[1] It is but fair to say that scholars so eminent as Professors Sprenger and Blochmann have considered the original suggestion lawful and probable. Indeed, Mr. Blochmann says in a letter: “After studying a language for years, one acquires a natural feeling for anything un-idiomatic; but I must confess I see nothing un-Persian in rúdbár-i-duzd, nor in rúdbár-i-lass.... How common lass is, you may see from one fact, that it occurs in children’s reading-books.” We must not take Reobarles in Marco’s French as rhyming to (French) Charles; every syllable sounds. It is remarkable that Lăs, as the name of a small State near our Sind frontier, is said to mean, “in the language of the country,” a level plain. (J. A. S. B. VIII. 195.) It is not clear what is meant by the language of the country. The chief is a Brahui, the people are Lumri or Numri Bilúchis, who are, according to Tod, of Jat descent.
[2] Sir Henry Rawlinson objects to this identification (which is the same that Dr. Karl Müller adopts), saying that Organa is more probably “Angan, formerly Argan.” To this I cannot assent. Nearchus sails 300 stadia from the mouth of Anamis to Oaracta, and on his way passes Organa. Taking 600 stadia to the degree (Dr. Müller’s value), I make it just 300 stadia from the mouth of the Hormuz creek to the eastern point of Kishm. Organa must have been either Jerún or Lárek; Angan (Hanjám of Mas’udi) is out of the question. And as a straight run must have passed quite close to Jerún, not to Lárek, I find the former most probable. Nearchus next day proceeds 200 stadia along Oaracta, and anchors in sight of another island (Neptune’s) which was separated by 40 stadia from Oaracta. This was Angan; no other island answers, and for this the distances answer with singular precision.
[3] Moore refers to Persian Tales.
[4] This tison can be seen in the cuts from the tomb of St. Peter Martyr and the seal of Winchelsea.
[5] Spere, bundles of spars, etc., dragged overboard.
CHAPTER XX.
Of the Wearisome and Desert Road that has now to be travelled.
On departing from the city of Kerman you find the road for seven days most wearisome; and I will tell you how this is.[{1}] The first three days you meet with no water, or next to none. And what little you do meet with is bitter green stuff, so salt that no one can drink it; and in fact if you drink a drop of it, it will set you purging ten times at least by the way. It is the same with the salt which is made from those streams; no one dares to make use of it, because of the excessive purging which it occasions. Hence it is necessary to carry water for the people to last these three days; as for the cattle, they must needs drink of the bad water I have mentioned, as there is no help for it, and their great thirst makes them do so. But it scours them to such a degree that sometimes they die of it. In all those three days you meet with no human habitation; it is all desert, and the extremity of drought. Even of wild beasts there are none, for there is nothing for them to eat.[{2}]
After those three days of desert [you arrive at a stream of fresh water running underground, but along which there are holes broken in here and there, perhaps undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of it. It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with the hardships of the desert, here rest and refresh themselves and their beasts.][{3}]