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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XV. THE EIGHT KINGDOMS OF PERSIA
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from Tehran to Tabriz, returned, and went again to Tabriz, within twelve days, including two days' rest. The total distance is about i 100 miles.
The livre tournois at this period was equivalent to a little over 18 francs of modern French silver. But in bringing the value to our modern gold standard we must add one-third, as the ratio of silver to gold was then I : 12 instead of i : 16. Hence the equivalent in gold of the livre tournois is very little less than Il. sterling, and the price of the horse would be about 1931.*
Mr Wright quotes an ordinance of Philip III. of France (1270-1285) fixing the maximum price that might be given for a palfrey at 6o livres tournois, and for a squire's roncin at 20 livres. Joinville, however, speaks of a couple of horses presented to St. Lewis in 1254 by the Abbot of Cluny, which he says would at the time of his writing (1309) have been worth 500 livres (the pair, it would seem). Hence it may be concluded in a general way that the ordinary price of imported horses in India approached that of the highest class of horses in Europe. (Hist. of Dom. Manners, p. 317 ; loinville, p. 205.)
About 1850 a very fair Arab could be purchased in Bombay for 601., or even less ; but prices are much higher now.
With regard to the donkeys, according to Tavernier, the fine ones used by merchants in Persia were imported from Arabia. The mark of silver was equivalent to about 445. of our silver money, and allowing as before for the lower relative value of gold, 3o marks would be equivalent to 881. sterling.
Kisi or Kish we have already heard of. Curnzosa is Hormuz, of which we shall hear more. With a Pisan, as Rusticiano was, the sound of c is purely and strongly aspirate. Giovanni d'Empoli, in the beginning of the 16th century, another Tuscan, also calls it Corpus. (See Archiv. Stor. Ital. Append. III. 81.)
NOTE 3.—The character of the nomad and semi-nomad tribes of Persia in those days—Kurds, Lúrs, Shúls, Karaunahs, etc.—probably deserved all that Polo says, and it is not changed now. Take as an example Rawlinson's account of the Bakhtyáris of Luristán : " I believe them to be individually brave, but of a cruel and savage character ; they pursue their blood feuds with the most inveterate and exterminating spirit. . . . It is proverbial in Persia that the Bakhtiyaris have been compelled to forego altogether the reading of the Fatilzah or prayer for the dead, for otherwise they would have no other occupation. They are also most dextrous and notorious thieves." (J. R. G. S. IX. 105.)
NOTE 4.—The Persians have always been lax in regard to the abstinence from wine.
According to Athenaeus, Aristotle, in his Treatise on Drinking (a work lost, I imagine, to posterity), says, " If the wine be moderately boiled it is less apt to intoxicate." In the preparation of some of the sweet wines of the Levant, such as that of Cyprus, the must is boiled, but I believe this is not the case generally in the East. Baber notices it as a peculiarity among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Tavernier, however, says that at Shíráz, besides the wine for which that city was so celebrated, a good deal of boiled wine was manufactured, and used among the poor and by travellers. No doubt what is meant is the sweet liquor or syrup called Dúsháb, 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. eh.
xxi.)
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* 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 equiva-
lent to 18.24 fr., and under Philip IV. to r7.95. 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 (1226-127o) and Philip IV. (1285-13x4) respectively as 63 grains and 6if grains of remarkably pure silver. These trials would give the livres (20 sols) as equivalent to 18.14 fr. and 17.70 fr.
respectively.
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