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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
.I
CHAP. XIX. THE DESCENT TO THE CITY OF I-IORMOS I I I
is still navigable. Colonel Pelly collected a few bricks from the ruins. From the mouth of the Old Hormuz creek to the New Hormuz town, or town of Turumpak on the island of Hormuz, is a sail of about three farsakhs. It may be a trifle more, but any native tells you at once that it is three farsakhs from Hormuz Island to the creek where you land to go up to Minao. Hormuzdia was the name of the region in the days of its prosperity. Some people say that Hormuzdia was known as jer unia, and Old Hormuz town as Je;-un." (In this I suspect tradition has gone astray.) " The town and fort of Minao lie to the N.E. of the ancient city, and are built upon the lowest spur of the Bashkurd mountains, commanding a gorge through which the Rudbar river debouches on the plain of Hormuzdia." In these new and interesting particulars it is pleasing to find such precise corroboration both of Edrisi and of Ibn Batuta. The former, writing in the 12th century, says that Hormuz stood on the banks of a canal or creek from the Gulf, by which vessels came up to the city. The latter specifies the breadth of sea between Old and New Hormuz as three farsakhs. (Edrisi, I. 424 ; I. B. II. 230. )
I now proceed to recapitulate the main features of Polo's Itinerary from Kermán to Hormuz. We have :—
Marches.
I. From Kermán across a plain to the top of a mountain-pass, where
extreme cold was experienced . . . . . 7
A descent, occupying . . . . . . 2
A great plain, called Reobarles, in a much warmer climate, abounding in francolin partridge, and in dates and tropical fruit, with a ruined city of former note, called Carrzadi, near the head of the
plain, which extends for . . . . . . 5
A second very had pass, descending for 20 miles, say . . I
A well-watered fruitful plain, which is crossed to Hormuz, on the
shores of the Gulf . . . . . . 2 - ,
Total .
4
. 17 .
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No European traveller, so far as I know, has described the most direct road from Kermán to Hormuz, or rather to its nearest modern representative Bander Abbási,I mean the road by Báft. But a line to the eastward of this, and leading through the plain of Jiruft, was followed partially by Mr. Abbott in 1850, and completely by
Major R. M. Smith, R.E., in 1866. The details of this route, except in one particular, correspond closely in essentials with those given by our author, and form an excellent basis of illustration for Polo's description.
Major Smith (accompanied at first by Colonel Goldsmid, who diverged to Mekran)
left Kermán on the 15th of January, and reached Bander Abbási on the 3rd of February, but, as three halts have to be deducted, his total number of marches was
exactly the same as Marco's, viz. 17. They divide as follows :-
Marches.
I. From Kermán to the caravanserai of Deh Bakri in the pass so called. " The ground as I ascended became covered with snow,
and the weather bitterly cold" (Report) . 6
Two miles over very deep snow brought him to the top of the pass ; he then descended 14 miles to his halt. Two miles to the south of the crest he passed a second caravanserai : " The two are evidently built so near one another to afford shelter to travellers who may be unable to cross the ridge during heavy snow-storms." The next march continued the descent for 14 miles, and then carried him Io miles along the banks of the Rudkhanah-i-Shor. The approximate height of the pass above the sea is estimated at 8000 feet. We
have thus for the descent the greater part of . 2
" Clumps of date-palms growing near the village showed that I had now reached a totally different climate." (Smith's Report.) And Mr. Abbott says of the same region : " Partly wooded . . . and with thickets of reeds abounding with francolin and jirufti partridge. . . . The lands yield grain, millet, pulse, French- and
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