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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
| CHAP. XXXVIII. THE CITY OF DUFAR | 445 | ||
| Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The trees are like small fir-trees ; these are notched with a knife in several places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes also it flows from the tree without any notch ; this is by reason of the great heat of the sun there.' | |||
| NOTE I.—Du far. The namediAifp is variously pronounced Dhafár, DII0FAR, Zhafár, and survives attached to a well-watered and fertile plain district opening on the sea, nearly 400 miles east of Shehr, though according to Haines there is now no t town of the name. Ibn Batuta speaks of the city as situated at the extremity of I account of the Sultan of Zhafár in his time corroborates Polo's, for he says that prince 4 was the son of a cousin of the King of Yemen, who had been chief of Zhafár under the suzeraineté of that King and tributary to him. The only ruins mentioned by Haines are extensive ones near Haffer, towards the western part of the plain ; and this Fresnel considers to be the site of the former city. A lake which exists here, on the landward side of the ruins, was, he says, formerly a gulf, and formed the port, " the very good haven," of which our author speaks. A quotation in the next note however indicates Merbát, which is at the eastern extremity of the plain, as having been the port of Dhafár in the Middle Ages. Professor Sprenger is of opinion that the city itself was in the eastern part of the plain. The matter evidently needs further examination. This Dhafár, or the bold mountain above it, is supposed to he the Sephar of Genesis (x. 3o). But it does not seem to be the Sapphara metropolis of Ptolemy, which is rather an inland city of the same name : " Dhafár was the name of two cities of Yemen, one of which was near Sana'á . . . . it was the residence of the Himyarite Princes ; some authors allege that it is identical with Sana'á " (11Zarásid-al-Ittila', in Reinaud's Abulfeda, I. p. 124). Dofar is noted by Camoens for its fragrant incense. It was believed in Malabar that the famous King Cheram Perumal, converted to Islám, died on the pilgrimage to Mecca and was buried at Dhafár, where his tomb was much visited for its sanctity. The place is mentioned ( Tsafarh) in the Ming Annals of China as a Mahomedan country lying, with a fair wind, io days N.W. of huli (supra, p. 440). Ostriches were found there, and among the products are named drugs which Dr. Bretschneider renders as Olibanurn, Storax liquida, Myrrh, Catechu (?), Dragon's blood. This state sent an embassy (so-called) to China in 1422. (Haines in/ R. G. S. XV. 116 seqq. ; Playjair's Yemen, p. 31 ; Fresnel in J. As. sér. 3, tom. V. 517 seqq. ; Tohfut-ul1lilujahideen, p. 56 ; Bretschneider, p. i9.) NOTE 2.—Frankincense presents a remarkable example of the obscurity which so often attends the history of familiar drugs ; though in this case the darkness has been, like that of which Marco spoke in his account of the Caraonas (vol. i. p. 98), much of man's making. This coast of Hadhramaut is the true and ancient x''pa Xcßavo$bpos or ÄcßavwTo$pos, indicated or described under those names by Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pseudo-Arrian, and other classical writers ; i.e. the country producing the fragrant gum-resin called by the Hebrews Lebonah, by the Brahmans apparently | |||
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