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 Baháuddin 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 !).

CHAPTER XX.

OF THE WEARISOME AND DESERT ROAD THAT HAS NOW TO BE

TRAVELLED.

how

ON departing from the city of Kerman you find the road for seven days most wearisome; and I will tell you this is. The first three days you meet with no water, or next to none. And what little you do meet with is bitter green stuff, so salt that no one can drink it; and in fact

if you drink a drop of it, it will set you purging ten times at least by the way. It is the same with the salt which is made from those streams; no one dares to make use of it, because of the excessive purging which it occasions. Hence it is necessary to carry water for the people to last these three days; as for the cattle, they must needs drink of the bad water I have mentioned, as there is no help for it, and their great thirst makes them do so. But it scours them to such a degree that sometimes they die of it. In all those three days you meet with no human habitation; it is all desert, and the extremity of drought. Even of wild beasts there are none, for there is nothing for them to eat.'

After those three days of desert [you arrive at a stream of fresh water running underground, but along which there are holes broken in here and there, perhaps undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of it. It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with the hardships of the desert, here rest and refresh themselves and their beasts.]*

2

You then enter another desert which extends for four days; it is very much like the former except that you do see some wild asses. And at the termination of these four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan.

NOTE 1. This description of the Desert of Kerman, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is very correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lút where water is found is the dirty, salt, bitter, and green water of the rivulet called Shor-Rúd (the Salt River), we can have no doubt of the direction of Marco Polo's route from Kerman so far." Nevertheless I do not agree with Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction of Ambar and Kain, for a reason which will appear under the next chapter. I imagine the route to have been nearly due north from Kerman, in the direction of Tabbas or of Tún. And even such a route would, according to Khanikoff's own map, pass the Shor-Rúd, though at a higher point.

I extract a few lines from that gentleman's narrative: "In proportion as we got deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid; at daybreak I could still discover a few withered plants of

Caligonum and Salsola, and not far from the same spot I saw a lark and another bird of a whitish colour, the last living things that we beheld in this dismal solitude. . . . . The desert had now completely assumed the character of a land accursed, as the natives call it. Not the smallest blade of grass, no indication of animal life vivified the prospect; no sound but such as came from our own caravan broke the dreary silence of the void." (Mém. p. 176.)

NOTE 2. I can have no doubt of the genuineness of this passage from Ramusio. Indeed some such passage is necessary; otherwise why distinguish between three days of desert and four days more of desert? The underground stream was probably a subterraneous canal (called Kanát or Kárez), such as is common in Persia; often conducted from a great distance. Here it may have been a relic of abandoned cultivation. Khanikoff, on the road between Kerman and Yezd, not far west of that which I suppose Marco to be travelling, says: "At the fifteen inhabited spots marked upon the map, they have water which has been brought from a great distance, and at considerable cost, by means of subterranean galleries to which you descend by large and deep wells. Although the water flows at some depth, its course is tracked upon the surface by a line of more abundant vegetation" (Ib. p. 200). Elphinstone says he has heard of such subterranean conduits thirty-six miles in length (I. 398). Polybius speaks of them: "There is no sign of water on the surface; but there are many underground channels, and these supply tanks in the desert, that are known only to the initiated. . . . At the time when the Persians got the upper hand in Asia, they used to concede to such persons as brought spring-water to places previously destitute of irrigation, the usufruct for five generations. And Taurus being rife with springs, they incurred all the expense and trouble that was needed to form these underground channels to great distances, insomuch that in these days even the people who make use of the water don't know where the channels begin, or whence the water comes" (X. 28).

CHAPTER XXI.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF COBINAN AND THE THINGS THAT ARE

MADE THERE.

I

COBINAN is a large town.
There is much Iron and
make steel mirrors of great size and beauty.

The people worship Mahommet.
Steel and Ondanique, and they

They also

prepare both Tutia (a thing very good for the eyes) and Spodium; and I will tell you the process.

They have a vein of a certain earth which has the required quality, and this they put into a great flaming furnace, whilst over the furnace there is an iron grating. The smoke and moisture, expelled from the earth of which I speak, adhere to the iron grating, and thus form Tutia, whilst the slag that is left after burning is the Spodium?

NOTE 1.-KUH-BANÁN is mentioned by Mokaddasi (A.D. 985) as one of the cities of Bardesír, the most northerly of the five circles into which he divides Kerman (see Sprenger, Post- und Reise-Route des Orients, p. 77). It is the subject of an article in the Geog. Dictionary of Yákút, though it has been there mistranscribed into Kubiyán and Kukiyán (see Leipzig ed. 1869, iv. p. 316, and Barbier de Meynard, Dict. de la Perse, p. 498). And it is also indicated by Mr. Abbott (J. R. G. S. XXV. 25) as the name of a district of Kerman, lying some distance to the east of his route when somewhat less than halfway between Yezd and Kerman. It would thus, I apprehend, be on or near the route between Kerman and Tabbas; one which I believe has been traced by no modern traveller. We may be certain that there is now no place at Kuh-Banan deserving the title of une cité grant, nor is it easy to believe that there was in Polo's time; he applies such terms too profusely. The meaning of the name is perhaps "Hill of the Terebinths, or Wild Pistachioes,” "a tree which grows abundantly in the recesses of bleak, stony, and desert mountains, e.g. about Shamákhi, about Shiraz, and in the deserts of Luristan and Lar." (Kämpfer, 409, 413.)

I had thought my identification of Cobinan original, but a communication from Mr. Abbott, and the opportunity which this procured me of seeing his MS. Report already referred to, showed that he had anticipated me many years ago. The following is an extract: "Districts of Kerman * **Kooh Benan. This is a hilly district abounding in fruits, such as grapes, peaches, pomegranates, sinjid (sweet-willow), walnuts, melons. A great deal of madder and some assafoetida is produced there. This is no doubt the country alluded to by Marco Polo, under the name of Cobinam, as producing iron, brass, and tutty, and which is still said to produce iron, copper, and tootea." There appear to be lead mines also in the district, as well as asbestos and sulphur. Mr. Abbott adds the names of nine villages, which he was not able to verify by comparison. These are Púz, Tarz, Gújard, Aspaj, Kuh-i-Gabr, Dahnah, Búghín, Bassab, Radk. The position of Kuh Banán is stated to lie between Bahabád (a place also mentioned by Yákút as producing Tutia) and Ráví, but this does not help us, and for approximate position

VOL. I.

K

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.)