The custom of lying in water is mentioned also by Sir John Maundevile, and
it was adopted by the Portuguese when they occupied Insular Hormuz, as P.
della Valle and Linschoten relate. The custom is still common during great
heats, in Sind and Mekran (Sir B. F.).
An anonymous ancient geography (Liber Junioris Philosophi) speaks of a
people in India who live in the Terrestrial Paradise, and lead the life of
the Golden Age.... The sun is so hot that they remain all day in the
river!
The heat in the Straits of Hormuz drove Abdurrazzak into an anticipation
of a verse familiar to English schoolboys: "Even the bird of rapid flight
was burnt up in the heights of heaven, as well as the fish in the depths
of the sea!" (Tavern. Bk. V. ch. xxiii.; Am. Exot. 716, 762; Mueller,
Geog. Gr. Min. II. 514; India in XV. Cent. p. 49.)
NOTE 5. - A like description of the effect of the Simum on the human body
is given by Ibn Batuta, Chardin, A. Hamilton, Tavernier, Thevenot, etc.;
and the first of these travellers speaks specially of its prevalence in
the desert near Hormuz, and of the many graves of its victims; but I have
met with no reasonable account of its poisonous action. I will quote
Chardin, already quoted at greater length by Marsden, as the most complete
parallel to the text:
