R. As. Soc. N.S. XI. 1876. - H. C.] It
is also used by certain craft of the Indian Archipelago, as appears from
Mr. Wallace's description of the Prau in which he sailed from Macassar to
the Aru Islands. And on the Caspian, it is stated in Smith's "Dict. of
Antiquities" (art. Gubernaculum), the practice remained in force till
late times. A modern traveller was nearly wrecked on that sea, because the
two rudders were in the hands of two pilots who spoke different languages,
and did not understand each other!
(Besides the works quoted see Jal, Archeologie Navale, II. 437-438, and
Capmany, Memorias, III. 61.)
[Major Sykes remarks (Persia, ch. xxiii.): "Some unrecorded event,
probably the sight of the unseaworthy craft, which had not an ounce of
iron in their composition, made our travellers decide that the risks of
the sea were too great, so that we have the pleasure of accompanying them
back to Kerman and thence northwards to Khorasan." - H. C.]
NOTE 4. - So also at Bander Abbasi Tavernier says it was so unhealthy that
foreigners could not stop there beyond March; everybody left it in April.
Not a hundredth part of the population, says Kaempfer, remained in the
city. Not a beggar would stop for any reward! The rich went to the towns
of the interior or to the cool recesses of the mountains, the poor took
refuge in the palm-groves at the distance of a day or two from the city. A
place called 'Ishin, some 12 miles north of the city, was a favourite
resort of the European and Hindu merchants. Here were fine gardens,
spacious baths, and a rivulet of fresh and limpid water.
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: "The most surprising effect of the wind is not the
mere fact of its causing death, but its operation on the bodies of those
who are killed by it. It seems as if they became decomposed without losing
shape, so that you would think them to be merely asleep, when they are not
merely dead, but in such a state that if you take hold of any part of the
body it comes away in your hand. And the finger penetrates such a body as
if it were so much dust." (III. 286.)
Burton, on his journey to Medina, says: "The people assured me that this
wind never killed a man in their Allah-favoured land. I doubt the fact. At
Bir Abbas the body of an Arnaut was brought in swollen, and decomposed
rapidly, the true diagnosis of death by the poison-wind." Khanikoff is
very distinct as to the immediate fatality of the desert wind at Khabis,
near Kerman, but does not speak of the effect on the body after death.
This Major St. John does, describing a case that occurred in June, 1871,
when he was halting, during intense heat, at the post-house of Pasangan, a
few miles south of Kom. The bodies were brought in of two poor men, who
had tried to start some hours before sunset, and were struck down by the
poisonous blast within half-a-mile of the post-house. "It was found
impossible to wash them before burial.... Directly the limbs were touched
they separated from the trunk." (Oc. Highways, ut. sup.) About 1790,
when Timur Shah of Kabul sent an army under the Sirdar-i-Sirdaran to put
down a revolt in Meshed, this force on its return was struck by Simum in
the Plain of Farrah, and the Sirdar perished, with a great number of his
men. (Ferrier, H. of the Afghans, 102; J. R. G. S. XXVI. 217; Khan.
Mem. 210.)
NOTE 6. - The History of Hormuz is very imperfectly known. What I have met
with on the subject consists of - (1) An abstract by Teixeira of a
chronicle of Hormuz, written by Thuran Shah, who was himself sovereign of
Hormuz, and died in 1377; (2) some contemporary notices by Wassaf, which
are extracted by Hammer in his History of the Ilkhans; (3) some notices
from Persian sources in the 2nd Decade of De Barros (ch. ii.). The last do
not go further back than Gordun Shah, the father of Thuran Shah, to whom
they erroneously ascribe the first migration to the Island.
One of Teixeira's Princes is called Ruknuddin Mahmud, and with him
Marsden and Pauthier have identified Polo's Ruomedam Acomet, or as he is
called on another occasion in the Geog.
