that it was destroyed by a flood long before the birth of Mahomed." The name Camadi in Polo probably represents Hamadi or AHMADI, the latter a very common name in Persia. There is an Ahmadi on the road followed by Mr. Abbott, but it is at least some forty miles too far to the south for our data.* The locality of the Shahr-i-Dakianus appears to me to agree well with that of Edrisi's City of Jiruft, of which he speaks as a populous place extending over a space of two miles, and surrounded by irrigated fields and gardens : 100 mans of dates here cost but two dirhems. The city was two long days' march from Bamm (Ed. I. 421-2). The actual distance from Bamm to the City of Dakianus is by Abbott's Journal about sixty-six miles. The name of REOBARLES, which Marco applies to the plain intermediate between the two descents, has given rise to many conjectures. Marsden pointed to Rúdbár, a name frequently applied in Persia to a district on a river, or intersected by streams-a suggestion all the happier that he was not aware of the fact that there is a district of RUDBAR exactly in the required position. The last syllable still requires explanation. I venture to suggest that it is the Arabic Lass, or as Marco would certainly have written it Les, a robber. Reobarles will then be RUDBAR-I-LASS, " Robber's River District." The appropriateness of the name Marco has amply illustrated; but in fact it appears to survive in that of one of the rivers of the plain, which is mentioned by both Abbott and Smith under the title of Rúdkhánah-i-Duzdi or Robber's River, a name also applied to a village and old fort on the banks of the stream.† Till the direct road from Kerman has been explored, we must remain in doubt whether that would not answer Marco's description as perfectly as this route by Jiruft does; it could scarcely answer more perfectly. It will be seen that Marco speaks in strong terms of the cold at the top of the first descent. Such impressions are of course partly dependent on accident; thus Major Smith speaks of it as bitter at Deh Bakri, whilst Mr. Abbott at the same time of year found the climate "comparatively mild." The mountains on the direct route are certainly higher and colder, for it was the fact that they were impassable from snow, which obliged Goldsmid and Smith to take the other line. We may * Mr. Abbott, to whom we owe so much valuable illustration, has discussed Marco Polo's route, and has himself started the identity of Camadi with the ruins which he saw, but only to reject the idea. He has in fact made a fatal oversight in his treatment of the route by assuming Camadi to be at the foot of the second descent. (See J. R. G. S. XXV. p. 47 and 56.) . † Col. Goldsmid, to whom I referred this, writes: "I think it very probable indeed. there is no doubt that these Arab-Persian combinations constantly occur, and my own impression is that I have often heard, in my travels, the word 'less' used for 'robber." also note the title of "the Cold Mountains" applied by Edrisi to these very mountains. And Mr. Abbott's MS. Report mentions in this direction, Sardu, said to be a cold country (as its name seems to express), which its population (Iliyats) abandon in winter for the lower plains. Marco's description of the "Plain of Formosa" does not apply, now at least, to the whole plain, for towards Bander Abbasi it is barren. But to the eastward, about Minao, and therefore about Old Hormuz, it has not fallen off. Colonel Pelly writes: "The district of Minao is still for those regions singularly fertile. Pomegranates, oranges, pistachio-nuts, and various other fruits grow in profusion. The source of its fertility is of course the river, and you can walk for miles among lanes and cultivated ground, partially sheltered from the sun." And Lieutenant Kempthorne, in his notes on that coast, says of the same tract: "It is termed by the natives the Paradise of Persia. It is certainly most beautifully fertile, and abounds in orange-groves, and orchards containing apples, pears, peaches, and apricots; with vineyards producing a delicious grape, from which was at one time made a wine called amber-rosolli "– qu. 'Ambar-i-Rasúl, "the Prophet's Bouquet!" a bold name even for Persia? When Nearchus beached his fleet on the shore of Harmozeia at the mouth of the Anamis (the River of Minao), Arrian tells us he found the country a kindly one, and very fruitful in every way except that there were no olives. The weary mariners landed and enjoyed this pleasant rest from their toils. (Indica, 33 ; J. R. G. S. V. 274.) The name Formosa may be a corruption of some lost Persian name, such as Farámosh (forgetfulness), but it is more probably only Rusticiano's misunderstanding of Harmuza, aided, perhaps, by Polo's picture of the beauty of the plain. We have the same change in the old Mafomet for Mahomet, and the converse one in the Spanish hermosa for formosa. Teixeira's Chronicle says that the city of Hormuz was founded by Xa Mahamed Dramku, i.e. Shah Mahomed Dirhem-Ko, in a plain of the same name." 66 The statement in Ramusio that Hormuz stood upon an island, is, I doubt not, an interpolation by himself or some earlier transcriber. When the ships of Nearchus launched again from the mouth of the Anamis, their first day's run carried them past a certain desert and bushy island to another which was large and inhabited. The desert isle was called Organa; the large one by which they anchored Oaracta (Indica, 37). Neither name is quite lost the latter greater island is Kishm or Brakht; the former Jerún, probably in old Persian Gerún or Gerán, now again desert though no longer bushy, after having been for three centuries the site of a city which became a poetic type of wealth and splendour. An Eastern saying ran, "Were the world a ring, Hormuz would be the jewel in it." NOTE 2.-A spirit is still distilled from dates in Persia, Mekran, Sind, and some places in the west of India. It is mentioned by Strabo and Dioscorides, according to Kämpfer, who says it was in his time. made under the name of a medicinal stomachic; the rich added Radix Chinae, ambergris, and aromatic spices; the poor liquorice and Persian absinth. (Sir B. Frere; Amoen. Exot. 750; Macd. Kinneir, 220.) The date and dry-fish diet of the Gulf people is noticed by most travellers. Ibn Batuta says the people of Hormuz had a saying, "Khormá wa máhí lút-i-Pádsháhí," i. e. “dates and fish make an Emperor's dish!" A fish, exactly like the tunny of the Mediterranean in general appearance and habits, is one of the great objects of fishery off the Sind and Mekran coasts. It comes in pursuit of shoals of anchovies, very much like the Mediterranean fish also. (I. B. II. 231; Sir B. Frere.) NOTE 3. The stitched vessels of Kerman (λoiápia paπтà) are noticed in the 'Periplus.' Similar accounts to those of our text are given of the ships of the Gulf and of Western India by Jordanus and John of Montecorvino (Jord. p. 53; Cathay, p. 217). "Stitched vessels," Sir B. Frere writes, “are still used. I have seen them of 200 tons burden; but they are being driven out by iron-fastened vessels, as iron gets cheaper, except where (as on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts) the pliancy of a stitched boat is useful in a surf. Till the last few years, when steamers have begun to take all the best horses, the Arab horses bound to Bombay almost all came in the way Marco Polo describes." Some of them do still, standing over a date cargo, and the result of this combination gives rise to an extraordinary traffic in the Bombay bazaar. From what Colonel Pelly tells me, the stitched build in the Gulf is now confined to fishing-boats, and is disused for sea-going craft. The fish-oil used to rub the ships was whale-oil. The old Arab voyagers of the 9th century describe the fishermen of Siraf in the Gulf as cutting up the whale-blubber and drawing the oil from it, which was mixed with other stuff, and used to rub the joints of ships' planking. (Reinaud, I. 146.) Both Montecorvino, and Polo in this passage, specify one rudder, as if it was a peculiarity of these ships worth noting. The fact is that, in the Mediterranean at least, the double rudders of the ancients kept their place to a great extent through the Middle Ages. A Marseilles MS. of the 13th century, quoted in Ducange, says: "A ship requires three rudders, two in place, and one to spare." Another: "Every two-ruddered bark shall pay a groat each voyage; every one-ruddered bark shall," &c. (see Duc. under Timonus and Temo). Numerous proofs of the use of two rudders in the 13th century will be found in Documenti inediti reguardanti le due Crociate di S. Ludovico IX., Re di Francia, &c., da L. T. Belgrano, Genova, 1859." Thus in a specification of ships to be built at Genoa for the king (p. 7), each is to have "Timones duo, affaiticos, grossitudinis palmorum viiii et dimidiae, longitudinis cubilorum xxiiii." Extracts given by Capmany, regarding the equipment of galleys, shew the same thing, for he is probably mistaken in saying that 66 |