Immediately Beyond
Kurit The Road Crosses A Strip Of The Kevir, 2 Farsakh Broad, And
Containing A River-Bed Which Is Said To Be Filled With Water At The End Of
February.
Sefid-ab is situated among hillocks and Burch in an upland
district; to the south of it follows Kevir barely a farsakh broad, which
may be avoided by a circuitous path.
At God-i-shah-taghi, as the name
implies, saxaul grows (Haloxylon Ammodendron). The last three
halting-places before Bahabad all lie among small hills.
"This desert route runs, then, through comparatively hilly country,
crosses two small Kevir depressions, or offshoots of one and the same
Kevir, has pasturage at at least one place, and presents no difficulties
of any account. The distance in a direct line is 113 miles, corresponding
to 51 Persian farsakh - the farsakh in this district being only about 2.2
miles long against 2.9 in the great Kevir. The caravans which go through
the Bahabad desert usually make the journey in ten days, one at least of
which is a rest day, so that they cover little more than 12 miles a day.
If water more or less salt were not to be found at all the eight
camping-grounds, the caravans would not be able to make such short marches.
It is also quite possible that sweet water is to be found in one place;
where saxaul grows driftsand usually occurs, and wells digged in sand are
usually sweet.
"During my stay in Tebbes a caravan of about 300 camels, as I have
mentioned before, arrived from Sebsevar. They were laden with naft
(petroleum), and remained waiting till the first belt of Kevir was dried
after the last rain. As soon as this happened the caravan would take the
road described above to Bahabad, and thence to Yezd. And this caravan
route, Sebsevar, Turshiz, Bajistan, Tun, Tebbes, Bahabad, and Yezd, is
considered less risky than the somewhat shorter way through the great
Kevir. I myself crossed a part of the Bahabad desert where we did not once
follow any of the roads used by caravans, and I found this country by no
means one of the worst in Eastern Persia.
"In the above exposition I believe that I have demonstrated that it is
extremely probable that Marco Polo travelled, not through Naibend to Tun,
but through Bahabad to Tebbes, and thence to Tun and Kain. His own
description accords in all respects with the present aspect and
peculiarities of the desert route in question. And the time of eight days
he assigns to the journey between Kuh-benan and Tonocain renders it also
probable that he came to the last-named province at Tebbes, even if he
travelled somewhat faster than caravans are wont to do at the present day.
It signifies little that he does not mention the name Tebbes; he gives
only the name of the province, adding that it contains a great many towns
and villages. One of these was Tebbes."
XXII., p. 126.
TUTIA.
"It seems that the word is 'the Arabicized word dudha, being Persian for
"smokes."' There can be little doubt that we have direct confirmation of
this in the Chinese words t'ou-t'ieh (still, I think, in use) and
t'ou-shik, meaning 'tou-iron' and 't'ou-ore.' The character T'ou
[Chinese] does not appear in the old dictionaries; its first appearance is
in the History of the Toba (Tungusic) Dynasty of North China. This History
first mentions the name 'Persia' in A.D. 455 and the existence there of
this metal, which, a little later on, is also said to come from a State in
the Cashmeer region. K'ang-hi's seventeenth-century dictionary is more
explicit: it states that Termed produces this ore, but that 'the true sort
comes from Persia, and looks like gold, but on being heated it turns
carnation, and not black.' As the Toba Emperors added 1000 new characters
to the Chinese stock, we may assume this one to have been invented, for the
specific purpose indicated.'" (E.H. PARKER, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan.,
1904, pp. 135-6.) Prof. Parker adds the following note, l.c., p. 149:
"Since writing the above, I have come across a passage in the 'History of
the Sung Dynasty' (chap. 490, p. 17) stating that an Arab junk-master
brought to Canton in A.D. 990, and sent on thence to the Chinese Emperor in
Ho Nan, 'one vitreous bottle of tutia.' The two words mean
'metropolis-father,' and are therefore without any signification, except as
a foreign word. According to Yule's notes (I., p. 126), tutia, or
dudha, in one of its forms was used as an eye-ointment or collyrium."
XXII., pp. 127-139. The Province of Tonocain "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."
In a paper published in the Journal of the R. As. Soc., Jan., 1909, Gen.
Houtum-Schindler comes to the conclusion, p. 157, that Marco Polo's tree
is not the "Sun Tree," but the Cypress of Zoroaster; "Marco Polo's arbre
sol and arbre seul stand for the Persian dirakht i sol, i.e. the
cypress-tree. If General Houtum Schindler had seen the third edition of
the Book of Ser Marco Polo, I., p. 113, he would have found that I read
his paper of the J.R.A.S., of January, 1898."
XXII., p. 132, l. 22. The only current coin is millstones.
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