No doubt what is meant is the sweet liquor or syrup called
Dushab, which Della Valle says is just the Italian Mostocotto, but
better, clearer, and not so mawkish (I. 689). (Yonge's Athen. X. 34;
Baber, p. 145; Tavernier, Bk. V. ch. xxi.)
[1] The Encyc. Britann., article "Money," gives the livre tournois of
this period as 18.17 francs. A French paper in Notes and Queries
(4th S. IV. 485) gives it under St. Lewis and Philip III. as
equivalent to 18.24 fr., and under Philip IV. to 17.95. And lastly,
experiment at the British Museum, made by the kind intervention of my
friend, Mr. E. Thomas, F.R.S., gave the weights of the sols of St.
Lewis (1226-1270) and Philip IV. (1285-1314) respectively as 63 grains
and 61-1/2 grains of remarkably pure silver. These trials would give
the livres (20 sols) as equivalent to 18.14 fr. and 17.70 fr.
respectively.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCERNING THE GREAT CITY OF YASDI.
Yasdi also is properly in Persia; it is a good and noble city, and has a
great amount of trade. They weave there quantities of a certain silk
tissue known as Yasdi, which merchants carry into many quarters to
dispose of. The people are worshippers of Mahommet.[NOTE 1]
When you leave this city to travel further, you ride for seven days over
great plains, finding harbour to receive you at three places only. There
are many fine woods [producing dates] upon the way, such as one can easily
ride through; and in them there is great sport to be had in hunting and
hawking, there being partridges and quails and abundance of other game, so
that the merchants who pass that way have plenty of diversion. There are
also wild asses, handsome creatures. At the end of those seven marches
over the plain you come to a fine kingdom which is called Kerman.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1. - YEZD, an ancient city, supposed by D'Anville to be the
Isatichae of Ptolemy, is not called by Marco a kingdom, though having a
better title to the distinction than some which he classes as such. The
atabegs of Yezd dated from the middle of the 11th century, and their
Dynasty was permitted by the Mongols to continue till the end of the 13th,
when it was extinguished by Ghazan, and the administration made over to
the Mongol Diwan.
Yezd, in pre-Mahomedan times, was a great sanctuary of the Gueber worship,
though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is, however, one of
the few places where the old religion lingers. In 1859 there were reckoned
850 families of Guebers in Yezd and fifteen adjoining villages, but they
diminish rapidly.
