According to Athenaeus, Aristotle, in his Treatise on Drinking (a work lost, I imagine, to posterity), says, “If the wine be moderately boiled it is less apt to intoxicate.”  In the preparation of some of the sweet wines of the Levant, such as that of Cyprus, the must is boiled, but I believe this is not the case generally in the East.  Baber notices it as a peculiarity among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush.  Tavernier, however, says that at Shiraz, besides the wine for which that city was so celebrated, a good deal of boiled wine was manufactured, and used among the poor and by travellers.  No doubt what is meant is the sweet liquor or syrup called Dushab, which Della Valle says is just the Italian Mostocotto, but better, clearer, and not so mawkish (I. 689). (Yonge’s Athen. X. 34; Baber, p. 145; Tavernier, Bk.  V. ch. xxi.)

[1] The Encyc.  Britann., article “Money,” gives the livre tournois of
    this period as 18.17 francs.  A French paper in Notes and Queries
    (4th S. IV. 485) gives it under St. Lewis and Philip III. as
    equivalent to 18.24 fr., and under Philip IV. to 17.95.  And lastly,
    experiment at the British Museum, made by the kind intervention of my
    friend, Mr. E. Thomas, F.R.S., gave the weights of the sols of St.
    Lewis (1226-1270) and Philip IV. (1285-1314) respectively as 63 grains
    and 61-1/2 grains of remarkably pure silver.  These trials would give
    the livres (20 sols) as equivalent to 18.14 fr. and 17.70 fr.
    respectively.

CHAPTER XVI.

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.[NOTE 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.[NOTE 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.