Friar Odoric, who visited Yezd, calls it the third best city of the
Persian Emperor, and says (Cathay, I. p. 52): "There is very great store
of victuals and all other good things that you can mention; but especially
is found there great plenty of figs; and raisins also, green as grass and
very small, are found there in richer profusion than in any other part of
the world." [He also gives from the smaller version of Ramusio's an awful
description of the Sea of Sand, one day distant from Yezd. (Cf. Tavernier,
1679, I. p. 116.) - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - I believe Della Valle correctly generalises when he says of
Persian travelling that "you always travel in a plain, but you always have
mountains on either hand" (I. 462). [Compare Macgregor, I. 254: "I really
cannot describe the road. Every road in Persia as yet seems to me to be
exactly alike, so ... my readers will take it for granted that the road
went over a waste, with barren rugged hills in the distance, or near; no
water, no houses, no people passed." - H. C.] The distance from Yezd to
Kerman is, according to Khanikoff's survey, 314 kilometres, or about 195
miles. Ramusio makes the time eight days, which is probably the better
reading, giving a little over 24 miles a day. Westergaard in 1844, and
Khanikoff in 1859, took ten days; Colonel Goldsmid and Major Smith in
1865 twelve.
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