The King is called RUOMEDAM
AHOMET. It is a very sickly place, and the heat of the sun is tremendous.
If any foreign merchant dies there, the King takes all his property.
In this country they make a wine of dates mixt with spices, which is very
good. When any one not used to it first drinks this wine, it causes
repeated and violent purging, but afterwards he is all the better for it,
and gets fat upon it. The people never eat meat and wheaten bread except
when they are ill, and if they take such food when they are in health it
makes them ill. Their food when in health consists of dates and salt-fish
(tunny, to wit) and onions, and this kind of diet they maintain in order
to preserve their health.[NOTE 2]
Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have
no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from
the husk of the Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like
horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this stitch the planks
of the ships together. It keeps well, and is not corroded by the
sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are not
pitched, but are rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one sail, and
one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread over the cargo when
loaded. This cover consists of hides, and on the top of these hides they
put the horses which they take to India for sale. They have no iron to make
nails of, and for this reason they use only wooden trenails in their
shipbuilding, and then stitch the planks with twine as I have told you.
Hence 'tis a perilous business to go a voyage in one of those ships, and
many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India the storms are often
terrible.[NOTE 3]
The people are black, and are worshippers of Mahommet. The residents avoid
living in the cities, for the heat in summer is so great that it would
kill them. Hence they go out (to sleep) at their gardens in the country,
where there are streams and plenty of water. For all that they would not
escape but for one thing that I will mention. The fact is, you see, that
in summer a wind often blows across the sands which encompass the plain,
so intolerably hot that it would kill everybody, were it not that when
they perceive that wind coming they plunge into water up to the neck, and
so abide until the wind have ceased.[NOTE 4] [And to prove the great heat
of this wind, Messer Mark related a case that befell when he was there.
The Lord of Hormos, not having paid his tribute to the King of Kerman the
latter resolved to claim it at the time when the people of Hormos were
residing away from the city. So he caused a force of 1600 horse and 5000
foot to be got ready, and sent them by the route of Reobarles to take the
others by surprise. Now, it happened one day that through the fault of
their guide they were not able to reach the place appointed for their
night's halt, and were obliged to bivouac in a wilderness not far from
Hormos. In the morning as they were starting on their march they were
caught by that wind, and every man of them was suffocated, so that not one
survived to carry the tidings to their Lord. When the people of Hormos
heard of this they went forth to bury the bodies lest they should breed a
pestilence. But when they laid hold of them by the arms to drag them to
the pits, the bodies proved to be so baked, as it were, by that
tremendous heat, that the arms parted from the trunks, and in the end the
people had to dig graves hard by each where it lay, and so cast them
in.][NOTE 5]
The people sow their wheat and barley and other corn in the month of
November, and reap it in the month of March. The dates are not gathered
till May, but otherwise there is no grass nor any other green thing, for
the excessive heat dries up everything.
When any one dies they make a great business of the mourning, for women
mourn their husbands four years. During that time they mourn at least once
a day, gathering together their kinsfolk and friends and neighbours for
the purpose, and making a great weeping and wailing. [And they have women
who are mourners by trade, and do it for hire.]
Now, we will quit this country. I shall not, however, now go on to tell
you about India; but when time and place shall suit we shall come round
from the north and tell you about it. For the present, let us return by
another road to the aforesaid city of Kerman, for we cannot get at those
countries that I wish to tell you about except through that city.
I should tell you first, however, that King Ruomedam Ahomet of Hormos,
which we are leaving, is a liegeman of the King of Kerman.[NOTE 6]
On the road by which we return from Hormos to Kerman you meet with some
very fine plains, and you also find many natural hot baths; you find
plenty of partridges on the road; and there are towns where victual is
cheap and abundant, with quantities of dates and other fruits. The wheaten
bread, however, is so bitter, owing to the bitterness of the water, that
no one can eat it who is not used to it. The baths that I mentioned have
excellent virtues; they cure the itch and several other diseases.[NOTE 7]
