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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
126
MARCO POLO BOOK I.
parison. These are Púz, Tarz, Gújard, Aspaj, Kuh-i-Gabr, Dahnah, Búghín, Bassab, Radk. The position of Kuh Banán is stated to lie between Bahabád (a place also mentioned by Yákút as producing Tutia) and Ráví, but this does not help us, and for approximate position we can only fall back on the note in Mr. Abbott's field-book, as published in the/ R. G. S., viz. that the District lay in the mountains E.S.E. from a caravanserai 10 miles S.E. 6f Gudran. To get the seven marches of Polo's Itinerary we must carry the Town of Kuh Banán as far north as this indication can possibly admit, for Abbott made only five and a half marches from the spot where this observation was made to Kermán. Perhaps Polo's route deviated for the sake of the fresh water. That a district, such as Mr. Abbott's Report speaks of, should lie unnoticed, in a tract which our maps represent as part of the Great Desert, shows again how very defective our geography of Persia still is.
E" During the next stage to Darband, we passed ruins that I believe to be those of Marco Polo's ` Cobinan ' as the modern Kúhbenán does not at all fit in with the great traveller's description, and it is just as well to remember that in the East the caravan routes seldom change." (Captain P. M. Sykes, Geog .Jour. X. p. 580.—See Persia, eh. xxiii.)
Kuh Banán has been visited by Mr. E. Stack, of the Indian Civil Service. (Six Months in Persia, London, 1882, I. 23o.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—Tutty (i.e. Tutia) is in modern English an impure oxide of zinc, collected from the flues where brass is made ; and this appears to be precisely what Polo describes, unless it be that in his account the production of tutia from an ore of zinc is represented as the object and not an accident of the process. What he says reads almost like a condensed translation of Galen's account of Pompholyx and Spodos : " Pompholyx is produced in copper-smelting as Cadmia is ; and it is also produced from Cadmia (carbonate of zinc) when put in the furnace, as is done (for instance) in Cyprus. The master of the works there, having no copper ready for smelting, ordered some pompholyx to be prepared from cadmia in my presence. Small pieces of cadmia were thrown into the fire in front of the copper-blast. The furnace top was covered, with no vent at the crown, and intercepted the soot of the roasted cadmia. This, when collected, constitutes Pompholyx, whilst that which falls on the hearth is called Spodos, a great deal of which is got in copper-smelting." Pompholyx, he adds, is an ingredient in salves for eye discharges and pustules. ( Galen, De Simpl. Medic. p. ix. in Latin ed., Venice, 1576.) Itlatthioli, after quoting this, says that Pompholyx was commonly known in the laboratories by the Arabic name of Tutia. I see that pure oxide of zinc is stated to form in modern practice a valuable eye-ointment.
Teixeira speaks of tutia as found only in Kermán, in a range of mountains twelve parasangs from the capital. The ore got here was kneaded with water, and set to bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked, the crucibles were lifted and emptied, and the tutia carried in boxes to Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a modern account in Milburne, which says that the tutia imported to India from the Gulf is made from an argillaceous ore of zinc, which is moulded into tubular cakes, and baked to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once in saying that the tutia of Kermán is no mineral, but the ash of a certain tree called Goan.
(Matth. on Dioscorides, Ven. 1565, pp. 1338-40 ; Teixeira, Relacion de Persia, p. 121 ; Milburne's Or. Commerce, I. 139 ; Garcia, f. 21 V. ; Eng. Cyc., art. Zinc.)
[General A. Houtum-Schindler (Jour. R. As. Soc. N.S. XIII. October, 1881, p. 497) says : " The name Tútfá for collyrium is now not used in Kermán. Tútfá, when
the name stands alone, is sulphate of copper, which in other parts of Persia is known
as Kát-i-Kebúd ; Tútfá-i-sabz (green Tútfá) is sulphate of iron, also called Záj-i-sfyah. A piece of Tútfá-i-zard (yellow Tútfá) shown to me was alum, generally called Záj-i-
safíd ; and a piece of Tútfá-f-saffd (white Tútfá) seemed to be an argillaceous zinc ore.
Either of these may have been the earth mentioned by Marco Polo as being put into the furnace. The► lampblack used as collyrium is always called Surmah. This at
Kermán itself is the soot produced by the flame of wicks, steeped in castor oil or goat's fat, upon e trthenware saucers. In the high mountainous districts of the province,
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