Even of wild beasts there are
none, for there is nothing for them to eat.[NOTE 2]
After those three days of desert [you arrive at a stream of fresh water
running underground, but along which there are holes broken in here and
there, perhaps undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of it.
It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with the hardships of the
desert, here rest and refresh themselves and their beasts.][NOTE 3]
You then enter another desert which extends for four days; it is very much
like the former except that you do see some wild asses. And at the
termination of these four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an
end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan.
NOTE 1. ["The present road from Kerman to Kubenan is to Zerend about 50
miles, to the Sar i Benan 15 miles, thence to Kubenan 30 miles - total 95
miles. Marco Polo cannot have taken the direct road to Kubenan, as it took
him seven days to reach it. As he speaks of waterless deserts, he probably
took a circuitous route to the east of the mountains, via Kuhpayeh and
the desert lying to the north of Khabis." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp.
496-497.) (Cf. Major Sykes, ch. xxiii.) - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - This description of the Desert of Kerman, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is
very correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lut where water is found
is the dirty, salt, bitter, and green water of the rivulet called
Shor-Rud (the Salt River), we can have no doubt of the direction of Marco
Polo's route from Kerman so far." Nevertheless I do not agree with
Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction of Ambar and Kain, for a
reason which will appear under the next chapter. I imagine the route to
have been nearly due north from Kerman, in the direction of Tabbas or of
Tun. And even such a route would, according to Khanikoff's own map, pass
the Shor-Rud, though at a higher point.
I extract a few lines from that gentleman's narrative: "In proportion as
we got deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid; at
daybreak I could still discover a few withered plants of Caligonum and
Salsola, and not far from the same spot I saw a lark and another bird of
a whitish colour, the last living things that we beheld in this dismal
solitude.... The desert had now completely assumed the character of a land
accursed, as the natives call it. Not the smallest blade of grass, no
indication of animal life vivified the prospect; no sound but such as came
from our own caravan broke the dreary silence of the void." (Mem. p.
176.)
[Major P. Molesworth Sykes (Geog. Jour. X. p. 578) writes: "At Tun, I
was on the northern edge of the great Dash-i-Lut (Naked Desert), which lay
between us and Kerman, and which had not been traversed, in this
particular portion, since the illustrious Marco Polo crossed it, in the
opposite direction, when travelling from Kerman to 'Tonocain' via
Cobinan." Major Sykes (Persia, ch. iii.) seems to prove that geographers
have, without sufficient grounds, divided the great desert of Persia into
two regions, that to the north being termed Dasht-i-Kavir, and that
further south the Dasht-i-Lut - and that Lut is the one name for the whole
desert, Dash-i-Lut being almost a redundancy, and that Kavir (the arabic
Kafr) is applied to every saline swamp. "This great desert stretches
from a few miles out of Tehran practically to the British frontier, a
distance of about 700 miles." - H. C.]
NOTE 3. - I can have no doubt of the genuineness of this passage from
Ramusio. Indeed some such passage is necessary; otherwise why distinguish
between three days of desert and four days more of desert? The underground
stream was probably a subterraneous canal (called Kanat or Karez),
such as is common in Persia; often conducted from a great distance. Here
it may have been a relic of abandoned cultivation. Khanikoff, on the road
between Kerman and Yezd, not far west of that which I suppose Marco to be
travelling, says: "At the fifteen inhabited spots marked upon the map,
they have water which has been brought from a great distance, and at
considerable cost, by means of subterranean galleries, to which you
descend by large and deep wells. Although the water flows at some depth,
its course is tracked upon the surface by a line of more abundant
vegetation." (Ib. p. 200.) Elphinstone says he has heard of such
subterranean conduits 36 miles in length. (I. 398.) Polybius speaks of
them: "There is no sign of water on the surface; but there are many
underground channels, and these supply tanks in the desert, that are known
only to the initiated.... At the time when the Persians got the upper hand
in Asia, they used to concede to such persons as brought spring-water to
places previously destitute of irrigation, the usufruct for five
generations. And Taurus being rife with springs, they incurred all the
expense and trouble that was needed to form these underground channels to
great distances, insomuch that in these days even the people who make use
of the water don't know where the channels begin, or whence the water
comes." (X. 28.)
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCERNING THE CITY OF COBINAN AND THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE THERE.
Cobinan is a large town.[NOTE 1] The people worship Mahommet. There is
much Iron and Steel and Ondanique, and they make steel mirrors of great
size and beauty. They also prepare both Tutia (a thing very good for the
eyes) and Spodium; and I will tell you the process.
