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0594 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 594 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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578   194. CURMOS

kih), and translated by Pedro TEIXEIRA in 1593-1597 probably into Portuguese, and thence in 1605-1609 into Spanish, more or less completely and accurately, and with many digressions (cf. W. F. SINCLAIR, The Travels of Pedro Teixeira, Hakluyt society, 1902, XVI, xci). There we read (ibid., 160-162) : « But in the year 700 of the Moors, which fell in 1302 A. D., there came out of Turkestan great hordes of Turks, and conquered many lands in Persia. They attacked the kingdom of Kermon (= Kirmân), and next that of Harmuz (= Hormuz), and wasted it all... The Harmuzis, unable to withstand such troubles, made up their minds to abandon their lands, and so they did...» According to TEIXEIRA'S translation, the king of Hormuz was then « Mir Bahadin Ayaz Seifin »; he moved his people first to the island of « Queixome » (= Kism), and soon after to that of « Gerun » (= Järûn). BARROS (Dec. II, liv. II, ch. ii) in 1553 had already made use of what seems to have been an earlier translation from the same Chronicle, and ascribes the migration from the mainland to the island to «Gordunxâ» in 1273 (cf. SINCLAIR, loc. cit., xcvii, 162, 169. BARROS has A. H. 680 = 1273; in fact 1273 = 671, 680 =1281). Still before TEIXEIRA, an abridged translation of Tûrân-ââh's Chronicle had been published in 1570 as an Appendix to Gaspar DA CRUZ' Tractado... da China (but I see no reason to ascribe this translation, as SINCLAIR surmises, p. XCVII, to Gaspar DA CRUZ himself), and there it is said, without any date (SINCLAIR's translation, 260) : « ... The king of Cremam (= Kirmân)... came with many men... against Hormuz to destroy it. King Cabadim (? read « Bahadim »), who at the time reigned in Hormuz, ...embarked with all the people that could go... and betook himself to the island called Queixome... After he had been there a few months..., he... crossed over with his people to the island that is now called Hormuz. » Although both translations are from the same chronicle, the one added to DA CRUZ' Tractado says that « Jarum » means « jungle », while TEIXEIRA makes «Gerun » to be the name of an old man. On the whole, neither translation seems to be very strict; even for the reign of Tûran-sah himself, editors have to suppose either an error of date of nearly a century, or the omission of several reigns (cf. SINCLAIR, 188-189), which shakes to a serious extent our faith in TEIXEIRA'S accuracy. A late Mussuiman author, Muhammed Majdi, says that Old Hormuz was abandoned by the king Samsu-'d-Din in A. H. 715, i. e. 1315 A. D. (cf. BARBIER DE MEYNARD, loc. cit., 595). Other sources give Fabru-'d-Din Alimad as the prince who moved from Old Hormuz to the island of Järûn (cf. Y, I, 121). Abû-'i-Fidâ (I- 1331) says of Hormuz (REINAUD and GUYARD transi., II, II, 104) : « Some one who visited it recently told me that Old Hormuz had been mined by the incursions of the Tatar, and that the inhabitants had migrated to an island called Zarûn... ».

STÖBE (EI, s. v. « Hormuz ») has taken exception to Abû-l-Fidâ's text, because « the Mongols hardly reached the shores of Kirmàn ». According to SINCLAIR (loc. cit., 161), the invaders must have been subjects of the Mongol Ilkhans of Persia, but probably of Turkish stock, in agreement with TEIXEIRA. SINCLAIR adds that their encroachments must have been progressive along the coast, and have spread over severals years « previous to A. H. 700, A. D. 1302 », the latter date being that of the settlement on the island.

Neither opinion seems to me to take full account of the real facts, I shall not lay too much stress on the statement of Stephan Orbelian, who, writing towards the end of the 13th cent., says that the conquests of the Mongols, already before the middle of the century, had extended