The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 423 (Color Image)

0423	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1

CHAP. XX. TIIE DESERT OF KERMAN

I23

CHAPTER XX.

OF THE `VEARISOMIE AND DESERT ROAD THAT HAS NOW TO BE

TRAVELLED.

ON departing from the city of Kerman you find the road

for seven days most wearisome ; and I will tell you how

this is.1 The first three days you meet with no water, or

next to none. And what little you do meet with is bitter

green stuff, so salt that no one can drink it ; and in fact

if you drink a drop of it, it will set you purging ten times

at least by the way. It is the same with the salt which

is made from those streams ; no one dares to make use

of it, because of the excessive purging which it occasions.

Hence it is necessary to carry water for the people to last

these three days ; as for the cattle, they must needs drink

of the bad water I have mentioned, as there is no help

for it, and their great thirst makes them do so. But it

scours them to such a degree that sometimes they die of

it. In all those three days you meet with no human

habitation ; it is all desert, and the extremity of drought.

Even of wild beasts there are none, for there is nothing

for them to eat.'

After those three days of desert [you arrive at a

stream of fresh water running underground, but along

which there are holes broken in here and there, perhaps

undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of

it. It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with

the hardships of the desert, here rest and refresh them-

selves and their beasts.] 3

You then enter another desert which extends for four

days ; it is very much like the former except that you do

see some wild asses. And at the termination of these

four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an

end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan.

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