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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
IIO
MARCO POLO Boox I.
cannot get at those countries that I wish to tell you
about except through that city.
I should tell you first, however, that King Ruomedam
Ahomet of Hornios, which we are leaving, is a liegeman
of the King of Kerman.°
On the road by which we return from Hormos to
Kerman you meet with some very fine plains, and you
also find many natural hot baths ; you find plenty of
partridges on the road ; and there are towns where victual
is cheap and abundant, with quantities of dates and other
fruits. The wheaten bread, however, is so bitter, owing to
the bitterness of the water, that no one can eat it who is
not used to it. The baths that I mentioned have excellent
virtues ; they cure the itch and several other diseases.?
Now, then, I am going to tell you about the countries
towards the north, of which you shall hear in regular order.
Let us begin.
NOTE 1.—Having now arrived at HORMUZ, it is time to see what can be made of the Geography of the route from Kermán to that port.
The port of Hormuz, [which had taken the place of Kish as the most important market of the Persian Gulf (H. C. )], stood upon the mainland. A few years later it was transferred to the island which became so famous, under circumstances which are concisely related by Abulfeda :—" Hormuz is the port of Kermán, a city rich in palms, and very hot. One who has visited it in our day tells me that the ancient Hormuz was devastated by the incursions of the Tartars, and that its people transferred their abode to an island in the sea called Zarun, near the continent, and lying west of the old city. At Hormuz itself no inhabitants remain, but some of the lowest order." (In Büsclzing, IV. 261-262.) Friar Odoric, about 1321, found Hormuz " on an island some 5 miles distant from the main." Ibn Batuta, some eight or nine years later, discriminates between Hormuz or Moghistan on the mainland, and New Hormuz on the Island of Jeraun, but describes only the latter, already a great and rich city.
The site of the Island Hormuz has often been visited and described ; but I could find no published trace of any traveller having verified the site of the more ancient city, though the existence of its ruins was known to John de Barros, who says that a little fort called Cuxstac (Kuhestek of P. della Valle, II. p. 300) stood on the site. An application to Colonel Pelly, the very able British Resident at Bushire, brought me from his own personal knowledge the information that I sought, and the following particulars are compiled from the letters with which he has favoured me :-
" The ruins of Old Hormuz, well known as such, stand several miles up a creek, and in the centre of the present district of Minao. They are extensive (though in large part obliterated by long cultivation over the site), and the traces of a long pier or Bandar were pointed out to Colonel Pelly. They are about 6 or 7 miles from the fort of Minao, and the Minao river, or its stony bed, winds down towards them. The creek is quite traceable, but is silted up, and to embark goods you have to go a farsakh towards the sea, where there is a custom-house on that part of the creek which
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