Khanikoff observes on this chapter:  “This notice of woods easy to ride through, covering the plain of Yezd, is very curious.  Now you find it a plain of great extent indeed from N.W. to S.E., but narrow and arid; indeed I saw in it only thirteen inhabited spots, counting two caravanserais.  Water for the inhabitants is brought from a great distance by subterraneous conduits, a practice which may have tended to desiccate the soil, for every trace of wood has completely disappeared.”

Abbott travelled from Yezd to Kerman in 1849, by a road through Bafk, east of the usual road, which Khanikoff followed, and parallel to it; and it is worthy of note that he found circumstances more accordant with Marco’s description.  Before getting to Bafk he says of the plain that it “extends to a great distance north and south, and is probably 20 miles in breadth;” whilst Bafk “is remarkable for its groves of date-trees, in the midst of which it stands, and which occupy a considerable space.”  Further on he speaks of “wild tufts and bushes growing abundantly,” and then of “thickets of the Ghez tree.”  He heard of the wild asses, but did not see any.  In his report to the Foreign Office, alluding to Marco Polo’s account, he says:  “It is still true that wild asses and other game are found in the wooded spots on the road.”  The ass is the Asinus Onager, the Gor Khar of Persia, or Kulan of the Tartars. (Khan.  Mem. p. 200; Id. sur Marco Polo, p. 21; J.  R. G. S. XXV. 20-29; Mr. Abbott’s MS. Report in Foreign office.) [The difficulty has now been explained by General Houtum-Schindler in a valuable paper published in the Jour.  Roy.  As.  Soc. N.S.  XIII., October, 1881, p. 490.  He says:  “Marco Polo travelled from Yazd to Kerman via Bafk.  His description of the road, seven days over great plains, harbour at three places only, is perfectly exact.  The fine woods, producing dates, are at Bafk itself. (The place is generally called Baft.) Partridges and quails still abound; wild asses I saw several on the western road, and I was told that there were a great many on the Bafk road.  Travellers and caravans now always go by the eastern road via Anar and Bahramabad.  Before the Sefaviehs (i.e. before A.D. 1500) the Anar road was hardly, if ever, used; travellers always took the Bafk road.  The country from Yazd to Anar, 97 miles, seems to have been totally uninhabited before the Sefaviehs.  Anar, as late as A.D. 1340, is mentioned as the frontier place of Kerman to the north, on the confines of the Yazd desert.  When Shah Abbas had caravanserais built at three places between Yazd and Anar (Zein ud-din, Kerman-shahan, and Shamsh), the eastern road began to be neglected.” (Cf.  Major Sykes’ Persia, ch. xxiii.)—­H.  C.]

CHAPTER XVII.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF KERMAN.