And The Finger Penetrates Such A Body As If It Were So Much Dust." (III.

286.)

Burton, on his journey to Medina, says: "The people assured me that this wind never killed a man in their Allah-favoured land. I doubt the fact. At Bir Abbas the body of an Arnaut was brought in swollen, and decomposed rapidly, the true diagnosis of death by the poison-wind." Khanikoff is very distinct as to the immediate fatality of the desert wind at Khabis, near Kerman, but does not speak of the effect on the body after death. This Major St. John does, describing a case that occurred in June, 1871, when he was halting, during intense heat, at the post-house of Pasangan, a few miles south of Kom. The bodies were brought in of two poor men, who had tried to start some hours before sunset, and were struck down by the poisonous blast within half-a-mile of the post-house. "It was found impossible to wash them before burial.... Directly the limbs were touched they separated from the trunk." (Oc. Highways, ut. sup.) About 1790, when Timur Shah of Kabul sent an army under the Sirdar-i-Sirdaran to put down a revolt in Meshed, this force on its return was struck by Simum in the Plain of Farrah, and the Sirdar perished, with a great number of his men. (Ferrier, H. of the Afghans, 102; J. R. G. S. XXVI. 217; Khan. Mem. 210.)

NOTE 6. - The History of Hormuz is very imperfectly known. What I have met with on the subject consists of - (1) An abstract by Teixeira of a chronicle of Hormuz, written by Thuran Shah, who was himself sovereign of Hormuz, and died in 1377; (2) some contemporary notices by Wassaf, which are extracted by Hammer in his History of the Ilkhans; (3) some notices from Persian sources in the 2nd Decade of De Barros (ch. ii.). The last do not go further back than Gordun Shah, the father of Thuran Shah, to whom they erroneously ascribe the first migration to the Island.

One of Teixeira's Princes is called Ruknuddin Mahmud, and with him Marsden and Pauthier have identified Polo's Ruomedam Acomet, or as he is called on another occasion in the Geog. Text, Maimodi Acomet. This, however, is out of the question, for the death of Ruknuddin is assigned to A.H. 675 (A.D. 1277), whilst there can, I think, be no doubt that Marco's account refers to the period of his return from China, viz. 1293 or thereabouts.

We find in Teixeira that the ruler who succeeded in 1290 was Amir Masa'ud, who obtained the Government by the murder of his brother Saifuddin Nazrat. Masa'ud was cruel and oppressive; most of the influential people withdrew to Bahauddin Ayaz, whom Saifuddin had made Wazir of Kalhat on the Arabian coast. This Wazir assembled a force and drove out Masa'ud after he had reigned three years. He fled to Kerman and died there some years afterwards.

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