"A 15

Maundevile informs us precisely where these trees are: journeys in lengthe, goynge be the Deserts of the tother side of the Ryvere Beumare," if one could only tell where that is! A medieval chronicler also tells us that Ogerus the Dane (temp. Caroli Magni) conquered all the parts beyond sea from Hierusalem to the Trees of the Sun. In the old Italian romance also of Guerino detto il Meschino, still a chap-book in S. Italy, the Hero (chap. Ixiii.) visits the Trees of the Sun and Moon. But this is mere imitation of the Alexandrian story, and has nothing of interest. Maundevile, p. 297-8; Fasciculus Tem

porum in Germ. Script. Pistorii Nidani, II.)

As such the

It will be observed that the letter ascribed to Alexander describes the two oracular trees as resembling two cypress-trees. Trees of the Sun and Moon are represented on several extant ancient medals, e.g. on two struck at Perga in Pamphylia in the time of Aurelian. And Eastern story tells us of two vast cypress-trees, sacred among the Magians, which grew in Khorasan, one at Kashmar near Turshiz, and the other at Farmad near Tuz, and which were said to have risen from shoots that Zoroaster brought from Paradise. The former of these was sacrilegiously cut down by the order of the Khalif Motawakkil, in the 9th century. The trunk was despatched to Baghdad on rollers at a vast expense, whilst the branches alone formed a load for 1300 camels. The night that, the convoy reached within one stage of the palace, the Khalif was cut in pieces by his own guards. This tree was said to be 1450 years old, and to measure 33 cubits in girth. The locality of this "Arbor Sol" we see was in Khorasan, and possibly its fame may have been transferred to a representative of another species. The plane, as well as the cypress, was one of the distinctive trees of the Magian Paradise.

In the Peutingerian Tables we find in the N.E. of Asia the rubric "Hic Alexander Responsum accepit," which looks very like an allusion to the tale of the Oracular Trees. If so, it is remarkable as a suggestion of the antiquity of the Alexandrian Legends, though the rubric may of course be an interpolation. The Trees of the Sun and Moon appear as located in India Ultima to the East of Persia, in a map which is found in MSS. (12th century) of the Floridus of Lambertus; and they are indicated more or less precisely in several maps of the succeeding centuries. (Ouseley's Travels, I. 387; Dabistan, I. 307-8; Santarem, H. de la Cosmog. II. 189, III. 506-513, &c.)

Nothing could show better how this legend had possessed men in the Middle Ages, than the fact that Vincent of Beauvais discerns an allusion to these Trees of the Sun and Moon in the blessing of Moses on Joseph

"The River Buemar, in the furthest forests of India," appears to come up in one of the versions of Alexander's Letter to Aristotle, though I do not find it in Müller's edition (see Zacher's Pseudo-Callisthenes, p. 160). 'Tis perhaps Ab-i-Xmú !

of Thuran Shah. There was also, it would seem, another quasi-independent principality in the Island of Kais. (Hammer's Ilch. II. 50, 51; Teixeira, Relacion de los Reyes de Hormuz; Khan. Notice, p. 34.)

The ravages of the Tartars which drove the people of Hormuz from their city may have begun with the incursions of the Nigudaris and Caraunahs, but they probably came to a climax in the great raid in 1299 of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, son of Dua Khan, a part of whose bands besieged the city itself, though they are said to have been repulsed by Bahauddin Ayas.

NOTE 7.-The indications of this alternative route to Kerman are very vague, but it may probably have been that through Finn, Tarum, and the Sirjan district, passing out of the plain of Hormuz by the eastern flank of the Ginao mountain. This road would pass near the hot springs at the base of the said mountain, Sarga, Khurkhu, and Ginao, which are described by Kämpfer. Being more or less sulphureous they are likely to be useful in skin-diseases; indeed, Hamilton speaks of their efficacy in these (I. 95). The salt-streams are numerous on this line, and dates are abundant. The bitterness of the bread was however more probably due to another cause, as Major Smith has kindly pointed out to me: "Throughout the mountains in the south of Persia, which are generally covered with dwarf oak, the people are in the habit of making bread of the acorns, or of the acorns mixed with wheat or barley. It is dark in colour, and very hard, bitter, and unpalatable." Major St. John also noticed the bitterness of the bread in Kerman, but his servants attributed it to the presence in the wheat-fields of a bitter leguminous plant, with a yellowish white flower, which the Kermánis were too lazy to separate, so that much remained in the thrashing, and imparted its bitter flavour to the grain (surely the Tare of our Lord's Parable !).

if you drink a drop of it, it will sem purging at least by the way. It is the same wit the ar made from those streams; no one at I

because of the excessive purging winch s it is necessary to carry water for the e

three days; as for the cattle, they must ma bad water I have mentioned, as there in

their great thirst makes them do stara um
such a degree that sometimes they de vin
three days you meet with no humar Labrat, I
desert, and the extremity of drought. E

there are none, for there is nothing for en
After those three days of desert ATTO IN A STAT
of fresh water running underground bang vintere
are holes broken in here and there, pero maminet
the stream, at which you can get an

abundant supply, and travellers, the hardes
of the desert, here rest and refresh ties and ther
beasts.] 2

f

You then enter another desert when days; it is very much like the former except you do see some wild asses. And at the termination of these fout days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to anel and find another city which is called Cobman.

you

NOTE 1.-This description of the Desert of Kerman, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is very correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lut where water is found is the diy,hter, and green water of the

rivulet called Shor-Rúd (the Salt Ren,

ion of Marco Polo's route from

we

can

have no doubt of the

ed

Keman

so

far." Nevertheless I

the

and

still

: lead

agree with Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction
for a reason wich will appear under the next

ve been nearly due north from

Tin. And even such a route
pass the Shor-Rúd, though at

's narrative: "In proper
became more and m
w withered plants

Abbott

erify by r, Dah

stated to :oducing position

we can only fall back on the note in Mr. Abbott's field-book, as published in the J. R. G. S., viz. that the District lay in the mountains E.S.E. from a caravanserai ten miles S. E. of Gudran. To get the seven marches of Polo's itinerary we must carry the Town of Kuh Banán as far north as this indication can possibly admit, for Abbott made only five and a half marches from the spot where this observation was made to Kerman. Perhaps Polo's route deviated for the sake of the fresh water. That a district, such as Mr. Abbott's Report speaks of, should lie unnoticed, in a tract which our maps represent as part of the Great Desert, shows again how very defective our geography of Persia still is.

NOTE 2.-Tutty (i.e. Tutia) is in modern English an impure oxide of zinc, collected from the flues where brass is made; and this appears to be precisely what Polo describes, unless it be that in his account the production of tutia from an ore of zinc is represented as the object and not an accident of the process. What he says reads almost like a condensed translation of Galen's account of Pompholyx and Spodos: "Pompholyx is produced in copper-smelting as Cadmia is; and it is also produced from Cadmia (carbonate of zinc) when put in the furnace, as is done (for instance) in Cyprus. The master of the works there, having no copper ready for smelting, ordered some pompholyx to be prepared from cadmia in my presence. Small pieces of cadmia were thrown into the fire in front of the copper-blast. The furnace top was covered, with no vent at the crown, and intercepted the soot of the roasted cadmia. This, when collected, constitutes Pompholyx, whilst that which falls on the hearth is called Spodos, a great deal of which is got in copper-smelting." Pompholyx, he adds, is an ingredient in salves for eye discharges and pustules (Galen, De Simpl. Medic. p. ix. in Latin ed., Venice, 1576). Matthioli, after quoting this, says that Pompholyx was commonly known in the laboratories by the Arabic name of Tutia. I see that pure oxide of zinc is stated to form in modern practice a valuable eye-ointment.

Teixeira speaks of tutia as found, only in Kerman, in a range of mountains twelve parasangs from the capital. The ore got here was kneaded with water, and set to bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked, the crucibles were lifted and emptied, and the tutia carried in boxes to Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a modern account in Milburne, which says that the tutia imported to India from the Gulf is made from an argillaceous ore of zinc which is moulded into tubular cakes, and baked to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once, in saying that the tutia of Kerman is no mineral, but the ash of a certain tree called Goan.

(Matth. on Dioscorides, Ven. 1565, p. 1338-40; Teixeira, Relacion de Persia, p. 121; Milburne's Or. Commerce, I. 139; Garcia, f. 21 v.; Eng. Cyc., art. Zinc.)

CHAPTER XXII.

OF A CERTAIN DESERT THAT CONTINUES FOR EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY.

WHEN you depart from this City of Cobinan, you find yourself again in a Desert of surpassing aridity, which lasts for some eight days; here are neither fruits nor trees to be seen, and what water there is is bitter and bad, so that you have to carry both food and water. The cattle must needs drink the bad water, will they nill they, because of their great thirst. At the end of those eight days you arrive at a Province which is called TONOCAIN. It has a good many towns and villages, and forms the extremity of Persia towards the North. It also contains an immense plain on which is found the ARBRE SOL, which we Christians call the Arbre Sec; and I will tell you what it is like. It is a tall and thick tree, having the bark on one side green and the other white; and it produces a rough husk like that of a chestnut, but without anything in it. The wood is yellow like box, and very strong, and there are no other trees. near it nor within a hundred miles of it, except on one side where you find trees within about ten miles' distance. And there, the people of the country tell you, was fought the battle between Alexander and King Darius.2

The towns and villages have great abundance of everything good, for the climate is extremely temperate, being neither very hot no. very cold. The natives all worship Mahommet, and are a very fine-looking people, especially the women, who are surpassingly beautiful.

66

NOTE 1.—All that region has been described as a country divided into deserts that are salt, and deserts that are not salt" (Vigne, I. 16). Tonocain, as we have seen (chap. xv. note 1), is the Eastern Kuhistan of Persia, but extended by Polo, it would seem, to include the whole of Persian Khorasan. No city in particular is indicated as visited by the