Starting From
Kerman, The Stages Would Be As Follows:
- I. Jupar (small town); 2.
Bahramjird (large village); 3.
Gudar (village); 4. Rain (small town)....
Thence to the Sarbizan pass is a distance of 45 miles, or three desert
stages, thus constituting a total of 110 miles for the seven days. This is
the camel route to the present day, and absolutely fits in with the
description given.... The question to be decided by this section of the
journey may then, I think, be considered to be finally and most
satisfactorily settled, the route proving to lie between the two selected
by Colonel Yule, as being the most suitable, although he wisely left the
question open." - H. C.]
In the abstract of Major Smith's Itinerary as we have given it, we do not
find Polo's city of Camadi. Major Smith writes to me, however, that this
is probably to be sought in "the ruined city, the traces of which I
observed in the plain of Jiruft near Kerimabad. The name of the city is
now apparently lost." It is, however, known to the natives as the City of
Dakianus, as Mr. Abbott, who visited the site, informs us. This is a name
analogous only to the Arthur's ovens or Merlin's caves of our own country,
for all over Mahomedan Asia there are old sites to which legend attaches
the name of Dakianus or the Emperor Decius, the persecuting tyrant of
the Seven Sleepers. "The spot," says Abbott, "is an elevated part of the
plain on the right bank of the Hali Rud, and is thickly strewn with
kiln-baked bricks, and shreds of pottery and glass.... After heavy rain the
peasantry search amongst the ruins for ornaments of stone, and rings and
coins of gold, silver, and copper. The popular tradition concerning the
city is that it was destroyed by a flood long before the birth of Mahomed."
[General Houtum-Schindler, in a paper in the Jour. R. As. Soc., Jan.
1898, p. 43, gives an abstract of Dr. Houtsma's (of Utrecht) memoir, Zur
Geschichte der Saljuqen von Kerman, and comes to the conclusion that
"from these statements we can safely identify Marco Polo's Camadi with the
suburb Qumadin, or, as I would read it, Qamadin, of the city of Jiruft." -
(Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, chap. xxiii.: "Camadi was sacked for the first
time, after the death of Toghrul Shah of Kerman, when his four sons
reduced the province to a condition of anarchy.")
Major P. Molesworth Sykes, Recent Journeys in Persia (Geog. Journal,
X. 1897, p. 589), says: "Upon arrival in Rudbar, we turned north wards
and left the Farman Farma, in order to explore the site of Marco Polo's
'Camadi.'... We came upon a huge area littered with yellow bricks eight
inches square, while not even a broken wall is left to mark the site of
what was formerly a great city, under the name of the Sher-i-Jiruft." - H.
C.] The actual distance from Bamm to the City of Dakianus is, by Abbott's
Journal, about 66 miles.
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