The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
CHAPTER XIX.
1870 words | Chapter 265
OF THE DESCENT TO THE CITY OF HORMOS.
The Plain of which we have spoken extends in a southerly direction
for five days’ journey, and then you come to another descent some
twenty miles in length, where the road is very bad and full of peril,
for there are many robbers and bad characters about. When you have
got to the foot of this descent you find another beautiful plain
called the PLAIN OF FORMOSA. This extends for two days’ journey; and
you find in it fine streams of water with plenty of date-palms and
other fruit-trees. There are also many beautiful birds, francolins,
popinjays, and other kinds such as we have none of in our country.
When you have ridden these two days you come to the Ocean Sea, and on
the shore you find a city with a harbour which is called HORMOS.{1}
Merchants come thither from India, with ships loaded with spicery and
precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants’ teeth, and
many other wares, which they sell to the merchants of Hormos, and which
these in turn carry all over the world to dispose of again. In fact,
’tis a city of immense trade. There are plenty of towns and villages
under it, but it is the capital. The King is called RUOMEDAM AHOMET. It
is a very sickly place, and the heat of the sun is tremendous. If any
foreign merchant dies there, the King takes all his property.
In this country they make a wine of dates mixt with spices, which is
very good. When any one not used to it first drinks this wine, it
causes repeated and violent purging, but afterwards he is all the
better for it, and gets fat upon it. The people never eat meat and
wheaten bread except when they are ill, and if they take such food
when they are in health it makes them ill. Their food when in health
consists of dates and salt-fish (tunny, to wit) and onions, and this
kind of diet they maintain in order to preserve their health.{2}
Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they
have no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made
from the husk of the Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes
like horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this stitch
the planks of the ships together. It keeps well, and is not corroded
by the sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are
not pitched, but are rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one
sail, and one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread over
the cargo when loaded. This cover consists of hides, and on the top of
these hides they put the horses which they take to India for sale. They
have no iron to make nails of, and for this reason they use only wooden
trenails in their shipbuilding, and then stitch the planks with twine
as I have told you. Hence ’tis a perilous business to go a voyage in
one of those ships, and many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India
the storms are often terrible.{3}
The people are black, and are worshippers of Mahommet. The residents
avoid living in the cities, for the heat in summer is so great that
it would kill them. Hence they go out (to sleep) at their gardens in
the country, where there are streams and plenty of water. For all that
they would not escape but for one thing that I will mention. The fact
is, you see, that in summer a wind often blows across the sands which
encompass the plain, so intolerably hot that it would kill everybody,
were it not that when they perceive that wind coming they plunge into
water up to the neck, and so abide until the wind have ceased.{4} [And
to prove the great heat of this wind, Messer Mark related a case that
befell when he was there. The Lord of Hormos, not having paid his
tribute to the King of Kerman the latter resolved to claim it at the
time when the people of Hormos were residing away from the city. So he
caused a force of 1600 horse and 5000 foot to be got ready, and sent
them by the route of Reobarles to take the others by surprise. Now,
it happened one day that through the fault of their guide they were
not able to reach the place appointed for their night’s halt, and were
obliged to bivouac in a wilderness not far from Hormos. In the morning
as they were starting on their march they were caught by that wind, and
every man of them was suffocated, so that not one survived to carry the
tidings to their Lord. When the people of Hormos heard of this they
went forth to bury the bodies lest they should breed a pestilence. But
when they laid hold of them by the arms to drag them to the pits, the
bodies proved to be so _baked_, as it were, by that tremendous heat,
that the arms parted from the trunks, and in the end the people had to
dig graves hard by each where it lay, and so cast them in.]{5}
The people sow their wheat and barley and other corn in the month of
November, and reap it in the month of March. The dates are not gathered
till May, but otherwise there is no grass nor any other green thing,
for the excessive heat dries up everything.
When any one dies they make a great business of the mourning, for
women mourn their husbands four years. During that time they mourn at
least once a day, gathering together their kinsfolk and friends and
neighbours for the purpose, and making a great weeping and wailing.
[And they have women who are mourners by trade, and do it for hire.]
Now, we will quit this country. I shall not, however, now go on to tell
you about India; but when time and place shall suit we shall come round
from the north and tell you about it. For the present, let us return
by another road to the aforesaid city of Kerman, for we cannot get at
those countries that I wish to tell you about except through that city.
I should tell you first, however, that King Ruomedam Ahomet of Hormos,
which we are leaving, is a liegeman of the King of Kerman.{6}
On the road by which we return from Hormos to Kerman you meet with some
very fine plains, and you also find many natural hot baths; you find
plenty of partridges on the road; and there are towns where victual
is cheap and abundant, with quantities of dates and other fruits. The
wheaten bread, however, is so bitter, owing to the bitterness of the
water, that no one can eat it who is not used to it. The baths that I
mentioned have excellent virtues; they cure the itch and several other
diseases.{7}
Now, then, I am going to tell you about the countries towards the
north, of which you shall hear in regular order. Let us begin.
NOTE 1.—Having now arrived at HORMUZ, it is time to see what can be
made of the Geography of the route from Kermán to that port.
The port of Hormuz, [which had taken the place of Kish as the most
important market of the Persian Gulf (H. C.),] stood upon the
mainland. A few years later it was transferred to the island which
became so famous, under circumstances which are concisely related
by Abulfeda:—“Hormuz is the port of Kermán, a city rich in palms,
and very hot. One who has visited it in our day tells me that the
ancient Hormuz was devastated by the incursions of the Tartars, and
that its people transferred their abode to an island in the sea
called Zarun, near the continent, and lying west of the old city.
At Hormuz itself no inhabitants remain, but some of the lowest
order.” (In _Büsching_, IV. 261–262.) Friar Odoric, about 1321,
found Hormuz “on an island some 5 miles distant from the main.”
Ibn Batuta, some eight or nine years later, discriminates between
Hormuz or Moghistan on the mainland, and New Hormuz on the Island
of Jeraun, but describes only the latter, already a great and rich
city.
The site of the Island Hormuz has often been visited and described;
but I could find no published trace of any traveller having
verified the site of the more ancient city, though the existence of
its ruins was known to John de Barros, who says that a little fort
called _Cuxstac_ (_Kuhestek_ of P. della Valle, II. p. 300) stood
on the site. An application to Colonel Pelly, the very able British
Resident at Bushire, brought me from his own personal knowledge
the information that I sought, and the following particulars are
compiled from the letters with which he has favoured me:—
“The ruins of Old Hormuz, well known as such, stand several miles
up a creek, and in the centre of the present district of Minao.
They are extensive (though in large part obliterated by long
cultivation over the site), and the traces of a long pier or Bandar
were pointed out to Colonel Pelly. They are about 6 or 7 miles from
the fort of Minao, and the Minao river, or its stony bed, winds
down towards them. The creek is quite traceable, but is silted up,
and to embark goods you have to go a farsakh towards the sea, where
there is a custom-house on that part of the creek which is still
navigable. Colonel Pelly collected a few bricks from the ruins.
From the mouth of the Old Hormuz creek to the New Hormuz town, or
town of Turumpak on the island of Hormuz, is a sail of about three
farsakhs. It may be a trifle more, but any native tells you at once
that it is three farsakhs from Hormuz Island to the creek where
you land to go up to Minao. _Hormuzdia_ was the name of the region
in the days of its prosperity. Some people say that Hormuzdia was
known as _Jerunia_, and Old Hormuz town as _Jerun_.” (In this I
suspect tradition has gone astray.) “The town and fort of Minao
lie to the N.E. of the ancient city, and are built upon the lowest
spur of the Bashkurd mountains, commanding a gorge through which
the Rudbar river debouches on the plain of Hormuzdia.” In these new
and interesting particulars it is pleasing to find such precise
corroboration both of Edrisi and of Ibn Batuta. The former, writing
in the 12th century, says that Hormuz stood on the banks of a canal
or creek from the Gulf, by which vessels came up to the city. The
latter specifies the breadth of sea between Old and New Hormuz as
_three farsakhs_. (_Edrisi_, I. 424; _I. B._ II. 230.)
I now proceed to recapitulate the main features of Polo’s Itinerary
from Kermán to Hormuz. We have:—
Marches.
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