The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
CHAPTER XVI.
1264 words | Chapter 262
CONCERNING THE GREAT CITY OF YASDI.
Yasdi also is properly in Persia; it is a good and noble city, and has
a great amount of trade. They weave there quantities of a certain silk
tissue known as _Yasdi_, which merchants carry into many quarters to
dispose of. The people are worshippers of Mahommet.{1}
When you leave this city to travel further, you ride for seven days
over great plains, finding harbour to receive you at three places only.
There are many fine woods [producing dates] upon the way, such as one
can easily ride through; and in them there is great sport to be had in
hunting and hawking, there being partridges and quails and abundance
of other game, so that the merchants who pass that way have plenty of
diversion. There are also wild asses, handsome creatures. At the end of
those seven marches over the plain you come to a fine kingdom which is
called Kerman.{2}
NOTE 1.—YEZD, an ancient city, supposed by D’Anville to be the
_Isatichae_ of Ptolemy, is not called by Marco a kingdom, though
having a better title to the distinction than some which he classes
as such. The atabegs of Yezd dated from the middle of the 11th
century, and their Dynasty was permitted by the Mongols to continue
till the end of the 13th, when it was extinguished by Ghazan, and
the administration made over to the Mongol Diwan.
Yezd, in pre-Mahomedan times, was a great sanctuary of the Gueber
worship, though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is,
however, one of the few places where the old religion lingers.
In 1859 there were reckoned 850 families of Guebers in Yezd and
fifteen adjoining villages, but they diminish rapidly.
[Heyd (_Com. du Levant_, II. p. 109) says the inhabitants of Yezd
wove the finest silk of Taberistan.—H. C.] The silk manufactures
still continue, and, with other weaving, employ a large part of
the population. The _Yazdi_, which Polo mentions, finds a place
in the Persian dictionaries, and is spoken of by D’Herbelot as
_Ḳumásh-i-Yezdi_, “Yezd stuff.” [“He [Nadir Shah] bestowed upon the
ambassador [Hakeem Ataleek, the prime minister of Abulfiez Khan,
King of Bokhara] a donation of a thousand mohurs of Hindostan,
twenty-five pieces of _Yezdy_ brocade, a rich dress, and a horse
with silver harness....” (_Memoirs of Khojah Abdulkurreem, a
Cashmerian of distinction ... transl. from the original Persian_,
by Francis Gladwin ... Calcutta, 1788, 8vo, p. 36.)—H. C.]
Yezd is still a place of important trade, and carries on a thriving
commerce with India by Bandar Abbási. A visitor in the end of 1865
says: “The external trade appears to be very considerable, and the
merchants of Yezd are reputed to be amongst the most enterprising
and respectable of their class in Persia. Some of their agents have
lately gone, not only to Bombay, but to the Mauritius, Java, and
China.”
(_Ilch._ I. 67–68; _Khanikoff, Mém._ p. 202; _Report by Major R. M.
Smith_, R.E.)
Friar Odoric, who visited Yezd, calls it the third best city of
the Persian Emperor, and says (_Cathay_, I. p. 52): “There is very
great store of victuals and all other good things that you can
mention; but especially is found there great plenty of figs; and
raisins also, green as grass and very small, are found there in
richer profusion than in any other part of the world.” [He also
gives from the smaller version of Ramusio’s an awful description of
the Sea of Sand, one day distant from Yezd. (Cf. Tavernier, 1679,
I. p. 116.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—I believe Della Valle correctly generalises when he says
of Persian travelling that “you always travel in a plain, but you
always have mountains on either hand” (I. 462). [Compare Macgregor,
I. 254: “I really cannot describe the road. Every road in Persia as
yet seems to me to be exactly alike, so ... my readers will take
it for granted that the road went over a waste, with barren rugged
hills in the distance, or near; no water, no houses, no people
passed.”—H. C.] The distance from Yezd to Kermán is, according to
Khanikoff’s survey, 314 _kilomètres_, or about 195 miles. Ramusio
makes the time eight days, which is probably the better reading,
giving a little over 24 miles a day. Westergaard in 1844, and
Khanikoff in 1859, took _ten_ days; Colonel Goldsmid and Major
Smith in 1865 _twelve_. [“The distance from Yezd to Kermán by the
present high road, 229 miles, is by caravans, generally made in
nine stages; persons travelling with all comforts do it in twelve
stages; travellers whose time is of some value do it easily in
_seven_ days.” (_Houtum-Schindler_, _l.c._ pp. 490–491.)—H. C.]
Khanikoff observes on this chapter: “This notice of woods easy to
ride through, covering the plain of Yezd, is very curious. Now
you find it a plain of great extent indeed from N.W. to S.E., but
narrow and arid; indeed I saw in it only thirteen inhabited spots,
counting two caravanserais. Water for the inhabitants is brought
from a great distance by subterraneous conduits, a practice which
may have tended to desiccate the soil, for every trace of wood has
completely disappeared.”
Abbott travelled from Yezd to Kermán in 1849, by a road through
Báfk, _east_ of the usual road, which Khanikoff followed,
and parallel to it; and it is worthy of note that he found
circumstances more accordant with Marco’s description. Before
getting to Báfk he says of the plain that it “extends to a great
distance north and south, and is probably 20 miles in breadth;”
whilst Báfk “is remarkable for its _groves of date-trees_, in the
midst of which it stands, and which occupy a considerable space.”
Further on he speaks of “wild tufts and bushes growing abundantly,”
and then of “thickets of the _Ghez_ tree.” He heard of the wild
asses, but did not see any. In his report to the Foreign Office,
alluding to Marco Polo’s account, he says: “It is still true that
wild asses and other game are found in the _wooded spots_ on the
road.” The ass is the _Asinus Onager_, the _Gor Khar_ of Persia,
or _Kulan_ of the Tartars. (_Khan. Mém._ p. 200; _Id. sur Marco
Polo_, p. 21; _J. R. G. S._ XXV. 20–29; _Mr. Abbott’s MS. Report in
Foreign office_.) [The difficulty has now been explained by General
Houtum-Schindler in a valuable paper published in the _Jour. Roy.
As. Soc._ N.S. XIII., October, 1881, p. 490. He says: “Marco Polo
travelled from Yazd to Kermán _viâ_ Báfk. His description of the
road, seven days over great plains, harbour at three places only,
is perfectly exact. The fine woods, producing dates, are at Báfk
itself. (The place is generally called Báft.) Partridges and quails
still abound; wild asses I saw several on the western road, and I
was told that there were a great many on the Báfk road. Travellers
and caravans now always go by the eastern road _viâ_ Anár and
Bahrámábád. Before the Sefavíehs (_i.e._ before A.D. 1500) the
Anár road was hardly, if ever, used; travellers always took the
Báfk road. The country from Yazd to Anár, 97 miles, seems to have
been totally uninhabited before the Sefavíehs. Anár, as late as
A.D. 1340, is mentioned as the frontier place of Kermán to the
north, on the confines of the Yazd desert. When Sháh Abbás had
caravanserais built at three places between Yazd and Anár (Zein
ud-dín, Kermán-sháhán, and Shamsh), the eastern road began to be
neglected.” (Cf. Major Sykes’ _Persia_, ch. xxiii.)—H. C.]
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