Schiltberger may perhaps have applied to Herat, which he visited, the legend of Hira, a Shyite place of pilgrimage.—Bruun.
[(15.)] “Phiradamschyech.”—This is one of the few names in Schiltberger’s narrative that appears somewhat difficult to determine. Pir, in Persian, signifies an old, a venerable man; also, a chief. Sheykh has a similar meaning in Arabic. Adam is the Persian, Turkish, and Arabic for man; so that “Phiradamschyech” consists of three substantives, and being interpreted, reads thus: A chief—a man—a chief.
A very similar story is related by Ibn Batouta, Schiltberger’s predecessor by about fifty years. After passing the Hindu Kush, he got to a mountain called Bashai where he saw in a cell an old man named Ata Evlia—Father of the Saints—said to be 350 years old, but who appeared to be about fifty. Every hundred years he had a new growth of teeth and hair. There is no doubt whatever of Ibn Batouta’s own incredulity as to the reputed history of this man, to whom he put several questions, which, being unsatisfactorily answered, caused him to apprehend that there was no truth in the wonderful statements made about him.—Ed.
[(16.)] “Schiras.”—“Kerman.”—Sheeraz, the birth place of Saadi and Hafiz, two of the most celebrated and popular poets of Persia, was so called, says a rare Persian manuscript, after a word in the old Persick language signifying—Lion’s paunch—because all the wealth of every town in the same region was transported thither not to return elsewhere (Ouseley, Travels, etc., ii, 23). Edrisi’s definition (Jaubert edition, 392) is somewhat clearer, for he says that the name was given because the place consumed without producing anything. This city is said to have been founded in the earliest years of Islam; the walls, which measured 12,500 paces in circumference, being constructed in the 10th century. Kazvini (quoted by Ouseley) observed nine gates, and in 1811 Ouseley saw six only. Ibn Haukal (Ouseley edition, 101) wrote of Sheeraz as being a modern city.
In 1627, Sir Thomas Herbert (Travels into Divers Parts, etc., 127) found some of the old walls of “the pleasantest of Asiatick cities” still standing, but in Chardin’s time (Langlès edition, viii, 414) they had disappeared. The present fortifications, erected by Kerim Khan in the middle of the 18th century, were ruined by Aga Mohammed Shah after the struggle between the Zund and Kujjar families. They are of the extent of about three and a half miles, and were originally of such massive construction, that it was said three horsemen might have ridden abreast on them. The population in 1850 was estimated at 35,000 to 40,000; but the general want of employment begat amongst the people that disposition for mischief, brawls and insurrections, for which the place was remarkable beyond any other town in Persia (Abbott, Southern Cities of Persia, MS.).
Kirman, also visited by Abbott, is encircled by walls of two and a half miles to three miles in circumference, and had a population (1850) not exceeding 25,000. The appearance of this town and the scenery around, are extremely unpromising and dreary, from the scarcity of trees, the little cultivation, and the few villages about. A vastly different condition to the “good country” noted by Schiltberger, and the statement of Marco Polo (Yule, i, 92), that on quitting the city of Kerman “you ride on for seven days, always finding towns, villages, and handsome dwelling-houses, so that it is very pleasant travelling”.
Abbott says further, that Kirman was not of much commercial importance, being so far removed from the direct lines of communication between other chief places, and being adjacent to vast and unproductive regions.
It is by no means clear that Schiltberger was ever at Kirman; but if his account of that town and of the islands in the Persian Gulf is given from personal observation, which is very doubtful, it is possible that he followed the same route as traced by Colonel Yule in Marco Polo’s Itineraries, No. ii.—Ed.
[(17.)] “Keschon”, “Hognus”, “Kaff”.—Kishm, Hormuz, and Kais, are three islands in the Persian Gulf, which, however, Schiltberger does not particularise as such. Kishm, the largest of the three, is called by the Persians, Draz Jazyra—Long Island—the more familiar name being Harkh. An excellent harbour is formed on the south side by the island of Angar. Kishm was occupied in 1622 by an English force, which destroyed a fort the Portuguese had erected the previous year, one of the few Englishmen killed upon the occasion being William Baffin who in 1616 sailed round Baffin’s Bay.
Colonel Yule (Marco Polo, i, 113) has clearly established the site of ancient Hormuz on the main land, a city that was abandoned for the island of Zarun, afterwards Hormuz, in 1315 (Ouseley, Travels, etc., i, 157), as a protection, says Aboulfeda, from the repeated incursions of the Tatars. Already, in the days of Ibn Batouta, who mentions both Old and New Hormuz (Lee edition, 63), was Harauna, the new city and residence of the king, a large and beautiful place; and Friar Oderic, his contemporary, remarks on the efficient fortifications of Ormes, and its great store of merchandise and treasure; so that its reputation as a great commercial depôt was well established in Schiltberger’s time. Of the many travellers who have described the island, Varthema, 1503–1508 (Hakluyt Soc. Publ., 94), reported, that as many as three hundred vessels belonging to different countries were sometimes assembled at the noble city of Ormus, which was extremely beautiful; and some years later, 1563, Cesare Federici (Hakluyt Voyages, ii, 342) noticed a great trade there in all sorts of spice, drugs, silk, cloth of silk, brocardo, and other merchandise. Hormuz, like Kishm, was also recovered from the Portuguese by the English for Shah Abbas in 1623, until which period it was a stately and rich place, of which the inhabitants made the boast that “if the world were a ring, Ormus must be considered as the diamond”.