Of gold for the
hundredweight, he sells it to the merchants at 60 livres, so his profit is
immense.[NOTE 2]
Dates also grow very abundantly here. The people have no corn but rice,
and very little of that; but plenty is brought from abroad, for it sells
here at a good profit. They have fish in great profusion, and notably
plenty of tunny of large size; so plentiful indeed that you may buy two
big ones for a Venice groat of silver. The natives live on meat and rice
and fish. They have no wine of the vine, but they make good wine from
sugar, from rice, and from dates also.
And I must tell you another very strange thing. You must know that their
sheep have no ears, but where the ear ought to be they have a little horn!
They are pretty little beasts.[NOTE 3]
And I must not omit to tell you that all their cattle, including horses,
oxen, and camels, live upon small fish and nought besides, for 'tis all
they get to eat. You see in all this country there is no grass or forage
of any kind; it is the driest country on the face of the earth. The fish
which are given to the cattle are very small, and during March, April, and
May, are caught in such quantities as would astonish you. They are then
dried and stored, and the beasts are fed on them from year's end to year's
end. The cattle will also readily eat these fish all alive and just out of
the water.[NOTE 4]
The people here have likewise many other kinds of fish of large size and
good quality, exceedingly cheap; these they cut in pieces of about a pound
each, and dry them in the sun, and then store them, and eat them all the
year through, like so much biscuit.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - Shihr or Shehr, with the article, ES-SHEHR, still exists on
the Arabian coast, as a town and district about 330 m. east of Aden. In
1839 Captain Haines described the modern town as extending in a scattered
manner for a mile along the shore, the population about 6000, and the
trade considerable, producing duties to the amount of 5000l. a year. It
was then the residence of the Sultan of the Hamum tribe of Arabs. There is
only an open roadstead for anchorage. Perhaps, however, the old city is to
be looked for about ten miles to the westward, where there is another
place bearing the same name, "once a thriving town, but now a desolate
group of houses with an old fort, formerly the residence of the chief of
the Kasaidi tribe." (J.R.G.S. IX. 151-152.) Shehr is spoken of by
Barbosa (Xaer in Lisbon ed.; Pecher in Ramusio; Xeher in Stanley; in
the two last misplaced to the east of Dhofar): "It is a very large place,
and there is a great traffic in goods imported by the Moors of Cambaia,
Chaul, Dabul, Batticala, and the cities of Malabar, such as cotton-stuffs
... strings of garnets, and many other stones of inferior value; also much
rice and sugar, and spices of all sorts, with coco-nuts; ... their money
they invest in horses for India, which are here very large and good. Every
one of them is worth in India 500 or 600 ducats." (Ram. f. 292.) The
name Shehr in some of the Oriental geographies, includes the whole coast
up to Oman.
NOTE 2. - The hills of the Shehr and Dhafar districts were the great source
of produce of the Arabian frankincense. Barbosa says of Shehr: "They carry
away much incense, which is produced at this place and in the interior; ...
it is exported hence all over the world, and here it is used to pay ships
with, for on the spot it is worth only 150 farthings the hundredweight."
See note 2, ch. xxvii. supra; and next chapter, note 2.
NOTE 3. - This was no doubt a breed of four-horned sheep, and Polo, or his
informant, took the lower pair of horns for abnormal ears. Probably the
breed exists, but we have little information on details in reference to
this coast. The Rev. G.P. Badger, D.C.L., writes: "There are sheep on the
eastern coast of Arabia, and as high up as Mohammerah on the
Shatt-al-Arab, with very small ears indeed; so small as to be almost
imperceptible at first sight near the projecting horns. I saw one at
Mohammerah having six horns." And another friend, Mr. Arthur Grote, tells
me he had for some time at Calcutta a 4-horned sheep from Aden.
NOTE 4. - This custom holds more or less on all the Arabian coast from
Shehr to the Persian Gulf, and on the coast east of the Gulf also. Edrisi
mentions it at Shehr (printed Shajr, I. 152), and the Admiral Sidi 'Ali
says: "On the coast of Shehr, men and animals all live on fish" (J.A.S.B.
V. 461). Ibn Batuta tells the same of Dhafar, the subject of next chapter:
"The fish consist for the most part of sardines, which are here of the
fattest. The surprising thing is that all kinds of cattle are fed on these
sardines, and sheep likewise. I have never seen anything like that
elsewhere" (II. 197). Compare Strabo's account of the Ichthyophagi on the
coast of Mekran (XV. 11), and the like account in the life of Apollonius of
Tyana (III. 56).
[Burton, quoted by Yule, says (Sind Revisited, 1877, I. p. 33): "The
whole of the coast, including that of Mekran, the land of the Mahi
Kharan or Ichthyophagi." Yule adds: "I have seen this suggested also
elsewhere.
