IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
1M
CHAP. XXXIX. THE GREAT DESERT
197
F
but in no great quantity ; and in four places also you find
brackish water.'
Beasts there are none ; for there is nought for them
to eat. But there is a marvellous thing related of this
Desert, which is that when travellers are on the move by
night, and one of them chances to lag behind or to fall
asleep or the like, when he tries to gain his company
again he will hear spirits talking, and will suppose them
to be his comrades. Sometimes the spirits will call him
by name ; and thus shall a traveller ofttimes be led
astray so that he never finds his party. And in this way
many have perished. [Sometimes the stray travellers
will hear as it were the tramp and hum of a great
cavalcade of people away from the real line of road, and
taking this to be their own company they will follow the
sound ; and when day breaks they find that a cheat has
been put on them and that they are in an ill plight.2]
Even in the day-time one hears those spirits talking.
And sometimes you shall hear the sound of a variety of
musical instruments, and still more commonly the sound
of drums. [Hence in making this journey 'tis customary
for travellers to keep close together. All the animals
too have bells at their necks, so that they cannot easily
get astray. And at sleeping-time a signal is put up to
show the direction of the next march.]
So thus it is that the Desert is crossed.'
NOTE T.-LOP appears to be the Napopo, i.e. Navapa, of Hiuen Tsang, called also the country of Leulan, in the Desert. (Heim. II. p. 247.) Navapa looks like Sanskrit. If so, this carries ancient Indian influence to the verge of the great Gobi. [See supra, p. 190.] It is difficult to reconcile with our maps the statement of a thirty days' journey across the Desert from Lop to Shachau. Ritter's extracts, indeed, regarding this Desert, show that the constant occurrence of sandhills and deep drifts (our traveller's "hilts and valleys of sand ") makes the passage extremely difficult for carts and cattle. (III. 375.) But I suspect that there is some material error in the longitude of Lake Lop as represented in our maps, and that it should be placed sonzetlzing like three degrees more to the westward than we find it (e.,0,-.) in Kiepert's Map of Asia. By that map Khotan is not far short of 600 miles from the western extremity of Lake Lop. By
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