“This desert route runs, then, through comparatively hilly country, crosses two small Kevir depressions, or offshoots of one and the same Kevir, has pasturage at at least one place, and presents no difficulties of any account. The distance in a direct line is 113 miles, corresponding to 51 Persian farsakh—the farsakh in this district being only about 2·2 miles long against 2·9 in the great Kevir. The caravans which go through the Bahabad desert usually make the journey in ten days, one at least of which is a rest day, so that they cover little more than 12 miles a day. If water more or less salt were not to be found at all the eight camping-grounds, the caravans would not be able to make such short marches. It is also quite possible that sweet water is to be found in one place; where saxaul grows driftsand usually occurs, and wells digged in sand are usually sweet.
“During my stay in Tebbes a caravan of about 300 camels, as I have mentioned before, arrived from Sebsevar. They were laden with naft (petroleum), and remained waiting till the first belt of Kevir was dried after the last rain. As soon as this happened the caravan would take the road described above to Bahabad, and thence to Yezd. And this caravan route, Sebsevar, Turshiz, Bajistan, Tun, Tebbes, Bahabad, and Yezd, is considered less risky than the somewhat shorter way through the great Kevir. I myself crossed a part of the Bahabad desert where we did not once follow any of the roads used by caravans, and I found this country by no means one of the worst in Eastern Persia.
“In the above exposition I believe that I have demonstrated that it is extremely probable that Marco Polo travelled, not through Naibend to Tun, but through Bahabad to Tebbes, and thence to Tun and Kain. His own description accords in all respects with the present aspect and peculiarities of the desert route in question. And the time of eight days he assigns to the journey between Kuh-benan and Tonocain renders it also probable that he came to the last-named province at Tebbes, even if he travelled somewhat faster than caravans are wont to do at the present day. It signifies little that he does not mention the name Tebbes; he gives only the name of the province, adding that it contains a great many towns and villages. One of these was Tebbes.”
XXII., p. 126.
TUTIA.
“It seems that the word is ‘the Arabicized word dúdhá, being Persian for “smokes.”’ There can be little doubt that we have direct confirmation of this in the Chinese words t’ou-t’ieh (still, I think, in use) and t’ou-shih, meaning ‘tou-iron’ and ‘t’ou-ore.’ The character T’ou 鍮 does not appear in the old dictionaries; its first appearance is in the History of the Toba (Tungusic) Dynasty of North China. This History first mentions the name ‘Persia’ in A.D. 455 and the existence there of this metal, which, a little later on, is also said to come from a State in the Cashmeer region. K’ang-hi’s seventeenth-century dictionary is more explicit: it states that Termed produces this ore, but that ‘the true sort comes from Persia, and looks like gold, but on being heated it turns carnation, and not black.’ As the Toba Emperors added 1000 new characters to the Chinese stock, we may assume this one to have been invented, for the specific purpose indicated.’” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, pp. 135–6.) Prof. Parker adds the following note, l.c., p. 149: “Since writing the above, I have come across a passage in the ‘History of the Sung Dynasty’ (chap. 490, p. 17) stating that an Arab junk-master brought to Canton in A.D. 990, and sent on thence to the Chinese Emperor in Ho Nan, ‘one vitreous bottle of tutia.’ The two words mean ‘metropolis-father,’ and are therefore without any signification, except as a foreign word. According to Yule’s notes (I., p. 126), tútiá, or dudhá, in one of its forms was used as an eye-ointment or collyrium.”
XXII., pp. 127–139. The Province of Tonocain “contains an immense plain on which is found the Arbre Sol, which we Christians call the Arbre Sec; and I will tell you what it is like. It is a tall and thick tree, having the bark on one side green and the other white; and it produces a rough husk like that of a chestnut, but without anything in it. The wood is yellow like box, and very strong, and there are no other trees near it nor within a hundred miles of it, except on one side, where you find trees within about ten miles distance.”
In a paper published in the Journal of the R. As. Soc., Jan., 1909, Gen. Houtum-Schindler comes to the conclusion, p. 157, that Marco Polo’s tree is not the “Sun Tree,” but the Cypress of Zoroaster; “Marco Polo’s arbre sol and arbre seul stand for the Persian dirakht i sol, i.e. the cypress-tree.” If General Houtum Schindler had seen the third edition of the Book of Ser Marco Polo, I., p. 113, he would have found that I read his paper of the J. R. A. S., of January, 1898.”
XXII., p. 132, l. 22. The only current coin is millstones.
Mr. T. B. Clarke-Thornhill wrote to me in 1906: “Though I can hardly imagine that there can be any connection between the Caroline Islands and the ‘Amiral d’Outre l’Arbre Sec,’ still it may interest you to know that the currency of ‘millstones’ existed up to a short time ago, and may do so still, in the island of Yap, in that group. It consisted of various-sized discs of quartz from about 6 inches to nearly 3 feet in diameter, and from ½ an inch to 3 or 4 inches in thickness.”