The ore got here was kneaded with
water, and set to bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked,
the crucibles were lifted and emptied, and the tutia carried in boxes to
Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a modern account in Milburne, which
says that the tutia imported to India from the Gulf is made from an
argillaceous ore of zinc, which is moulded into tubular cakes, and baked
to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once in
saying that the tutia of Kerman is no mineral, but the ash of a certain
tree called Goan.
(Matth. on Dioscorides, Ven. 1565, pp. 1338-40; Teixeira, Relacion de
Persia, p. 121; Milburne's Or. Commerce, I. 139; Garcia, f. 21 v.;
Eng. Cyc., art. Zinc.)
[General A. Houtum-Schindler (Jour. R. As. Soc. N.S. XIII. October,
1881, p. 497) says: "The name Tutia for collyrium is now not used in
Kerman. Tutia, when the name stands alone, is sulphate of copper, which in
other parts of Persia is known as Kat-i-Kebud; Tutia-i-sabz (green Tutia)
is sulphate of iron, also called Zaj-i-siyah. A piece of Tutia-i-zard
(yellow Tutia) shown to me was alum, generally called Zaj-i-safid; and a
piece of Tutia-i-safid (white Tutia) seemed to be an argillaceous zinc
ore. Either of these may have been the earth mentioned by Marco Polo as
being put into the furnace. The lampblack used as collyrium is always
called Surmah. This at Kerman itself is the soot produced by the flame of
wicks, steeped in castor oil or goat's fat, upon earthenware saucers. In
the high mountainous districts of the province, Kubenan, Pariz, and
others, Surmah is the soot of the Gavan plant (Garcia's goan). This plant,
a species of Astragalus, is on those mountains very fat and succulent;
from it also exudes the Tragacanth gum. The soot is used dry as an
eye-powder, or, mixed with tallow, as an eye-salve. It is occasionally
collected on iron gratings.
"Tutia is the Arabicised word dudha, Persian for smokes.
"The Shems-ul-loghat calls Tutia a medicine for eyes, and a stone used for
the fabrication of Surmah. The Tohfeh says Tutia is of three kinds - yellow
and blue mineral Tutia, Tutia-i-qalam (collyrium) made from roots, and
Tutia resulting from the process of smelting copper ore. 'The best
Tutia-i-qalam comes from Kerman.' It adds, 'Some authors say Surmah is
sulphuret of antimony, others say it is a composition of iron'; I should
say any black composition used for the eyes is Surmah, be it lampblack,
antimony, iron, or a mixture of all.
"Teixeira's Tutia was an impure oxide of zinc, perhaps the above-mentioned
Tutia-i-safid, baked into cakes; it was probably the East India Company's
Lapis Tutia, also called Tutty. The Company's Tutenague and Tutenage,
occasionally confounded with Tutty, was the so-called 'Chinese Copper,'
an alloy of copper, zinc, and iron, brought from China."
Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) writes: "I translated Marco's description of
tutia (which is also the modern Persian name), to a khan of Kubenan, and
he assured me that the process was the same to-day; spodium he knew
nothing about, but the sulphate of zinc is found in the hills to the east
of Kubenan."
Heyd (Com. II. p. 675) says in a note: "Il resulte de l'ensemble de ce
passage que les matieres designees par Marco Polo sous le nom de 'espodie'
(spodium) etaient des scories metalliques; en general, le mot spodium
designe les residus de la combustion des matieres vegetales ou des os (de
l'ivoire)." - H. C.]
CHAPTER XXII.
OF A CERTAIN DESERT THAT CONTINUES FOR EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY.
When you depart from this City of Cobinan, you find yourself again in a
Desert of surpassing aridity, which lasts for some eight days; here are
neither fruits nor trees to be seen, and what water there is is bitter and
bad, so that you have to carry both food and water. The cattle must needs
drink the bad water, will they nill they, because of their great thirst.
At the end of those eight days you arrive at a Province which is called
TONOCAIN. It has a good many towns and villages, and forms the extremity
of Persia towards the North.[NOTE 1] It also 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. And there, the people of the country
tell you, was fought the battle between Alexander and King Darius.[NOTE 2]
The towns and villages have great abundance of everything good, for the
climate is extremely temperate, being neither very hot nor very cold. The
natives all worship Mahommet, and are a very fine-looking people,
especially the women, who are surpassingly beautiful.
NOTE 1. - All that region has been described as "a country divided into
deserts that are salt, and deserts that are not salt." (Vigne, I. 16.)
Tonocain, as we have seen (ch. xv. note 1), is the Eastern Kuhistan of
Persia, but extended by Polo, it would seem to include the whole of
Persian Khorasan. No city in particular is indicated as visited by the
traveller, but the view I take of the position of the Arbre Sec, as well
as his route through Kuh-Banan, would lead me to suppose that he reached
the Province of TUN-O-KAIN about Tabbas.
