[General Houtum-Schindler (l.c. pp. 493-495), speaking of the Itinerary from Kerman to Hormuz and back, says:  “Only two of the many routes between Kerman and Bender ’Abbas coincide more or less with Marco Polo’s description.  These two routes are the one over the Deh Bekri Pass [see above, Colonel Smith], and the one via Sardu.  The latter is the one, I think, taken by Marco Polo.  The more direct roads to the west are for the greater part through mountainous country, and have not twelve stages in plains which we find enumerated in Marco Polo’s Itinerary.  The road via Baft, Urzu, and the Zendan Pass, for instance, has only four stages in plains; the road, via Rahbur, Rudbar and the Nevergun Pass only six; and the road via Sirjan also only six.”

         &nb
sp;                                                  Marches. 
     The Sardu route, which seems to me to be the one
     followed by Marco Polo, has five stages through fertile
     and populous plains to Sarvizan . . . . . 5
     One day’s march ascends to the top of the Sarvizan Pass 1
     Two days’ descent to Rahjird, a village close to the
     ruins of old Jiruft, now called Shehr-i-Daqianus . . 2
     Six days’ march over the “vast plain” of Jiruft and Rudbar
     to Fariab, joining the Deh Bekri route at Kerimabad, one
     stage south of the Shehr-i-Daqianus . . . . 6
     One day’s march through the Nevergun Pass to Shamil,
     descending . . . . . . . . . 1
     Two days’ march through the plain to Bender ’Abbas or
     Hormuz . . . . . . . . . . 2
          
                                                    —­
                            In all . . . . . . 17

The Sardu road enters the Jiruft plain at the ruins of the old city, the Deh Bekri route does so at some distance to the eastward.  The first six stages performed by Marco Polo in seven days go through fertile plains and past numerous villages.  Regarding the cold, “which you can scarcely abide,” Marco Polo does not speak of it as existing on the mountains only; he says, “From the city of Kerman to this descent the cold in winter is very great,” that is, from Kerman to near Jiruft.  The winter at Kerman itself is fairly severe; from the town the ground gradually but steadily rises, the absolute altitudes of the passes crossing the mountains to the south varying from 8000 to 11,000 feet.  These passes are up to the month of March always very cold; in one it froze slightly in the beginning of June.  The Sardu Pass lies lower than the others.  The name is Sardu, not Sardu from sard, “cold.”  Major Sykes (Persia, ch. xxiii.) comes to the same conclusion:  “In 1895, and again in 1900, I made a tour partly with the object of solving this problem, and of giving a geographical existence to Sardu, which appropriately means the ‘Cold Country.’  I found that there was a route