["Marco Polo Has Been Said To Have Traversed A Portion Of (The
Dash-I-Kavir, Great Salt Desert) On His
Supposed route from Tabbas to
Damghan, about 1272; although it is more probable that he marched further
to the east,
And crossed the northern portion of the Dash-i-Lut, Great Sand
Desert, separating Khorasan in the south-east from Kerman, and occupying a
sorrowful parallelogram between the towns of Neh and Tabbas on the north,
and Kerman and Yezd on the south." (Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 248 and 251.)
Lord Curzon adds in a note (p. 248): "The Tunogan of the text which was
originally mistaken for Damghan, is correctly explained by Yule as Tun-o-
(i.e. and) Kain." Major Sykes writes (ch. xxiii.): "The section of the Lut
has not hitherto been rediscovered, but I know that it is desert
throughout, and it is practically certain that Marco ended these unpleasant
experiences at Tabas, 150 miles from Kubenan. To-day the district is known
as Tun-o-Tabas, Kain being independent of it." - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - This is another subject on which a long and somewhat discursive
note is inevitable.
One of the Bulletins of the Soc. de Geographie (ser. III. tom. iii. p.
187) contains a perfectly inconclusive endeavour, by M. Roux de Rochelle,
to identify the Arbre Sec or Arbre Sol with a manna-bearing oak
alluded to by Q. Curtius as growing in Hyrcania. There can be no doubt
that the tree described is, as Marsden points out, a Chinar or Oriental
Plane. Mr. Ernst Meyer, in his learned Geschichte der Botanik
(Koenigsberg, 1854-57, IV. 123), objects that Polo's description of the
wood does not answer to that tree. But, with due allowance, compare with
his whole account that which Olearius gives of the Chinar, and say if the
same tree be not meant. "The trees are as tall as the pine, and have very
large leaves, closely resembling those of the vine. The fruit looks like a
chestnut, but has no kernel, so it is not eatable. The wood is of a very
brown colour, and full of veins; the Persians employ it for doors and
window-shutters, and when these are rubbed with oil they are incomparably
handsomer than our walnut-wood joinery." (I. 526.) The Chinar-wood is used
in Kashmir for gunstocks.
The whole tenor of the passage seems to imply that some eminent
individual Chinar is meant. The appellations given to it vary in the
different texts. In the G. T. it is styled in this passage, "The Arbre
Seule which the Christians call the Arbre Sec," whilst in ch. cci. of
the same (infra, Bk. IV. ch. v.) it is called "L'Arbre Sol, which in the
Book of Alexander is called L'Arbre Seche" Pauthier has here "L'Arbre
Solque, que nous appelons L'Arbre Sec," and in the later passage
"L'Arbre Soul, que le Livre Alexandre apelle Arbre Sec;" whilst
Ramusio has here "L'Albero del Sole che si chiama per i Cristiani
L'Albor Secco," and does not contain the later passage. So also I think
all the old Latin and French printed texts, which are more or less based
on Pipino's version, have "The Tree of the Sun, which the Latins call
the Dry Tree."
[G. Capus says (A travers le roy. de Tamerlan, p. 296) that he found at
Khodjakent, the remains of an enormous plane-tree or Chinar, which
measured no less than 48 metres (52 yards) in circumference at the base,
and 9 metres diameter inside the rotten trunk; a dozen tourists from
Tashkent one day feasted inside, and were all at ease. - H. C.]
Pauthier, building as usual on the reading of his own text (Solque),
endeavours to show that this odd word represents Thoulk, the Arabic name
of a tree to which Forskal gave the title of Ficus Vasta, and this Ficus
Vasta he will have to be the same as the Chinar. Ficus Vasta would be a
strange name surely to give to a Plane-tree, but Forskal may be acquitted
of such an eccentricity. The Tholak (for that seems to be the proper
vocalisation) is a tree of Arabia Felix, very different from the Chinar,
for it is the well-known Indian Banyan, or a closely-allied species, as
may be seen in Forskal's description. The latter indeed says that the Arab
botanists called it Delb, and that (or Dulb) is really a synonym for
the Chinar. But De Sacy has already commented upon this supposed
application of the name Delb to the Tholak as erroneous. (See Flora
Aegyptiaco-Arabica, pp. cxxiv. and 179; Abdallatif, Rel. de l'Egypte,
p. 80; J. R. G. S. VIII. 275; Ritter, VI. 662, 679.)
The fact is that the Solque of M. Pauthier's text is a mere copyist's
error in the reduplication of the pronoun que. In his chief MS. which he
cites as A (No. 10,260 of Bibl. Nationale, now Fr. 5631) we can even see
how this might easily happen, for one line ends with Solque and the next
begins with que. The true reading is, I doubt not, that which this MS.
points to, and which the G. Text gives us in the second passage quoted
above, viz. Arbre SOL, occurring in Ramusio as Albero del SOLE. To
make this easier of acceptation I must premise two remarks: first, that
Sol is "the Sun" in both Venetian and Provencal; and, secondly, that in
the French of that age the prepositional sign is not necessary to the
genitive. Thus, in Pauthier's own text we find in one of the passages
quoted above, "Le Livre Alexandre, i.e. Liber Alexandri;" elsewhere,
"Cazan le fils Argon," "a la mere sa femme," "Le corps Monseigneur
Saint Thomas si est en ceste Province;" in Joinville, "le commandemant
Mahommet" "ceux de la Haulequa estoient logiez entour les heberges le
soudanc, et establiz pour le cors le soudanc garder;" in Baudouin de
Sebourc, "De l'amour Bauduin esprise et enflambee."
Moreover it is the TREE OF THE SUN that is prominent in the legendary
History of Alexander, a fact sufficient in itself to rule the reading.
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